How Do You Carry Yourself?

I was listening to the radio on the drive home from the office tonight. It is one of the touchy feely stations that was playing Christmas music two days ago and now has the mellow music and call-in stories. A sixteen-year-old girl was interviewed who had chosen to work at Children's Hospital during the Christmas holiday from school. She ended her story by saying that today as she walked down the hall, she found her self walking with her head held high. She said she usually walked around looking at the ground. It took an altruistic deed to get her to realize how she presented herself to the world. How do you carry yourself? Do you check your posture, mannerisms, handshake? How much attention do you give to your clothing, hair, nails? What do you look like when you are under the weather? How do you carry yourself, when you are upset, angry, tired, happy? Several years ago, I read a book called "Lions Don't Need to Roar". While reading it, I realized that we are rarely aware of our physical state. There is a distinct benefit to looking people in the eye, giving a firm handshake, looking up as you walk, and connecting with the people around you. Clean hair in a neat style, properly fit and pressed clothes also allow people around you to connect. If you think that you are giving in to the "man" or conforming, so you have to continue with the purple dread locks and the pants hanging off your butt, you are missing out on connecting with a lot of people. You can fit in and still be yourself. The most elegant people add their own touches to classic looks. Being good to others also helps our confidence and gives us more reasons to meet others eye-to-eye. When we can give our time and energy to something outside ourselves we gain a sense of our positive impact on our world. Take the time to notice how you carry yourself during different situations adn at various times of the day. You are likely to find that your posture and mannerisms are affecting your emotions and reactions. When these reactions don't work for you, stand up straight, hold your head up, take a deep, slow breath and get your mind right.

Holiday Philosophy

Today, Pastor Romper Room, the one that asks us to repeat words like we need help growing our vocabulary, talked about the Magi visiting Jesus. Yes, this is religion folks. Number one remember that the king at the time was a bad dude. Herod killed his mother, wife and three of his sons. He was a paranoid with a clear understanding that God was sending a divine king and it could happen during his reign. A group of scholarly astronomers following an anomalous star that seemed to match up to some stories about a future king. This is where my tangent begins. Science today is lacking something that the Magi understood. There is a connection between science and belief that was strong when our science was new and our belief was old. The comfort of a divine caregiver and a secure afterlife allowed safe exploration of the unknown things in the world. The unknown belonged in the same safe realm where we live watched over by the same greater power. Now belief has passed and is like a ghost to so many. Science prevailed and is considered the prover of what to believe. We were better suied to science driven by belief. The focuse was more altruistic and based in principle. Those that studied scientific pursuites enjoyed the comfort of foregiveness and a safe afterlife for their well intentioned curiosity. The Magi found Christ in this science. Today, science along leads to the bleak prospect of a dark extinguished death buried in a cold earth or turned to ashes in a jar. Our spirit and deeds lost forever unless others put a value on some part of them and make a record. Man's deeds and activities are directed at creating meaning. Humans have an instinctive flaw to seek meaning outside of satisfying our physical needs. The more we seek that meaning, the further we get from our instinct and internal integrity. Our compass continues to provide a direction, however, we have forgotten how to access it. My point here is to find your compass. We can have incredible science grown inside belief of the unseen and magical.

Feedback and Reflection

We do a lot of things in a search for understanding. Whether we want to see things through others' eyes or simply to be understood ourselves. The world gives us infinite amounts of input designed to guide and protect us. Our friends, enemies, colleagues, and family provide us with advice and reactions designed to direct our behavior. The important thing to keep in mind is that this guidance all comes from their frame of reference and their personal reality. We do not have a responsibility to validate their reality by altering our own. When you get feedback, think it over, reflect. Choose what you acccept, what you reject, and what you will act upon. No matter how much you respect the person delivering the message, take it under advisement and review how it fits. You are the only person protecting you from the resentment and frustration of trying to be something you aren't just to make someone else happy. Reflection does not require direct feedback from people around and not everyone that gives you feedback is trying to change you. They key is to pay attention and make your own decisions. The world gives us cues about our state that merit a response. Slow down enough to let your environment speak to you, sort out the junk and act in harmony with your higher self.

The One With the Most Balls Wins

This is not a bad play on Christmas Tree Ornaments. I was watching a bad game show for children and their misguided parents called Hole In The Wall. When the game ends in a tie, the way to win is to jump through the final "hoop" with as many plastic balls as possible without leaving the game area or being dumped in the pool behind you. It struck me that this game is very similar to what gets rewarded and condemned in business. When you come out on top, the kid with the most balls, you are the hero. The risks are rewarded with praise and opportunity. When the wall sweeps you into the pool, you come out a wet loser. Same game, same risk, huge difference in the reward. Companies continue to let this zero sum game happen with their most highly motivated employees. We forget to give room for risk-taking that leads to high returns and innovation. These folks have to be able to fall down without fear. Unfortunately, HR often leads the charge of wretchid mediocrity by insisting that missteps are evenly met with progressive documentation. The drive to be "fair", because everyone wants it to be fair, stifles the type of risk taking that grows businesses. You can't win big unless you gamble big. You won't gamble big if you fear losing your reputation, livelihood and self-esteem. Now, what does it take for us to quit worrying about the whiners that want it all to be fair and let those with the most balls win?

All truths are easy to understand once the are discovered. The challenge is to discover them. Galileo

Year End Rant

Ghost Writer brings you her HR Leader rant, I mean perspective, on Compliance while Marti truncates another outlier.
    As an HR Leader, which means I'm a functional manager of some other something but have to get it done through people that may or may not report to me, I have to enforce existing systems and develop new ones all of which, of course, require compliance.  And there's a reason the cliche' "What gets measured gets done" exists -- it's true.
    So last January, yes that long ago month in the cruel dark middle of winter, I published TWO audit forms.  Yes, two.  One for compliance with a regulatory item.  One to evaluate a system that supports process improvement.  This is like a college student hearing from his or her professor, "This is the final exam.  Exactly as it will be presented to you at the end of the class.  Please, please, please read it, study it, know what you need to answer these questions with your book closed, and I will pass you."  Which one of us in college would have loved to have that gig?!  ME!  And everyone else...
    The sites I work with sign up for audits to these two forms at various times throughout the year.  Inevitably, there are a gaggle of them crammed into the last two weeks of the year.  Did they really believe I wasn't showing up?  Apparently. 
    The first site of the year was well prepared.  Led by a sage of some 30 years of experience, he read both tests, and even said during the compliance review, "I saw what was on the audit and entered some items into our system to demonstrate we were doing it."  While not sexy, it's clear he knew that the task was important, read the test, and prepared for it.  [His bar will be next year when I check to see whether it was done consistently throughout the year, or just did a few to seed the deck for audits.  I know this game, but I appreciate his honesty all the same.]
    The next two sites have had these two items being audited for some time.  The regulatory item was in good shape.  The internal system showed lack of closure.  Ok, I can live with that.  Crap happens, and the kids leave the door open after running into the house to gain shelter from a storm, too, inherently rendering the house vulnerable to said weather, but I digress... 
    Then we get to the mid-year site -- she's also a sage of some 30 years experience, but she was lulled by her success on series of polite customer audits that went in her favor.  Three hours into an eight hour audit, I walked out.  There was nothing to audit.  The test hadn't been read.  There was nothing prepared.  Game over.  THIS WAS THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF SUMMER!  One, 6 months existed to read the test and prepare.  Two, she had access to the results from the prior three site's reports.  [Did I mention these audits are posted on an intranet site, and every time the results of an audit are posted, an email goes out to the peers responsible for these systems?  Not exactly top secret.  So now you know the truth -- they get the test up front, get to see other people's results, and still fail.  Really?]
    Summer fades to Fall.  Winter slams into us from Canada on a screaming Alberta Clipper, and here we are.  The last three sites for the year crammed into one week.  Each site whines about what upstream internal suppliers aren't doing right while I'm saying, "But you aren't taking care of yourself!"  Yes, indeed, these three shining examples of manufacturing excellence all failed both the regulatory and the process audit.  Failed it in smashing fashion after 12 months and four examples of what to do/not to do. 
    As an HR Leader, I can rant about them behind their backs in this Ghost Writer format and get out a little energy, but in reality, I'm mad at me, too.  Really mad!  What did I do to make these people think I wasn't serious?  What did I do enable this type of decay?  It's all the boss' fault, after all, isn't it?  So now I get to start the business of serious personal reflection on how to change my behavior such that they see a coherence between what I say and what I do and what I expect and what I measure.
    ... or I buy them all shock collars for Christmas... Merry Christmas to all!

