Management By Fear?

Question: I feel that Fear may be one of the best motivators of performance. I have seen several leaders who are strict and tough with their people...to the extent that people fear the recoil of not living up to their expectations and therefore start shaping up. Low performers become high performers because of fear. Any views would be appreciated.

Answer: First of all, you said, "I have seen several leaders who are strict and tough with their people.." Let me correct you. Those people were NOT leaders. Leaders don't bully. They may have been tyrants or crappy managers but don't ever call them leaders. A manager is not automatically a leader because of his title. Managers manage. Leaders lead. If someone is shouting at you and putting fear into you, they are not leading you - they are chasing you - which means they are behind not in front.

People may seem to dig down and get a job done when they feel threatened but the truth is that when you threaten someone, the relationship changes forever. Your people will now start working on an exit strategy on their terms. They will no longer be engaged in their work - they will tolerate and humor their bosses until such time that they can leave on their own terms. In the meantime, they will do just enough to not get fired.

As for the people who are suddenly able to increase production because of fear, well they were obviously coasting and taking advantage of the company prior to the threat - otherwise there would have been no need for a threat. They should be fired regardless of their current performance. If the only time an employee performs is when threatened, then fire him. He's worthless and dragging the company down - others are having to carry him and his load and it's unfair to the people who do their work diligently. The employee in question wasn't doing more because more wasn't expected. That's just bad management.

Although, it may seem like productivity rises after a threat - the truth is that employees end up doing just enough to placate their bosses and not get fired. It's the illusion of productivity and it will be short-lived because the damage has been done - disconnected feelings of mistrust, frustration and regret will settle in.

Threats and intimidation are so 1950's and any manager who still uses them needs to be fired and enrolled immediately into anger management before they are ever allowed to supervise again.

"Poor Leadership" Is An Oxymoron

First of all, there is no such thing as poor leadership. Poor leadership is an oxymoron. If it's poor, it's not leadership. There may be poor management or a complete lack of leadership but poor leadership is non-existent.

There are some leaders who are destructive - people who get others to follow their destructive ways. There are also some leaders who do things to better the planet. Think David Koresh versus Mother Teresa. Both were leaders who had plenty of followers - one destructive - one for the good.

Leadership is not a title nor a position. Leadership is not the result of taking a course or reading a book. Leadership is neither good nor poor - that is a values-based judgment any person can make based on their own values and ethics.

I've said this before, a parent is as much a leader as a CEO could ever aspire to be. Therefore, leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. Leadership has NOTHING to do with work. It is a character trait, a state of mind, an attitude. How do you define an attitude?

So, with that being said (and it needed to be said again), people who blame a lack of leadership or poor management for their inability to succeed are simply blaming someone or something for their own ineptness. Anyone can succeed under any circumstance if they so desire.

Sorry, but no one or no thing holds anyone back. You can succeed under any circumstance. If you don't, don't blame the person above you. You don't get a free pass to mediocrity just because your boss is a jerk. Your mediocre life is your doing - no one else's.
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David Versus Goliath - Modern Day

Dave Carroll, singer and songwriter from Halifax made a complaint to United Airlines about how they handled his guitars and Chicago's O'Hare Airport. United stonewalled him for a long time .... until he put together this video and posted it to YouTube.

Now United is finally responding - especially after 640,000 views of the video.

Here's the problem, people will remember the chorus from this song for years and United will hurt because of it ... for years. They should have been accountable and fixed it right away but they didn't. And now it will cost them for a long time.

Customers have the power to make changes. Take that Attitude with you when you spend your money. You are in control.

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No Precedent for New Precedent

The fast-food manager who steps over garbage and doesn't pick it up sets a new cleanliness precedent.

The manager who punches in 5-10 minutes late each day sets a new punctuality precedent.

The Safety Supervisor who exceeds the speed limit in the company truck sets a new safety compliance precedent.

The parent who allows jumping on the furniture one time sets a new rules precedent.

The person who gets behind the wheel with a few beers under their belt or takes a toke now and then sets a new responsibility precedent with their children.

The employee who gossips about other employees sets a new office-gossip precedent.

The supervisor who stands around talking just to be social and impeding an employee's work sets a new productivity precedent.

The employee who barges in on another employee without permission sets a new respecting co-workers precedent.

There is a simple common-sense rule to live by when it comes to setting precedents: lead by example. Your position in life affords you no exemptions: whether your a boss, a parent or an employee. The same rules apply to everyone in an organization or in a household. There's no special treatment because you're the boss. Get over yourself. If you want everyone in your workplace to play by the same rules then there can be no exemptions or special status.

Memos and policies are lip-service. It's the attitude of your actions that matter most.

The iPod and the Downfall of Communication

Question: I attended a workshop where email communication was discussed. I was very surprised how many people used email to “cover their tracks.” The rub with many audience members came when the facilitator said rather than engage in back and forth email discussion that has some emotion to it at work you are better served to pick up the phone and have an actual discussion with the other person. I was surprised how many people felt the need to “cover their tracks.” What do you think?

This is just one symptom of what is wrong with Corporate America. We are so afraid to have conversations not because we would have to justify it, but because we don't know how. The workshop facilitator probably never discussed how people don't even pick up their phones anymore when they ring. Everyone's screening by voice mail - so good luck having a phone conversation.

We've become a big society of self-centered "Me-Me-Me" and no one is allowed to interrupt our space, our flow or question what we're doing.

The thinking has become, "If I pick up the phone, it might be more work to do. If they don't leave a message it wasn't important." Then at the end of the day they drive home and right into the garage, close the doors to never be seen until next morning.

Of course it would be better to have a conversation but it's hard to do with business colleagues when we won't even talk to our next door neighbors. It's not a cover-your-tracks thinking, that's just an excuse. People are afraid to engage face-to-face. They've gotten lazy with social skills and are afraid that a conversation might bring up a topic that they don't know anything about and be embarrassed. They want to have conversations on their terms at their time. It’s a control issue.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: We've checked out of living with others. But the successful CEO's of tomorrow are going to be the one's who know how to look people in the eye, shake everyone’s hand, wear a real genuine smile, make some small talk and will refuse to be cut off from the rest of the world.

So if you want a shot at becoming CEO in your lifetime, get those iPod ear buds out of your head. Otherwise, don't whine when you get passed over for promotion. Oh, right. You'll miss it anyway because you don't answer your phone. You're right. It's not important.

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Donald Trump Is No Leader

I am astounded that so many people when asked the same question (can you define leadership?) can have so many varying answers. What has become clear is that there is NO universally accepted definition of leadership. Why, because leadership is not tangible. It is not something you can hold in your hand. It is not something you can define. It does not exist in the material way and there are as many opinions on it as people walking the Earth.

With that being said, if someone promises that they can make you a leader in exchange for money, you are dealing with a charlatan. If it can not be defined specifically, you shouldn't pay money to anyone who promises it to you.

A parent is as much a leader as a CEO could ever aspire to be. Therefore, leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. Leadership has NOTHING to do with work. It is a character trait, a state of mind, an attitude. How do you define an attitude?

You will never get people to follow you by simply checking off a list of traits. That definition of leadership is too cerebral. Leadership is a state of being, a way in which we walk the Earth. The belief or promotion of leadership being exclusive to the workplace is simply a money-grab: a way to market services to improve "leadership" even though it cannot be defined. Our thirst for being out front (the need for title of "leader") is so great, we are willing to pay handsome figures to people who have never done it to teach us how it's done.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The truth is, people follow people they want to follow. There is no explanation for that. People who are natural leaders are people whom others wish to emulate. But if you are going to follow someone, it has got to be about following the person and not their results (money, power, fame). The accumulation of "stuff" is not what makes a leader. The Dalai Llama is a far better example of leadership than Donald Trump. People follow Trump for his power, money and fame when the world would be a different place if we'd all follow the Dalai Llama's example of treating our fellow man.

I'm not promoting any religion here. I'm making a point. Ruthless is not leadership. Money is not leadership. Power is not leadership. Fame is not leadership. But decency is. Making the world a better place is. Courtesy and caring is. When we as Corporate America learn to follow decency instead of thirsting for power, we'll finally start seeing the real leaders emerge - not these pompous, arrogant, egotists that we currently refer to as leaders.

Oh, and if you use the word "leader" to describe what you do, you aren't one. Get over yourself.

The Act of Leadership

Question posed yesterday: What do actors and leaders have in common?

I don't think that acting and leadership have a single thing in common. Actors spend their lives being other people. Leaders spend their lives fine-tuning themselves.

Leadership is not something you DO. Acting IS something you do. Management is something you do. Politics is something you do. Blogging is something you do and you do NOT have to be a leader to do any of them.

Leadership is NOT something you do. It is something that you "BE."

