http://onlinemba.com/blog/10-big-companies-that-promote-employee-meditation

He references Jim Collin's comprehensive study, documented in the book Good To Great, which determined it takes a very special kind of leader to take a company from good to great. This metamorphosis takes a leader who is both humble and ambitious.

Ambition is the sort of trait you'd naturally look for in a leader, but the type of ambition he references is not the typical ambition for their own career growth. Rather, it is ambition for the greater whole. Humility allows a leader to see others' points of view. Leaders who are ambitious for the greater whole and who are humble naturally have an outward view, thinking of the company, customers and employees, as opposed to a self-centered view, thinking of their own career gain.

Google develops these qualities in their leaders through a course they call Search Inside Yourself which develops emotional intelligence.

Contact us at Conscious Success to see how we can help you increase emotional intelligence among your leaders–to take them from good to great.

Healthy, productive and profitable companies require a strong, supportive, collaborative, and productive culture and an environment in which people enjoy working and feel valued. When employees are treated as equal, important, and worthy of being heard they offer terrific solutions and high quality, consistent work.   

In today’s competitive and fast-paced business environment, it is the company’s top management team who drives the culture. The leaders must build collaboration and trust with each other before they can create it in the organization. Once leaders accomplish this, positive change spreads rapidly throughout an organization; but only if lead from the top.

At Conscious Success LLC, we know that:

• It is possible to create a collaborative and highly functioning work environment in any company.
• Employees within this type of environment know their work is valued and their effort and results skyrocket.
• An employee who feels fulfilled in his work and feels valued by his organization, reaches his highest potential, and puts forth more creative, accurate and valuable work.
• When the executive team solicits and acts upon feedback they model trust and collaboration within their company. They demonstrate that these are the working principles they value.
• When a company’s executive team embraces and models collaboration, it filters down through the organization, employees feel the results and profitability soars.

Companies who embrace this commitment to collaboration:

• Maximize their employees’ potential.
• Transform their environment into one with collaborative teams focused on achieving the company’s highest goals.
• Enjoy the benefits to their bottom line of self-motivated, creative and enthusiastic employees at all levels.
• Create greater trust in their organization by facilitating open communication.
• Increase the emotional and social intelligence of their staff which can increase profits by 20-30%.

Another form of "presenteeism" is employees coming to work distracted by uncertainty and problems.

Most people feel uncertain about at least one of these items: job status, company changes/longevity, health, family, economy, financial markets, personal finances, environment and world issues. Coming to work thinking about these uncertainties is hugely distracting. Employees are less productive, less creative and communicate less effectively when these distractions create mental clutter.

Companies who offer their employees techniques to focus and decrease distractions (and the stress associate with the uncertainty) benefit with increased employee morale and profits and decreased medical claims, attrition and absenteeism. The investment in these programs is recovered many times over with money and time saved in recruiting, hiring, re-training and medical plan premiums.

Profits are increased as customer service and sales improve, fewer mistakes are made, and employees create more innovative solutions.

*CBS reported workplace distractions cost employers over $10,000 per year, per employee–that's over $10,000 per year for an employee earning $30 per hour. A company with 200 employees loses over $2,000,000 per year.

Entrepreneurs have difficult jobs. The success of your company rests on your shoulders. You are responsible for profits, making strategic decisions about the direction of your company, and the livelihood of your employees. You must have both external focus on markets and customers and internal focus on employees, as well as making sure your vision is clear and company goals are met. Being a brilliant visionary helped you start your company. However having strong emotional intelligence is what enables you to keep your company successful on a day to day basis.

Emotional intelligence (EI) enables you set the tone for your organization and to infuse your company with the energy which fuels your employees' focus, creativity and productivity. 

When leaders have strong EI competencies, employees:  

• are fully engaged 
• understand and can support the company's vision
• have ownership and pride over their work 
• see things that need fixing and go the extra mile to fix them 
• know what they need to do to accomplish the company's goals
• feel fulfilled, engaged and enjoy working for the company 
• creatively solve problems and come up with new ideas  

When leaders have strong EI competencies, the company:

• thrives financially – profits soar
• is open, respectful and issues get resolved quickly
• faces less drama 
• is focused on achieving goals and missions 
• retains strong employees
• accomplishes more with the same resources
• grows at a sustained rate  

EI competencies are not difficult to develop, it takes an awareness of your emotions and how your reactions get in the way of effectively leading your company. Your employees take their lead from you. When you understand yourself and manage your reactions you are better able to inspire trust, confidence, creativity and loyalty in your team. Here's a story about a leader who built her EI competencies to increase her success:

Jane’s Story 
Jane’s group had been recently downsized from 28 people to eight. She micromanaged her staff and often her temper would get the best of her. After having an unpleasant meeting or phone call, she would chastise herself for days for her unnecessary reaction. She brought me in to work with her group because she wanted to help them reduce stress and she knew she was partially to blame for their work stress. 

