Bringing Outsiders In

You are, no doubt, familiar with the “swear jar:” putting money in a jar for every time you use a curse word? Rarely does anyone voluntarily contribute to the jar without being caught uttering a profanity. It requires a witness to make the other party cough up the cash. A contribution to the jar usually requires a little teasing or at least some chiding before the guilty party will ‘fess up. Once admitted, the realization is usually followed by another curse word at being caught and a double fine is issued.

When my daughter was growing up we had a jar in the house called the “I can’t” jar. Every time she uttered the words “I can’t,” she would contribute to the jar. I wanted to instill the lesson that she can - whatever she wanted to do she could do. The jar didn’t last long.

I was asked this week, while being interviewed for an article in Safe Supervisor magazine, how to bring “safety cowboys,” those who won’t get with the program by ignoring safety procedures, not wearing their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or doing things they way they’ve always done them because they haven’t been hurt yet, into the fold and getting with the program. My answer was based on the “swear jar” concept.

Instilling a peer-patrolled, PPE-Check program that allows members of the work-site crew to monitor each other would be more beneficial than a top-down, supervisor-led program. Any member of the crew flagrantly flaunting the safety procedures could be assessed a fine of either a fixed cost (for example $20) or have the offender immediately jump into a vehicle and run to purchase a round of coffees for the rest of the crew at the offenders cost.

Currently, many job sites workers watch for the supervisor’s vehicle to approach and yell out a warning to the workers to “safety up” because the supervisor is on the way. This, unfortunately, makes the one person responsible for the safety of the crew the bad guy (Is the one person who actually cares that everyone goes home safely really the bad guy?). Whereas, the peer-patrolled program ensures that the workers are abiding by the rules at all times by being able to issue a fine to their fellow workers without the need for a supervisor to issue a warning or consequence.

The workers become judge-and-jury and majority rules in the assessment of a fine. Instantaneous gratification to those abiding by the rules at the expense of those who break the rules forces those who wish to operate outside of the rules to get in line or pay up.

The threat of teasing or chiding by one’s peers is a far more powerful compliance tool than the top-down philosophy in place in most workplaces. This same program could be applied outside of safety to issues like workplace tardiness, lack of customer service procedures (for example, customers not being acknowledged within a specific timeframe), missed deadlines that may hold up the progress of fellow workers or even an open display of disrespect for the workplace, the employer or one’s fellow workers.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Negativity, flaunting of the rules, not complying with procedures and grumbling are only allowed to foster in the workplace because there is no immediate consequence to the offender – and more importantly, there is no benefit for following procedures. So switch it up. Let managers manage and let the staff, the people who do the job everyday, police themselves. Empowering your people to improve workplace culture themselves encourages people to take ownership of what they do. People engage better when they have some control over what they do and how they do it. Call a brainstorming meeting and throw out an idea like this. Let your people take the idea, develop the mechanics and institute it themselves. You might be able to hide from the boss but it’s pretty tough to hide from your co-workers. And if you’re one of those on the outside refusing to get with the program, well, step up or pay up. If your workplace is fraught with whiners but you’re not one of them, you may never have to buy yourself another coffee ever again.

Cheap Or Safe? You Choose.

Last December, the government of the Province of Quebec passed legislation requiring all drivers in the province to have winter tires on their vehicles or face a fine equivalent to a new set of winter tires. It turns out that 38% of the accidents during winter months in Quebec are caused by the ten percent of the drivers who choose to drive all year on all-season tires. Quebec made the case, based simply on numbers, that in order to lower the number of collisions, lower insurance claims and lower numbers of injuries simply required a conscious decision to prepare oneself for less than optimum driving conditions. If the general public wouldn’t do it voluntarily, then in order to lower those numbers it would have to be mandated.

I made the switch to winter tires about four years ago and swear I will never attempt to drive in winter conditions on all-season tires again. There is a huge difference. In discussions with tire technicians over the years, I learned that all-season tires start to lose their grip at temperatures below 7 degrees Celsius (44 degrees Fahrenheit). Even with seemingly good driving conditions, a thin layer of frost on a road can cause you to lose your road grip and can cause you slide into another vehicle. If you live in any of the Canadian provinces or any of the Northern States, snow, ice and frost is a reality in the winter. Any barrier that comes between the rubber tread on the tire and dry pavement forces a driver to question him or herself while on the road. Any question, even a split-second of insecurity, makes you a worse driver than you would be in ideal driving conditions.

Drivers across Canada, however, are faced with a lack of selection of winter tires this year, some would say due to the new legislation in Quebec. Tires stores across the country are sold out of popular sizes (especially the less expensive tires) but if you look around, you can still find tires in your required size. You may just have to pay a little more.

Do you carry precious cargo in your vehicle (family, kids, etc)? Do you consider yourself to be valuable enough to your company and family to keep yourself safe? Do you possess a little courtesy when it comes to sharing the road with other drivers? How would you feel if your vehicle was damaged and you were hospitalized due to another driver’s decision to forego winter tires when those winter tires could have clearly helped avoid an accident with you? How would you feel if you took the life of someone else by simply trying to save a few bucks?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Safety is an attitude. You either have the attitude or you don’t. There is no “sort-of” safety attitude. Far too many drivers choose to “cheap-out” when it comes to tires. The fact is that the average passenger car can be outfitted with winter tires for about $100 or less per tire. Let’s work that out. There are about one hundred and fifty days where snow, ice, slush or frost can come into play during the average Canadian winter. That works out to a daily cost of winter tires of about two and a half dollars per day for a set of four tires. Spread that figure over four winter seasons and the cost is just over sixty cents per day. What do you spend daily at Starbucks or Tim Horton’s each day? The truth is, you will have to replace your current tires at some point – especially if you drive all-season tires in the winter as the tread wears faster in colder conditions. But by driving on winter tires in the winter, you extend the life of your summer tires. If your tires are rated for 100,000 kilometers lifetime, then for every mile you drive on winter tires, you extend the life of your summer tires. Do the right thing and save your own life and perhaps the lives of others. Stop being cheap and start being safe.

Your Mission Statement

Do you know your organization's Mission Statement? If called upon, could you recite it correctly in front of your boss and co-workers? If you ARE the boss, could you recite the Mission Statement without hesitation and flawlessly?

If you've never taken the time to figure out what your Mission Statement is, then I'm going to hazard a guess that the organizational Mission Statement is full of generic messages that mean nothing at all and doesn't resonate with you or the people you work with.

"To be the best while offering superior service to our customers." (Boring)

"Treating our employees with respect so they can respect and serve our customers." (Yawn!)

"To be a successful organization making a healthy profit and leaving the world a better place." (Huh?)

How in the world are your people supposed to engage themselves on specific work if the mission or purpose of the work is not specific? Be specific. Be creative. Be bold. No really. Do it.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Employees get a job description which is fairly detailed and specific in its duties. Why then is the purpose of the work not specific. Here's what needs to happen in your place of work during those slow days over the Christmas holidays when people are in the office just no one feels like actually working: assemble a team of thinkers and doers among your people from all levels of your workplace. Lock yourselves away in a board room and don't come out until you have a single sentence that every single person on staff can buy into - helping each employee engage in a purpose for doing the work. This is a great New Years resolution. Get at it and start making the work more meaningful.


Kevin Burns
Author & Attitude Adjuster
Adjusting Attitudes in Employee Engagement - Service Leadership - Corporate Safety

Toll-free 1-877-BURNS-11 www.kevburns.com

A Disturbing Question

I received a question this morning that disturbed me. The question is real.

 

"My father bought me a gold bracelet years ago for my seventeenth birthday. Every time I wear it, I get bad luck. And after I take it off, it takes me weeks to wash off the bad luck (financial loss, emotional roller coaster, weight gain, getting pulled over, etc....) Fast forward years later, I want to sell the bracelet because I can use the money. I have no desire to ever wear it again (although it looks very good). Every holiday season, my father asks me about the bracelet, and if I still have it. Should I sell it and say I lost it? Advice please."

 

Here is my response:

 

I think you answered your own question. You said that when you wear the bracelet you experience financial loss and now you want to sell the bracelet because you need the money? I'm going to guess that you weren't wearing the bracelet when you decided you needed more money. In fact, you said "fast forward years later" and you are still having financial difficulties. The problem isn't a cursed bracelet from your father. The problem is not being accountable for your life issues. No piece of jewellery comes with a curse. So stop blaming the jewellery for your "bad luck." Bad decisions create bad luck.

 

You don't gain weight from wearing a bracelet. I'm going to guess that poor eating habits, lack of exercise and insulating yourself from hurt may be to blame.

 

You don't get pulled over by police for wearing a bracelet. You get pulled over for speeding or driving poorly.

