Happy Holidays

Kevin is enjoying a bit of a vacation as well as putting some finishing touches on a few projects. He will return to this space the week of January 10, 2011. Enjoy some family time during the Holidays and Kevin will see you in the New Year.

How To Get Thrown Out Of An Expensive Italian Restaurant

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you get the opportunity to tell businesses, organizations and people how they are doing - in a non-hurtful way.
Last Friday, my wife and I headed out for some Italian at one of the city’s most expensive Italian restaurants. We had never been to this particular restaurant before but the reviews showed well.
We ordered a glass of red wine, the Caprese salad to start and my wife ordered the House Specialty Lasagna and I ordered the Veal-stuffed Cannelloni. They brought fresh bruschetta on crostinis as their welcome. Delicious - well as delicious as you can make tomatoes in December but well spiced and flavorful. The Caprese was alright I suppose - but again made with out-of-season tomatoes - it was good.
Then the main courses arrived straight from the oven in the same dishes. We had to wait several minutes before we could taste since it was piping hot. When we did, my wife thought the bechamel/tomato sauce (which the pastas were swimming in) tasted more like Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup, both pasta dishes were overcooked (disintegrated when touched) and there seemed to be a lack of any sort of seasoning. Have you ever tasted veal or lasagna without seasoning? Well it’s tastes like … uh … nothing.
The “pepper girl” came by a few minutes later and asked if we wanted fresh pepper. I simply replied, “I don’t think that’s going to fix it.”
She immediately summoned our server (turns out he was the owner) and when asked, we simply said that the sauce tasted like tomato soup, the pasta was overdone, there was no seasoning and therefore no taste and perhaps it was the worst pasta I have ever had in an upscale restaurant (true).
“Well then this place is not for you,” he barked and angrily gathered up the dishes. “I will pay for what you’ve eaten. You can leave at any time,” he barked and then threw the dishes into a tub in the kitchen (really he threw them). And we left.
If it doesn’t taste good, don’t eat it anyway and then pay for it. Say something. The worst that happens is they ask you to leave. I suppose I could have said everything was “fine” but then I would have been lying and the next customer who ordered the same dish would get an expensive mouthful of nothing.
On Filter-Free Fridays™, you’re not just helping the business get better, you’re making it better for the next person. Tell the truth. They need to hear it.

Take The Christmas Party Away From The Office

You can’t erase a memory because once that memory has been committed to … uh …memory, it’s there forever. And that includes the Christmas celebration drinks at the office and the consequences and responsibilities that follow.

If you want to toast with your co-workers, pick a neutral location away from the workplace. Do not, under any circumstances, allow alcohol to cross the threshold of your workplace.

In addition to being responsible for the behavior of your people under the influence, allowing alcohol into the office makes you responsible for virtually everything that your people do between the time they leave the office and actually arrive at home. That includes how they get home. But host an event in a bar or hotel ballroom, and then the responsibility is on the host facility to ensure their guests don’t get too drunk and disruptive.

Do not host a party in the workplace. Your workplace is for working. Bars are for drinking. If you want to have your people enter into a high-performance mindset when they walk through the doors each day, don’t allow them to come out of that mindset while they are in the office by creating a memory of drunken or lascivious behavior fueled by alcohol. Focus.

Build your culture of high-performance by keeping focused. Assess every activity (including the Christmas party) to ensure that you are not sending your people mixed messages. Doing so creates difficulty for managers and hurts your Culture.

If you want to celebrate with your people, take it outside.

How To Finish Christmas Shopping 10+ Days Early

I’m finished my Christmas shopping altogether. In fact, I finished 12 days early and it took me all of a few hours to get it all done. Every gift was well thought out, well planned and the day went virtually stress-free. Did I mention that I’m a man?

Each person on my list will get an appropriate gift and gifts that have meaning for them. How? They told me what they wanted.

I carry a Blackberry and over the course of a year, I have many interactions with the people on my Christmas gift list. In conversation, they will usually give up some piece of information about something they’ve seen, heard about or just gotta have. I simply enter that information in my Blackberry. Then, come Christmas shopping, I simply pull out the Blackberry and purchase a few items from their individual lists. Hey, it’s exactly how Santa does it. You know the “making a list and checking it twice” thing. At the heart of it all is a list. Make one and you take away your stress.

Look you can’t manage Christmas or your family but you can manage how you find the perfect gift - pay attention all year long. Write it down. Get it into a list or a database of some sort. Then, in a few hours, after you’ve mapped out your stores geographically, you are done in no time.

The busiest and most stressful time of the year are the 10 days leading up to Christmas at the malls. Why, if there were a better way, would you put yourself through the stress year after year? You get to enjoy quiet times at home while others are losing their minds at the mall.

Now give yourself a daily reminder on your Blackberry starting December 26 to pay attention to the conversations going on around you. Don’t worry, once you start entering things into your lists it will simply come naturally.

Meanwhile, good luck out there. I’m home with my cup of tea, feet up, stretched out on the leather sofa watching the original Miracle on 34th Street on the big screen. Yes Virginia, there really is an easy way to be Santa.

Has Casual Friday Gone Too Far?

The backlash has started. Companies across North America are fighting back and actually placing rules and stipulations on Casual Friday attire. The Reason? Apparently people can't be trusted to make their own appropriate clothing choices. But more likely, managers have been completely ineffective at establishing and communicating a set of boundaries for staffers to operate in.

Some organizations are refocusing and re-naming their Casual Fridays "First Date Fridays" and encouraging their employees to dress as though they were attempting to impress a first date by wearing something appropriate and sophisticated. Others are banning jeans outright so they don't have to deem one pair of jeans acceptable and another not. No flip-flops, no tank tops, no shorts, no halter tops and yes, underwear ... always. Other organizations are offering their employees the chance to dress down (just a little) for a donation to a charity.

Right now the data is being gathered to determine whether Casual Day is leading to a slide to casual service, casual language and casual productivity. I will bet it does. If you lower the standard in one area of your workplace you end up lowering the standard in all areas. Casual is casual no?

The problem is that for the employee, Casual Fridays make the day all about the clothes (or lack of them in some cases) and not about the work anymore. If your people aren't grasping the whole "dress responsibly" thing, it's likely because you, as a manager, have been ineffective in getting the message across.

Casual Fridays is as much a test of communication and Culture as it is about wearing your comfy clothes for a day. If you want your people to dress appropriately, articulate effectively what you would like to see. Otherwise, you'll be putting out fires from staff members who are offended by the dress of other staff members.

Casual Fridays can work but like the other four days of the week, there are standards that must be adhered to.

Oh, and for a chuckle, watch this short clip from CBS's The Office about Casual Fridays.

How To Deal With Bad Parkers At The Mall

It’s the Holiday season. I know this because the malls are full and so are their respective parking lots. The problem is that there could be more parking available if not for the selfish displays of a few drivers who could care less how they park.

Strange isn’t it that people can go to the mall to buy a beautiful gift for a loved one while at the same time thumbing their noses at everyone else. They don’t care how they park, they don’t care that they take up two spaces and they certainly don’t care that they inconvenience you. No because they’re selfish, self-absorbed little idiots who, if they understood the spirit of the season, would park respectfully to allow others to have a happy holiday season as well.

So here’s my solution: it’s Filter-Free Fridays™ so the gloves are off. Right now, cut and paste the following and put it into a Word document four or five times on a page. Make it 16-point type and a bold font and when you print them out, cut them into strips:

• Hey selfish jerk, thanks for parking with such lack of courtesy during this Holiday season. It’s obvious that whatever gift you bought today won’t matter because the Spirit of the Season is apparently lost on you. The truth is, I left you this note because you parked liked a selfish jerk. I didn’t damage your car but you might not be so lucky the next time you don’t think about others. Wake up - oh and Happy Holidays. (www.filterfreefridays.com)

Carry a bunch of these in your car this Holiday Season. You’re going to need them. It’ll take the edge off when you place one under a windshield wiper. Then you can go shopping smiling - with the full Holiday Spirit inside of you. And if you see someone parking like a jerk, correct them before they walk away from their car. I’ll bet most sheepishly return to their cars and park properly. Embarrassment works.

