How to Successfully Navigate the Case Interview
How to Successfully Navigate the Case Interview
Interviews are always nerve racking. With a strong desire to put your best foot forward, you can end up putting your foot in your mouth instead. Everyone has done it at one point or another, walking away thinking “wow, that was bad”.
The case interview, a standard step in the hiring process of any consulting firm, has an added element of stress. Not only is your background and character being scrutinized, but so are your problem identification and solving skills. Remaining focused and being clear to let your problem comprehension and concise analysis shine through can be difficult in this situation.
However, as intimidating as a case interview may seem, there are three simple ways to detach from the stress and instead approach the entire process logically to succeed.
Practice
A case interview is no different than any other interview in that you need to present yourself well. However, it does require a much different approach to preparation. When warming up for a fit or a character interview, you polish up on the basics, rehearse responses to standard questions like “why do you want to work here” or “tell me a time you failed and how did you respond”, and generally prepare to speak to content you are well versed in. But in case studies, you don’t know in advance what content you’ll be asked to cover.
So, the first step to preparing for a case interview is to polish your responsive analytical and problem-solving skills by taking advantage of the myriad sample case studies available online. Practice how to separate the stimulus from the question, how to break down the problem, how to identify what information is missing, and how it should be gathered and synthesized.
Do Your Research
Your next step will be to research the company’s terminology.
Study their website and their LinkedIn page, and read any publications you can find in order to learn what their “language” is. A quick perusal of Trindent’s website and LinkedIn page, for example, will show a treasure trove of vocabulary and expressions that make up the standard language we use every day.
Remember to Adapt
During the interview, knowing the company’s nomenclature will help you understand the case, read your interviewer’s queues, structure your responses to fit the company mold, be concise in your answers, and hit the right points rather than explaining around them.
It will also allow you to adapt your style to match that of the interviewer. It may seem like a small thing, but the case will be presented using the company’s language, so pivoting to using their terminology will not only help you understand it better, but will also allow your interviewer to easily follow your thought process as you talk through the solution – all of which will translate into higher scores.
Being well prepared for a case interview takes a lot of time, but it also takes a great deal of stress out of it and sets you up to succeed in the next steps of your consulting career.
Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.
At Trindent Consulting, we are a global technical augmentation company with a passion for solving complex problems in the energy, healthcare, and finance sectors. With over 100 client partnerships, our success centers on prioritizing sustainable profit margin improvements and delivering impactful results.
As a medium-sized firm, we cultivate a close-knit environment where every team member knows one another. Our people are fun, and our work is intriguing and diverse. We actively strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone has equal opportunities for growth and success.
Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.
Interested in topics related to “Building a Career in Consulting”? Click the buttons below to check out our related insights.
Setting Up for Success: A Beginner’s Guide to Consulting
What exactly do consultants do? This is a question commonly asked of consultants by friends, family, or during coffee chats. The truth is, ‘Consultant’ is a broad term covering a wide range of definitions.
In this article, we’ve condensed the essential skills and benefits common to Trindent Consultants. These are the core ingredients that define the consulting lifestyle, enable us to deliver bottom-line results and represent what you can expect from a career in consulting.
C – Change
In consulting, there are two layers of change that are important to master: (1) the ability to accept change; and (2) the ability to instill change. As a consultant, you need to be able to adapt to changing work conditions and environments. By learning to embrace change and expect the unexpected, you will set yourself up for success. Additionally, as a consultant, you are responsible for influencing the client to trust the solutions you are providing. It is imperative that you can deliver on your promises and establish rapport to implement sustainable changes.
O – Organization
You will work with large amounts of information and data throughout the majority of the engagements you are a part of. You may also work on several concurrent engagements with competing deadlines and priorities. By staying organized, productive, and managing your time, you will be able to complete deliverables with a systematic and efficient approach.
N – Network
You will work with incredibly smart people within your consulting firm as well as on your clients’ teams. This will allow you to build professional relationships with ambitious and talented individuals who you can continue to learn from throughout your career.
