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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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™.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Stat: Women Hold 51.4% of Management Positions

Women now hold 51.4% of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1% in 1980. That's a continually growing market - 100% growth in 30 years. And there's no sign of it slowing anytime soon because honestly, women are just overall better managers - especially when it comes to having the skills to manage Generation Y.

The truth is, in this time of change, the old-style "command and control" model of management is dead. Any organization that continues to embrace that model is already seriously disadvantaged in the market when it comes to recruiting and retaining quality staff. As I've said repeatedly, coaching and mentoring are the new models of management today and overwhelmingly, women are better at it than men. Here's why:

• Women adapt better to new situations.
• Women are more likely to delegate and more likely to reward people.
• Women are better inspirational mentors who encourage underlings to develop their abilities and creatively change their organizations.
• Women managers tend to have more of a desire to build than a desire to win.
• Women tend to be better than men at empowering staff.
• Women encourage openness and are more accessible.

As it turns out, men are still more confident and make quicker decisions than women in management. But when it comes to building strong Corporate Culture, women managers are more likely to have a bigger impact with their management style.

So if your organization is not yet embracing the new reality that there are more women managers than men, then you may need to rethink your Culture to figure out why.

How To Protect Your Market Share

So what happens when your competitor, who once had a terrible reputation for apathy and poor service, re-brands, re-tools and re-launches itself with a bold new strategy to take back the market share you stole away when they were performing badly?

In fact, their former customers (some of your current customers) have noticed and are showing your competitor some respect and giving them another chance to regain lost trust. What is your next step as a manager?

If your current customers (even if they were once someone else's customers) are showing respect to a competitor, it's because they are not fully satisfied with your service and/or product. People don't jump ship to another supplier when they are completely satisfied. They jump because there is something missing.

A recent survey of senior executives showed 80% believed that their organizations offered a superior customer experience. When surveyed, only 8% of their customers actiually agreed. That's a 72% disparity between what managers believe and what the actual truth is.

Managers, when this happens (and hopefully you do it before this happens) you go back to basics. Figure out what you did to capture those customers and build a new culture around some old values - values that were attractive to customers. Don't sit around and wait for senior management to be shown the difference between 80% and 8%. By the time they figure it out, you'll be experiencing layoffs.

Coach your people back to basics. Make it simple. Make it meaningful. Make your customer the most important person in your life at that moment and make them feel it. No company can compete with that. No way.
--
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

Oxymorons And Half-Truths In Management

Seemingly, managers are supposed to manage to manage all the supposedly manageable things that they manage to manage each day - if they can manage it?

Some of the titles of "areas of management" really make me laugh - some because they are simply oxymorons and others because, well, because they just can't be managed, no matter how fancy the title.

• Quality Management - if you are able to offer quality, then why would you offer anything less? Quality is not something you manage. Quality is an on/off switch. Either you offer quality or you offer crap.
• Change Management - you can manage change about as successfully as you can manage the weather. Change happens whether you are trying to control it or not. Change is embraced. It is not managed.
• Acceptance Management - the king of oxymorons. You will only attempt to manage that which you do not fully accept. And if you do not accept it, how can you manage it?
• Thought Management - I really had to think about this one but realized, in mid-thought, that I wasn't managing the thought. The thought was managing me. Good luck with that one.
• Behavioral Management - isn't that what the straight-jacket is for? If someone's behavior needs managing, why are they still working for you?
• Crisis Management - If it's managed, it's not a crisis. If it's a crisis, the steps leading up to it were not managed.
• Disaster Management - you can figure this one out on your own. Think janitorial.
• Stress Management - just like Crisis Management, if it's managed, there's no stress. Therefore, if there's no stress, there's nothing to manage.
• Relationship Management - no one person is in charge of a relationship - business OR personal. It takes two to have a successful relationship. Go ahead and tell your spouse you're in charge of managing the relationship. I dare you.
• Time Management - my personal favorite. It's not the time you manage. It's what YOU do with the time. It's called self-discipline. Time flies whether you're managing or not. Sorry TM trainers.

Bottom-line: it's people you manage, not things. If your people-skills suck, you will suck as a manager. People are a precious commodity to be coached and inspired. Nothing happens in any organization without people. Nothing is purchased without people. There are no sales without people. There are no customers to service without people. And without people, you don't have a job - because you don't need managers if there are no people.

Get good at the basics of people-skills and building quality relationships. Leave the fancy titles for those who need to look important. There is much more reward in helping people become better people.
--
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

Foreign Languages In Later Years

If you were exposed to a second language from birth and spoke it every day of your childhood, you would be a fluent speaker of that second language by adulthood.

The same could be said of exposure to computers: if you were exposed to them from early childhood and used them every day, you would be considered quite fluent in computers by adulthood.

That is exactly the average Generation Y: exposed to technology, computers and smart phones their whole lives. So they would expect that penchant for technology to continue into their work. However, here's where they become dismayed and disillusioned: if their ability with computers and technology becomes limited by computer illiterate Baby Boomers who are still confounded by email.

You see while computers and technology were a part of the average Generation Y childhood, Baby Boomers have only been exposed to it all in the last 20 years or so. Think of how difficult it is to learn a new language at fifty-five years old. It's not as easy as when you are a child. Neither is riding the technology curve.

Boomers have a great sense of work ethic. Gen Y have a great sense of technology (and how to get the work done quicker - much quicker). Gen X has a great sense of changing the rules and doing away with traditions.

Oh, and Gen X and Y, don't give the old-timers a hard time about their computer illiteracy. Don't even give them a break. Give them a hand - in learning how to come up to speed on technology. You've all got something to teach each other. Now all you have to do is find some sort of common ground way of communicating. Good luck with that.

--
Kevin Burns - Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site 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 Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

A Kinder, Gentler Business Of The Future

This month marked a very important milestone, one that quietly slipped under the radar. The consequences of this milestone are far reaching and it is only going to get bigger and play a far more important role in business in North America.

January officially recognizes that women now comprise OVER 50% of the workforce. Where once women were largely confined to menial jobs, their brain power now outnumbers men in the workforce.

Add to that women dominating in terms of educational performance, volume of university degrees and especially advanced professional degrees and you can see how this can become a tsunami of change down the road.

It's been said that women are better leaders overall than men - largely due to their ability to lead with compassion instead of cutthroat business tactics - and we face a workforce that is about to change. As more women move up the ladder, the old-boys clubs are doomed to go the way of the dodo.

Personally, I welcome a change in the demographics. More women in senior management would mean more women dominating boards of directors as well as shareholders. That means how business gets done is going to change with a heavier emphasis on long-term growth and prosperity for the sake of the employees and loyalty while lessening concentration on jumping into takeover situations, raping and cutting up companies for the sake of profit and not caring about the families that cutthroat business affects.

Maybe by finding a way to be kinder, gentler organizations, we can help employees find loyalty, purpose and pride in their work and the companies they work for.

It couldn't hurt. I can't possibly imagine how much worse employee engagement, diligence and work ethic could get. Maybe we'll see the end of the practice of "company profits first, employee welfare second." Maybe it'll turn into employee welfare AND company success together. After all, you can't have one without the other.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel