Category Archives: Management

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A Simple Secret Weapon

Ever hear the catch phrase, “Try to catch someone doing something right?” It’s from The One Minute Manager (1981) by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. No matter how many times you hear it, it doesn’t get enough airplay. Apparently, it is way too easy to forget or ignore.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal by Sue Shellenbarger titled “Showing Gratitude at the Office – No, Thanks” got me to stop and digest the quoted statistics twice before posting a sustained gasp across all my social networks. Here’s a telling clip:

Research suggests that employees who feel appreciated are more productive and loyal. But that message hasn’t reached many of those in charge. Some bosses are afraid employees will take advantage of them if they heap on the gratitude. Other managers believe in thank-yous but are nervous about appearing awkward or insincere—or embarrassing the employee they wish to praise.

A common attitude from the corner office is “We thank people around here: It’s called a paycheck,” says Bob Nelson, an employee-motivation consultant in San Diego.

The workplace ranks dead last among the places people express gratitude, from homes and neighborhoods to places of worship. Only 10% of adults say thanks to a colleague every day, and just 7% express gratitude daily to a boss, according to a survey this year of 2,007 people for the John Templeton Foundation of West Conshohocken, Pa., a nonprofit organization that sponsors research on creativity, gratitude, freedom and other topics.

We can admire business leaders for being tough, for being direct and never taking no for an answer when facing immense challenges, but I don’t think our expectations of their motivational abilities have to end there. Clearly there are at least two schools of thought for executives and managers on driving employees to exceptional results: 1) You can never (or almost never) express appreciation to keep employees guessing about what you think of their performance and push themselves harder; or 2) You can offer praise when it’s earned, heartfelt, and precisely the unexpected good word a dedicated employee needs to hear when a job is well done.

When praise is withheld purposefully as a tactic to prohibit an employee from becoming self-satisfied, I suppose I can see the envisioned logic in that, but that logic is flawed. When a boss is constantly lavishing praise to the point where employees simply expect it and the words no longer have impact, I can also see the potential downside, but somehow it doesn’t have me worried. Withholding appreciation for effect is seldom as intentional as some bosses would have you believe. More often it is its own form of laziness, or arrogance, or nonchalance, or unaware omission.

I fondly remember a tough water polo coach I had in high school—a league legend who went simply by the name Mr. J—who used to say, “As long as I am yelling at you from the sidelines, it means I still have faith in you and think you can do better; when I go silent, it’s because I have given up.” It took me a long time to fully interpret that message, and I get it now. First, he told us in advance why he was driving us hard, because he really cared, not so much about winning (that, too) but about pushing us to do our best. There was never a time in the pool when we were getting yelled at that this message was not in our heads. Second, anytime we did something extraordinary, as a team or an individual, he made a point of it in team meetings. So he could have it both ways—he could motivate with the stick, because we knew there was always a carrot. We also knew the stick was highly convincing play-acting, but the carrot was authentic.

Top Secret! Courtesy - DocStocWhen I am on the job as a day-to-day operator, I make a point to meet with my direct reports weekly and my indirect reports monthly, largely for the purpose of setting and reviewing goals. I don’t at all like annual performance reviews (more on that in a future post, I promise), but what I do like is establishing agreed criteria and then constantly measuring against that, quantitatively and qualitatively. I also have a stealth agenda in these meetings, which is to find the surprise in the weekly or monthly status report, the chance to catch someone doing something right and blind side them with a few striking words of praise. You cannot imagine the impact after 55 minutes of goal regression of throwing a quiet knuckle ball at an employee along the lines of a Steve Jobs “Oh, one more thing” moment.It goes something like this: “How did you possibly find the time to _______ with everything else on your plate, and do it so creatively, and so thoughtful—do you have any idea how much an impact that had on your team and our business? Well, I do.”

