Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire…
On August 8, 2008, weeks after Edwards was spotted visiting Hunter at a Beverly Hills hotel, he publicly confessed the affair to an ABC News reporter. However, he vehemently denied being the father of Hunter's six-month-old baby. As if to salvage some of his tarnished image, he made certain to mention that his wife's cancer was in remission when the affair began.
Fast forward to January 21, 2010. In a statement issued to NBC news, Edwards admitted that he is indeed the father of Hunter's daughter. "It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and, hopefully, one day, when she understands, she will forgive me," Edwards said in his statement. Edwards' disclosure came just as another of his campaign aides, Andrew Young, would admit to claiming paternity for Hunter's child as a favor to the candidate.
So What Else is New?
Certainly, the "bombshell" revelation that a politician lied to the public should not come as a surprise. Politicians lie all the time, don't they? And didn't we all suspect that Edwards was fibbing all along? What is surprising is how easily he lied.
But here's a question for you. If he had come clean immediately, would that change your opinion of Edwards? If he had responded to the early rumors by saying, "Yep, we had an affair and there's a baby on the way," would you have more or less respect for him today?
Leaders confront the how-much-to-reveal dilemma all the time. Maybe there's an organizational shakeup coming six months down the road that will undoubtedly impact employees. Should you tell them now and give them adequate time to prepare (even if that means some good people might look for other jobs)? Or should you wait a few months in case the plans change and the turmoil can be avoided?
Your answer determines how much credibility you have. Face it: politicians have reputations as liars for a reason. Seriously, will you ever believe another thing John Edwards says? I, for one, am even having trouble buying his claim that he hopes his daughter will forgive him one day.
When faced with the choice of being too honest or just honest enough, err on the side that will preserve your credibility.
Labels: communication, credibility, employees, integrity, leadership, trust
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usSecond-Order Consequences
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 automatic.
Except, of course, that it isn't.
Sometimes the computer is down and employees can't log in. Or they forget to log out prior to going home. Or they log out seven minutes later than their scheduled quitting time, pushing them into overtime. Or…well, you get the point.
Organizational development experts call these issues second-order consequences. When attempting to solve one problem, companies often create indirect or deferred glitches along the way.
And second-order consequences can cause more trouble than the original problem. While the new timekeeping system has saved time for the company's payroll department, it has placed a new burden on its unit managers. All those exceptions must be tracked and entered into the system. So, to address these unforeseen consequences, the company has implemented another change. Now, when employees neglect to log in or out, for example, they simply fill out a form detailing the exceptions. Their managers must then manually make the adjustments on the automated system.
One manager, who has dozens of employees, comes in on weekends just to sort through the stack of exception forms and update the system. She would do it on work time, but she can't fit the extra four hours into her schedule. In this case, the solution to the second-order consequences has created third-order consequences.
At the pace with which change happens in the workplace today, second-order consequences are inevitable. Leaders can try to predict all the possible ramifications of change, but every new initiative carries the risk of unanticipated side effects. The way in which leaders adjust to those consequences -- and keep them from spiraling out of control -- defines how well they manage change.
Labels: business, employees, leadership, management
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usIs Your Boss a Micromanager?
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, our bosses face this same challenge. And that increases the odds that you work for a micromanager.
If you work for a micromanager, you know the drawbacks. Micromanagers continually interrupt you, rearrange your priorities and deadlines, hand off their crises to you, and take credit for your good ideas? If that's not enough, they consume your time with countless, endless meetings and overburden you by commissioning a stream of pointless reports.
Some leaders micromanage because they can -- their positions give them the authority to boss people around and they intend to use it. Other micromanagers fear falling short in terms of their own performances. She won’t get this done, we’ll miss the deadline, and that will make me look bad. That fear prevents micromanagers from trusting their employees; consequently, they attempt to establish complete control.
