Vital Integrities Blog

Racial Biases in Leadership

2012-01-11T11:19:00.000-05:00

While playing varsity football in college, Andrew Carton "became aware of certain racial biases," as he put it. Later, as a graduate student at Duke, Carton discussed those experiences with Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, a Duke professor whose work included researching bias in the workplace. Their conversations led them to collaborate on a study recently published in The Academy of Management Journal.

Apple's Golden Leader

2011-10-10T09:56:00.001-04:00

Leadership: "A process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal." Peter Northouse Since his death last week, much has been written about the way Steve Jobs ran Apple. By all accounts, he was a mix of creative genius and business acumen who influenced every aspect of the company's day-to-day operations. Since returning in 1997 to the company he cofounded,

Failing the Integrity Test

2011-07-29T08:27:00.001-04:00

"I don't believe there are little transgressions and big transgressions. You're either going to have high integrity, or you're not." Erroll Davis, Jr. According to a Georgia investigative report, many teachers and administrators working in the Atlanta Public School system found a creative way to raise student scores on standardized tests: they cheated. As The Wall Street Journal reports, state

Spilling Integrity

2011-04-07T11:19:00.000-04:00

Statistically speaking, Transocean Ltd. just came off a very safe year. In a recent proxy statement, Transocean announced that 2010 was “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.” That’s great news for a company whose vision lists the following goal: “Our operations will be conducted in an incident-free workplace, all the time, everywhere.” Things were so safe, in fact, that

Lights, Cameras, Action...Lead

2011-03-30T07:27:00.000-04:00

Where do evil bosses learn the leadership craft? Perhaps they copy the nasty behaviors of their favorite leaders from television shows and movies. Bschool.com has compiled a top-ten list of the worst bosses from TV and film. Read it, and maybe you'll see the character on whom your own boss's leadership style is patterned.

Leadership Lessons from Tahrir Square

2011-02-14T15:09:00.000-05:00

After eighteen days of peaceful protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the people of Egypt have successfully accomplished the once unthinkable: They've forced Hosni Mubarak to resign his oppressive, three-decades-long reign as Egypt's president. Although it's too early to predict what will happen next – democracy, let's hope – there are leadership lessons that we can learn from

Building Pride

2010-12-22T13:41:00.001-05:00

In 1996, Roy Pelaez took over Aramark's airplane cleaning division at New York's JFK airport. His new staff included over 400 low-paid and mostly immigrant workers. Morale was extremely low, and employee turnover exceeded 100 percent annually. Furthermore, when passengers left wallets and other valuables behind on planes, those items tended to mysteriously disappear. Besides lacking pride in

Drilling Deeper Into Leadership

2010-11-07T08:10:00.000-05:00

The recent dramatic rescue of thirty-three Chilean miners, trapped underground for 69 days, revealed what amazing things can be accomplished with effective leadership. All leaders can learn some valuable lessons from the successful operation. Things go wrong. Despite our best attempts to keep everything running smoothly and flawlessly, we cannot prevent every error. That's one of the toughest

Don't Drop The Ball With Troubled Employees

2010-10-15T10:07:00.001-04:00

I often hear from clients about an excellent employee whose performance suddenly and mysteriously changes. What, my clients want to know, causes great workers to become so-so employees. Many managers attribute performance slides to an employee's incompetence, or condemn the individual for slacking off or growing complacent. Other explanations include burnout or being an overall misfit. But what

Landing With Dignity

2010-08-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

By now you've undoubtedly heard about Steven Slater's bad day at work. The Jet Blue flight attendant was working a capacity-filled flight on the Pittsburgh to New York route recently. A passenger, while attempting to squeeze a suitcase into an overhead compartment, supposedly banged Slater in the head with it. Then she added insult to injury, literally: in lieu of an apology, she told him off.

Not Hearing a Reason to Stay

2010-08-06T15:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a staggering wakeup call from Deloitte LLP's most recent annual Ethics & Workplace Survey: a third of American workers are planning to look for new employers once the recession ends. Among those waiting to jump ship, 48 percent say it's because they've lost trust in their leaders. Not surprisingly, the unforthcoming way management communicates is leading to

Imperfect Leadership

2010-06-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

Armando Galarraga had retired twenty-six straight batters and was a single out away from pitching a perfect game. You undoubtedly know what happened next. Umpire Jim Joyce called a clearly out runner safe at first base, denying Galarraga his rightful place in baseball history. Tyler Kepner of The New York Times called it "easily the most egregious blown call in baseball