I’m telling you, try it. It does not matter what level of employee you are motivating, senior management can benefit from a genuine, unprompted, thumbs up jolt just as much as those at the entry-level. Fill in that blank, put it in your own words, point out what is positive but not obvious with conviction and a nod. If you have never done this before, I assure you it will feel party time good. If your employee has never heard it before, watch the size of their eyeballs physically enlarge.

Each month when I am reviewing our team business plan against individual status reports, I pick one person who did something truly special and I send a personal email from me to her or him, no cc’s, and tell them how amazing his or her contribution was. No big bucks bonus, no gift certificate, just a brief email. That email accomplishes two things—it shows you are paying attention, and it shows you care. It buys you a grapevine of goodwill, and a good deal of room to set seemingly unrealistic stretch goals in the periods before or after. Some of you reading this have received one of these. I’ll bet you kept it. The ones I happen to have received over the years—I have kept those.

When a boss whispers, it’s a shout. When a boss shouts, it’s a scream. When a boss high fives, it can be the World Series.

I’m a not asking you to shower undeserved praise—far be it from me to let a team have reason to go soft in these challenging times, that would be inconsistent with my style. What I am suggesting is that the holidays are upon us and that is always a good milestone to say thank you. Say it often, only when it is earned, and be specific—but find a reason, if you have a great team then you have innumerable good reasons.

Yep, the season is upon us. Perhaps we needn’t let our better side be limited to such a narrow window, but at the very least, let’s try to show a little extra holiday cheer. It’s good for business, and it’s good for the people who are the business.

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A Little More on Loyalty

Following up my last post on the strange phenomenon of willing senior-level turnover, one of my colleagues suggested I expand on the following:

How do today’s companies inspire, and enact, loyalty within the shifting parameters and instabilities of the contemporary business world? This is the question that gnaws at me.

It really is a quandary in the world of “at-will employment.” Downsizing, right-sizing, presumed right-sizing, grading, rating, ranking, bottom 10% trimming (yuck!), all of these are the strident tools of Management Consulting—not to mention Fear and Loathing in the Workplace, to borrow from the late Hunter S. Thompson. But what are the tools of inspiration, engagement, and leadership for everyday folks?

Many of us remember the phrase Getting to Yes from the 1981 tome by Roger Fisher and William Ury about straightforward negotiation. Let’s try to eke out a pathway for Getting to Loyalty, or at least identify the mismatched needs that most open the door to conflict. Here’s the rub as I boil it down from my experiences—the priorities of individuals and companies in the hiring decision funnel are not necessarily aligned.

When I coach an individual on the job-changing decision, I ask him or her to focus on three core needs in the following order before pulling the trigger, those things that I think matter most in building a long-term career:

1) What you do—is the work itself compelling, satisfying for the sacrifices you will make, a set of diverse tasks that will lead to continual growth and learning?

2) Who you do it for—is your boss sane when it comes to managing authority, a reasonable mentor, and a decent leader?

3) How much will you be compensated—is it fair pay for what you produce, or would you be valued more highly elsewhere given conditions 1 & 2 are equal. Note that I put pay level in position 3 of 3, when it will almost always be the #1 tactic someone uses in trying to poach you. You are likely committing about half of your waking hours. Beware the trade, Mephistopheles.

In juxtaposition, here’s what I think most companies focus on in the final offer process, not necessarily thinking long-term, sometimes just filling a box with a warm body to knock down a set of tasks:

1) Are you competent—does the individual arrive with the necessary skills to do the job?

2) Are you affordable—will you create rather than consume value given how much you are paid?

3) Are you a culture fit—do your needs, work style, and world view remove or add friction to the work environment.