Management school is not leadership school. Acting school is not leadership school. These schools may sharpen your skill set but they do not make you a leader. Can leaders be great actors? Of course. But that doesn't automatically mean that actors can be leaders.

We all have to stop thinking that Leadership is something we can attain in a week-long course or by reading a book. That's a load of crap. Without addressing context (deep-seated opinions, beliefs, values - the way you view the world) in a course, you are not going to become a leader.

John Maxwell's "21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" is fundamentally wrong. His book teaches some new-age North American leadership culture as though if you simply do all of the 21 things in his book, you too will be a leader. That's pure bunk. Leadership can be learned but not by simply following 21 "laws." Maxwell has made a huge promise that if you follow the "laws" (and don't question them - remember they're irrefutable) in his book, you can become a leader. That is simply not true.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: We have muddied the waters in recent years by equating leadership with holding a top position in an organization. Leadership is not a position. Leadership is not something you do.

Leadership is a state of being, a state of mind, an Attitude. It is not the accomplishment of a series of tasks. It is not a passing grade at some course. It is not a title. It is not something you achieve. It is a way you exist. It is how you carry yourself. It is how you choose to walk the Earth.

Don't compare actors and leaders. It's like saying leadership is just acting. What an insult to genuine leaders. Leadership is a life-long pursuit - a work in progress. Everything else is a title.

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Attitude One of Seven

Attitude one of seven is the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety.

Don't you feel safe when you've got a few extra bucks (ideally anywhere from 3-12 months) set aside? How much better are you able to do your job knowing that your job is not tenuous? Do you feel secure about your contribution to your workplace and know that your contribution will be traded off with fairly good job-security?

To know that the your finances are in order, that your basic needs of food and shelter are well looked after, doesn't that bring a sense of relief? It's amazing how much more you can accomplish when you don't feel that downward pressure of out-of-control finances and uncertainty. To know all is well in your world allows your focus to be clearer.

This is the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety. When you have a steady stream of money (or a guaranteed source of it = regular paycheck) and are living within your means, there is a great sense of security that comes with that. You are secure in knowing that should something tragic befall you, you'd be OK at least in the short-term. Knowing that, there is a sense of safety for yourself and your family. Once you have that sense of safety, you will not find yourself taking stupid risks - you will still risk but it is likely to be calculated enough to the point that you wouldn't impact yourself beyond your financial cushion.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If you're not feeling safe and secure in your world, then money is likely the issue. You have not given yourself a cushion should something happen. Go to work there first. Build your cushion. Give yourself some peace of mind, security and safety. The person who has the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety will outperform all others and likely attract better results.

If you or any of the people in your organization don't have this attitude nailed down, your corporate performance is going to suffer, morale will decline, worry and fear will permeate the organization and your people will be looking for new jobs at every opportunity - hoping the grass is greener somewhere else. Help your people develop the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety and you will have a healthier organization for it.

The Attitude of Money, Security and Safety is the first of the seven attitudes in my forthcoming book, Your Attitude Sucks - Fixing What's Wrong With Corporate America.

Lots of Love, Customer Service

I placed an order from this online company one time. Today I received this promotional email to get me to spend more money with them. Don’t just glance over it – read it carefully for the full effect. It’s worth it.

Dear customer,

You, the customer, are the most important visitor on our premises. As a fast growing online store for replacement printer ink & toner cartridges, we has been receiving a lot of supports from our customers. Your advice or complain is always welcomed. We are not doing a favor by serving you....You are doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so.

To celebrate Canada Day, from now to 5th of July, we offer 10% off every order you place on our website. Though some of items are already on sale, we still offer generously 10% off. What a great deal! Hurry up or the deal will end! Don't Miss Our Biggest Sale Ever!

If you missed our Canada Day BIG save, do not worry, we will have more promotions after. Keep in touch! To order or to get more information, please visit us online. Thanks for your continued support!

Lots of love,
Customer Service

I kid you not, “Lots of love, Customer Service.” I'm sure it was as heartfelt as the "Dear Customer" opening. Ooh, let me open my wallet right away.

Really, if you’re going to market yourself, make sure you impress people.
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What Happened to Your Change-The-World Attitude

High-School is finished for another year. The Yearbooks have been handed out. Remember your yearbook? Did any of your classmates write in your book anything like the following?

• “I will get pregnant right after of high school and marry him. He won’t have any university so he’ll have a lifetime of tenuous jobs while I have four kids, stay at home for them and be lost for something to live for once they leave home.”
• “I will get my degree and not find the job I think I’m entitled to. So I will settle for a job that is far beneath my talents and will whine at work for the rest of my life and blame the job for holding me back and holding me down.”
• “I will listen to what people say and find a good job with a decent company and won’t do anything to jeopardize it. I won’t stand out. I won’t shine. I won’t offer ideas. I won’t do anything to risk showing I’m incompetent. I will simply put in my time, bite my tongue and try to survive it until the day I can retire.”
• “With my high-school diploma in hand, I will think I know everything. I will find a partner who is also too young, settle down in a loveless relationship and, out of obligation, tell myself that this is what all couples have. Real love is only true in fairy tales anyway.”
• “When I get done university, I will take the first job offered to me and work for them for the next thirty years counting down the days until I can retire. I won’t travel, meet new people, experience the world or make a difference. The company owns me. I can do all that other stuff when I retire but I probably won’t.”

Your yearbook and the others you signed were probably full of dreams, ideals, wishes and missions for a well-lived life. What the hell happened?

It’s never too late to get back on track. And don’t ever let your children develop this attitude of defeatism. Give them an Attitude Adjustment early and often. Feed and keep their dreams alive. Their dreams will feed yours. Lead by example.

The Attitude of What Goes Around

It's incredible how your organization sees soft-skills training as a luxury or worse yet, a tool to placate your people - lip service.

During this last year, as personal stress went up over the economy, your organization shrunk the training budgets - especially training budgets for for non-technical and "unnecessary soft training" like stress-management. How laughable and yet how sad, that an organization really doesn't care as much about their people as they do about protecting reserves of cash. So, stress goes up, productivity goes down, revenues drop due to decreased productivity and top management claims, "see, proof-positive there's a recession. We have to tighten our belts."

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need stress-management when stress is high. You need sales training when sales are down. You need confidence training when confidence is low. You need attitude training when attitude sucks. In fact, you need these programs on-going before you "need" it. And yet you claim to put your people first by cutting the help they need exactly when they need it because times are tough? You launch a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative and really only concentrate on "corporate" - not so much on social or responsibility.

Don't think for a second that your people aren't watching either. The moment times are good again and the economy has rebounded there will be empty chairs in your workplace because you failed your people exactly when they needed you. They will fail you when you need them. Rule of life: you get what you give.
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The Attitude of Intellectual Capital

"Intellectual Capital" is buzzword these days. For the most part, it refers to the hidden-genius within an employee - the part that wasn't necessary in the job-description.

Too many organizations today are still using last century's model for hiring: developing a position and then sticking a body in it regardless of what else that body brings to the table. Today's model should be geared towards discovering the strengths of the applicant and finding something for them to do that taps those strengths.

So as organizations around the world resist the idea of changing their hiring practices to get the best from their people, they have given it a buzzword to make it seem kind of "foo-foo" and "out there." But the truth is, Intellectual Capital is really a description of all of the talents and aptitudes that someone possesses for which there are no categories on a resume. It's why the resume is dead.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The easiest way to tap into Intellectual Capital in any organization is also the hardest way: ask. Ask for ideas and then shut up and make sure everyone else at the table shuts up too. Don't ever allow anyone to poo-poo any idea. If you're going to ask for an idea, you CAN NOT summarily dismiss the idea without risking any future ideas. The first indication that an idea is hare-brained is the moment you start to go into deficit in Intellectual Capital.

There are no bad ideas or crazy ideas. There are only those who can't see value in an idea because they don't understand it. Don't let the dimwits of your organization stifle the hidden creativity of the closet-geniuses because "no one else has ever done it." What a horrible thing to do - shooting down an idea because you don't get it. If someone can conceive of an idea, then someone can turn it into a reality.

If you want Intellectual Capital, there's a cost: everything you ever believed to be true must first be tossed out the window or nothing changes.

The Attitude of Reality TV

Let's not be confused here, organizations don't have values. Corporations don't have values. Businesses don't have values. They may have a culture but a culture is not values.

It's the individual who has the values not the collective. Therefore, it's the people who come to work each day that have the values, not the organization they work for. Individual values create an organizational culture. Erode personal values and you erode the corporate culture.