Event Slides: Concept Schools

2010-05-22T07:19:00.000-04:00

Nitin Nohria, the incoming dean of Harvard Business School, said, "Communication is the real work of leadership." How true. And nowhere is good communication more important than in our education systems. That is part of my message today to a group of educators at the Concept Schools Conference in Toledo. You can view the slides for that talk at slideshare. When explaining President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court to reporters, White House officials stressed her leadership qualities. With Justice John Paul Stevens retirement, the president sees Kagan as someone who can fill the resulting leadership void on the high Court…Pam and Jack Cumming have donated $1.125 million to Bentley University toward

More Corporate Shenanigans

2010-04-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

Corporate governance has taken it on the chin in the past few days. Over the past week: · The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission announced an investigation of Hewlett-Packard for allegedly bribing foreign officials to secure a lucrative computer equipment contract in Russia. German and Russian prosecutors are already investigating the

A "Sorry" Excuse for Leadership

2010-04-13T10:52:00.000-04:00

Last week, two former top-ranking Citigroup officials apologized on Capitol Hill for taking the banking giant to the brink of extinction. Former CEO Charles Prince and ex-board member Robert Rubin offered repentance to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Prince ran the company from 2003 through 2007. During much of his watch, Citigroup ran up billions of dollars in losses, eventually

Leopards and Their Spots

2010-04-12T08:03:00.000-04:00

According to the Wall Street Journal, some of the nation's largest banks are still employing the same dangerous business practices that caused the recent financial crisis. Only now, they're trying harder to cover their tracks. Attempting to protect their stock prices and credit ratings, big banks have been temporarily lowering the debt levels they use to fund securities trades. For the past

Then and Now: The "Great Firewall of China"

2010-04-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

This is part of a series of posts featuring earlier content from the Vital Integrities Blog along with updated information and opinions. Here's an excerpt from a post that appeared in June 2009: News out of China this week will now compel PC makers to choose between human rights and revenue. The Chinese government has announced that, beginning July 1 [2009], every computer sold in China must come

All Around Good Leadership

2010-03-08T08:34:00.000-05:00

When it comes to leadership styles, many experts agree that leaders tend to exhibit two distinct types of behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors. Task behaviors focus on processes and end results, whereas relationship behaviors concentrate on the people doing the work. Taskmasters demonstrate a heavy emphasis on authority and compliance; for them, people are simply the ends to a

Child's Play

2010-02-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

A popular leadership adage says, "What gets rewarded gets done." But, as Stanford psychologists Mark Lepper and David Green discovered, it doesn't get done for long. In their now-famous experiment that was first reported in the 1970s, Lepper and Green studied the effect that extrinsic rewards have in motivating young children. The researchers observed three and four-year-old preschoolers in

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire…

2010-01-21T11:56:00.001-05:00

On October 11, 2007, former North Carolina senator and presidential hopeful John Edwards spoke to reporters about rumors that he had an extramarital affair with campaign staffer Rielle Hunter. "The story is false," ABC News timeline "It's completely untrue, ridiculous." In the meantime, his wife Elizabeth was battling breast cancer. On August 8, 2008, weeks after Edwards was spotted visiting

10 Great Leadership Blunders: 2009

2010-01-04T13:20:00.008-05:00

In the spirit of the countless year-in-review lists that appear every January, I'm happy to present the Vital Integrities Blog's annual ranking of the ten dumbest leadership actions of the past twelve months. From corporate scandals to political missteps to coaching shenanigans, 2009 was jam-packed with stories of stupid leadership behavior. Here, then, are just ten examples of dim-witted

Second-Order Consequences

2009-12-20T09:40:00.005-05:00

A company I know recently replaced its time clocks with an "automated" timekeeping solution. The goal was to streamline payroll processing by eliminating some manual procedures. Employees now log in and out at a computer and the information is electronically fed directly to the payroll system. There are no timecards for managers to tally or reports to complete; everything is

Add Some Punch to Your Voice

2009-12-01T15:25:00.006-05:00

Boxing champion Daniel Mendoza could really throw a punch. Despite his relatively small size for a heavyweight -- barely five feet seven and 160 pounds -- he dominated the British prize-fighting scene in the late 1700s. But it wasn't simply the power behind Mendoza's slugging that allowed him to dispatch his larger opponents. In fact, the timing of his punches gave him a

Is Your Boss a Micromanager?

2009-10-26T10:06:00.004-04:00

For many leaders, empowering employees can be a personal challenge. For one thing, the thought of sharing our power might mean confronting some of our personal insecurities. What's more, empowerment requires that we trust workers to fulfill their commitments -- and that can seem risky. We must work hard at being empowering, lest we become micromanagers. Not surprisingly,

Event Slides: Lourdes College

2009-10-06T06:40:00.002-04:00

Is this the worst economy ever? Hardly. Remember the Carter Administration? In any event, this recession is not a time to reflect on our own hardships; it's an opportunity to help others handle theirs. That was my message today to the employees of Lourdes College. You can view the slides for that talk at slideshare.