When Managers Make People Wait

Don’t you just hate standing in line? Banks have that long cattle pen (moo). Airports have the same line, even though you’ve already checked in AND put your own luggage tag on your luggage you still have to line up to give someone the bag. Huh. And now even stores like Best Buy make you line up like cattle (moo) if you want to return something to their store. It seems that buying is efficient - returning will eat up a good chunk of your life.

Organizations have become quite competent at making customers wait and you’re likely quite aware of how long your customers are forced to wait. But have you considered how much your employees wait?

Employees who are forced to wait, especially waiting for fellow workers, cause your people to think. When they think, they reflect on how bored they are waiting, When they discover how bored they are, they blame the job. When they discover how boring the job is, they disengage.

But you, as a manager, can Tweak™ the disengagement out of your people and get them to actively engage. Tweak™ing can identify problems and boredom before they become problems. Tweak™ Management creates dialogue between employees and managers.

Remove wait times for your employees and they actively engage. But only managers who communicate with their people regularly will be able to eliminate boredom. Otherwise, your people sit around waiting to speak with their managers about how long they are forced to wait.

Mission Statement or Vision Statement?

In my mind, both are important but NOT interchangeable at all. If asked which were more important, I would say, “it depends on who you’re asking for.” Here’s why: the Vision Statement is the long-term forecast and goal-setting of where you would like to be in 1 year, 2 year and 5 year increments. Mission is how you get there - daily.

For the organization as a whole, Vision is the more important of the two as it sets up where you want to end up.

However, for the employees, Mission statement is far more important as it determines what needs to be done today.

The problem is when organizations have such a bland and generic Mission Statement, no one knows what they are supposed to be doing. It’s called a Mission statement because it’s the mission: what you’re supposed to be doing. When a good Mission statement spells it out, it makes it easier for employees to make the right decisions.

Would your Mission Statement allow your people to make the right decisions or is it so muddled and mundane that your people don’t take it seriously?

Every department of an organization should have their own Mission Statement that specifically outlines the duties and Culture of the department within the larger framework. A departmental Mission works because, when in doubt, your people can look to the Mission Statement for the right thing to do. If it isn’t spelled out, your people will do whatever they think is best - based on their perception of the right thing to do.

Managers, if you want to be spending less time putting out fires and more time being able to coach your people better, develop a Mission Statement for your department that keeps your people focused, on-task and engaged.

How Managers End Up With Average Staff

Take stock of your employees right now. You are about to separate your people into three categories.

1. Category 1: how many of your people could you consider to be the best in your industry - the high-performers?
2. Category 2: how many of your people would you consider to be at least average (competent) and do decent work?
3. Category 3: how many of your people would be considered below average?

I will bet that the largest number of your people end up in Category 2.

So why is that? Why are you hiring and managing only average people to turn out average work?

Most managers will make the excuse that 80% of workers are considered average - when in fact it is 1% of workers who are average (right on the mid-point) and 99% either above or below average. It is nothing more than an excuse because it lets managers off without having to try harder to coach their people to become higher-performers.

This is how managers end up with an average staff - they accept that this is the hand they have been dealt and then make excuses for not wanting to make it better - because it seems like a lot of work. But then those same managers complain that their staff members aren't engaged on the job. Huh. Imagine that.

It's not workers who have an attitude of "good enough," it's their managers who have it. Good enough lets you off the hook of having to coach better, communicate better and to take more of an active interest in their development.

Yes you do have the time. You just have poor priorities. You're not a paperworker or a meetinger. You're a manager. So manage - priority one. Make your people better and want to be better. You are the coach - they are the players. Are you going for an average season or are you going to attempt to win the championship.

The job is "people-work not paperwork." Re-prioritize.

How Speaking Up Saves Your Money

I received my American Express bill last month as usual. The amount owing was a few thousand dollars - so I paid it, in full. Even though I charged nothing to card for the next month, I still received my American Express bill this time with an interest charge of $7.80 owing.

Huh? But I paid it all off last month.

I called American Express where they happily explained to me that the interest had accrued a few months prior and that was the reason that $7.80 in interest was still owing.

"Well then you sent a bill that wasn't complete," I offered, "and if you send me a bill and it shows an amount owing on it and I pay it before the due date, then we should be square. You sent me a bill that was not complete and I don't think I should have to pay more than you billed me for."

I was asked to hold for a moment. The clerk then returned telling me that he had waived the interest owing.

How many people would have simply accepted the convoluted excuse about interest accruing months previous and simply given up. If every month, 100,000 people were to do that worldwide, then the credit card company would generate $780,000.00 of new income monthly.

The first excuse is to test to see if you'll go along with it. When you don't go along, you get rewarded.

Speak up. It's Filter-Free Fridays™ - a day when you speak the truth - to help, not to hurt. Stop being taken advantage of. Stand up for yourself. Use your voice.

People-work Not Paperwork

It's the simplest management philosophy ever: people-work not paperwork.

Your job as a manager is to manage people. Make your people your first priority - always.

Your paperwork and meeting with other managers should be secondary to managing your people. After all, the title is Manager - not paperworker, not meetinger. So do just what the title says - manage.

• Move your meetings with other managers to off-hours and lunch-hours.
• Stop hiding behind paperwork in your office.
• Stop making phone calls from anyone but your people more important than your people.
• Start engaging your people the same way you want them to engage themselves in their work (if you won't do it, why should they?)
• Start giving your people honest, consistent feedback.
• Expect them to trust you not because you're their manager but because you take an active interest in their success.

If you aren't touching each member of your team at least once a day, you're doing it wrong. Someone's going to do it better and your good people will be inclined to go to work for them instead.

People-work not paperwork. Now get out of your office and go meet the people you're supposed to be leading.

How Managers Get Labeled Racist and Bigot

It would so easy to blame your life circumstances on your mediocre teachers of your childhood. Hey, if they had no real understanding of success and how to achieve it, how could they possibly prepare you to be successful right?

So why is it that people are so quick to blame their bosses for not getting ahead at work? Nothing irks me more than hearing that incessant whining of "not being recognized" or "my boss plays favorites and I'm not it" or "it's because I'm (gender, sexual orientation, race, age, weight, etc.)."

Those comments are the result of owning an "entitlement" mentality: you think you are entitled to be further than you are and now you are blaming others for not just giving it to you. Truth is, you are also entitled to be unemployed.

Managers who give credence to the people playing this game for fear of being labeled as a bigot, racist, etc., are just as guilty of keeping this entitlement mentality going.

Look, people who say this stuff do so because no one has told them any different. If they are not being promoted because they aren't competent, then they deserve to be told they are not competent. Saying nothing for fear of offending allows employees to pull stuff out of the air, to make stuff up in the absence of information - and then you have twice the work to do in straightening it out.

If you speak with your people every single day (and that really IS your job - not paperwork and management meetings, contrary to what you might think) and let them know how they are doing in simple ten-second conversations, you end up eliminating a lot of the backlash that could come later. People want to know how they are doing and in the absence of information, they will make stuff up based on what they THINK is the truth. My Tweak™ - The Future of Management program addresses exactly this.

If this is happening to you as a manager then you're not managing, you're defending. And you can't help your people get any better if you're constantly defending yourself. When this happens, you are in the way of your people getting any better. Now you need a new manager to start over. Maybe you should have just told them the truth: that their work is mediocre and not worthy of promotion.

Who Gets Your Ear?

You've heard the term "getting one's ear" haven't you? It's a term to describe how one person may get the attention of someone else and be able to influence that person. Presidents and other high-powered officials must choose wisely their counsel and be very selective about who gets their ear.

Wrong decisions can be made by listening to the wrong people. In fact, I recall a friend of mine who asked me to join into an investment group a few years ago. I researched the person in charge and found that he had a criminal record was banned him from securities investing. Just a few months ago, he was arrested for heading up a ponzi scheme. I hope my friend made out OK and got out after I sent an email with a link to the criminal's past.

Not just anyone should be able to get to you. You must be selective of the voices you allow to speak to you. And as a manager, you had better be listening to the voices who have something to teach you - no matter what it costs. You, the manager, will be responsible to influencing the ears of others. I hope you've got your facts straight and only people in the know get your ear.

A Filter-Free Fairy Tale

Part of the reason behind Filter-Free Fridays™ is to give you a chance to tell your team members, fellow employees and the really important people in your life how you really feel about them - especially if they impact your life in a positive way.