Over the last ten years, we have witnessed a substantial erosion in personal values which has led to questionable organizational culture. People are caring less about others and more about themselves now than they did 10 years ago. A recent Adecco survey pointed out that a shocking 41% of Gen Y's are willing to sabotage others and lie and cheat to keep their own jobs. These are the future business leaders of tomorrow? Think twenty years down the road when these same 41% hold management positions and positions of influence.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Turn on Big Brother, Survivor, The Apprentice, any reality TV show and watch manipulation, backstabbing, blackmail, lies, cheating and ganging-up in action. Decent people don't win these shows. They get crushed. The nasty win the prize money. This is what parents allow their kids to believe is real life in the work world because there's no discussion about values after the show is over.

It's time for us to make up for the lack of personal values that parents aren't giving their children. How about designing personal development courses right in the workplace that deal with values, ethics and morals? If something isn't done soon, almost half of new-hires are going to change the decency of your work place and your corporate culture. Otherwise, we're all in deep sewage. You don't want to work for the 41% who think it's OK to lie, cheat, steal and blackmail.

Leadership and Management Are Opposites

Leadership is not exclusive to work. Why are you confusing Leadership with management? The business bulletin boards and social networking sites are filled with questions about identifying the difference between the two as though Leadership is some sort of goal you attain by checking off a shopping list of traits.

Leadership and management are not even remotely related. In fact Leadership and management are opposites. If you're managing, you're not leading. If you're leading, you're too busy to manage.

LEADERSHIP ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Do you manage your life or do you lead your life? Do you manage your kids or do you lead them, inspire them, and teach them? Did you pick your spouse or are you simply managing your love-life? On the dance floor, do you lead or do you manage to follow?

Just because you've been given a supervisory title does NOT mean you are in a leadership position. I would guess that the guy who undermines you at work and manages to convince others of your incompetence obviously is more adept at leading others than you are or they'd all be on your side.

Leadership is not reserved for those with a corner office and a shiny new business card. Leadership is an Attitude - an attitude not required to be in management. In fact, a manager who thinks himself a leader would be neither well.

Leadership is offense. Management is defense. Playing defense is trying to manage your opponent’s scoring attempts. Leadership is scoring despite what your opponent does to try to stop you.

Stop thinking Leadership and management are one in the same. You're showing that you really have no idea of the difference and you're starting to annoy the leaders who get it.

ROI In Training

If you can't determine whether you're actually getting your money's worth and a decent ROI (Return On Investment) after sending an employee to training, then you're doing the wrong training. Employee training is a waste without addressing the human component. Sorry but it's true.

For example: Time Management is a waste of time if you don't address self-discipline. Sales training is a waste of money without addressing confidence. Team building is really only tolerance-building: you really don't change people - you just get them to tolerate each other better.

If you want to get decent ROI then train your people to be better, decent human beings. They will be more willing to do what is necessary to help the organization move forward and more readily accept future training.

According to a recent survey by Adecco, one of the world's leaders in human resource solutions, an incredible 41 percent of Gen Y respondents said they would do something dishonest in order to keep their jobs. These behaviours include blaming coworkers for mistakes, setting up situations for co-workers to fail or even blackmailing colleagues. Good luck training that bunch to do honest, good work without addressing values and ethics.

Oh and stop sending jerks to management training. They're still jerks when they get back – but now they have a title.

As for leadership? Leadership is an attitude. Management is something you could do with a leadership attitude but it's not a pre-requisite for the job.

An Attitude Of Trust

Trust is NOT something you earn. In fact, if you are ever put in a place where you feel you have to earn trust, it means you were mistrusted prior. That's a horrible place to start in business, in friendships and in relationships. If you mistrust out of the gate, you've got some serious "baggage" you need to sort out.

You either trust someone or you don't. Black and white. There's no middle ground. You can't sort of trust someone. If you think there's a middle ground, you need an Attitude Adjustment.

We trust people until they give us a reason to not trust them.

Starting out with a feeling of mistrust for every single person, every single organization, every single new idea is not how you do business. If the whole world thought that way, new companies would never get off the ground, new employees would never be hired, new salespeople would have EVERY door slammed in their faces, every new innovation or idea would be summarily dismissed if we didn't trust people to be basically honest, good people.

Trust is given until proven otherwise.

However, earning respect? That's a whole different discussion. And don't argue semantics here - trust and respect are very different traits. Be very clear on the distinction. People trust you when you first meet them. Now, what you say and do will earn their respect.

Sorry Attitude

Question: Do you think apologies are required in the workplace when the situation warrants?

Forgive me for my answer here ;-)

Apologies are not "required" in the workplace nor anywhere else for that matter. The trick here is to never put yourself in a position where you would ever have to apologize. In other words, don't be selfish, arrogant, hurtful, spiteful, mean, uncaring, unsympathetic or unfeeling and you should never have to apologize. Simple huh?

Or, you can think of it the other way: be selfless, humble, giving, grateful, caring, sympathetic and empathetic and you will never place yourself in a situation where you would ever have to apologize. Sometimes though, people need to hear the truth. If the spirit for being blunt and direct is to truly improve a situation, you should never have to apologize for that either.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: No one should ever have to apologize for being decent and kind. Stop thinking of work as a place for the ruthless. That's ridiculous. If your co-workers or bosses aren't decent, they aren't worth following. And don't feel that you have to apologize if they get knocked off of their high horses. They probably had it coming.

Oh, and don't apologize to people who seem to be offended by every little thing. They're just seeking attention and looking for some way to elevate themselves by making you feel small. What you said likely didn't really offend them anyway. They just want to draw attention to themselves. Overplaying the "offended" card is selfish and hurtful. That deserves an apology.

Consequence of Consequence-Free

Consequences are the guideposts of your moral compass. If there were no consequences, people would run roughshod over each other. Items in your garage would be stolen by your neighbors. Police forces would become irrelevant. You would leave the doors unlocked. Business would hire Grade 6 dropouts into senior management positions. You get the idea. Anarchy.

So what happens when you take an individual who has been raised in a virtually consequence-free environment and place him into a corporate environment where there are rules, expectations, structure, failure, mistakes, unfulfilled promises and bosses who are unforgiving? Think this visual over.

That's exactly what many parents are doing to their kids - raising them in a consequence-free environment. They try to protect their kids from falling down, skinning a knee, falling out of a tree and experiencing bullies. Parents interfere with the educational process and tell teachers what grade their child should be getting. They strip a child's competitive nature by celebrating a participant ribbon instead of 1st place. They raise their children in houses that are beyond large and buy anything the child wants so they never have to go without. They lie to their children telling them they can be anything they want even though they're too short to end up in the NBA and too fat for supermodel work. But they're still special.

Those same kids grow up to enter the work world and find out in short order that they're not special – they’re average at best perhaps even below-average in social-skills and maturity. They learn they can't be anything they want to be. They come face-to-face with the office bully and don't know how to handle it. They disappoint their bosses. They fail. They miss their targets. They lose a job. They live in dinky apartments because it's what they can afford. They drive a beat-up crap car. They suck with money because they've never had to earn it or handle it before. They end up moving back home with mom and dad because they haven't learned anything about life in their whole lives.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Parents, if you want your children to grow up to be something special, stop doing it all for them. Make them work. Make them earn. Make them do charity work. Make them encounter and face-off with bullies. Let them hurt themselves so they learn where boundaries are. Let them earn respect. They are not entitled to it.

Forty percent of kids coming into the workforce today say they would lie, cheat and sabotage others to get ahead. This, mom and dad, is what you taught them. They learned this from having no consequences. You can be real proud. Zero morals, ethics and values. Good job Mom. Good job Dad.

Look, if you want your child to be tomorrow's leader then at least arm them with a few leadership skills, basic stuff they can use in the real world like accountability, responsibility and consequence. They'll be more prepared to make a difference and less inept at caring for you when you get too old to look after yourself.

Just Got A Feeling

You have assembled a group of four university graduates into your interview room. All four graduated from the same university, all with relatively the same marks, and all are willing to work for the same money.

You’ve perused their resumes. They’ve all had the same basic life experiences, history and upbringing. So how do make sure that the candidate you choose will be a perfect fit with the rest of your staff, that your customers will like them and that they bring something to the table that is valuable to your organization?

You will trust your gut. It’s that same gut instinct that you’ve used to help make your business grow, to make good choices, to seize opportunities and to take risks. Your gut has been your best ally throughout your business career. Now you’ll make a gut-instinct choice for the best candidate.

You use your gut instincts, so why aren’t you encouraging the development of your employees’ gut instincts too? Instead, you train them in Time Management, Communication Skills and Team Building – all courses that appeal to the brain. You say you want your people to be more creative in solving customer problems but the courses you’re offering just teach them how to conform. You say you want new ideas and new innovations but you train them in last year’s old-school seminars using old ideas that are mediocre at best.

