Quick recap: Brett retires, waffles, confirms retirement, waffles again. The team moves on and focuses on launching a new era of Packer ball. Brett announces his un-retirement and is disgruntled this revelation isn’t met with the appropriate jubilance and reverence. Packers stick by their new man for the QB role and trade Brett. Packers fans lash out.
As a business owner, I completely understand the Packers’ decision. It’s a shrewd strategy to find ways to build your bench strength, optimize your assets and give your organization a fresh vision for the future. It can be tough to bite the bullet and make a break from something that has always worked – especially when you recognize that there could be a few bumps along the way that observers will be happy to call you on the carpet for. But you do it because over the long haul, you know that is what will keep you great.
So why the long faces cheese heads?
Apparently Packers fans would rather commit to another rollercoaster season with Favre at the helm and not worry about what happens next. Because after all, a potential short-term shot at repeating greatness today is always better than working and waiting for potential greatness in the long-term, right?
All I can say is I feel for Aaron Rodgers– or any new CEO, COO or individual for that matter – who is brought in to lead some aspect of an organization and then given just one season to show they can make an impact.
I realize that in this information age everything we need to satisfy our whims, cravings and urges is available 24/7. But greatness just doesn’t work that way people.
Just how pervasive is our addiction?
Well, let’s play a little game of word association. What situations come to mind when you hear the following?
• Oil and gas
• Mortgages and Housing
• Airline industry
• John Edwards
• Childhood obesity rates
• Immigration
Now, you tell me: How many of these situations could have been avoided by exercising some long-sightedness?
Meanwhile, our bridges are falling down.
As our addiction to instant gratification grows, our infrastructure is slowly eroding. Our roads, our school systems and our medical facilities are all showing the bruises of neglect from being moved to the back burner in order to make room in our budgets and on our agendas for more immediate (aka: popular) needs.
In our boardrooms forward-thinking CEOs looking to invest for the future of their company are put on the defensive by private equity firms looking to grow their portfolios quickly. And how many more quarters will we have to read Wall Street analysts’ reports questioning Google’s investments in expensive programs like employee training and benefits?
We are raising a generation of instant gratification addicts.
One of the main complaints I hear from Boomers about Gen Y (Boomers’ off-spring, mind you) is that Gen Y employees don’t want to do the time to move up the corporate ladder – that they are impatient. Ya’ think? Let’s take a closer look at their world.
In my day I was impressed with Jiffy Pop, Nestle Quick, Pop-tarts and microwave ovens. But just imagine never having to:
• Wait for a Polaroid to develop
• Listen to the radio for hours to just hear your favorite new song
• Go to the library to look something up in an encyclopedia
• Dial a phone and get a busy signal
• Physically go to an event to see it
• Wonder where your friends are and what they are doing
I ordered a pair of shoes from Zappos the other day and they were at my door so fast I would swear the “submit order” button was attached to my doorbell. So yes, I can see how the instant gratification addiction can happen.
The problem is that at this rate we are ultimately building a nation of citizens to live self-centeredly and moment-to-moment, which will only magnify the current trends. Is that really the future we want to create? A future in which we hear the word “community” and picture an instantly constructed master-planned development complete with picket fences and front porches but no real neighbors, instead of a network of relationships grown and nurtured over time?
I challenge us to a better legacy.
Think for a moment about your most fond memories, your greatest achievements. Write them down on a sheet of paper. Now, how many of the items on your list were the result of instant gratification versus the result of real time and effort put towards reaching a goal?
You see, while instant gratification can seemingly satisfy our wants and needs, it doesn’t satisfy our souls. There is something to be said for enjoying the fruits of your labor, for savoring the process. Instant gratification takes the fun out of life. It’s like sex without foreplay. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still enjoy it, just probably not as much as you could.
It’s time we stop cheating ourselves, our organizations, our country and our future. And the best way to start the process is not by pointing fingers and placing blame, but to start to make changes ourselves. What can you do? Start small and see what happens. Some ideas?