S – Solutions Oriented
Successful consultants are solutions-oriented – you enjoy the challenge of solving difficult business problems while uncovering effective and innovative solutions.
U – Urgency
One of Trindent’s core values is Perfection with Urgency. As a consultant, you may have new deliverables pop up with tight turnaround times. It is essential to produce a high-quality deliverable efficiently and effectively to ensure it is client-ready within deadlines.
L – Learning
As a consultant, you are going to work on various projects, with a variety of clients in a wide range of industries so you will certainly not be deprived of opportunities to learn! If you are a curious individual with a love of learning, consulting could be the perfect fit.
T – Travel
One of the most exciting parts of consulting is the opportunity to travel. Trindent’s global client base will allow you to fly frequently, live in hotels, and explore new cities, all while bonding with your engagement team.
I – Initiative
As a consultant, you may be expected to lead your own workstream during an engagement. You should be comfortable stepping up to the challenge and act with little to no supervision.
N – Navigate Ambiguous Situations
At times, you will face challenging and ambiguous business problems. These situations will push you to be comfortable with the unknown and uncover insights from complex problems.
G – Growth
Aligned to the love of learning, working in consulting will expedite your professional growth immensely. Being exposed to a variety of clients, industries, and business practices will allow you to gain unparalleled experience and knowledge within a short timeframe.
Above all, Consultants Make It Happen™. We develop insights, instill change, and deliver sustainable results for our clients. By honing the skills mentioned and demonstrating them during your work or throughout the interview process, you will be setting yourself up for a successful career.
Top Reads to Break into Consulting and Succeed
Unlike careers in medicine, law or priesthood, one doesn’t require seven, eight or ten years of education to break into consulting. However, it might often seem that way. Statistically, more and more top business school grads are gravitating towards a career in Management Consulting, so competition has never been tougher. Listed below, are some books that can greatly assist you, not only in breaking into consulting but also in succeeding once you’re there.
-
The McKinsey Way – Ethan M. Rasiel
Quick Glance: The McKinsey Way gives you a quick glimpse into the life of a McKinsey Consultant. The book discussed in simple terms how to run a meeting, how to sell yourself, your business and your ideas, and how to train yourself to think like a consultant.
Why Read? Ethan’s deep dive into the McKinsey way lessens the learning curve associated with many consultancies.
-
Case Interview Secrets – Victor Cheng
Quick Glance: Considered to be the bible for preparing for case interviews. Whether you are brand new to the process or a seasoned vet, this book is the gold standard in giving you the tools to better structure your thoughts, apply logic throughout a case and present and synthesize ideas effectively and coherently.
Why Read? Case Interview Secrets walks you through each stage in the case interview process and the examples at the back are good primers to the real thing.
-
Smarter, Faster, Better – Charles Duhigg
Quick Glance: In this book, Charles Duhigg uses captivating real-world examples to convey ideas on how to improve yourself, your way of thinking and even your business.
Why Read? A big part of consulting is being able to convey ideas to clients using anecdotes and stories to be more relatable and effective.
-
HBR’s 10 Must Reads: The Essentials
Quick Glance: The Essentials are precisely that – the basic requirements of business knowledge that you need to understand how businesses operate in their respective ecosystems.
Why Read? You are often expected to learn quickly when placed on a new study or engagement. Having a working business knowledge can provide the necessary context to help make sense of things.
Interested in learning more career tips? Follow us on LinkedIn for the latest news!
5 Ps of a Meeting – Ensuring Your Next Meeting is Effective
5 Ps of a Meeting – Ensuring Your Next Meeting is Effective
Consultants excel at solving problems that span across teams, organizations, and industries. By using a variety of methodologies and tools, they can quickly and effectively address issues for their clients—and who doesn’t love a quick and effective solution?
One such issue is ineffective meetings. Fortunately, there are many solutions available, and one of the most effective is ‘the 5Ps of a Meeting.’ This approach is a favorite among consultants for its simplicity, effectiveness, and ability to prevent ineffective meetings from happening in the first place.
By mastering the 5Ps, consultants can transform meetings into productive and purposeful sessions, ensuring every moment spent is valuable and impactful.
