Humor In The Workplace Is A Joke

On the airplane flight I took today, our lead flight attendant was quite a jokester. Of course, once the plane hit a lot of turbulence, the jokes stopped. And I was left to ponder this thought: if the airplane got into some trouble, who would I want at the controls - the funny steward or the unflappable pilot?

As a professional speaker who likes to make people laugh while they are learning something valuable, I am on occassion mistaken as someone who delivers keynote presentations on humour in the workplace. I don't. In fact, I don't see the value of sitting around and trying to be funny for the sake of trying to improve morale. Sorry, I just don't get it. I think laughter needs to be heartfelt - not put on. (Think about how uncomfortable it is to be around someone trying too hard to be funny.) Some people are funny and some are not. It's almost painful to watch someone with no sense of humour trying to be funny. Hey, I don't try to be tall.

So this week I stumbled onto the results of the T-Mobile Workplace Motivation Report. Fifteen percent of those surveyed actually believe that joke-cracking has a demotivating influence. Workers don't feel motivated by colleagues who spend their time joking around and making flippant comments meant to be funny.

The research showed that workers prefer to be surrounded by upbeat people with a "can-do" attitude. Also a calming influence are people who can remain calm in the face of adversity - those who are unflappable and have a "Trust The Process" attitude.

I know a few speakers who conduct "humour in the workplace" sessions. I've never really understood how humour helps improve engagement, leadership or service. It's the same, to me, as wasting a lot of money on personality profiling - are you an introvert, extrovert or even what "color" you're supposed to be. How does that help you get more done, serve customers better or improve your performance results?

When times of economic uncertainty hit us, I want to be hanging out with the calm and "everything-is-going-to-be-alright" attitude guy. I don't want to have to turn to the jokester whose own humour during crisis times turns to blank-stared, crazy-nervous laughter.

Attitude Adjustment: I still think it's a good idea to have a sense of humour in the workplace - just don't annoy your co-workers with your giggles. As a boss, think about how you could better spend your training budgets by helping to actually improve your employees which will improve the workplace. Clown noses at work are just dumb. How is that going to improve the attitudes and performance of your people during times of economic downturns? Help make more of your people unflappable instead of funny. Bring a sense of calm to your workplace first and your people will have more fun as a result.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The Customer Is Rarely Right

Imagine for a moment, as you serve one of your customers, that the customer begins to become belligerent and abusive towards you despite all of your best attempts to please the customer. Even though you are doing your best to diffuse this tenuous situation, the customer is just being an ass and is rejecting your offers of service. This customer just, it seems, wants to be abusive.

Now, also imagine your boss walking in on the conversation as the customer increases his abusiveness towards you and your boss sides with the customer. How would you feel? Would you feel like the rug was just pulled out from under you? Would you feel your value decreased? Would you pledge your undying loyalty to the company from that point forward? Would you give a damn about the customer anymore?

The sad truth is that this is happening all too often. Bosses, in their mistaken belief that “the customer is always right” will sometimes do whatever is necessary for the sake of keeping a customer (and his or her money) – even if that customer abuses one of his or her employees.

The customer is NOT always right. In fact, it could be argued that the customer is “rarely” right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk. Does being a jerk make a person right?

If you want to keep, not just your good people - but all of your people, working for you, then fire the customers who are insensitive, rude to or abuse your staff members - regardless of who that staff member is. Tell the customer that they are no longer welcome in your business. Refuse to take any further orders from them. Stand up for your people (hey, you trained them, paid for that training and have coached them all the way along – don’t let them down now).

You can’t afford to keep customers who make your staff look like idiots. Money in a wallet doesn’t give a person the right to act like a jerk. And as a staff member, don’t allow yourself to be belittled in the name of job-security.

Bosses, imagine that one of your top performers witnesses a lesser performer getting dumped on by a customer and you, as a boss, do nothing to stop this from happening. You will not only likely lose the loyalty of your lesser performer but your top performer as well.

In a situation like that, everyone, regardless of the performance abilities, will see exactly what kind of company he/she works for. Jumping to the defense of a top performer in the same situation and not jumping to the defense of a poor performer shows complete insincerity. You will not keep any performers if you are not genuinely dedicated to your staff.

Managers serve their employees - not the other way around. Staff serves customers; manager serves employees; the CEO serves managers, employees and shareholders. Every one serves someone. Employee loyalty is far more important than customer loyalty. If you are going to charge your employees with serving the customer, you had better make sure they feel that you (as a manager) are loyal to them if you want them to be loyal to the customer and in turn, make the customer loyal to your business.

Attitude Adjustment: The days of dumping all over your people and the fairy-tale belief that "the customer is always right" is dead. You will never have a relationship with your customers if you don't have a manager to employee relationship that works first. Think long and hard on this one. Customer loyalty is only as strong as employee loyalty. Serve your employees well so that they may serve your customers in the same way. If you, as a boss, don’t stand up for your people, you will probably end up serving the customer directly - you’ll be the only one left in the workplace willing to work with you.

Kevin Is Featured Guest This Week and Next

I had my brain picked this month.

Sybil Stershic, of Allentown, Pennsylvania and author of the book Taking Care Of The People Who Matter Most: A Guide To Employee-Customer Care interviewed me this month on a range of topics. Part One of a two-part interview is now on her Blog - The Quality Service Marketing Blog.