As long as you work for a micromanaging boss, you will struggle in your leadership role. Through their actions, micromanagers broadcast their lack of trust. Your employees will sense your micromanaging boss's doubts and wonder whether you are worthy of their trust. Therefore, if you work for a micromanager, you need to confront the problem directly.
I suggest that you start by asking your boss the following:
"Am I fulfilling your expectations as a leader? If not, please tell me how to improve. Otherwise, when you meddle in my actions, countermand my decisions, or outright do my job for me, I have to conclude that you distrust my judgment."
If your performance does need improving, this kind of candid conversation with your supervisor can help you grow as a leader. On the other hand, drawing attention to micromanagement behavior could actually help your boss recognize a personal leadership weakness. You might point out the obvious:
"You're probably unaware of how your behavior causes my employees to wonder if I have any real authority. That's why they often go around me to you."
But some people micromanage consciously and deliberately; many micromanagers try hard to intimidate. To them, you need to be blunt:
"You hold me accountable for getting things done. But by constantly overriding my authority, you’re making it impossible for me to succeed."
By challenging micromanagement behavior you're telling your boss that you welcome constructive feedback and are eager to work hard toward improving, but that you are unwilling to endure unwarranted bullying and second-guessing.
Enough is Enough
If your micromanaging boss is unreceptive, or proves unable or unwilling to change, you should consider changing bosses. Unchecked, micromanagement limits your opportunities to grow. Your micromanager will continue to ignore you, abstain from teaching you new skills, withhold company news from you, exclude you from decision making, and selfishly hold back the most demanding assignments. Your employees might see you as weak or untrustworthy. You will expect less from yourself. Your performance will reflect your boss’s low expectations. And, lo and behold, another self-fulfilling prophecy will come true.
If your core personal values include principles like trust, respect, and helping individuals grow then living by the values you profess requires standing up to micromanagement.
Labels: employees, leadership, management, trust, values
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Chemistry of Praise
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, once you start praising people, they expect you to praise them again and again.
Well, there is some truth to that assertion. As it happens, our brains produce a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that stimulates the part of the brain that processes rewards and creates feelings of pride, satisfaction, and happiness. Receiving positive recognition for our efforts releases dopamine in our brains and makes us feel good about ourselves.
While employees might not understand the chemistry of dopamine, they learn to associate praise with pleasure. In turn, they correlate pleasure with hard work. As a result, they do additional good work in hopes of receiving more praise.
But the benefits of dopamine are short-lived. As the effects wear off, we need another dose to maintain the upbeat feelings. Otherwise, we come down from the dopamine high and feel frustrated and unappreciated. And that's why employees continuously need praise.
Our craving for dopamine is biological, so our pursuit of it is natural. That knowledge can change the perceived burden of praising your employees into a simple recipe for increasing productivity.
Labels: employees, leadership, management, praise, recognition
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Trouble With Discipline: Part II
"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 reported the same upsetting experience: each had been shocked to discover, on a Frito-Lay potato chip, an obscene message written in felt-tip pen.
Having traced the source of the offensive chips to a particular plant, management dispatched training and development manager Dick Grote to the facility with instructions to track down the culprit responsible for the vulgar messages. What Grote found instead was a workplace culture that bred disobedience.
Grote learned that plant managers had fired fifty-eight of the factory's 210 employees for disciplinary reasons in the prior nine months. Supervisors were misusing progressive discipline -- verbal and written warnings, unpaid suspensions, and terminations -- as a way to rid the plant of unwanted workers. The excessive firings resulted in dismal morale and led disgruntled employees to sabotage the company's products.
The sheer volume of disciplinary actions at the plant allowed Grote to spot what is less obvious in most organizations; that is, that traditional progressive-discipline methods are highly ineffective.
In his book, Discipline Without Punishment, Grote writes, "The problem wasn't the way we were administering the system. The problem was the system itself." Like discipline systems at most companies, Frito-Lay's offered employees no way to redeem themselves. Says Grote, "Virtually every employee who received a verbal warning received a written warning; almost everyone who reached the point of a disciplinary suspension was fired not long after." So he decided to change the system.