We found a large part of the problem was lack of communication. Her staff wasn’t keeping her apprised of the status of their work, so she felt she had to micromanage. Her micromanaging distanced her staff and made them want to communicate less with her. After the session, her staff began communicating more effectively and Jane stopped micromanaging. Her staff began wowing her and her superiors with their work and their creative ideas. 

Jane is now much more steady and less reactionary. She is able to defuse angry people over the phone, rather than snapping back, and resolves issues much more quickly. She no longer has to chastise herself for flying off the handle. She says she can remove herself from the pressure of the situation to experience more calm and reduce her likelihood of overreacting. Her meetings go better because she stays on an even keel.  She feels people respect her much more–both her superiors and those who report to her. Since she is able to look at the bigger picture and project a clearer vision, and she has more open and honest conversations with her staff. 

The Traits You Most Admire

Think about the managers you have most admired–they most likely exhibited strong EI. The mentors I most aspire to emulate certainly did exhibit these skills. They were calm, confident and listened well. They were able to connect with others and communicate difficult messages with seeming ease. They inspired me, and others, with their strong yet compassionate approach to intently listening to others and providing a solution which would serve everyone's best interests.

How can you develop your emotional intelligence?  
The first step toward developing EI is to begin noticing your own thoughts. Often our thoughts get the better of us and we are lost in thought–thinking about something else and not noticing what is happening right in front of us. When you find you have 'checked out' of a conversation and aren't listening to what the other person is saying, bring yourself back to listening intently to the person in front of you. See whether you can learn something new about that person by truly hearing them. When you notice you are annoyed with someone, take a breath and listen for their perspective. Put your own agenda to the side for a moment, listen to the other person and then focus on the commonalities between your perspectives.

As you begin to notice when you are lost in thought, and bring our focus back to your work or your conversation, you become a more effective leader. Your company is more successful and your employees feel more energized and engaged in their work. 

As a result, companies save big money through drastically reduced attrition, absenteeism and medical claims. Executives take control of their lives, lead with greater impact and experience true personal and professional success.

An issue of CCH Human Resources Management Ideas & Trends, a newsletter for HR professionals, reports a strong connection between morale, absenteeism and stress. Companies reporting low morale also report higher absences due to stress. 

In our work with companies, we see a teeter totter affect among these three indicators of a company's health. When absences and stress are reduced, morale improves. Incremental positive change in any single area tips the scale even more–sky rocketing morale and minimizing absenteeism and stress.

~Jacqueline Brodnitzki, President, Conscious Success LLC
Enabling customer service organizations to transform employee performance and service by reversing profit drains due to call escalation, absenteeism and attrition

Are you interested in feeling a renewed sense of purpose and energy?

Do you want to spend less time accomplishing more?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, let's talk…

You’re invited to a complimentary 25-minute Success Breakthrough private consultation with Jacqueline. You'll leave this powerful consultation with:

• Clarity about how to be on top of your life
• A renewed sense of energy and purpose personally and professionally
• A 'next-step' action plan for achieving more with less time and less stress

We have a limited number of these complimentary sessions available, applications are processed in the order they are received. After we receive your application, you will be contacted to arrange a time for your private session.

As a bonus after our consultation, you will receive a complimentary Office Yoga Kit with simple stretches to do at your desk to rejuvenate, refocus and save your back. You will also receive a subscription to our Success Matters Newsletter.

To apply for your complimentary consultation, click here.

Here are the results of their wellness initiative.

• 80% decrease in absenteeism
• 50% decrease in attrition
• 50% decrease in insurance premium increases
• Significant reduction in call escalation to Supervisors

Conscious Success program participants reported the following results:

• 17% decrease in stress level
• 37% increase in productivity
• 44% increase in focus
• 31% increase in how ‘in control’ you feel
• 44% decrease in feelings of overwhelm

Read this article by the CEO of CaLLogix about how they designed their Wellness Initiative to achieve these significant cost saving and morale boosting results.

Jobs here are equally as stressful. PWC recently published an article stating that many people in the U.S. have delayed seeing a doctor the past few years for stress related ailments due to the economy. They predicted many people will begin seeing doctors for their ailments and health care costs will increase. At some point these ailments can no longer be put off.

The Canadian study, published in BMC Public Health, analyzed national health data for individuals aged 18-65 and found 26% of the health care visits were attributable to employees with high-stress jobs.

Study co-author Mesbah Sharaf reports, "We believe an increasing number of workers are using medical services to cope with job stress. There is medical evidence that stress can adversely affect an individual's immune system, thereby increasing the risk of disease. Numerous studies have linked stress to back pain, colorectal cancer, infectious disease, heart problems, headaches and diabetes. Job stress may also heighten risky behaviors such as smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, discourage healthy behaviors such as physical activity and proper diet, and increase consumption of fatty and sweet foods."

Click here to read the article

It is more important than ever to teach your employees techniques for managing stress. These techniques can be simple things they do throughout the day to manage stress levels and increase productivity. Your bottom line will benefit and your employees will be happier and more engaged.