 

Bracelets don't cause emotional roller coasters. An inability to handle stress, poor view of your life circumstances and/or feeling out of control usually are the reasons behind an emotional roller coaster.

 

When you step up and become accountable for what you are and where you are in your life, you will soon figure out that good decisions overcome "bad luck." Life gets better when you get better.

 

Attitude Adjustment: No amount of blame on an inanimate object is ever going to improve your life circumstances. Blame is an outward view that something other than you is responsible for your results. Blame is what "victims" do. Stop being victimized by a loving gift that obviously meant much to the person who gave it to you - your father. Start figuring out what your decisions are that have led you to where you are in your life today and you'll soon figure out that the one common denominator in every difficult situation you find yourself in is not a bracelet. Take control of your life and stop handing all of the control over to a piece of jewellery. It's not making the decisions - you are.

How To Engage Employees

I have been saying it and writing about it for a couple of years now. And this week, proof positive that it works. What is it that I am speaking of? I'm speaking of getting employees more engaged in their work.

 

A new University of Alberta study, The Promise of Spirit at Work: Increasing Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment and Reducing Turnover and Absenteeism in Long-Term Care was published last month. The findings are no real surprise.

 

Everyone takes a job - or should I say, makes a career choice, for a reason. It is that very reason that most people can re-engage themselves with their work. All it takes is a little reminder once in a while that there was a reason each person chose initially to take a certain job. Rarely do you find yourself taking a job of last-resort. There are usually choices. It is in those choices that people find themselves with a mission or purpose for their lives: to feel that their contribution means something. It is in that feeling that engagement on the job takes place.

 

The study finds that for people who find a deeper purpose in their work, being of service, appreciation of themselves and others as well as a sense of community and self-care actually reduced absenteeism by 60% and reduced staff turnover by 75%.

 

In addition, those who reconnected with their mission saw a 23% increase in teamwork, a ten percent boost in job satisfaction and a seventeen percent jump in morale.

 

Employers benefited too: $12,000 of absenteeism-related costs saved in the five months following the study than over the same period last year.

 

And how difficult is it to see profound changes in employees from employers? It is simple really. Simply help your people remind themselves that the work they do has meaning. The employer must ensure that each employee's contribution is important.

 

Attitude Adjustment: Reminding employees that their work is valued is not done by memo, by email or by setting a policy. The work is done in a face-to-face discussion with an employee (formal or not as it doesn't really matter). The manager has to be willing to help his or her people see that the employee's contribution is being noticed and matters in the big scheme of things. If a manager finds it difficult to have a heartfelt conversation with a staff member, I will guarantee that engagement under that manager is low. Employees, however, can't sit around waiting to be stroked before they apply themselves. If the employee can't find any meaning in their work, then they should leave voluntarily or should be set adrift to find something that matters to them. Enough of the mindlessness at work. If you won't wrap your head around what you're doing, then find something else to do and let someone who can apply themselves do the job instead. 

Whiners Are Leaders Too

Kris is a retail sales representative in a department store. She has been with the store a long time and has proven herself to be one of the store’s top producers in sales. She has enjoyed her status as one of the top producers but unfortunately her success has made her a little arrogant on the job and this is where the problem begins for her.

 

Kris’s attitude is an air of self-deluded superiority and she harbors negative attitudes towards the store, the company and especially her immediate supervisor. She prattles on to some of the newer staff to ignore what the manager has to say and to just do things her way. She believes that her sales success affords her some kind of freedom and an entitlement to do as she pleases. However, time and again she is hauled into the manager’s office and has her hands slapped for saying negative things about the store and her manager - sometimes blatantly right in front of him.

 

“What are they going to do?” she asks some of the newer hires in the store. “Fire the top producer? They wouldn’t dare.”

 

After a hand-slapping, Kris will emerge from the manager’s office only to chide him again by laughing about getting her hand slapped.

 

There’s no doubt about Kris' arrogance on the job. It’s as though she is blatantly attempting to goad her manager into a showdown. Some of the staff resent her and the “I’m going to do things my way – to hell with the manager” attitude she possesses. It is a very uneasy situation for new hires. The new employees are responsible for working with Kris and maintaining a good working relationship with her and while also attempting to demonstrate their loyalty to the company and the boss – the person who gave them the job to start with. Most of the new staff and other department sales reps find themselves in a push-and-pull relationship between Kris and the boss.

 

You can imagine how difficult it would be to be working with a person who blatantly disrespects the boss. The tension in the air would be thick in this kind of work environment.

 

But as I studied Kris’ “could care less” attitude, the question that I came up with is how can Kris, with conviction, offer any kind of genuine customer service if she harbors feelings of resentment, disrespect and negativity towards her boss and her employer? How can she wave the company flag and be believable and genuine in her dealings with customers? Well she can’t. And she needs to be fired immediately.

 

Attitude Adjustment: I don’t care if the cause of a “cancer” in the workplace is the top producer. Anyone who will not show respect to a boss and to co-workers will not show any sort of respect to anyone – including the customer. Remove the cancer before it spreads to the rest of the staff. The boss, unfortunately, looks like a jellyfish by not doing the right thing and sending her packing as soon as possible. Until Kris is fired, she will continue to negatively infect the rest of the staff. Kris, sadly, is a leader. Leadership isn’t about who is in charge. Anyone who has followers is considered a leader – even if they whine, moan, complain and flaunt the rules on the job. Kris’ leadership abilities are misdirected and are causing pain for her, her manager and her co-workers. The solution is to kick her to the curb as soon as possible and send a message to the staff that disrespect is not tolerated. (I am sure a sigh of relief would collectively be breathed by the staff anyway.) At the same time, the staff will rise to the occasion and pick up where Kris left off and will serve their customers in a manner more befitting them. Unfortunately, sometimes “leaders” can be misdirected and negative. That sort of leadership will kill an organization. The negative leader must be deposed before morale goes into the toilet.

Get Rich - Right Now

The world economy is a little shaky right now. The politicians are throwing bail-out packages around like treats at Halloween (all you have to do is come to the door of government and hold open your pillow case and magically that pillow case will be stuffed with cash).

 

Personally, I believe that some businesses can actually turn things around by offering a helping hand during this tough economic time and I am willing to support some of them being helped. But I will never go so far as to say that government should just blindly give money away. I think there needs to first be a trade-off. Here’s what I’m thinking: before money ever gets doled out to a company, there needs to be a caveat in place that requires that the senior management team that lead the business to the point of needing a bailout must first resign and a new management team be put in place or there will be no forthcoming bailout package.

 

Why would anyone reward any senior management’s poor performance with more free money?  How will anyone ever be held accountable if a CEO is allowed to make poor decisions and poor choices and recklessly lead his company to a state of financial turmoil while at the same time being given bags of free money to do it all again? No, no, no. If the money is to save workers’ jobs, then the guys at the top need to go so the workers can be spared.

 

It’s the same idea as one company buying out another company. Senior management of the company being purchased is usually sent packing in a buyout. The same rules should apply here. Since the new investor is government (technically that means you and I), then we should have the right to remove poorly performing managers before we invest our money. Einstein said it best: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” So the guys who got their companies this close to bankruptcy need to go before any more money changes hands.

 

Other businesses and organizations are restructuring, re-tooling, re-thinking, re-adjusting and sometimes regretting not putting enough away for a rainy day – and guess what? It’s raining today.

 

But the point of my writing today isn’t so much about whether or not there is a need for bailouts. My point here today is to discuss the almost certain onslaught of shady individuals and businesses who will attempt to cash in on scared workers and those who fear for their livelihood. When people begin to fear losing their livelihood then without fail, along come those despicable individuals who will offer the “overnight millionaire” scam. They will make grand promises of quick money, easy riches and millionaire lifestyles if you would only purchase their “sure-fire” program. They will sell that program with grand promises of easy money and openly lie to you that if you would purchase their program, you will be able to quit your job and live the easy life - if you would only part with several hundred or several thousand dollars (usually the last of the savings for families hovering close to poverty).

 

The problem here is that most of these “overnight millionaire” scams claim to require little or no effort. Look, if a program or scheme promises you won’t have to work, won’t have to make any effort, just part with hundreds or thousands of dollars and follow a “simple” 1-2-3 step program, you’re getting cheated.

 

Attitude Adjustment: This is not a time for rash decisions and depending upon wild hopes and dreams. Anyone who promises you overnight riches with little or no effort is only after your money. Don’t be a fool. Don’t get taken. Don’t buy the “overnight millionaire” scam. Look, you didn’t get where you are financially overnight. It took a lot of years to get to exactly where you are today. No “1-2-3 program” is going to solve your problems overnight. Don’t buy in. Resist as much as possible. If you want to help yourself right now and you don’t handle money very well, find someone (a financial planner for example) who can help you do better with what you have. Read. Learn. Study. Become better informed about you, your money and how you handle it all. Please. Please. Please. Don’t get sucked into the get-rich-quick schemes. The only one who gets rich is the one who just took your money.