• Take time to authentically connect with people
• Teach patience by example
• Make sure your solutions address the long-term as well as the short-term
• Don’t just manage perceptions, tackle the problem head on
• Volunteer in your community
• Participate in your organization’s CSR efforts
• Disconnect from your technology when you are with friends and family
• Participate in your community government
The trick is to balance out your activities so that at the end of the day you can sleep knowing you have invested some of your time and skills in creating a better future, rather than just responding to a future someone else has created for you. Someday your grandchildren may not know who Brett Favre is, but they will know who you are.
So what’s the quick answer?
In short: Rome wasn’t built it a day. Some good things take time, and that’s not always a bad thing.
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At last week’s SHRM conference in Chicago, I presented a session on “The Leadership Role of HR in Corporate Social Responsibility.” There was a lot of buzz on the topic of employee volunteering and after the session a participant asked how to make the most of employee volunteer efforts at her company. I gave her my best answer, which was a good enough answer -- but being unable to ignore my perfectionist tendencies, I’ve been wishing ever since then that I had a way to contact her to give her a more complete answer. So what follows is a synopsis of the question, what I said, and what more I could have said. (Given the time, a comfortable chair, and perhaps a hot cup of coffee...)
Should employee volunteer programs be considered part of an overall CSR strategy?
Comprehensive CSR strategies center on three business drivers: people, planet, and profits. For each business driver you can incorporate initiatives that have to do with your organization’s relationship with the workplace, the marketplace, the community, or the environment.
Employee volunteer programs fit in the people component, and can include:
• Workplace efforts like volunteering to support a company fund-raiser or workplace-sponsored event
• Marketplace efforts like providing customer or vendor education
• Community efforts like those we would consider traditional volunteer efforts that support a community cause
• Environment efforts like planting trees or picking up litter
You might find that several efforts could fit multiple categories and that’s okay. It’s just a good starting point to take inventory of what volunteer programs you are supporting and where they fit. That will help you prioritize your initiatives and will help you in your future decision process when you are asked to support additional initiatives.
Should employees be allowed to volunteer for whatever efforts they choose?
There is no question that providing your employees the opportunity to volunteer for a worthy cause is a worthwhile investment. Plus you will logically get better participation if it happens to be a cause the employee feels passionate about. But as with any employee benefit program, or any investment of resources for that matter, it’s important to know what you’re getting for your money. And the only way to do that is to put some structure and measures around it.
If your company is already supporting employee volunteer efforts with paid time off, that is fantastic. It means your leadership already understands that volunteering benefits the employee, the effort, the community, and the company.
That being said, I certainly wouldn’t recommend providing paid time off for employees to volunteer for just anything.
Why not? Well, for starters there are literally thousands of volunteer opportunities that your employees could participate in – efforts that cover a vast landscape of choices such as fundraising for political campaigns, working crowd control at a local St. Patrick’s Day parade, picking up litter on the side of the highways, serving on non-profit boards of directors, or providing community education in a local shelter. If there is an issue someone feels strongly about, there’s a good chance they can find a way to support it.
Why is that a problem? Well, let’s say that you are a commercial development company. Would you be okay with paying your employee’s salary while they participate in a protest against developing a part of town where you are contracted to build? What if an employee wants to take off to sell trinkets at a crafts fare that is raising money for their church, which happens to be a sect of the “only people with brown hair and green eyes who were born under the sign of the Neptune moon crossing are worthy” church.
The point is if you have no parameters around employee volunteering, you are going to end up in hot water the first time you tell someone that roping out tailgating spots for the Jimmy Buffet concert doesn’t count as a worthy cause.
Not having parameters means you have to accept everything, or put your organization at risk when managers begin to make judgment calls on what should or should not count.
How should we determine which volunteer efforts to support?
When your employees are volunteering in the community on company time they are the face of your company. So it’s important to consider what you want your company to represent.
Most organizations will look for causes that are consistent with their mission, vision, or values statements and make sense with the product or service they deliver. So for example, Sun Microsystems’ statement “Innovation and action guide our efforts to eliminate the digital divide” serves as their cornerstone in guide employee volunteer initiatives.
What if I don’t have any mission, values, or vision statements to guide our efforts?