Everyone should have at least one person who impacts their life in a positive way. If you don't have one, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd. I have one in my life that, over these past two years, has made a tremendous contribution to my life in helping me be better - every day.

Her name is Trish and we have known each other since Grade 4. She got pushed ahead the year after we met allowing her to skip Grade 5 so, come high school, we never took any of the same classes. But I saw her everyday. Once, I asked her on a date when I was 15 - she said yes. I took her to a school dance but never asked for a second date only because I thought she was just being nice by agreeing to go out with me - she wasn't. My self-image as a teenage boy needed some work. So I had to live with my crush on her and never acted on it for fear that she might say no.

Going to a small high-school of 200 students in a small town, everyone knew everyone else. We had the same teachers, went to the same church, had the same friends, knew each others' parents and came from the same economic background. We had history and a keen understanding of each other's values. We came from the same place physically and philosophically.

After high-school graduation we went our separate ways: her off to university and me off to Kapuskasing, Ontario to take a radio job. We never spoke again for 30 years - until a high-school reunion. We developed a great friendship over the following six months seeing each other only once in that time due to living 2000 miles apart.

Over these past two years, Trish has become my mentor, my confidante and my best friend. There isn't a day where we don't laugh to the point of tears or just relax and feel safe to just be who we really are. There isn't a day where something ever goes unsaid or that a dream goes unspoken. There isn't a place we don't visit together or support each other to be healthy and happy. And if she leaves to do a little shopping, a little part of me goes missing for that few hours while she is away.

Tomorrow, in Gatineau, Quebec, I am going to marry the girl I asked on a date some 35 years ago - and she is going to marry me. She said yes. We will be surrounded by our families and close friends - many from high-school. Trish's 20 year-old daughter will be Maid of Honor and my 25 year-old daughter will be Best Man.

But the lesson we offer to our children is to set a standard and never settle. Keep your standards high and always believe that if your relationship seems like a struggle, it may not be the right one. The right one makes loving easy.

So pardon how long my gushing might seem, but once in a lifetime, someone comes along who just rocks your world and, in the words of Jack Nicholson, makes you want to be a better man.

Tomorrow, I will prove it when I simply say, "I do."

And that, my friends, is a glimpse into my personal life - Filter-Free. Do the same for yourself.

When Managers Interview Over Their Heads

It really isn't a tough concept to wrap your head around - the chance that a manager is at some point going to interview a job candidate who is clearly superior to the manager in every way: charisma, performance, communication skills, relationship-building skills, leadership qualities, knowledge, experience, etc. So what does a manager do when interviewing someone like this?

The truth is, most managers would be afraid that hiring someone who clearly outperforms them would be simply hiring their own replacement. And so, sadly, many really great people get passed over as "overqualified" because of a manager's own insecurities.

The truth is, a high-achiever might be just exactly what your organization needs - but here is the caveat - only if the Culture fit is right.

Hiring shouldn't always be the best person - but should be the best person for the company Culture. Having a highly-focused, customer-focused, high-achiever on staff might be just the ticket to get the rest of your people to build a new customer-focused Culture of high-performance.

But most times this doesn't happen because if a manager hasn't been able to build that Culture already, then he or she obviously doesn't know how to do it. That makes it unlikely that they could recognize good talent and Culture potential if it came along.

But nowhere is it written in the management handbook that a manager can not learn from an employee. Real good managers, employee-focused managers will do what is best for their employees and won't act out of fear of looking poorly or inept. But the moment you pass over a great potential employee because of insecurity is the moment you look incredibly inept.

How Managers Poison New Hires

The truth is, new hires will get sucked into the Culture of the workplace faster than formal training will stick.

Managers who welcome new employees on their first day then promptly hand them off to any employee because they have a meeting to run to, run the risk of doing two things:

1. giving a very poor first impression that staff and their contributions don't matter - meetings do, and
2. potentially poisoning your new hire by foolishly choosing some random employee and having them learn the real "attitude" of the place from someone disgruntled or actively disengaged.

You say you want to increase employee engagement and reduce employee turnover, yet you hand off a newbie to other staffers without a plan. What are you thinking?

Who is the employee with the best attitude, the best performance, the best engagement and the best intentions? That person is your new on-boarding mentor. Have a conversation with the potential mentor and tell them that because of their performance, you are placing new hires in their care to learn the correct way of doing things around here. Give your people positive responsibility and you will find that they rise to the occasion.

The first relationship that a new employee strikes up is usually the longest lasting relationship. Make sure your new hire gets mentored by the right attitude, the right work ethic, the right performance and the right engagement levels.

If you want to ensure the future Culture of your workplace is headed in the right direction, don't just willy-nilly leave new hires with your staffers. The first few days are important learning times for new employees - especially for improving Culture. Make this a strategic move. You will have made your own job much easier down the road.

3 Ways To Manage Procrastination

Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada have identified traits of procrastinators:

• Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators: they don't pay bills on time, they don't cash gift certificates or checks, they leave their Christmas shopping until Christmas eve.
• As a culture we don't take procrastination seriously as a problem. Because we are so nice; we don't call people on their excuses ("my grandmother died last week") even when we don't believe them.
• Procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning. "Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner (time management) is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up," insists Dr. Ferrari.
• Procrastinators are made not born. Procrastination is learned. Managers may reinforce (and sometimes even create) procrastination because they tend to be tolerant of excuses.
• Procrastination predicts higher levels of consumption of alcohol among those people who drink - the effect of avoidant coping styles.
• Procrastinators lie to themselves such as, "I work best under pressure" or that time pressure makes them more creative. But in fact they do not work best under pressure nor do they turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way. They squander their resources.
• Some are thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush. There are the avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them. They would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.

Here are 3 ways to manage procrastination (taken from my new program, Tweak™ - the Future of Management):

1. Eliminate long deadlines for project completion - in the same way that manufacturing ramps up daily production over a longer term (5000 more widgets over 25 days = 200 more widgets per day) you must break down projects into daily steps. This forces the procrastinator to engage NOW! Tomorrow is always the deadline. This way you don't get blindsided by being too far behind. You can correct immediately.
2. "Show me what you have so far" pop quiz in public - risks embarrassing the procrastinator. Knowing that you might ask at any time for status reports forces the procrastinator to have something prepared. Always ask for status. Inspect, don't expect. Procrastinators fear embarrassment. Use this to your advantage.
3. Deliver consequences and don't buy excuses - last-minute efforts produce mediocre results at best. If a procrastinator is not pulling his/her weight, take project responsibilities away from them and swap project responsibilities with a good worker. Give the procrastinator's project responsibilities to the good worker and give good worker's mundane tasks to procrastinators so that the good worker is not punished by having to pick up the slack.

What are your thoughts on procrastination? What has worked well for you? Leave me your comment below.

What Service Is Supposed To Look Like

I inadvertently broke the LCD touch-screen of my new camcorder this week. In a panic, I emailed Panasonic to find an Authorized Repair Depot. They emailed back next day suggesting that I contact Southland Crossing TV here in Calgary. I called Southland immediately. But because I would be traveling within a week and needed to take the camera, they asked to see it and diagnose it right away. They confirmed the LCD screen needed to be replaced - but because it is a professional camera and a new model, they couldn't access the parts catalog online.

Melanie at Southland promised to call Panasonic directly - and she did - three times with no reply. Then she sent three separate emails begging for Panasonic to return a call which she finally received with an acknowledgment that the part would be sent by air overnight - no extra charges for overnight shipping.

Melanie then sent me this by email: "Hi Kevin, I heard back from Panasonic. The part is in stock with them, cost of the part is $161.40 + GST. If this is OK, please give me a call so I can create a work order."

I called immediately and Melanie promised to alert me when the part arrived so they could get the camera in right away. The challenge was going to be scheduling because of Remembrance Day. They would be open Thursday but closed Friday and Saturday. She told me the part was being shipped by overnight courier and scheduled to arrive by 9 am next day.

Melanie called at 9:30 saying don't leave the house because the part isn't here yet - but I was already on my way. I left the camera anyway with the intention of picking it up by end of business regardless of whether it had been repaired.