 

 

My Feature Interview on HRGuru.com

My interview from a few weeks ago with Sybil Stershic of Quality Service Marketing is now featured on HRGuru.com - The Resource Behind Human Resources. Feel free to pass this on to your HR Department.

 

Here is the link: http://www.hrguru.com/training/articles/1703-interview-with-an-attitude-adjuster

HRGuru is an online community dedicated to advancement of current and future human resources professionals and of the improvement of HR as a whole. Members of HRGuru tap into this community of like-minded individuals for their daily dose of business news, tools and tips, and job searches.

In 2008, HRGuru joined with Monster Worldwide (Nasdaq: MNST) to accelerate growth and to improve the career and educational opportunities for our members. Monster's vision is to bring people together to advance their lives, which is a perfect fit for HRGuru.

 

Silliness Is Everywhere

A trip to the grocery store is usually a mundane thing. But not yesterday. As I walked through the Produce department of my neighborhood grocery store in Calgary, the sign above the bananas display had me in fits of out-loud-laughter.

 

The sign simply read: "Imported Bananas. 78 cents a pound."

 

Just to be sure that we, as consumers, didn't think we were being duped into buying Labrador Goldfingers or Winnipeg Bluefields or, heaven forbid, Prince Rupert Brazilian Dwarf bananas, they had to erect a sign that actually read: "Imported."

 

I had to buy some and surprisingly, the imported bananas taste every bit as good as the regular, run-of-the-mill Canadian bananas we buy every day.

 

Attitude Adjustment: Go looking for it and you'll find a chuckle every day.

What Goes Around Comes Around

A few months ago my friend and business partner, Marty Park, blogged about how he doesn’t watch the evening news anymore.

“So how much media do you need to take in before you start to recognize you feel bad about the state of the world, the state of your city, your health, your car, your community, etc? I have said be careful of your inputs before. Be careful what you listen to, what you read and what you absorb. The media is often the absolute worst source of information. The news is now made up of opinion as much as it is fact today.”

I witnessed first-hand this week exactly what Marty was writing about. The eleven o’clock news on Global Television (owned by Canwest Global) lead with this story: an Internet television production company catering to the energy sector is laying-off ten employees (out of 100). Could this be the sign that the energy sector in Canada is in trouble? Even the spokesman for the company played it down, “We had to hire pretty quickly when the big boom was on. Now that things have started to settle down a bit we’re simply letting go some of the people who aren’t a really good fit with our organization.”

Are you kidding me? The energy sector is in real trouble because an Internet television production company is laying-off a few people – can you smell my sarcasm in this one? Is this story big enough to justify the “lead” story on any newscast? Will the people of Alberta wake up tomorrow morning and find that their world has changed because of these ten layoffs?

Even the next story, in a blatant attempt at sensationalism, was a little over the top: Westjet Airlines only made a $55 million profit in the last quarter – down from $72 million in the same quarter one year ago. As the Westjet spokesman said, “We are still the most profitable airline per ratio in North America and Top 3 in the world.” Global news tried in vain to show how the economy is crumbling because of Westjet’s "huge" drop in profits.

Literally, I was swearing at the television and the twenty-something news anchor who simply reads the story the way her News Director says to. Oh tell me it isn’t so. The world is coming to an end. Ten people were laid-off and Westjet only made $55 million profit (just in case you missed that last word - PROFIT) in ninety days. Just to put it in perspective, that's a profit of over $600,000 each and every day for 90 straight days.

But then today, proof positive that what goes around comes around. Newspaper publisher and broadcaster Canwest Global announced Wednesday it was cutting five per cent of its workforce across the country, or about 560 jobs, as part of its streamlining of operations in the face of an economic slowdown. The elimination of 210 broadcast and 350 publishing jobs involves voluntary buyouts, attrition and layoffs, and is expected to reduce annual operating costs by about $61 million, the company said in a release.

Attitude Adjustment: What you think about you bring about. You will always find what you look for. You will attract those things that you most worry about. Be careful what news and opinions you expose yourself to. Become a voracious reader. If you’re going to read a newspaper each day, read two – just for balance. If you’re going to watch evening news, watch them all and sort of the chaff from the wheat yourself. If all you do is subscribe to conspiracy web sites, well there's no hope for you. The more we read, the more we know. The more we know, the better our judgment. With good judgment, we are already ahead of most. As Mark Twain once said, “A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.” And be very picky about who you get your information from and the influences that surround you daily.

Web Surfing In The Sky

Now, I don't get the chance to congratulate Air Canada for much these days (what with the fuel surcharge, extra bag charges, overweight bag charges, yadda yadda yadda) but I couldn't pass this one up. Starting sometime in the spring of 2009, Air Canada will start offering live Internet web service on some of their flights.

Here's some of what their Press Release had to say:

Air Canada intends to begin operating Gogo (on-board Internet Service) by spring 2009 aboard Airbus A319 aircraft on select flights to the U.S. west coast and will be accessible by customers with a standard, wi-fi equipped laptop or Personal Electronic Device (PED). Initially, the Gogo system will be powered by Aircell's (the company providing the Internet service) existing network and only available in the U.S. in order to make Air Canada's rollout fast, economical and simple. Upon successful completion of the initial phase, Air Canada plans to extend the system throughout its North American and International markets as Aircell's coverage network expands.

So, the only question I have: Will I have to pay for it once I'm on board? You've got to know that there will always be a charge while you're being held captive in a steel tube hurtling through the air at forty thousand feet. Where else can you go?

Quality Service Marketing Interview Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I let you know that Part 1 of my interview with Sybil Stershic of Quality Service Marketing was available on her site. Part 2 is available now. Click here!

Human Resources - The New Corporate Sales Force

The battle for new talent is on. As Boomers are retiring in record numbers over the next few years, finding a workforce that can replace a Boomer's experience, ethic and diligence is going to be a tall order. In fact, too many organizations are resigned to the fact that they won't be able to replace their retiring employees as well. That to me is bullfeathers. Only one thing has to change - the Human Resources Attitude.

Corporations are competing with each other now more than ever over potential employees who don't speak the same language as the people trying to recruit them. It's not done purposely. It's just that Gen Y's fresh out of university don't often get appointed to the post of HR Director. Therefore the people doing the hiring now are older than the people they're hiring and the truth is that the recruiter and potential employee may not speak the same language.

Once upon a time, a Human Resources manager was pretty much the go-to person if you had questions about company benefits or wanted to confirm your number of vacation days. Outside of those two things, most employees were at a loss to explain what HR really did. So, what exactly is HR's responsibility in the corporate world today? Outside of what any HR professional would care to explain, ultimately the job is Sales. HR pros, you can go ahead and argue this one but if you do, you're missing my point (and probably a lot of really good people in the process).

Every job is sales and service. Think about it, sales and service is the starting point to how every company grows and prospers. If your organization is looking for the future stars of tomorrow then you've got to start finding them, attracting them and selling them on why they should come to your organization. That means you're in sales. And you had better be able to speak the language too.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of people who are willing to drop their resume on your desk in the hopes that you will hire them. There are a lot of people looking for work throughtout the USA and Eastern Canada. There will always be a steady flow of applicants. But what I am talking about is the top talent - the talent that every organization would love to have and the kind of talent that probably already has a job and is in high demand.

So, as an HR pro, consider stealing away valuable people from other organizations. If you want the good people you will have to go out and get them. Their current employers are probably trying to keep them too. Getting them to talk to you is going to take a little selling.

(Note: If your good people are being lured away and not near as many good people are joining your organization, then you have a corporate culture problem. You are going to have to sell even harder now to change that culture.)

The new Gen Y worker doesn't speak "Boomer" and has a resume that looks more like a road-trip hotel itinerary than a Curriculum Vitae. HR pros need to brush up on the jobs they are trying to fill. They need to know exactly what is entailed in every job (probably wouldn't be a bad idea to actually spend a little time in each department getting to know the inner-workings of your own organization if you expect to be able to attract and sell that top talent to come work at your place).

The new HR pro had better know their competitors too. Potential employees will want to know how you stack up against your competitor and you had better have a really good answer - something more than just platitudes of "honoring employees" and "respectful communications" and (ugh - my favorite) "a team-focused environment." Be real. Tell the truth. Acknowledge your weaknesses and show a potential employee how their contribution will actually make a difference to the organization and the culture.