Feel free to have a look at our interview as well as the rest of her Blog. There are some great insights into offering quality service regardless of your industry.

Eye-Opening Survey Results

Perhaps we’ve become deluged with surveys but over the past week I’ve seen some survey results that were interesting enough that I thought I’d pass them along.

American Management Association:
Being kind to employees seems to be the right move for a boss when it comes to boosting performance.
Out of 660 respondents, the findings are as follows:
75% characterized their boss as “kind.”

• 84% of these said they plan to work for their company a long time
• 74% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 70% said they work as hard as they can
• 73% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 84% said they believe their boss really listens

14% considered their boss a “bully.”

• 47% of these said they plan to work here for a long time
• 32% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 54% said they work as hard as they can
• 42% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 24% said they believe their boss really listens

11% were neutral

Jobfox.com
Generation Y workers, the youngest of the four generations in the workplace, are not making a great impression on the job.
200 recruiters polled and the findings are as follows:
Who are the Great performers?

• 20% Gen Y
• 58% Gen X
• 63% Boomers
• 25% Traditionalists

Who are the Poor performers?

• 30% Gen Y
• 5% Gen X
• 4% Boomers
• 22% Traditionalists

Human Resource Professionals Association in partnership with retirement lifestyle consultants Life’s Next Step
627 HR pros surveyed and the findings are as follows:
With somewhere between 20% and 40% of the workforce scheduled to retire over the next five years, is your organization prepared for the coming talent shortage?

• 14% are fully prepared
• 60% are somewhat prepared
• 23% are poorly prepared

Hirescores.com
3000 British workers surveyed and the findings are as follows:
Almost half of British workers waste about a third of their workday pretending to be working. Typical time wasted: 2 hours 20 minutes every day.
96% admitted to doing unnecessary tasks to avoid work at some point in their workday.

Attitude Adjustment: We’re in trouble people – unless we all get a serious attitude adjustment soon.

Millenials vs Baby Boomers

Question: In your experience, what are the differences in engaging the different generations?

My answer to this question may seem like a bunch of rash generalizations since one cannot lump all Baby Boomers together and claim that they all have the same value and skill sets nor can you expect that all Millenials have the same sets of values because they were simply born around the same time. Labeling workers based on the year they were born seems a little ridiculous to me.

With that being said, let me say this. As Baby Boomers, we (I am one) were taught the value of achievement. In other words, in high school, winning a gold medal in the 800 meter race was met with perhaps nothing more than a grunt from a father, whereas today, parents will throw a celebration for the child who comes home with a “participant” ribbon.

We have become a much softer society who perhaps tries to shelter our children from the realities of the world. This is the Oprah generation – the generation whose family watched Oprah just prior to supper and has a family discussion about what Oprah said today. These same kids, who are now grown, have entered the workforce with a much more pronounced spiritual side yet at the same time have had many of life’s rewards simply handed to them instead of having to earn it.

Boomers have earned everything they have; Millenials may have had most of it handed to them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Millenials don’t have a strong values set. Some do and some don’t. Some Boomers work hard and some don’t. Some Gen X’ers have learned the value of applying themselves in their pursuit of excellence and some have not.

However, there is a skill set that the average Millenial possesses that is mind-boggling to the average Boomer: the propensity to use technology. For most Baby Boomers in the workforce today, remembering back to childhood and not seeing a TV remote control in the house until they were into their teens is not uncommon. Color cable television was a celebration as a huge leap forward into new technology. I could make a comment about “Pong,” “Pac-Man” and Commodore-64’s here but suffice it to say, we’ve come a long way in a short period of time.

The Millenials, however, have never had a day that didn’t involve the use of computers, cell phones or portable entertainment devices. For Boomers, a chat was something you did over coffee. For Millenials, chatting is something you do over Java.

Boomers grew up with the notion of finding a good job that they might become proficient at. Millenials have entered the workforce searching for a good fit as opposed to a good job. Each Millenial has a skill set that they hope to be able to use. They don’t work well for organizations that happen to have a position and are just looking for a body to fill it. Millenials want the job to fit them and not the other way around. And at the end of the day, Millenials will leave the work behind whereas Boomers will take it home to finish. Boomers hope to one day achieve a decent work-life balance. Millenials are looking for a life-work balance: life comes first and work comes second.

And when you hire a Millenial, you hire their entire network of friends. MSN, Twitter, SMS and other forms of electronic hand-holding by their friends will be turned on in the workplace. The Millenial may be at work for you, but they are still connected to their network. Ask them to shut it off during work hours and you will be faced with filling a vacancy in your organization. Old school management does not work in today’s Millenial market. Give a poor performance review to a Millenial and that employee’s mother may call to ask why. Why should a job-performance review be any different than a parent-teacher meeting?

Attitude Adjustment: How do you engage the opposite ends of the workforce spectrum? For Boomers, it’s a matter of laying out the project parameters clearly: time frame, responsibilities, expectations and hierarchy within the project. Then, step out of the way and let the Boomer get it done. Oh, and if you expect it will take the whole day to get it done, expect it to be worked on overnight.

As for a Millenial, ask for input on how the project should come together. Give them the responsibility to make the decisions, don’t make them climb a ladder of hierarchy to ask a question, loosen the time frame (4‘ish?) and offer the opportunity to address key areas you’d like explored as well as anything they might feel is of value to the project. If you would expect the project to take all day, don’t. In fact, expect it in your email Inbox completed by noon that same day.