Some Days are Really Hard

4 hours in a room with 2 lawyers and a court reporter talking about something you don't remember is only the beginning. Now you try to salvage the remainder of your day only to be confronted by poor judgment leading to a full blown investigation bleeding into the recruiting process combined with 3 other investigations and a nuisance call. Surrender and get fast food while you drive homee. Get the wrong dinner and discover that error 15 miles from the restaurant. Give up and eat something you would NEVER order. Reach out to your leadership for support for the second day without a reply. Have a good cry and then another good cry. Call your spouse, then cry some more. Thank him for tolerating your lameness. Continue the three hour drive home. Call a friend in another time zone and finally find your Zen again. Emotions are our purest instinct and the home of our integrity. There is always a breaking point where our instinct tells us we can't continue without jeopardizing ourselves. That is where the "good cry" comes from. We have a need to protect our mental health and our fragile ego from the onslaught of humanity around us. A while back I wrote about the fact that the boss is human and that applies to hard days. Our human brains will eventually give up, no matter how lofty our job title. When it happens, we usually hide and work past it. Today, I came to the epiphany that this too shall pass. There is nothing for me to control that will fix it today. Tomorrow, the things I can control will get better and the remainder truly rests on someone else's shoulders. Some days are just really hard. Have a beer and a piece a chocolate!

Chutes and Ladders

This message brought to you by the Ghost Writer while Marti prevents the Grinch from stealing Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Ramadan, or whatever holiday you're into or not into this month.

 

    Chutes and Ladders -- the climbing, counting and sliding fun children's game no longer enjoys the same popularity it did in my 1970-something childhood, but it does serve as a metaphor for careers and quite possibly life in general.  For those of you unfamiliar with the game, a player starts in the lower right hand corner of the board and slowly but surely works toward the upper left corner where the person who executed a better strategy, and/or experienced less bad luck, beats the opponents. 

    So I started my career at the lower right hand corner of the board with a peer group that started about the same time and about the same age.  We saw ladders everywhere and start climbing.  Focused climbing.  Trying to beat out our peers to the next ladder or, in more competitive work environments, choking back a smile when the competitor hit a chute others strategically avoided. 

    Fast forward 10 or 15 years.  It feels suddenly like the strongest of the peer group converged on a single ladder, and there are chutes EVERYWHERE.  Where did those come from?  A career that started with a seemingly limitless supply of ladders and a solid floor now feels like a shaky platform with one way up and a field of ways down. 

    And the player is left with a lot of questions at this point.  Is that ladder worth climbing?  Do I like where that ladder leads?  Do I care if I win this game anymore?  Do I want to do what it takes to climb that ladder?  In my case, all of these questions resulted in a resounding, "No!"  Climbing that last ladder would have meant amputating my limitless energy and becoming a sheep in a herd of them.  (Not to mention a sex change might have helped in that company.)  The other dawning realization is the fact these questions deserve a thoughtful answer.  In our early careers did we ever even pause to think, "I won't do that to climb a ladder"?  It was never a thought.  Welcome to mid-career.

    As HR Leaders, and those who read People Platform regularly know I'm all about that label, what are we doing with our mid-career employees to help them ask and answer those questions?  Not in the heat of the moment when the employee isn't performing or creating a poor life quality performing quite well, but what are we doing pro-actively to help people look at the ladders and chutes available and choose among them?  

    My direct reports enjoy a space of frank conversation.  I ask a lot of questions.  I listen.  I offer options.  I never endorse a ladder or a chute, but I certainly am happy to analyze the ladders and chutes and help them answer their own questions.  Confronting the option not to climb can be scary, but with a compassionate HR Leader, this might be a better career mid-life... and possibly not a mid-life crisis.

    Reach out to your mid-career employees!  You could be the next professional Chutes and Ladders coach. 

   

 

Happy Freakin' Holiday

Four ways to suck the life out of the only cold weather holiday.

Number one - It is Christmas for me. What gave someone else permission to strip away my holiday? I have to wish everyone Happy Holiday because they are sad that their holiday isn't as popular as mine. God forbid that I miss someone's holiday and they get their undies in a bunch.
Number two - This is supposed to be a time of year to renew relationships and relax with family and friends. Instead, people run around getting presents, attending events and chasing around from house to house with barely enough time to see people open what we bought. Our pocket books are smaller and patience is shorter. Complaints go up and people make collosally bad decisions.
Number three - We eat more while trying to squeeze into our best outfits for church programs, holiday parties and seasonal reunions. Then we have the gaul to complain about all of the weight we gained during the time we suspended our better judgement for the sake of fudge.
Number four - What gives some people the right to create their own version of the South runway at the Ford airport? I'm all about some pretty lights and tasteful decor. However, if it takes 3 months to plan the layout, 1,000 bucks to rewire the service entrance and two weeks off work to decorate. Save the time next year and put the grand into therapy.

Bottom line - smooth out your undies, order some gift card online, priortize and turn down some events, watch what you eat cause your new year's resolution won't happen, and try a light wreath that is good for your bills and the environment.

Execution and Consistency

We could be referring to lethal injection or just the process of getting things done. We could also be referring to the viscosity of a liquid or the regularity with which something is accomplished in a particular manner. Really, we are just discussing the frightening lack of both general execution and consistency in meeting standards. Things like distributing the payroll budget, writing work schedules by the due date, and holding communication meetings seem simple. Not so. Whether I work with 90 locations or 16, you would think that these expectations are akin to lethal injection. Even more interesting, the vast number of excuses provided for not doing these things. My favorites include: I was waiting for a budget increase, schedules are done and I'll review them next week, and we communicated, I left them all notes somewhere on the desk. What will it take to get folks to do what is expected and do it regularly? One way is the "informational meeting" held every week for managers that aren't meeting standards, usually held after they have worked a full shift that day. Another is the "training call", held every week for those not meeting expectations usually held at an inconvenient time of day. These meetings or calls include a fun shout out section, where there is an opportunity to explain why we suck and how we will suck less next week. For the bosses trying to fix the execution and consistency issues, it is like the show "Grounded for Life". We are on punishment until our teams learn how to do their job correctly or accrue enough documentation to be invited to become a valued customer. I welcome any input that would increase the time to effectiveness for these efforts. It would be nice to get the viscosity closer to cake than batter.

Variety

Too much work and not enough play makes the manager a dull girl. Well, in my case, more demanding and likely to act out of frustration. Last week, the 12 to 14 hour days did not result in a sense of accomplishment. Instead, they revealed that the team still isn't doing basic compliance to standards and seasonal business makes them feel they have an excuse to fail in this area. There will be two extra trips now to find out how many more locations have failed to maintain their records to expectations. The spontaneous promotions to run seasonal locations are a level on the high maintenance scale that is unfathomable. Those folks thought they were ready to run a full location and they can't seem to make a decision on their own. Well, you can see why this is called variety, because I haven't had enough to talk about something else. Thankfully, my spouse steppped in to make things better. We went to the symphony and enjoyed the Carmina Barana. This is a Cantata that was by Orff, who adapted 24 poems out of 5,000 that were written in a monastery in the 1300s to adapt to choral/orchestral presentation. These are not your standard monastic poetry with some baudy and drunken stories thrown in the mix. Most of it is in Latin with some German for good measure. It was amazing to hear in person. That was Friday. Saturday was date night and it was time for Hockey. We enjoyed a good game, but it was the opposing team that played well. Our guys didn't hold their lanes and their passing was really bad. It was tough to watch. I personally have decided that those two guys weren't tripped, instead they stood on our players' sticks. At least one of them was called for diving. Now it is time to finish knitting my nieces Christmas gift, since I spent 4 hours on employee issues, new hires and expense reports on a Saturday. If any of you think that this time should have been spent working on Saturday, you need more variety. Tell me what your variety is.

Marriage Guide for Field Managers

It has taken a lot of time and frustration to figure out how to keep a marriage together, while travelling extensively for work. Here are some of the learnings that we have adopted to make things work. Please keep in mind that the spouse has to participate to make this work.

1. If I say I will leave work in 1/2 an hour, I'm lying whether I intended to or not.
2. If it looks like I control my schedule, remember that 1,000 other people are in charge. You will need to get them onboard to have dinner with me every night by 7pm. Get real, you won't have dinner with me every night, let alone by 7pm.
4. Living closer to my territory won't get me home earlier, but my boss appreciates that extra stuff I get done.
5. The great pay goes with the crappy hours and travel; remember to enjoy the nice house while you are waiting to guilt me out about the travel and hours.
6. I married you before I married my job, so please understand that polygamy is stressful, while remembering that you will always be my first.
7. With a job like this there is virtually no chance that I have time for an affair, so assume I am cheating on you with my job. Hate the job, not the worker.
8. In the end, I do the job because I like it, but I do you because I love you.
9. When all else fails, have a quarterly melt down that leads to make up sex. This ensures that we both get sex once a quarter.

If this guide is not helping create a sense of security in being a married field manager. Try being one or the other. After 19 years married and 6 in the field, we are really getting good at following the rules.

Choice

All things cycle and circle. Are you doing the hokie pokie and clapping your hands? Or are you a carnival pony strapped to a spindle bearing your burden as you walk in circles for the joy of others? Let's not even talk about the pony's view on that ride. Unlike the pony, you have freedom of choice. No one controls what you think without your consent. Decide to be in charge of you and practice until you get it right. "Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others."

Longing can be a gift if it causes you to seek.

