Two Choices When You Screw Up

You set up an appointment with your spouse to meet for lunch during your workday. Your spouse arrives a few minutes early to make sure you'll both have a great table. You, however, forget about the lunch date altogether. You get the reminder when your cell phone rings and an upset spouse at the restaurant is awaiting your arrival but you're a half hour across the city. What do you do? You have two choices:

1. Wait a day and then issue the following statement in an email: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to attend and fulfill the scheduled appointment. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused." (Who's "we?")
2. Fall all over yourself with remorse and, while on the phone, gush, "Sorry. Sorry. I'm so sorry honey. Oh my God. How can I make this up to you? Will you forgive me? Please. Please. Please forgive me. I'm so sorry."

If you picked the first choice, well, you're an ass and you should be divorced and living on your own. It should actually help you figure out why you have no "real" friends because real people with real feelings usually make the second choice.

• If you accidentally spill your coffee on a stranger at Starbucks, you make the second choice.
• If you swing around quickly at the photocopier and your elbow hits a co-worker in the face, you make the second choice.
• If you accidentally track mud on your shoes onto a neighbor's white carpet, you make the second choice.

You make the second choice because you're human. You have feelings, emotions and compassion. You apologize when you mess up. You try to fix it immediately, or at the very least, find a way to make up for your mistake.

You don't wait a day or two to run it by the Legal Department to make sure your ass is covered and then put out some lame diatribe on paper which neither fixes the issue or even takes accountability for your actions. No, you step up and be a big boy and take the heat. You apologize then and there.

So today, on Filter-Free Fridays™, you stop speaking "professionalese." Today, you speak human. No jargon in your emails, your memos, your phone calls, your meetings and especially your interactions with co-workers and clients. No, today you treat everyone and act like a human for a change and you let people see that you have a personality. Take off the filters that prevent you from being human on the job for a day. Go Filter-Free.

Kevin Burns - Management Attitude and Culture Strategist

Why Team-Building Rarely Works

Anne Thornley Brown wrote an interesting article on Why Companies Are Cutting Team-Building. In it, she offers these four reasons:

• too much focus on activities of questionable value
• not enough focus on results
• too little tie-in to the business
• no attempt to measure return on investment

And she's not wrong, but she's not entirely correct either. The problem is that Team-Building rarely includes adjusting Culture initiatives to support the Team-Building initiative.

What that means is that you can send you people out into the woods for a few days, sing a few verses of Kumbaya and get them to work together, but the moment they get back to work, if they have already built silos, the ingrained Culture will swallow the newly-minted Team-Building effort.

You see, Culture is stronger than any course. Culture is "the way it is." And in order for "the way it is" to change, you have to take aim directly at the problem. People working together isn't the problem. The team isn't the problem. The existing silos and work-flow based on working inside of silos is the problem. The Attitudes of why your people don't want to work with each other is the underlying problem. That isn't solved by pretending to like each other for a weekend or forcing them to work together when they don't want to. They know the Team-Building effort is only for a few days so they'll suck it up and grit their way through it. Then, come Monday, it'll be back to business as usual.

Team-Building, without addressing the underlying Culture, is like painting a car and hoping the new paint will stop the engine from burning oil. Nice effort - wrong place. You've got to get under the hood if you want to fix the problems. A new coat of paint won't cut it. It's the engine that's malfunctioning - not the paint job. You've got to fix the Culture - not the behaviors that result from the Culture.

Do Checklists Actually Work?

Checklists work for people who either need or like checklists. My wife is a great checklist person on those little, teeny scraps of paper. It's a system that works for her. My system involves only big items (appointments, proposals, meetings, etc) on my Blackberry. I make priorities first and then squeeze all the other little stuff to less-productive times of the day. The little stuff gets done after the big stuff is accomplished. I guess I'm more of a "rocks in the jar" kind of guy.

But some people are convinced that every little thing needs to be written down. And I suppose that's true if you're forgetful or you need to pat yourself on the back for feeling like you got a lot of things accomplished in a single day.

Here's the problem with list-building though: it doesn't overcome procrastination and lack of motivation. Having a list doesn't mean you'll get get off your fat butt and get it done. The motivation to get started is an attitude. The decision to procrastinate is also an attitude. Dealing with underlying attitudes is the part missing from most training - the "why do it now" especially when you don't want to.