While keeping the progressive characteristic of the system, Grote eliminated punishment and replaced it with personal responsibility and decision-making. Warnings and reprimands became reminders -- coaching sessions in which employees are asked to take responsibility for their actions and commit to changing their undesirable behaviors. Unpaid suspensions became paid leaves during which employees can reflect on the seriousness of the problem -- without the resentment and financial hardships caused by withholding pay.
Over the next two years, the number of terminations resulting from disciplinary actions at the plant fell from 58 to two. Thousands of organizations have since followed Frito-Lay's approach with staggering results. In addition to firing fewer employees, these companies are also experiencing lower voluntary turnover, reductions in sick-leave usage, and drops in worker grievances.
"The basic premise of the traditional discipline system is that crime must be followed by punishment," writes Grote. With that in mind, too many organizations treat all of their employees like criminals.
So, is it time to overhaul your disciplinary system?
Labels: discipline, employees, leadership, management
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The Trouble With Discipline: Part I
"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 task. Nevertheless, in this case I was reluctant to have the necessary conversation.
You see, unlike most workers who are never on time, this woman was a valued employee. Despite her tardiness, she was uncommonly efficient and displayed remarkable personal initiative. What's more, she always tried to make up for being tardy by staying late. But I was duty bound to explain our expectation of punctuality; after all, her coworkers were arriving at work on time. So, notwithstanding my thick skin, I had wrestled with my unease long enough.
As it turned out, a chronic health issue was causing her morning tardiness. Learning the source of her lateness enabled me to provide a more flexible work schedule and help a good employee. My hesitation to address the problem had only prolonged resolving it. What took me so long?
On the whole, leaders associate discipline with punishment. In that sense, we think of discipline as something unpleasant we must do to an employee, rather than a process of resolving a problem with an employee. In fact, the widely used progressive discipline model is meant to correct employee behavior by doling out increasingly severe penalties. Verbal warnings are followed by written warnings. Then comes a final warning, or even a suspension. Finally, the employee is fired. Since meting out punishment in this fashion involves adversarial conflict, it's no wonder we tend to put off discipline as long as possible.
Whether they hope to avoid conflict or because they simply dread the process, the truth is that many managers don't earnestly begin discipline until they've already decided to fire the employee. And then it's not done to improve the employee's behavior, but to build a legally defensible case for termination.
However, Dick Grote, author of the book, Discipline Without Punishment, points out what most leaders overlook. "Termination is not the final step of the discipline system," says Grote. "More accurately, termination represents the failure of the discipline system."
Grote's point suggests that a change in mindset is necessary. The purpose of discipline should not be to punish people, but to help them alter undesirable behavior. Done correctly, it provides workers meaningful information about their current performance, attendance, or conduct, while helping them establish a plan for correcting mistakes. From that perspective, discipline is similar to coaching and should be a positive experience. But only if you keep punishment out of the mix.
Not only does punishment cause anxiety in the leaders who must inflict it, but it is also ineffective. In his article titled "Five Sins of Discipline," author and consultant Robert Bacal explains that punishment is meaningless unless employees (a) value what we take away from them; (b) believe that the penalty fairly fits the crime; and (c) respect the manager's right to issue the sentence. If all three conditions are not met, employees will resent the punishment. And the resulting side effects -- employee antagonism, indifference, and dissatisfaction -- can prove more disruptive than the original behavior.
If you associate discipline with punishment, you're undoubtedly frustrated with the results of your disciplinary efforts. Or else you're avoiding the process completely. Perhaps it's time to try a better approach.
Labels: discipline, employees, leadership, management
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usSurvivor's Guilt
"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 Challenger
There 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 supply? If you have any kindness in you, you'll feel badly for those you've had to displace. As it turns out, those employees who are spared from layoffs need your compassion, too.