Then, at 11 am, this email arrived: "Hi Kevin, the part arrived & it has been given to Rommel to work on. I will advise once it is completed."

An hour and a half later: "Hi Kevin, your camcorder is done. We will be here till 5:30 today."

Calgary is a city of 1.1 million people. Southland Crossing TV does business like they're in a small town. I gushed to Melanie directly that the service experience was incredible and that given the opportunity, I would return to them in the blink of an eye.

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you speak your truth in a non-hurtful way. Well here's the truth, if you're in the electronics repair business, Southland Crossing TV is the service model you have to compete with. Yeah, good luck to you. It's going to be pretty hard to top that. And given the choice between you and someone like Southland, why would anyone choose you?

Will You Acknowledge Their Service?

November 11 is Remembrance Day in Canada and Australia. It is Veterans Day in the United States. And although November 11 is the day marked to honor military veterans in the United Kingdom, the ceremonies won't take place until Sunday.

On this November 11, how about we take a moment out of our own busy lives to, just for a moment, think about someone else for a change.

Perhaps you work with someone who has done military service or work with the spouse of someone who has done military service. Perhaps one of your own relatives may be former military. Why not think about them for a moment on November 11.

Look around. Look at all of this stuff you have been able to amass. Think of all the things you are able to do and all of the freedoms that you have. We live in some of the best countries in the world. Oh sure, we have our moments and we have our difficulties from time to time. And we don't always get it right. But, we pretty much have it all.

There is a process in place that is as simple as a young man or woman who makes a decision to sign up for active military service. That one person along with thousands of others get trained, focused and deployed to protect the very freedoms and luxuries of life that we have. How hard would it be to say "thank you" on November 11?

Here's how easy it is: on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month take a moment to just be thankful that you have what you have. Someone, maybe someone you don't know, made a decision to stand up for you. Some lost their lives standing up for you and some returned home. Remember, it's not the price they paid that is important, it's the fact that they chose to do something important at all.

Will you acknowledge their service?

What Good Managers Know

Your own kid has probably played some sort of organized sport. You've probably already figured out that there are some very good coaches and some that are just awful. The problem with bad coaches is that they can instill some bad habits and behaviours early on which can make breaking them more difficult later on. A good coach will have to first undo what the bad coach has done.

Playing for a bad coach can hurt motivation and the Culture of the team to the point that the players simply don't want to perform anymore. Hey, you've seen it in pro sports too.

Some coaches play to win - others play not to lose. Two very different philosophies that become readily evident in the performance of the team: one team offensively makes things happen regardless of what their opponent may be doing and the other team plays completely in defensive mode, their play dictated by what the other guys do.

Just like sports, the poor performance of an employee is a perfect reflection of the manager's ability to coach that employee to a better performance. Every employee can be coached but not every manager can (or will) coach. If you can't (or won't) coach, you, the manager, are in the way and are solely responsible for hurting the performance of your department. Don't blame your staff - they are working with no direction.

Oh, and trying to look superior isn't coaching. Come to think of it, it has absolutely nothing to do with management either.

Good managers know that the manager of the future (the future starts now) is a coach first, manager second. If you don't know much about coaching then you know little about managing. If you won't improve your game, why should your employees improve theirs? Lead by example.

A Missed Filter-Free Fridays™ Opportunity

Driving through Calgary recently, I spotted a sign. Well, if the truth be told, it was my wife who saw the sign first and she yelled out, “You’ve got to take a picture of it.” She really gets the concept of Filter-Free Fridays™.

So we turned around the car and rolled into the parking lot to see the sign that I thought was a completely missed opportunity by the sign company sales representative to offer a Filter-Free Fridays™ piece of honesty to a small business owner attempting to gain a share of the “dollar store” market.

Now, first of all, the dollar store market is competitive because … well … because everything costs a dollar. Price isn’t the competition point. In fact, you expect the price to be the same. So what separates one dollar store from another. That’s where someone tried to get a little creative … when, in fact, the sign looks like it was produced by the Department of Redundancy Department. Here’s the sign.

Seriously, do you really need to tell people that you have super deals at low prices? It’s a dollar store. That’s sort of the expectation. The low price ($1) is supposed to be the super deal.

And honestly, would you be encouraging friends and family to buy your birthday gift from the dollar store? “Gifts and much more?”

Every dollar store has low prices. Every dollar store has super deals. I suppose if you wanted to cheap out, you could buy a “friend” (I use that word loosely) a crappy gift from the dollar store.

What separates one dollar store from another? Service, how you treat people and the quality of the product. Maybe that could have been on the sign instead of redundancy. It was certainly a missed opportunity for the sign company sales rep to help the customer differentiate in a crowded market. Instead, they filled the sign full of redundancies, really saying nothing of value and made it into a bit of a joke. Maybe the sales rep should have spoken up.

On Filter-Free Fridays™, will you remove the filters that prevent you from being honest and finally speak the truth to your customers or will you just take the order and only think about yourself? You have a choice.

Bad Managers Are About To Be Found Out

This is the end of the road for autocratic managers who hide in their offices and avoid their own people and decisions. This is the end of the road for managers are quick to blame, who offer poor communication direction and instruction. Because you can't build a solid corporate culture by busying yourself with meetings or pretending to be swamped by stacking papers on your desk, filling out time sheets, pushing paper and constantly holding a phone to your ear. You're not fooling anyone by starting your own fires just so you'll have something that makes you look busy and important.

No, the job of a manager is to coach, to inspire, to motivate them to spend a little time each day improving the little things that add up to big performance. A manager's job is to tweak performance.

Employees dislike being told constantly what they're doing wrong. Managers should already know that. So by knowing that, why is it that so many managers still spend so much time harping on employees about what they're doing wrong? Because there are a lot of managers out there that have no idea what they're doing. And up to now they have been able to hide it. But, they are about to be found out. And that single fact alone should scare most managers and organizations as a whole.

The truth is, employees want to be coached in the same way athletes are coached. Sports coaches spend time each day with their athletes fine tuning and adjusting their performance. Think for a second about how well a professional athlete would do on the sports field if all the coach ever did was harp on them for what they were doing wrong.

Get with the program managers: there's a new generation of worker that is expecting to be coached not crapped on. Your people don't want you to do the work for them, they want to offer suggestions as to how they can do the work for themselves. Your job as a coach is to find a way to uncover the little a-ha moments of your people that makes them want to be better, to get focused and to engage themselves in their work.

And if you as a manager don't think that you are able to act as a coach to your people because you're too busy, then you're in the way. Step aside and allow someone who can do the job to coach your people to the next level. Your people deserve better.

It's Not The Work That Engages

Gen Y does not have a poor work ethic. In fact, it could be argued that their work ethic is better than that of Baby Boomers - just different. The truth is, Gen Y doesn't engage in the same things as Boomers do especially when it comes to meaningless work, lack of direction from an immediate manager and poor corporate culture.

To engage the new generation of worker, you have to understand how they think. Every thing they have ever done in their whole lives has involved a menu: cell phone menu, computer menu, web site menu. Even choices that they have could be considered menus: what they would like for lunch, what career path they want to take, courses in school, etc.

Never bark out, "Get that done and then come back for your next task." That's not a menu. A menu is a list of tasks that they can accomplish in no particular order. Give them the choice and they will engage - even the mundane.

The new workers of today may end up with 14 different jobs over a 3-year span but that doesn't mean they are not motivated. It means they haven't found their "fit" yet. This is the first generation to put Culture Fit ahead of pay, benefits, perks and prestige. If it doesn't fit, they won't engage. So understand, it is NOT the work they are not engaging in, it is the workplace they are not engaging in.

This is important. It's not the work that needs to be engaging - it's the workplace.

Leave me a comment. I want to hear your opinion.

“Service Postponement” Is Rampant

So let’s say you had a bad meal in a restaurant. You call over your waitress and you tell her that the meal is not satisfactory. She apologizes and offers to make it right.

When your waitress appears at the table again she presents you with your bill. You notice that you are being charged full price for a meal you had already told them was not satisfactory but you find attached to your bill is a $10 off coupon good for your next visit.

Offer to fix my problem at some point in the future and you won’t have a problem to fix in the future because I won’t be back. But I will make sure that none of my friends come to visit you either.