Free Roaming

No this isn't a cell phone offer. I wonder why people think it is better to let the chicken forage for food than it is to feed the silly thing nutrition you can appreciate when they produce an egg. The brain cavity of your average chicken is pretty small and there is a good chance they would eat dirt out of convenience. Look around you at work. Can you allow the group to run free or will you have some eating dirt and other junk? The analogies are endless. I explained to a receiving team today about the electronic bunny at the dog track and how they put this trick bunny on a rail and get the dogs to chase it. Then I described that my day at work was like the dogs. The company puts out a bunny and says chase it, then I chase until I get tired and the bunny disappears into a wall. This is a mere derivation of the moving target we have discussed before. The real fun is in the idea that they now have you running in circles chasing the same objective every time. I like it better when it is a free roaming target and I get to reload from time to time. If you are wondering what the point of this post might possibly be, explain to me the purpose of 10 conference calls in one day. If you can make that make sense, I'll connect the dots on this post for you.

The Lost Art of Realism

Spend as much time as you would like blaming others for the feedback you receive, however, that feedback is their reality of you right now. When you receive a written warning, realistically, the company is unhappy with your job performance. Pay attention to the warning, instead of believing it will go away or it won't have a final consequence. The warnings are a requirement of today's litigious world to protect the company from their employees. The failure of your previous bosses to actually hold you to standards will not protect you from the one that intends to do it now. This is your livelihood and your responsibility to respond to the formal feedback from the company. It isn't a game that you want to lose due to lack of interest. A few posts ago, I said I would go out on my proverbial feet with my soul clearly intact. Don't leave in a jesters hat with only your incredulity to fuel your thoughts. If you prefer to gamble your job on the potential that someone won't follow through, good luck to you. There is one simple guarantee from me to you; your time for follow through is coming, stay frosty.

Shock collars?

This message brought to you by the Ghost Writer while Marti combats the impending December holidays for control of the chaos called retail.

 

I often contemplate Marti's blog, "Lighting a Manager on Fire and Other Illustrative Training Techniques".  [Does the period go inside or outside of the quotes?  That's a story for another blog, I think.]  Trying to get every leader to behave in a manner coherent with goals and values is a challenge.  As an HR Leader, I try to help them understand to create that altogether, potentially overrated, "buy-in" perceived to be critical in creating coherence.

 

Then I contemplate the other side of this -- Shock Collars and Other Means for Controlling Employee Behavior.  When confronted with the inevitably "why" question when someone does something he or she shouldn't, I say, "Lack of appropriate use of shock collars in the workplace."  Really?  Why does anyone do anything?  Because he or she COULD!  There's no room in "could" for "should" or "should not", "trained" or "not trained", "told" or "not told".  It's just because the person could.

 

So the tried-and-true next question is, "How do we make the process so the person can not do that?"  Well, that's where having wonderfully creative, intelligent, and free-will humans on the payroll hurts repeatability and reproducibility.  If we make it impossible for humans to think and act, then aren't we really just turning them into something they aren't?  A wise math teacher in the, then dawning computer age, said, "Let computers do what computers do and let people do what people do.  Computers are incredibly fast and accurate, but really stupid -- they only do what humans tell them to at most levels.  Humans are slow, inaccurate, and very smart."  I agree with this wise soul.  So is the logical follow-up question, "How do we make it so a human doesn't have to do anything related to that at all?"  And this is where we see success until...

 

"Why did the human ignore what the computer said he or she was supposted to do?"  And we're right back to the beginning of "could" and getting rid of that pesky "human element" in the process.

 

Have you heard the story of the perfect staffing solution?  The perfect staff has two employees:  a person and a dog.  The person is there to feed the dog and repair anything that breaks.  The dog is there to bite the person if the dog isn't fed or the person tries to touch anything that's not broken.

 

Is the moral of the story, "It's all about consequences"?  "Could" is really predicated on the absence of real and present consequences.  Each person's idea of a real and present consequence varies, and sadly, most of us only think of the term "consequences" in the negative connotation.  In a recent employee policy conversation, a colleague said, "These are for the 3% of the population who really need managed.  The rest get it."  Hmmm... wow.  The logical implication of this is we spend 97% of our time managing 3% of the workforce, and most of us have heard this before.

 

So here's my new, radical idea, let's identify the 3%, put shock collars on them and quit wasting our time on policies, counseling, and mistake-proofs those 3% will ignore anyway.

Everyone is Human - Even the Boss

You need to know this and so does your boss. The boss is human, HR People are human, the Controller is human. Just because these people have more responsibility, doesn't mean they don't have bad days, make mistakes, get grumpy, and react negatively to others that are grumpy. The boss shouldn't have to be more professional, more calm or more anything than anybody else. Employees constantly want the world to be fair. To make that happen, if I have to let you yell at me, you have to let me yell at you. Isn't being fair really a game of tit for tat where you get the same thing that I get and no one else gets more? Wait, that doesn't sound very "American" didn't we come here or our ancestors come here to get ahead in the world? How is it fair that the employee next to me gets more money because they were with the company longer even though we have the same years of experience? Wow, that whole fair thing is a trick. The distorted concept of fair and the misguided notion that we need to make every employee "comfortable" to address their concern has degraded respect and humanity for leadership in the workplace. My mom was right when she said fair is a week in August and she could show me where it will be. Now that we have established that the concept of fair is a trick of the mind. Let's get back to the idea that we need to cut the leadership some slack when their turn comes for a bad day or a mistake. The majority of bosses are okay people that want to help the company run so all of us have a job tomorrow. Take a minute to assume positive intent in their approach and have the respect to approach them directly. The biggest mistake we have made in establishing employee expectations is allowing them to expect managers to be super human and letting them call an employee hotline or go straight to the top every time their feelings are hurt. Personal accountability and adult interaction are endangered species. Please remember you work with humans that deserve to be treated humanely.

Having a Life

Last week was a major goat rodeo. Already booked up with compliance training, a new program was initiated that required a lot of calls and followup, while requiring an audit of completion for another project. 3 nights in the unenviable motor capital of the U.S. waking at 4am, working until 11pm and crossing the state to close it up. The coming week is the mother of all conference call weeks and a little mix of doing someone else's job thrown into it all. The travel budget is nearly exhausted and I definitely am. In thinking it over, I can't figure out what having a life really means. The nasty, busy weeks that have plagued my work lately are as much a life as knitting, target shooting, hanging with my pets (including the hubby)and publishing this blog. What does it really mean to get a life? My last post was about deciding your own trajectory and if that involves some crappy hours and weekend crackberry usage then it is still your life. Reconciling this thought poses a bigger challenge. It has taken me over 2 years to find a massage therapist and eyebrow waxes that I will regularly frequent in my new hometown. Those and a new church would help me feel more like I've found a "life". Maybe having a life is more about each person's need to feel that they have more to contribute than being a cog in the machine. It is possible to feel that way, even when you know that you make a difference for the people you serve. Some of us need to know that we are respected by the people above us and there will be opportunities to grow. Odd, because I consider myself someone that determines her self-worth by caveat as opposed to consensus. My sister would tell you that it is sleep deprivation. It might just be time to find a church choir and practice flute for a while.

How Do You Want to Go Out?

I don't know about you, but I prefer to choose my exit. Deciding when to leave an event, determining the right time to sever a relationship, choosing when to take on my next role, and picking the point to leave an argument. The more I practice, the better I get at making my own choice instead of letting life act against me. There is much to be said for prevailing over the circumstances in front of you and then deciding to walk away from it, because you can. Too many people live life believing that things happen to them and they don't believe in their ability to impact their environment. The other day, I ran across a quote in one of my journals. "Life is finite. The end is coming no matter what. The question is, how do you want to go out? On your feet, or on you knees?" When my time comes, whether I crawl there or saunter up, I will be under my own power and I definitely won't be on my knees. Remember to respect your own dignity and it will be easier to respect the dignity of others.

Reformed out of a Doctor

Well, I didn't think that age 40 is old until I received a letter from my healthcare provider that I have exceeded the maximum age for the primary care physician that I selected. This is one of many joyous items we get to look forward to with the healthcare reform act. Providers are running a business and have to decide if these new constraints on costs and processes will allow them to be profitable. If not, they will dump us “old people” or general practices will stop seeing children. Pediatricians or Gerontologists could decide to change specialties. If any of you are thinking this is alarmist, wait until your insurance company sends you a letter that they changed your PCP or your spouse’s, parent’s or child’s PCP because of their age or they just “decided” they have too many patients. Once enough of this happens the government will “have to step in” because there aren’t enough doctors in the critical specialties. This is part of a chain reaction leading to the need for full government intervention in healthcare controlling doctors and removing insurers from the equation. I hope that they have planned out where they will employ all of the former insurance workers. These folks will probably find gainful employment in different legal organizations for suing the government and/or with the government defending them from their own citizens. Healthcare is a very personal thing and I am currently taking this personally and so should the rest of the country.

Information for the sake of Information

Tonight I decided that I had to have a clear understanding of the term Sociopath, just in case I am one. Sometimes, it is interesting to learn more and obtain a higher level of clarity. However, the search for more data can be destructive. There is a point where the evidence is clear and additional information is sought only for the purpose of creating doubt. Data, no matter how apparently factual, can be colored and spun from black and white to a soft, cotton-candy rainbow with the addition of carefully chosen info. For those of us that have forsaken our rose colored glasses for a nice clear pair of 20/20 lenses there is a web of sticky-gray fluff that is not very fun or satisfying. It is shameful to try to sell the candy to the folks that see the gray fluff. Just get to the point of what you really need and let's save time on the data overload. Are you trying to convince me, or just yourself? Things move too quickly to waste time playing info games.