So let's see: HR people have to know the language, need to be able to see through the gaping holes in resumes, need to know virtually every job in their own organization (that's called Product Knowledge), they need to network where these new workers are and lastly, they need to know their competitors and find that competitive advantage. Yep, sure sounds like Sales to me.

Attitude Adjustment: the HR pro that looks at the job as a sales position will be the winner in the search for top talent. If you think the job is some ivory-tower position, the best you'll ever do is to get is the leftovers after the good ones have already been picked. Start reading the books on selling and you'll quickly move further ahead than the HR person who refuses to believe that good talent needs to be acquired, schmoozed and ultimately, communicated with on a completely different level than the person who walks in with a resume hoping that you're hiring today. The marketplace is changing quickly. So should you.

Humor In The Workplace Is A Joke

On the airplane flight I took today, our lead flight attendant was quite a jokester. Of course, once the plane hit a lot of turbulence, the jokes stopped. And I was left to ponder this thought: if the airplane got into some trouble, who would I want at the controls - the funny steward or the unflappable pilot?

As a professional speaker who likes to make people laugh while they are learning something valuable, I am on occassion mistaken as someone who delivers keynote presentations on humour in the workplace. I don't. In fact, I don't see the value of sitting around and trying to be funny for the sake of trying to improve morale. Sorry, I just don't get it. I think laughter needs to be heartfelt - not put on. (Think about how uncomfortable it is to be around someone trying too hard to be funny.) Some people are funny and some are not. It's almost painful to watch someone with no sense of humour trying to be funny. Hey, I don't try to be tall.

So this week I stumbled onto the results of the T-Mobile Workplace Motivation Report. Fifteen percent of those surveyed actually believe that joke-cracking has a demotivating influence. Workers don't feel motivated by colleagues who spend their time joking around and making flippant comments meant to be funny.

The research showed that workers prefer to be surrounded by upbeat people with a "can-do" attitude. Also a calming influence are people who can remain calm in the face of adversity - those who are unflappable and have a "Trust The Process" attitude.

I know a few speakers who conduct "humour in the workplace" sessions. I've never really understood how humour helps improve engagement, leadership or service. It's the same, to me, as wasting a lot of money on personality profiling - are you an introvert, extrovert or even what "color" you're supposed to be. How does that help you get more done, serve customers better or improve your performance results?

When times of economic uncertainty hit us, I want to be hanging out with the calm and "everything-is-going-to-be-alright" attitude guy. I don't want to have to turn to the jokester whose own humour during crisis times turns to blank-stared, crazy-nervous laughter.

Attitude Adjustment: I still think it's a good idea to have a sense of humour in the workplace - just don't annoy your co-workers with your giggles. As a boss, think about how you could better spend your training budgets by helping to actually improve your employees which will improve the workplace. Clown noses at work are just dumb. How is that going to improve the attitudes and performance of your people during times of economic downturns? Help make more of your people unflappable instead of funny. Bring a sense of calm to your workplace first and your people will have more fun as a result.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The Customer Is Rarely Right

Imagine for a moment, as you serve one of your customers, that the customer begins to become belligerent and abusive towards you despite all of your best attempts to please the customer. Even though you are doing your best to diffuse this tenuous situation, the customer is just being an ass and is rejecting your offers of service. This customer just, it seems, wants to be abusive.

Now, also imagine your boss walking in on the conversation as the customer increases his abusiveness towards you and your boss sides with the customer. How would you feel? Would you feel like the rug was just pulled out from under you? Would you feel your value decreased? Would you pledge your undying loyalty to the company from that point forward? Would you give a damn about the customer anymore?

The sad truth is that this is happening all too often. Bosses, in their mistaken belief that “the customer is always right” will sometimes do whatever is necessary for the sake of keeping a customer (and his or her money) – even if that customer abuses one of his or her employees.

The customer is NOT always right. In fact, it could be argued that the customer is “rarely” right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk. Does being a jerk make a person right?

If you want to keep, not just your good people - but all of your people, working for you, then fire the customers who are insensitive, rude to or abuse your staff members - regardless of who that staff member is. Tell the customer that they are no longer welcome in your business. Refuse to take any further orders from them. Stand up for your people (hey, you trained them, paid for that training and have coached them all the way along – don’t let them down now).

You can’t afford to keep customers who make your staff look like idiots. Money in a wallet doesn’t give a person the right to act like a jerk. And as a staff member, don’t allow yourself to be belittled in the name of job-security.

Bosses, imagine that one of your top performers witnesses a lesser performer getting dumped on by a customer and you, as a boss, do nothing to stop this from happening. You will not only likely lose the loyalty of your lesser performer but your top performer as well.

In a situation like that, everyone, regardless of the performance abilities, will see exactly what kind of company he/she works for. Jumping to the defense of a top performer in the same situation and not jumping to the defense of a poor performer shows complete insincerity. You will not keep any performers if you are not genuinely dedicated to your staff.

Managers serve their employees - not the other way around. Staff serves customers; manager serves employees; the CEO serves managers, employees and shareholders. Every one serves someone. Employee loyalty is far more important than customer loyalty. If you are going to charge your employees with serving the customer, you had better make sure they feel that you (as a manager) are loyal to them if you want them to be loyal to the customer and in turn, make the customer loyal to your business.

Attitude Adjustment: The days of dumping all over your people and the fairy-tale belief that "the customer is always right" is dead. You will never have a relationship with your customers if you don't have a manager to employee relationship that works first. Think long and hard on this one. Customer loyalty is only as strong as employee loyalty. Serve your employees well so that they may serve your customers in the same way. If you, as a boss, don’t stand up for your people, you will probably end up serving the customer directly - you’ll be the only one left in the workplace willing to work with you.

Kevin Is Featured Guest This Week and Next

I had my brain picked this month.

Sybil Stershic, of Allentown, Pennsylvania and author of the book Taking Care Of The People Who Matter Most: A Guide To Employee-Customer Care interviewed me this month on a range of topics. Part One of a two-part interview is now on her Blog - The Quality Service Marketing Blog.

Feel free to have a look at our interview as well as the rest of her Blog. There are some great insights into offering quality service regardless of your industry.

Eye-Opening Survey Results

Perhaps we’ve become deluged with surveys but over the past week I’ve seen some survey results that were interesting enough that I thought I’d pass them along.

American Management Association:
Being kind to employees seems to be the right move for a boss when it comes to boosting performance.
Out of 660 respondents, the findings are as follows:
75% characterized their boss as “kind.”

• 84% of these said they plan to work for their company a long time
• 74% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 70% said they work as hard as they can
• 73% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 84% said they believe their boss really listens

14% considered their boss a “bully.”

• 47% of these said they plan to work here for a long time
• 32% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 54% said they work as hard as they can
• 42% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 24% said they believe their boss really listens

11% were neutral

Jobfox.com
Generation Y workers, the youngest of the four generations in the workplace, are not making a great impression on the job.
200 recruiters polled and the findings are as follows:
Who are the Great performers?

• 20% Gen Y
• 58% Gen X
• 63% Boomers
• 25% Traditionalists

Who are the Poor performers?

• 30% Gen Y
• 5% Gen X
• 4% Boomers
• 22% Traditionalists

Human Resource Professionals Association in partnership with retirement lifestyle consultants Life’s Next Step
627 HR pros surveyed and the findings are as follows:
With somewhere between 20% and 40% of the workforce scheduled to retire over the next five years, is your organization prepared for the coming talent shortage?

• 14% are fully prepared
• 60% are somewhat prepared
• 23% are poorly prepared

Hirescores.com
3000 British workers surveyed and the findings are as follows:
Almost half of British workers waste about a third of their workday pretending to be working. Typical time wasted: 2 hours 20 minutes every day.
96% admitted to doing unnecessary tasks to avoid work at some point in their workday.

Attitude Adjustment: We’re in trouble people – unless we all get a serious attitude adjustment soon.

Millenials vs Baby Boomers

Question: In your experience, what are the differences in engaging the different generations?

My answer to this question may seem like a bunch of rash generalizations since one cannot lump all Baby Boomers together and claim that they all have the same value and skill sets nor can you expect that all Millenials have the same sets of values because they were simply born around the same time. Labeling workers based on the year they were born seems a little ridiculous to me.

With that being said, let me say this. As Baby Boomers, we (I am one) were taught the value of achievement. In other words, in high school, winning a gold medal in the 800 meter race was met with perhaps nothing more than a grunt from a father, whereas today, parents will throw a celebration for the child who comes home with a “participant” ribbon.

