With Jim Loehr
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are cared for as human beings, they are more loyal, more dedicated, more creative, and innovative. Mr. Kim has worked up character scorecards for all his employees and everyone is being mentored to repurpose all the stresses of their work to help them become more of the person that they want to become. He has a formula; ‘Better me makes for a better you, which makes for a better us.’ He believes that if you take care of your people and help them to grow, they will take care of the business.
Employees want to be part of something that makes them feel good about their career and their lives, and they want to continue to grow as people. The number one predictor of employee engagement is the perception on the part of the employee that their boss and the firm care about them as a human being. Two critical questions employees should ask themselves are: 1. Who are you becoming as a consequence of your job?, and 2. Can you leverage the stresses of your job to become a better, healthier person of strong character?
That’s our mission at the institute. That’s our goal with all our clients. It’s a very exciting model that’s being created and is being refined every day. When the right balance is struck between the company and the employee, the company wins, the employee wins, the employees’ family wins, and the greater world within which we live wins. There are no losers.
We’re all proud of those CEO’s and athletes like Roger Federer and Rafa Nadel who represent the best in us and also win. They show us that we can be caring, humble, generous, respectful, and still win. We celebrate them. I celebrate them in my character book. There are lots of them, but sometimes their triumphs are not fully understood or appreciated because people disregard the character piece.”
Schweyer: “Thank you, Dr. Loehr. Any parting advice for public sector employees?”
Loehr: “In the book, ‘The Only Way to Win,’ I outline in considerable detail ways in which leaders can build high performance cultures driven by character. The first thing you have to do is model it within yourself. You can’t expect other people to show patience, kindness, humility, trust, or gratefulness unless you model these strengths in your leadership. You must start with yourself. Leading by example is perhaps the single most powerful tool you have for building a character-based high performance culture. The path is not easy but the payoff is priceless.
Editor's Note: In my view, reading Dr. Loehr's book is essential, the most important read of the year, if not the decade. I hope this book and the work Dr. Loehr is doing at the Human Performance Institute might spark a national and global movement. If it were to do so, and just a small percentage of us were to live the values he espouses, this nation and the world would become an exponentially better place.
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