Trust me, this happens more often than it should. Why is it that restaurants want to wait until sometime in the future before they fix the problems you had today? But it’s not just restaurants who do this. This same service abdication happens across all industries. This is what I call, “Service Postponement.”

How ridiculous is it that you think that you will be able to solve a problem at some point in the future if you are not prepared to solve that problem today?

A customer who is having a problem today needs to have that problem fixed today. And if you are that customer who is having that problem today, then you need to address it today. Do not let businesses wait until sometime in the future before they fix the problem today.

Remember, on Filter-Free Fridays™ you take off the filters that prevent you from telling the truth and you say something in an effort to help them serve you better.

Leave me your comments about your “Service Postponement” experience below.

Corporate Culture Trumps Pay, Benefits and Perks

On Monday, I addressed a group of senior and executive level managers about the realities of attempting to create a "tomorrow Culture" using ten year-old managerial practices and ideas. One of the points I made was that the Resume is dying quickly.

Since the new breed of worker is looking more for a Culture-fit than they are for a job, you are going to start seeing resumes that have fouteen jobs in a three year period. So how can you find a "keeper" if they have no longevity in their jobs? You start by tossing the resume because it is distracting. If you haven't figured out by now that the new Generation Y is looking for a Culture Fit instead of a job, you're missing all of the really good potential hires.

They're looking for Culture and you're not spending any time building yours. They're looking for Culture and you're still taking out ads featuring job descriptions. They're looking for Culture and you have no idea what it is. You're not speaking the same language so they don't understand what you want and you can't have any idea what they want.

Culture trumps everything: including senior management, pensions, benefits, pay and perks.

And to prove my point, read this article from Inc. Magazine.

13 Service and Business Oxymorons

These really don't need much of an introduction. They are pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy on this Filter-Free Fridays™.

1. Your call is very important to us. Your approximate wait time is 12 minutes. Please continue to hold.
2. (Voice mail) I am out of the office until Wednesday next week. If this call is important ...
3. You have exceeded the maximum allowable bandwidth on our "Unlimited" Data Package.
4. We absolutely guarantee your satisfaction. Would you be interested in purchasing an extended warranty?
5. To report a non-working phone line, please call our emergency repair department ....
6. Your $29 item qualifies for free shipping in the USA. Standard International Shipping to Canada fee of $35 will apply.
7. Thank you for reporting your emergency issue by email. Our support staff will respond to your inquiry within 48 business hours.
8. If you are unable to reach us by telelphone, please use the automated customer service form on our web page.
9. (Automated phone message) We attempted to deliver your overnight courier package but you weren`t home. It will be available at our retail location (8 miles away) after 10 A.M. tomorrow.
10. Our Company is Proudly 100% Canadian Owned. (on the back) Made in China.
11. While customers want more from the companies and employees they do business with, they have actually come to expect less than they did before.
12. Have a suggestion for us? We are open to your suggestions Monday to Friday between 10 am to 4 pm. Closed nights, weekends and holidays.
13. (As found in the operator`s manual) This page has been intentionally left blank.

Go ahead and tell them when they're doing stuff like this - especially on Filter-Free Fridays™. They obviously could use a little help. They probably don't even know they're doing it. Maybe they'll see the humor in it.

The Weak Link Of The Strategic Plan

A strategic planning session takes place. All of the players gather around the table. Every item in the plan gets voted on - only those with a unanimous vote get included in the plan. The plan is developed and the chairman asks for commitment to the strategy. One by one, around the room they go, each answering in the affirmative.

But back at the office, the truth sets in. The planning session was a waste of time because you had no intention of doing anything in the plan. You already knew in the back of your mind that to accomplish some of these items in your department you would need a herculean effort. You had no intention of doing your part. You simply figured out that it would be easier to just go along with everyone else at the meeting than to explain why it wouldn't work for your department.

In other words, you lied. And because there was no "accountability" mechanism built into the strategic plan, no one will really know until next year, when give your commitment to another plan you have no desire in implementing.

After all, you only have six more years until you can retire. Why embrace all this change and work so hard when you're this close to retirement. All you have to do is hang on through five more annual planning sessions and you're home free. Let the person repalcing you worry about it then.

Don't worry about suffocating your departmental Culture by not embracing new strategic directions. The job is all about you - not those who still have their whole work lives ahead of them. Nope, you just have to figure out a way to get out of embracing new technologies and practices. You're too close to pension to retire. No, you just keep developing your personal strategic plan of finding excuses for not embracing the corporate strategic plan.

By the time everyone catches on, you'll be out of there anyway - with your legacy of "do nothing" and non-accountability to remind your people of your ineffectiveness as a leader. Nope, your replacement will be as welcomed as a cool summer breeze. But you'll have your pension - and the embarrassment of your leadership abilities to keep you warm at night.

21 Management and Culture Contradictions

What organizations say they want and what they do is in complete opposition:

1. you say you want your people to become leaders and independent thinkers but you send them to cookie-cutter leadership schools making them followers of someone else's doctrine.
2. you say you want to attract people with strong skill-sets but advertise titles and job descriptions and base who gets an interview on looking simply at a resume.
3. you say you want to attract, hire and retain the best but you take out mediocre ads just like everyone else and post the same "Now Hiring" signs as everyone else - attracting the available, not the best.
4. you say you want to have a strong Culture of Excellence in your organizations but at the first sign of financial crisis, you cut, slash and burn budgets that would help build morale.
5. you say you want to have strong managers capable of handling issues but you force them into pointless meetings and force them to fill out reports no one looks at.
6. you say you want to have your front-line staff be more engaged in their work but you don't empower them to make decisions.
7. you say you offer an innovative place to work but institute blanket policies and refuse to be flexible with work hours, job duties and telecommuting.
8. you say every person is important but don't encourage senior executives to get out of their ivory towers and press-the-flesh with front-liners.
9. you say you have open-door policies but won't say the hard things that need because your fear of offending or hurting is greater than your need to be honest.
10. you say everyone in the company is equal yet senior management act like they're members of an exclusive club of perks and benefits.
11. you say you encourage ideas and free flow of thoughts but rarely implement employee's ideas or even respond to many of them.
12. you say every employee is important but you only give awards to and reward your salespeople.
13. you say you offer superior customer service but when polled, only 8% of customers agree.
14. you say you want more sales built on your value proposition but at the first sign of competition, you crumble on your value cut the price.
15. you say you want fewer meetings but you keep on meeting to find ways to reduce the number of meetings.
16. you say you have the best staff but you put hiring in the hands of old-school HR departments who, by their very results to date, have proven incapable of finding that staff.
17. you say you want high-performers but don`t arm middle-managers with the skills to coach high-performers.
18. you say you want to grow but aren't prepared to make a major investment in that growth without absolute certainty.
19. you say that you want to be the best but compare yourselves to mediocre and low-performing competitors.
20. you say that you really care about being better than you are but no one is prepared to take the risks and make the moves that elevate the organization for fear of personally looking foolish.
21. you say that you want loyalty from your employees but slash their jobs when shareholder profits are in jeopardy.

You say a lot of things. But the measure of organizational success isn't in what you say - it's in what you do. So what will you do today?

When Managers Get In The Way

You are never going to help your people get any better if you insist on sitting in your office or sitting in a meeting with other managers. Management is not an exclusive club where you waste your days in boardrooms talking about the same stuff you talked about last week, or pat yourself on each other's backs for a job well-done, or to create greater divides between you and them (your employees). No, your job as a manager is to get off of your ass and get out, walk around: meet people, talk to people, handle issues for people, compliment people, encourage people, ask people, listen to people, sometimes fire people, but never forget, you are NOT the most important person in your organization. Thinking that creates an fractured Culture.

You are a manager. So manage. Don't hold court in your ivory tower. Don't separate yourself from the very people who are looking to you to do your job properly so they can do theirs. Manage.

There is a culture of entitlement that shows up in management that makes some believe that they, by virtue of their title, are above the other employees. If you believe that, then you probably suck as a manager. The only difference between you and one of your employees is that you have a greater responsibility to your people than they have to each other. They are depending on you to help them do their work more effectively. And you can't do that effectively from the boardroom hobnobbing with other managers or from your office.