As for praise, give a Boomer an “attaboy,” privately with a handshake and heartfelt thanks. As for Millenials, you guessed it, a very public celebration.

Abundance vs Scarcity

Elections are in the air. Canada goes to the polls this week. America goes to the polls next month. And the big item on the agenda for both countries is the worldwide economy – although many of the citizens in both countries refuse to see that it is a worldwide event and not geographically exclusive to any one country.

I heard a great quote from Warren Buffet, last week. Buffet, if you don’t already know, is the most successful investor ever in the history of the world. Buffet’s advice? “If you’re not prepared to own a stock for ten years, you shouldn’t own it for ten minutes.”

In other words, think long-term. Markets fluctuate. It’s the focus on a short-term buy and sell that can create uncertainty, worry and sometimes panic, not within the market but within the individual buying and selling. That panic then spreads to other areas of his or her life because everything always comes back to money doesn’t it?

There are always short-term events in life that creates uncertainty and sometimes worry or panic. And this global economic slowdown is simply one of those events that will come and go over time. It’s not permanent. It never is. Even the Great Depression wasn’t permanent. We got over it and our economies bounced back and grew. And we will weather this storm too.

There are two attitude choices you can make for your life: not just when a financial crunch comes but something you can practice in good times and bad. Those two choices are to have either a “scarcity” mindset or an “abundance” mindset.

I will let the words of Steven Covey explain it better:

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

Attitude Adjustment: Before you start to panic, remember that newspapers need to sell big headlines to get you to buy them, TV networks need to sensationalize in order to bring their viewership up. Don’t rely solely on one news outlet for your perspective. There are an “abundance” of perspectives out there. Check out varying web sites, TV news, radio commentators, newspapers, periodicals, blogs, etc. Everyone has an opinion. You will find that there are as many people willing to lessen the severity of the current economic outlook as there are people who are willing to profess that the sky is falling. You owe it to the important people in your life to practice an attitude of “abundance” and not to panic. These current world events are temporary. This too, like every difficult time in our history, shall pass and you will be OK.

How To Engage On The Job

Here's another question that was asked this week: "How are Attitude and Employee Engagement related?"

Employee engagement IS an attitude. It’s an attitude based on values, morals and ethics instilled within the individual. If an employee was never taught or learned that their word is golden (specifically that the agreement they made to work in exchange for the paycheck), then they will never really feel compelled to be fully engaged on the job nor will they ever go over and above the bare minimum in the performance of their duties.

If, however, one of the employee’s values is to keep their agreements and not allow excuses or justifiers to stand in their way, they will perform the job to the best of their abilities. That employee understands that by accepting the offer of employment in the first place, there is an expectation that they were hired as simply the best candidate and carry within them a belief that employment is a privilege and not a right.

People who have a strong set of values and a good sense of doing what is right will always perform their duties to their capacity and will engage themselves in their work.

It is for that reason that I believe that employee engagement is not necessarily something that can be taught directly but, in fact, can only be instilled by soft-skills training: personal development, personal leadership and values-based life strategies. To employ someone in a position where the values of the job are in conflict with the employee’s set of personal values is a waste of a company’s time and money. You can’t fully engage an employee doing a job that goes against everything they believe and expect the employee to give up their own personal and life-long held views of the world.

It is for this same reason that a company’s values need to be developed not by a bunch of expensive-suited executives, but instead must be a grass-roots effort from the people who actually do the work. If the employees develop the corporate values, the chances of the employees engaging themselves in the delivery of those same values are far greater. Corporate values cannot be thrust upon the employee. There has to be a buy-in.

Attitude Adjustment: Engagement comes from values. Any and all discussions to the contrary just don’t line up. Employee engagement is an attitude. Without a strong sense of self-worth, the value of the contribution by that same employee will be much less. To attempt to fully engage an employee with low self-esteem or poor personal values would be futile to any organization. Develop the individual at the personal level and the engagement on the job naturally increases. When the self-worth of the individual increases, their pride in the work they do also naturally increases. When "doing a good job" is a value that becomes instilled in the individual, the engagement level on the job increases. The more you put into your employees, the more you will get out of them. The more you improve yourself, the more the things you do improve.

Should All Rules Apply?

I just got off of the plane in Saskatchewan. My flight included the entire Calgary Stampeders football team. In other words, I was dwarved by the very big men who surrounded me.

We used a little extra runway for takeoff - there's a lot of extra weight with these big guys. The pilot probably didn't account for the extra weight when we landed since we hit the tarmack a little harder than usual.

But as I de-planed (is that even a word?), I noticed that my carry-on bag was the same size as most of the players' bags. Regulations say the bag must fit in the sizing device at the airport and weigh no more than twenty-two pounds. How come there's a weight limit to my bag but not to the person who is carrying it?

Now I'm not saying big people shouldn't fly. Get over yourself if that's what you're reading into this. I'm saying that maybe the airlines could cut guys like me a little slack when a bag is say 5 pounds over. Apparently it's OK to carry an extra hundred pounds on my body but not OK for five pounds in a bag.

Should all rules apply all of the time? Or should we be allowed a little judgment call from time to time?

Just a little food for thought.

Kevin Burns
Author & Attitude Adjuster
Adjusting Attitudes in Employee Engagement - Service Leadership - Corporate Safety

Toll-free 1-877-BURNS-11 www.kevburns.com

Soft Skills vs. Technical Training

Question asked this week: Why are so many companies fixated on technical training with little or no emphasis on soft-skills training (management development, interpersonal communications, customer relations skills, etc)?