Event Slides: 2009 Annual Concept Schools Conference

2009-09-25T13:29:00.003-04:00

Are leaders born or made? It's an age-old question that suggests that leadership might be reserved for a fortunate few. The truth is that the ability to lead, just like the knowledge needed to perform math and science, is something that individuals can learn. So where are tomorrow's leaders going to acquire the qualities that they'll need? From teachers, no doubt. That is my message this weekend

Emotional Contagion

2009-09-11T09:26:00.006-04:00

Health officials are busy warning anxious citizens about the spread of the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu. For their part, organizations are advising their employees on how to keep their illnesses to themselves. Internal emails describe everything from how to properly cough in public (seems it's better to cough into the crook of your arm than into your hand) to how soon to return to

The Chemistry of Praise

2009-08-19T13:44:00.005-04:00

According to research by Gallup, employees tend to receive very little praise from their supervisors. In fact, less than a third of U.S. workers would strongly agree that a boss has praised their work in the past week. Why are leaders so stingy with the compliments? One excuse I frequently hear from managers is that recognizing employees for doing a good job is an ongoing burden. In other words,

The Trouble With Discipline: Part II

2009-08-13T07:34:00.004-04:00

"Our system was failing to meet its most basic responsibility: the development of productive and well-disciplined individuals." Dick Grote, Discipline Without Punishment In the early 1970s, a troublesome mystery befuddled the executives of Frito-Lay. Abruptly one day, complaint letters from outraged customers began arriving at the company's headquarters. Angry writers

The Trouble With Discipline: Part I

2009-08-06T11:47:00.005-04:00

"Perhaps one of the most prevalent errors is based on the idea that discipline is punishment." Robert Bacal, "Five Sins of Discipline"Many years ago, I had to confront an employee about her recurring tardiness problem. It wasn't my first disciplinary conversation; over time, I'd dealt with everything from below-standard work performance to blatant theft, and I had developed a thick skin for the

Wrong People, Wrong Bus

2009-07-16T09:36:00.002-04:00

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins stresses that an important means for companies to become extraordinary is to choose the right people. But as Collins points out, too many organizations allow incompetent or disobedient employees -- workers he calls the wrong people on the bus -- to obstruct their company's road to greatness. These troublesome employees cause leaders to impose highly

Survivor's Guilt

2009-07-01T11:16:00.004-04:00

"Many of those who remain after downsizing are stricken with survivor's guilt. Others are filled with an enormous amount of anxiety, assuming that it is only a matter of time before the other shoe drops." John ChallengerThere are few leadership tasks more gut wrenching than laying workers off during business downturns. What could be harder than putting people on the street when jobs are in short

Moral Sensitivity, Part II: The "Great Firewall of China"

2009-06-11T16:39:00.003-04:00

Why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists solely to make money. Money is an important part of a company's existence, if the company is any good. But a result is not a cause. We have to go deeper and find the real reason for our being." David Packard, cofounder of Hewlett-PackardAre U.S. companies morally responsible for putting principle before profit? As Nike

Moral Sensitivity

2009-05-18T10:35:00.005-04:00

In the early 1960s, Phil Knight conceived his idea for a successful athletic shoe company. His strategy was to minimize production expenses by outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost foreign suppliers. That would leave him more money to spend promoting his products. The concept worked, and today Nike is the largest -- and most recognized -- athletic shoe company in the world.But in the 1990s,

Leonard Abess

2009-05-12T17:27:00.002-04:00

Leonard Abess likes to read annual reports. As the head of City National Bank in Miami, he especially likes to study the annual reports of other banks. He always pays particular attention to the opening letter written by the corporation's CEO. It struck Abess as backward that CEOs begin the final paragraphs of their letters with the phrase, "And last but not least, we wish to thank our loyal

Inspiration for Authors

2009-04-29T18:15:00.004-04:00

My friend and editor Laurel Marshfield has begun a blog for authors and writers called Your Book Your Self. It is full of advice, success stories, encouragement, and inspiration for current and future authors. Through her editorial services business, Blue Horizon Communications, Laurel sees firsthand the obstacles authors face. And as a professional writer and editor with over twenty-five years

For Sale: A Former Reputation

2009-04-20T16:15:00.002-04:00

Circuit City is selling its name. Unfortunately, it's a name with little value these days. And that's too bad. The former electronics retailer was once a great company praised for its progressive leadership.From 1982 to 1997, Circuit City outperformed the general stock market by eighteen-and-a-half times. During that period, Circuit City developed a system for operating its stores that enabled

