Treat Employees Well and the Rest Will Fall Into Place

Whenever I interview a small-business owner who has faced some sort of challenge, the conversation inevitably turns to how his or her employees helped solve the problem.

The lesson? Be good to your people, and they'll be good to you—and want to step up to the plate when times are tough.

For Communispace Corp. in Watertown, Mass., being good to employees was as easy as ordering pizza, at an employee's urging, for the staff on a cold, busy day at the office.

"I was amazed at what an impact it made," Communispace's president Diane Hessen explains in this WSJ.com article. "You would think that we're a really busy company, so everybody would grab the pizza and go back to their offices. They didn't. People stuck around, talked to each other and introduced themselves to new employees. All of a sudden, it wasn't just pizza."

Of course, it's not that easy all the time, but it's important to remember that it doesn't always take hefty raises and extravagant benefits to keep your employees happy. Sometimes it's the smallest gestures that have the biggest effect.