We have become a much softer society who perhaps tries to shelter our children from the realities of the world. This is the Oprah generation – the generation whose family watched Oprah just prior to supper and has a family discussion about what Oprah said today. These same kids, who are now grown, have entered the workforce with a much more pronounced spiritual side yet at the same time have had many of life’s rewards simply handed to them instead of having to earn it.

Boomers have earned everything they have; Millenials may have had most of it handed to them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Millenials don’t have a strong values set. Some do and some don’t. Some Boomers work hard and some don’t. Some Gen X’ers have learned the value of applying themselves in their pursuit of excellence and some have not.

However, there is a skill set that the average Millenial possesses that is mind-boggling to the average Boomer: the propensity to use technology. For most Baby Boomers in the workforce today, remembering back to childhood and not seeing a TV remote control in the house until they were into their teens is not uncommon. Color cable television was a celebration as a huge leap forward into new technology. I could make a comment about “Pong,” “Pac-Man” and Commodore-64’s here but suffice it to say, we’ve come a long way in a short period of time.

The Millenials, however, have never had a day that didn’t involve the use of computers, cell phones or portable entertainment devices. For Boomers, a chat was something you did over coffee. For Millenials, chatting is something you do over Java.

Boomers grew up with the notion of finding a good job that they might become proficient at. Millenials have entered the workforce searching for a good fit as opposed to a good job. Each Millenial has a skill set that they hope to be able to use. They don’t work well for organizations that happen to have a position and are just looking for a body to fill it. Millenials want the job to fit them and not the other way around. And at the end of the day, Millenials will leave the work behind whereas Boomers will take it home to finish. Boomers hope to one day achieve a decent work-life balance. Millenials are looking for a life-work balance: life comes first and work comes second.

And when you hire a Millenial, you hire their entire network of friends. MSN, Twitter, SMS and other forms of electronic hand-holding by their friends will be turned on in the workplace. The Millenial may be at work for you, but they are still connected to their network. Ask them to shut it off during work hours and you will be faced with filling a vacancy in your organization. Old school management does not work in today’s Millenial market. Give a poor performance review to a Millenial and that employee’s mother may call to ask why. Why should a job-performance review be any different than a parent-teacher meeting?

Attitude Adjustment: How do you engage the opposite ends of the workforce spectrum? For Boomers, it’s a matter of laying out the project parameters clearly: time frame, responsibilities, expectations and hierarchy within the project. Then, step out of the way and let the Boomer get it done. Oh, and if you expect it will take the whole day to get it done, expect it to be worked on overnight.

As for a Millenial, ask for input on how the project should come together. Give them the responsibility to make the decisions, don’t make them climb a ladder of hierarchy to ask a question, loosen the time frame (4‘ish?) and offer the opportunity to address key areas you’d like explored as well as anything they might feel is of value to the project. If you would expect the project to take all day, don’t. In fact, expect it in your email Inbox completed by noon that same day.

As for praise, give a Boomer an “attaboy,” privately with a handshake and heartfelt thanks. As for Millenials, you guessed it, a very public celebration.

Abundance vs Scarcity

Elections are in the air. Canada goes to the polls this week. America goes to the polls next month. And the big item on the agenda for both countries is the worldwide economy – although many of the citizens in both countries refuse to see that it is a worldwide event and not geographically exclusive to any one country.

I heard a great quote from Warren Buffet, last week. Buffet, if you don’t already know, is the most successful investor ever in the history of the world. Buffet’s advice? “If you’re not prepared to own a stock for ten years, you shouldn’t own it for ten minutes.”

In other words, think long-term. Markets fluctuate. It’s the focus on a short-term buy and sell that can create uncertainty, worry and sometimes panic, not within the market but within the individual buying and selling. That panic then spreads to other areas of his or her life because everything always comes back to money doesn’t it?

There are always short-term events in life that creates uncertainty and sometimes worry or panic. And this global economic slowdown is simply one of those events that will come and go over time. It’s not permanent. It never is. Even the Great Depression wasn’t permanent. We got over it and our economies bounced back and grew. And we will weather this storm too.

There are two attitude choices you can make for your life: not just when a financial crunch comes but something you can practice in good times and bad. Those two choices are to have either a “scarcity” mindset or an “abundance” mindset.

I will let the words of Steven Covey explain it better:

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

Attitude Adjustment: Before you start to panic, remember that newspapers need to sell big headlines to get you to buy them, TV networks need to sensationalize in order to bring their viewership up. Don’t rely solely on one news outlet for your perspective. There are an “abundance” of perspectives out there. Check out varying web sites, TV news, radio commentators, newspapers, periodicals, blogs, etc. Everyone has an opinion. You will find that there are as many people willing to lessen the severity of the current economic outlook as there are people who are willing to profess that the sky is falling. You owe it to the important people in your life to practice an attitude of “abundance” and not to panic. These current world events are temporary. This too, like every difficult time in our history, shall pass and you will be OK.

How To Engage On The Job

Here's another question that was asked this week: "How are Attitude and Employee Engagement related?"

Employee engagement IS an attitude. It’s an attitude based on values, morals and ethics instilled within the individual. If an employee was never taught or learned that their word is golden (specifically that the agreement they made to work in exchange for the paycheck), then they will never really feel compelled to be fully engaged on the job nor will they ever go over and above the bare minimum in the performance of their duties.

If, however, one of the employee’s values is to keep their agreements and not allow excuses or justifiers to stand in their way, they will perform the job to the best of their abilities. That employee understands that by accepting the offer of employment in the first place, there is an expectation that they were hired as simply the best candidate and carry within them a belief that employment is a privilege and not a right.

People who have a strong set of values and a good sense of doing what is right will always perform their duties to their capacity and will engage themselves in their work.

It is for that reason that I believe that employee engagement is not necessarily something that can be taught directly but, in fact, can only be instilled by soft-skills training: personal development, personal leadership and values-based life strategies. To employ someone in a position where the values of the job are in conflict with the employee’s set of personal values is a waste of a company’s time and money. You can’t fully engage an employee doing a job that goes against everything they believe and expect the employee to give up their own personal and life-long held views of the world.

It is for this same reason that a company’s values need to be developed not by a bunch of expensive-suited executives, but instead must be a grass-roots effort from the people who actually do the work. If the employees develop the corporate values, the chances of the employees engaging themselves in the delivery of those same values are far greater. Corporate values cannot be thrust upon the employee. There has to be a buy-in.

Attitude Adjustment: Engagement comes from values. Any and all discussions to the contrary just don’t line up. Employee engagement is an attitude. Without a strong sense of self-worth, the value of the contribution by that same employee will be much less. To attempt to fully engage an employee with low self-esteem or poor personal values would be futile to any organization. Develop the individual at the personal level and the engagement on the job naturally increases. When the self-worth of the individual increases, their pride in the work they do also naturally increases. When "doing a good job" is a value that becomes instilled in the individual, the engagement level on the job increases. The more you put into your employees, the more you will get out of them. The more you improve yourself, the more the things you do improve.

Should All Rules Apply?

I just got off of the plane in Saskatchewan. My flight included the entire Calgary Stampeders football team. In other words, I was dwarved by the very big men who surrounded me.

We used a little extra runway for takeoff - there's a lot of extra weight with these big guys. The pilot probably didn't account for the extra weight when we landed since we hit the tarmack a little harder than usual.

But as I de-planed (is that even a word?), I noticed that my carry-on bag was the same size as most of the players' bags. Regulations say the bag must fit in the sizing device at the airport and weigh no more than twenty-two pounds. How come there's a weight limit to my bag but not to the person who is carrying it?

Now I'm not saying big people shouldn't fly. Get over yourself if that's what you're reading into this. I'm saying that maybe the airlines could cut guys like me a little slack when a bag is say 5 pounds over. Apparently it's OK to carry an extra hundred pounds on my body but not OK for five pounds in a bag.

Should all rules apply all of the time? Or should we be allowed a little judgment call from time to time?

Just a little food for thought.

Kevin Burns
Author & Attitude Adjuster
Adjusting Attitudes in Employee Engagement - Service Leadership - Corporate Safety

Toll-free 1-877-BURNS-11 www.kevburns.com

Soft Skills vs. Technical Training

Question asked this week: Why are so many companies fixated on technical training with little or no emphasis on soft-skills training (management development, interpersonal communications, customer relations skills, etc)?

First of all, the training listed in the question is, I believe, technical skills training. These are not soft-skills training courses. Soft skills training is the kind of training you would offer to make the individual a better person, not a better manager. Management development IS technical training – you are training a manager for the work place. That’s a technical skill. However, a personal leadership development course which grows a better individual with better self-confidence and compassion is a soft-skills training course. The better the individual, the better that individual would perform their job.