Event Slides: Islamic Center of Greater Toledo

2009-04-10T13:20:00.008-04:00

Even in today's tough economic times, good employees are hard to find. And even harder to hold on to. That's why leaders must demonstrate their values -- not just in the moment of truth, but continuously and proactively -- in order to secure the trust of their employees. That was my message in a presentation to a group of business leaders at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. You can view the

NetApp: A Great Place to Work

2009-04-06T11:23:00.004-04:00

Looking for a great place to work? Consider applying at the Mountain View, California headquarters of Google. Among the perks enjoyed by Google employees are onsite haircuts, free laundry facilities, workout and massage rooms, in-house childcare, and car washes. And then there's the free food. The campus has eleven cafeterias serving everything from gourmet meals to M&Ms. Legend has it that

Then and Now: Local Reality TV

2009-03-18T15:49:00.004-04:00

This is part of a series of posts featuring earlier content from the Vital Integrities Blog along with updated information and opinions.Here's an excerpt from a March 2006 post:Weather forecasting, once an easy way to fill five minutes on a local news broadcast, is transforming the six o'clock news into reality TV. Network affiliates, which used to compete to be their area's preferred "news

Rewriting the Future

2009-03-02T09:31:00.002-05:00

Wherever I go, leaders and followers within organizations report a common and growing challenge. Employees describe the maddening experience of offering up ideas at work, only to have their suggestions shot down by a boss. For their part, managers insist they are not rejecting the ideas because they lack merit. It's just that many times the initiatives are not new -- the company has tried them

The Concorde Effect

2009-02-19T15:54:00.002-05:00

Beginning in the 1960s, the French and British governments jointly financed the development of a supersonic airplane capable of shuttling passengers between Europe and America at breakneck speeds. But even before the first Concorde was fully assembled, analysts realized that the program would be a financial loser. Despite overwhelming evidence that they would never recoup their financial outlays,

Tattletales

2009-02-17T11:26:00.003-05:00

Do you have a tattletale on your staff? I'm not referring to those courageous whistleblowers who turn in embezzlers or expose harassment. I am talking about the sticklers who can't wait to rat out a coworker for arriving ten minutes late, or for extending a lunch hour by a few moments. Tattletales want you to know about every shortcut a teammate took, each personal phone call a colleague made,

Humble Pie

2009-02-05T14:17:00.002-05:00

"I'm here on television saying I screwed up." Barak ObamaWhen news broke that Tom Daschle had failed to pay nearly $140,000 in back taxes, President Obama initially stood by his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. But Daschle was the President's second Cabinet nominee to be identified as a tax dodger, and political pundits everywhere began criticizing the appointment. After Daschle

Digging Beyond 7.2

2009-01-13T11:31:00.002-05:00

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its most recent report on U.S. employment. At the end of December, the unemployment rate reached 7.2 percent. While far from the double-digit rates of the 1980s, the increase in unemployment reflects a staggering one-month loss of 524,000 jobs and the disappearance of 1.9 million jobs in the final third of 2008. These sobering highlights are

Virtual Turnover

2009-01-08T14:14:00.003-05:00

"One good thing about the recession," a prospective client's president told me recently, "is that our employee turnover is down." He went on to theorize that daily news reports of company bankruptcies and massive layoffs have workers feeling too skittish to change jobs right now. He's not the first leader to express the belief that employees "have nowhere else to go." Nor is he the first to hold

10 Great Leadership Blunders: 2008

2009-01-06T08:18:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year! It's time for the Vital Integrities Blog's annual ranking of the ten dumbest leadership moves of the past twelve months. Here then, in no particular order, are ten examples of pathetic leadership behavior that had us shaking -- and scratching -- our heads in 2008.1. Federal agents arrested Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in December, charging him with conspiring to commit fraud

An Honor for the Vital Integrities Blog

2008-12-31T13:14:00.004-05:00

Molly DiBianca over at The Delaware Employment Law Blog has included the Vital Integrities Blog in her list of the 100 Leading Blogs on Leadership. It is an impressive list, and I'm honored to be part of it.The Delaware Employment Law Blog is published by Molly's employer, the law firm of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP. As it turns out, the Wilmington, Delaware firm is usually on the

Business As Usual

2008-12-17T16:13:00.002-05:00

There's recent news of yet another campaign marred by the misconduct of a greedy scoundrel using an influential position for personal financial gain. You might think I'm describing the latest shenanigans in Illinois politics. However, I'm actually referring to the most recent scandal at a United Way chapter.In October, the United Way of Central Carolinas fired CEO Gloria Pace King amid donor

Is There Such a Thing as Good Conflict?