"Companies use the word affected with people who lose their jobs -- the implication being that the people who remain aren't," says Joel Brockner, a professor of management at Columbia Business School. "They're very much affected."
And when workers are affected, their employers are, too. According to a survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, companies undergoing downsizing efforts face tough challenges in keeping surviving employees engaged and focused. Fifty-four percent of HR executives cited maintaining employee engagement as their biggest challenge after conducting layoffs. Another large concern, according to 23 percent of respondents, is easing anxiety among surviving workers that additional layoffs might be imminent.
And then there’s the guilt.
Psychologists note that workers who avoid the downsizing ax experience mixed emotions, ranging from the initial relief of keeping their jobs to the feeling of guilt over their good fortune. What's more, anxiety that more job cuts are coming and the burden of taking on additional workloads can lead some workers to actually envy their former coworkers.
As a leader, be aware that your role in layoffs doesn't end once you've pass out the pink slips. Columbia's Brockner recalls a conversation with a bank executive who boasted about the company's generous severance package. "I said, 'That's great. What have you done for the people who have remained?'"
"It is an unfortunate situation to be in, but the way companies handle it -- particularly the way they deal with surviving employees -- can make it significantly better or worse," says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "You cannot simply tell employees to 'do more with less.' There must be a back-and-forth dialogue to address employees' concerns and fears."
According to Challenger, surviving employees want leaders to be straight with them. "Honesty is the best policy; employees deserve up-front communication when it comes to the state of the company and their jobs," he says.
When economics dictate that you let people go, do it as compassionately as possible. And don't forget to take care of your survivors.
Labels: business, employees, leadership, management
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usLeonard Abess
Last fall, Abess sold his majority stake in City National. In a business environment in which many corporate leaders have demonstrated mindboggling personal greed, he did something remarkable. He gave $60 million of his proceeds to 471 current and former employees. It was, he said, something he'd been planning to do for more than 20 years.
When deciding how to allocate the money, Abess created an undisclosed formula based on longevity. Recognizing that the highest ranking -- and thus, highest paid -- employees had the shortest tenure, Abess gave the largest amounts to those who had been with City National the longest. As a result, some long-term employees received bonuses equal to nine times their annual salaries.
At a time when the country has lost faith in the leaders of its major financial institutions, what Abess did is highly unusual. He wishes it wasn't. "I prefer to live in a world where this is ordinary," he has said.
Me too.
Labels: business, employees, integrity, leadership, management, values
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usNetApp: A Great Place to Work
But there's a new number one company on the Fortune list this year: storage and data management company NetApp. Unlike Google, which got to the top largely by providing employees with lots of goodies, NetApp earned the number one spot because of its culture of trust. NetApp's leaders promote an atmosphere of openness and honesty, and they go out of their way to proactively share information with workers.
Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz, whose Great Place to Work Institute has been compiling information on great workplaces since 1980, have been quoted as saying, "The most important factor in selecting companies for this list is what employees themselves have to say about their workplace." For their part, NetApp employees say they appreciate how easy it is to share ideas, get answers to questions, meet with senior leaders, and find opportunities to take responsibility. Funny, no one mentions wanting free M&Ms.
At number four on the 2009 list, Google is still clearly a great place to work. And Google's culture of fun, high energy, and innovation undoubtedly attracts as many people as the free chow does. But NetApp's elevation reveals how important trustworthy leadership is to workers in today's business environment. "Perks are nice, but employees are looking for something more basic," Levering and Moskowitz have noted. "They want to be told the truth, especially if the news is bad."
If you want employees to consider your company a great place to work, focus less on promoting financially oriented rewards and more on demonstrating the values that attracted them in the first place.