So, what are the 5Ps? The 5Ps are Purpose, Participants, Process, Payoff, and Preparation (some suggest it should be 6Ps including Pizza).
Purpose: Every meeting should have a clear purpose, which must be more specific than just a subject line calling for a ‘daily meeting’ (why should the team meet daily?).
Participants: Listing the participants makes the organizer think about who they are inviting and why. The organizer doesn’t have to list the names in the body of the invite, but should nevertheless make a conscious decision about who should be part of the meeting.
Process: How will this meeting be conducted? What is the agenda and the time allocated for each agenda item? This is key, as it prompts the meeting organizer to think about the necessary time for the meeting, helping the team avoid setting meetings in 30-minute chunks just because that is the norm.
Payoff: What does the organizer want to accomplish by the end of the meeting? This should be specific so that the meeting participants can be held accountable.
Preparation: What preparation is needed from the participants? This helps the meeting organizer revisit the payoff and appropriately size the participant list.
Including the 5Ps in every meeting invite is the easiest and most effective way to ensure and prepare for an effective meeting.
At Trindent Consulting, we are a global technical augmentation company with a passion for solving complex problems in the energy, healthcare, and finance sectors. With over 100 client partnerships, our success centers on prioritizing sustainable profit margin improvements and delivering impactful results.
As a medium-sized firm, we cultivate a close-knit environment where every team member knows one another. Our people are fun, and our work is intriguing and diverse. We actively strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone has equal opportunities for growth and success.
Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.
Interested in topics related to “Effective Meetings”? Click the buttons below to check out our related insights.
Drive Productivity During Meetings Using These 8 Tips
Looking to drive productivity during meetings? Follow the 8 tips listed below!
- Chair of the Meeting.
Every meeting should have one individual who is responsible for the management of the meeting itself. A “chair” or “facilitator” of the meeting can be particularly useful if one or more of the participants in the meeting is participating via a conference call. The chair or facilitator can manage the flow of the discussion and reduce participants speaking over one another or cross talking. Another useful technique for conference calls with large numbers of participants is for the chair to introduce the speaker(s) (or the speakers should identify themselves before speaking for the first time) in order to provide identity to the voice, particularly if some of the participants have not previously met or spoken with one another.
- Action Logs.
Assigning action items to individual accountable owners with specific due dates can dramatically increase the effectiveness of a meeting to ensure that the time invested in the meeting attains the maximum benefit. Action logs, or meeting minutes, can be useful for recording these follow up items and responsibilities. In addition, circulating the action logs to other members of the team who were not at the meeting but that may be designated as “Informed“ in the RACI chart, is an effective way of communicating and keeping these individuals informed on the agenda items.
- Close the Laptops.
If participants are going to attend a meeting, they need to be paying attention in order to meaningfully contribute and receive the benefits of attending the meeting. Participants cannot do this if they are focused on responding to emails or reviewing other materials. If necessary, the chair or meeting facilitator should request that all laptops be closed and other electronic communications devices be put away at the start of the meeting. If a participant’s attendance at a meeting is only relevant for certain agenda items, perhaps the agenda could be organized in such a way as to address that participant’s agenda items first (and then that participant can exit the meeting) or last (having that participant join the meeting at a particular time towards the end).
- Time of the Meeting.
Morning meetings earlier in the week (Tuesday or Wednesday) can sometimes be more productive because the participants may be better prepared and engaged (i.e. not trying to catch up on Monday morning emergencies, or focused on getting tasks or reports completed before the weekend). In addition, certain client resources may be working shortened workweeks (3-4 day weeks). With more use of flex hours and long commutes to the office, be careful not to schedule meetings too early in the morning as this may create challenges for the participants.
- Detailed Agendas.
The agenda for the meeting can be a very useful document to executing a successful meeting. In addition to setting out the agenda items to be discussed in the meeting, the format of the agenda can identify who is responsible for each item on the agenda, as well as an estimated period of time for each item on the agenda. The estimated period of time for each agenda item sets expectations for both the person tasked with that agenda item, as well as for the rest of the meeting participants, in trying to manage the time contract for the meeting schedule.