2008-12-05T14:42:00.002-05:00

Group dynamics experts often describe two distinct types of conflict. Task conflict occurs when group members disagree on how to go about accomplishing an assignment; relationship conflict arises when interpersonal tensions between group members are present. Task conflict is considered "good conflict" for helping to reduce groupthink, improve decision-making quality, and stimulate innovation. On

Transactional Analysis

2008-11-12T12:59:00.002-05:00

In the 1950s, psychiatrist Eric Berne developed a form of psychoanalysis he called Transactional Analysis. Berne's groundbreaking approach to psychiatry dealt not only with individual behavior, but also examined our dealings -- or transactions -- with other people. A principal concept of Transactional Analysis is that, at any given time, we are in one of three ego states: Parent, Child, or Adult.

Then and Now: Is This the Best You Can Do?

2008-10-23T14:10:00.002-04:00

This is part of a series of posts featuring earlier content from the Vital Integrities Blog along with updated information and opinions.In June 2006, I shared this well-known story about Winston Lord:When Winston Lord worked as an aid to Henry Kissinger, he presented the Secretary of State with a draft of a presidential foreign policy report. The next day, Kissinger called him into his office and

The Road to Conflict Resolution

2008-09-22T08:44:00.004-04:00

If you are a leader, you have undoubtedly experienced the frustration of dealing with two employees who are unable to get along with each other. Most often, the disagreements are petty in nature. Nevertheless, they consume your time and exhaust your emotions. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid common intervention mistakes that leave disputing employees disgruntled and their conflicts unresolved

Making a Difference

2008-09-05T08:35:00.005-04:00

"Each day brings you opportunities to raise important questions, speak to higher values, and surface unresolved conflicts. Every day you have the chance to make a difference in the lives of people around you." -Ronald Heifetz, Leadership on the LineDriving change upward is often a high-risk, low-reward game. Top executives customarily drive change downward. Nestled in their corner offices, those

Then and Now: A Fox in Charge of the Ethical Henhouse

2008-08-27T10:47:00.003-04:00

This is the part of a series of posts featuring earlier content from the Vital Integrities Blog along with updated information and opinions.Here's an excerpts from a March 2005 post:Fifteen months ago, Boeing's board fired its CEO after two highly publicized scandals. Hoping to repair its ethical image, the board lured former Boeing president Harry Stonecipher out of retirement and gave him the

Return On Vision

2008-08-20T09:02:00.002-04:00

Imagine checking your voicemail messages and hearing the following company-wide broadcast:"This is the corporate communications officer with some great news for all employees. Management has just announced that third-quarter earnings per share were sixty cents, an increase of 11 percent over fifty-four cents per share for the same period last year. Third-quarter profits rose 35 percent. The

Then and Now: Starbucks Lives Its Values

2008-08-19T13:36:00.002-04:00

NOTE: This is the first of a series of posts featuring earlier content from the Vital Integrities Blog along with updated information and opinions.In June 2004, I wrote the following about Starbucks:Starbucks Coffee Company epitomizes the principle that companies should Live By The Values They Profess. One example is in the way the company purchases coffee. Last year, when prices of

More Citigroup

2008-08-18T10:23:00.002-04:00

"Name nearly any scandal, incompetence or hiccup suffered by the financial industry in the past decade or so, and the chances are Citigroup will have been at its forefront." –Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2008If you are looking for an example of corporate leadership NOT to emulate, you need look no further than Citigroup's senior management team. The leaders of this financial giant seem intent

A Tip for LongHorn Steakhouse: Give More; Take Less

2008-07-29T16:11:00.002-04:00

Senior management at LongHorn Steakhouse has found a creative way to shore up earnings in a sluggish economy. In an effort to hold down labor costs, the restaurant chain has increased the percentage of tips that waiters and waitresses must share with their fellow employees. Until recently, LongHorn requited wait-staff workers to "tip out" 1 percent of their total sales each shift to hosts and

Employee Surveys: Do We Really Want to Know?

2008-07-24T09:10:00.003-04:00

If you work for a large company, this situation probably sounds familiar to you: Senior management, concerned about worker disgruntlement and high turnover, commissions an employee survey. Then, after spending tens of thousands of dollars soliciting and compiling staff members' opinions and suggestions, management fails to act on the feedback. Employees are left wondering if management values

Leadership "Principals"

2008-06-27T11:35:00.003-04:00

Mr. Mahoney was the principal at the elementary school I attended. Every school day, in order to observe our orderly conduct, he stood outside as we students began our walk home. Principal Mahoney was armed with a cruel weapon that spread fear into my classmates and me: a silver whistle. Anytime a student stepped on the grass, our principal would blow his whistle, signaling to all that a grave

Have You Disappointed Anyone Lately?