First of all, the training listed in the question is, I believe, technical skills training. These are not soft-skills training courses. Soft skills training is the kind of training you would offer to make the individual a better person, not a better manager. Management development IS technical training – you are training a manager for the work place. That’s a technical skill. However, a personal leadership development course which grows a better individual with better self-confidence and compassion is a soft-skills training course. The better the individual, the better that individual would perform their job.

I believe that business gets better when the people in the business get better. Improve the individuals at the personal level and the workplace will naturally improve. In fact, ask yourself, “Will the workplace deteriorate when the people I work with become better, decent, courteous human beings? Of course not. The truth is that sales get better when the sales people get better. Customer service gets better when the people who serve customers become more compassionate, understanding and communicative. Management gets better when the managers get better.

Most technical training (sales, communication, time-management, teamwork, etc.,) in the workplace is a complete waste of money. Organizations and corporations throw away billions of dollars every year on useless training that is designed to make people more proficient at a job that they, as people, are not capable of doing. And it’s not because they don’t want to become better. It’s because they, as people, lack the “self” skills to do it better (self-confidence, self-esteem, self-discipline, self-motivation, etc.).

Here’s what I mean by that. Let’s just say that there are ten representatives working in your sales department. Five of the reps have outstanding sales track records: they consistently hit their targets every month, customers love doing business with them and they seem to achieve their targets effortlessly. Then there are the other five reps who struggle every month to come close to meeting their targets. They can’t seem to get motivated to either get on the phone or make the in-person sales calls. They struggle with dealing with tough customers and know, in the backs of their minds, that they need to improve their respective performances or risk being let go.

Here’s what many companies would do: bring in a sales trainer to improve “company sales.” Even though five of the ten reps are consistently meeting their targets, the company thinks sales training is the key to get the whole team performing well. So, in comes the sales trainer to solve a problem that is clearly out of his realm since the problem isn’t corporate sales, it is five specific sales people. So the company penalizes the five top-performers by making them sit through a course that they already don’t need help with, and then place the five under-performers into a situation where they are now being studied by the peers – and judged as well.

Sales training is a waste of time on someone who lacks the self-confidence to ask for the sale, pick up the phone or make a cold-call in person. Time Management training is a waste of time on people who have no self-discipline. People without self-discipline revert back to old ways because, well, they have no self-discipline to stick with a new strategy. Teamwork training is wasted on individuals who have low self-esteem since they already feel they don’t deserve to be part of the team. And on and on the list goes. You can’t build a structurally sound house on a shaky foundation. In the same way, you can’t build a high-performer out of someone with a poor sense of self-worth.

Attitude Adjustment: Leadership is an attitude – management is a title. Service is an attitude – customer service is a department. Engagement is an attitude – employment is a paycheck. One is personal and one is technical. Organizations, on their own, work fine - it’s people who screw them up. Fix the people (at soft-skills level) and you fix most every problem in the organization.

Waiting On "Hold"

So I'm on hold with the call-centre at Telus, the phone company. I have been on hold for about twenty minutes now.

I have heard this message twelve times so far, "Are you looking for a career in the telecommunications industry? Telus currently has open positions for call-centre agents. For more information, visit our web site."

Hmm, something tells me I'm going to be on hold a little bit longer.

Thanks Telus for the second-best laugh I've had today.

The Attitude of Leaders As Hosts

Leadership is an attitude. Management is a title. You don’t need to be in management to be a leader.

So what does leadership look like in your own life?

Let’s say you are having a social gathering at your house. That would make you the host and those who attended your party would be guests. When in someone else’s house, the guests all defer to the host as being the leader. In other words, you are not managing the party, you are hosting it. The guests will join the host (the leader of the party) even sometimes begrudgingly if the host wants to play a game of charades. It’s the host’s party. We, as guests, will follow along. When there are followers, there must be a leader.

I read an interesting article recently about the concept of “hostmanship” as opposed to the concept of customer service.

There are six fundamentals to hostmanship:

1. Serving others
2. Perceiving the whole
3. Taking responsibility
4. Being caring
5. Searching knowledge
6. Practicing dialogue

The hostmanship web site describes hostmanship as the following:

Hostmanship without pride is empty and cold. In contrast to service, Hostmanship is focused on practice, on people as hosts, on the cultures of businesses, and on the capacity of organizations to tie it all together. Being a host is much about having the courage to let loose your talents and express your personality – to be brave enough to serve every person as she is and to listen to the needs she expresses. Hostmanship also differs from service in that it’s not about treating others as you yourself want to be treated. Hostmanship is to treat a person as she wants to be treated.

Seth Godin, in his Blog, wrote this past week:

If I pay $1000 extra for a first-class seat, odds are the flight attendant will be nice to me. If I pay $2000 extra for the presidential suite at the hotel, odds are the front desk clerk will be nice to me. If I give the valet $50 to park my car, odds are he'll be nice to me as well.

So, here's the question: if all I want, the only extra, is for someone to be nice to me when I visit your business, how much extra does that cost?

I think there's a huge gap between what people are willing to pay for nice (a lot) and what it would cost businesses to deliver it (almost nothing). Smells like an opportunity.