Then look for something that supports your product. For example, if you are a publishing company, you could look for environmental opportunities to plant trees or develop sustainable inks, community opportunities on teaching English as a second language or supporting literacy programs. Look for a tie in to whatever you are selling or producing.
Another option is to put together an employee work group to look at options in the community and determine which ones they feel the company should focus their efforts on. This is a great way to gain some momentum and improve employee participation.
The Points of Light Institute has some worthwhile resources, including their “Principles of Excellence” guidelines for developing and sustaining volunteer programs. They also have very good benchmarking resources.
How do I convince my leadership team that we need some parameters?
One word: data. If your leadership team is hesitant to change the status quo, take a step back and gather data. Track the number of employee volunteer hours, the causes supported, and the types of work projects that were done. Put a dollar value on it. Compare your results to those of similar companies in your industry or community.
Numbers are the language of business and it’s been my experience that it’s tough to sell anything you can’t quantify. So start there.
If that isn’t enough, kick it up a notch with some qualitative data. Pull together some informal employee focus groups and find out which issues are top-of-mind for them. Listen to the pool of job candidates you are recruiting. Is there an overriding theme or question? Look at the results of your employee opinion or job satisfaction surveys. Is there any qualitative data there?
If your stakeholders ask the question “What do you stand for?” what are you going to tell them? And how are you going to show it?
Any volunteer efforts should ultimately contribute to and support an organization’s business goals. Typically you will get a bigger bang for your buck with focused efforts than with scattered ones.
Effective employee volunteer programs are a win-win-win for the employee, the community, and the organization. Good parameters will help you maintain maximum ROI so you can keep your programs alive and growing for years to come. (Hey! Let’s call that “volunteerism sustainability.”) I’d say it’s a worthy cause to strive for and another great way for Human Resource professionals to make a lasting, positive impact on the workplace. I look forward to your success stories.
Recently, in a USA Today interview promoting her album, (read “Madonna chews on work, love, ‘Hard Candy’” here) Madonna responded to the question “As someone on the cutting edge of trends, do you think the best music gets heard?”
“Not necessarily…Everything is about instant gratification and shorter shelf life. Someone who’s offering subtleties won’t make an impact. We live in a world full of distractions.”
I couldn’t agree with her more, and yet the response – coming from her – troubled me a bit. Because isn’t she in part responsible for raising the noise level by contributing to it with her attention-grabbing antics? The ones that started way back in the 80s with the fishnet stockings and rosary bead ensembles, continuing with her controversial “Like a Virgin” tour performance, numerous erotic music videos, “Sex” book, and the 2003 MTV kiss with Britney Spears. Really, I could go on and on. There are quite literally hundreds of examples.
But she has a point.
The question “Can you hear me now?” in our technology-driven information age has a whole new meaning. Outside of being a brilliant marketing campaign for Verizon Wireless, it is coming to be a symbol of our inability to authentically communicate and connect with each other. Because being heard is about capturing someone’s attention long enough to get them to actually listen. To be heard. In this world “full of distractions” it is getting to be an art in its own right.
How far do we have to go to make an impact?
We have more venues than ever to make our point, and yet the solutions we are applying are as effective as the child tugging on his mother’s sleeve. “Mom. Mom. Mom….Mom…Mom..!” After a day of that is it any wonder we are all are ready to just check out?
Business owners struggle with finding new ways to make an impact every day. So their PR and marketing departments put together e-marketing campaigns and newsletters to barrage our inboxes and keep their products top of mind. They set up corporate blogs and MySpace pages, hold on-line contests and post YouTube videos all in an effort to engage their target market and stand out in the noise. But ultimately their efforts mostly just end up contributing to the noise.
Last week, I was speaking at a conference and noticed some people in my session busily trying to copy down notes from my slides. Wanting them to not feel unnecessary stress about missing anything I told them I would send them the presentation if they would give me their email address. You should have seen the panic flash in their eyes. “I don’t SPAM.” I had to say.
Mom…Mom…Mom… It’s our email indicator, cell phone ring, text message alert, appointment reminder…. And those are just the electronic components. The ones that we could essentially turn off if we chose to.