Entropy

Entropy in layman's terms is the tendency of all things to break down to their smallest possible components. This is a product of Chaos theory and would start quite a lively discourse amongst Physicists. The rest of us simply go about life experiencing encounters with it without knowing it has a name. Have you ever sent out 4 items that require as response from your managers. One is a planning item, one is an execution item, one is a survey, and one is a scheduling piece. Did you get 100% response on any of them on time? Depending on the strengths of your players, you received the responses easiest for them. A few were on time of all, but response qualified varied and at least one did none of them. While you were chasing the answers to these, three new things came that were due to your leadership. This time, you focused on the aligning the people to execute the critical process of removing and replacing the poor performers and not on the pieces of paper corporate wanted to close the process on their end. You were a week and 1/2 late where in the past you were always the first one. You would have been even later, but you know how to scramble. Well, while you were looking backward to clean that up, a couple of little in fights that you were attempting to address by guiding the so-called adults to better behaviour blow up. Now the important process of providing training and hiring talented folks is interrupted by the urgent need to pick of the pieces of several volcanic employee relations eruptions. Too bad the guy that said to get the urget out of the way and focus on the important isn't here to take those statements while I'm on a business trip out of state. We never signed up to be the side show performer that juggles bowling balls and spins plates. The time spent healing lumps from falling bowling balls and gluing together shattered plates alone makes this practice prohibiitive. The best managers I know leave some of the bowling balls on the ground for a while and some plates just don't need fixed today. The important and the urgent that by legal default must get done are enough for today. My stage may be littered with bits of porcelain and balls with finger holes, but I am no longer getting hit in the head. I'm happy to tiptoe through my entropy for now. It turns out having things in little bits is not all bad. Louis Comfort Tiffany created beautiful garden scenes with shards of glass and bits of melted metal. Success is in how you compose your mosaic.

The Not-So-Secret Affair

This note of explicit work intrigue brought to you by the Ghost Writer while Marti wrangles outlaws in the wild, wild west world of retail.

So after months, now I know years, of unconfirmed sitings of two people together with thin business reasons for being in the same place for a week at a time, I asked a colleague, "So what's going on there?"  He replies, "The worst kept secret in the business."  It's the oh-so-typical man-in-power scenario with the woman two layers below him in the organization.  She has a committed partnership.  He has a marriage and a child that I'm sure is his noble, yet misguided, impetus for staying married. 

While I could really care less how the two of them screw up their personal lives, when he used me as pawn to get her to the same place he was, I got wrinkled about it.  Did he not realize that I can see manipulation a mile away?  He used every type known to humanity -- praise, criticism, power implication, consequence implication, and personal "give me a break" pleas.  It was just pathetic.  Now I feel slimy every time I'm near the guy, and I want to tell the woman he's wrecking her career.

However, there are very real implications associated with confronting either of them directly.  I'm one of her superiors, and he's my peer.  Hello?  Rock.  Yes.  Meet Hard Place.  Hard Place.  This is Rock.  As on HR Leader, not HR Manager, I enjoy the deliberation associated with calling the ethics hotline and reporting them or just letting it go like apparently everyone else does in the company.  Does it really hurt performance?  No.  Is it distracting?  Yes.  Does it hurt anyone?  Yes, her more than him.  It doesn't really hurt me, just annoys me.  Does it hurt anyone financially?  Not really.  The company is paying a few more bucks for travel for the two of them to play house, but compared to other places money gets blown, it's minor.

So if any of you HR pros out there have some advice for this Ghost Writer, I'm up for it.  Marti says, "Go to a pay phone, block the caller ID, and call the ethics line."  I may just do that.

America Might Get Paid Back

Well, I was listening to the news because it interrupted a perfectly good footbal game. I heard a newscaster say that Tarp has ended and America might get paid back. Wow, thanks there Mr. Obvious. The fact that we might never get paid was clear when our government gave the money away. Either tell me legitimate facts like that money was flushed down the crapper and it is time for us to move on or that it was miraculously all paid back. You never know. Maybe Bill and Melinda Gates will loan them the interest from their foundation to give the taxpayers of the U.S. back their money. AIG is purported to have used their TARP funds to pay someone else back. While unconfirmed, this information is just as useful as the fact we "might" get paid back one day. We might also be visited by a fairy named Tinkerbell and fly away to Neverland to fight pirates with the lost boys. One thing is certain, our government is deciding who fails and who succeeds without good old fashioned business competition. With this in mind, be careful not to take the Pledge of Allegiance too seriously for a while. Our Republic is looking desparingly socialist at a time where the strength of business is her greatest hope.

Serendipity

Other than being the name of my 8th grade reading textbook, there is something to be said for the nexxus of events in life that leads to what we desire, while we busy working on something else. Serendipity, by definition, is a propensity for making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated. Just when I move on from a desired outcome because circumstances prevent it, things come together without me. Either way, there is work to be done once this happens. Those that are present and accounted for when circumstances align are able to greaty impact the business. Moving onto other things does not mean giving up on the desired outcome. Continuing to look at other ways to get to your goal, means you will put the time into preparing for the events that follow it. In HR, there are a lot of fires to put out and we get all of the complaints after something goes wrong. We get tired of hearing that we have to make time for planning succession or developing pools of candidates. Whether we want to hear it or not, the value in making a priority out these activities is tremendous.

Death by committee

I am becoming a firm believer in act now, ask forgiveness later. The most inoccuous request becomes an executive committe meeting. Where corporate factions politicize and delay a business decision to the detriment of the workers that make the company money. By the time an inadequate and compromised decision comes down, I could have enacted the remedy, explained what I did to multiple levels of judgemental executives and signed my write up. Well, jobs aren't easy to come by so avoiding the write up is probably a good idea. The leadership we need is often our biggest roadblock. The excessive attention to professionalism and protocol stifles the need to get to a solution that benefits the business. Short of distributing copies of Fisher and Ury's "Getting to Yes", the chances of a solution that positively impacts the ground level business is nil. Assuming, of course, that they understand and apply what they read. This is my appeal to big wigs out there, SET THE IDEAS FREE. Get off the time devouring buy-in treadmill and turn your action bias into action. Save our ideas from death by committee.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Lack of Control

In the process of managing performance, I have seen a wide array of responses. One manifestation is the abuse victim. This is not an article about employees that have been through truly tragic life circumstances. The discussion covers the polar opposite of your average business manager. The tenacious manager will boldly step forward to take risks, to own failures and to push through adversity. They expect that everyone is built that way. Feedback is administered efficiently with clear expectations, so it should be very easy for the recipient to favorably respond. Unless, that person does not believe they have control. Yes, this story is about belief. The employee, whether a manager or hourly team member, that just doesn't seem to respond to the feedback might not care or they might believe they can impact their situation. Now what? This is where we separate managers from leaders. Managers show up for the periodic review and feedback. They go through the motions of explaining again and again that their direct report is not meeting expectations. They use formal processes to properly address this offender until the decision about their future with the company is imminent. Then they pull the trigger for lack of a better description. In the interim, they miss signs that the person receiving the feedback doesn't know how to respond. This is a human being that is in over their head. Like the chicken in the box, they have been zapped every time they turn, so now they just hold still hoping not to get zapped again. However, their inaction earns them a zap for trying to avoid it. Now the hard core folks in the group are wondering why I am having mercy on this person that is obviously not cut out for the job. Why should we be concerned about the reason they are missing the mark, when this is the true sign that they should not be with the company any more. Well, there are a few reasons. One is common human mercy, go figure. In addition, I suggest that the business reason includes timing and value. The majority of folks that I have found in the abused victim role are long term employees. They have grown so dependent on the company that they don't see themselves having control over their environment. Whether it be opportunities outside the company or just the courage to ask to step down they don't see their options. So timing involves, how quickly you need to move this poor performer out of a key role, considering it will take at least 90 days to get them through a performance improvement plan before the lawyers make you extend it to 6 months to avoid being sued. Once you have determined that they have given up out of fear instead lack of interest, you have an opening to talk to this individual about the possibility of stepping aside. Okay, for those that don't like stepping people down, lighten up! I am not a fan of stepping people down, but I am even less fond of allowing multi-million dollar businesses to go to crap because I'm waiting to fire someone. Also, take the time to identify the value this person has to offer the business. You are moving them out of the way of progress, but you don't want to handicap another portion of the business along the way. Find their value, open the way for needed talent in their current role, and give them a job that lets them succeed. That is a win-win that preserves business and humanity. Take the time to know your team. Get an understanding of their reactions and motivations. The right response to a poor performer can allow you to postively impact the business and the life of another person at the same time.

