Video: Where To Find The Best Workers

Where To Find The Best Employees from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Kevin Burns, Workplace Expert, shows you where to find the best workers. Do you HONESTLY think high-performers who are happy with their work are going to be checking the newspaper want ads or paying any attention to your "Now Hiring" sign in the front window? The only people who are likely to respond to your ads or your Help Wanted sign are the people who are already looking for a job - the available. And there is a reason that they’re available.

Video: How Managers MUST Engage Staff

How Managers Must Engage Staff from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Workplace Expert, Kevin Burns, thinks that the real purpose of a good manager has been lost with too many meetings and too much paperwork and that perhaps it’s time managers changed their minds and philosophies of what they are there to do. The truth is that managers work for the staff and NOT the other way around.

A Manager's Easy Performance Review

Performance reviews rank second on the list of management duties that managers dread - right behind firing someone. The problem with these reviews is that they are left up to the manager to once a year prepare something to say to the employee.

One-Phrase Engagement

Employees, left to their own devices, are likely to become distracted and maybe even bored with some of the work. But employees who are engaged by their bosses, who have regular conversations and are given small attainable tasks to accomplish are more likely to keep focused and on task. So how do you go from being an absentee manager to one who engages immediately?

Video: Who Is To Blame For Employee Engagement?

Kevin Burns, Workplace Expert rants on the fact that it just doesn't seem right that all of the blame for what is wrong with the workplace gets placed squarely on the shoulders of the disengaged employee.

Video: Create A Mission For Your People

Create A Mission For Your People from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Missions Statements are so muddled full of ambiguous language usually created by committee that has dumbed down and watered down any idea to be so empty of any meaning, that no one could take ownership of it. Don’t ever let a committee prepare your mission statement. So how do we fix it?

Video: Employees Are NOT Created Equal

Employees Are Not Created Equal from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Too much effort is spent in managing people into conformity. The truth is that too many managers want one employee to be just like another employee - one who models the traits and gets the results management likes. It's counterproductive when managers start trying to manage their employees the exact same way. It's worse when they expect each employee's results to be the same.

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.

 

Culture of The Future Workplace

Bishop Carroll High School in Calgary is going paperless and bookless. In other words, everyone is getting a laptop and all of the text books will be digitized and on their computers. This single move alone threatens the book publishing industry. I was speaking with a small book publisher last week who was lamenting the growth of e-books and decline of hard books. I suggested then that the moment high schools and post-secondary institutions embrace the e-book to replace the text book, publishing as we know would change drastically and e-book sales would soar.

Knowing now that how we educate our workforce of tomorrow is changing, have you given any thought at all to what your workplace will look like in the future? Asking Gen Y's to step into a Baby Boomer designed workspace is not going to keep the bright minds of tomorrow engaged. In fact, asking a Gen Y to work from a cubicle is not going to work for you ... and neither are they.

Your workplace needs to be ahead of the curve if you want to attract and retain the best talent. Waiting until the new workers voice their dislike of their work environment (and they will tell you as they head for the doors) is going to hurt your Culture initiatives overall.

I've been saying this for a year now: think open-concept workplaces with no cubicles but randomly placed tables, chairs, sofas and a barrista working the coffee bar in the corner and you're starting to get it. No more hard-wired desktop PC's but Wi-Fi laptops and iPads connecting wirelessly to 42-inch LCD television monitors. No more hard-wired phones but each employee being given a Smartphone.

The office of the future will look more like a lounge (think Starbucks here) with open collaboration and ideas being thrown around which will raise innovation greatly.

This is exactly how the new generation of worker works best. Why wouldn't you encourage their best instead of forcing them to fit into an old-school mold of cubicles and quiet that they can't stand? Think about it.

When Managers Fear Their Employees

Here's how mediocrity takes a deep-rooted hold in organizations: managers become afraid of their employees.

