Exciting Employees; Swooshing Employees; Core Value Icons; Detroit and Des Moines

"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Coming to Barcelona for the Holidays — or next Summer? See below.

Please Vote for Reading — today, Dec 4, is last day to vote to support WorldReader winning $1 million to give e-books to children all over the world (did I mention I love books). If a young Pakistani girl is willing to risk her life in support of education, we can all take 60 seconds to vote – costs you nothing. WorldReader (David and Colin are the co-founders) and I thank you.

5 Ways to Keep Employees Excited — my latest Venture column in Fortune is on the newsstands and online. Take 3 minutes to click through five ideas for upping the engagement of your team (which is directly tied to performance) – and then please share with your networks. Thanks to Chip Conley, Kim Lawton, and John Ratliff for contributing interviews – and to Jim Collins for his always impactful ideas.

Swooshing Employees — using Core Values to show gratitude, Matt Kutler, co-founder of ReStockIt (if your business needs supplies, they have great prices) notes "At ReStockIt.com, our weekly company-wide Huddle ends with something we call 'Swooshes'. Anyone in the company can Swoosh another employee by recognizing them for demonstrating one of our Core Values in the prior week."

Core Value Icons — continues Kutler, "We have identified an icon that represents each of our Core Values (a Shovel for "Dig", a Dart for "Keep Score", etc…) and in addition to the verbal recognition, they give out a small icon. Each employee has a plastic bucket on their desk with all of the Swooshes they have received. It has worked really well for encouraging employees to thank others for going above and beyond." Here's a link to a picture of the large icons on their wall and a picture of the buckets holding the small icons that are handed out.

Gratitude for the Bus Driver — and this act of gratitude from Paul Dunn, co-founder and Chairman of Singapore-based B1G1 — his blog post highlighting the importance of showing everyone gratitude. And check out his organization – they provide a super easy way for companies to support charities linked to their performance. Called Buy1Give1, every time you sell something you might support a family receiving water for a day; or a child receiving education. Here's a link to a quick slide show — worth seeing how they constructed it to tell their story.

Detroit, Des Moines — finishing out 2012, one-day Rockefeller Habits workshops (perfect for nailing down the 2013 plan) Detroit Dec 5; Des Moines, IA Dec 13.

Vacationing in Barcelona? — need a place for a family? Our five-bedroom flat is available Dec 20 – Jan 6 over the holidays and July 14 – Aug 11.