Out Office Reply

Hi All, I will be out of office with limited access to my email. Yes, this means no posts until I find reliable email, probably Saturday. To all of you suckers that have to work this week, smell ya' later.
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Bedrock (no Pebble and Bam-Bam here)

We each come with a set of principles, mores, values (all of which mean different things, by the way) or mental filters that were built from our experience and learning. This mental noise is like a loud bar where only the abbreviated stuff that we shout gets through. It is our firm foundation allowing our opinions to take root and shadow our judgement and actions. We call this shade, truth, and impose this template on the world. In management, this template shapes the careers and to an extent the lives of the employees under our care. Business decisions, performance feedback and mentoring rest on the managers bedrock in the shade of their "experience and learning". The more stable the foundation and agreeable the shade, the further we get from the raw, native intelligience of our instinct. Our instinct is our natural protector intended to help us prosper in all but the most inhospitable conditions. I urge managers to step off their bedrock onto the sand and let the sun talk to them. Truths are many and success is not limited to established paths. Fostering organic growth is tricky compared to planting created flowers in artificial, but the result is more resilient and just as pretty.
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The Value of Time

How many people believe that time saving devices increase the value of time? It certainly appears that time must be valued if the focus is saving it. Instead, maybe it is dying and we need to resuscitate it, so these devices are defibrillators for time's arythmia.
Does conserving time demonstrate how important it must be. I posit the theory that this all devalues one of humanities most acutely finite resources. There was a time when the meal at the table webt from game or seed to dinner at the hand of the people at the table. They took time to savor the work of their hands. Most activites were devoted to essentials of life - food, clothing and shelter. Everything you had was made by you or obtained by bartering something that you made. That's why a whittled carving meant so much - you couldn't by those at the not-yet-invented $1 store and someone used their rest time to do more work for you. We had a purpose for our activity much closer to our instinctive selves. Now when we relax, we often blindly give this away to watching others pretend to be someone else. Yes, that statement includes the loosely titled reality shows. We are 100% behind saving time, but we can't find the bank. I think we've been swindled. I recommend putting away the time savng 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.
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Losing My Religion

My trusted advisors and closest friends have been working overtime. I have been debating a change that was not easy to make. Whenever you have to decide to leave good people behind to find your way, the sense of loss takes the edge off the euphoria of a new gig. They saw something missing. In the past, I had finally learned the importance of choosing to believe in your employer and advocate for them. It makes things much easier for you and your coworkers. Then there was the restructure. The feeling of opportunity and relationship went out the door. The aftermath of the restructure and last minute placement sucked the advocate out. The promotion of a previously defined equal competitor without the actual consideration of the remaining local talent became another thought challenge. It pays the bills and the effort is the same. The results are draining rather than energizing. How could a company let this happen? This was a big operation and there were bound to be casualties. As the walking wounded, the decision to move on to a new program was tough. The final ruling of the advisors was that I had lost my religion. No faith in the company, no faith in the opportunity, no faith in the leadership. Time to go. There is a new evangelism to pursue.

Techno-nifty Practice Post

This is my remote blog test. Welcome to blogging via Crackberry. This could be the perfect excuse for my various typos and word inversions.
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Chairs in the Driveways

There will always be things we just don't understand. I grew up in a neighborhood of backyards. We played, grilled, swam and relaxed in our backyards. It wasn't a fancy neighborhood of new houses, the front yards were small and the driveways were an afterthought next to 90 plus year old homes. Naturally, I find the habit of putting folding chairs in the driveway and watching the fronts of other people's houses very odd. As I write this, the purpose is starting to come to me. They actually want to see each other. Wierd. I am also wondering about the stickers in the back windows of mini-vans. The Mom, Dad, boy, girl, baby, dog, cheerleader, football player, soccer kid stickers. When I first saw them, I thought maybe they were an attempt to identify the body count if there was a crash. It's apparent that I haven't figured this one out yet. Any thoughts? There are times in management when we run into the chairs in the driveways or the stickers on the window. The difference between speculating about the quirks of the subdivision and our staff is the ability to just ask. Quit wondering about those chairs and start asking. After all, you have better things to think about than the quirks.

Nice People and Why I Worry About Them

Today, I was in the nail salon paying a very friendly masochist to remove my old acrylic overlays and install new ones. While my fresh medium blue nail polish was drying, I chatted with a lady waiting for her toenail polish to set up. She is in HR, was laid off, took a part-time job in Finance and was brought back to her previous employer part-time. She is obviously nice and wants to do a good job. Her new employer is not ideal and a big subsidiary of an even bigger company. The person that was supposed to train her abdicated that role and dropped several very negative bombs on her right from the start. My first thought as a manager in a great big company is that we really need to be diligent about who we allow to train our employees. The next piece was some survival advice in work. Take the time to identify the necessary relationships related to your position. If those aren't right, get them fixed. Everything else is noise. If the office bully is giving you looks and being allowed to be impractical by your company it's your job to ignore that person. There is nothing there that is necessary for you to fix or really your responsibility to manage. Be polite, be professional and stay away. When we really think about it, we will not change someone's behavior unless that want to change. We may be able to require subordinates to behave at a certain level, however, in the absence of that relationship we will need to vote no on interacting with that person on more than a very basic level. There are plenty of important things to manage at work and the behavior of tertiary characters wandering the hall is not one of those things.