I think managers are afraid of their employees more than employees are afraid of their managers and that's why instituting change initiatives are so difficult. Managers want to be liked more than they want to be respected. They don't want to be the first to try anything for fear it falls flat. They don't want to be the target of a union grievance. They don't want to be reported to upper management for shaking things up a bit.

When managers take a "don't do anything to draw attention" position, then it becomes apparent that they are only interested in their own well-being and not the well-being of their company or their employees.

Most managers don't want to initiate Cultural change programs, initiatives and opportunities to innovate because of a possible push-back from their employees that may make them look dumb. So, managers do just enough to get the job done without rocking the boat. Make no waves, attract no attention, create no problems. Just get through this day and they are one day closer to collecting that pension. Sorry, but that philosophy is a prison sentence and trust me, it is reflected in the Culture of the organization.

If you're going to manage, then manage. Manage what is in the best interests of the employees and the organization as a whole. Doing nothing so as to avoid difficulty is not a strong position that attracts the best workers and the best opportunities. Avoiding difficulty is selfish and does nothing to improve the performance of your people, their performance or the company as a whole. And it creates a Culture of walking on egg-shells. Now doesn't that sound like a great place to work?

Performance Reviews: Why Scrapping Them Makes Sense

I am of mixed emotion on Performance Reviews because first and foremost, I do NOT believe in formal employee performance reviews as a whole. I think that if a manager is engaging his/her people daily, there is no need for a formal review quarterly or annually. Many employees view the annual review as a legal requirement for the organization to defend itself should need be. That stresses the employee.

Too many managers are lazy in speaking regularly with their employees and they depend on a few sheets of paper once per year to be the one time that their is any meaningful dialogue between manager and employee. The truth is that an employee's performance review is more indicative a manager's effectiveness at communication and coaching. The only upside to formal reviews is that it forces "absent" managers to communicate with their people - which, on the downside, can create animosity based on a poor review because of poor management.

Employees will engage only as well as managers engage the employee. If the manager is engaged with the employee, performance can be guided daily so that any need for a formal review becomes obsolete. A manager should have a conversation with his/her individual team members daily, no excuses, to hand out an "atta-boy," something to work on or just even having a heart-to-heart - but something that touches the real person inside.

Rarely do you see a document handed to a new employee which clearly states the metrics in which they are to be measured over the next year. In all fairness to employees, having a document that they can post at their desks which outlines the very things they are being measured on makes it easier for the employee to work toward achieving a good score. In other words, "tell me what I am going to be measured on and I will do only that."

But the most crucial part of a performance review, if you're going to do them, should be the employee's review of their immediate supervisor. This is far more important than the review of the employee. The employee is only ever going to perform as well as his/her manager. That's a given. Rarely do you find the magnanimous manager who encourages the employee to perform beyond the manager's ability to coach. So the most important document becomes the review of the manager by the employee and NOT the other way around.

Look, people don't leave their jobs. They leave their bad managers. So, it would stand to reason, purely by the numbers, that the department with the highest staff turnover and lowest performing employees would have the worst manager running it. Conversely, the department with the lowest turnover and highest performing employees would likely be run by the most engaging manager.

Employees are only ever going to perform as well as their managers allow. Poor employee reviews all coming from one department are more indicative of the manager than the employees. And it is for this reason that employee reviews should be scrapped. If you have a lousy manager, you will have unhappy, disengaged, poorly performing employees who get a poor review as a byproduct of their bad manager. Mediocre managers = mediocre employees. Managers who engage with their staff fully will likely have staff who are fully engaged - more productive, higher achieving and more fulfilled in their work.

Making the employee the sole person responsible for performance creates a lose-lose scenario and hurts performance Culture. You cannot review the employee until you have fully engaging, openly communicating, strong managers who are able to derive high-performance from their employees. You don't need a formal review if you have daily interactions and conversations one-on-one with your employees.