Getting Ready for the Holidays

It is an interesting time of year for people and business. As a child of retail, we ask our employees to get excited about the holiday season and exude this excitement outward toward our customers. However, we ask them to work odd hours, extra days and to understand that we will not be giving time off to travel to family. My last gig meant that we were open every day but one each year, 24 hours a day. I am "fortunate" that now I have three closed days and we operate from 8am to 10pm. There is almost enough time to sleep. This sad state of affairs came to be through catering to the demands of the general public for more access to the things they want exactly when they want it. Guess who works for you? Oh yeah, members of the general public that need to get things at odd hours of the day because they work odd hours to cater to other members of the general public. Now that I've brought that little bit of sunshine to everyone's day, don't let it curb your enthusiasm. The happiness of having a regular pay check at the holidays is harder to come by than it used to be. A lot of folks would like to know that there will be a tree with a few gifts and loved ones to share it all, even if there isn't enough time for a road trip to family holiday. The initial challenge of time off for family at the holidays is not a problem seeking resolution. It is a business necessity that is a self-propagating and demand driven. If you all can figure out how to change the demands of the citizens of this great republic, forget worrying about retail work hours and run for office! We could use a politician that is interested in our well-being that can get us all to listen at the same time!

Revisiting Dress Code - Current Events

A recent news story turned my eyes back to managing employee appearance to demonstrate high company standards. A female sports reporter complained that the NY Jets were sexually harassing her during training camp. We all agree harassment is unacceptable and any substantiated harassment must be addressed. In the meantime, go online and look at what this reporter chose to wear as a female business professional at work. She has skin tight skinny jeans and an equally tight backless halter top. This should be embarrassing for her employers and professional journalists. Does the company where she works for have any standards? Who do you know in a mainstream professional job that takes their work seriously and shows up for an assignment in their Friday night bar clothes? There are other pictures of this reporter that show that she may have known how to look professional in the past. Dress code is not about controlling employees, it is about the company's brand and reputation. If I give you some dress code colors, you know know the brand. Bright blue and khaki? Red and khaki? Pastel shirts and tan aprons? Tight t'shirts and short-shorts? We may not agree with all of these dress choices, but we know the company and their brand right away. It is easy to identify their employees, when we need help. If you don't have experience with customer satisfaction surveys, availability of employees is a key factor in the customer experience. For those that don't like my current events example, too bad! The real point here is that employers need to align employee appearance with their brand and hold them to it. Maybe that journalist is representing her company the way they want. If that is the case, I suggest that their brand could be exposing their employees to issues that can be avoided. I can already hear the objection that people don't have a right to treat us differently because of our clothing choices. Guess what, we all know that people do and employers have the right to expect a specific standard of dress. Let's go from ideal to get real and put our business brand front and center!

Presidential Appointments and Partisan Politics

Well, our President has once again invoked the tired excuse that Republicans are blocking efforts to fill key positions. He is attempting to appoint another college friend to a consumer protection advisory post. However, he failed to stop the media from pointing out that he hasn't presented her as a candidate for the job, yet. Wow, if you're going to use the same lame excuse, make sure it fits the circumstances. I know that I prefer to be lied to by someone clever enough to make the lie credible. The partisan crap is thin enough without missing important details like the fact they were never told about the appointee. It would be ideal if more time were spent on repealing that nasty 1099 language from the laughably named healthcare reform legislation than trotting out tired stories about how hard it is to get your friends hired in the government.

Succession Planning

Well, once you get about 100 managers that could become 100 gaping holes in your business, you start to get anxious about who can do what. Then you decide to gauge your team by asking your middle management peers what they think. If you are lucky, you get results that are generally the same and everyone decides on a ranking that you can use. Other times, you have to scratch out an answer that everyone will respect and move on to the next rating. In the end, you discover that you have a very thin line of talent between you and operational disaster. Now what? The work really begins. You need to get managers that are already too busy to notice that their managers aren't good enough to meet the future needs of the business, to create a training plan to elevate their managers' to meet the future needs of the business. You have to keep a pool of talented external managers on a string, hopefully without pissing them off and killing the company's reputation, to plop into openings. Every time you do that you get to convince internal management that the external candidate is just as good and worth training, because they don't realize it is their fault no internal candidates are ready. Now that you have started the cycle, be prepared to dedicate 2 to 3 years to hiring the best external candidates you can identify and afford to pay, while placing your C or better players in elevated positions as often as a manager will offer to nurture them at the next level. If you are lucky, you don't spend those three years begging for a reprieve on the time to fill measures and internal vs. external recruiting ratios. Let me know, if you need any quick and basic succession planning processes you can manage with a spreadsheet, a meeting, and a little patience or a little zanax.

Interviews - Have Your House in Order

If you want to do panel interviews, or the evil interview rotations, which are all bunk, be sure you are guarding the company's image. Too many panels are thrown together ad hoc for the purpose of that day or that search. The wide and varied people selected to talk to your precious, hard won candidates could cause you to lose that talent. How many of you got to pick your coworkers? How many times was your choice overridden by the executive that interviewed after the panel? How successful in terms of performance and longevity were the candidates selected by the gang up interview process? If you don't know, start there and ask one more question. How many candidates dropped out of the process? Candidates want to work for a company that is professional and well run. The politics, affiliations and frustrations of your panel could come out during the interview process. I have flown all the way to Wisconsin for a single day to interview after first interviews in Alabama. The HR Assistant forgets to give me directions around the construction. The second person I talk to is openly hostile during the discussion and I leave wondering why I spent all day in a suit in airports to talk to these bozos. I recently interviewed at a facility where the GM threw together some managers and direct reports of the position together for a third interview panel. After the panel, the direct report for the position took me on a tour. She was visibly upset, so I asked. She said that she had interviewed for the position and wasn't selected. She shared all of her frustrations with the general manager, the office arrangements and the politics. I was caught up in a restructure, so I pursued the position against my better judgement. They went with another candidate, so fate helped me dodge that bullet. If you aren't physically present and orchestrating the entire interview process, be 110% sure that you know the people handling your applicant. Every company is dysfunctional like a professionally dressed family holiday. Unless you want this bald truth exposed to your potential talent, control the process. There is enough good in the business to keep you there, so help them see that instead.

Corporate Values and the Opinion Mill

Companies are very happy to discuss their core values and the guiding ethics that they have outlined for corporate governance. Core values comprise a portion of the new hire orientation curriculum and hold a prominent place in the employee handbook. These lovely little nuggets of positive behavior become a club by which many a manager is flogged out in the field. Not everything about business is rosy or fits into a pretty rose colored glass called values that everyone drinks their cool ade from. The importance of having expectations for how the team works together is not at issue here. The speed with which employees that willingly gossip, violate policies, and mistreat each other are willing to point out that a manager was not the model of the ethics is excruciatingly fast. The only thing more astounding is the miriad ways that managers manipulate this when they disagree with a business decision to show that their leaders aren't models of the values either. The larger the company the less likely that the group will truly share values at a level detailed enough for the company to achieve team synergy with core values. Like so many things assembled to govern us, these values are up for interpretation and create their share of challenges. Be prepared for the scrutiny that comes with these values and the places where good managers may be demonized by their willingness to follow business practices that don't fit someone's ideas of values.

Conversely, how do you know you're a rock star?

So Marti posed the question most of us spend far more time pondering than is probably healthy, "How do you know if you suck at your job?" I think we, the seemingly career pessimistic souls in the world of work, should consider the opposite question, "How do you know if you're a rock star?"

Just as emails can be the taser of doom, they can also be the one mode of unsolicited positive feedback. Further, it's documented, which has a negative connotation at times, but is useful in this case. I keep an email file by year of the positive feedback I get. It's far too easy for people to remember the negative - for bosses and employees alike. I want to be able to make the case for the positive, even to myself, as I'm a regular at the 'Self Flagillators Club'. A small piece of negative feedback will leave me reeling for days. An equally sized piece of positive feedback lasts a minute or two.

So while keeping those positive emails help me think I 'just barely don't suck', how do you know if you're a rock star?

1. You're not perfect. Even the Beatles had a bad show and top grossing stars have a tough night.

2. You don't stop. Just because Brad Paisley fell off the stage, he didn't take it as a sign to stop live performance.

3. You capitalize on what's new. Every rock star goes on tour with the new album. Find a reason to get out in the public eye with some new material.

4. You stick to what you know. This sounds like a dichotomy compared to the previous item, but how many rock stars switch genres successfully? Ask Jessica Simpson how that career in Country Music is working out for her.

5. You hone your craft. The hours a walk class musician spends practicing and listening to music is astounding. As Marti highlighted in the "Balance" articles, maybe greatness lies in OCD with a margin of accepting the rest of the world might not love every song on the album.

Take heart my colleagues in the 'barely don't suck' office space, you could be a rock star in need of self discovery and a good agent.

How Do You Know if You Suck at Your Job?

I posed this question to a coworker yesterday. He wasn't sure. 1 week shy of 3 months into this adventure and the question is coming up. Looks like time to look over the measurables from our evaluation form and have a talk with the boss. There are tons of ways to know, if you suck at your job. Make an honest review of your performance against stated objectives like Sales goals and evaluation criteria. If someone in charge of you has provided formal feedback (a write up of some sort), that could be a sign. You can also tell by whether or not you are making deadlines and receiving notes from stakeholders that things aren't done as expected. These signs do not mean you will permanently suck at your job, but you are definitely sucking right now. Self-reflection can help, but this is not a time for you perfectionists to beat yourself up. You are just looking for the points where things went sideways to see how you can avoid that in the future. A few of my great trips sideways have been a product of applying my frustrations or distractions to my work. Things fall through the cracks and erode my reputation as a timely and accurate support professional. It is recoverable, as long as the slump doesn't last too long. If your slump looks more like the Detroit Lions than the New England Patriots, you need to fire up your resume and practice interviewing. Otherwise, suck it up and get back out on the field and prove yourself.