If you agree with those contrasting three points as a premise, you can see where loyalty can become an issue, because both sides don’t want the same thing, beginning with tenure and commitment. The individual is idealistic, human, fragile, creative, hungry, in search of self-realization and interpersonal relationships, emotional bonds that can be reciprocal. The company is pragmatic, an inorganic construct that is valued on metrics by objective third-party measures that are entirely unforgiving of missed opportunities in the form of creative destruction. Individual rewards can be intrinsic (good feelings) as well as extrinsic (take home pay), while corporations and their owners are rewarded on a much simpler scorecard by the optimized deployment of capital and management of risk, often avoiding complex human interplay in pursuit of a level playing field and legal fairness.

You can’t have a puzzle without puzzle pieces, but getting the puzzle pieces it fit in real-time is no small challenge. Hence the nuts and bolts that often don’t snap into place:

• You want interesting and fulfilling work. The company wants you to do what you have proven you do best. You may want to grow, they may want to pigeonhole you.

• You think you’re worth more. They want to pay you less, but more than that, not disturb the status quo for the pay grade into which you fit. If you get a raise, others will come asking, no matter how quiet you promise to be. Leaks are everywhere, because confidential knowledge exchange inside companies is a currency all its own.

• You want to be you, not wear a suit of conformity. They say they want out-of-the-box thinkers, but only if they play nicely. People are who they are, not who the company wants them to be. Both individuals and companies know they must change to survive, but naturally resist it. Creativity is not nice.

Starting to see the problem about how hard loyalty is on both sides of the equation? Now let’s think about some ways to close the gap. Let’s go outside the corporation for a proxy, to those we love rather than those beside whom we labor.

Any sense of loyalty within a family or among friends has less to do with a verbal pledge than it has to do with shared values. We don’t choose our families, but we choose our trust levels, often on the basis of belief sets. We do choose our friends, initially on the basis of common interests, but over periods of time those interests bridge to commonalities of caring. When values are shared and reinforced, bonding is enhanced, we have reason to heal more quickly from conflict. When values are misaligned, it is much less painful to sever a relationship, sometimes with notions or actions that can be punitive.

Values are not necessarily unique to people (and no, companies are not people, if you think that, you never worked for a real one). Too many companies state their values in their mission statement, then file it in Human Resources or post it somewhere obscure in the About Us or Recruiting sections of their website.

Believe it or not, some companies take their values very seriously. I have worked for companies where core values were a big deal and discussed all the time, and I have worked for those where they never came up except for copy approval in a brochure. You can often tell when you hear senior executives speak publicly about their companies, they lead by example and choose their words deliberately not for public relations, but for accurate representation of the company culture they champion. They know a company is just an artificial bureaucracy meant to produce profit, but they want it to be more and are willing to reach beyond the bounds of the normal to make that happen. If you don’t see a reflection of the values that matter to you in the vision of a company’s leading evangelists, I promise you it won’t get any better deeper in the organization.

Values—integrity, honesty, customer service, creativity, responsibility, intelligence, diversity, compassion, respect—can’t be faked. If a company treats its public image as a distinct entity from its actual operating behavior, turnover will be high. That might be okay for you if all you want is a paycheck for as long as it lasts, but just like a company cannot be something it is not, you cannot will it to be something it only pretends to be. You need to know what those values are, and whether they are words or realities. If you get a fit, there’s a chance that loyalty can happen. At the very least, the relationships you build will be more likely to follow you through your career than the accrued value of a pension.

A final word for now on values, loyalty, knowing when to stay and when to go—one of the first truly important maxims I learned in business was that given a choice, most employees don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. Let’s end there.

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A Little More, A Little Less

To help bring in the New Year, here is a quick punch list of what I would like to see a little more of and a little less of in 2012.  These are not meant to be far-reaching or prophetic ideals, just small steps we can choose to make concrete in and out of business to “advance the brand” ever so slightly each day.  Please feel free to stretch the list and add your “asks” in the comments section.

For starters…

A little more focus on sustainable job creation with decent paying gigs for those who want to work; a little less badgering of the unemployed who are nobly trying to spring themselves back into action.