Annual Reviews were designed by Baby Boomers who, at the time, believed in only communicating with employees if and when something needed to be addressed. So, why do them? Organizations do them because it's what they've always done - which certainly doesn't make it right. It just makes it old. With all of the advancements in gadget technology, we're still using old, outdated HR technology in trying to get people to perform better.

Performance Reviews are old-school. They are the equivalent of a high-school report card - which, unless you had all "A"s, you were afraid to show your parents. Same rules still apply. Everyone wants to get an "A" but it's hard to get if the teacher sucks. But the best teachers, and the best managers, are the ones who encourage high-performance and equip their people with the tools to do it for themselves. That doesn't happen in a formal environment annually. That happens by engaging every single day.

How To Improve Workplace Communication

How many times have you read a memo that used so much jargon and "professionalese" that you had no idea what was being said? How many times have you read a report at work filled with gobbledy-gook phraseology and had no idea what point the writer was trying to make? What about managers who, in an effort not to stir up any controversy, use words so carefully that the point becomes unrecognizable?

Most times, people will hide behind not wanting to offend so badly that they offer nothing of substance to the conversation. They gasp with horror when someone says something so direct that they think someone might be offended by it. Is this your workplace? Everyone walks on eggshells so as not to offend? People swallow their feelings and ideas for fear of being singled out, ridiculed or hurting someone`s feelings?

So what do you do? You grit your teeth, stomach your way through it and resent your workplace. You protect yourself in an effort to not lose your mind? You begin to despise your job. You go home at day's end and bitch about it to your spouse. Ooh, I'll bet that makes the relationship special, huh?

Look, if you can't offer up an idea or make a point without fear of recrimination in your workplace, then that Culture will suffocate you and your creativity. Engagement will drop. Morale will tumble. Productivity becomes barely non-existent.

That's why you need to embrace to idea of Filter-Free Fridays™ in your workplace. Filter-Free Fridays™ rules are simple:

• speak your truth in a non-hurtful way
• if someone claims being offended ask them why directly and ask others if that person should be offended
• do not bite your tongue or swallow your feelings
• be direct but sensitive to others
• be firm but not overbearing
• honor yourself and refuse to be bound by conformity in making a point
• encourage others to shed their "filters" and have an honest discussion for a change
• take it slow - one day a week being direct to start and then progress from there

Practice by speaking up. Send the food back if you don't like it, Refuse to accept sub-standard service and never using the word "fine" as an answer to "how was everything?" Because it's Filter-Free Fridays™.

How Senior Execs Can Look Like Dicks

Business is not a reward system for senior executives. It's not an old-boys club anymore - which really sucks for those who have spent the better part of their lives trying to get to the C-Suite to cash in on the opulence and drunken orgy of delights (the way some senior execs run their shops) only to find out that once they get there, the rules have changed.

The Gordon Geckos of the world are far fewer in number - although not quite extinct yet. Even Trump isn't the icon he once was. In fact, this past weekend saw a monumental signal of the change in corporate values. Led by Warren Buffet, 42 of the world's billionaires vowed this weekend to give half of their money to charity. 

Stop taking big bonuses for cutting jobs. Stop making other people's pain a way to score points for your financial reward. It's sending the wrong message and your Culture suffers - not to mention you look like a dick.

When you cut jobs and create pain to reach your bonus targets, you create an Us-Versus-Them Culture. When people stop working WITH you and instead work FOR you, they treat the work like just a job. When it's just a job, they no longer engage in their work. When people no longer engage, costs rise, productivity drops and so does your bonus because the margins get skinny.

Smarten up and start making the work about the people you serve. As a senior executive, it should be your honor to serve the people you work with. Don't think for a second that they should be serving you. That's not how it works - if you care about the Culture that results from that thinking.

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?

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.