I believe that business gets better when the people in the business get better. Improve the individuals at the personal level and the workplace will naturally improve. In fact, ask yourself, “Will the workplace deteriorate when the people I work with become better, decent, courteous human beings? Of course not. The truth is that sales get better when the sales people get better. Customer service gets better when the people who serve customers become more compassionate, understanding and communicative. Management gets better when the managers get better.

Most technical training (sales, communication, time-management, teamwork, etc.,) in the workplace is a complete waste of money. Organizations and corporations throw away billions of dollars every year on useless training that is designed to make people more proficient at a job that they, as people, are not capable of doing. And it’s not because they don’t want to become better. It’s because they, as people, lack the “self” skills to do it better (self-confidence, self-esteem, self-discipline, self-motivation, etc.).

Here’s what I mean by that. Let’s just say that there are ten representatives working in your sales department. Five of the reps have outstanding sales track records: they consistently hit their targets every month, customers love doing business with them and they seem to achieve their targets effortlessly. Then there are the other five reps who struggle every month to come close to meeting their targets. They can’t seem to get motivated to either get on the phone or make the in-person sales calls. They struggle with dealing with tough customers and know, in the backs of their minds, that they need to improve their respective performances or risk being let go.

Here’s what many companies would do: bring in a sales trainer to improve “company sales.” Even though five of the ten reps are consistently meeting their targets, the company thinks sales training is the key to get the whole team performing well. So, in comes the sales trainer to solve a problem that is clearly out of his realm since the problem isn’t corporate sales, it is five specific sales people. So the company penalizes the five top-performers by making them sit through a course that they already don’t need help with, and then place the five under-performers into a situation where they are now being studied by the peers – and judged as well.

Sales training is a waste of time on someone who lacks the self-confidence to ask for the sale, pick up the phone or make a cold-call in person. Time Management training is a waste of time on people who have no self-discipline. People without self-discipline revert back to old ways because, well, they have no self-discipline to stick with a new strategy. Teamwork training is wasted on individuals who have low self-esteem since they already feel they don’t deserve to be part of the team. And on and on the list goes. You can’t build a structurally sound house on a shaky foundation. In the same way, you can’t build a high-performer out of someone with a poor sense of self-worth.

Attitude Adjustment: Leadership is an attitude – management is a title. Service is an attitude – customer service is a department. Engagement is an attitude – employment is a paycheck. One is personal and one is technical. Organizations, on their own, work fine - it’s people who screw them up. Fix the people (at soft-skills level) and you fix most every problem in the organization.

Waiting On "Hold"

So I'm on hold with the call-centre at Telus, the phone company. I have been on hold for about twenty minutes now.

I have heard this message twelve times so far, "Are you looking for a career in the telecommunications industry? Telus currently has open positions for call-centre agents. For more information, visit our web site."

Hmm, something tells me I'm going to be on hold a little bit longer.

Thanks Telus for the second-best laugh I've had today.

The Attitude of Leaders As Hosts

Leadership is an attitude. Management is a title. You don’t need to be in management to be a leader.

So what does leadership look like in your own life?

Let’s say you are having a social gathering at your house. That would make you the host and those who attended your party would be guests. When in someone else’s house, the guests all defer to the host as being the leader. In other words, you are not managing the party, you are hosting it. The guests will join the host (the leader of the party) even sometimes begrudgingly if the host wants to play a game of charades. It’s the host’s party. We, as guests, will follow along. When there are followers, there must be a leader.

I read an interesting article recently about the concept of “hostmanship” as opposed to the concept of customer service.

There are six fundamentals to hostmanship:

1. Serving others
2. Perceiving the whole
3. Taking responsibility
4. Being caring
5. Searching knowledge
6. Practicing dialogue

The hostmanship web site describes hostmanship as the following:

Hostmanship without pride is empty and cold. In contrast to service, Hostmanship is focused on practice, on people as hosts, on the cultures of businesses, and on the capacity of organizations to tie it all together. Being a host is much about having the courage to let loose your talents and express your personality – to be brave enough to serve every person as she is and to listen to the needs she expresses. Hostmanship also differs from service in that it’s not about treating others as you yourself want to be treated. Hostmanship is to treat a person as she wants to be treated.

Seth Godin, in his Blog, wrote this past week:

If I pay $1000 extra for a first-class seat, odds are the flight attendant will be nice to me. If I pay $2000 extra for the presidential suite at the hotel, odds are the front desk clerk will be nice to me. If I give the valet $50 to park my car, odds are he'll be nice to me as well.

So, here's the question: if all I want, the only extra, is for someone to be nice to me when I visit your business, how much extra does that cost?

I think there's a huge gap between what people are willing to pay for nice (a lot) and what it would cost businesses to deliver it (almost nothing). Smells like an opportunity.

Attitude Adjustment: Is it your right to host your guests or to serve your customers? Or is it a privilege? Shifting your attitude away from customers simply being dollar signs to a nicer approach, that they are your guests, will go a long way to providing you with customer loyalty, better employee engagement, a more courteous and considerate way of dealing with those who choose to support you and, finally, a solid foundation upon which you can build your business and business relationships. Change your mind. Change your attitude. And serve your “guests” as you would wish to be “hosted” at their places of business or even their homes.

Big Rig - Little Brain

OK, now I've written about this particular subject in past and yet there are still a lot of people who, as the offenders, don't seem to care - and as those who supervise the offenders, well, they don't seem to care either. Such is my plight and here is my NEW story.

It was late afternoon as I drove on the four-lane highway. I found myself in the left lane slowly passing a big-rig truck who was just under the speed limit in the right lane. As I successfully got past him, I was unable to change into the right lane as some slower traffic was just ahead so I stayed in the left lane. The big-rig that I had just passed had apparently just called upon all of the horses under the hood and was accelerating quickly in the right lane now - well over the speed limit.

In my mind I thought there is no way he can get all of that rig into the space between me in the left lane and the car just ahead in the right lane. But he tried and without any consideration for any other vehicles he attempted to change lanes just as his back wheels were even with my back wheels. Had he continued to change lanes he would have either knocked me into the median or I would have to go there voluntarily. He put his rig just across the center line and tried to force me to either jam on the brakes (which I couldn't as there was a vehicle coming up behind me) or drive into the ditch. He then, aggressively put his truck back into the left lane to let me go by.

As I passed him I could see him waving his arms, looking at me and mouthing obscenities. I read, just below his face, the sign on the door: Marshall Trucking and the toll-free number. Once past the line of slower moving cars I pulled into the right lane as he flew past me well over the speed limit. I called the toll-free number.

I explained my story to the dispatcher who made a quick radio call and left the line open. She said the following to the driver: "Some guy out on the highway is complaining and wants you to slow down."

She came back on the phone and dismissively said, "Good enough?"

"Nope," was my answer. "Let me speak with your safety supervisor."

I was connected with Dean who listened intently. It was only when I identified myself as someone who works in safety attitude did he seem to genuinely take an interest in my story about his company and his driver.

Attitude Adjustment: If your company has vehicles on the road, please remind your drivers that they are flying the flag of the company when they drive. And if you get a complaint from one person, you can multiply that one phone call by fifty. Fifty is at least the number of people your driver has likely affected but only one stood up to make a complaint. I don't care if you're short-staffed and can't find any other drivers. If one of your drivers chooses to be unsafe on the roads, you should fire him immediately. It will save your company's face and send a very strong message to your other drivers to get with the program. The fast-moving highway is no place to have a little brain behind the wheel of a big rig.

Arrogance vs. Attitude

Question posed this week: What would you do from your own professional perspective to overcome an arrogant attitude in management and encourage to them in being proactive in accepting the necessity, convenience and relevance of an organizational change?

Let's be clear. In most instances, it's not "management" that is arrogant. It is the individual people who hold the title "manager” who may be arrogant. Some managers have come to believe that their title carries with it a deluded belief that they are superior to those who work for them. Change the attitudes of the individuals and you can begin to successfully change the culture throughout the organization. But without acknowledging the existence of the arrogance attitude within oneself, there is likely to be little change in this regard.

Management is not the same as leadership. Management is a title. Leadership is an attitude. I doubt that a true leader, one who genuinely wanted his or her people to become better, smarter and more efficient and to become the best people they could become, would operate from a place of arrogance. But one who chose to try to keep his or her minions down would be operating from that arrogance place.

Here’s a self-test for managers: have you met every single person in your department and had at least one conversation with each of them? If not, what is keeping you from doing that? I can guarantee that employee engagement will increase when the employee begins to feel that their contribution matters. Leadership is encouraging performance that perhaps even surpasses the abilities of the leader. Leaders are selfless. It’s impossible to be arrogant when an individual is selfless.

