The Play-by-Play Man vs. Color Commentary

Ghost Writer comments on "Excuseorizing" while Marti goes to invent a new word for us to use inappropriately in the future.
    I'm the luckiest HR Leader alive.  I get to write this Blog with the most colorful color commentator in the blog-o-sphere, Ms. Marti Nelson.  When she sets me up with material like "Excuseorizing", it's like having a pitcher throw one straight across the plate to my Louisville Slugger.  I can't help but swing and try to hit it.
    So as an HR Leader, what do you do with an Excuseorizer?  As always, your Ghost Writer has the play-by-play.
1.  Nip it!  Let's face it, delivering excuseorizing-inspiring feedback isn't the most pleasant day at the office.  As an HR Leader providing feedback, you need this person to hear what you're saying, or you wouldn't put yourself through the pain of delivering said feedback. So when you hear an excuseorizing discourse from the recipient of the feedback, nip it in the bud.  Call it, gently, for what it is.  For example, "I understand you don't think this is (insert recap of excuseorization here).  However, this is what I see, and if this (real issue) isn't addressed, you will continue to receive feedback on this as you are not (enter recap of issue here and highlight real of potential consequences).  The person will continue to excuseorize, but at least you nipped it and provided fair warning.
2.  Call it!  Hand them the EAP pamphlet, the ethics number, the angry employee number and say, "Call it.  I believe this is fair and substantive feedback, but this is your recourse.  Use it."  I love telling someone to turn me in to an authority.  It's like saying, "So go tell mom!  I'm right!"  Marti will now hate me for saying this as HR Leaders who do this create something she has to investigate, but alas!  At least she (or someone of HR Management form) will know that real feedback got given.  Reach out proactively to said HR Manager and give him/her the heads-up you have an excuseorizer potentially headed for his/her desk.
3.  Provide perspective.  At the end of the conversation, make sure the excuseorizer understands that giving feedback is your job.  What to do with it is the excuseorizer's job.  That person has three options:  Accept the feedback in whole and do something about it, accept part of it and do something about the part he/she views is in his/her control, or reject it all and accept the consequences of that.  But make it clear, what to do with the feedback is his/her job.
4.  Provide another perspective.  Make sure the excuseorizer knows what "better" looks like.  If you don't, then the change you get might not be the change you were hoping for by giving the feedback.
    Hope this helps make Excuseorizer part of the HR lexicon as well as creates a simple play for you to call in your local game.
    Play ball!

Excuseorizing

Yes, it is the newest fashion in management accountability. If your boss comes to you and tells you that you didn't get something done properly, don't just let feedback sit there loooking plain and lonely. Take the time to excuseorize it. You too can be prone to attribution and provide all of the ego protecting reasons why your feedback is just not pretty enough to be taken seriously. Your feedback might look nice in a "nobody else has to do this" necklace with a matching pair of "this isn't fair" earrings. You might need to add some, "I feel harassed" bracelets and an attractive "they have it out to get me" ring. Now if your feedback happens to be an annual review, don't worrying, you can get excuseories proportional to the enormity of this annual event. We recommend the "they don't have the right to judge me" bow tie with matching "it's not my fault" vest. Your feedback will look smashing wrapped in the "I wasn't trained enough" tux. If you just aren't sure how to really make your feedback stand out, call around to your coworkers to tell them about your feedback. They can give you all of the best ways to excuseorize it. After all, they didn't have to control the measures at their location. Your feedback needs to dress up in the finest "management is out to get me" shoes with the matching "they are trying to force me out" handbag. Really good feedback, like your little black dress, deserves the "I have a lawyer" shawl and maybe a "I called the government" tiara. Make sure your feedback gets the public attention it so desperately deserves and excuseorize it today!

Fair is a Time in August

Yes, and every County has one. My Mother said this often and even offered to show us where it would happen. Any time we would grouse about things that did not go our way, she would remind us that life is not fair. Fairness is a contrivance of humanity. Nature is inherently unfair. The animal born with a deformity, who cannot run as fast or jump as high gets eaten by predators. Please do not give me the line that humanity has evolved past this point. I don't need socialist platitudes spoiling this rant. Try being in HR and going a day without someone wanting you to wave a magic wand of self satisfying fairness for them. There is a total lack of understanding that true fairness is clinical and impersonal. In Orwell's 1984, he makes an effort to point out that we must all become our lowest common denominator to make way for the brutal consistency required to be fair. Interestingly, rugged individualism is a daily staple of American behavior, until some entitlement driven "individual" doesn't get their way. We have abandoned the notion that we each bear the responsibility to respond to our environment and be self aware. When things aren't going our way, the appropriate response would be self reflection and planned action. Philosophers and belief systems focus on these behaviors as the means to peace and happiness. This rant ends with the simple reminder that it isn't all about you or me. It's about what we do to figure it out without expecting everyone to be exactly the same. Remember fair is an event. Life is messy and ongoing.
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Blogger Beware