The Point of Exhaustion

There are many demands on the employees of modern companies. Businesses want to stay open 24 hours a day to catch every possible customer, people want to be able to buy whatever they want where ever they are, and managers work feverishly to anticipate the evolving needs of these businesses and consumers. The internet has an eternal memory and time is measured in fractions of seconds. If we want more money, more of our time must be subject to the whim of our employers. Failing to sacrifice our time results in financial punishment. The voracious need for things drives us to work crazy hours and spend much of our remaining time surfing, tweeting, gaming, and staring at the TV. The speed we are expected to move often exceeds the ability to provide a thorough product. This results in a beta version, 1.0, 1.2, 1.3.5, 2.0 and the multiple downloadable (is that a word) patches to the system. 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. Does anyone send a paper invitation or a paper thank you anymore? Welcome to our evite world. If you have time to sleep, you have truly achieved "work-life balance". Now I have to go, I'm at the point of exhaustion, so I'll read CNN on my laptop, download an episode of Spartacus and collapse on a coach in a video coma. See you tomorrow,

The Lost Art of Plain Speaking - The Friday Rant

This topic is a gift from my ghost writer. "Calling a Spade a Spade" Doesn't the vast majority of what's wrong with HR and business in general is all this double speak and political correctness? If the old adage, "A problem well-stated is half-solved" still applies in a modern era, wouldn't it seem if we just "called it what was", the problems would be easier to see and solve? I am often curious what causes us to make the problem less interesting or less pressing by calling it something pretty, like an opportunity. Why would we compromise urgency for fluff? The sense of achievement in solving a problem is much higher than taking advantage of an opportunity. Notice opportunities are associated with a sense of advantage. That could be appealing to those that need to dominate or conquer. For the rest of us,we grew up solving problems and getting rewarded with good grades. We are good team players and go along with the new verbiage, then we make fun of it over a beer at business conferences. Secretly, we think that pandering to the whiners that require pretty pictures to keep their rosy world functioning is a waste of time. Now is the time to commit to saying it like it is. Are you with me? No more PC paint to keep everybody positive. Time to gut it out like Knute Rockny and the heroes of old. It looks bad men, but we are not ordinary people and we will prevail. Holding the flag at the top of Fort McHenry lying along the bodies of my comrades that held the flag before me, it is time to validate the claim or our national anthem. Let's get back to the land of the free and the home of the brave. No bullets, just simple words in a complex world.

Back to Our Roots

Every once in a while, we need to get back to our roots. Today, I was introduced to an opportunity that reminded me of my operational past. Something made me decide to give up running restaurants and taking responsibility for a team to learn a profession. When I have had the chance to work with a team again, it is the most rewarding thing I have done. I have convinced myself that I don't want have the responsibility of a complete facility. This is curious because I did it before I could drink legally. What makes us decide to become specialists? The nice schedule doesn't hurt, but we lose out on the excitement of making it all work. Here's to the operators and those of us that decide to be their support team.

The Intern Plan aka Marketing People Stuff

I asked the other day what to do with the interns. The discussion went into the mechanics of day-to-day intern life. Tomorrow, the first four come in to get their offers. I am going to ask them about our company brand. Did they think about the company before they saw the intern posting? Why? What got their attention? Was it positive or negative? What companies were they thinking about joining? Why? What would make our company more interesting to more students? I need more subjects for this study. I need some regular management candidates and some mid-career professionals from other companies. They could really give me a clue on how people see our company as a potential employer. Every company wants to be the place to work. Having the best and brightest line up at their door, but the biggest companies in the world are not the most popular. What makes the popular company appeal to the right people? Okay, now we are back to undergrad Marketing class. I'll see if the interns can give us some insight and I'll let you know the results of the first focus group.