- Food Can Drive Attendance.
If you want / need strong attendance at a meeting, such as an opening meeting on a new client engagement where you need to secure as much buy in for the project as possible, consider scheduling the meeting at lunch time and having lunch catered. Offering lunch requires a little extra planning, particularly if it is at the client site (i.e. special dietary restrictions and preferences; hot vs cold food; sweets vs fruit for dessert) but may result in higher attendance, and may put the participants in a better frame of mind if they are well fed. On the flip side, a poor-quality food can be counterproductive, and may leave a bad taste, so give food the planning it deserves.
- Cautionary Note on Screen Sharing Applications.
Many online meeting technologies now include a screen sharing feature. While these can be very effective in ensuring that all participants are able to identify and understand the specific topic or document that is being discussed, the presenter needs to be very careful that the screen sharing does not inadvertently disclose other confidential information that happens to be visible on the presenter’s desktop. Care should be taken to close any open emails, communication forums and applications before the start of the meeting so that there is no inadvertent disclosure when using these screen sharing applications.
- Face to Face.
While not always possible, there are certain situations where a face-to-face meeting at a client site can be much more effective than a conference call meeting. For example, when attempting to sell a new idea or process change proposal or sell the client on a new piece of business, a face-to-face presentation is often more effective and successful. The presenters can read the client’s reactions in real time, and sometimes more effectively handle in-presentation questions. In addition, the clients generally appreciate their service providers taking the time and effort to travel to the client site, and it gives the consulting team a chance to understand better the client’s work environment and challenges that the client may be facing, as well as identifying opportunities to sell additional services that may be identified by being on site.
Extracting Value from Daily Review Meetings
Daily review meetings are an integral part of the of the active management initiative that organizations hire Trindent Consulting to implement. These meetings have a two-pronged purpose. They give managers a daily opportunity to review KPIs on the team dashboard to gauge progress against targets, and they function as an open forum discussion for staff to contribute ideas, share best practices, and bring up challenges they may be facing.
The first component is straightforward – managers preform the dashboard review while staff listen and absorb. However, in most organizations, the second component of the meeting is a challenging one. When staff are asked to share, the outcome is often not optimal. Staff can be reluctant to speak up if they feel they’re not being heard, or if they believe they can get away with not contributing or being accountable.
Without input from staff, the daily review meetings lose their value. They become an exercise in one-way dashboard review, something that doesn’t require a meeting to be held at all.
Here is where another important tool that Trindent advocates comes into play – the Action Log. When used as part of daily review meetings, it allows managers to instill a sense of engagement and accountability into their staff, thereby maximizing the value of the meetings.
The Action Log Is More Than a Tracker
The action log is more than just “meeting minutes”. It’s a tool that allows managers to record, prioritize, and keep track of the takeaways generated during the meetings in order to keep their team accountable; and it functions as a listening tool to drive engagement.
Unlike meeting minutes, action logs don’t document every discussion point in each meeting, but rather keep an on-going rolling record of the objective to-dos that come up at successive meetings. Each action is assigned an owner and a due date, and the logs are reviewed at the beginning of each meeting to go over what’s been completed since the last session, and at the end of the meeting to confirm new items that have been added.
This level of constant attention to the action items serves to not only ensure that no task slips through the cracks, but it promotes accountability of each staff member to complete their assigned tasks, as anything that’s outstanding will be brought to the attention of the entire team.
The second function of the action log is as a management listening tool to drive team engagement. A common sentiment from employees is that they feel their “voice is not heard” and that “managers don’t listen”. When actions are added to the list and read back to the team at the end of each meeting, it shows the team’s manager has listened to, and understood, everyone’s ideas. By documenting these next step actions, team managers are driving engagement by imparting importance and giving time to the ideas and questions their staff have brought forward.
By using this valuable tool, managers can empower their teams, drive accountability and engagement, and get maximum value from daily review meetings.