Blogging for me is an outlet for my opinions that aren't fit for primetime. It is great that a handful of folks tune in to see what will come next. As a member of the TV generation, random episodes with twists and turns fit our upbringing. Hey, at least we us complete sentences. If U R from that next gen, run a phonetic translator and let's get on with the show. My blogger comrades need to be aware that they should not believe their ability to post an opinion makes them more than someone willing to expose their ideas to public review. I came across this loose quote from Hubert Humphrey that sums it up, "The right to be heard does not automatically come with the right to be taken seriously.". For those of us that would like to be taken less seriously in every avenue except our professional expertise, keep putting it out there!
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Effective versus Efficient - Ghost Writer's 4 a.m. Perspective

A few weeks ago Marti wrote a 4 a.m. Blog from a hotel bed where she couldn't sleep. In her sleepless state, Marti questioned why we all come to work at all. Why not find something that felt less like work? Or maybe, more appropriately, less like sword-falling, useless rock pushing (ala Sisyphus), and general waste of intellect?

Well, here is her Ghost Writer pal joining her on the 4 a.m. and second night with bad sleep rant with a new slant. Why don't we consider effectiveness AND efficiency when we make decisions regarding employees and work structures?

My case in point. Here I lie in a third world city's hotel bed. The better of the two I've had in this country, but I can't sleep. Too hot. But why am I in this bed at all? Efficient use of company funds. It was "cheaper" to use this city's airport than that city's. However, after spending 8+ hours in cars driven by people rolling down windows and asking directions and watching my Google Map app save the day (again), I can definitely say it was an ineffective use of my time. This is a tale most business travelers know well.

But there is a bigger lesson for us HR Leaders than the Ghost Writer whining uselessly about travel budgets. How often do we construct jobs based on efficient use of money but leave or employees in ineffective positions as a result? How often do we let effective management get in the may of maximum efficiency for our employees? Or the biggest crime of all -- how often do we let our perceptions of company infrastructure and/or policy lead us to hamstring either our employees or our own efficiency and effectiveness altogether?

When making decisions about how something is going to get done, consider these questions. And best yet, consider these questions with a group of people, including employees.
1. What is the most efficient use of all resources involved?
2. What assumptions am I making in statement 1? Question these! Even if the answer seems obvious.
3. Questions 1 and 2 with effective instead of efficient.
4. Document and enact the best option.
5. Communicate! Use the answers to questions 1 and 2 to help people understand this was a thought-out decision, and while it makes some effectiveness versus efficiency trade-offs, it's the best currently available option.

Having a process for questioning effectiveness and efficiency certainly beats lying in bed blogging about it. My best to you in finding a more effective and efficient process -- and a good night's rest.

The Wizard

Remember the old grocery stores with the manager's office overlooking the sales floor? A grumpy guy in a white shirt and tie slide open a window, hollers a name, points and waves them up. The employees learn that voice from overhead pages supposedly intended to be communication and coaching. New hires get this guys name from the print out at the top of the receipts. The boss is the stuff of legend. Most of us have seen the classic movie, "The Wizard of Oz". Everyone but a small terrier is afraid of this guy. Why? He is the great unknown. A booming voice barking and belching smoke with the ability to judge and punish. He must be very special and dangerous, because no one was allowed to see him. Is that someone you want to work with? Is it someone you currently work with? Or, are you the wizard? Do you really want to be feared, when fear comes with hate and negative behavior? What results could you achieve if you pull back the curtain and connect with people? Are you ready to be bold enough to expose your wizard? He was actually a good guy once someone called him out and he let them behind the curtain. Management is a people proposition. If you hate people, quit torturing yourself and others and get out of management.
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Engagement

In the book, "One Foot Out The Door", by Judith Bardwick, we learn that employee satisfaction is not the responsibility of the employer. Companies cannot afford entitlement mentalities. What we need is people proud to work for us and who feel the work matters. The most interesting take away for me was the employees need to earn positive responses from the company. It was an 'aha' moment for me on several levels. Do we really think that we need to earn anything but a pay check from our company? Let's think about it. Sometimes we win when the guy at the top stops tall even if we had to kneel down to hold him up. How we see that guy (admiration or anonymity) determines if we will kneel. It even determines how long we will continue to hold on. How do the people below you in the pyramid feel about you? Will they hold on? Do you really think you can order them to do it? What really motivates the holders to do it? Of course, there are additional components regarding tools and teams, but this is already a lot to think about.
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Shut up and Drink the Kool-Aid

Ghost Writer has absolutely no endorsement from the makers of Kool-Aid for this blog post, and yes, the title is a reference to a sad cult mass death a number of years ago. 