2008-06-26T09:45:00.001-04:00

I have a friend who was born in Mexico and moved to the United States when she was a teenager. If you saw her, you would probably think that she looks European; in fact, she tells me that most people initially assume that she is Russian or Greek. Sadly, she also conveys that when those same people find out she is from Mexico, they act disappointed. It's as if, she says, they consider people from

Solomon Asch

2008-05-09T08:22:00.004-04:00

"The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black." Solomon AschIn my book and in the leadership workshops that I teach, I stress the importance for leaders to proactively demonstrate willingness to accept challenges and take risks. Today's business world involves constant change, and to thrive leaders

Standing Up or Standing By?

2008-04-22T10:24:00.002-04:00

With the onslaught of high-profile corporate scandals, it's hardly surprising to learn that business students anticipate encountering ethical dilemmas at work. What is shocking, and disappointing, is to hear them say that they're unlikely to stand up for their personal values when those circumstances arise.In a survey conducted by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education involving MBA

Why Employees Leave

2008-04-13T14:07:00.002-04:00

As I wrote a few months ago, "People join an organization, but they leave a manager." In follow-up surveys of departing employees, companies are discovering that the main reason workers quit is because of a bad boss. Yet, surprisingly, most organizations fail to recognize the connection between poor leadership and employee turnover.Matt Langdon referred me to this great post by Allan Webb, a

Lost Hero

2008-03-19T10:13:00.003-04:00

On the day that Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor of New York, a group of traders watched his televised speech on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. When he made his announcement, the traders cheered. The "sheriff of Wall Street," a moniker Spitzer earned by prosecuting corrupt corporate titans in his role as New York's attorney general, resigned in the wake of allegations of his

Celebrating Failures

2008-03-07T12:26:00.001-05:00

I still remember the afternoon I learned to ride a two-wheel bicycle. After removing the training wheels, my father situated me on the seat and, with the promise of his firm grip on the bike, sent me on my way. After pedaling down the driveway, I looked back, still expecting to see him holding on to the bike. Realizing he was now several yards behind, I panicked and fell. You probably had a

Griffin Hospital

2008-02-26T15:44:00.002-05:00

Griffin Hospital is obsessed with patient care. The Derby, Connecticut facility's mission statement declares, "Griffin Hospital is committed to providing personalized, humanistic, consumer-driven health care in a healing environment." To make sure it fulfills that commitment, the hospital measures patient satisfaction incessantly by surveying 100 of its discharged patients every month. For three

Communication Idol

2008-01-31T15:44:00.000-05:00

The hit television show American Idol has recently premiered another season of showcasing young singers and allowing viewers to vote their favorites toward stardom. For those of you who don't watch the show -- or won't admit to watching it -- here's how it works: After contestants perform on live television, viewers can cast their votes by calling special telephone numbers or by sending text

The Moment of Truth

2008-01-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

"I don't go out of my way to earn my employees' trust," a banking colleague once told me. "But whenever the moment of truth arrives, I think they know I'll do the right thing." To illustrate the flaws in that mindset, I shared the following banking analogy with him. Banks occasionally receive large cash deposits just before closing time, when it's too late to count the cash. When that happens,

Bullies on Board

2008-01-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

"Nothing can prepare you for working with a sociopathic serial bully. It is the most devastating, draining, misunderstood, and ultimately futile experience imaginable." -Tim FieldI have written before about bosses who bully their employees and workers who bully their coworkers; without question, bullying is a growing threat in the corporate workplace. But there's another business environment in

Teen Ethics

2008-01-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

Here's sobering news for hiring managers: four out of ten teenagers believe that cheating, plagiarizing, lying, or behaving violently is sometimes necessary for their success. The fifth annual Junior Achievement/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey polled U.S. teenagers ranging in ages from thirteen to eighteen about their ethical standards. Although 71 percent of respondents said they have what it takes

10 Great Leadership Blunders: 2007

2008-01-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

It's time to recognize the ten dumbest leadership moves of the year. In what has become an annual tradition (hey, it's the second year in a row!), I have compiled ten examples of leadership behavior certain to strip the offenders of any credibility while triggering an employee stampede to the door. 1. In March, consumer-electronics retailer Circuit City fired 3,400 salespeople who earned 51 cents

New Blog: The Ethical Banker

2007-12-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

Steve Rhode has launched a new blog called The Ethical Banker. He describes it as "an open discussion of many different points of view surrounding the issues that create conflict and confusion between the pursuit of profits and the pursuit of good corporate ethics." You can pose questions about banking and ethics, or just offer your opinion. Steve invited me to contribute and you can read my post

Why You Need Great Managers

2007-12-14T14:59:00.000-05:00

People join an organization, but they leave a manager. Is that an unfair statement? In fact, organizations rarely associate employee turnover with poor managers. Why? In exit interviews, almost all resigning employees avoid "burning any bridges." They spin their reasons for leaving, listing issues like pay, promotion opportunities, or additional benefits. Information garnered from most exit

Hey, you don't suppose they really are our greatest assets, do you?