You’ve taken your cue from the educational system which is all about the marks and not about creativity. A University grad who finished at the top of his class doesn’t guarantee your organization any new ideas. “Top of the Class” just means someone knows how to study and remember course information and be able to regurgitate it when called upon.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need creative thinkers on your team who are not satisfied with “good enough.” Perhaps you have employees that are already capable of developing new ideas. But they don’t because since taking the Time Management course you sent them to, there’s no time for idle (creative) thought in their workday.

You want your people to develop new ideas and innovations. You want them to solve customer problems and internal productivity. You want them to be adventurous. You want them to treat others with decency. You want them to step up and be accountable. You want them to discover their leadership abilities. These are all personality and character traits and yet you’re trying to appeal to their brains in a logical way?

Soft-skills and personal development training is where you will find the skills your people need to succeed in the future. Build better people and you build better organizations. Get on it now or be left behind.

Old-School Training Are Like Cold-Meds

Why are the newest and weakest people in the organization tasked with the most important job in the organization: customer service? Why are not the CEOs, Veeps and Supervisors, the veterans of the organization, not serving the revenue stream to the organization – the customer?

At the end of the day, senior management is responsible ultimately for the financial success of the organization. So why then is the most important responsibility - the maintaining and development of revenue streams - left to the minions who are simply treating it like a job?

Corporate America needs an attitude adjustment. If the customer is king and without them the organization ceases to be, why are customers not being served directly by the kings? What consumers are experiencing today is service by dimwits - people who take a dim view of their work and do not use their wits in service of the customer. The solution from above is, "let's send our front-line people to another customer service seminar to improve our service."

So they hire trainers who are desperately clinging to last year's model of business service and are leaving the responsibility for improving their internal performance with a bunch of outside contractors. In essence, you've just said to your people, "Take this course and do it better OK?"

Corporate America may know how to make a profit but it sure doesn't know much about people. And it's people who make the thing run. As long as your people treat their jobs like a job, service will never improve. It can't. It's impossible to build any solid relationship-creating culture on a foundation of "Is it 5 o'clock yet?"

• Time management training to someone without self-discipline is a waste of time.
• Sales Training to someone lacking self-confidence is wasting your money.
• Teamwork training to someone without self-esteem creates a weaker link.

Customer Service, Time Management, Sales and Teamwork training are like taking cold meds for your flu symptoms: you mask the symptoms but don't really address the root problem. You're still sick inside even though you may look healthy outside.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The workforce is changing. Workplace values are changing. The people in the workplace are changing. So why are you still trying to run your business using ancient business models that are dying?

If people can talk to Presidents and Prime Ministers on social networking sites, your customers ought to be able to talk to the CEO. The old business model of "top-down - keep your customers at arms length - blanket policies" is not going to sustain your organization in the future. People around the world are creating conversations with people who matter. Why can't your customers talk to the people who make the decisions in your organization?

Your business model is sick and risks dying soon. Stop feeding it cold-meds and simply hoping it gets better.

Do You Have Instigational Attitude?

This morning, on Seth Godin’s Blog, he featured a video which you will find below.



Guy #1 is the Instigator. He has the Instigational® Attitude – the “who cares what other people might say” attitude.

Instigational® Attitude takes chances and instigates events just to see what will happen. The Instigational® don’t form committees hoping that there will be enough people joining in so as not to embarrass themselves. Instigators don’t wait for others to get on side. They act because they can. Instigators usually have a lot of leadership ability and a great deal of self-confidence. It’s why there are so few people capable of holding an Instigational® Attitude because it requires confidence and the willingness to take risks, to stretch yourself and have no concern about how it will end up.

The Instigational® know that however things end up, they’ll be OK. No biggie. Nothing ventured - nothing gained. The Instigational® usually end up having more colorful lives not because they attract more fun stuff (which they do) but because they are willing to step out of the collective average mentality and try something different. The first guy sure did.

During the video, initially, not much happened, other than the first guy dancing. But then along came an “influencer.” An influencer may not necessarily be a resident of the collective average because his job requires a little stretch too. When an influencer sees a good idea that he may not have had the creativity to conceptualize or the courage to carry it out alone, he is willing to join along and also, “see what happens.” But at this point, it’s just a couple of guys having a party all by themselves.

Then along comes Guy #3 who has been wrestling with joining in. Guy #3 is not as willing as the Instigational® but just a little less willing than the Influencer. But once he’s decided, he’s all in. This guy makes all the difference. As Seth Godin says, Guy #3 takes the dancing from being an experiment and makes it the beginning of a movement. As soon as Guy #3 jumps in, others follow. There is no distinction between Guy #4 and Guy #40 is there?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What is it you’re doing to make your workplace different or your life-experiences different? Do you have the Instigational® Attitude? If not, do you at least have the Influencer Attitude? Or are you sitting back waiting for someone else to turn it into a movement so that you can join in?

It’s sad that you care more about being judged by others than you do about doing something meaningful for yourself. Take a look around your workplace and see it for yourself: only a handful of people are prepared to step out and make their mark. Everyone else is just a follower. As much as you may believe you have the Attitude of Leadership, if you’re waiting for someone else to go first, you’re not leading. Leaders lead. Followers follow.

The great thing is that you get to pick which of the two you will be.

Claiming “Offended” is Offensive

There is nothing that offends me more than someone who plays the “offended” card and claims righteous indignation. You can’t even have an attempt at humor around these people. Have a little fun and you can see that sour look coming over their faces and looking down their nose at you.

Worse yet are the people who feign offended when it serves to advance their own agenda. Politicians are really good at this one. In fact, in Canada today, there are a whole bunch of politicians pretending to be offended at what another politician supposedly said and turning it into a media circus. It’s cheap politics and it’s as transparent as bottled water.

People who claim to be offended are manipulators, plain and simple. Claiming to be offended is an act that people of poor self-worth pull when they want to get attention. It’s the equivalent to a child’s temper-tantrum, only supposedly more refined. Their offended-act is a ploy to make the offender seem as though they are not as smart and refined as the one who claims to be offended. It’s childish. It’s counter-productive. And it will alienate and divide a good staff. It makes the issue all about the person claiming to be offended and not about the issue itself. That’s selfish and offensive.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: People are people. No one person is better than another in the workplace. Every person has their own value. And, they bring their own values, opinions and beliefs to work just like you. Trotting out your offended act when it serves you won’t change another person’s behaviour so get over yourself. Your little “high-and-mighty” act is tiresome and divisive. You’re forcing your co-workers to take sides when you do that. And shouldn’t your team be working together instead of breaking apart to choose sides? Force people to choose a side and you may be surprised at the outcome. Most people see right through these little acts of indignation.

The truth is, if you’re a competent worker, any goodwill you may have built with your co-workers purely as a result of the quality of your work and your abilities is lost when you pull the “I’m so offended” crap that offends everyone else and forces an uncomfortable silence and awkward moments – more so than the person who supposedly offended you.

If you’re pulling the “holier-than-thou” act in the workplace then you need to go or at least be put in your place. No one is forcing you to be there. No one points a gun at your head in the morning and demands you show up. So if something in the workplace offends you, stop going and instead find a group of people who will tolerate your intolerance. There is no place for righteous indignation in the workplace. The truth is people have tolerated you up to now. Why can’t you act with the same courtesy they’ve shown you and tolerate them?

“Safety Attitude” Includes Money and Security

Safety Attitude is just like it reads: an Attitude of Safety. An Attitude of Safety transcends the workplace. An Attitude of Safety doesn’t only work between certain hours. That would be a Tolerance of Safety. Someone with a Tolerance of Safety might be heard saying, “I know the rules and I abide by them at work but after work I’m on my own time and you don’t own me after work. And so I get to choose how I act off the job, not you Mr. Employer.”

Safety, though, transcends personal injury potential. Safety is not just about whether people find a way to avoid being injured physically. It’s not just about finding fire exits in an emergency or wearing a hard hat on a construction site or owning safety gloves and glasses. But safety really is also about how people might avoid being injured - financially and emotionally too. The problem is that current Occupational Health and Safety programs don’t address Safety Attitude. OH&S programs really only address rules and procedures and adherence to those same rules and procedures. OH&S does not address the underlying attitudes that determine how the rules come about. A really successful Attitude of Safety program must include the elements of not just personal safety, but personal security and even money.

Here’s why. You go to work to earn money so that, over time, you can provide some security for your family like a financial nest-egg, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement planning and investments to help take the “living paycheck-to-paycheck” frustration away from your loved ones. When you develop your security strategy, you take the pressure off of your family. They are secure in knowing that if tough times befell you, they would be alright.

When you put together your security strategy, you are, in fact, looking for safety for your family. You have something precious to live for and that one precious thing, your family, is counting on you. When you have something to live for, like a good family life, you won’t take unnecessary risks on the job. You won’t do anything that would jeopardize you or your family’s welfare. When you are able look out for your family, then you are able to look out for your coworkers as well.

