Are You Actively Putting Your People At Risk? from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.
Workplace Expert, Kevin Burns argues that companies who do not care about their people enough to ensure that they follow safe procedures it could be argued do not care about their customers either. How you do one thing is how you do everything. How can you say you care about your customers but not the people who serve your customers?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Here are 3 ways to manage procrastination (taken from my new program, Tweak™ - the Future of Management):
What are your thoughts on procrastination? What has worked well for you? Leave me your comment below.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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™.
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.
Yes, I know I keep writing about this, but it's only because you're not listening. Look, this is important. If it wasn't important I wouldn't be wasting my time with it.
Plain and simple, your people don't care about the job because you don't care about them. Don't argue with me here. I'm right on this one. You (manager) only care about:
If you want your people to care about what they do, then stop making it all about you and start making it all about them. You work for them. They don't work for you. You'd better get that one real quick or your Culture is going to suck.
