Why Good Employees Leave

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Dr. Elizabeth Fried

CARLSBAD, CA (12/01/2008)(readMedia)-- It's rarely about strategy, culture, benefits packages, and perks when it comes to keeping great employees. While those conditions may help to initially attract your people, they are not the key factors for keeping people engaged, motivated and productive.

In her new book, Extreme Excellence (Insight Publishing, 2008) Dr. N. Elizabeth Fried, one of ten contributing authors, points out that people quit managers, not companies. She contends that if organizations want to retain key talent, they need to develop a management team with practical leadership skills that stick. Too often top executives realize that their leadership team knows the business and are skilled technical people--but they are poor managers. To solve the problem, the organization will often spend top dollar to hire an excellent training company, which, in turn, delivers great training that everyone enjoys. However, in the end, the results are disappointing and nothing really changes. What a waste! Why did this happen?

Fried's chapter creates a solid business case for why traditional leadership training programs fail to generate the desired behavior changes. "Hardwiring the brain with new skills is the ultimate goal of successful training. To get full value, participants must show real behavioral change. And making real behavior change is hard. No bones about it," claims Fried. "To do so, requires a systematic, integrated process that includes a feedback platform, pre-assessment metrics, motivated participants, accountability, well-designed curriculum, practice, more practice, coaching support, and final evaluation. In this economy, more than ever, we can't afford to waste time or money," she insists. Her chapter explains how to insure companies receive a real return on their training investment.

Fried is president of N. E. Fried and Associates, Inc., dba The Learning Engine, located in Carlsbad, CA. The firm specializes in executive assessment, development, and coaching. Fried is often invited to give her thought provoking presentation, Train to Ingrain: How to Make Learning Stick, to a variety of business and professional groups throughout California and Arizona. With an entertaining and interactive style, she has spoken to such organizations as North County Personnel Society; San Diego, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, and Yuma Societies of Human Resource Management; Professionals in Human Resources in Long Beach and Irvine; Tucson Workplace Excellence Conference, and San Diego Professional Coaches and Mentors Association.

Extreme Excellence is available in bookstores. However, for a complimentary PDF of her content rich, easy-to-read Train to Ingrain chapter, contact Dr. Fried at www.TheLearningEngine.org or directly at 760-633-4444.