2007-11-23T15:30:00.000-05:00

Remember last March, when Circuit City fired 3,400 salespeople with the intention of replacing them with lower-paid workers? As it turns out, that wasn't a very good business strategy. The consumer-electronics retailer has struggled ever since and senior officials are expecting the company to lose money this year. This week, analysts downgraded Circuit City's stock and blamed the company's

166,000 New Reasons to Focus on Retention

2007-11-05T08:49:00.001-05:00

If you're still clinging to the where-else-can-they-go attitude toward employee retention, here's some news that deserves your attention: The U.S. economy added 166,000 new jobs in October, more than twice the number of jobs that analysts had forecasted. That marks fifty consecutive months of job growth. In fact, employers have added 8.3 million jobs since August 2003.To be sure, if your

Event Slides: Boys & Girls Clubs of America

2007-10-19T09:20:00.000-04:00

Boys & Girls Clubs of America has a wonderful mission statement: "To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens." Talented employees are critical to that mission, and leadership plays a vital role in attracting and retaining the very best workers. To reach their full potential as leaders, today's managers

Going First

2007-10-17T07:47:00.000-04:00

Robert Galvin, board chair and CEO of Motorola for nearly thirty years, once gave the following definition of leadership: "Leadership is going first in a new direction -- and being followed." My former coworker Jim Stram and I once attended a leadership summit sponsored by our company for managers from several cities. One exercise involved an outside ropes course. Secured in our climbing gear and

Credibility: The Message Must Be You

2007-10-08T08:25:00.000-04:00

As a politician, Ronald Reagan possessed legendary communication skills. He understood the importance of communicating on an emotional level with his audience. In 1980, running against incumbent Jimmy Carter, Reagan asked the American public to consider this question: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" The theme caused voters to appraise their lives in relationship to their

Admissions of Wrongdoing

2007-09-26T07:46:00.000-04:00

Students and faculty at MIT were surprised when their school dropped several places in U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of colleges. MIT fell from a three-way tie for fourth to seventh place. Only after questioning from MIT's student newspaper did college admissions officials explain the drop. Until this year, when calculating the average SAT scores of new students, MIT had been

Attribution Training

2007-09-07T09:39:00.000-04:00

A client recently described to me her frustration with a chronically tardy worker. The employee performed well in most aspects of her job, but she was routinely late for work. Like many organizations, this company issues workers points, or demerits, each time they're late or have an unexcused absence. This particular employee was nearing the limit of points allowed and was facing certain

Do Goals Corrupt?

2007-08-17T13:44:00.000-04:00

Dell Inc. announced yesterday that it will restate more than four years of financial results after a yearlong internal investigation discovered "errors and irregularities" in its accounting and reporting practices. During that period, Dell's finance department manipulated its earnings in order to meet Wall Street's quarterly expectations. What, you might wonder, would compel the computer maker's

My Heroes

2007-08-15T09:59:00.000-04:00

My friend Matt Langdon at The Hero Workshop honored me by asking if I'd participate in his Hero Interviews series. Matt has been asking people to talk about their heroes, past and present. You can read my interview on his blog.Matt started The Hero Workshop to encourage all of us to learn and talk about heroes. He believes that when we think of ourselves as heroes, we'll act in heroic ways. He

Barry Bonds, Paris Hilton, and Your Wondering Employees

2007-08-13T14:31:00.000-04:00

Last week, baseball slugger Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record for career homeruns. Skeptics everywhere immediately attributed Bonds' success to rumors of steroid use. Whether Bonds actually takes performance-enhancement drugs or not, his critics' outcry that there be an asterisk next to his name in the record books is a good example of fundamental attribution error. Consider the following.