Attitude Adjustment: Is it your right to host your guests or to serve your customers? Or is it a privilege? Shifting your attitude away from customers simply being dollar signs to a nicer approach, that they are your guests, will go a long way to providing you with customer loyalty, better employee engagement, a more courteous and considerate way of dealing with those who choose to support you and, finally, a solid foundation upon which you can build your business and business relationships. Change your mind. Change your attitude. And serve your “guests” as you would wish to be “hosted” at their places of business or even their homes.

Big Rig - Little Brain

OK, now I've written about this particular subject in past and yet there are still a lot of people who, as the offenders, don't seem to care - and as those who supervise the offenders, well, they don't seem to care either. Such is my plight and here is my NEW story.

It was late afternoon as I drove on the four-lane highway. I found myself in the left lane slowly passing a big-rig truck who was just under the speed limit in the right lane. As I successfully got past him, I was unable to change into the right lane as some slower traffic was just ahead so I stayed in the left lane. The big-rig that I had just passed had apparently just called upon all of the horses under the hood and was accelerating quickly in the right lane now - well over the speed limit.

In my mind I thought there is no way he can get all of that rig into the space between me in the left lane and the car just ahead in the right lane. But he tried and without any consideration for any other vehicles he attempted to change lanes just as his back wheels were even with my back wheels. Had he continued to change lanes he would have either knocked me into the median or I would have to go there voluntarily. He put his rig just across the center line and tried to force me to either jam on the brakes (which I couldn't as there was a vehicle coming up behind me) or drive into the ditch. He then, aggressively put his truck back into the left lane to let me go by.

As I passed him I could see him waving his arms, looking at me and mouthing obscenities. I read, just below his face, the sign on the door: Marshall Trucking and the toll-free number. Once past the line of slower moving cars I pulled into the right lane as he flew past me well over the speed limit. I called the toll-free number.

I explained my story to the dispatcher who made a quick radio call and left the line open. She said the following to the driver: "Some guy out on the highway is complaining and wants you to slow down."

She came back on the phone and dismissively said, "Good enough?"

"Nope," was my answer. "Let me speak with your safety supervisor."

I was connected with Dean who listened intently. It was only when I identified myself as someone who works in safety attitude did he seem to genuinely take an interest in my story about his company and his driver.

Attitude Adjustment: If your company has vehicles on the road, please remind your drivers that they are flying the flag of the company when they drive. And if you get a complaint from one person, you can multiply that one phone call by fifty. Fifty is at least the number of people your driver has likely affected but only one stood up to make a complaint. I don't care if you're short-staffed and can't find any other drivers. If one of your drivers chooses to be unsafe on the roads, you should fire him immediately. It will save your company's face and send a very strong message to your other drivers to get with the program. The fast-moving highway is no place to have a little brain behind the wheel of a big rig.

Arrogance vs. Attitude

Question posed this week: What would you do from your own professional perspective to overcome an arrogant attitude in management and encourage to them in being proactive in accepting the necessity, convenience and relevance of an organizational change?

Let's be clear. In most instances, it's not "management" that is arrogant. It is the individual people who hold the title "manager” who may be arrogant. Some managers have come to believe that their title carries with it a deluded belief that they are superior to those who work for them. Change the attitudes of the individuals and you can begin to successfully change the culture throughout the organization. But without acknowledging the existence of the arrogance attitude within oneself, there is likely to be little change in this regard.

Management is not the same as leadership. Management is a title. Leadership is an attitude. I doubt that a true leader, one who genuinely wanted his or her people to become better, smarter and more efficient and to become the best people they could become, would operate from a place of arrogance. But one who chose to try to keep his or her minions down would be operating from that arrogance place.

Here’s a self-test for managers: have you met every single person in your department and had at least one conversation with each of them? If not, what is keeping you from doing that? I can guarantee that employee engagement will increase when the employee begins to feel that their contribution matters. Leadership is encouraging performance that perhaps even surpasses the abilities of the leader. Leaders are selfless. It’s impossible to be arrogant when an individual is selfless.

In any organization, it is not only leaders holding management positions. In fact, arrogant managers actually fear employees who are perceived by their peers as leaders within the ranks. Employees with leadership abilities are influencers. Arrogant managers fear influencers who could undermine their position.

But a real influencer may also be able to influence the arrogant manager by having a private conversation, away from prying ears. It takes courage but it is possible.

Also, it takes courage from consultants and speakers to say what needs saying instead of plying platitudes to ensure the check gets signed. This is an all-too-sad truth in our industry – saying what is safe to say instead of saying what needs to be said.

Attitude Adjustment: There is good news on dealing with arrogant managers. As the market changes (customers expecting better service, expectations of quality products, purchasing patterns, economic forces, etc.,) so will the attitudes of managers ... eventually. All is not lost. This transition time, as Boomers leave the workplace and are replaced by Gen Y's or Millenials, the dynamics of the relationships between those at the top and those who actually do the work will begin to change. The one saving grace is that the customer (us) can tell the difference. We customers vote with our dollars. When the polls (dollars) start to swing away from those organizations with arrogant leadership, the shareholders of those same organizations will correct the problem in short order. The market always has a way of correcting itself.

Die, Conference Dinner

I ran across this article recently in Meeting Planners International magazine. I thought it was brilliant, so much so that I felt compelled to share it with you. If you are a Meeting Planner, pay attention. If you have attended one of these events, well, enjoy. It was written by Tony Carey, CMP.