Diversity and Skills Transfer

I responded to a question in a strategic planning chat. The question involved the best ways to increase representation of a particular ethnic group in a business. It seemed they were in a big hurry because they presented the idea that they could throw money at it and create a department staffed with talented people of that ethnicity. Here are my initial thoughts and I welcome your input. Financial resources are finite and job creation is not the answer. If a company wants to better reflect the diversity of their community, they need to expand their recruiting to increase the number of qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds. It takes time to increase diversity, but it avoids several issues. One, it prevents new hires being treated as "token" employees to meet a number, great qualifications can't overcome this stigma. Next, creating jobs represents a poor business decision unless there is a true business need, like supporting a new customer. Finally, creating lasting relationships educational institutions and organizations that can refer high quality candidates from diverse backgrounds will make the biggest difference for the company.
They also asked about meaningful skills transfer. Here are the thoughts I shared and I would like to hear your ideas. Meaningful skills transfer is another matter. If this is regarding scientific or mathematical skills at a higher level, this requires time with the incumbent and sometimes a mentor to walk the learner through the quirks of the teacher. Companies have to plan skills transfer to ensure time for the new learner to gain and practice the skill of the encumbent. If a company lets their highly skilled folks work alone and in compartments that prevent skills from being shared. If one of them jumps ship, it is a significant loss. There are some techniques used by drug makers to get their teams to collaborate and share knowledge. There are a handful of different articles from Harvard Business Review on the topic.
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Interns

If they aren't getting us coffee and typing stuff to protect our fingers from undue stress, what are we supposed to do with them? This year we are going to teach them about business, well, our business. We might give them a review, so they can enjoy the same feedback anxiety we instill in all employees. At the end, we will give them a project and presentation to make them feel like work will be similar to school. It also creates the illusion that they will bump elbows with executives and do cool presentations, if they come work for us after college. We even pay them to sample our workspace and judge it for future use. This is an awesome racquet and I missed it to work as a manager at McDonald's. There are some rewarding parts to sponsoring interns and seeing them learn and grow. Have any of you been an intern or have you put together an intern program? Share your experiences and tips. I could use the help to make an internship program that actually retains the candidates at the end of the program, since they get a full year for other companies to turn their heads.

A Piece of Advice

I had the opportunity to talk to some college students about going into the professional world. One asked, "What piece of advice do you wish that someone had given you when you were making this transition?" First, I told the student that I was already a restaurant manager and married by the time I graduated. My thought was that any advice I needed was far different from what a graduate with a few summer jobs needed. Then, in an effort to provide some guidance, I offered my thoughts on what I think sets school life apart from work. I told the student that business is about results; it is not about effort just about results. The student was taken aback and just said okay. I have listened to more than my share of internship and management candidates talk about dealing with team members that don't perform. In every case, they knew that the work still needed to be done, however, most of them simply redistributed the work or took it on themselves. Why? They had to get a result, as grade. In the process the poor performers get the benefit of the work or the students ratted them out to the teacher. They may be learning about results in some way, but they are not learning effective ways to deal with difficult people. In the work world, difficult people will be their greatest challenge and biggest obstacle to results. Far too many of them will run into savvy blockers that put their jobs in jeopardy and squelch their enthusiasm. We don't need to teach them about all the bad people, but they need to be expected to engage challenging people. It's about the results and when we get them by overburdening ourselves or others to cover for the poor behavior of a team member, there is more loss from the resentment and frustration.

It's What You Do To It

Thanks to the Anonymous comment from Monday for today's topic. It's not what you call the pile of poo, it's what you do to it. What motivates our decisions for handling a hot mess. This could be a nature versus nurture discussion, but tonight it is a question of engagement and loyalty. You can tell a lot about your employees by how they address problems. Do they ignore it? Do they refer it to someone else and walk away? Do they grab a towel and pick it up? Do they look into how the pile got there and set up a plan to prevent future piles? The extent to which the majority of your people address or don't address the pile makes a big difference in how the business runs. Loyal employees that believe they can make a difference drive your success. They do more than just their assignments and would never tolerate poo in their work area or any where else in the business. I know a manager that found her employees leaving their problems on her desk to solve. Instead, she created the poo-poo box where they could neatly place the piles that needed addressed. The installation of the poo-poo box was quite an event. She worked with the interdependent departments that were creating the messes due to outdated processes or their own engagement problems. She solved some of the issues to show that she was committed to making things work, then she involved her team. She started directing her staff to resources to resolve the problems that were coming up for themselves. It doesn't take a satisfaction survey to guage how connected the staff is. Look around at what the team is contributing and start assessing where the gaps are. The poo-poo box may not be your solution, but it is time for you to get creative and capture the attention of your team in a positive way. Show them some intiative to give them tools and clear the path, then show them how to clear their own way. That's what you do to it.

Opportunity, a.k.a. the "O - word"

Welcome to the first in a series of Monday attacks on politically correct verbiage. We have done everything we can to verbally transform the steaming pile of poo called a problem into something else. We called it an issue and someone decided this was too much like a problem. Then we called it a concern, but this caused foreheads to wrinkle in concern. Now what? Well, it's an "opportunity". Great we painted the terd and put a hat on it, so it can come to the meeting with everyone else. Why don't we just put it in a bucket, set it in the middle of the table and call it what it is? And no, I don't mean that we tell everyone that it is fragrant and promotes growth. Let's try having problems and solving them, just like math and science class. Plants grow better with fertilizer and we can't grow an open culture by avoiding the plain truth. Let's be fair issues and concerns, they are welcome to the party, as long as they come dressed in their own suits. In the end, the opportunity gets to go back to being something good that we look forward to gettiing.