It's why there is no universal Time Management course that works. If there were a Time Management course that worked for every person every time, there would be no need for any more Time Management courses because everyone would be doing it already - having already taken the course.

There are no universal communications courses because everyone has their own communication style. There are no universal team-building courses because each person's contribution and attitude towards their workplace is different.

If universal learning courses worked, there would be only one Time Management course, one Interpersonal Communications course, one Team Building course, one Supervisory Management course, one Sales course and, well, you get the idea. There would be one course only because it works and anything else would be a foolish waste of time and money - having found one that worked all of the time for all people.

So before you embark on investing in a new list-building program, ask yourself if you really want to do the job in the first place? If not, no list-building is ever going to work for you - or your staff. Address the "attitude" part of productivity first before you throw money and time at it. The illusion of taking some sort of action still doesn't solve the underlying problem. There's no single solution to each problem. Each employee is managed a bit differently if you're trying to get maximum performance out of each person.

Why Courier Companies Are Hated

I got a phone call from a courier company the day after they attempted to deliver a package. No one was home - for one hour. That's when they showed up. The call came from an automated system from the company's 1-800 number announcing that because I wasn't home when the delivery attempt was made, I would have to drive eight and a half miles to get my parcel - and past two retail locations of the store I purchased from.

I was not joyful that the company had called me to tell me that I would have to drive over eight miles now to get a parcel that was at my door earlier today. However, I would have been joyful had they called ahead to tell me a day or two in advance that my parcel would likely be delivered on one of two days. I would have been ecstatic that I didn't have to expend my time and money to retrieve a parcel that the courier company was paid to deliver. Besides, if I have to pick it up, it's not courier anymore - it's mail.

For those that may be unfamiliar with what courier companies do when they are unable to deliver a package, here's how it works. If a parcel is unable to be delivered, it must return to the depot where it is offloaded from the truck and loaded onto another truck to go to a retail location for pickup the next day. There is increased handling, wasted fuel (two trips with same package) and lost time for every parcel that can't be delivered because no one was home.

So, I began to think that if a courier company is able to tell you where your parcel is (tracking), which truck it is on at this moment, the hours that a pick-up location will be open and they already have your phone number to be able to generate the call, why can't they call ahead a day or two to announce when the parcel is likely to be delivered? That way, if I wasn't going to be home, I could make arrangements with a neighbor to accept the parcel for me and leave a note on the door for the courier to deliver next door.

The way I see it, the infrastructure already exists to automate calls so why not improve the delivery rate, reduce lost revenue from additional handling and substantially improve customer satisfaction by calling a day or two before? Any organization can call you to tell you that they didn't deliver. How hard would it really be to re-program the automated phone system to call residential numbers a day or two in advance?

Sometimes, all it takes to provide excellent service is to put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Are you forcing your customers to go out of their way to do business with you? Does your service policy and procedure benefit you or your customers? The answer to that question really is the difference between mediocrity and greatness.

Protect Your Culture From Bad Speakers

You've finally decided on a strategy to develop and improve your Corporate Culture. Of course, the purpose for doing this was to ensure that you were able to hang onto your really good people (as the market is about to experience a mass exodus of workers looking for something new and challenging - don't forget this very important point) and to be able to attract and recruit some of the best performers in your industry segment. One of the key considerations when building a strong Culture is a consistent effort in the area of ongoing learning for your employees. Keeping the employees ahead of the market curve makes your an enviable workplace because you're not following the market, you're leading it.

I read on one of the message boards last week about a "speaker" who has difficulty getting Play-doh and wire Slinkys through airport security. Are you kidding me? What sort of organization would be hiring a speaker to fly across the country carrying Slinkys and Play-doh and expecting their people to take their jobs and training seriously? Would you be lining up to work for that organization?

It is paramount that your people get good training, ideas and opportunities to stretch themselves but you've got to ensure that their learning is in alignment with your Culture initiatives. DO NOT hire workshop facilitators that work with Slinkys or Play-doh or cutting pictures out of magazines to create a dream collage - unless you run a daycare center. Never, ever let elementary school teachers as speakers talk to your people. High-performers will derive zero value from waste-of-time training and go in search of "professional" learning.