But if you won’t look out for your own personal safety and security, how in the world are you able to look for others? How you do one thing is how you do everything. Someone who is a menace to himself on the job is sure as hell going to be a menace to everyone he works with.

Face it, if you’ve got a good money plan in place and your family is well looked after should something tragic happen to you, you have security. Security, for most families, comes from doing the right things with your money.

The challenge for most people though, is that they don’t realize that they’re acting unsafely because they’re not on the job at the time. On payday, plunking a quarter of your paycheck down on the casino card-table or the VLT is not a Safety Attitude. Going to the bar to get liquored-up so that you can feel lousy and not be 100% the next morning is not a Safety Attitude. Driving home with a couple of beers under your belt is not a Safety Attitude. Getting a windfall of money and spending it all foolishly (boats, skidoos, etc) when you could invest it and set yourself up for life is not a Safety Attitude.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Being foolish with your money shows you don’t care about your long-term security or long-term safety. If you’re willing to take chances with your money, you’ll do the same thing on the job. You may adhere to safety regulations on the job but you really don’t much care for those rules. You simply tolerate them. Anyone who allows him or herself to be foolish with money, show up to work with a hangover, frequently misplace their requisite safety gear or even drive around without a seat belt on are the kinds of people who don’t care about their own personal safety and security. If they don’t care about their own safety and security, what makes you think that they’ll be looking out for the rest of their fellow crew members on the job? Get real.

If you want to increase safety in your workplace then increase security out of the workplace. Help people with their money and increase the security of their loved ones. Give people a reason to be careful and they will. Make them blindly adhere to a bunch of safety regulations and, well, you take your own chances on the success of that program.

Greatness Is a Choice

I will admit that I am a huge movie buff. In fact, most times, if there isn’t a movie or a hockey game on TV, it’s probably off. I have a few favourite movies that I will re-watch: Sahara (Matthew McConaughey), The Usual Suspects (Kevin Spacey), The Rookie (Dennis Quaid), Finding Forrester (Sean Connery), anything with Gene Hackman and a movie that my friend and mentor Ken Larson turned me onto, The Hunt For Red October (Sean Connery). Ken can recite the dialogue from the movie doing the Sean Connery accent rather well. “Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.”

This weekend, The Replacements with Gene Hackman was on the tube. I’ve seen it many times before but this time, at the end of the movie, Gene Hackman’s character, Coach Jimmy McGinty, narrated a line that I had missed in previous viewings: “Their lives had been changed forever because they had been part of something great. And greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man.”

That’s a powerful statement. Greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man. Do something great at some point in your life and you develop a thirst for more or at the very least, you can remember the times when you were great. It does stay with you, either in drive or in memory.

There are two choices that every person faces in life: in their work, their relationships, their pursuit of dreams, their lifestyles, their personalities and their contribution in all they do. Those two choices are 1) greatness, and 2) mediocrity. Everything in life fundamentally comes down to one of those two choices and choosing which side of the equation you will sit on. Will you be great or will you be mediocre? It’s one simple decision really.

Greatness, throughout history, has been fundamentally challenged, violently opposed and systematically dismissed as idiocy by those with mediocre minds - people who don't get it and don't want to get it because when faced with their own mediocrity, it seems as though there is a great deal of work involved in doing something about it. So they attempt to tear down those who would be great in the hopes that by deflating the greatness within someone else, they somehow magically elevate themselves.

In fact, the mediocre have, throughout history, attempted to disparage, discourage and disprove greatness in all forms. So my question here is this: what side are you on? Make your decision right now. You've been, throughout your life, playing for one of two sides. Everyone has the chance to do something great, but you must first decide if you want to be great. If not, save us all a bunch of wasted time and find the door or at the very least, keep it to yourself.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Greatness is not for everyone. If everyone were great, greatness would be considered mediocrity. No, in fact, we need people to be mediocre. Without mediocrity, there would be no comparison point that would allow us to recognize greatness when we see it. No one would ever stand out as a leader. Everybody would be blindly bumping into each other looking for someone to follow. They would just try to get through each day without having to face anything difficult because the thought of facing something difficult paralyzes the mediocre.

The mediocre are so busy keeping up the appearance of being great that they don’t have any time to do something great. In fact, attempting to appear great is far more work than actually doing something great. Reasons and excuses are in the tool chest of the mediocre. Getting things done are in the tool chest of the great.

So the challenge you must face up to today is to simply answer this one question and answer it truthfully: have you, by default, allowed yourself to become mediocre or will you choose to do something great?

The Price Is The Price

If you're in business for yourself or you're in sales, you will probably want to ensure that your expectations are laid out right up front to avoid any misunderstandings about how much your product or service costs later.

After the work has been done? That's not the time to negotiate the fees.

This video points out how many businesses believe that they can negotiate fees after the work has been done. What if we all did life this way? Would anything ever get done?

Stuart Crawford tweeted me on this one today.

Here's your ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT on being a good client and being a better vendor.

The Recession: What’s In It For You?

General Motors, Chrysler, Air Canada and Canwest Global are “on the ropes.” They, of course, are all blaming the recession for their current situation. They won’t admit that they have been building sub-standard quality products or offering sub-standard service, sub-standard programming, over-extending and over-leveraging themselves when times were easy or possessing a “take as much out of the market while you can” attitude. No, it’s the fault of the recession. It’s much easier to point the finger squarely at something out of your control and not be accountable for your performance.

This time in our economy has been nothing more than someone pushing the “reset” button to weed out the weak, the lazy and the greedy. It’s easy to make money when everyone is flush with cash and many did. The challenge is in listening to what the market wants, what the market demands and what the market expects and give people what they want – not what business thinks they need. The companies who will survive this time in our economy will be the ones who deserve to – not the ones that have an entitlement attitude because of their tenure in history.

Last week, the Federal Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported that personal bankruptcies increased over 50% in March 2009 compared to March 2008. That’s “personal” bankruptcies. But what about business bankruptcies during the same period? Business bankruptcies have actually declined by 10% over the same period which means that when times were good in March 2008 there were more bankruptcies than there were when we are supposed to be in a recession. Business is actually doing better during this time in our economy because they are changing, adapting and responding to their customers in a positive way. For those businesses that are in trouble, natural selection and market cycles have a wonderful way of weeding them out.

Let’s not ever forget that you, as a consumer, vote with your dollars. You get to vote who stays in business and who doesn’t. You don’t vote for mediocre service and market complacency. No business is entitled to your money. Every single business should earn it. You get to vote for those businesses you want to succeed. In other words, if there’s nothing in it for you, why would you give your money freely to a business that is doing little for you?

As a consumer, you also get to choose whether or not you participate in this recession. Oh yes, you have a choice. You always have a choice. My friend Marty Park (www.martypark.com) said something so profound recently that I have been finding myself repeating it at every opportunity. He said, “The recession? I’m not participating.”

Here’s why you should make the choice right now as to whether or not you participate in the recession: what’s in it for you? No really, ask yourself what’s in it for you?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If there is nothing in it for you, do you participate in something anyway? Of course not. So why do you think that you NEED to participate in the recession? You don’t. Plain and simple, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. The economy is resetting itself. You have no control over that. Let it go and stop worrying. It doesn’t really affect most people. It’s your “personal economy” that’s most important right now. Spend a little less and save a little more. Make business work for your money. You’re in charge. Even during the boom times, people got laid off, got downsized and got squeezed by mergers. They just dusted themselves off and went and found a new job or went back to school to upgrade their skills. You can do that now too.

You’re still buying groceries, the lights are still on and the doors to work are still open for 92% of Canadians. What really has changed? Not much. In fact, in the last year, small businesses with fewer than 20 employees created 36,800 new jobs across Canada. Why can small business create so many new jobs? Because they respond to what customers want. Small business knows that consumers vote with their dollars.

Before you spend a dime today, think about whether or not the business you’re considering spending your money with is actually earning it or not. Don’t give business “pity money” because you feel sorry for them. Make them earn it. Most businesses, fortunately, are starting to figure that out. Those who don’t ever figure it out though, will join the list at the top of this article. But that’s not your problem is it?

Love The Work – Hate The Job

How is it that people can love their work but hate their job? I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s not the job that they hate. It’s likely the work environment. In other words, they love their work and responsibilities but hate the commute, despise their little cubicles, simply tolerate their fellow employees, agonize through the dress-code, get annoyed by meaningless interruptions during the day, hate getting sidetracked by office chatter and overall, simply wonder in deep silence “what is his problem?” when it comes to hearing the office whiner in the next cubicle doing the exact same work.

People who love their work but hate the work environment will usually be the first to seek another job. The average cost of replacing a good worker is about 1.5 times the annual salary of the worker. Simply put, if you’re paying a good worker $50K per year, it will cost the organization about $75K to replace a worker once he or she leaves.