Willfulness

Have you ever had a hard time getting to work on time? Even when it has a negative impact on your job, you can't get the motivation to get things organized. There comes a time when we purposely cancel appointments, show up late, or change our travel plans just to be in control. The further we get up the corporate ladder the more time we sacrifice to the demands of others. There is a breaking point where everything gets to be too much. We aren't allowed to make a big mistake or blow up at someone in response to the pressure. The process of exerting power over our schedule or getting lax on our start and end times helps make it a little more bearable. Willfulness is the expression of our inner independence. We are rewarded for our creative thinking and unique behavior, but the further up we get, the more we have to act like everyone else or be punished. The more precise and methodical and in control. Let's face it, willfulness is the small rebellion that allows most of us to continue to be something we really aren't to achieve things we think we want.

The Friday Rant Early

At what point did it become okay for managers making upwards of 6 figures to wimp out and let other people fight their battles? Grow up and confront the issue yourself. Whining about not liking how other people talk to you and getting your boss to fix it demonstrates a lack of leadership beyond understanding. When did a little HR Manager grow some and that many "real" managers lose theirs? Guess what folks, just because there is an open door, it doesn't mean that you won't be judged for how you use it and how often. Try giving your coworkers a chance to talk with you like a grown-up about the concern and resolve it like "gentlemen". If they can stand up and publicly admit the mistake, what point is there in also driving a knife into their back. We get nothing from subverting our team members. Best case they ignore you and worst case, they return the favor. Cut it out people and for a few minutes try to pull up your big girl panties and look someone in the eye to get things done.

Someone Please Legislate in a Little Mercy

Today on the block Punk Rock HR, I read about security policies at R&D driven companies. I definitely see why they have a zero tolerance policy for breaches that destry their ability to make a profit and protect their employees. It is sometimes tough when someone makes an honest mistake and is sincerely contrite about it, but there is no more room left in business for friendly exemptions. Too many openings for litigation happy, disgruntled former employees. I have worked as a facility and field manager in HR in large companies, between 35,000 and over a million and the consistency is brutal. No exception will go unpunished whether from a legal exposure or business opportunity perspective. The general public's call to "fairness" has made mercy darn near impossible. The cry of the general populous to be treated fairly had gone the way of consistency to establish a baseline. This consistency stifles risk taking, because the stakes are too high to give up a good thing. It brings us closer every day to Orwell's 1984. Yeah, it's 2010, but the guy never claimed to be Nostradamus. Well meaning bureaucrats have created rule after rule to protect everyone from bad things that could happen to the point that we hop around with our feet and hands tied writing with a pencil in our mouth that we can't sharpen. All I ask is that someone please legislate in a little mercy, pleeeease!

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. I have achieved another decade. I can't wait to see what comes next, but sometimes I do close my eyes on this ride. I had a very large beer to mourn the passing of my thirties, but I don't really miss them that much. It isn't what was, but what will be that makes the ride fun. Whenever your birthday is, have a happy one and enjoy the ride!

Spinning Your Wheels

Today, I started with the usual Monday reports and follow up. Managers were not where they were scheduled and getting things done was a mess. Reporting from the 1/2 dozen or so HRIS systems are a nightmare. I am only getting half of the stores that are under my responsibility in one of them. When I did get the reports, I tried to send emails to get started on development plans. The first send was wrong, so I sent a new one. Two managers called and the second one was wrong, I called corp and they system that manages the data does not generate the report properly. We have to access a web based application where we can access a spreadsheet generated by corp that isn't updated yet. My third email was a major apology and request to ignore everything including instructions on how the managers can access the data that I can't. I emailed the boss to try to pin down when the data would be available. I'll find out when they want us to populate the sheet with the results of the projects that I can't communicate clearly or track because I don't have a report. After attempting to operate in HR in 6 different companies, I have determined that most HRIS "systems" are the equivalent of a patched sock. There is an old database that originally helped manager benefits and/or general employee data, then another system was added to manage applicants and job openings, then another to manage performance processes and data, and then a new system to bolster the old database that attempts to connect the applicant system to the benefits and new hire database. In the meantime, the ability to get a usuable HRIS report in the field erodes to nil. Worse yet, we get to learn 4 more systems that go back to the filling in boxes competency for managers. We begin regularly using the phone a friend option to hope to get anything done. Here's to the tattered sock approach to HRIS, supposedly it is the thought that counts.