A little more attention to world-class customer service that shows true respect for those who pay the bills; a little less maneuvering in the shadows to squeeze unwarranted improvements in margin by taking advantage of customer patience and goodwill with hidden garbage.

A little more good theater onstage; a little less awful theater everywhere else.

A little more listening to creative thinking before blurting out that it won’t work; a little less condemnation of those who are carrying the bag before questioning their character.

A little more pay down of available credit by all borrowers; a little less concern with things we don’t have and might like, but can live without no problem.

A little more conservation of the Earth’s precious and limited resources; a little less right to entitlement via purchase power.

A little more earnings from growth and investment in the enterprise; a little less cap on hiring while stockpiling cash reserves.

A little more commitment to making broad education a national priority; a little less earthquake type each time a professional athlete signs a seven-figure contract.

And then…

A little less spotlight on celebrities and their personal dramas; a little more celebration of everyday unsung heroes who quietly make our world better just doing what they do.

A little less fireworks around award shows for mediocre creative work; a little more visionary creative work worth celebrating.

A little less self-aggrandized noise and plotted invective in media placement; a little more interesting dialogue and engaging discussion in the public square.

A little less “them” where rhetoric is an intentional tactic of divisiveness; a little more “us” where national pride and humility are shared values.

A little less last-minute antics in Congress where critical deadlines loom; a little more thoughtful strategic planning around long-term solutions demanded by voters.

A little less concern around titles and press releases; a little more measurable goal achievement and personal job satisfaction.

A little less built to flip and business as usual; a little more built to last and Think Different.

A little less criticism of people who look, talk, and behave differently from our routine; a little more tolerance of diversity that opens the door to understanding — on that last one, maybe a lot more.

Okay, that’s my zapping of the spark plugs.  What’s yours?

Thank you for welcoming Corporate Intelligence Radio in its first year and all your great comments (private as well as public) in our shared exploration of how to make work matter more.  Together we can make 2012 a turning point.  Why not?

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What to Give Your Boss as a Holiday Gift

Office gift exchange can be a nightmare, especially when it’s your boss.  Believe me, I know, it’s as hard to give as it is to receive.  The ritual is uncomfortable, filled with anxiety and trepidation.  Most everyone wishes it would just go away — let work be work, gifts are for the kids, right?

Let me share with you a personal anecdote, and then an unlikely bit of advice about what I think your current boss really wants from you on the gift list.  Then I will share an idea about how to make the holidays even more satisfying with one of my personal favorite “work things” to do this time of year.

Somewhere along the way I acquired more than a passing interest in wine, and as people with a passion for something have a tendency to do, I talk about it from time to time.  I will try not to bore you with the details, but when we lived in Northern California we ventured to Napa and Sonoma on weekend drives, and that is where I began to discover the creative process behind wine is like art, poetry, and storytelling blended metaphysically with supply chain economics, agriculture, and marketing.  With my obsession around the marriage of technology and media (show + business + bits + capital), the real world metaphor of wine was a perfect diversion for me, a subject of endless study.  The more I studied every aspect of the vineyard, the more I talked about it.

Oh, those frightened employees!  How pretentious!  How intimidating!  Now we have to spend a week’s pay on a bottle just to avoid a CLM (Career Limiting Move) every holiday season.  Nightmare on Goldstein Street!

Nope, not at all.  Never asked for a bottle, never expected a bottle, and when I would get one, if it was pricey, I would donate the value of the bottle to charity and nicely advise the giver to please lighten the wallet load in the future.

Yet whenever I did get a bottle as a gift from an employee, here is what I would do — I would write his or her name on the label and the date of the gift, then store it in a closet, which eventually evolved into a more formal wine cellar.  There it would sit in the dark (luckily, my chatter reinforced my predisposition for reds, which even if they don’t age well, usually hold up if stored decently).  Then, years later, on random occasions, I retrieve the bottle because I have a taste for it, almost always forgetting who gave it to me.  That’s when I look at the label, smile, enjoy the wine, and I do my very best to find an email address or phone number for the person who gave me that bottle and I get in touch — to thank them again, to tell them the wine was good (it always is), to see how their career is going, to see how their family is doing, just to reconnect.  It’s an excuse to recapture a great slice of life, and that brings the gift full circle.