It’s likely that only four hours out of an eight hour work day are productive anyway (perhaps even lower depending on the number of memos flying or how crappy the photocopier is). Idle chatter, noise all around, pointless meetings, quick conversations standing in the doorways of a cubicle, gathering in the coffee room to celebrate Mary’s birthday, figuring out a place for everyone to go for lunch, fifteen minute coffee breaks that last 20-25 minutes. You get the point here. There’s a lot of clutter to struggle through before people actually get to work. And the more people you gather in one place the more distractions there will be.

As an employer, the question you have to ask yourself is: are you paying your workers for their productivity or their presence? Sometimes though, they are one in the same. For example, a house framer has to be on the job in order for the work to get done, but someone who is researching marketing trends doesn’t actually need to be in the office for that to happen. If a worker has a high-speed Internet connection, a computer, email and a phone, they can pretty much work from anywhere.

The key to productivity is to remove distractions. If a worker can work from home (spouse and kids are gone for the day), why not see what kind of productivity you can get from your workers? Offer them an opportunity to occasionally work from home while they are plugged into the office network. Remove the distractions, remove the agonizing commutes of lost productivity time, remove the reasons and excuses for not being able to concentrate on a specific task and, most of all, remove the office whiner (please, please remove the office whiner before someone staples a “Stop Whining” sign to his forehead).

People who are allowed to remove the distractions from their work are more productive. Productive workers find greater reward in their work. People who find great reward in their work rarely seek greener pastures. In other words, get rid of the distractions and productivity will rise. It has to. There’s nothing else left for people to do but work.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Leadership Attitude means having a mindset that inspires your people to want to be better. Treat your people like the potential leaders that they can be and they will rise to the occasion. Treat them as rats in a maze (think of what cubicles look like from overhead), and they will simply be looking for a way out. Think about creative ways to get more out of your people while allowing them a little freedom to do it themselves. Force them punch a clock and they’ll be thinking up creative ways of punching you. Let people do the work they love but don’t force them to do it in a place they hate. Creativity is a key component of a Leadership Attitude.

Hanging Out With Negative People

Let’s say for a second, you were standing in line at your favourite Canadian coffee shop, or in the grocery store or awaiting your turn to pay for your gas fill-up and you saw a newspaper headline on the front page which read: “Canada’s Recession is Over” or “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” Would you purchase a copy of that paper to bring home with you?

A headline like that would seem like good news wouldn’t it? You would perhaps want to know more wouldn’t you? At the very least, you would be a little curious. I mean, you’ve been bombarded with sky-is-falling headlines for some months now. Aren’t you in the mood for a little good news?

Well, a headline that appeared in the newspaper this past weekend was the following: “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” But that headline was not featured on the front page. It was buried as a three-paragraph story in the bottom left-hand corner of page 2 in the third section of the newspaper.

Here’s why I say that this story was buried. Pages with even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc.) are less-read than odd-numbered pages. Because of how we turn the pages, our eyes focus on the right page first and left page second. That’s why book chapters always start on the right-hand pages. Right-hand pages in the newspaper are prime real-estate: that is to say these are the pages where advertisers would love to be. Right-hand pages get read more than left-hand pages. The chances of readers seeing your ad, if you’re an advertiser, are better on the right page. Left page placement gets a smaller return. But here was the news story, in the bottom-left corner of page 2 in the third section – buried.

I’ll summarize the story: Canada, along with Australia and the UK are expected to be among the first of the advanced economies to emerge from recession and return to normal economic growth. According to Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Canada, Australia and the UK should return to the historical average numbers within the next year. Europe and the USA won’t likely get there for another year after that.

This story would have made a wonderful front-page story. People who have been awaiting a little good news about the economy would have embraced their newspapers. The advertisers who advertised in this edition of the paper would have been advertising to people with a positive mindset. But sadly, that didn’t happen. The newspaper decided that a good news story about the economy wasn’t enough to sell the newspaper that day so they lead with a story of how Calgary’s ring road (a route around the city) may hit $1.5B for a small portion for the road to be built.

Oh, so you know, I got the paper for free at a store that was giving them away. There’s a sign of the economic times huh? They have to give the papers away to get people to read them. Well, I guess sometimes you do get what you pay for.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Be careful who you allow your informational influences to be. Remember that the media is hurting right now. Traditional newspapers are going out of business as more people get their news on-line. Newspapers and television stations are having tough times. The traditional media are desperately clinging to models that clearly aren’t working anymore. And they are still doing their news the old way: “if it bleeds it leads” headlines.

The great thing is that, because you have access to so many news outlets these days, you’re smarter than that. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into the pandemonium vortex of over-the-top headlines and scaremongering. If you want to see good news and some glimmers of hope, you’ll probably have to find another place to get that from - but they are out there.

The truth is, you wouldn’t surround yourself with a very vocal group of whiners, moaners and complainers on a daily basis would you? So why would you allow the same sort of negative influences into your life by what you read? You have the choice of who your friends are. You have the choice of who you listen to too. Make that choice wisely. You have the choice of whether you develop a strong Leadership Attitude or whether you resign yourself to simply being "sheeple" (people who follow like sheep).

How To Do A "Courtesy Call" With Courtesy

It's been about six months or so since I received a "courtesy call" from my bank. The last time they called, they told me that according to the kinds of transactions I do, that perhaps I was on the wrong service plan. They assured me that day that if I were to change my banking package, I would save a few dollars per month. So I did. And they were right - I saved a few bucks each month.

That call, although it was an interruption in my day, was a courtesy. I was paying too much. They noticed it. They told me. They fixed it. Simple courtesy.

But how often do you get a phone call from organizations who preface their sales pitches with, "this is just a courtesy call." Then they go on, under the guise of offering you courtesy, to try to sell you something, offer you something free in exchange for an appointment or simply try to extract information from you? What's the courtesy there?

A courtesy call is not courteous if all you're wanting to know is if I want to buy another product or service from you. Giving money back to me is a courtesy. Me giving you more money is not courtesy - it's a sale. And just because I may have done business with you in the past does not give you the right to abuse that privilege and attempt to line your own pockets with my money again. That's not courtesy. That's greed.

If you want to make a real "courtesy" call, then don't call and interrupt me when I'm sitting down to dinner. Be courteous and book an appointment to speak with me. Send me something in the mail and offer me the choice of whether I want to speak with you more. Give me the opportunity to extend you some courtesy. What you're giving me right now is not a courtesy call - its an intrusiveness call.

Don't pick through my past purchase information, send it to some overseas call-center, interrupt my dinner, assume I'll welcome your intrusion and expect me to buy from some anonymous person on a telephone and insult me by calling it a courtesy call.

If you want to make a real courtesy call, stop making it all about you and start making it about me, the customer. To make a courtesy call requires my permission for you to call otherwise its not courteous. Sharing my purchase history with some telemarketing call center is not courteous. Asking for a credit card number on the phone is not courteous. Asking me to drop everything I'm doing to discuss with a stranger how I can part with more of my money is not courteous.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Look, if you want to make your intrusive phone call more courteous, develop a Service-Leadership Attitude. How? At the time of my first purchase, set up your courtesy call then. Tell me when you're going to call. Tell me what you will want to discuss. Tell me how long you will take and finally, tell me what's in it for me. That's courteous. Make the time specific, send me a reminder by mail and then keep your word of five minutes to follow up. That's courteous.

But stop interrupting me as a "courtesy." Its not courteous. It's rude.

9 Office-Relocation Transition Strategies To Boost Morale

Question: My team and I have just learned that our office will close within 10 months or so and relocate to another city on the other side of the country. Some will make the move and some won't. For those who will stay on and make the move with us, how can I boost the low morale prevalent in our office right now?

Most people don’t like change. Perhaps let me rephrase that: we, as humans, are not necessarily resistant to change – just sudden change. The news of moving the office to another city and the short turnaround period are what I consider to be sudden change. Given the opportunity to adapt to the announcement, many will. Some will not. Some have resilience – others simply choose to feel victimized. There’s nothing you can do now to lessen the impact of the announcement. But you must now demonstrate real leadership.

First, understand that there are two targets your people can be looking toward: 1) the day the office closes and many are out of work, or 2) the days after the office closes – when people are getting settled into their new jobs, new location, new environments, new offices, new friends, new people and new perspective. It’s an exciting time and this is where I challenge you to take the focus of your people – not to the day of the office closing but to the days after the office closes.

You can not be heard uttering the words, “yeah I know it’s tough but what are you going to do?” That simply makes people wallow in their pain and not look for the positive opportunities that could follow, regardless of whether or not they are choosing to move or find something else when the office closes. And it keeps your people focused on the day the office closes.

