Video: Are You Putting Your People At Risk?

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?

Video: You Call Yourself A Professional?

You Call Yourself A Professional? from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Kevin Burns, Workplace Expert, tackles the subject of being a "professional." How can you call your people "professionals" when you only give them formal feedback once a year? Do you think Tiger gets one golf lesson each year? How about Kobe or Sidney Crosby? You say you run a "professional" organization but do you really?

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.

Video: How To Get Rid Of Toxic Employees

Part of building a better workplace is knowing when to remove the weeds from the garden. You don't just move weeds to another part of the garden. You pull them, trash them and protect the garden from future weeds. That's how your garden grows. That's how your workplace prospers.

Video: How To Fix Tardiness

When you let people get away with tardiness, you tell the rest of the staff - the other eighty percent of your workforce - that it’s OK to be irresponsible and you actually encourage more of the same behaviour. You, by not enforcing consequences, are making yourself look bad and ineffective as a manager.
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Video: The Open-Door Policy

Do you have an "open door" policy at your workplace? Almost every organizations claims to. So why is it that if so many organizations have an "open door" policy, so much takes place behind closed doors?

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.

Take The Christmas Party Away From The Office

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

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

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

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

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

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

Has Casual Friday Gone Too Far?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mission Statement or Vision Statement?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Managers Interview Over Their Heads

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Managers Poison New Hires

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 Ways To Manage Procrastination

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

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

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

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

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

What Good Managers Know

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Managers Are About To Be Found Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Not The Work That Engages

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corporate Culture Trumps Pay, Benefits and Perks

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

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

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

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

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

21 Management and Culture Contradictions

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

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

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

When Managers Get In The Way

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

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

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

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

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