The Endowment Effect

2007-08-07T13:16:00.000-04:00

In the mid-1980s, researchers Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch, and Richard Thaler conducted a series of experiments involving economic decision-making behavior. In their famous "mugs studies," the trio gave random subjects $6 coffee mugs which they could keep or sell in a mock marketplace. Mug owners wanted an average price of $7 to part with their possessions, while buyers were only willing to pay

The Heart of the Batting Order

2007-07-25T13:53:00.000-04:00

On June 2, 1925, New York Yankee Wally Pipp had a headache. Having played in more games during the previous ten seasons than any other Yankee, Pipp asked manager Miller Huggins for permission to sit out the day's game. Huggins granted the sick day and replaced Pipp at first base with rookie Lou Gehrig. The rest, as they say, is history. Pipp, despite recovering from his headache, lost his job to

Just Like Riding a Bike

2007-07-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Are you stuck on a dysfunctional project team made up of loafers, finger-pointers, and know-it-alls, all with their own agendas? If so, you can blame Norman Triplett. Triplett, an Indiana University sports psychologist, began studying teamwork in the late 1800s. A bicycling enthusiast, Triplett observed that cyclists performed better in competition than they did when practicing alone. Suspecting

A Culture of Misfits?

2007-07-03T13:32:00.000-04:00

As I've stressed before, the key to effective hiring lies in making sure an applicant's personal values align with the culture of your organization. To be sure, finding workers with the skills or experience needed to perform a job is important. But misjudging how a candidate will fit into your company's culture will likely lead to dissatisfaction for both you and the newly hired employee. If you

The Road to Assertiveness

2007-06-11T14:40:00.000-04:00

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.Robert FrostWhich of the following words best describes the more effective leadership route: aggressive or passive? We tend to think of successful leaders as aggressive, go-getters who let nothing stand in their way. But aggressive leaders can also be overbearing bosses who exhibit hostile

Steiner's Model

2007-06-05T12:05:00.000-04:00

Actual Productivity = Potential Productivity - Loss Resulting from Group Process -Steiner's ModelAs I discussed in previous posts (here and here), group performance does not always match our two-heads-are-better-than-one perception. In fact, there are some tasks on which a single individual will clearly outperform the combined efforts of a group. And in many cases, a group will only perform as

Seasonal Absence Syndrome

2007-05-29T10:57:00.000-04:00

The practice of playing hooky from work to enjoy the sunshine now has a clinical name: Seasonal Absence Syndrome. And according to a recent study sponsored by Kronos Incorporated, four out of ten full-time employees have experienced symptoms of SAS; in other words, they admitted to calling in sick to get an extra day off from work. And, not surprisingly to any manager, employees are most

Cohesiveness and Groupthink

2007-05-23T11:13:00.000-04:00

"Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups...it is the rule." Friedrich NietzscheAccording to the American Management Association, 60 percent of executives report that getting people to work together is the biggest hurdle they currently face. Indeed, establishing successful workgroups has long been a leadership objective. But instead of concentrating on how to get people to work

A Wake-Up Call

2007-05-15T09:08:00.000-04:00

We create mission statements because we want employees to see our big picture. Question is do we see theirs? Amid a growing war for talent, organizations are slow to recognize the role that values play in attracting, motivating, and keeping employees. But as a new survey reveals, employees are already paying attention.In a nationwide telephone survey conducted by CO2 Partners, less than half of

The Ringelmann Effect

2007-05-14T10:30:00.000-04:00

When working on a team project, perhaps you've observed that while you're pulling your weight some others in the group are loafing. Researchers call that phenomenon the Ringelmann Effect. In the late 19th Century, engineering professor Maximilian Ringelmann studied the relationship between individual and group effort. Ringelmann had people pull a rope individually while he measured their pull

Event Slides: National Association of Credit Management

2007-05-10T09:41:00.000-04:00

For more than 100 years, the National Associate of Credit Management has helped organizations recognize the warning signs that put their assets at risk. These days, no asset is more valuable than a talented employee is, and companies need to pay attention to the red flags indicating that a shortage of workers is looming. And then they need to take the steps necessary to retain the workers they

Change Management

2007-05-03T11:31:00.000-04:00

"How do you manage change?" It is a frequently mentioned challenge I hear when conducting my workshops. And in a recent survey by workplace consultants BlessingWhite, nearly half of the 900 executives surveyed think that leading teams through organizational change is very, or even extremely, challenging. But I think the underlying question actually is, "How do you get employees to accept change?"

Learning How To Cheat

2007-05-02T09:37:00.000-04:00

"Duke University is a community of scholars and learners, committed to the principles of honesty, trustworthiness, fairness, and respect for others. Students share with faculty and staff the responsibility for promoting a climate of integrity. As citizens of this community, students are expected to adhere to these fundamental values all times, in both their academic and non-academic endeavors." -

Minimal Leadership

2007-04-17T12:29:00.000-04:00

Philosopher, ethicist, and author Sissela Bok believes that there is a set of fundamental values that exists in every society -- values universally embraced because they are critical to group survival. In her book, Common Values, she divides these basic values into the following three categories:1. The positive duties concerning mutual care, loyalty, and reciprocity.2. The negative bans against