Setting Up for Success: A Beginner's Guide to Consulting
Setting Up for Success: A Beginner’s Guide to Consulting
What exactly do consultants do? This is a question commonly asked of consultants by friends, family, or during coffee chats. The truth is, ‘Consultant’ is a broad term covering a wide range of definitions.
In this article, we’ve condensed the essential skills and benefits common to Trindent Consultants. These are the core ingredients that define the consulting lifestyle, enable us to deliver bottom-line results and represent what you can expect from a career in consulting.
C – Change
In consulting, there are two layers of change that are important to master: (1) the ability to accept change; and (2) the ability to instill change. As a consultant, you need to be able to adapt to changing work conditions and environments. By learning to embrace change and expect the unexpected, you will set yourself up for success. Additionally, as a consultant, you are responsible for influencing the client to trust the solutions you are providing. It is imperative that you can deliver on your promises and establish rapport to implement sustainable changes.
O – Organization
You will work with large amounts of information and data throughout the majority of the engagements you are a part of. You may also work on several concurrent engagements with competing deadlines and priorities. By staying organized, productive, and managing your time, you will be able to complete deliverables with a systematic and efficient approach.
N – Network
You will work with incredibly smart people within your consulting firm as well as on your clients’ teams. This will allow you to build professional relationships with ambitious and talented individuals who you can continue to learn from throughout your career.
S – Solutions Oriented
Successful consultants are solutions-oriented – you enjoy the challenge of solving difficult business problems while uncovering effective and innovative solutions.
U – Urgency
One of Trindent’s core values is Perfection with Urgency. As a consultant, you may have new deliverables pop up with tight turnaround times. It is essential to produce a high-quality deliverable efficiently and effectively to ensure it is client-ready within deadlines.
L – Learning
As a consultant, you are going to work on various projects, with a variety of clients in a wide range of industries so you will certainly not be deprived of opportunities to learn! If you are a curious individual with a love of learning, consulting could be the perfect fit.
T – Travel
One of the most exciting parts of consulting is the opportunity to travel. Trindent’s global client base will allow you to fly frequently, live in hotels, and explore new cities, all while bonding with your engagement team.
I – Initiative
As a consultant, you may be expected to lead your own workstream during an engagement. You should be comfortable stepping up to the challenge and act with little to no supervision.
N – Navigate Ambiguous Situations
At times, you will face challenging and ambiguous business problems. These situations will push you to be comfortable with the unknown and uncover insights from complex problems.
G – Growth
Aligned to the love of learning, working in consulting will expedite your professional growth immensely. Being exposed to a variety of clients, industries, and business practices will allow you to gain unparalleled experience and knowledge within a short timeframe.
Above all, Consultants Make It Happen™. We develop insights, instill change, and deliver sustainable results for our clients. By honing the skills mentioned and demonstrating them during your work or throughout the interview process, you will be setting yourself up for a successful career.
At Trindent Consulting, we are a global technical augmentation company with a passion for solving complex problems in the energy, healthcare, and finance sectors. With over 100 client partnerships, our success centers on prioritizing sustainable profit margin improvements and delivering impactful results.
As a medium-sized firm, we cultivate a close-knit environment where every team member knows one another. Our people are fun, and our work is intriguing and diverse. We actively strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone has equal opportunities for growth and success.
Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.
Interested in topics related to “Building a Career in Consulting”? Click the buttons below to check out our related insights.
How to Successfully Navigate the Case Interview
Interviews are always nerve racking. With a strong desire to put your best foot forward, you can end up putting your foot in your mouth instead. Everyone has done it at one point or another, walking away thinking “wow, that was bad”.
The case interview, a standard step in the hiring process of any consulting firm, has an added element of stress. Not only is your background and character being scrutinized, but so are your problem identification and solving skills. Remaining focused and being clear to let your problem comprehension and concise analysis shine through can be difficult in this situation.
However, as intimidating as a case interview may seem, there are three simple ways to detach from the stress and instead approach the entire process logically to succeed.