So in a world where capturing someone’s attention is a significant accomplishment, whispering doesn’t cut it anymore. But at what point can we stop escalating the noise? Because it’s getting harder and harder to hear.
CU L8R!
For us as individuals, the lack of meaningful interpersonal connections is not a healthy trend. To be heard is in my mind one of those basic human needs – right up there with safety, shelter, plumbing and chocolate. (My apologies to Maslow for adapting his hierarchy.)
To have someone stop and really listen, to look you in the eyes and acknowledge and validate your presence? Well, it is as vital to our life as breathing. And as much fun as it is that we are able to connect electronically whenever and wherever we choose, texting is still no substitute for a face-to-face conversation.
Consider these recent headlines. Is “Can you hear me now?” the real message being delivered?
• Tempe man with road rage shoots self
• Teen brings gun to high school
• City ambulance workers seek to form union
• Shareholder lawsuit claims Yahoo derailed Microsoft bid
I’m sure I could find countless other examples of something reaching an extreme point because we heard but neglected to listen to the early warning signs. (Oil crises, obesity trends, depression, insomnia and divorce rates to name a few) It doesn’t have to get to that point.
We are all so busy looking to be heard, there is no one left to listen.
Authentic communication is a two-way street and sometimes the best way to be heard is to start by listening.
The Chinese character for the verb “to listen” is made up of four parts: ear, eyes, heart, and undivided attention. I think following that approach can help us reduce the distractions and avoid the extremes it takes now to get our attention. Like every good habit you’ll get better with practice. Make an effort to take some time each day to really listen to (in priority order)
• Your inner self
• Your inner circle – family and close friends
• Your work relationships – employees, peers, customers and vendors
• Your community leaders
Not with the intention of correcting, or fixing, or helping. Not with a mind set towards judging or blaming. Just listen – with your ears, your eyes, and your heart.
This focused listening is in a sense a way to reset the volume level on the noise in your life. It will help you tune in to what is important and what matters. It will help you notice the subtleties before they reach extremes. It will help you know the right thing to do.
Give someone the gift of your undivided attention every day. It’s the only way to make sure that the best music in your life…gets heard.
]]>The right thing for our Global Community: Olympic sponsorship
I completely get that Steven Spielberg opted out of participating in the production of the opening ceremonies for this year’s Olympics. I imagine him sitting in a room listening to people toss around their ideas for the best way to highlight and celebrate Chinese culture and thinking to himself: “Wait a minute. How can I participate in celebrating the culture of a country whose politics diametrically oppose my foundational beliefs? What was I thinking? I am so out of here!”
I also get that protestors are using the Olympic torch relay to bring attention to human rights issues in China. These groups have been trying to get our attention for a long time; these aren’t new issues. So good for them for optimizing a captive audience and making their point – peacefully.
What I don’t get is the question around whether or not Olympic sponsors should pull their support or risk permanent damage to their brands. In this morning’s USA Today an article on Olympic sponsorship gave sponsors five different “professional” opinions as to the right decision.
How did supporting the Olympics suddenly become synonymous with supporting the host country? The Olympics have always represented an opportunity for harmonic international competition and should be about the athletes and excellence. Instead of pulling their support, I would suggest sponsors use this opportunity to entrench their Corporate Social Responsibility values and use their time and dollars to raise awareness of human rights and what can be accomplished by working together – as evidenced historically by the Olympic Games.
And if consumers really want to make a statement, wouldn’t they be better off boycotting Chinese products as opposed to US Olympic sponsors?
What is the right thing for these companies to do? What is the right thing for consumers to do? I don’t know…you tell me.
The right thing for Organizations: CEO Pay
The headline for this blurb on Exxon CEO’s compensation for 2007 should have come with a warning: Reading this on the same day you fill up your gas tank could cause high blood pressure and uncontrollable cursing.
Now my degree is from a college of Arts and Sciences, not business, so pardon my ignorance, but can someone please explain to me how Exxon can bring in “the largest profit ever for a U.S company” while our gas prices continue to steadily creep towards the $4 a gallon mark? Can someone please explain to me how it is ok for an oil company CEO to receive $21.7 million in income while a good chunk of the economy is reeling from the impacts of the increased price of mobility, including 3 airlines closing down and another filing bankruptcy? How does this guy sleep at night knowing that these higher costs are being passed on to the end consumer in the form of baggage handling fees, fuel surcharges, and 100 other imaginative ways businesses have found to recoup money needed to just stay afloat.
