As the head of Human Resources for our company, I have a vision for our employees. It comes down to five words. We want to be:

• Person-centric
• Performance-minded
• Strengths-based
• Engagement-focused
• Self-aware

Here’s what I mean.

One of my goals for this year is to read ten books on employee engagement. In Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, he writes about the three causes of job misery.

Job Misery

One of them is anonymity—the sense that at work,...

Most of us don’t enjoy giving feedback to people. That’s because there are three challenges to overcome. First, you may not have developed basic feedback skills. Second, you see the world a certain way. Third, the other person sees the world their way. That’s three big challenges that can create a mess. But you can overcome these challenges through a simple and clean feedback formula that makes use of your strengths.

All you must remember is S.O.A.P. (I told you it was...

Gallup published a book this past May that discusses the most significant factor in an organization’s long-term success. What is it? It’s the manager, and the “research is based on the largest global study of the future of work.”

I’m making this point not to put undue pressure on managers—“If I mess this up, the company’s going to crumble!”—but rather to put realistic pressure on them. The manager is vital to the health of the...