Labels: business, employees, integrity, leadership, management, trust, values
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usRewriting the Future
Chalk those managers' propensity for rejecting already-tried suggestions up to human nature. In their new book, The Three Laws of Performance, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan assert that every idea has a future that we have already written for it. The default future, as the authors call it, is often based on our past experiences, assumptions, and fears. Consequently, managers who dismiss ideas because of a been-there-done-that-and-failed bias are doing so because they expect history to repeat itself.
While we can't rewrite the past, Zaffron and Logan point out that we can rewrite the future. Rather than assuming we'll get the same disappointing results today as we got in the past, we can create a new future -- one with a desirable outcome. What's more, instead of discouraging employees from offering ideas, this approach encourages managers to engage workers in designing the new future. As a result, managers will stop frustrating creative employees and start inspiring them instead.
Labels: business, employees, leadership, management
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usTattletales
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, and how many days an associate's lunch was left stinking up the department refrigerator. If you're like most managers, you find the snitcher's behavior unhelpful at best -- and annoying at worst.In The Art of Ethics, Elizabeth McGrath describes the stages we go through on our way to ethical maturity. Our first ethical lessons involve obedience, she says. Good boys and girls obey their parents; bad kids disobey. While in this stage we learn to view the world in we're-right-and-they're-wrong terms. But as we mature ethically, we experience the consequences of our independent decisions, and we eventually stop looking at actions as right or wrong and begin seeing outcomes as good or bad. Therefore, becoming ethically mature requires leaving the obedience stage behind us.
Unfortunately, some people never advance beyond the point of deferring to someone else's view of right and wrong. Those workers who childishly tattle on colleagues who bend some rules are most likely stalled in the obedience stage. The reasons are probably deep-seated and best left to a trained therapist to resolve. But understanding your tattlers could help you lead them more effectively.
As a manager, I always sensed that my tattlers were seeking personal affirmation rather than trying to get other people in trouble. In other words, I felt snitchers were seeking assurance that they were indeed good boys and girls. Whenever an employee finked about something trivial, I tried to respond with, "I'm glad I can count on you to always follow the rules." It seemed to be the response they needed, and it afforded them a respite from the urge to turn in their friends.
Next time a tattler informs you of an inconsequential breach of the rules, try thanking them for being a "good" corporate citizen.
Labels: employees, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Road to Conflict Resolution
Conflict-resolution experts advise managers to adopt a facilitator's role when handling employee disputes. Leaders, they say, should serve as mediators and not like judges. Yet surprisingly, recent research reveals that managers largely ignore that advice. Instead, most leaders take charge and determine the outcome of employee disagreements.
Why? Our normal tendency is to view conflicts as problems we need to fix -- after all, that's part of our job. Leaders are supposed to be problem solvers and, as such, are expected to settle issues in ways that best meet the organization's interests. But managers, pressed for time and concerned about fairness, often rush to conclusions that leave everyone unsatisfied while permitting the underlying discord to fester.
Here's a simple technique I successfully used to get employees to reconcile their own disputes. The parent company of the bank where I worked was headquartered 200 miles away from our office. Whenever I had two employees at odds, I put them in a car together and sent them to the head office for a meeting. There's nothing like seven hours in a car to force employees to have a conversation. I figured that they would either kill one another or come back as friends -- or at least friendly. As you might expect, during the long day they eventually found common interests to discuss and forgot about their dispute.
Workplace conflict is inevitable. To address it effectively -- and reduce the frequency of new clashes -- leaders must learn how to intervene effectively and guide disputing workers to their own solutions. When you put employees on the road to fixing their own problems, they will usually find their way back.
Labels: employees, group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usA Tip for LongHorn Steakhouse: Give More; Take Less
LongHorn's parent company, Darden Restaurants Inc., credited the new policy for helping reduce the company's labor expenses by 0.6 percent last quarter. Most state laws allow restaurants to pay tipped employees less than minimum wage as long as their combined earnings and tips total at least minimum wage. LongHorn is forcing servers to contribute a larger share of their tips to hosts and bartenders so the company can decrease its portion. Darden, which also owns the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains, is considering similar changes in all its restaurants.