And where is Gerald Grinsteinwhen you need him?
I would have hoped that more CEOs would have gotten the message. But what do you think? Should CEOs sacrifice their lucrative pay packages just because the rest of us are suffering? What is the right thing? I don’t know…you tell me.
The right thing for an Individual: Green living
A little closer to home, there are always those opportunities we all have to make a small dent in a big problem. I try to make a difference in small ways – I ride my bicycle to the store, I use my canvas grocery bags, I’ve replace a multitude of bulbs in my house with fluorescents and I use “certified green” cleaning products on the rare occasion that I actually clean my house. I’m not bragging; I am sure those are the easy and simple things we all do.
Two summers ago, however, I noticed that our AC system wasn’t working very well – which in Arizona is not something you want to mess around with. What a great opportunity to do something more significant! I did some research and found this amazing company Solcool that builds HVAC systems to run on a single solar panel. The thought of using the sun to cool my house thrilled me, so I tried to buy one. “Not possible.” I was told. Turns out there was such a demand the company couldn’t keep up production. “Wait another year.” I was told. So I dialed my thermostat to 87 degrees last Summer and waited. November rolled around and I again tried to purchase one. This time I was told by the supplier that I could only get it as part of a package deal that included 20 solar panels and putting my house on the grid. Fine, I said. Sign me up. I never heard anything back.
Next week the temperatures in Phoenix are expected to be in the low 90s. The prospect of spending another Summer in an 87 degree house was too much for me and I caved. I bought 2 of the highest efficiency HVAC systems on the market and had them installed this week.
I justified it to myself in a number of creative ways. What it boils down to though is that sometimes you want to do the right thing, but it is just too difficult. So the question is what is your breaking point? At what point does it become too much work to do the right thing?
Should I have tried harder? I don’t know… you tell me.
Choices and Consequences
Cleaning out boxes in my garage this past weekend I had a chance to root through some of my history. It’s interesting to review evidence of the choices you made in your life that landed you where you are today. Even though I love where I am today, I can promise you that I didn’t always do the right thing. I claim it’s what makes me interesting, tolerant, and flexible, but I am sure my parents would have a different spin.
You see, that’s the trouble with doing the right thing – there is no formula for consciousness where you can simply plug in data and have it spit out the correct answer.
At some point we all are faced with making a decision that requires us to balance our intellect, our pocketbooks, and our hearts. Come to think of it though, if more of us actually took that balanced approach I imagine that more of us would have no choice but to do the right thing – whatever that right thing turns out to be for our particular unique situation at a given moment in time.
I guess my question is this: Have our lives really progressed to point where it is really that hard to do the right thing? Is it that we don't have the time, the energy, the desire? Or is it the belief that one person doing the right thing can't make a difference? I don’t know… you tell me.
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Driving into Napa there is a turn-off point where Highways 12 and 29 converge, and the road veers ever so slightly that if your eyes were closed, you wouldn’t even notice your body shifting in response. So it’s always a welcome surprise to suddenly see the Valley laid out in front of you, like peering into one of those sugar Easter eggs we got as kids – where you look into the icing-laced opening and discover a whole different and beautiful world. I always wanted to crawl inside those eggs when I was little, and every time I turn that curve to Napa, I feel like I am doing just that.
This visit it hit me that I have a thing for valleys. I started recounting my favorite places to visit: Napa Valley in California, Mission Valley in Montana, Loire Valley in France… Heck, I have even made my home in the Valley of the Sun! Valleys are always the places that seem to bring me the strongest sense of connection and renewal and peace.
So why is it then, that when we speak of our lives in terms of peaks and valleys, valleys get such a bad rap?
Yes, I’ll give you that just like we refer to the low times in our lives, geographically speaking valleys are depressions in the earth. But technically, there is so much more to it than that, because they are also abundant and rich sources of life.
So I think it is high time we changed our perspective. How? Start with gratitude.