It would be difficult to invent an occasion better designed for social discomfort than the end-of-convention dinner with its incompatible mix of stale etiquette, corporate protocol, culinary sensitivities, age, gender and cultural frictions all squeezed into a few short hours that, for many participants, seem like an eternity.

Pity the poor association meeting planner (for it is in this field that the tradition survives in its purest form), required to devise a social activity in which the preordained ingredients leave scope for nothing more creative than changing the colour of the table linen.

The evening’s schedule must include a drinks reception, a dinner of at least four courses, a speech by the chairman, another by the principal guest, a series of toasts, the presentation of awards, dancing and then—to show that the organisation isn’t as old-fashioned as the previous four hours have conclusively proved—a disco.

Given the diversity of delegates at most association conventions, few of them will enjoy all these ingredients. For the younger attendees, the reception and the disco fail to compensate for the dinner discomfort and the tedium of the speeches. For the older ones, failing digestion, hearing and prostate glands make the meal an ordeal. Women (who are promoted to “ladies” for the occasion) are invariably disappointed by the men whom they are placed next to, but at least they have the pleasure of putting on a party frock. Generally speaking, men do not share women’s enthusiasm for dressing up. This may be because dress shirts shrink two sizes between uses.

Protocol demands that men and women should be seated alternately at the dinner table. This is arguably the most ridiculous piece of social etiquette since the invention of the fish knife and, fortunately, is increasingly ignored. Any good host will tell you that compatibility and mutual interests should determine a seating plan—not gender.

Would any half-professional meeting planner dare to inflict on delegates, in an auditorium, the levels of discomfort that are deemed acceptable at a banquet? No. Ten guests to a round table ensures that some can’t see the speakers and, as if the room wasn’t hot enough, everyone stokes up on calorific food eaten off warm plates. To further challenge the air conditioning, each table has a candle.

It is a physiological fact that women feel the cold more than men, so, of course, the ladies appear in backless, strapless, insubstantial little numbers (invariably black) which attract welcome attention and an unwelcome chill—while conformity demands that the gentlemen perspire in tuxedos. But I digress.

So the meal has ground to an indigestible conclusion, toasts have been drunk and the awards presented. The chairman has finally sat down to lethargic applause, so it is time for the band to strike up with a tune that only 25 percent of those present will recognise as music and to which no one will dance.

By this time (midnight), the ambient noise has reached battlefield level ensuring that conversations with foreigners—especially Virginians—have become impossible.

Most of the men would rather talk than dance, and most of the women would rather dance than talk. But the single girls have a problem: since most of the younger generation is propping up the bar, their choice of dancing partners is limited. They can choose from another woman, a septuagenarian, a drunk, their own handbag or the Greek they were sitting next to at dinner. (It’s a particularly bad evening if all they can find is a drunk old Greek with a handbag.)

But it is at this point that the group—which has been held together all evening by the glue of conformity—really splits up. The very old and the married couples go to bed, the very young escape to joust, sweatily, in the disco, while the middle-aged singles bribe the barman to remain at his post so they can rearrange the world.

Ironically, because everyone ends the evening doing what they enjoy, the event will be regarded as a considerable success. Such is the amnesic power of alcohol.

TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is a speaker and consultant. He can be reached at tonycarey@psilink.co.je or via his Web site, www.tonycarey.info.

One Person Makes Every Decision

Here’s a question that was posed to me this week: what do you think is the major cause for an organization suffering unnecessary employee attrition or turnover?

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people would point the finger at: bad hiring, bad management, poor wages, stifling organizational culture, not keeping promises, misrepresentation of the work involved or failure to align with the corporate vision or mission statement.

There are a ton of possible reasons, most of them pointing the finger at a nebulous position or something else. Have we lost sight of the prime component here? Don't we undertsand that as long as we blame an entity or a position that we can’t quantify, that we will continue to face the same issues?

What about the employee who “needs” daily ego-stroking? Is it management’s job or the responsibility of “culture” to ensure that needy employees get their daily dose of Vitamin “Ego?” Not every single employee is cut from the same cloth. Just because they may have attended the same school doesn’t mean they have the same qualities and values as the next person.

HR needs to stop considering candidates for interview primarily from resumes. The world is changing. The new generation of worker bounces around from job-to-job looking for a fit. The new generation of workers doesn’t interview as well as older workers (unless they can interview by text message). The new generation of worker doesn’t even think like their interviewer (generational gaps). Can your HR department figure out what makes this worker tick?

Ask yourself this question: when your place of business has an opening, does it simply hire a body or does your place of work see the value and skill-set in a potential candidate and make a place for that person? There's a difference. Discover what your people are really good at and encourage them to do what they do best. Then hire someone else to do the work not being done but make sure they want to do it.

Want to change the culture? Change the people. I’m not talking about firing the lot. I’m talking about providing tools that employees could grow as people, could get better, more confident, build their individual self-esteem, improve their decision-making capacity, improve their communication skills and improve their daily dispositions and attitudes. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. It’s soft skills training. But if you really want to grow your organization you will first have to grow your people.

Organizations work fine. It’s people who screw them up. Fix the individual and you will fix the organization and the performance of the organization. But unfortunately, we’ve become a society of finger-pointers and blamers. And in doing so, it’s easy to blame an entity or a title (department) for the results.