If you're going to create a new Culture, then everything you've done in the past may need to be re-evaluated. And that especially includes what your learning programs look like. Do not put "kindergarten teachers" in front of your people and expect them to be better prepared to respond quickly to market changes, customers demands and innovative thinking.

Once you've assembled your excellent team, do not jeopardize it with "cutesy" sessions. Protect your people from bad ideas, outdated learning and sessions that treat your people like children - if you want them to be market leaders.

Why People Don't Get Promoted

When walking through the mall, what makes one store more appealing than another? Once inside that store, what makes one clerk more approachable than another? How do you choose who is going to sell your house, who is going to sell you a car and who is going to be your life insurance agent?

Oddly enough, you make decisions on every one of these things every single day, in the same way you decide which restaurant is going to feed you lunch, which coffee shop is going to pour you a cup and which parking lot you're going to park in.

And when it comes to dealing with co-workers, you do the same thing: you choose who you talk to, you choose who you ask advice from and you choose who you will ask for lunch. Your co-workers do the same with you. So if you're not getting asked for lunch, asked for advice or talked to much, they're not picking you because of something you're giving off.

This explains completely why people get passed over for promotion, why customers do business with competitors and why some salespeople prosper and others struggle. Some people are just more approachable than others. People deemed unapproachable don't get promoted - plain and simple. I mean, what senior manager is going to promote someone who no one will approach or talk to? Maybe your current boss is one of the unapproachable. Good thing it's Filter-Free Fridays™ huh?

So, on this Filter-Free Friday™, are you going to ask your co-workers why they don't talk to you like they do others in the office or are you just going to accept your mediocre performance for another week and watch someone else get promoted ahead of you ... again?

Filter-Free Fridays™ are the days you offer your opinion to others in a non-hurtful way. It is also a good day to get real, honest feedback about how you're doing. If the Filter-Free Fridays™ concept isn't alive in your workplace yet, maybe you need to be the first to send everyone a link to www.filterfreefridays.com and talk about how your workplace can get involved in making communication more meaningful and honest and give your customers more good reasons to keep doing business with you.

Filter-Free Fridays™ don't hurt. In fact, they offer you the chance to speak with purpose instead of swallowing your feelings. Let's be grown-ups? Isn't it about time you finally talked about the stuff no one wants to talk about so you can get the elephant out of the room? I mean really. It will make your whole organization more approachable.

3 Business Questions To Ask Right Now

It's summer and for most businesses, it's a little slow - except for companies like road construction, golf courses, air conditioner repair and sales. You get the idea. If your workplace is a little less hectic at this time of the year, why not start some conversations to generate some new ideas and give your organization an honest rating of how you are doing?

Here three questions every organization should be asking itself. All of your people should be involved in the conversations - they are part of the problem and solution:

1. Are we serving our customers the very best that we can or are we taking the "easy" way (identify what the easy way is)?
2. Are we talking to each other enough and creating that Culture of teamwork (identify what you should be talking to each other about)?
3. Are we actively finding the very best talent to join us or being lazy and just accepting those who apply (are you getting the best or the leftovers - this should identify where you stand in your industry)?

The difference between mediocrity and greatness is in the answers to those three questions. Why not start some of the conversations today.

Study: 75% of Tomorrow's Workforce Cheat

I found a copy of an article I had written on a web site in the Netherlands, with the web site owner's name replacing mine as author. I called him on it. He explained that he didn't put the article together but had used a student in the Philippines to research and write articles. That's plagiarism.

I found another one today, with my name removed and "Admin" listed as the author. I am tracking it down now. The picture of "Admin" shows a young girl, perhaps late teens or early twenties. That too, is plagiarism.

I read in the newspaper recently, a report from the Canadian Council on Learning that shows three quarters (75%) of first-year university and college students cheated at least once in high-school.

Students, apparently don't see plagiarism the same as their professors. High-school teachers are turning a blind eye to it - or not bothering to check it at all. That, unfortunately, gives students the impression that plagiarism is acceptable. I mean, really, what's the difference between downloading someone else's work and calling it your own and downloading music from peer-to-peer sites and not paying for it. Theft is theft - but the message is that it's acceptable in high-school if teachers won't address the behavior. This is creating a Culture of cheating in high-schools.

