For a company to be successful, they’ve got to have great people on their team. Great people are people who fit seamlessly into your culture, they share your core values, and they’re very talented for their role in the business. Once they were hired in and brought up to speed, everything felt great.

Then one day something changed. You can’t put your finger on the exact moment, but suddenly they don’t feel as great as they once did in that position. This feeling is subtly nagging in the back of your mind, but you’ve got too many other things going on at the moment to address it.

When working with our leadership teams, we spend a lot of time strengthening the People Component of their business. We work on the two disciplines: getting the Right People into the Right Seats on the Accountability Chart™. You must have both – Right People and Right Seats.

I have helped a number of leadership teams make the difficult people decision when they determine one of their employees is either the wrong person or in the wrong seat. Our approach to this issue is the Three Strike Rule.

Although Thanksgiving is about enjoying great food with family and friends, the main ingredient of the holiday is gratitude. While Thanksgiving gives us a day to count our blessings, much can be said for the benefits of cultivating an attitude of gratitude year-round.

Scientists have proven that people who are thankful experience improved health, more positive emotions and better ability to handle stress. People who have an attitude of gratitude are also better able to reach their goals.

“The Peter Principle” is a term coined by Laurence J. Peter in 1969 to describe the recurring phenomenon of employees being promoted to – and often beyond – their highest level of competence. While hilariously illustrated in the comic strip Dilbert, both versions of the television show The Office, and the movie Office Space – the consequences for a small, entrepreneurial company aren’t funny at all.

The stats on employees and their workplaces are staggering:

• 87% of employees are not engaged at work
• 39% of employees have no idea what their company’s goals and objectives are
• 47% don’t know the state of their company’s performance
• 44% don’t understand how their role helps the company meet its goals

And the result is a huge gap of accountability throughout the organization. How can we defy the statistics and effectively raise the level of accountability?