August 4th, 2010
A keynote speaker asks if you love work or hate work.
It is typical for people to have a love-hate relationship with their workplace, their co-workers and superiors. If the people running the organization are paying attention, they can use this to improve the business weekly.
Take employee comments seriously. If they compliment you and tell you things that they love about work, try to find a way to do more of the same. If they tell you something they hate or bring up a problem, take this very seriously. Use the problem to find some root causes, expose some weaknesses, uncover some sloppiness. Then do something about it. Create an initiative, a training exercise or a new protocol. Measure results. Reexamine the process and measure results again.
If you do this correctly, employees can love to work at your place of business, even if there are things they hate about it, because you try to address what they hate and make it less hateful.
Do you love to work where you work, or do you hate it?
Tags: employees, training excercise, workplace violence
Posted in Management, business speaker, keynote speaker, people, personal growth | Comments Off
July 24th, 2010
As a keynote speaker, consultant and business executive, I am often asked how to keep employees motivated. At our PhoneSmart call center, we work on motivation issues every day. Taking hundreds of phone calls a day can wear down even the most self motivated positive thinker. After all the things I have done and heard about to motivate employees, a carry-in lunch is by far the best.
Carry-in lunches are a great way to motivate your people and get them working together on a fun project. We try to have one at least once a month. You would be amazed to see how many excellent chefs you have on staff. People have so much fun preparing their favorite recipes and eating other people’s favorites. People spend a good week getting excited about what they will prepare and talking with everyone else about what they are preparing. The team work and cooperation that surround preparing a carry-in and cleaning up afterwards are very special and bonding moments.
You could not get better food from any restaurant or any caterer. Our carry-ins are delicious. You will be especially pleased if you have a diverse workforce with a wide range of ethnic heritages, because you and your coworkers will get to taste interesting treats you would otherwise never know about. The pride people feel when everyone raves about their dishes goes a long way to making people feel good about the people they work with and their workplace.
We sometimes have special theme carry-ins based on a holiday or a particular style of cooking. It is a lot of fun to see how everyone interprets the theme through their cooking. You’ll find that employees will become famous for a dish or two, and popular demand will mean they bring those dishes often.
Get this tradition started in your workplace and you will love the results. The eating will be great and your people will feel really good about it.
Tags: employee perks, food, motivation
Posted in Management, business speaker, keynote speaker, people | Comments Off
July 4th, 2010
I was reading a few profiles of people who bill themselves as a keynote speaker and was struck by how tirelessly some of them work on their businesses.
It brought to mind one of my current theories, which is that many of us are addicted to exhaustion. We seem to thrive on over-working ourselves, depriving ourselves of rest, relaxation and sleep. Exhaustion has a certain feel to it. One can become addicted to it as easily as one can become addicted to a sugar rush-crash, a caffeine buzz or a nicotine head. I am sure exhaustion has a whole chain of physiological actions that we can become chemically addicted to, just like we can become addicted to carbohydrate overload.
I realize that our worlds are fast paced and on a 24-7-365 schedule. I also appreciate the lift one gets from a tall cup of coffee on a morning when you are tired from working too many hours, too many days in a row.
Sometimes I push myself until I just can’t take any more before lying down. But isn’t that a little crazy? On the days when I rest when I am tired, rather than pushing on, I feel much better, think more clearly and get a lot more done. I am also easier to live with for my loved ones.
Maybe an addiction to exhaustion is just that: an addiction to something destructive, like any other destructive addiction. Or maybe it is just us fooling ourselves into thinking we are being super productive.
So maybe the next chance I have to work as a keynote speaker, I’ll use “addiction to exhaustion” as my topic.
Tags: addiction, exhaustion, keynote speaker
Posted in business speaker, keynote speaker, personal growth | Comments Off
July 3rd, 2010
When acting as a keynote speaker at self storage meetings I like to give some good tips for renting up all the empty space self storage owners have available.
I put all these tips into “Rent it Up!”, my book on self storage sales and marketing. You can order “Rent it Up!” by following this link.
You can also see some reviews of “Rent it Up!” on Amazon.
Please let me know how you like it.
Tags: books, Rent it Up, self storage books, self storage marketing
Posted in Management, Rent it Up, business speaker, keynote speaker, marketing, sales | Comments Off
June 18th, 2010
I have been thinking of submitting an essay to This I Believe dot org for a while. So here it is:
This I Believe
I believe I’ll have a nap now
By Tron Jordheim
In the quiet moments that I steal from the events of the day, the responsibilities of career, the joy of family and the stress of the news, I contemplate the things I believe. When I find a way to sneak into a forest to stand below a grand oak tree and feel the wind on my face, I feel many things. I know that love rules out over selfishness and evil. I know that there is nothing more wonderful than nature. I remember the miracles of my life and the people who touched me along the way. Then I think of the challenges at hand: to keep one’s joy in the face of all that would squash it; to laugh when threatened and harassed; to gain prosperity through collaboration and not through domination; to feel young and alive in spite of the weight of the world.
It all seems rather tedious and exhausting. I would rather spend my day laughing with my wife and playing with my children, with a few breaks to toss a ball for my dogs. And I plan to do all of these things for at least a little while today. But in the mean time, there are bosses who expect a high rate of return, bills that need to be paid, nest eggs that need some careful attention and people who depend on me to feed their children. There are street battles raging closer by than I care to know. The haves and have-nots are fighting all around me as I strive to stay out of their way.
It takes a great deal of energy to feel as if one is living just another lovely day in paradise. I tire from the people and events that strain at my view of this beautiful world. I know I can maintain my joy and contribute to my fullest if I can just get a little rest. It feels like time to find a comfortable spot to recline for a while. I believe I’ll have a nap now.
Tron Jordheim is a business speaker, executive, writer and family guy.
Tags: believe, nature
Posted in business speaker, people, personal growth | Comments Off