Practice
A case interview is no different than any other interview in that you need to present yourself well. However, it does require a much different approach to preparation. When warming up for a fit or a character interview, you polish up on the basics, rehearse responses to standard questions like “why do you want to work here” or “tell me a time you failed and how did you respond”, and generally prepare to speak to content you are well versed in. But in case studies, you don’t know in advance what content you’ll be asked to cover.
So, the first step to preparing for a case interview is to polish your responsive analytical and problem-solving skills by taking advantage of the myriad sample case studies available online. Practice how to separate the stimulus from the question, how to break down the problem, how to identify what information is missing, and how it should be gathered and synthesized.
Do Your Research
Your next step will be to research the company’s terminology.
Study their website and their LinkedIn page, and read any publications you can find in order to learn what their “language” is. A quick perusal of Trindent’s website and LinkedIn page, for example, will show a treasure trove of vocabulary and expressions that make up the standard language we use every day.
Remember to Adapt
During the interview, knowing the company’s nomenclature will help you understand the case, read your interviewer’s queues, structure your responses to fit the company mold, be concise in your answers, and hit the right points rather than explaining around them.
It will also allow you to adapt your style to match that of the interviewer. It may seem like a small thing, but the case will be presented using the company’s language, so pivoting to using their terminology will not only help you understand it better, but will also allow your interviewer to easily follow your thought process as you talk through the solution – all of which will translate into higher scores.
Being well prepared for a case interview takes a lot of time, but it also takes a great deal of stress out of it and sets you up to succeed in the next steps of your consulting career.
Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.
Top Reads to Break into Consulting and Succeed
Unlike careers in medicine, law or priesthood, one doesn’t require seven, eight or ten years of education to break into consulting. However, it might often seem that way. Statistically, more and more top business school grads are gravitating towards a career in Management Consulting, so competition has never been tougher. Listed below, are some books that can greatly assist you, not only in breaking into consulting but also in succeeding once you’re there.
-
The McKinsey Way – Ethan M. Rasiel
Quick Glance: The McKinsey Way gives you a quick glimpse into the life of a McKinsey Consultant. The book discussed in simple terms how to run a meeting, how to sell yourself, your business and your ideas, and how to train yourself to think like a consultant.
Why Read? Ethan’s deep dive into the McKinsey way lessens the learning curve associated with many consultancies.
-
Case Interview Secrets – Victor Cheng
Quick Glance: Considered to be the bible for preparing for case interviews. Whether you are brand new to the process or a seasoned vet, this book is the gold standard in giving you the tools to better structure your thoughts, apply logic throughout a case and present and synthesize ideas effectively and coherently.
Why Read? Case Interview Secrets walks you through each stage in the case interview process and the examples at the back are good primers to the real thing.
-
Smarter, Faster, Better – Charles Duhigg
Quick Glance: In this book, Charles Duhigg uses captivating real-world examples to convey ideas on how to improve yourself, your way of thinking and even your business.
Why Read? A big part of consulting is being able to convey ideas to clients using anecdotes and stories to be more relatable and effective.
-
HBR’s 10 Must Reads: The Essentials
Quick Glance: The Essentials are precisely that – the basic requirements of business knowledge that you need to understand how businesses operate in their respective ecosystems.
Why Read? You are often expected to learn quickly when placed on a new study or engagement. Having a working business knowledge can provide the necessary context to help make sense of things.
Interested in learning more career tips? Follow us on LinkedIn for the latest news!
Promoting a Value-Added Culture
Promoting a Value-Added Culture
In previous knowledge base articles we have examined strategies for recruiting and evaluating top talent, managing performance, and developing employees. We now shift our focus to exploring ways of rewarding and reinforcing high-performance, using focused motivation tools to drive innovation and productivity, and building a strategy to create an engaged and empowered workforce.