In any organization, it is not only leaders holding management positions. In fact, arrogant managers actually fear employees who are perceived by their peers as leaders within the ranks. Employees with leadership abilities are influencers. Arrogant managers fear influencers who could undermine their position.

But a real influencer may also be able to influence the arrogant manager by having a private conversation, away from prying ears. It takes courage but it is possible.

Also, it takes courage from consultants and speakers to say what needs saying instead of plying platitudes to ensure the check gets signed. This is an all-too-sad truth in our industry – saying what is safe to say instead of saying what needs to be said.

Attitude Adjustment: There is good news on dealing with arrogant managers. As the market changes (customers expecting better service, expectations of quality products, purchasing patterns, economic forces, etc.,) so will the attitudes of managers ... eventually. All is not lost. This transition time, as Boomers leave the workplace and are replaced by Gen Y's or Millenials, the dynamics of the relationships between those at the top and those who actually do the work will begin to change. The one saving grace is that the customer (us) can tell the difference. We customers vote with our dollars. When the polls (dollars) start to swing away from those organizations with arrogant leadership, the shareholders of those same organizations will correct the problem in short order. The market always has a way of correcting itself.

Die, Conference Dinner

I ran across this article recently in Meeting Planners International magazine. I thought it was brilliant, so much so that I felt compelled to share it with you. If you are a Meeting Planner, pay attention. If you have attended one of these events, well, enjoy. It was written by Tony Carey, CMP.

It would be difficult to invent an occasion better designed for social discomfort than the end-of-convention dinner with its incompatible mix of stale etiquette, corporate protocol, culinary sensitivities, age, gender and cultural frictions all squeezed into a few short hours that, for many participants, seem like an eternity.

Pity the poor association meeting planner (for it is in this field that the tradition survives in its purest form), required to devise a social activity in which the preordained ingredients leave scope for nothing more creative than changing the colour of the table linen.

The evening’s schedule must include a drinks reception, a dinner of at least four courses, a speech by the chairman, another by the principal guest, a series of toasts, the presentation of awards, dancing and then—to show that the organisation isn’t as old-fashioned as the previous four hours have conclusively proved—a disco.

Given the diversity of delegates at most association conventions, few of them will enjoy all these ingredients. For the younger attendees, the reception and the disco fail to compensate for the dinner discomfort and the tedium of the speeches. For the older ones, failing digestion, hearing and prostate glands make the meal an ordeal. Women (who are promoted to “ladies” for the occasion) are invariably disappointed by the men whom they are placed next to, but at least they have the pleasure of putting on a party frock. Generally speaking, men do not share women’s enthusiasm for dressing up. This may be because dress shirts shrink two sizes between uses.

Protocol demands that men and women should be seated alternately at the dinner table. This is arguably the most ridiculous piece of social etiquette since the invention of the fish knife and, fortunately, is increasingly ignored. Any good host will tell you that compatibility and mutual interests should determine a seating plan—not gender.

Would any half-professional meeting planner dare to inflict on delegates, in an auditorium, the levels of discomfort that are deemed acceptable at a banquet? No. Ten guests to a round table ensures that some can’t see the speakers and, as if the room wasn’t hot enough, everyone stokes up on calorific food eaten off warm plates. To further challenge the air conditioning, each table has a candle.

It is a physiological fact that women feel the cold more than men, so, of course, the ladies appear in backless, strapless, insubstantial little numbers (invariably black) which attract welcome attention and an unwelcome chill—while conformity demands that the gentlemen perspire in tuxedos. But I digress.

So the meal has ground to an indigestible conclusion, toasts have been drunk and the awards presented. The chairman has finally sat down to lethargic applause, so it is time for the band to strike up with a tune that only 25 percent of those present will recognise as music and to which no one will dance.

By this time (midnight), the ambient noise has reached battlefield level ensuring that conversations with foreigners—especially Virginians—have become impossible.

Most of the men would rather talk than dance, and most of the women would rather dance than talk. But the single girls have a problem: since most of the younger generation is propping up the bar, their choice of dancing partners is limited. They can choose from another woman, a septuagenarian, a drunk, their own handbag or the Greek they were sitting next to at dinner. (It’s a particularly bad evening if all they can find is a drunk old Greek with a handbag.)

But it is at this point that the group—which has been held together all evening by the glue of conformity—really splits up. The very old and the married couples go to bed, the very young escape to joust, sweatily, in the disco, while the middle-aged singles bribe the barman to remain at his post so they can rearrange the world.

Ironically, because everyone ends the evening doing what they enjoy, the event will be regarded as a considerable success. Such is the amnesic power of alcohol.

TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is a speaker and consultant. He can be reached at tonycarey@psilink.co.je or via his Web site, www.tonycarey.info.

One Person Makes Every Decision

Here’s a question that was posed to me this week: what do you think is the major cause for an organization suffering unnecessary employee attrition or turnover?

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people would point the finger at: bad hiring, bad management, poor wages, stifling organizational culture, not keeping promises, misrepresentation of the work involved or failure to align with the corporate vision or mission statement.

There are a ton of possible reasons, most of them pointing the finger at a nebulous position or something else. Have we lost sight of the prime component here? Don't we undertsand that as long as we blame an entity or a position that we can’t quantify, that we will continue to face the same issues?

What about the employee who “needs” daily ego-stroking? Is it management’s job or the responsibility of “culture” to ensure that needy employees get their daily dose of Vitamin “Ego?” Not every single employee is cut from the same cloth. Just because they may have attended the same school doesn’t mean they have the same qualities and values as the next person.

HR needs to stop considering candidates for interview primarily from resumes. The world is changing. The new generation of worker bounces around from job-to-job looking for a fit. The new generation of workers doesn’t interview as well as older workers (unless they can interview by text message). The new generation of worker doesn’t even think like their interviewer (generational gaps). Can your HR department figure out what makes this worker tick?

Ask yourself this question: when your place of business has an opening, does it simply hire a body or does your place of work see the value and skill-set in a potential candidate and make a place for that person? There's a difference. Discover what your people are really good at and encourage them to do what they do best. Then hire someone else to do the work not being done but make sure they want to do it.

Want to change the culture? Change the people. I’m not talking about firing the lot. I’m talking about providing tools that employees could grow as people, could get better, more confident, build their individual self-esteem, improve their decision-making capacity, improve their communication skills and improve their daily dispositions and attitudes. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. It’s soft skills training. But if you really want to grow your organization you will first have to grow your people.

Organizations work fine. It’s people who screw them up. Fix the individual and you will fix the organization and the performance of the organization. But unfortunately, we’ve become a society of finger-pointers and blamers. And in doing so, it’s easy to blame an entity or a title (department) for the results.

In fact, some will actually argue with me that it’s got to be harder than just making the people better. My response is; have you tried it yet? Have you fully experienced poor results from actually implementing some sort of personal-development culture within your organization and can, from a place of experience, say it doesn’t work because you’ve actually tried it?

Attitude Adjustment: If you don’t make a change on the focus of the problem, you will never solve it. Every decision, every success and every screw-up in every organization can be traced back to just one person. Improve the person and you improve the decision. Improve the person and you improve the work. Improve the person and you improve the performance. Improve the person and you improve the attitude towards the job. Improve the person and you improve the attrition rate. Simple huh? Now stop blaming “management” for not allowing this to happen and go talk to the one person who can make the decision. It all boils down to one person – always.

The Leadership Philosophy

“How many people have actually read the ‘Belief’ Statement?” I said as I pointed to the large Belief Statement banner which stood upon the stage next to me.

A single hand out of almost two hundred attendees was raised. That hand, funny enough, belonged to meeting planner who had hired me.

“Are you serious?” was my incredulous response.

The one item out of the seven listed on the Belief Statement banner that I was drawing attention to made reference to each staff member being responsible for their own ongoing, continuous self-improvement and learning. I personally think that the responsibility for self-improvement should be on the individual and not the employer, no matter what.

So over the course of the hour that I addressed this group, I continually referenced the importance of self-improvement and a dedication to continuous learning.

I believe that taking fifteen minutes a day, a single coffee-break, to learn something today that may improve you personally or professionally, will show results exponentially down the road. Reading a chapter in a book that can improve your job performance, your willingness to stretch yourself, to learn a new skill or to enhance your skill set will, down the road, affect your paycheck.

The more you learn, the more valuable you become, the more likely you will be rewarded for your value.

Your employer is likely to see little reason to invest more resources or more money in you if you have not demonstrated a return on investment by investing in yourself first. And the truth is that if your employer is not able to see the results of your self-improvement strategy, it is likely that another employer will see it and offer you more to come to work there instead.

