Effective versus Efficient - Ghost Writer's 4 a.m. Perspective

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wizard

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

Engagement

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

Shut up and Drink the Kool-Aid

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

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

Momma's Always Right

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

 

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

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

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

    On courtesy:  "Say please and thank you."

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

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

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

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

Feed and Firearms

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

Selling

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