Reinforcing Value-Added Behavior
A disconnect exists between the reasons why employees chose to leave a company and the reasons management believes an employee chooses to leave a company:
| Employee perspective | Management perspective |
| Lack of trust in senior leaders | Insufficient pay |
| Insufficient pay | Unexpected job/career opportunity |
| Unhealthy/ undesirable culture | Decision to change careers |
| Lack of honesty, integrity, ethics | Lack of work-life balance |
| Lack of opportunity for training and development | Lack of opportunity for training and development |
If we put aside the consensus reasons of insufficient pay and lack of training and development, we are left with a relatively clear picture of the difference in views of employees and management. Employees choose to leave because of internal issues – lack of trust in management, lack of culture, lack of honesty or integrity. Managers believe that employees choose to leave because of external issues – other opportunities, decision to change career, not enough time outside of the office. It is evident that in order for managers and senior leaders to effectively retain employees, they must alter their understanding of why employees leave in the first place, and further, why employees choose to stay.
Each employee has a set of unique reasons for choosing to stay or leave an organization. One commonality among them is that their decision is often predicated on an evaluation of what people derive from the work they do. Whether it’s purely a financial reward, a sense of community or an opportunity to learn, we all derive value from the work we do. When employees feel satisfied, they choose to stay, when they feel unsatisfied, they choose to leave. One retention technique that has been proven to increase employee satisfaction and thus decrease their likelihood to leave is the use of appreciation to reinforce value-added behavior. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project, concluded that “there may be nothing more precious that the feeling that we truly matter – that we contribute unique value to the whole, and that we’re recognized for it” (Schwartz, 2012).
Although appreciation seems to be something that most managers feel they provide on a regular basis, the fact is that we have become too accustomed to expressing negative emotions to punish or reprimand rather than expressing positive emotions to reinforce. This can have profound effects on both worker performance and health. Employees who feel appreciated have been found to have lower levels of stress and decreased rates of coronary disease. High-performing teams are much more likely to express positive feedback than their low-performing peers.
In his article, Schwartz outlines 4 steps that managers can undertake to build appreciation into their teams:
- As the Hippocratic oath prescribes to physicians, “Above all else, do not harm.”
- The impact of negative emotions, particularly creating the feeling of being devalued can be incredibly harmful to morale
- Practice appreciation by starting with yourself.
- You will not be able to openly appreciate the efforts of others if you can not appreciate the efforts you make on a day-to-day basis
- Make it a priority to notice what others are doing right.
- Constantly evaluate the behaviors of your workers that you take for granted – make a concerted effort to notice these immediately after they have occurred
- Be appreciative.
- Make sure it is personal, genuine and try to be as specific as possible about the particular value that you are appreciative of
Effective positive feedback can be a crucial tool of reinforcement that builds trust, shows integrity and creates a culture of appreciation. This can often be the difference between an employee choosing to stay and choosing to leave.
Using Motivation as a Tool to Engage Employees
As the business community comes to terms with fundamental shifts in the way we must select, engage and reward employees, new theories are emerging which could have profound effects on employee performance. Many of these concepts may seem new to the business world, but are in fact built on years of statistical evidence in fields such as marketing, psychology, philosophy and sociology. One powerful example is the extension of “motivational fit” tools, as developed for the marketing of products or services, to the workplace environment.
Effective marketing relies on delivering the right product at the right place at the right time to the right customer. In order to do this, companies must seek to provide more of the good things or experiences that customers value and avoid the bad ones. How do companies measure what is deemed good and bad? Is it different for each customer? How do they tailor their message to maximize the good?
Employees, just like customers, evaluate products, services or processes based on two fundamentally different applications of the notion of “good”. Some employees see their work as an opportunity for gain or advancement. They are most interested in the aspects of their work that will provide future benefit, be it in terms of promotions or salary increases, more vacation time, greater benefits, or more responsibilities. These employees are driven by what the psychological community calls promotion motivation. Other employees seek to avoid losses and promote security – they are driven by prevention motivation. These employees want to avoid losing what they feel they have already earned and tend to be motivated most by criticism and the possibility of failure (Halverson, 2012).