Electronic Feedback

When I hear electronic feedback,the first thing that I see is one of those tasers that shoots out two eletrodes and zaps the sense out of it's target. At work, there is an email equivalent to the remote taser. Working as a field manager results in this phenomenon, if you periodically take risks to get work done. These risky choices won't always keep the bosses happy. First, the immediate supervisor talks to you to ensure that the correction is clear, maybe hoping to ease your mind and point you in the right direction. This is like the coach walking out to the mound in baseball to calm down a pitcher that just hit the umpire in the forehead with a pitch. In the end, this is a pre-emptive action. These are HR people and they will want the discussion and the error on paper to use, if needed, for progressive actions later. Thus, the email swiftly drops, like the taser victim, to cover the company and the higher-ups, while stunning and annoying the field manager. Whether you call it a reminder or electronic feedback, do your best to step to the side when the eletrodes deploy!

Sensibilities

There is a place where our learned morals and beliefs instinctively meet the outside world. These are our sensibilities. They tend to surface when offended, but otherwise lay dormant. Since they are a part of us, they follow us to events with people of mixed backgrounds and sensibilities like propriety. Those of us that like to create a splash run amuck of said sensibilities on a regular basis whether accidentally or by design. At least the Victorian's were honest about being tightly wrapped. We are "professional" when we play the politically correct game and watch our words, even at a coworkers home on off time. HR is expected to lead the way in propagating this false veneer of civility and vanilla communication. This explains why I avoid the social events and go for drinking with the other HRs. One of my employers actually allowed jello shots and beer at the company picnic. People actually asked the HR Manager to sit and have a drink. The remaining companies that aren't too stuffy to let their young employees text and everyone blow off steam at a picnic, thank you!

More on Balance

The concept of balance is an odd anecdote between the fluid in our ears keeping us upright and the notion that moderation makes us better. Balance is staying upright in spite of how thin the beam is. Internal equilibrium is not about moderation, but how far the fluid can flow from one side to another before we tip. Some of us have great balance. Others don't know when the fluid is at its limit and they keep falling over. I posit the theory that the obsessives of this world are the reasons for the greatest breakthroughs. Moderation is the greatest killer of innovation. It is time to cut loose and go a little ADD/OCD on something! I'm knitting my eighth mitten and hat set and it is August.

Thanks to Brazen Careerist for the question on "work life balance" and Bruce Kneuer, a social media scientist, for getting me on this train of thought.

I Got to My Problems Through My Solutions

My husband and I purchased a foreclosure home that needed some landscaping help. What can be so hard about fixing a concrete block wall? Well, besides removing all of the blocks, hand trenching and reseting the block, not much, or so we thought. We worked in the cold of an early West Michigan spring and put together a mighty fine new wall. Pleased, we went back to our daily lives enjoying the look of our new wall and anticipating buying shrubs to put in it. Then one day, walking through our basement master suite, the carpet was squishy and wet. All winter, through the spring thaw, and the first big storm of the year, no water issues. What was different? It took me a day to remember that we had created a water way that ended at the foundation of the house including a damaged drainage pipe straight from the front eaves. Our beautiful and cost effective solution caused our problem. Fortunately, an inexpensive drain repair, filling the trench edges with soil, then growing grass there fixed our solution. We had to empty half the master and set up fans to dry out the carpet twice. Reviewing this great suburban drama reminded me that the best laid plans often have unexpected consequences. It is easy for managers to judge an incident afterward and expect the participants to anticipate that the beautiful landscaping would have lead to the basement floods. It would be like Timberland knowing that buying cattle hides, a by-product of meet processing, in Brasil would cause them to be austracized by Greenpeace. Sometimes we get to our problems through our solutions. In the middle of drying out your master bedroom carpet, it is not the time to decide who should have known that the trench for the block would flood the basement. Let's all try to stay in the present and get around to the next solution that gets to our next problem.

Vacation and the Blackberry

Why do we work three hours over on our last work day before vacation? What makes it so hard to turn off the blackberry and store it in a drawer for a week? Our work is a big part of our identity. When you get with a group of professionals and start introductions, the general protocol is to give your name, profession, and employer. That's what makes it so hard to be out of work; nothing to share in them employer column. This identity creates a sense of urgency and ownership in most of us for various reasons ranging from personal integrity to group loyalty to plain old control. Letting the phone go and getting out of touch with that big part of our lives is scary. The urge to turn that phone on when we get home is huge. Of course, I couldn't resist this time and spent about 2 hours working on work the last 3 days of vacation. Shame on me for not having enough identity to fill 9 days with things other than work. I challenge you to get out of work on time to start vacation and to not look at a piece of business electronics until the start of your first work day back. Whether you are a person of great integrity or a garden variety control freak, take a complete week off!

Loyalty Part 3 - The Company

Thanks to Taren for calling today and getting me on topic. Loyalty to a company often means two things. One, getting employees "engaged", which is more of a marriage reference than we realize and Two, making employees feel the company has a stake in them. These two items constitute a major focus of HR efforts. We don't just hire someone; we select, onboard and orient them. All of this intended to make the newbie feel part of the group and focused on company goals. We strive to provide initial job training that helps them feel successful from the start and then provide growth training that gets them to their next desired step. This is motivating for those capable of the current job and with potential to be capable of the next job. Supposedly good hiring makes this so for all employees (really...). We construct feedback processes for good work, bad work and even average work, so everyone knows where they stand and how to impact their compensation and career future. HR even takes the effort and expense to survey the employees and ask what they feel about the job, work relationships and management. Then we build leadership and soft skills training into the management learning programs to make the managers better at retaining our employees. What was that word I just used? Retaining? Yes, every program, entitlement, perq and feedback process exists for one purpose. They all serve the bottom line function of keeping knowledgeable people at the company’s beck and call to please customers and encourage more business. All of this without the cost of hiring and training new people and managing dysfunctional employee relationships like lawsuits and regulatory complaints. Loyalty to the employer is a function of hitting the job satisfaction sweet spot for the right employees. Now we are back to my discussion on moving targets. Good luck!

Where have you been?

Well, it turns out that a week of corporate interrment camp, no matter how valuable, keeps a blogger from providing info to her faithful readers. It was a great meeting and learning experience, however, the long days prevent anything except sleeping and managing the work you can't do because of the meetings. At least, I have a lot of good and quirky colleagues that make it feel more like I fit. Once I returned from "camp", I had one afternoon to finish processing paperwork to get 3 people hired/promoted and to get one processed for his start date in a system I've never used. Of course, I ended up working until almost 8pm. The next morning, we packed up and headed for vacation. I'm out in the scenic woods of Northern Michigan overlooking lake Bellaire. My first round of 18 (golf) in nearly a decade was harder than expected. Thank God for the Jacuzzi tub at the condo. Another 18 awaits on Wednesday. There is still the matter of the series on loyalty. It will wrap up this week. If you have never been, I highly recommend the Traverse City, Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula's and Bellaire for booze, water, and light gardening a.k.a. golf.

Loyalty Part II - Employees

It is interesting what people expect compared to what they are willing to give in return. It didn't even take 7 years in management, not to mention 12 years in HR, to figure out that some employees expect the world for their periodic presence in the building. On the other hand, some employees will give their time, home life and physical well-being for nothing more than their pay check. The tremendous dichotomy could be urban as opposed to rural, young vs. old, or maybe it is a simple matter of values and integrity. Some employees display high levels of loyalty from day 1 including speaking only positives about the company, defending the company against negative statements,performing above and beyond job expectations, and working to bring teammates together. Some take time to decide if their managers and company provisions meet their expectations. The lines of jobs blur for them and they want to see their managers working on hourly tasks and to see the company give large amounts of paid time off and benefits. If the bosses meet their expectations, they will do the work and maybe put in a little extra over time. Others, decide that being hired is their ticket to a pay check for as long as they want. They feel that work should not directly interfere with their social life (texting, chatting with friends on the clock, cell phone calls). They extend this social life into gathering friends and followers at work, because they need someone around to complain about their job. Obviously, any job that digs into their free time must be a bad deal. The funny part is that the company would be content with an employee that comes to work on time, does their job, and doesn't say anything bad aobut them. It seems easy enough. It makes sense that selection processes would touch on this more, instead the usual practice of measuring this only in existing employees. We aren't in charge of the social systems that cause some to be ultra loyal and others to be disloyal, but there must be better ways to bring in those that are more likely to be loyal. We'll explore this in Part 3 - Employers

Thank You

Thanks to Ghost Writer for that word from our sponsor. Your regularly scheduled author is working excessive hours to get ready for a week of corporate interment camp and then a week of vacation. Our mini-series will return once I get a night wiht 7 hours sleep and a day with less than 6 hours of driving. Cheers to all of you workaholics that think my work days and sleep habits are indulgent.