According to the newspaper article, "David Johnston, the associate vice provost of enrollment and the registrar at the University of Calgary, said students who are accused of plagiarism in their first year often do so out of ignorance. 'What we find is that students coming out of high school don't have a clear idea of what plagiarism is,' he said. 'The Internet has made it easy for students to do what they think is research. They cut and paste without citing the source.'"

Here's the management challenge of tomorrow: managing workers who feel stealing someone else's work is OK. If that is the rule, is stealing credit for an idea OK? Is stealing clients from co-workers OK? How about stealing someone's lunch from the lunchroom or coins on a desk or tech gadgets?

If 75% of your new workers have plagiarized or cheated in recent years, how are you going to manage a group of workers who believe that plagiarism and cheating are acceptable?

Be firm and clear that there is a zero tolerance on cheating if you don't want this group of new workers to infiltrate and poison the Culture of Accountability in your workplace.

How To Stop Workplace Pettiness

If you ran a retail business in a shopping mall, you would notice a huge difference in the amount of staff required during the month of December versus the month of January.

Now take a look at your own organization, and ask yourself where there are peaks and valleys of performance required. January might be slow in retail but it is an extremely busy time with, say, snow removal. Snow removal business is dead from April through November but pretty good for golf courses.

Every organization has busy times and slow times. So what's happening in your workplace right now? Are there a few empty spaces from bodies who are on vacation? Is the work still getting done? So what then, is a full staff and how many do you actually need?

Perhaps you've convinced yourself that you need a certain number of staff for a full 12 months of the year, when in fact, you might be able to suffice with skeleton staff for six months and add staff during peak times.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating mass layoffs. There's a reason that I bring up the discussion of potential over-staffing: when employees are not challenged in their work, they get bored. When they get bored, they disengage from their work. Employees are also much quicker to find fault with their workplace, have internal conflicts with each other about petty things and will contribute to reducing the quality of Corporate Culture in your organization.

If you want to stop pettiness, finger-pointing and boredom, keep your people busy - but not to the point where you're burning them out. If you want to ensure your Culture remains one of high-performance, don't give your people opportunity to just sit around waiting for something to do. Nothing will contribute to lower morale more than unproductive time to be bored. Your organization will pay the price.

Don't simply assume that the way you've always staffed has been the right way. Study every part of your business because each part of your business contributes to your Culture.

When Staff Complain About Bonuses

Seven hundred employees make submissions for ways to cut inefficiencies in the organization. Of the seven hundred submissions, six are chosen. The CEO personally pays prize money to each winning submitter of up to $500 from his own pocket.

This is the same CEO who achieved at least $500 million in annualized cost savings, including reducing executive compensation by $12.4 million by slashing the number of vice-presidents from 144 to 79. But the organization still lost money. That's why the bonuses to staff were paid from the CEO's pocket.

The furor over staff getting bonuses are coming from outside of the public organization (it is government run) who fear that staff are being paid a pittance in bonuses while generating ideas which will bring the CEO more money in performance bonuses for himself.

But the fact still remains, and what the opposers seem to not fully understand, is that there were seven hundred submissions from staff. Seven hundred staff knew of ways to streamline the organization. That's a lot of staff who are willing to help their organization get better.

Disengaged staff rarely offer ways to improve. They simply complain. Engaged staff will find inefficiencies. Offering a bonus as a thank you for paying attention on the job helps the organization. (Offering bonuses as an incentive to work, however, will actually create more problems - these bonuses were not an incentive but a "thank you" after-the-fact for their ideas).

Have you ever noticed that it's the staff members who would never do enough to become eligible for bonuses who are usually the first to complain when others are bonused?

Filter-Free Fridays™ Implementation Strategy 2

In Part 1 of the Filter-Free Fridays™ Implementation Strategy, we discussed having a lunchtime social event in which staffers were invited to give and receive ratings on the Approachability Scale.

After everyone has had the opportunity to reflect on their scores, gather up all of the little pieces of paper and average up all of the ratings. Then, later in the day, announce the department's overall "Approachability" rating.

Then, set out to create a strategy to determine what the barriers are to approachability within the department: both from staff and from customers (whether they be external or internal).