    Culture.  Ahhhh... the modern HR Leader's and Manager's equivalent of the Holy Grail.  We seek to build culture.  We seek, at the pinnacle of that building, to have an engaged culture.  Which in turn creates these massively successful companies where we all dream of working happily along side of each other like so many Santa's elves or Snow White's dwarves.  "Whistle while you work, twee-eet, tweet, tweet..."  You get the picture. 
    So we survey our employees to make sure we have this amazing, engaged, results-generating culture, and have action planning meetings, or as I like to say, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid already."  My colleague said it even better recently, "I've long ago learned that the higher I rate my boss on the culture survey, the less work I have to do when the results come back." 
    This leads me to two hypotheses.  One, the survey loses its power to measure change and aid in developing real culture shifts when those taking the survey learn "the right answer".  Two, those employees who wait for the survey to whine about his/her manager aren't really worth worrying about anyway. 
    Psychologists have done a marvelous job of documenting the stimulus-response patterns in human and animal behavior.  I'm certainly no expert on this topic, but after a while of culture surveying, employees get the message.  However it may not be the one the company wishes it had sent.  The company wants the employee to hear, "We care about you.  Give us feedback by doing this anonymous survey and then participate in helping us make the place better."  The employee hears, after years of these surveys, "If I answer the questions right, you won't bug me, and I can go back to doing my work and that of the three people laid-off in the last downsizing."  Or in the case of my colleague, "If I answer these questions in a way that makes my boss look like a rock star, I don't have to help him change which means I have time to do my job which really does make him look like a rock star."
    Related to the second hypothesis, the employee who waits for the survey to bring attention what he/she is not getting from the boss doesn't understand a high-performance culture in the first place.  These are people either disengaged in proactive career management, i.e. actively engaging him or her self in the workplace, or just live life as a passive-aggressive.  Either way, why are we pandering to them through an expensive survey and then the action planning process to "improve" the results?  Does this come back to my blog on policies only applying to 3% of the workforce?  Are these surveys to get this 3% of passive-aggressive/non-self-managers to speak up about what they need at work?  I feel my desire to install shock collars coming on again.
    So as the company puts another round of the culture surveys through your world, just remember, as Marti has sagely pointed out, we're all sales people.  Sell the company message of caring, because most employers really do need the best from each person on the team, passive-aggressive or otherwise.  However, feel free to get a laugh when you do yours by thinking, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid" or some other pithy comment worthy of a laugh.

Momma's Always Right

Ghost Writer tips her hat to Momma while Marti checks out the billboards.

 

    Much like the author of "Everything I need to know I learned in Kindegarten", I am forever impressed with how many things my mother taught me that apply to the world of business and leading a good life. 

    On organization:  "Put it back where you got it, and you'd know where to find it."

    On time:  "Set your alarm.  Don't be late."

    On courtesy:  "Say please and thank you."

    On self-care:  "Get to bed on time.  You have an early day tomorrow."

    On attendance:  "If you're not throwing up or have a fever, get your butt to school."

    On work ethic:  "They're paying you.  Now get to work!"

    There are probably several more -- I'm forever quoting Momma at work.  Here's to my Momma and all the mothers that provide us sage HR Leader advice without knowing it.  Happy Mother's Day! 

Feed and Firearms

Welcome to the musings of a car bound road warrior. In my travels up Interstate 69 through a great mix of livestock and grain farms it was hard to believe I was only 60 miles from the north suburbs of a major metropolitan complex. In between cell phone calls about any number of crises, concerns and dilemmas, the time is passed reading billboards. One struck me as indicative of rural America, the way most of our country's real estate is used and most of her people live their lives. It was for a Feed store, but at first it seemed like a restaurant. Sort of like "Eat at Joes" for cattle. They had feed, pet supplies, sundries and, of course, firearms (with the assumption they have items to feed the firearms). If you are from a place where even some of the girls take off a week of school at the start of deer season, this is extremely logical. Let me walk the rest of you all through it real quick. The stores is generally 50 or miles from the farm, farm critters eat a lot more than your Rotweiler. When you have to get supplies, you want to be efficient. When you have 200 acres, you also need to help control the populations of certain wild life including some tasty, edible ones. There you go, feed and firearms. If you don't get this and don't like guns, good, stay in the city where the police carry them for you. However, keep your opinions out of our farms.

Selling

Remember the quote, "All the world's a stage and we are all merely players"? I think this is attributed to Shakespeare. Good actors sell their characters and bring the audience into their world. All of us sell in our work. We are looking for others to buy in, whether it is getting the boss to give us a good review to get more money or getting others to go along with our ideas. Human Resources involves many sales functions that are obvious, benefits enrollment, recruiting, on-boarding, and promoting. The less obvious ones are called Employee Relations and Change Management. Managing upset employees to get them to understand and move forward past the issue, can be problematic and requires many "sales calls" to resolve some concerns. Now we are the keepers of change management. Helping overworked managers and resistant employees to come along with the latest plan. The difference for us is that the outlying folks get dragged along for the ride providing a consistent dissenting voice to the effort. These daily interactions and processes hardly seem like selling. I have personally said that I would stink at sales, but I do it everyday without thinking about it. The worst part is that you must continue to sell to all levels of the business all of the time. There is not really a process where they want you to give honest feedback. Multiple recent attempts have only met with negative reactions and angering results. Sitting across from a coworker Friday I finally figured it out. My job is to make a pile of crap look like a pile of leaves so everyone wants to jump in. And I mean EVERYONE!