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This message brought to you by Tuition Reimbursement Programs and the Ghost Writer

After years in manufacturing and watching people feel "trapped" by lack of education, when I achieved the glorious role of middle manager, I became the personal evangelist for the company's (whatever company it was at the time) tuition reimbursement program.  Most employees hear about it but either don't understand the ease of accessibility or have never been encouraged to learn in a positive way.  Try this as a positive way. "Look, it's the only benefit the company gives you they can't take back, and if they lay you off or fire you, you don't have to pay it back."  Ok, so that's the hard sell, but you get the point.

This is one of those mentoring moments as a manager, as a colleague, where showing Human Resources Leadership separates a mere manager from a Person of Influence.

As someone who regularly gets Christmas cards from her now-well-educated former employees, all I can say is, "Talk about Tuition Reimbursement.  It might make you feel happy in the future."

End of Commercial... back to the loyality mini-series, unless, like the Super Bowl, there's just one more advertisement.

Too Many Hands in the Pot (commercial break from mini-series)

It is interesting what happens when companies add layers. More departments at the top attract more ambitious leaders with personal growth agendas. There are politics that manifest in annoying busy work for middle management. A field manager can't just send up a report to the owner, so they can be sure that it is corrrect. It has to go to the next level admin, then their main office service person, who forwards it to the main office service person assigned to the report, who consolidates it to submit to upper management. Now a simple report has turned into an electronic version of the telephone game and opening the consolidated report is like guessing which prize is in the cracker jack box. One thing is for certain, it never matches the value you put into the box. Ideally, the result is benign and amusing, however, periodically the "translated" version of the data leads to a pointed message from a high level boss. No matter how the explanation of the bad data is written the field managers feels lame for something they couldn't control. Here is my appeal to the head honcho's out there. Please save us field managers from chasing paperwork around an army of contact points. Pick where it goes and point us that direction!

Loyalty - The Mini-series

Part 1 - General Loyalty. Dictionary.com defines loyalty as follows: loy·al·ty   /ˈlɔɪəlti/ Show Spelled[loi-uhl-tee] Show IPA
–noun,
1. the state or quality of being loyal; faithfulness to commitments or obligations.
2. faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, etc.
3. an example or instance of faithfulness, adherence, or the like: a man with fierce loyalties.

This includes supporting your favorite ball team even when they are playing your sister's favorite team, GO Tigers!. This makes me loyal to my boys, but not disloyal to my sister. I root for her team every game except when they play mine. We also root for each other's teams rivals to lose. We defend each other in public and only offer feedback in private. She's right, even when she's wrong, if someone is on the attack. The fun part of this is that very early in this story, there were qualifiers to loyalty. Choosing one group over another under certain circumstances. Whether it is family, close friends, or professional contacts we prioritize and manage our loyalties with "logical" justifications for our choices. For the most part, one loyalty never overlaps another, so the priorities aren't tested. Once a conflict arises, we pick where to sacrifice credibility and someone else's loyalty to remain unwaveringly loyal to another. Like so many other words, the general application fits the definition, but personal perception doesn't. When we think loyalty, we see knights dying in battle for the love of their king. We believe that it is more than the circumstantial or consequential product of a commitment or obligation. In Parts 2 and 3 of this mini-series, we will investigate employee loyalty and business loyalty. I welcome your thoughts.

The Space Between Moments of Clarity

When the light of understanding finally dawns in our eyes, we remember that moment of clarity with awe and pride. Our best ideas and actions come to us in those brief periods. Based on that, most of our lives is the space between moments of clarity.

Campaign Finance Reform and EFCA

We need to remember that it all runs together. The new Campaign Finance Reform Bill currently teetering on the brink of law in our unpredictably balanced Senate includes a piece that once again gives unions new rights. It allows organizations with a particular number of dues paying members to be allowed to put that cash into campaigns of the organization's choosing. The difference between the usual dues collecting organizations like the NRA or the AARP and unions is that in Closed Shop states union members are required to belong to the union within a fixed period of time or lose their job. This means that Campaign Finance "Reform" would allow the money that these folks are required to pay to keep their job to be used at the union's discretion to further candidates sympathetic to their "needs". Impressive, the crafters of this legislation were crafty enough to get the unions lumped in with organizations people join voluntarily out of passion for their mission. Yes, there are passionate union members and there are tons more that pay dues to keep working in their industry. There isn't a method for union members to vote on where their money goes or insist that it goes back into supporting them in employment related issues, which is why the union is there in the first place, right? If you are wondering where EFCA comes into this, let's go back to the "card check bill". EFCA allows a simple majority of employees signing union cards, possibly under duress because the unions can visit their homes, schools and children's soccer games, to certify the union. No vote, no democratic process, no room for the employer to tell their side. In a Closed Shop state, this is tantamount to impressment. 50% less one of the entire employee population are required to join the union because the other 50% plus 1 signed cards, no option, if you want to keep your job. EFCA is struggling for now, so let's put a little gift to the unions, traditional supporters of the Democratic Party. Let's make sure they can continue to support their favorite candidates legally through the Campaign Finance Reform. Who said power doesn't have it's priveleges? While this is disturbing, I am truly surprised that there is this much creativity in Congress. Could someone up there put this creativity toward balancing the national budget, instead of finding ways to tip the balance on their campaign war chests? All else fails, quit getting creative all together and focus on using Ramsey's envelope system to get the country back on its feet. When the budget is balanced, you can go back to screwing with working class America.

Executive Enema

Managers eventually come across the underperforming department, facility or business unit during their career. We have a resonsibility to help these teams turnaround for the sake of the employees, the company and our bonuses. We gather some other mid-managers or executives to pool our expertise and apply it to the problem (yes, problem not challenge, issue or opportunity). We all agree that we have to make some scheduling sacrifices to micro-manage the place and get the team together or line them up to be replaced. Then the "team" goes to the facility. We pull together the facility's upper management with the "team", then squeeze them into the biggest office we can find. There is an agenda and outline of responsibilities. We cover all of the ways that each "team" member will support the location with visits at least once a week for the foreseeable future. Each visit will involve specific managers from the facility, a checklist (yay), and accountability to action items on the next visit. It is a management dream with all of the components intended to make the facility feel important and supported. After all, we want to protect their morale and motivate the team. (Read: cover our butts, if the place self-destructs and we have to terminate folks.) The final results: 5 members of upper management will but up the behinds of the management team in that facility until they improve or remove - the executive enema. Welcome to the cleansing.

Unemployment and the Welfare State

For a bright moment, Congress decided to take unemployment back to it's roots and stop extending benefits indefinitely. It sounds uncaring to say that unemployment needs to remain a finite benefit of the formerly employed, but let's think this over. Unemployment insurance is paid by employers based on people that are working and paying taxes. When those folks are no longer working they, through their employer, have paid into the system and it pays them back. The time frame is finite and meant to encourage folks to seek employment of some type and pay back into the system again. When there are more people drawing unemployment than is paid into it, the states go into debt with the federal government for the difference. When this happens, the companies in that state pay more unemployment tax to the federal government and it goes up every year until the state pays the debt and is in the black. The only way the state can pay the debt and get in the black is if the unemployment rate falls low enough to have enough people paying in to offset those getting paid plus make payments on the debt. In the State of Michigan, this is not likely to occur for at least 6 years. Therefore, employers in this state will be paying 2.6% to the feds on a bill that is normally .8%, in addition to state unemployment insurance. What a great way to attract new employers (read sarcasm). In the meantime, the folks that are working are paying 2 and 1/2 times over and above the lovely unemployment taxes already levied into general taxes diverted to pay additional unemployment. Since our government wants to spend our taxes to support the long-term unemployed, why aren't they on Welfare? There is already a government program funded by our taxes for this purpose. Since we never got rid of that program after the Great Depression, let's quit using programs for things they weren't intended to do and get back to the process of helping people work. Many generations of well intentioned politicians and bureaucrats have created programs to help people that ended up being long term tax burdens on the general populace. Each program was meant to end and no one had the guts to pull the trigger on them. Now, once again, Congress is unable or unwilling to cut off the program we are misusing to create a false sense of security. Could someone in D.C. please take the same amount of time focusing on encouraging business growth that they spend on debating extending unemployment? We would all rather see America working than waiting in suspense for the approval to get their next handout.

Social Media Dilemma

A group of current colleagues have started sending invitations for Linked In. I accept, because I like these people and this is social media. However, I was concerned about giving work connections access to my blog posts and personal thoughts. There are things that I learn during a work day that contribute to my blog material. Now the challenge is to use the thoughts and energy without insulting my employer or coworkers, every business does crazy stuff from time to time. Truthfully, I like where I work and what I do. Nothing is going on at this company that hasn't happened before at other companies where I have worked. We all apply our personal knowledge and sensibilities to the things we do and strive to control the environment to match these expectations. The level of militance we apply to changing the environment depends on the strength of those sensibilities. The company isn't the target, it is the springboard of thought and action. We'll see how I do in getting the points across with the clear understanding that what I blog represents the opinions of the author and not her day job or employer.