You have an office - yes you do. But you should only be using it as a place to hang your coat and to place pictures of your kids. Your work needs to be done on the floor. You can handle your emails among your people on your Blackberry. Get away from your desk phone. There is no one else more important to talk to than the people who you work for (they don't work for you - you work for them - remember that).

Inspire, teach, motivate, mentor, compliment, correct, coach and empower. That's the job of the new manager. If you disagree, then you're in the way. Step aside.

How To Profit From Corporate Mediocrity

“Sometimes there’s company policy and then sometimes there’s just common sense. I’d much rather have you leave my store happy rather than pissed off so I’ll exercise a little common sense and excuse the policy.”

That was a quote from a retail store manager yesterday after I attempted to understand the fine print when it came to the “Buy One Get One Half Off” promotion they were running.

I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t angry. I just wanted to understand why a simple promotion had been muddled with extra rules and regulations. Some items don’t qualify for half-off but do qualify for first full-priced item. It wasn’t clear, at least not to me so I asked to speak to a manager who I hoped would be able to explain it.

I had four items. The first item, if I would have overpaid by $10 would have qualified me to save $35 on the second item. The third item, if I would have been prepared to overpay by ten dollars again, would have saved me another $30 on the fourth item. So by overpaying by $20, I would have saved $65 – netting a $45 discount.

The manager saw the ridiculousness of how the promotion was structured and ended up discounting my second and fourth items anyway.

Speak up. It’s Filter-Free Fridays™. If it doesn’t make sense, say something. Not every promotion has been well thought out. Don’t assume they have. There are mediocre people working in every organization doing mediocre work and offering mediocre ideas. When you speak up and question them, it forces them to think things through and to get better at what they do. And you might end up saving or even making a little money in the process.

Fighting The 5¢ Fee For Plastic Bags

Request from a reader: Would you please address the issue of paying 5 cents for a bag to put your purchases in before leaving the store? I'm sure there is enough markup to cover the cost and carrying out the items un-bagged leaves me, the consumer, open to charges of shoplifting and is also opening the door to easier shoplifting for those that take part in this kind of thing.

Response: I agree with you that the 5¢ charge is ridiculous. In fact, I think the charge should be 25¢ and it should be imposed at every store - not just a few. I understand your point of shoplifting so put magnetic anti-theft strips on every item (a cost covered by extra bag fees). Bags were free when we didn't think about the cost of cleaning up all of the free plastic bags in landfills.

But the market is changing and so must we.

I think the discussion really has nothing to do with whether or not a store can cover the cost of a plastic bag. The question is whether a store can cover the cost of what the plastic bag does to the environment in the long run? The bag fee is to make consumers decide whether they REALLY need a bag in the first place. And, if the bags continue to be free, you'll probably see a 3% jump in your property taxes to cover off the the cost of cleaning up all those free plastic bags in the landfill. You're going to pay one way or another.

But the discussion shouldn't be just about shopping bags. There should be another 25¢ charge levied on each plastic disposable diaper (not 25¢ per box but each diaper individually) sold. In addition to the 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp -- 250,000 trees used to make a year's worth of disposable diapers, these materials are trucked away, primarily to landfills. It is illegal in most U.S. states to dump human waste in landfills. That law is simply unenforced when it comes to diapers.

I am all for charging 5¢ for each compostable vegetable-gluten bag in the stores - a fee I would gladly pay. These bags break down in landfills in less than a year.

Customer Service isn't just about fawning over customers and trying to kiss their butts. It's about being a "service" to the lifestyle of the customers and customers' families now and in the future.

Every organization needs to have a conscience in today's marketplace. And every organization needs to have that conscience drive both their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy as well as their Corporate Culture initiatives. Personally, I think it is incumbent on business to re-shape how the consumer thinks - not just bow to what consumers are used to. Consumers only demand what they know - not what they don't know. So change their minds and make a difference. Your employees will carry the torch of their work meaning something.

How To Score High In Customer Satisfaction

"Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and continue to hold."

Your call is very important to us? No it isn't or you'd have picked up the phone by now. You say it's important but your actions say otherwise.

Your customers are watching that what you say and what you do are in sync. Most times, they are not. Why do you think you don't score "perfect" in your customer satisfaction surveys? Hello! You started by making them wait. You will never get a high score starting out that way.

Whether it is virtual or real-life, those long lineups of "cattle pens" (think banks here - moo) force your customers to wait in line to solve their issue like you're doing them a favor by allowing them to stand (or wait on the phone) in your line. Their business is NOT important to you or you'd be serving them in a far timelier fashion.

This is not a McDonald's or Tim Hortons lineup (people can choose any place for coffee or a burger). Your customers have chosen to call your "support" center or need an answer or want to access some of their own money. This is how you treat the lifeblood of your organization?

Unfortunately, this philosophy swings down into your Culture too. If this is how you CHOOSE to treat your customers and hold them in low-priority regard, your employees can only imagine what you think of them.

Don't TELL me my call is important to you - show me. Then show your employees how important their contribution is to you too.

Stop being so bloody mediocre. Just because "everyone" else does it this way doesn't make it right. But keep doing this if you want to keep your customer satisfaction rates low, keep on treating your customers like they're not the most important aspect of your business. But don't be surprised if they go someplace else - oh, and your good employees too.

You are NOT an employer or organization of choice, you are simply an employer/organization of convenience. Make people wait and it's not convenient anymore.

How To Stop Ridicule: Embarrass Them First

Would you tell someone if they had toilet paper stuck to their shoe?

What about if their skirt was tucked into their panythose?

What if a man's fly was open? Would you say something? It would mean that you were looking there.

What if their breath was really awful? Would you speak up then?

What about if they were being ridiculed for having bad body odor, would you say something then?

Filter-Free Fridays™ are the days you tackle these nasty little chores. It's the day you speak up and tell the truth in a non-hurtful way. The idea is to say something that helps - not hurts.

Think of it this way: if you were the one with the bad body odor, the bad breath, your fly open, skirt tucked into your pantyhose AND had toilet paper stuck to your shoe, wouldn't you want to be told?

Sure, it might be a little embarrassing for them in the moment but at least it won't be an ongoing problem that creates constant ridicule for them long-term. It's actually pretty simple and you'd probably be surprised how much they would appreciate not being the butt of jokes later.

If only Filter-Free Fridays™ had been around when I went to high-school - I could have told my science teacher that he should stop cutting his own hair, take a breath mint and to stop wearing red socks with a black suit. But then I guess he was just cultivating stereotypes of science geeks and personal deportment.

How Motivational Speakers Can Ruin Culture

Which do you think would be a better use of your time and resources: watching an episode of reality show Big Brother with backstabbing and in-fighting or hiring a professional speaker to speak to your staff? The answer may not be so simple.

What if it was a choice between a two-minute YouTube inspirational video on Gratitude or a bad motivational speaker spouting platitudes like "fake it 'til you make it" or "wear a smile until you feel happy" or him spewing outdated information from twenty years ago that doesn't work anymore?

The last one is a no-brainer isn't it? You'd choose the YouTube video for sure. So how do bad speakers get hired to spew bad information to good organizations and risk making the organization worse? It happens when the people who hire consultants, speakers and trainers don't do their due diligence.

You can NOT afford to be taking these kinds of risks with your people. Do NOT let regurgitations of old, worn-out, passed-due-date ideas infiltrate your organization. You would never let ten year-old refurbished vehicles be the choice of a company car. You would never purchase ten-year old computers and software to give to your people to improve their performance. Why then would you allow old, tired "motivational" speakers get in front of your people without checking them out first? Think people. Think!

Start following blogs of experts, consultants and speakers and follow and read them religiously. If you like their ideas after a few months, hire them. If it's the same old tired crap that you know doesn't work anymore, stay away from them. Simply "unsubscribe" from their blogs and newsletters but do NOT hire them just because they are "speakers." You have no idea of the damage you could do to your people and your Culture.

Just like your industry, there are a handful of high-quality speakers and then there is a majority of terrible speakers. Make sure you know who you're hiring. Oh, and just because someone might be a member of a professional organization, shouldn't make them an easy pick. No speaker is "perfect" fit for every organization regardless of what their website might say. Don't ever hire from a web site, a brochure or even a referral. Find out for yourself. Do the work. This is important.

Who Would Want To Steal Your Crappy Managers?