Next, you need to have a plan for the day after the office closes. Be proactive. Show your people that you’re not wallowing in misery but you, as their leader, are getting right to the next chapter of your work life. This will likely inspire your people to quit their wallowing and get on with it.

Here are 9 Transition Strategies that need to go into your plan:

1. Get a firm decision from each staff member right now: are they coming or are they leaving? For those who are choosing to move, get a plan in place to look after housing needs at the other end, arranging movers, arranging flights to visit the new city as early as possible so that those people can get excited about the prospect of moving.
2. If there are a few on-the-fence about moving, make sure they get a chance to visit the new city to help them make a decision. Provided it’s a pretty city, those who are sitting on the fence may be swayed by its beauty and come home with a positive attitude about the move. In other words, get as many of your staff onside as soon as possible so that you are not shouldering the burden of overcoming the negative attitudes alone.
3. If you are not in a position to help them travel financially, then at least develop a strategy to offer your people some time off so that they may travel on their own. Bend over backwards in consideration for your people. Moving is a big step for some.
4. Create a “Relocation Transition Team” in your office. Task your people to work with each other to find Realtors, research good neighborhoods, recreation facilities, schools, contact numbers for City departments, garbage schedules, residential Internet hookups, utilities, public transportation, gyms, park systems, bicycle rentals, organized sports for kids, anything that they currently do now. They will need this information anyway when they get to the new city. The transition becomes easier when they’ve planned in advance. Creating this team keeps everyone pointed in a forward direction focused on the day after the office closes.
5. For those who are choosing not to move, bring a little hope. Bring in an HR consultant to help them define their skill set, aid in developing an updated resume and help them feel powerful as they get ready to hit the streets job searching.
6. Offer those who will remain behind a liberal schedule to attend interviews, respond to want ads, and help them post their resumes to Monster and other job sites. Offer letters of reference with heartfelt words; offer to call interviewers on their behalf and to use the full resources of the company to help them land softly.
7. If your people end up finding good positions early (before the office relocates), let them go. Knowing that you are behind them is an unselfish act and keeps a positive mindset in the office. Let them know that you understand that when they get a great offer, you won’t hold them back. Ensuring that your peoples’ individual welfare is ahead of the company short-term welfare is real Service Leadership Attitude in action.
8. If, however, your generosity is still met with negative attitude in the office, address it immediately. Have face-to-face discussions with the guilty parties about their behavior. Make sure they understand that this corporate decision does not give anyone free license to act out in rebellion. The company is moving forward regardless of any whining. They have an opportunity to move forward with the company or to be job-seeking early. It is imperative that you remove the negative forces that influence the rest of the group and also remove those who annoy the others with their negativity. It is still a workplace and it is business as usual.
9. Most of all don’t dwell on the upsetting of the apple cart. The more you dwell on the downside of “change” the more you encourage your people to grumble and feel sorry for themselves. The decision has been made – let’s get back to work.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: In tough times, people look to leaders who are capable of leading. Are you one? If not, isn't it time you got busy developing your Leadership Attitude?

A Punch Line – Not A Punch

Standing in line at the checkout recently, I overheard this conversation:

Customer: “Whoa, wait a sec. How much was that?”

Clerk: (puzzled) “A dollar?”

Customer: “OK but what about this?” (pointing to another checked item)

Clerk: “That was a dollar too.”

Customer: (holding up another item) “So how much is this then?”

Clerk: (heavy sigh) “A dollar.” (Short pause for courage I guess) “Ma’am, this is a dollar store. Everything here is a dollar.”

Now once upon a time, during an episode like this in which the customer holds up an entire line of people who are waiting to check their items, I would roll my eyes in my head and say loud enough for others to hear, “You have got to be kidding.”

But for the past thirteen years, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes, people are placed on my path simply for my amusement. Kind of like today. (Oh sure, I still have my “you have got to be kidding” moments but they are short-lived.)

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need to adopt a Resilience Attitude when the time is right. A Resilience Attitude will get you through the tough days with a smile, a chuckle and sometimes a deep-down belly-laugh. The Resilience Attitude will help you weather tough days, tough situations and tough economic times.

The Resilience Attitude has no place for whining, moaning, complaining or blaming. The resilience Attitude simply says, “OK, it happened. Now what?”

It is amazing how many people can fall off of a bicycle and get back up to ride it again. And yet, there are so many others who, when something devastating happen in their lives, they refuse to get back up. Instead they wallow in their circumstances, complain about how they have been hard-done by, share their “victim” story with anyone who will listen and continue to re-live it over and over again.

In fact, people who seek revenge, play guilt games, re-live their regrets and are remorseful for their lives are, in effect, choosing to stay down after falling down. The Resilience Attitude doesn’t allow those who possess it to stay down. People with Resilience Attitude refuse to stay down. The Resilience Attitude helps you bounce back.

Every decision you have ever made in your life has put you exactly where you are today. By being victimized by that, you are not accepting accountability. It means that you do not possess the Resilience Attitude. But if you can accept that where you are in your life today has been a result of every decision you have ever made, then you have the ability to bounce back and succeed despite the “temporary” circumstances. Everything is temporary – nothing is permanent – unless you decide it is permanent.

Now please don’t think that I’m going all “motivational speaker” on you. That’s not it. This is simply an Attitude Adjustment on ‘perspective versus results.’ If you think people want to be entertained by your victim story, then you’re choosing to stay down. People love to laugh. Make other people laugh with your stories. Don’t make them feel your pain. That’s not funny and it’s incredibly rude to force others to sit through your awful story. Make your story have a punch line – not a punch.

So today, when you’re in the line at the grocery store, the coffee shop, stuck in traffic or waiting for your meeting to show up, have a look around for the one thing that has been placed into your life at this moment simply to amuse you. You’ll have an amusing story to tell at the end of your day. It will change your outcome. You’ll have taken the first step into achieving a Resilience Attitude.

So what’s the punch line to your story today?

Your Compelling Offer

As I passed the roadside sign in front of the pet store, I read its message: “10% Off Fish Supplies.” This sign struck me as a little strange and I felt compelled to keep reading it again to attempt to better understand its meaning. But as much as I looked at it, it still read “10% Off Fish Supplies.”

The reason that I found the sign strange is because of the question I asked myself as I passed by: is ten percent enough of a discount to bring in traffic off of the highway? In a world where retailers are yelling at us to notice their deep-cut discounts of fifty, eighty and ninety percent, is 10% a compelling offer? Not knowing the regular prices of the store in question, I was flummoxed to make a determination on that.

To a small mom-and-pop operation, a ten percent discount may seem like a big deal to the owners, but to the consumers, ten percent may not be much of a compelling offer. Twenty nine cents off of the regular price of an aquarium cleaning brush would certainly not offset the cost of fuel to get to the store to purchase the item. In fact, in most provinces in Canada, a ten percent discount doesn’t even offset the sales tax.

The assumption had to be made that the owners of the pet store have chosen to compete in the market on price and not on service as the sign made no indication that their service was superior. Nor did the sign give any indication that an additional ten percent saving would bring pricing far below its competitors. A compelling offer needs to be relative. Ten percent off of the price of a new car is a big deal. Ten percent off of a $2.99 item is not.

Purchase a new aquarium for $200 and get a free fish net, cleaning brush, gravel, some plants and filtration pump would be the equivalent of a ten percent discount. That might seem like a more compelling offer than a few pennies off the regular price of a fish net.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What is your compelling offer? Your offer has to mean something to the potential consumer if you are going to sway the decision. You don’t have to be in sales to have a compelling offer. What was your compelling offer when you were hired? What is your compelling offer now to be considered for a promotion?

Are you bringing something to the table that no one else possesses or are you simply filling a space? Are you the leading candidate for promotion or do you feel that because of your tenure, you deserve to move up? Have you read the books on leadership in an effort to position yourself to be the natural choice for a leadership position or will you not bother learning about leadership until there is a need to know how to be a leader?

Does hiring you for the job benefit just you or will it benefit the organization as a whole? How is the organization different as a result of choosing you for the job? If you can make that case, then you have a compelling offer.

If you won’t grow yourself first, then it could be argued that the organization as a whole wouldn’t grow much if you were in a leadership position. Leadership, after all, is an Attitude. If you don’t have the Leadership Attitude, then you aren’t reading the books, you aren’t listening to the audio recordings, you aren’t attending the seminars and you aren’t prepared to invest in yourself. It’s pretty much going to be a case of “same-old same-old” for you. If you won’t invest in yourself first, then why should any organization invest in you and expect much of a return.

If you don’t invest in you, then you’re likely to continue being a small fish in a big aquarium and it could be argued that a ten percent discount in your value wouldn’t much affect the organization. Now if your organization would change by fifty percent as a result of your not being there, then that’s a compelling offer to keep you and pay you more.