Filter-Free Fridays™ Implementation Idea

Filter-Free Fridays™ can be a powerful tool in the workplace. Encouraging your people to have open, honest dialogue in a non-hurtful way can realize improved results in the workplace. It is safe to say that when employees are forced to bite their tongues and swallow their feelings, they harbor resentment, for their co-workers, managers and the job. This will create actively disengaged employees. But open, honest and direct dialogue can go a long way to improving the workplace morale and subsequently, engagement levels.

So, if you are considering implementing the Filter-Free Fridays™ concept in your workplace, let me offer you a simple exercise that a departmental staff (of 50 or less) could start with.

On Friday (it is called Filter-Free Fridays™ after all) at noon, the department buys lunch and has it brought in to the office (pizza, sandwiches, wraps, sub-sandwiches, etc): something people can eat without the need for dishes - there's less clean-up. Once everyone has had their lunch and before the smokers head out for a butt-break, start the 5-minute exercise.

The Approachability Scale

Time needed: 5 minutes
Materials for each participant: one piece of notepaper and a pen or pencil
Difficulty: easy and meant to be light-hearted

Ask each person in attendance (managers included) to rate themselves on a scale of 1-4 (there is no middle number on this scale) on their level of approachability. It is important that each attendee assess themselves truthfully in how easy they believe it is for others to approach them (engage in conversation, ask a question, etc). The rating scale is as follows: 1 is being difficult to approach and 4 being easy to approach. Please make sure this is explained. Ask each person to write their number on the piece of paper but tell no one else their number.

The second part of the exercise is to now turn to the others and ask at least five others (can be more than 5 but not less) to offer a rating. So, Participant A would ask 5 others to rate them on a scale of 1-4 on how easy or difficult they would find it to approach them. Then Participant A would write down every rating offered. Then, Participant A would offer a rating to each of the others they spoke with in return.

This part of the exercise should take no more than 3 minutes to complete. There shall be no explanations as to why one participant assesses a number to another participant. Just get the number, give a number back, both write down their scores and then move on to the next person.

Once the 3 minutes is up, call everyone back and have them average their 5 answers. Then ask them to compare it to the number they gave themselves and offer the following:

• You have just experienced what it is like to be told the perceptual truth on this Filter-Free Friday™. It is the truth as others see it - which can be a far cry from the truth you see.
• In the last few minutes, people have rated you based on how THEY feel about approaching you. Remember, these numbers are people's perceptions of you.
• If the average you received from others is lower than the rating you gave yourself, you can ask yourself what you might need to change to become more approachable.
• If the ratings from others was higher than you gave yourself, then you may have to study why others rate you more approachable than you rate yourself.
• If your self-rating and the ratings of others was about the same, then congratulations, your perceptions are in line with others. You're telling yourself the truth.
• And that is the purpose of Filter-Free Fridays™ - to tell the truth in a non-hurtful way. Each of you has offered your co-workers a glimpse of the truth in a non-hurtful and fun way.
• So for the rest of the day, remember what day it is: Filter-Free Friday™. I encourage each of you to stretch yourself a little bit today and to offer your truth in a non-hurtful way.

Then dismiss them for the rest of the lunch hour.

This exercise is not meant to be feedback on work performance. This is a simple social exercise meant to foster a little trust, camaraderie and most of all, honesty in communication. Good luck with it.

A Filter-Free Friday™ Salute to Excellence

I'm going to hazard a guess that you are sitting at your desk reading this. When I'm not standing on a stage, I spend a lot of time sitting - in front of the computer researching, writing and responding to emails. It was time I found an ergonomic chair that didn't tire me out - and yes, you can fatigue by sitting in a poor-posture chair. The way I see it, you spend 8 hours a night in a bed that costs thousands. Why sit in a two hundred dollar chair without proper support and ergonomic design for 5-8+ hours a day?

After reviewing chairs online for about a week, I started visiting office chair stores. I sat in sixty chairs over the course of five days and in that time, found only one chair that seemed to fit (I realize I'm sounding a bit like Goldilocks here but it's important that the chair be juuuuust right). But I still had one last stop to make: Lifeform Chairs in Calgary.