In order to accomplish that, you will need to remove some of the barriers to approachability that exist in the department. For example:

• If people are not answering their phones and choose to screen their calls hiding behind voicemail, that's a barrier to approachability.
• If people don't return email or their phone messages, that's a barrier to approachability.
• If there are dominant personalities who hog the conversation at staff meetings, it prevents shy staffers from articulating their thoughts - another barrier to approachability.
• Telling a customer (internal or external), "I'm swamped - you're going to have to wait" is a barrier to approachability.
• An unfriendly receptionist or poor or run down reception area is a barrier to approachability.
• Managers with closed doors are barriers to approachability.
• Feeling overwhelmed by workload is a barrier to approachability.
• Not wanting to participate in making the workplace better is a barrier to approachability.

These are all problems found in most every organization. Your people know who the worst offenders are and, in fact, the worst offenders know who they are. It's time it was talked about. Filter-Free Fridays are the days you speak the unspoken.

I encourage you to send out an email to every department staffer on Thursdays reminding them that "tomorrow is Filter-Free Friday™" and encourage them to bring their honest, open and non-hurtful communication with them to work, their best unfiltered ideas to improve the work-flow and their best unfiltered ideas for innovation to make the workplace a better, more approachable place to work. Perhaps consider erecting signs on the wall, at the coffee station and other high-traffic areas reminding your people about your Filter-Free philosophy on Fridays (put them up Thursday nights and take down at end of business Friday to ensure that staff don't become "blind" to them by seeing them every day). Make Filter-Free Fridays™ an event.

The challenge is to make your workplace more approachable. You will never achieve that if the barriers to approachability aren't being talked about openly. By implementing a Filter-Free Fridays™ workplace strategy, you will begin to change your Culture from one of silo-building to one of openness and transparency. You can't tear down silos without open communication.

60% Of Workers On The Hunt

According to CareerBuilder Canada's mid-year job forecast, 60% of Canadian workers, who have jobs now, are going to chuck their jobs and go in search of something new.

Why? Well, according to the report, "When asked why they wanted to leave their current jobs, one-quarter of workers said they felt over-worked, their work environment changed during the recession and they had resentment about other workers being laid off. One-third of workers said they felt overqualified for their current jobs, while 43 per cent said that a lack of interesting work was the main motivator for changing employers." (Source: Calgary Herald)

31% of Canadian workers are actively looking now and expect to jump to a new job within the next 12 months while an additional 29% will do so once the economy improves again.

Meanwhile, 58 per cent of Canadian employers said they plan to hire in the second half of the year focusing on IT, customer service, sales, administrative, business development and accounting/ finance.

According to the survey, forty-six per cent of hiring managers said they fear their top talent will leave their organizations as the labor market improves. Top talent doesn't leave a job when they're happy. They leave when they are unhappy with the job, the company, and more specifically, their immediate manager.

I've been harping on this a while but NOW is the time to get to work on transforming your Corporate Culture. Because once the high-performers go, there's not much left to attract new high-performers. Get to work. Clock's ticking.

8 Reasons To Understaff

A 2:30 in the afternoon, after most of the restaurant staff had been dismissed until supper hour, one cook, one waitress, the assistant manager and the owner's wife were able to seat, serve and feed 45 senior citizens whose bus tour stopped at the restaurant without warning. What you may not know is that the cook LOVED his job, the waitress made it her mission to serve her best, the assistant manager had cooking experience and the owner's wife wasn't going to let excuses get in the way of a big payday.

The waitress and the owner's wife served the customers. The cook and the assistant manager worked as a team, split the duties and didn't miss on a single meal. There was not a single complaint. Everyone was served their meal in under twenty-five minutes. Compliments abounded. Deservedly, the skeleton staff gave each other a high-five at the end of the hour.

Later that night, with a full complement of staff available and not more than twenty patrons in the restaurant, food quality was inconsistent, waitresses argued over tables, customers complained and kitchen and wait staff blamed each other.

So which would you rather manage:

1. a seriously understaffed group of highly engaged employees with a heavy workload risking burnout, or
2. a full complement of staff including a mixture of engaged, disengaged and actively-disengaged employees with a light workload

Give me the understaffed, highly-engaged group any time. Here's why:

• the risk of burnout is low when people love their work and engage highly into it
• there is no time for excuses when it's busy
• people only become territorial and disruptive when they think they are better than others (entitlement)
• actively-disengaged is like a cancer in an organization that needs to be removed before it spreads
• other engaged people are attracted to exciting and vibrant workplaces of high-productivity
• people complain when they are bored so the point is to keep fewer people busier and make the work mean something
• waiting for the "right" employee is smarter than settling for the "right now" employee
• it's far easier to build a strong Culture when there are no actively-disengaged employees fighting you

Look around your department right now and figure out whether this is the team that will win you a championship when you need to or is it a team that is likely to miss the playoffs? Then make your decisions from there.