Leadership is an Attitude. If you want to attract investors (customers, bosses, promotions), then you have to show a history of increased value and outstanding performance. Compare yourself to the stock market. Are you a blue-chip stock that continues to increase in value consistently? Or are you a penny-stock that investors overlook or dump to get to the blue-chips? It’s your call. What's your compelling offer?

The Illusion Of Being In Business

Do you earn your money or do you simply give your employer the illusion of earning your money? What I mean by that is are you actually giving your best effort to get the job done in every moment of your day or are you simply doing just enough to not get fired? Are you actually busy or just giving the illusion of being busy so people don’t end up tasking you with new work and projects?

The guy who walks around the office all day with a phone glued to his head or constantly on his Blackberry can make you think that he is busy but may, in fact, be just trying his best to look busy so no one questions his work ethic. Appearing busy is not necessarily being busy. Why is it that some people get their work done during the day and others, doing the same job, end up taking their work home with them at the end of the day? I believe it is because one is productive and one gives the illusion of being busy.

So let’s say that you are the person who is actually productive during the day. You manage to get your work done on time. You even have time to help others out by taking some of their workload when you have a little extra time in your day. At the end of the day, you managed to help a co-worker out of a jam by helping them with their project. Should you be compensated more than the person who simply gives the illusion of being busy? Of course you should. Do you get compensated that way? Not likely because when it comes right down to it, you seem as busy as the guy who gives the illusion of being busy even though being productive and being busy are two different things entirely. Most workplaces don’t bother to check the difference because why would you question someone who seems like he’s always doing something?

Being productive is the right and honorable thing to do. Giving the illusion of being busy is stealing. Some businesses give great service. Others give the illusion of service.

So, let’s say you actually earn your money – fair work for fair pay. If you’ve worked to earn your money, why would you then give up that hard-earned money to another business who doesn’t earn it? I’m speaking of businesses who don’t give you the same service you give your customers and co-workers. I’m speaking of businesses who give the illusion of being in business but fail in the “service” area. Given the option of buying the exact same item from a business who gives great service and one who simply takes your money with no real “gratitude attitude,” why would you freely give up your “earned” money to an organization that doesn’t earn it?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need to set a standard in your life – a line that says “I will not accept service less than this.” Lay out your expectations to yourself. Prepare yourself to walk away if they fail in service that is not up to your standard. You can fire a business just like a company can fire an employee.

You vote with your dollars. A company that does not earn your business shouldn’t get your business because of convenience – because they were easier to get to.

Some grocery stores will bag your groceries for you and then walk your groceries out to your car Yet others will make you pay for the bags to put your groceries in and you will have to bag your own groceries. If the groceries are virtually the same price, wouldn’t you prefer buying from the store that gives you the bags for free, bags them for you and then loads the groceries in your car for free as well? That’s service and you deserve to be served well. It’s your money. You earned it. Or is it that you just give the illusion of earning your money and are unable to tell the difference between service and the illusion of service?

Five Serious Problems In The Retail World

I happen to be a big fan of Seth Godin – author of such books as All Marketers Are Liars and nine other bestsellers in the area of Marketing. I read Seth’s Blog religiously as it gives quite a great take on how we are exposed to marketing messages daily and how marketers are finding new and unique ways to cut through the marketing clutter to reach us and convince us to buy their products and services. It helps me to better understand why we are, as consumers becoming increasingly frustrated when it comes time to make a purchase and how the marketers seem to be becoming complacent with product selection and how most seem to be competing in the same price arena.

Because of the tweaking of my marketing mindset, I notice and pay attention to businesses more and how they conduct business. I have come to notice five things that are becoming quite disturbing.

1. For the most part, you will find the same products in virtually every store - all relatively close in price. That means that the selection of brand names is fairly limited in an effort to not keep a competitive edge in the market but instead be only as good as the competition. Business seems to be spending more time focusing on their competitors (and keeping the same stock and price) and not focusing on the customer and offering something superior.
2. By keeping price-point as a key component of being in business, the cheapest price usually wins. Unfortunately, cheapest price almost always means cheapest quality. You’ll be back looking for a replacement before long.
3. Although you may find the item you’re looking for a store by visiting their web site, there is no guarantee that the item is in stock. Don’t trust the “Check Store Stock” option on a web site. Inventory tracking isn’t working the way it is supposed to. You may think there’s one in stock, but when you get there it isn’t, so most people end up buying something else in its place. (Always make the phone call first, get them to physically check to see if it’s there, offer a credit card number to hold the item and then go get it right away.)
4. High-priced quality products don’t sell well in a Wal-Mart priced world. If it’s quality you want, you’ll need to find it on-line from specialty stores and have it shipped to you. Otherwise, it’s a frustrating experience.
5. Businesses only seem to stock what they think you should buy, not what you want to buy. You only get to choose from a series of inferior products.

Try Googling “reviews on breadmakers” and you’ll find Zojirushi makes the best one. You can’t buy them in stores. You have to order them from one of only two on-line stores in Canada. But almost every department store carries Black & Decker or Sunbeam bread makers – terrible quality items that reviewers warn people to stay away from. There’s a reason why they are one quarter of the price of a Zojirushi.

Air-O-Swiss are the world’s best humidifiers. Again, you can’t buy them in stores. They’re expensive and the highest quality and people apparently don’t want quality. Go online and get Air-O-Swiss shipped from California.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Are you in business or are you just giving us the illusion of being in business? We, as consumers have more access to more information, and we are educating on-line before we go shopping in-store. By the time we get to your location, we need a cashier – not a salesperson.

Are you offering your customers the exact same product or service as your competitors? Are you willing to stand out, be different, offer service over and above and offer a superior product? Do you make a customer for life or for just a few minutes? Is your product or service just good enough or is it head-and-shoulders above everyone else?

Service is an Attitude. Customer Service is a department. You should be tired of accepting sub-par service and products. Give your business to those who offer quality and who demonstrably show the “Service Attitude.” You can spot these marketers a mile away. They are the one’s who carry what you WANT to buy – not what they TELL you you’re going to buy.

Worldwide State Of Chasing Balloons

The recession is over … or it has caught the swine flu?

A month ago, virtually every page in the front section of the newspaper had a story on the “recession.” The first ten minutes of a national TV news broadcast featured stories on the “recession.” Recession. Recession. Recession. The sky is falling. Hold onto your money. Doom and gloom warnings.

Now, if you pick up a newspaper today, you will have to search for the stories on the recession. It seems our financial future is not important as the few hundred people in Canada and USA who have contracted swine flu. In fact, most cases of swine flu are relatively mild. Only a few people ever develop the dangerous symptoms. And they will number a few dozen at the most.

But where is the media? They’re sitting in briefings from Medical Officers because covering some new “tragedy” that will end up seriously affecting a few dozen people is sexier than reading financial reports and talking with economists.

In fact, listening to one Medical Officer describe swine flu symptoms, he described them as relatively mild and that the “pandemic” that the media keeps eluding to, is well under control by the qualified medical organizations whose job it is to contain infectious outbreaks like this.

“Wash your hands and prevent catching the flu.” That’s the advice to containing the spreading of swine flu. It’s a very simple solution. No drugs. No hoarding of Tamiflu. No locking yourselves in bomb shelters to wait out the deadly disease. Just wash your hands regularly and you’ll be doing plenty to protect yourself.

So why all the fuss? Because apparently the media spent a little too long in front of the TV watching Will Smith in I Am Legend. The bigger the media attempts to make this story, the more they are saying that our medical leaders are inept – all in an effort to boost ratings and readership. They are reporting a story that they can’t possibly understand without the medical officers “dumbing it down” for them (you can’t fully comprehend the complexities of the virus without some sort of medical or scientific training). Then, the media simply takes the sexy pieces from the briefings and report only that.

I was a member of the media for eighteen years. I worked with reporters whose job it is to get an angle on a story that no one else has – no matter how marginal it may be. They spend more time preening in front of the mirror making sure not a single strand of hair is out of place and that they look fabulous before the cameras roll than they do getting themselves up to speed on what they’re reporting on. If a medical briefing takes place at 7:00 pm, a newspaper reporter will have to return to the office, pour through her notes, find an angle to the story, write it and submit it to an editor before 10:00 pm. In the two hours or so that the reporter has to write the story, there is little time to research, understand the complexities and face the editor.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: I don’t think that media understands just how intelligent we are about what's going on. If the media can be distracted from their work uncovering a drastic so-called “economic disaster” by a disease that can be prevented by washing your hands, then are they like little kids chasing balloons?

Let’s not panic just yet. Let’s keep our heads and our wits about us. Let’s develop our own individual personal leadership qualities and keep relaxed. We can handle these events of our lives. We have up to now. Let's instead let the media go mad. They seem to be worrying plenty for all of us anyway.