Fatigue continued

i!  Ghost Writer here.  Marti likes a few of my ideas from time to time and is letting me haunt her blog.  So here's the word for the week:  Fatigue."Webster's Dictionary" provides more than a few definitions, but I like these two.1. Weariness from bodily or mental exertion.2. The weakening or breakdown of material subjected to stress, esp. a repeated series of stresses.So let's have a show of hands?  How many of us feel this way?  Right now?  And we drag our fatigued selves into our lives each morning using coffee or sugar or something to convince our weary minds and bodies to not feel fatigue?What if we stopped?  What if, for a second, we considered stopping?  Marti posted three blogs this year on the topic - "The Value of Time", "The Point of Exhaustion", and "Willfulness".  All three great.  All making salient points on the scurrying world of work.  Marti wrote in the Exhaustion post, "The most important product we present is ourselves, yet we fail to get enough sleep, talk to our families at dinner (at the dinner table), and remind people why they are important."  This is sadly true, and the worst part is, we don't talk because of the fatigue, when talking with our loved ones is one of the best ways to cure it.  She then says in Willfulness that we in turn rebel against our jobs.  We call in sick to get a day off, when really we just needed the day off to combat the fourteen weeks of 60 hours a week before that.  And as she says, is it just "the small rebellion that allows most of us to continue to be something we really aren't to achieve things we think we want"?So why do I feel compelled to beat this drum again when she's done it so well it three times?  Because in a conversation with a friend, he used the word "fatigue" and in my mind, I could see my life as the bridge from the high school Physics film.  You know it -- the Tacoma Narrows bridge that in a normal wind for the area virtually disintegrated from fatigue.  If a bridge, a physical entity just like a human being, can fatigue to the point of crashing, what's to say we won't, too?  Humans, and based on my international travels I would speculate American humans in particular, are the only animals that knowingly, consciously, and with almost ridiculous focus, work well past the point of fatigue to failure.  And to what end?A former boss once said to me, "The difference between doing a good job and a great job is 3%.  Make your choices."  Really people.  Let's get honest with ourselves.  How do you manage you?  How do you manage others?  Do you manage them in a way that protects against fatigue?  Or do you drive to work, slurping coffee, reading the Blackberry, listening to talk radio, and somehow not managing to kill others while you tell an employee to do more?  In the world of "my job used to be three or four people, now it's me on a pay freeze", isn't it time for a different style of human resources leadership (notice, not management) in the workplace?So as I wind this down, I leave you with one last People Platform HR quote. "I recommend putting away the time saving devices and doing something that takes time and creates something you can hold in your hands. This will be time you cherish like a child rather than save like a dying house plant."  Quit reading this blog for the day and go take a nap or whatever restorative thing you do!  Marti and I will be here when you want a distraction... like when traffic is at a dead stop for 10 minutes when you're running late
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The Unique Rich

My husband is entertaining me with eccentric bequeathals from the odd and money-laden. One man left his sizeable fortune to the woman who could prove she had the most children in 10 years. 4 women split it, but were the 9 kids each worth it? One left his fortune to 10 people picked randomly from the phone book in Lisbon, Portugal. A female author is leaving a portion of her fortune to a publisher that took the time to send her a handwritten rejection letter. All I can think is that there must be some great advice in that letter and that his handwriting is more legible than mine. It is interesting how simple human things inspire those with resources to share them. The hard-working middle managers of the world strive to fully utilize the limited resources provided to them in their daily work and some are uniquely rewarded with additional resources. The trigger is different for every company and the resources could be business ones to share or personal ones to enjoy. One thing is sure, there was an actual path to those resources that is less convoluted than just having a phone in Lisbon. Many times the path to resources is showing you are a good steward and that the additional resources you request come with a rock solid plan to acheive financial results. If you have ever asked for the money and didn't get it, did you give up or come back at the next budget cycle with more back up, ready to fight? Remember that "no" means three things in business. It can be not now. It can be ask differently later. Or, it can just be no. Learn to differentiate and more resources will come your way with the asking. If you are tired, shy, defeatest or lazy, don't worry, maybe a nutty rich person will randomly select you to share their fortune with their dog, Gunther.

There is an End to the Money - Payroll Rant

Let's cover the walk through on managing Payroll, maybe you can use this one at work.

The word Budget indicates a finite amount of resources to which one is limited. However, in my experience in management and in HR most people consider a payroll budget a guideline. They know that the company must pay their employees when they work, so they creep over the edges of the budget. Where do they think the money comes from the magic money fairy? If you only have $100 bucks for groceries, let's call them payroll, and the total is $120, $20 worth has to go back. Now, let's get complex. Say you are paid by the hour and this week you only work 36 hours, instead of 40. Now your intake, let's call it Sales, is less than your your expected intake, let's call that Plan. Now you can't even pay $100 for your groceries (payroll), you only made $80. This means you have to adjust to your Sales and spend less on Payroll. Let's replace this whole analogy with one succinct statement. You can only spend what you earn!

Corporate Bystanders and The Moving Target

4 weeks into a new job and the most critical document according to the boss has changed 4 times. We were hired as high level professionals in our field capable of "hiring, motivating and retaining high-performing team members." (Wait just a minute while the gag reflex calms down.) We talk to our operational partners, gather performance data, analyze our recruting processes/statuses and provide a comprehensive report of the status of our folks. Two other people consolidate the data, fail to expand the cells so the updates aren't visible, and remove some of the data because they created extra criteria unknown to the professionals managing the report. I am and will always be a sharp shooter. Tell me which way the bad guys went and they will be stopped in their tracks. Right now, that target is moving in dimensions that are yet to be found. 16 corporate bystanders go down for every hit we make for a good promotion or righteous termination. For the love of money, which you all know you love, glue the target to the wall and let your folks hit a bulls-eye.

Balance of Powers....Really

Regardless of party, our Congress should be outraged that the President has now made 16 recess appointments. Siting obstructionism on the part of the Rebublican party, Obama had already done 15 unilateral appointments before June of this year. However, that just wasn't enough, he decided that he needed a Medicare chief during the most recent recess. What will it take for our representatives to step up and call him out on this? Now the person responsible for managing one of the most expensive social programs in existence today was hired without the protection of our bicameral legislature. If the President wants to do this, then maybe he should go public and let us look over the resume and decide whether or not this guy is qualified. Obviously, he feels Congress can't do it, even though we elected them thinking they were qualified. Are we still a Democratic Republic? What about the checks and balances our forefathers put into the system to protect us from the tyranny of dictatorship that we suffered under as colonies? If your representatives in Congress are not outraged and publicly angered by this behavior, you need to elect new ones. When did we quit believing in the principles for which our country was founded? If you want socialized medicine or other socialized stuff get a NAFTA visa and go to Canda. If you prefer obvious corruption, that isn't shielded in politic games, get a NAFTA visa and go to Mexico. I knew there was a reason we needed NAFTA. The rest of you can go to Venezuela, because he doesn't like the U.S.A. either. The rest of us owe it to OUR posterity to get this crap fixed before they live in an oppressive dictatorship.

Bus Def of the Week: Corporate Perjury

Spell it any way you like, it's a lie. For the nerdy whimps in the group, we'll say intentional inaccuracy. It all starts with good old fashioned accountability. A task goes out to the managers. It requires they reply that it is complete by a specific date. There are some specific documents to explain what to do. They reply by the due date with some prodding from their bosses. Victory! They are 100% complete! Now, the detail audits. Looks good on the surface, then documents are missing, the checklist was not followed and no one knows why. A follow up audit is scheduled and managers are strongly encouraged to follow direction and be accurate in their reporting. Thank you to the businesses that document and terminate for this crap. Shame on the rest of you. There is no excuse for corporate perjury. Do what it takes to be right and on time. If it can't get done, own it and have a plan. Try some managerial courage, folks! If this H R ran the company, the pejury would be defined as document falsification and some purgery would occur. Now you know the meaning of corporate perjury.
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Road Warriors

A brief tribiute to those that work all over the world and still take a family call at 3am Poland time, whatever time zone that is. Congratulations on your mastery of over the counter sleep aids and customs interrogations, I mean reviews. Thanks for feeding free enterprise and being someone that truly understands and appreciates the phrase, "God bless the U.S.A."
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Motivation from a Spiritual Standpoint

What motivates? How often is it a desire to have what we see in the possession of others? We do what we do to succeed, which is a competition. This is a human contrived process to create division. Think of the musical savant that could not operate under the contrived expectations of others. He is homeless and quirky, but still plays like a virtuoso. He is as much a genius as the man in the tux at the performance hall. There is enough for everyone. We create limits on how many people can succeed to fit our brains limit to conceptualize the world. These limits are false. Like the movie where a boy spends his whole life in an idyllic small town. Once he is grown up, he wants to see more of the world, but is discouraged by everyone around him. He sets off in a boat to find new shores. He docks on the other side of the lake to discover there are painted trees and a utility door. He exits the door and finds himself on a TV set. His life was a highly popular, scripted TV show. We have a spirit to guide us; we need to stop giving ourselves scripts to help us fit in. Motivation guided by integrity is an instinct. It fits that others envy people who are willing to be self-guided. Pick where you are going from the inside and pursue it relentlessly.
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