You don’t have to be in a management position to continually upgrade yourself. Just because someone has the title “manager” doesn’t mean they are a leader. Sometimes, and contrary to what many employers believe, people who could lead a revolt against management have much more leadership ability than the managers they themselves work for.

Attitude Adjustment: Leadership is an attitude. Management is a title. You can possess one without the other. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. The person who continuously self-improves puts him or herself in a much better position to influence others than does the manager who stops learning one he or she gets the title. Just because you’re not the boss doesn’t mean you’re not a leader. And just because you’re not a leader doesn’t mean you can’t be the boss. I mean, c’mon, we’ve all worked for bosses that had little leadership ability. The leader is the person who has demonstrated that he or she could always improve and makes a plan to make sure they are ahead of the pack. If you’re ahead of everyone else and they seem to be following you, then you must be the leader right? Open a book and start learning how to get in front.

$1000 Quit-Now Bonus

“You’ve been on the job for a week now, and we’d like to offer you $1000.00 if you quit today.”

How would you like to be greeted on your seventh day at work by that statement? Does that statement even seem possible? Well it’s real. And the company that is doing it is called Zappos – an on-line retailer of shoes. It’s called their “quit now” bonus.

Zappos will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. The employee will be paid for the amount of time they’ve worked, plus they are offered another $1,000 bonus if they quit immediately.

Why does Zappos do this? As it turns out, Zappos wants to ensure that the employee they have hired has the same sense of commitment that Zappos is looking for in all of their employees. The Zappos culture is clearly defined and they want to ensure that the employee engagement of the new hire is up to par with the other employees.

Zappos would rather pay now than pay later for weeding out the deadwood. They also want to ensure that the employee is committed to the company the same way Zappos would like them to be before they invest any more money in the employee. The work is not necessarily glamorous. The work is in a call centre. It’s not for everyone and the percentage of new hires taking Zappos up on their offer is about ten percent.

Zappos has figured out a way to not be saddled with a “dud” employee and are willing to pay one thousand dollars early so they don’t have to pay many more thousands later in finding a way to terminate an employee who isn’t working out, to keep the morale high and to stop the cancerous spread of negativity before it gets a chance to take root. It’s also another way to test commitment levels of the new employee to the job.

Attitude Adjustment: If more businesses would be willing to adapt the Zappos example of weeding out problem employees in their own businesses, there would be fewer problems with customer service and employee engagement down the road. It may seem like a lot of money for some smaller businesses but not really when you consider how much could be lost to customer dissatisfaction, whining and complaining on the job and by actively disengaged employees working against good productivity. This may not be the only way to weed out prospective problem employees but it’s got to be better than the way things are working now. The real learning from Zappos is that they are willing to think of creative ways to eliminate problems before they become problems that affect the bottom-line. So, what’s it worth to your organization to get rid of some of the problem employees that you may have right now? If you’re the problem employee, would you take the thousand bucks to make you go away?

New Restaurant Service Blog I Stumbled Onto

Recently, I wrote a Blog entry about restaurants needing to fix their problems right away. One of the comments to that entry came from another Blog, So You Want To Be A Banquet Manager.

Some of the greatest restaurant/banquet stories I have ever read are in this Blog. If you're looking for an opportunity to see evidence that restaurant and banquet staff are just as fed up with poor service and poor employee engagement as the rest of us, check out the Blog site.

Also, while you're there, click the YouTube video for Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food - a Saturday Night Live sketch which features Steve Carrell. Oh, and a warning, don't be eating while you're watching it.

Cheers.

Get Out Of The Way Of The Message

Have you ever had to instruct someone in your workplace on the finer points of getting something done or have you ever been the go-to-guy for co-workers to better understand operational processes at your job? Have you ever had to head up a learning session for your co-workers or new hires? Did you, just by the way you structured the learning session, unintentionally get in the way of their learning?

It happens. Even the professionals do it and mess up their own teaching. Let me give you an example.

A former sports celebrity-turned motivational speaker did a presentation for a group of bankers. His session on-stage lasted about ninety minutes. During his session, he expounded the virtues of teamwork and offered a few strategies for better teams within an organization. All-in-all, it may have been a good presentation with some value for the group of managers that he was speaking to. However, after his session, he came down off of the stage and “worked” the room shaking hands with every single person in the room. He walked between the banquet tables and stopped at every single table to shake hands with every single person in the room. While shaking hands, he made small-talk with each person he shook hands with.

Now I am the first to admit I don’t really do small-talk extremely well. I agree that there is an art to it. I’ve just never learned the art nor do I feel it’s extremely important to learn to do small-talk as I rarely find myself on the cocktail-and-pâté circuit. So, as it turns out, small-talk is a social skill that I am inept at and really, I don’t care that I’m not very good at it. Some people need to be good at it. I don’t.

Anyway, back to the story.

After the sports celebrity finished “working” the room of glad-handing the attendees, most of them were left to struggle to recall much of what the paid professional actually had to say from the stage. Attendees could instantly recall what he was wearing that evening and also easily recalled each personal conversation while making small-talk with them individually, but the message from the stage, the one that the organization paid thousands of dollars for, was lost. All was lost because of small-talk. In fact, in this instance, the speaker got in the way of his own message.

Attitude Adjustment: Are you jeopardizing learning at your place of work? Are you, as an attendee in a learning environment, interrupting the learning of your co-workers by making side-comments while someone else is attempting to learn something? If you want to increase the chances of learning for both yourself and your co-workers, just engage yourself in what you’re doing. Keeping focused either as an attendee or as an instructor will increase employee engagement and it can be accomplished by adopting the philosophy of “less is more.” The less distraction, the less discussion off-topic, the less you make any session about you, the more people will learn. The more people learn, the better they are at the job. The better people become at their jobs, the more reason there will be to have social gatherings in which everyone can engage in small-talk. Cell phones turned off. Brains turned on. Keep focused on the task at hand. Do whatever is necessary to remove the distractions in a learning environment. And if it’s you at the front of the room, always remember that the message is far more important than the messenger if the purpose of the message is to improve the workplace and those in it.

Love Relationships At Work

I received a question this week asking, “Just wondering what your attitude would be toward a boss and subordinate starting a relationship at work and the effects on other staff?”

Personally, my “attitude” when it comes to office romances is to run for the hills if you’re even considering this. Nothing good can come of this. The numbers are against their success in any way. That’s my attitude. However, with that being said, I also have opinions on several different scenarios which may shed a little more light. In the question, there was no other description of the details of this relationship at work and so I was left to ponder these scenarios and come up with an opinion on each. So here goes.

Boss and subordinate are both single. If this were the case, I really don’t see how this would be of anyone’s business but the two parties involved. Provided they have both come clean and are open about their relationship, the only course of action would be to ensure that the subordinate does not report directly to the boss and instead, would report directly to either another manager or a supervisor of some sort. The boss would also have to practice recusal in all dealings involving the subordinate to ensure that there would be no conflict of interest or perceived favoritism when it came time for performance reviews, promotions or other special considerations of the subordinate. In fact, I know a couple who met at work (he was her boss) and upon the decision to start dating, they approached his superior and announced their plans. She now reports directly to a different boss yet they still work together in the same department. Honesty works.

Either boss or subordinate or both are already in a relationship with other people. This would be a completely inappropriate relationship and one of the two would need to be removed immediately from the workplace, preferably both. This is a character/values/integrity issue. Any organization that would knowingly allow two people to engage in an inappropriate relationship such as this, has obviously demonstrated that it lacks the moral fiber to serve its customers and the rest of the staff with integrity and good judgment. In fact, I am aware of one situation where this did occur – manager and subordinate having an inappropriate relationship. A corporate VP found out about it, brought the two into the office and told them that within twenty minutes, one of the two of them was leaving the company and for them to figure out who was going. The subordinate left and the manager not long after.

It is crucial that if you are going to engage in a relationship at work, that it be above-board and transparent. A relationship based on lies never lasts and it does tremendous damage to morale and employee engagement. If you’ll do something that is dishonest with your co-workers, you’ll do it with your customers.

Attitude Adjustment: If you see something at work that is questionable and it goes against your values and morals, you need to speak up. Tell the boss’s boss. However, if your boss is the top of the food chain, you need to dust off the resume and start looking for another job. Before you leave, confront the boss and tell him or her the truth of why you are leaving. Being found out by others is usually a great way to bring an end to an inappropriate relationship.

Bosses hate to lose face with their subordinates – hopefully, it makes them realize that they have damaged the trust and respect of their staff. People don’t perform well for bosses who are not trusted, respected or lack integrity. Besides, you really don’t want to work there if that’s the environment. Dishonesty and inappropriateness really do affect the bottom-line. But not speaking up only gives a blessing to the inappropriate behavior. Are you willing to sell out your values for a paycheck?