In fact, some will actually argue with me that it’s got to be harder than just making the people better. My response is; have you tried it yet? Have you fully experienced poor results from actually implementing some sort of personal-development culture within your organization and can, from a place of experience, say it doesn’t work because you’ve actually tried it?

Attitude Adjustment: If you don’t make a change on the focus of the problem, you will never solve it. Every decision, every success and every screw-up in every organization can be traced back to just one person. Improve the person and you improve the decision. Improve the person and you improve the work. Improve the person and you improve the performance. Improve the person and you improve the attitude towards the job. Improve the person and you improve the attrition rate. Simple huh? Now stop blaming “management” for not allowing this to happen and go talk to the one person who can make the decision. It all boils down to one person – always.

The Leadership Philosophy

“How many people have actually read the ‘Belief’ Statement?” I said as I pointed to the large Belief Statement banner which stood upon the stage next to me.

A single hand out of almost two hundred attendees was raised. That hand, funny enough, belonged to meeting planner who had hired me.

“Are you serious?” was my incredulous response.

The one item out of the seven listed on the Belief Statement banner that I was drawing attention to made reference to each staff member being responsible for their own ongoing, continuous self-improvement and learning. I personally think that the responsibility for self-improvement should be on the individual and not the employer, no matter what.

So over the course of the hour that I addressed this group, I continually referenced the importance of self-improvement and a dedication to continuous learning.

I believe that taking fifteen minutes a day, a single coffee-break, to learn something today that may improve you personally or professionally, will show results exponentially down the road. Reading a chapter in a book that can improve your job performance, your willingness to stretch yourself, to learn a new skill or to enhance your skill set will, down the road, affect your paycheck.

The more you learn, the more valuable you become, the more likely you will be rewarded for your value.

Your employer is likely to see little reason to invest more resources or more money in you if you have not demonstrated a return on investment by investing in yourself first. And the truth is that if your employer is not able to see the results of your self-improvement strategy, it is likely that another employer will see it and offer you more to come to work there instead.

You don’t have to be in a management position to continually upgrade yourself. Just because someone has the title “manager” doesn’t mean they are a leader. Sometimes, and contrary to what many employers believe, people who could lead a revolt against management have much more leadership ability than the managers they themselves work for.

Attitude Adjustment: Leadership is an attitude. Management is a title. You can possess one without the other. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. The person who continuously self-improves puts him or herself in a much better position to influence others than does the manager who stops learning one he or she gets the title. Just because you’re not the boss doesn’t mean you’re not a leader. And just because you’re not a leader doesn’t mean you can’t be the boss. I mean, c’mon, we’ve all worked for bosses that had little leadership ability. The leader is the person who has demonstrated that he or she could always improve and makes a plan to make sure they are ahead of the pack. If you’re ahead of everyone else and they seem to be following you, then you must be the leader right? Open a book and start learning how to get in front.

$1000 Quit-Now Bonus

“You’ve been on the job for a week now, and we’d like to offer you $1000.00 if you quit today.”

How would you like to be greeted on your seventh day at work by that statement? Does that statement even seem possible? Well it’s real. And the company that is doing it is called Zappos – an on-line retailer of shoes. It’s called their “quit now” bonus.

Zappos will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. The employee will be paid for the amount of time they’ve worked, plus they are offered another $1,000 bonus if they quit immediately.

Why does Zappos do this? As it turns out, Zappos wants to ensure that the employee they have hired has the same sense of commitment that Zappos is looking for in all of their employees. The Zappos culture is clearly defined and they want to ensure that the employee engagement of the new hire is up to par with the other employees.

Zappos would rather pay now than pay later for weeding out the deadwood. They also want to ensure that the employee is committed to the company the same way Zappos would like them to be before they invest any more money in the employee. The work is not necessarily glamorous. The work is in a call centre. It’s not for everyone and the percentage of new hires taking Zappos up on their offer is about ten percent.

Zappos has figured out a way to not be saddled with a “dud” employee and are willing to pay one thousand dollars early so they don’t have to pay many more thousands later in finding a way to terminate an employee who isn’t working out, to keep the morale high and to stop the cancerous spread of negativity before it gets a chance to take root. It’s also another way to test commitment levels of the new employee to the job.

Attitude Adjustment: If more businesses would be willing to adapt the Zappos example of weeding out problem employees in their own businesses, there would be fewer problems with customer service and employee engagement down the road. It may seem like a lot of money for some smaller businesses but not really when you consider how much could be lost to customer dissatisfaction, whining and complaining on the job and by actively disengaged employees working against good productivity. This may not be the only way to weed out prospective problem employees but it’s got to be better than the way things are working now. The real learning from Zappos is that they are willing to think of creative ways to eliminate problems before they become problems that affect the bottom-line. So, what’s it worth to your organization to get rid of some of the problem employees that you may have right now? If you’re the problem employee, would you take the thousand bucks to make you go away?

New Restaurant Service Blog I Stumbled Onto

Recently, I wrote a Blog entry about restaurants needing to fix their problems right away. One of the comments to that entry came from another Blog, So You Want To Be A Banquet Manager.

Some of the greatest restaurant/banquet stories I have ever read are in this Blog. If you're looking for an opportunity to see evidence that restaurant and banquet staff are just as fed up with poor service and poor employee engagement as the rest of us, check out the Blog site.

Also, while you're there, click the YouTube video for Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food - a Saturday Night Live sketch which features Steve Carrell. Oh, and a warning, don't be eating while you're watching it.

