By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

Building a loyal team can impact everything from your company culture to your bottom line.

1. RECOGNIZE THEM AS INDIVIDUALS

Several years ago I was wandering around Home Depot and Target. I was picking up crazy things for my 65 employees before our holiday party: a yardstick for Danny, because he always goes the extra yard for us, a fire extinguisher for Bill, a magic wand for Carly, a magic 8 ball for scheduling and pom-poms for the plant manager.

I tried to pick out something that symbolized what that employee meant to all of us and what we recognized as their strength. One of the employees at Home Depot finally came up to me and looked in my cart – he said “Lady, I just have to ask you, what in the heck are you building?”

“A team” I answered, laughing.

Years later, after the company had experienced some hard times, Danny wrapped up the yardstick and gave it to me for Christmas – he said that all the employees knew that I had gone the extra yard for them that year. There wasn’t a dry eye at the party and I still keep the yardstick on top of my computer to remember that day.

2. SHOW THEM THAT OTHERS NEED THEM TOO

To get everyone involved one year, we all picked names of our fellow employees out of a hat. You had to say ten nice things about your person and build or make something for them. Everyone went all out making mobiles, globes, illustrations, framing artwork and pictures. But, most significant were all the wonderful things that they had to say about each other.

3. BE INTENTIONAL WITH YOUR PRAISE

I’ve found that a big part of feeling valued occurs when employees are aware that they add something to the company that no one else can. Last year, I chose a book that I thought symbolized what each employee meant to the company. The Magician for Michele, The Fearless Leader for Bill, The Book of Joy for Michael, The Old Man and the Sea for Mike, etc.

4. HAVE FUN AS A TEAM

Every Friday, we bring in lunch for all the employees and they get to pick a different place to order from. The only rule when we come together is that no business is discussed – we talk about kids, dogs, funny stories and weekend plans. On occasion, we go to Roanoke Park and climb on all the equipment and enjoy the sun while eating our sandwiches.

5. EMPOWER THEM

When I got sick in 2016, I had a meeting with my attorney, accountant and insurance broker. They challenged me to write down every question that employees lined up outside my door to ask every day. After writing them all down, I assigned someone or empowered the employee to make that decision while I was gone – they already knew the right answer. And, big surprise, since I have been back, no one lines up outside my office. They all know the right thing to do and make good decisions.

As an employer or a manager, one of your most important responsibilities is making your employees feel truly valued, letting them know that without them, your company, your department and you – would be worse off.

Post Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals

What feeds your soul?

I absolutely know what feeds mine.

It’s having the opportunity to leave the office every Wednesday afternoon to go to Crossroads Academy Quality Hill and read with my little first grader as part of Kansas City’s Lead to Read initiative.

Lead to Read connects trusted, caring adult volunteers (Readers) with kids in grades 1 through 4 from every walk of life.

Once a week, for 30 minutes, readers and kids explore the world by reading books provided by the children’s’ teachers.

It’s all done in the safety and security of an elementary school classroom.

I can’t tell you how gratifying this has been for me both personally and mentally.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of knowing that you are helping inspire a child to love to read.

I truly look forward to my Wednesday afternoons. To be honest, I wish it was longer than 30 minutes!

Either way, hopefully, my little first grader is getting inspired to read and knows how much I care about her future.

If you’d like to volunteer and become a Reader, click here for more information.

Post Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals

“What a great idea,” we all told Danny!

You see, it was Danny who came up with the idea that all of us at MEDiAHEAD eat lunch together as a team every Friday.

The rules are that we rotate who picks the place, picks up the food and then we eat together as a team in the conference room.

This is a bonding session.

We talk about our weekend plans, what we’ve been up to and all the great things going on in our lives (absolutely no politics, but occasionally shoptalk does sneak into our conversations).

Several great things have come out of this awesome idea. The biggest one is this….WOW does Kansas City have some great restaurants! It’s so incredibly hard to pick just one every Friday morning.

Browne’s Irish Marketplace

Have you ever eaten at Browne’s Irish Marketplace, 3300 Pennsylvania Ave? They, by far,  have the best Rueben in town! The history, the building, and all the baked goods are phenomenal.

Did you know that they’ve been there since 1901?  If you haven’t had a chance to eat their food or visit them, you have to check it out. Our team absolutely loved it!

Howard’s KC

Another favorite is Howard’s KC at 1708 Oak Street. They use locally sourced organic ingredients, cater and the food is out of this world.

One of our team favorites is the fried chicken sandwich, which has sweet onions, pea shoots and BBQ mayo on a potato bun.

Am I making you hungry?  Like I said…it’s out of this world!

Broadway Deli

Another one of our favorites is Broadway Deli, a little gem located on 2101 Broadway Blvd.

I can honestly say I think everything on their menu is wonderful.

Everyone on our team had something completely different and we loved everything! Danny got the Helzberg and he said it was fantastic; the bread was actually two potato pancakes. Yummy.

There are so many local favorites we’ve enjoyed since we started doing this as a team. We’re so lucky in Kansas City to have such great local restaurant choices.

Join us in supporting all of these wonderful people who work so hard to give us such great food.

What about you? What are your favorite lunch spots in Kansas City? Let us know!

Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

At MEDiAHEAD there’s practically a museum, or I guess I like to think of it as a gallery, of lovely, old doll heads that I’ve collected over the years.

Doll heads with sleepy eyes, staring glass eyes, porcelain faces, mops of hair and with no hair at all.

I think of them as art with the beautiful patina of age.

If they’re too nice, I don’t buy them. I like the ones that are cracked, paint chipped and tattered. Some child loved these dolls into the piece of art that they’ve become in their old age.

But one of the more relatively recent ways we relate to dolls is as strange objects of – and this is a totally scientific term – creepiness.

A fear of dolls does have a proper name, pediophobia, classified under the broader fear of humanoid figures and related to pupaphobia, a fear of puppets. I personally do not like ventriloquist dummies with their creepy fixed grins.

Dolls inhabit this area of uncertainty because they look human, but we know they’re not.

Our brains are designed to read faces for intentions, emotions and potential threats.

Even though we know that a doll isn’t likely a threat, seeing a face that looks human, but isn’t, unsettles our most basic instincts.

When designers come to MEDiAHEAD they love to look at the doll heads and outsider art that I also collect.

They appreciate the quirkiness and whimsical nature of them.

My children and employees…not so much. One employee told me that, although my doll heads look dead with empty eyes, they give the eery impression that they’re going to move.

I recently saw a photo that someone posted on Facebook of a cabinet of doll heads. Her response to all the negativity was this:

“Your poor, poor friends. How sad it would be to live a world where everyone likes the same food, pieces of art and styles. Open up your mind a bit – people find beauty in all kinds of things. All of these negative comments make me sad. And for the record, I have not murdered anyone and fed them to my poodles.”

My sentiments exactly.