What would you do if 25% of your managers, salespeople and IT people handed in their notice within the next six months? Are you prepared to roll over that many of your key people? Do you have a plan?

Well you had better get one. Survey results today show that's exactly what is happening: 27% of Canadian workers are looking to change companies within the next 6 months. But if your organization has a wage-freeze on right now, that number jumps to 34%.

“Organizations caught in a tight race for survival can ill-afford wide-spread desertions, especially if the people who are lured away are their best performers,” notes Greg Leach, Senior Vice President and study author. “While the sudden departure of any single group would derail any organization, it appears that the greatest threat may be the potential loss of managerial talent. This could lead to a domino effect that could bring the organization to its knees”.

Asking your people to keep on doing more work for the same or less money is creating a Culture crash. Your people have had enough of same pay, lousy work-life balance and you asking them to show loyalty to you while you show a disregard for them.

Worse yet? 31% of managers are looking. Sorry, but that's going to collapse your Culture if you lose 3 in every ten managers. It is true that an employee doesn't quit the company - they quit their manager. But the converse is true as well: good managers keep good employees. You will likely only lose your good managers. Hey, who wants your crappy managers? Your competitors don't want your lousy managers. They want the good ones so you will just lose the good ones others want. When that happens you will suffer the domino effect of employees leaving right after their managers do.

What's your plan now?

How To Pay Your People Less Money

Workforce attitudes are changing. A recent survey from HSBC Bank Canada found that four out of five respondents agree that being financially secure is important to their tomorrow, but not to the detriment of leading a balanced life and pursuing personal passions.

According to the survey, "practically all Canadians (97 per cent) want to lead a balanced life and particular priorities include: ensuring that their family is well cared for (91 per cent); wishing to travel (89 per cent); contributing something meaningful to society (87 per cent); and living a greener lifestyle (84 per cent)."

In the survey, Canadians overwhelmingly indicated a desire to spend more time with their families (87 per cent). What that means is that if given the choice between getting a high-paying job with high-demand of hours worked or a more moderate-paying job with much more time to spend with family, most would likely opt for the "family" choice.

Workforce Attitudes are changing. You can't expect to own your employees' lives like in past. The new generation of workers won't stand for it. The collective mindset of the workforce is changing: they want to work less, spend more time with their families, travel more, contribute to society (preferrably through their work) and have a more balanced lifestyle they can feel good about.

You can pay people a little less if you don't work them so hard. Separate your people from their families and you will end up looking for a replacement. That costs you money in on-boarding and your Culture will suffer by being known as a tough place to work.

But then, if you as a boss don't have a decent life-work balance (as opposed to work-life balance), how in the world can you relate to what will attract good employees?

How To Handle Arrogant Businesses

I can admit when I am wrong. It just doesn't happen very often - the "being wrong" part, not the admitting it part.

Last week, for Filter-Free Fridays™, I blogged about how you can't just lie to businesses by saying everything was fine when it wasn't and then go home and trash them on the Internet. In fact, I said, "Businesses want to be better. They want to serve you better. They want to offer you better products and service. They want to offer you innovative new ways of improving what they do to make your experience that much better."

And I was wrong.

Not every business wants to be better. In fact, some businesses are so full of themselves that no matter what you say, they will treat you like an idiot and make you feel as though they're doing you a favor by allowing you to do business with them. Those are the businesses that need a swift kick in the revenues.

I encountered one of those businesses this week. After dealing with a constant turnover of sales reps over a seven-month period, my frustration got the better of me. The new sales rep was more concerned about looking good than serving us well. So, I was honest and forthcoming. I told them face-to-face what I thought they might improve but they refused to listen. I told them directly how disappointed I was with their service but they refused to listen. I told them what we initially agreed on but they attempted to arbitrarily change the contract by adding items and clauses not previously spelled out. I did this in-person, in writing and in telephone conversations. And still, they feel that I need to pay more money than what we agreed so that I can be served less.

So now, I will warn others to keep clear of dealing with banquet staff at a particular hotel in the Ottawa area (and if you are an Ottawa area meeting planner or are considering hosting a Ottawa area conference or event, I would be pleased to offer you the name of the hotel and all of the awful salespeople on the inside. Just shoot me an email). I just know that this expereince will become a story in one of my presentations that I will end up sharing with thousands of people. Whoops.

When businesses refuse to pay attention to professional customers, then maybe they'll pay attention when they are forced to see the (dis)satisfaction of their customers telling their stories on the Internet or in other public forums. But then again, maybe not. There comes a time when you are forced to use the court of public opinion if you want to warn others. And that should be the spirit of your efforts: to warn others - not to be vindictive.

Arrogant businesses need to be knocked a peg or two and you are just the person to do it - especially on Filter-Free Fridays™.

Why Divorcees Make Lousy Managers

"How you do one thing is how you do everything."

That's the same principle you hire people by: their past performance being the prime indicator of their future performance. You ask people the stupidest questions during interviews that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job and base their candidacy on the answers to meaningless questions like:

• Tell me about yourself.
• Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized.
• What makes you angry?
• Tell me about the most boring job you’ve ever had.
• What changes would you make if you come on board?
• How could you have improved your career progress?
• Where could you see some improvement in you?
• What do you worry about?

By the way, these questions were taken from an HR LinkedIn group discussing the "best" questions to ask in interviews. Judge for yourself but if these are the "best" questions to ask in interviews, I think HR is in trouble.

Applying the same logic as used in job interviews, if a potential manager were divorced, it could be argued they can't communicate well or work towards solutions or negotiate settlements. That logic would say that divorcees make lousy managers. But stupid HR questions are overlooked when it comes time to being considered for manager aren't they? Of course, because the best indicator of an employees capabilities are hands-on experience - not their past personal lives.

So, in order to overcome the ridiculousness of inane questions that are meant to take up time in an interview, why not change your Culture to consider "test-driving" employees for a few days - even up to a week. Pay them for their time to job-shadow, integrate with other employees, study their on-the-job abilities and base their suitability on what they do present-day instead of asking them what they worry about.

Who cares if they're good at rehearsing smart answers for dumb questions and instead consider the "training camp" philosophy of sports teams. They show up to camp and their on-the-job abilities are judged for suitability. I'll bet you find a better crop of good future-managers this way. And it won't matter what their past looks like will it?

Culture Bounce: Why Culture Initiatives Fail

Here's where most Culture initiatives fall down: in the "Culture Bounce" pictured here.

Senior Management sends a new policy initiative downstairs with the expectation of implementation (or they would have consulted with their mid-managers and front-line workers prior to the decision). Notice that the policy decisions only travel one way: down. Mid-managers are expected to push the policy down onto front-line workers and have them buy into it.

But here's where policy decisons inevitably hit their "Bounce" point. Employees will want to question the "why" of new policy decisions - change resistance makes people ask questions because they want to feel like they have some control over the "how" of their work. Employees will look at it from their own perspectives and then send the ball bouncing up through mid-management hoping that their suggestions will spark a re-think from senior management. But if the ball never gets back up to senior management, it forces mid-managers to make excuses or to put their foot down and force the initiative down their throats - thus creating a more fragmented Culture.

It's "Bounce" that creates the Corporate Culture of Apathy. Feeling like there is no one listening to them or by feeling powerless, employees will begin to disrespect their workplaces and their bosses.

It's at the point of the "Bounce" that employees test their superiors. If the "Bounce" won't allow the ball to permeate the Executive floor, no matter how much you want to influence a positive Culture change, the old, existing Culture will swallow the new initiative.

If you want to have your policies be more readily accepted, you must eliminate the "Bounce." Culture is NEVER created at the Executive level. Policies and influential direction may be created at the executive level but Culture is always created at mid-manager level and below. Culture is "how we do things" which is decided by employees - regardless of the processes.

Recognizing how the "Bounce" works will help you build a stronger Culture initiative.

Shoot For The Middle Of The Pack

Sports teams invest heavily in their people: the best training equipment and expertise, the best coaches and assistants and finally, that competitive edge, sports psychologists. Because sometimes, even the best athletes need a little mental advantage to help them reach a new performance level.

So what do you do to invest heavily in your people? Do you have the best trainers, equipment and expertise? How about the best coaches and managers? Even your best managers will come to a point where the student outperforms the teacher. What's your plan then?