Compare LongHorn's actions to those of Boston's Mercantile Bank. The three-branch community bank has increased its labor costs in order to help employees deal with rising gasoline prices. Depending on the length of their daily commute, workers receive as much as $50 each week to defray escalating fuel costs.
Things, as the saying goes, are tough all over. When the economic correction ends and the recovery begins, employees will remember how their leaders responded.
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Bookmark this post on del.icio.usLeadership "Principals"
Two things about this practice always struck me as odd. First, there were two or three kids picking up litter during lunch break on a daily basis. Clearly, Principal M's deterrent approach was not working. Second, there was always more than enough litter to keep these kids busy for an hour. Therefore, it seemed to me that littering was causing more harm to school grounds than the damage incurred by the occasional weight of a child's foot. Why, I wondered, wasn't our principal focusing on this larger problem? This happened long before I thought of becoming a leadership trainer; but even as a fourth grader, I sensed that Mahoney was a lousy leader.
Every day, I see managers experiencing frustration when, like Principal Mahoney, their efforts to influence desirable behavior through disciplinary actions prove ineffective. And I watch business leaders who, like my former principal, cling to rules that no longer make sense while overlooking more pressing issues.
Some might contend that Mr. Mahoney's actions served to instill in his students the importance of following rules. I offer myself as an opposing argument. I managed to get all the way through elementary school without straying from the sidewalk and facing the whistleblower's wrath. But you'd be hard pressed to find anyone less likely to follow a prescribed path than me. If I acquired anything from his methods, it was the propensity to question silly rules.
I don't know what became of Principal Mahoney after I went on to high school. I hope he lived a long and happy life. But I'm glad I never had to work for him.
Labels: employees, leadership
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Have You Disappointed Anyone Lately?
Business people often get similar reactions when describing their work roles to someone they're meeting for the first time. A merchandize buyer who recently attended The Leading from the Heart Workshop related how people are excited to hear that she works at a zoo, only to seem disappointed after learning that she does not work directly with animals. And several managers from a large nursing care provider describe getting the same response when telling new acquaintances that they work in accounts receivable rather than in positions involving patient care. Apparently, we lose interest in people if their jobs don't fit our stereotypes.
To be sure, many leaders foster a distinction between highly valued jobs and all the other duties. We revere salespeople while taking operations personnel for granted. We look up to physicians but down on orderlies. We admire teachers and mock cafeteria workers. It's no wonder our unsung workers perceive that they're disappointing us.
People possess an innate desire to contribute their best efforts. But if they sense that their contributions are not appreciated, they'll withhold their talents. Therefore, if you're not getting the very best from your employees, perhaps your attitude about their importance has disappointed them.
Labels: employees, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usWhy Employees Leave
Matt Langdon referred me to this great post by Allan Webb, a management consultant who has worked with small-to-medium sized companies for thirty years. As Webb points out, today's workers are not looking to make lifetime commitments to employers. Most stay with a company for just a few years. Employers who figure out that good leadership and employee retention are inseparable will be more likely to convince workers to stay awhile longer.
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Celebrating Failures
Now, what did my father do? Did he say, "Well, obviously you're not cut out for this?" Of course not. He shouted, "Great job! You got all the way down the driveway! You just looked away. Now let's see if you can make it down to the corner." In other words, he celebrated my efforts, told me what caused my fall, and encouraged me to try again, this time with a new goal. Then he added, "Don't worry. I'm right here if you fall again."
The first fundamental in helping employees learn from their failures is getting them to recognize how and why they failed. But if you instead practice the forgive-and-forget model, a coaching opportunity will be lost. Or worse, if you criticize or condemn, employee initiative will dwindle.