| Promotion Motivation | Prevention Motivation | |
| Value | Opportunities for gain/advancement | Opportunity to avoid loss |
| Focus | Benefits and rewards stemming from their efforts | Worry about the negative implications of poor performance |
| Motivation | Optimism and praise | Criticism |
| Behaviors | Embrace risk, excel at creativity and innovation | Risk-averse; thorough, accurate, detail oriented |
In order to promote and achieve employee engagement, managers must be able to achieve a motivational fit with their employees. Just as companies strive to achieve a fit with prospective clients to promote trust, managers must understand the motivations of their workforce to promote engagement. Take for example a customer who is in the market for a new vehicle. Without knowing anything further how would you market your line of products? You may highlight specific features such as its sleek design and powerful engine, or focus on its fuel efficiency, or perhaps its safety record. Companies understand that different customers value the “good” aspects of products in different ways (and are willing to pay more accordingly) – in order to be successful they must built products that have features that are complimentary to their customers’ values and market them to promote these. Managers who understand this concept and extend it internally will be much more successful at engaging their employees and ensuring the adoption and promotion of products, services, processes, and systems.
The Future of Employee Engagement: The Empowered Employee
Having discussed the effects that consumer-marketing concepts can have on employee engagement, we shift our focus to the implementation of these concepts to promote the forthcoming high-performing worker – the empowered employee. Sine the evolution of social media, marketers have been promoting, and capitalizing on, the emerging dominance of the connected consumer. These days almost every company in nearly every industry is growing their digital presence, hoping to establish more “touch-points” with their audience of consumers. They emphasize the empowerment of these consumers to spread information about products and services, effectively creating an altogether new marketing channel. Today, it’s about relationships, not transactions. But why is it that organizations have limited their focus to consumers? Should they not also be focusing their efforts on the rising power of their internal workforce?
The biggest challenge, and arguably the biggest opportunity, for businesses today is to learn to approach their employees the same way they approach their customers. Historically, businesses have approached employees as costs and the predominant strategy, especially during slow economic times, has been to try to reduce that cost, and those associated with it, to the lowest possible level. At some point, however, there is a limit to how much value can be squeezed out of the management of human capital costs. At some point, businesses must fundamentally change the way they view their employees and start to see them as value – the potential for increasing revenue, sales, efficiency and ultimately profit. Just as business have learned to tap into their consumer base to expand their market potential, they must learn to tap into their existing employee base to do the same.
By shifting the focus inward and strategizing ways to empower employees, businesses can achieve greater performance from their workforce. The wealth of technology products, many of which are free or already owned by employees, allow workers to learn at a much faster pace than ever before. Adopting an alternative approach to the way sales forces are managed to allow for more direct interaction with customers and suppliers through various social media channels can not only drive sales growth but also contributes to employee engagement by emphasizing the contributions of front-line staff. By investing in products or technologies that allow workers to actively monitor their tasks and self-evaluate their performance, businesses can expect to see a reduction in error rates and the innovation of products and processes driven by those who actually contribute to their execution (Magee, 2007). The key consideration when strategizing ways to promote employee empowerment is to always consider whether improvements will be measurable and whether they will matter to both the business and the worker.
Finding ways to empower employees may not seem like a very innovative concept. In fact, it has been used for quite some time by businesses in a wide array of industries. One of the most well known examples was the strategy employed by Toyota in the mid 1980s, whereby front-line assembly workers were given the opportunity to identify and correct problems and process inefficiencies themselves. The result was that these employees were not only much more successful at identifying these issues than past management had been, but they developed a passion for their work. They became truly engaged in what they were doing and as a result performed at a very high level – the better they performed, the more passionate they became. Creating this passion is challenging, but the rewards are infinite. By adopting the proper strategies to recognize the efforts of your workforce, understanding what motivates them and empowering them to take ownership of their tasks and responsibilities within the business, true human capital innovation can thrive.
Schwartz, T. (2012). “Why Appreciation Matters So Much.” Harvard Business Review Blog:
http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/01/why-appreciation-matters-so-mu.html. (March 29, 2012).
Halvorson, H. G. (2012). “Use Motivational Fit to Market Products and Ideas.” Forbes Magazine:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/heidigranthalvorson/2012/01/09/use-motivational-fit-to-market-products-and-ideas/. (March 29, 2012)
Magee, D. (2007). “How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company.” Portfolio
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