How are you going to get your people to be the best in your industry? Or are you OK with establishing a Culture of Mediocrity?

Maybe it's just easier to do nothing special. Maybe it's easier finishing near the bottom of the league every year. How many teams do you think shoot for finishing near the bottom every year? Maybe it is easier to not even try to create a Culture of Performance. After all, if you try then you have to do something about it. Maybe it's better that you play it safe and shoot for the middle of the pack. There's no effort required in being ordinary.

You Big, Fat, Two-Faced Liar

You've seen it. I know you have. There are a lot of businesses, especially restaurants, who specifically ask, no make that "plead" with you, to tell them how they are doing. (See photo)

Businesses want to be better. They want to serve you better. They want to offer you better products and service. They want to offer you innovative new ways of improving what they do to make your experience that much better.

So they ask important questions like, how was your experience today? And do you know what you do as they attempt to access your expertise as a customer to improve themselves? You lie right to their faces and say everything was "fine."

Even when they print it on their menus how much your feedback means to them, you still lie to them and tell them everything was fine. Then you go home, tell your friends to never go there. You tell your followers on Facebook and Twitter not to go there. You trash them. Even when they come right to you and try to get an honest conversation going, you lie to their faces. And then, when you are a safe distance away and know that they have turned their backs, you ruin their business.

On Filter-Free Fridays™ you tell them exactly how it was. Don't be a jerk about it. Just be honest. Offer something constructive so they can be better at what they do. On Filter-Free Fridays™ you grow a pair and HELP them - don't hurt them.

Or just stay out of their place of business and stop ruining a business. You are not entitled to ruin them just because they had a little too much salt in their soup and you didn't have the courage to say something.

Harsh? It's Filter-Free Fridays™ - get over it.

Taking An Entire Staff Hostage

A senior executive with an aging, ailing mother moves closer to her creating and hour and a half commute to the office. Once at the office, he spends the vast majority of his day on-line communicating with his regional managers in their respective territories.

After a few months, he discovers that the hour and a half commute each way still only allows him to manage his managers from a computer terminal. He decides to cut out the wasted three hours each day and communicate with his managers on-line from home. He schedules his in-person meetings two days per week and works from home three days per week. Any senior executive could see the intelligence in that decision.

But what about applying the same rules to general staffers? Are you asking your people to show up to the office and work their whole day on-line because it is necessary or because you don't trust that they're working at all and you feel you need to keep your eye on them? Be careful how you answer that because your Culture will be more aligned with your thoughts than your actions.

Maybe one or two lazy employees are screwing around and not being productive but don't hold a great staff hostage because of one or two idiots. (Why are they still working there if you already know who they are?) What kind of message are you sending? Are you causing your staff to be focused on results or focused on the clock?

The difference is the Culture you create.

First Step to Changing Your Life

The motivational speakers tell you, "Change your thinking and you change your life." What a load of hooey (one of the reasons I so dislike motivational speakers). Not the "change your life part" but the "change your thinking" part.

To change your thinking requires you to become conscious of every thought, every word and every action. You must be conscious of what you are about to say or do before you actually say or do it. But in order to change requires you to be completely accountable foreverything you say, do and think. That's unheard of when cultures of blame and finger-pointing are so prevalent and so accepted in the workplace.

Yes you CAN change your life but you have to stop lying to yourself and others first.

Cowards Write Online Reviews

... when they don't bring their concerns either by telephone or face-to-face first to those they are trashing.

Look, anyone can write a bad review and many do - especially the cowards who refuse to voice their opinions to the businesses they trash online. It's so easy to hide behind anonymity. Businesses serve you face-to-face. Businesses ask you how they did face-to-face. What bothers me is when people repond "fine" when asked how everything was and then go home and trash them on the Internet, trash them on Facebook and Twitter and tell their friends to stay away - all unbeknownst to the people who could have corrected the situation, had only something been said.

Filter-Free Fridays™ are the days you step up, grow a spine and honestly (not hurtfully) tell a business how they are doing. If the restaurant meal isn't right, send it back, don't lie and pretend everything is OK.

How can a business improve if you won't tell them what is wrong? Not saying anything and pretending everything is OK is selfish. Yes, I said it is selfish. Because the people who are about to follow you: to order that same meal, to hire that same contractor, to buy from that same car dealer or whatever will now experience the same poor service or product because you were too afraid to tell them it was wrong.

Is it the fault of the business when they get trashed in their reviews? Sure, sometimes it is. But I'm willing to bet money that the vast majority of problems could have been solved if only someone hadn't grown feathers (turned chicken) and instead offered up an honest critique - face-to-face.

Do it differently starting on Filter-Free Fridays™.

Judge Slaps Hand for Texting While Driving

News story in the Calgary Herald this morning is about a judge who cracked down on a texting driver.

In my mind, the penalty for running into the back end of another driver on the highway while texting should be more than a couple of thousand dollars and a 90-day suspension of a driver`s license. But it`s a start I suppose. 

Since the Province of Alberta still has yet to enact their cell-phone while driving legislation, this judge hit the 20 year-old in question as hard as he could.

To the government powers that be, demerits are the answer in addition to fines and license suspensions. Demerits cause insurance rates to rise for bad drivers. Make careless drivers who text while they drive pay attention to the road by making them pay attention to the long-term consequences of putting other drivers at risk. You will never get people to change until you make the consequences dire.

You build Cultures of Safety by educating, legislating and shifting perceptions and attitudes. When you make the penalites severe enough, people make different decisions.

Do You Work For A Good Boss?

Do you work for a good boss? If you're a manager, are you a good one? Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule recently penned a list of ten signs that you work for a good boss. It was too good to pass up.

You work for a good boss if he/she:

1. REALLY listens to what you say, doesn't just pretend.

2. Is careful to give you as much -- or even more -- credit than you deserve.

3. Sticks-up for you behind your back.

4.  Takes care not to embarrass you.

5.  Apologizes sincerely and completely when he or she does something that upsets or hurts you.

6. Goes out of his or her way to make it easier for you to mesh the challenges in your personal life with your job.

7. Is respectful of your time.

8. Takes time to learn your quirks and idiosyncrasies -- and accommodates them within in reason.

9. Goes the extra mile to make sure that you succeed at your job and keep developing skills.

10. Doesn't bullshit you about your weaknesses or screw-ups -- tells you the truth.

Go ahead, make a copy and leave this anonymously on your boss's desk.

When It Is Time To Quit

When I was a smoker (hey Barack Obama is still a smoker) I would use this excuse: "Quit? The whole world hates a quitter." People would laugh. But then I quit smoking. What I learned is that sometimes it's OK to quit.

Here are some other examples of when it is OK to quit:

• when you don't find any joy whatsoever in your work
• when you fight thoughts of hurting someone physically
• when your spouse is a serial cheater
• when your boss or co-workers are abusive
• when your values don't line up with what you do or who you're with
• when you finally come to realize that the path you're on is not where you want to be (change university majors, etc)

Then there are times when it's OK to encourage other people to quit:

• when they display unhappiness about their work
• when they complain constantly about the people they work with
• when they are holding back the team
• when you can see that they are going the wrong way and won't admit it to themselves
• when the rest of the staff refuse to work with them
• when their values clash with the corporate values
• especially when they need a little nudge to get out of the no-win cycle because they're afraid to do it themselves

On Filter-Free Fridays™ it's your task to tell the truth: to yourself and to others. Sometimes you just need to finally quit in order for you to be able to go do the thing you're supposed to doing. Every person has some sort talent but sometimes you end up staying in something that you're not right for, just because you're too afraid of what the future might bring. Being familiar is not necessarily the right thing to do.

Sometimes you hire not the "right" person but the "right now" person. Sometimes the "right now" person needs a "right now" job instead of the "right" job. And sometimes you end up with Mister or Mrs. Right-Now instead of Mr. or Mrs. Right. In instances like this, when the fit isn't right, quitting may be the right thing to do.

As a manager, sometimes you need to occasionally encourage a staffer to quit when you know that they are always going to struggle with the job, the hours aren't right, the values clash, personalities clash, you get the picture. On Filter-Free Fridays™, sometimes you just have to cut people free so they can go find what they are right for.