Lifeform (the Mortensen family) has been making chairs for five generations. You'd think that being around that long they'd have it figured out. Well they do. And they still do it the old-fashioned way: they construct them, assemble them and sew them by hand right in their Calgary factory and then ship to all parts of the world. Ten thousand chairs a year are manufactured here.

My first sit in their Executive Series Ultimate High-Back chair had me sold. That's my new chair in the picture - and yes that's a mouse pad attached to the chair - something they can also do. There are five levers under the chair that can adjust the chair like nothing you've seen and another lever (for lumbar support) on the back. I even got to pick the actual hide of leather (no kidding - a full hide). Seven days later, voila - done.

My sales rep was Chief Operating Officer, Chris Mortensen. He knows chairs - and he knows how to assemble a great staff. I met many of the staff and I have concluded Lifeform, in addition to building an excellent product, also has an excellent corporate culture. They build a product that is far ahead of anything else I had seen - including (in my opinion) Herman Miller, Steelcase, Humanscale, etc. Not much wonder the employees are happy - they are in a class by themselves. That's a good feeling to go to work with.

So, on this Filter-Free Friday™, I speak my truth and give my tip-of-the-hat to Lifeform Chairs of Calgary. Pardon me if I don't get up to salute you. This chair is really comfortable.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Study: Top Managers Are Nice Guys

A recent study by Green Peak Partners in collaboration with a research team at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations showed some amazing findings about who makes the best manager.

Overall, people who are nice people tend to lead a higher-performing department that those who are harsh, hard-driving, "results at all costs" managers. Hard-drivers actually diminish the bottom-line. It turns out, the managers who get the best results and make more money for the company are the self-aware managers who are exceptional at communicating one-on-one with their people. This is exactly what I have been saying: managers need to be more like personal coaches than policemen.

Here are some other findings of note:

• Bullies, often seen as part of a business-building culture, were typically signs of incompetence and lack of strategic intellect.  
• Poor interpersonal skills lead to under-performance in most executive functions.
• "Self-awareness," should actually be a top criterion in choosing managers.
• Executives who change jobs frequently are often trying to outrun a problem, and that problem often has to do with how they 'fit' in the workplace.
• People with multiple siblings tend to be better managers.

The future of management is NOT time-wasteful courses like Time Management, Conflict Resolution or Personality Profiling. The future of successful management is in developing your managers to be better "people." Make them be better coaches, mentors and people with feelings and you will attract and retain great people who can learn from and be valued by their bosses.

The market is changing. Old style thinking and old-style courses haven't been able to solve the problems because the problems still exist. But the philosophy of "make people feel like they mean something" improves engagement, loyalty and recruiting for top talent.

But only do this if you WANT to be better than mediocre. Otherwise, ignore my words and do nothing differently.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

5 Reasons Why Middle Managers Create Culture

Culture, it could be argued, starts at the top. But at that point it is simply a vision, a direction.

Corporate culture is not a plan - it is the result of a plan (or the lack of one). It only becomes a culture once the front line people, the average everyday workers, start to act in accordance with the vision. If they do the opposite of the vision, then the vision becomes a nothing more than a daydream.

But get the middle-manager to see the benefit of the vision and you have one powerful ally in your strategy to make the culture vision a reality. Mid-managers are the people who touch the front-line worker every day. They are the people who either garner their respect or lose it (on senior management's behalf). If you want to get something done (especially shifting your organization's culture) then here are five reasons why you need your middle manager:

1. A strong culture attracts good people. 
2. A strong culture reduces stress-induced sick days. 
3. A strong culture increases employee engagement. 
4. A strong culture silences the dissident voices. 
5. A strong culture attracts better customers. 

Now you tell me one of these things that a middle manager doesn't do.

Middle managers create the culture you have. If you want to improve your culture, improve your management training. The rest follows.

--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email