I tell leaders to celebrate the failures of workers who venture outside their comfort zones. By using such a strategy, leaders provide employees with a safe forum for them to acknowledge their failures, making the analysis of what went wrong less threatening. They also reward employees for leaving their comfort zones. Perhaps most importantly, celebrations inoculate employees against the pain of failure while encouraging future risk taking.
Help your employees understand that failures are both inevitable and permissible. When they fall off their two-wheelers, pick them up, dust them off, wipe away any tears, and put them back on their bikes—with your promise to remain close behind as they try again.
Labels: employees, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usGriffin Hospital
But its patients are not the only people satisfied with the hospital. As it has every year since 1999, Griffin made it onto Fortune's list of the "100 Best Places to Work for in America" in 2008. Factored into the rankings is how workers grade their organizations for credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie, and Griffin's staff members give their employer high marks indeed. But more revealing than the Fortune honor is Griffin's impressive applicant pool. Last year, the hospital received 6,691 applications for only 180 open positions. Let that sink in a moment: that's an average of thirty-seven applicants for every job opening. What's more, Griffin's pay scales are 5-7 percent lower than other area hospitals. Why would people be so eager to work for Griffin when they could earn more elsewhere? Clearly, the hospital's focus on providing extraordinary patient care attracts healthcare workers who share that obsession. In other words, Griffin's core values align with its applicants' individual core values.
Griffin Hospital is proof that, when selecting employers, job candidates are focusing less on financial rewards and more on values. How obsessive are you about your organization's mission statement.
Labels: employees, hiring, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usCommunication Idol
After each weekly performance, a three-judge panel provides instant feedback to the singers. Randy Jackson, a Grammy Award-winning record producer and former bass player for the group Journey, sits on the panel. A music industry veteran, Jackson has mastered his profession's lingo and each contestant, whether male or female, hears a critique that goes something like this:
"Yeah-uhhh! Yo, yo dude. What's up dawg? How you feelin'? You feelin' all right? Listen, man. I've got to give you props. You're doing your thing and it was dope. You're the bomb, baby.”If you are in the entertainment industry, or a devoted viewer, you probably understand that this performer impressed Randy. If you are hearing the vernacular for the first time, you are probably confused, to put it mildly. Thank goodness, the language we use in our professions is easier to understand, right? Or is it? Consider the following compilation of business jargon:
"Let's talk offline after the OD quality circle. With all this synergy, we should tap our knowledge network, benchmark some competency profiles, and find best practices for establishing employee engagement through blended learning. I have to go meet with an ADO in one of our SBUs, but at the end of the day, it's up to us to find a seamless solution to our disconnect."Every industry, profession, and organization has its own specialized vocabulary. We use business phrases, buzzwords, abbreviations, and acronyms as verbal shortcuts to streamline communication among colleagues. But rather than improving communication, jargon often hinders it. If the words you use lack substance, you'll leave your employees scratching their heads.
Be the bomb with your employees: use language everyone can understand.
Labels: communication, employees
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Moment of Truth
Banks occasionally receive large cash deposits just before closing time, when it's too late to count the cash. When that happens, banks will often give a good customer provisional credit; that is, they'll credit the customer's account with the amount listed on the deposit slip and then count the money on the following day. Of course, banks reward that level of trust only to customers with a demonstrated history of accurate deposits.
Your employees grant trust the same way. Every time you do something that demonstrates adherence to your organization's values, each employee who either witnesses or hears about it will subconsciously give you a deposit in an imaginary "trust fund." Employees give you provisional credit for those deposits until you prove worthy of their trust. So, if you wait for a moment of truth to come along to show your commitment to the organization's values, your chances of earning employee trust are limited, and building up a permanent balance in your trust fund will take years. The real time for action is now.
Leadership is not about the moment of truth. It's about every moment. You must demonstrate your organization's values continuously and proactively in order to secure your employees' trust.
Labels: employees, leadership, trust
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Author George Brymer's comments about the leaders who get it, and those who never will.