Some of you reading this have received those calls or emails from me.  Some of you haven’t because I can’t find you, but most of you haven’t because the wine is still down in the cellar and you will — sooner or later, you won’t escape.  That’s what makes the gift unique.

So if someone gives you a bottle of wine, no matter the circumstances, try the same trick, and wait as long as you can before you reach for the stored bottle, let time pass, and then open that bottle as a way to remember that person, and an excuse to reconnect with them.  You will be surprised how much fun this is, how gratifying it is, and what a great sense of continuity it brings in tying together seemingly unrelated chapters of your life as your network of colleagues expands across the globe and lives their lives with all the ups and downs we all experience.

Okay, that was the anecdote, but it was for illustrative purposes only.  This post is not about wine shopping or storage.  Let me tell you now what your boss really wants most from you for the holidays:

A better relationship.

It’s the same thing your boss wants with you all year long.  It’s the same thing you want with your boss.  You don’t need a bottle of wine to get there.  A kind note will do.

Want to know another secret?  If you write your boss a kind note at the holidays solely for the purpose of improving your relationship, your boss is likely to save that note, just like a bottle of wine.  This is not about sucking up, office politics, or any other hallway chatter you are better off avoiding — if you don’t want to do it, you should not, it is not a job requirement.  Of course your boss may not be the shiniest object in the room, perhaps you even think he or she is a nasty freak who is out to get you.  That might be true, but in case you haven’t already figured it out, bosses knows they make mistakes all the time, they worry about it, they feel terribly about it, and most of them wish you didn’t think they were out to get you.  You might prefer to fill a turquoise Tiffany box with treasures you can leave on the boss’s desk to faking a kind note, and if that is the case, you should do neither.  A wrapped gift is only a token of expression, a means to outreach, so if there is no outreach, don’t bother, you’re wasting your money.  You can give a gift, you can not give a gift, honestly I don’t think it will get you off the S-List, nor will it lead you to unwarranted promotion.  Good bosses are smarter than that, and they know the rules.

The holidays are an opportunity for reflection on all fronts.  If you do use this time of reflection to build a relationship, to settle a difficult matter of the past, to ask a candid question about how you could be doing better, to tell your boss what you like about your job, that could be a path to bonding with lasting value — and by lasting, I mean years beyond the job you currently have.  I stay in touch with some employees for decades — not all of them, but surely the ones with whom I built a relationship.  That door is open for you now, you just have to decide if you want to walk through it and have a conversation.  Hierarchies are one directional, no question about that.  Relationships cut two ways.  Hierarchies are determined by corporations with documents on record in the HR department.  Relationships are determined by people, no files at all.

This leads to my final point: What about that former boss, the one you never did give a bottle of wine or a note?  Surprise that person!  Email them as if you opened the bottle of wine and saw his or her name on it.  Tell that old boss what you are doing, how’s the spouse, the kids, the dog, the job, the retirement, the untenable new boss with whom you wish you could have a relationship.  We used to do this with Holiday Cards, and some people still do with photos of the family sitting under a palm tree on their summer vacation in Tahiti.  No one has time to write all those notes anymore — we are a busy, wired, short attention span theater crowd that communicates more efficiently on Facebook, Twitter, and in blog comments.  So just pick one each year, and see what’s there.  You will be surprised.

Whether your long-ago boss or your current one, believe me, he or she doesn’t want you to spend your hard-earned money on them.  They do want to know how you are doing.  That is a gift that is as priceless as it is ageless.

Celebrate the day, keep peace in your heart, wish for a better world and do your best to make it so!