Why Customer Service Courses Don't Fix Culture

I drove out of my way today to gas up the truck and to pick up a few groceries. There is a gas station and grocery store just two blocks from my house, but I drove about a mile out of my way because I normally get superior service at the other store - but not today.

The teenage gas jockey filled the truck to $43.87 - but didn't bother rounding up to $44.00 - that would have required an effort of adding thirteen cents to the gas tank. If you've ever had to add up your monthly fuel receipts, you appreciate rounding up. He didn't wash the windows either. In fact, I drove back to the pumps to have him wash the windows because the sign reads "Full Service" - not half-service.

In the grocery store, the checkout clerk completely ignored us. No announcing of the total, no eye contact, no "thank you." Not a word was spoken. No smile on her face. Simply boredom with a side of "I don't want to be here."

It used to be that I would get exceptional service at this grocery store and gas bar. The manager, who I've spoken with many times, is a gregarious man who is always smiling and speaking with customers. But the store has developed a service problem, one the manager hopes to correct with part-time courses and certifications in customer service. The courses are voluntary with a duration of six months.

Here's the problem: staff must desire to serve customers for voluntary customer service courses to look attractive. People who are bored with their jobs won't make a 6-month commitment to learn anything. They're watching the clock. Customers are an annoyance. They're actively disengaged from their work. This isn't a "service" problem - it's a Corporate Culture problem.

Doing just enough to not get fired has become "how we do things" around this store. If poor service and a lousy attitude aren't aggressively discouraged, then they are passively accepted. It's stuff like this that creates an awful culture. No 6-month course is going to change that because the people who love to serve customers will likely be the ones who sign up take the course - not the ones who NEED the course.

Before you seek out the long, hard, expensive way of addressing your service problems, make sure it's not a culture problem first. If only 10% of your staff want to improve and 90% want to remain actively disengaged, your culture will swallow your service improvement attempts. You need to first create a culture that supports your improvement efforts.

Demote Managers Who Don`t Answer Phones

Like you, I have a telephone on my desk. I can't actually remember a time where I didn't have a telephone on my desk. I think it's an important tool in communication with clients, suppliers and associates. Sure, it might occasionally get used to call my mom - but it gets used nonetheless - that's my point.

The difference between my telephone and your telephone is that I answer my telephone when it rings. Heck, I even go as far to use it to return phone calls when someone leaves a message. Unlike the many of you who have become rude, disinterested parties who have an office phone you use to check voicemail messages you're not likely to return.

The tool that once tied satisfied clients with service-oriented humans has somehow, over time, become an interruptive device. Checking your email in silence has become more important than talking to clients, co-workers and suppliers somehow. You now let your incoming calls go to voicemail so you can screen your interruptions. How incredibly selfish of you.

We all know, for a fact, that you have a telephone on your desk and we know whether you return your messages or not. In other words, we know if you're being a jerk.

This is perhaps why, when a company promotes themselves as actually having a live human answer the phone, it presents them with a marketing opportunity to overtake their competition. Rogers now has Live Agent: a toll-free number you call to actually speak to a human. No word on whether the phone is answered in a third-world call center or not but think of how revolutionary this idea is. No voicemail hell. No phone tree frustrations. Just people who answer their phones and guide you to the right department. Also, no word on whether anyone in the departments actually answer their phones or not but you get the idea.

You will never develop a Culture of Service or a Culture of Excellence if the people in your organization don`t answer their phones or return their voicemails. It`s impossible to create a working Corporate Culture if you don`t place some measurement to see if people are actually using their phones or if they are in fact, hiding behind them - as the rest of the world suspects.

You are NEVER too busy to speak with a client. If your office doors are open, you`re OPEN. That means your phones are open too. Answer them and stop being so rude.

There is no argument that can be made for creating silos in your workplace. Anyone who attempts to justify NOT answering phone calls and messages should be put on probation immediately - and demoted if they are in management. Arrogance has no place in building strong Corporate Culture.