Cheers.

Get Out Of The Way Of The Message

Have you ever had to instruct someone in your workplace on the finer points of getting something done or have you ever been the go-to-guy for co-workers to better understand operational processes at your job? Have you ever had to head up a learning session for your co-workers or new hires? Did you, just by the way you structured the learning session, unintentionally get in the way of their learning?

It happens. Even the professionals do it and mess up their own teaching. Let me give you an example.

A former sports celebrity-turned motivational speaker did a presentation for a group of bankers. His session on-stage lasted about ninety minutes. During his session, he expounded the virtues of teamwork and offered a few strategies for better teams within an organization. All-in-all, it may have been a good presentation with some value for the group of managers that he was speaking to. However, after his session, he came down off of the stage and “worked” the room shaking hands with every single person in the room. He walked between the banquet tables and stopped at every single table to shake hands with every single person in the room. While shaking hands, he made small-talk with each person he shook hands with.

Now I am the first to admit I don’t really do small-talk extremely well. I agree that there is an art to it. I’ve just never learned the art nor do I feel it’s extremely important to learn to do small-talk as I rarely find myself on the cocktail-and-pâté circuit. So, as it turns out, small-talk is a social skill that I am inept at and really, I don’t care that I’m not very good at it. Some people need to be good at it. I don’t.

Anyway, back to the story.

After the sports celebrity finished “working” the room of glad-handing the attendees, most of them were left to struggle to recall much of what the paid professional actually had to say from the stage. Attendees could instantly recall what he was wearing that evening and also easily recalled each personal conversation while making small-talk with them individually, but the message from the stage, the one that the organization paid thousands of dollars for, was lost. All was lost because of small-talk. In fact, in this instance, the speaker got in the way of his own message.

Attitude Adjustment: Are you jeopardizing learning at your place of work? Are you, as an attendee in a learning environment, interrupting the learning of your co-workers by making side-comments while someone else is attempting to learn something? If you want to increase the chances of learning for both yourself and your co-workers, just engage yourself in what you’re doing. Keeping focused either as an attendee or as an instructor will increase employee engagement and it can be accomplished by adopting the philosophy of “less is more.” The less distraction, the less discussion off-topic, the less you make any session about you, the more people will learn. The more people learn, the better they are at the job. The better people become at their jobs, the more reason there will be to have social gatherings in which everyone can engage in small-talk. Cell phones turned off. Brains turned on. Keep focused on the task at hand. Do whatever is necessary to remove the distractions in a learning environment. And if it’s you at the front of the room, always remember that the message is far more important than the messenger if the purpose of the message is to improve the workplace and those in it.

Love Relationships At Work

I received a question this week asking, “Just wondering what your attitude would be toward a boss and subordinate starting a relationship at work and the effects on other staff?”

Personally, my “attitude” when it comes to office romances is to run for the hills if you’re even considering this. Nothing good can come of this. The numbers are against their success in any way. That’s my attitude. However, with that being said, I also have opinions on several different scenarios which may shed a little more light. In the question, there was no other description of the details of this relationship at work and so I was left to ponder these scenarios and come up with an opinion on each. So here goes.

Boss and subordinate are both single. If this were the case, I really don’t see how this would be of anyone’s business but the two parties involved. Provided they have both come clean and are open about their relationship, the only course of action would be to ensure that the subordinate does not report directly to the boss and instead, would report directly to either another manager or a supervisor of some sort. The boss would also have to practice recusal in all dealings involving the subordinate to ensure that there would be no conflict of interest or perceived favoritism when it came time for performance reviews, promotions or other special considerations of the subordinate. In fact, I know a couple who met at work (he was her boss) and upon the decision to start dating, they approached his superior and announced their plans. She now reports directly to a different boss yet they still work together in the same department. Honesty works.

Either boss or subordinate or both are already in a relationship with other people. This would be a completely inappropriate relationship and one of the two would need to be removed immediately from the workplace, preferably both. This is a character/values/integrity issue. Any organization that would knowingly allow two people to engage in an inappropriate relationship such as this, has obviously demonstrated that it lacks the moral fiber to serve its customers and the rest of the staff with integrity and good judgment. In fact, I am aware of one situation where this did occur – manager and subordinate having an inappropriate relationship. A corporate VP found out about it, brought the two into the office and told them that within twenty minutes, one of the two of them was leaving the company and for them to figure out who was going. The subordinate left and the manager not long after.

It is crucial that if you are going to engage in a relationship at work, that it be above-board and transparent. A relationship based on lies never lasts and it does tremendous damage to morale and employee engagement. If you’ll do something that is dishonest with your co-workers, you’ll do it with your customers.

Attitude Adjustment: If you see something at work that is questionable and it goes against your values and morals, you need to speak up. Tell the boss’s boss. However, if your boss is the top of the food chain, you need to dust off the resume and start looking for another job. Before you leave, confront the boss and tell him or her the truth of why you are leaving. Being found out by others is usually a great way to bring an end to an inappropriate relationship.

Bosses hate to lose face with their subordinates – hopefully, it makes them realize that they have damaged the trust and respect of their staff. People don’t perform well for bosses who are not trusted, respected or lack integrity. Besides, you really don’t want to work there if that’s the environment. Dishonesty and inappropriateness really do affect the bottom-line. But not speaking up only gives a blessing to the inappropriate behavior. Are you willing to sell out your values for a paycheck?