Now don’t worry, I don’t mean this in the guilt-inspiring Catholic “be thankful for what you have because plenty others have it worse” kind of way. Like when I was distraught that I didn’t make the cheerleading squad my sophomore year of high school and my mom consoled me with a comforting “Well, you should be thankful you have your arms and legs!” Thanks mom. I didn’t realize that was the trade-off.
What I do mean is that changing one’s perspective through gratitude starts with an objective appreciation for whatever has transpired to bring you to where you are today – something more along the lines of Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers.” Let me give you another example.
Valleys provide transitions in the cycle of life
When I was younger, I used to mourn the end of every friendship and relationship. I would think about the gaping void that would be left in my life by that person’s absence, and I would reflect on how things could have perhaps been different and whether or not I could have or should have done more to hang on. I never could decide if it was better to be the one leaving, or the one being left, because either way life went on with that noticeable void.
One day when I was wallowing in one of these voids, a friend mentioned to me that “People are in our lives for a reason, a season, or a life-time.” And from that moment on, I have been able to look at these transitions in a different light. So rather than mourning the loss of future possibilities, I appreciate the reasons, celebrate the seasons, and cherish the life-times. It is a much happier way to live, observing the transitions of people in and out of your life rather than trying to keep them all close like a massing of collectibles gathering dust on a shelf.
In the same sense, the valleys in our lives serve a unique transitional purpose. Everything in nature shows us that cycles are a requisite part of living: the ebb and flow of the ocean tides, the four Seasons, darkness and light… the pause for renewal is part of a continuum that has sustained life for centuries. I don’t want to bore you with too many analogies, but while I’m here I would be remiss to not also point out the benefits of valleys: the protection from extreme weather, the abundant life provided by the rivers and streams that cut through them…you get the picture.
Valleys provide the environment for growth
Somewhere along the way we have bought into the concept that progress is solely equivalent to climbing and conquering the next big peak, to continually moving upward and onward. And by holding on to that limited definition of progress, we are cheating ourselves out of valuable transition times. Sometimes our greatest growth comes out of silence. Sometimes our most moving moments are experienced in stillness. And if you don’t allow yourself to stop and appreciate those moments, you are cheating yourself out of a vital element of life.
What it ultimately comes down to for me is that I am a big believer in the idea that on our life paths we are given opportunities to course-correct, to redefine our purpose and passions, and to reignite our enthusiasm for just being. And it has been my experience that it’s precisely in those times we find ourselves placed in the protective environment of one of life’s valleys.
So the next time you are between peaks, take some time to notice the people, situations, and things surrounding you that you can be grateful for during your transition, and build on those. Rather than kicking yourself for ending up in a valley, throw down a few seeds and kick around some dirt instead. You might be surprised at the growth that comes out of it.
And if by some chance you find yourself in Napa Valley, well…pick me up a bottle of Pinot while you’re there.
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We are a Nation obsessed with perfection. Starbucks is even building their current marketing campaign around it (and was the inspiration for my title!) Right and wrong, correct and incorrect – just think about all of the words and phrases we have at our disposal to describe all the ways that something or someone isn’t quite up to par. We look for the perfect job, the perfect spouse, the perfect schools, the perfect house… Judging shows like “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars” top the ratings and feed our need to critique.
But in our search for perfection, we are ignoring a conundrum of sorts. Because isn’t the truth that by its very nature, perfectionism itself is a flaw?
Perfect order
Let me first get a confession out of the way: I myself am a recovering perfectionist. It certainly wasn’t something I strived for; it is just how I was wired at birth. If you give her a chance, my mom will talk to you for hours about some of the perfectionism quirks I displayed growing up: Not speaking until I was almost 3 years old, and then starting in perfectly formed full sentences, for example. I was the only child on the block that was known for quietly sneaking about in the middle of the night just to pick up my bedroom. To this day, I can’t go to sleep knowing there are dirty dishes in the sink and newspapers strewn on the floor, but I am getting better. Of course, if you are too obsessed with perfect order, you are labeled obsessive-compulsive, so there’s that.
The point is that we find comfort in order. Life is messy and unpredictable and being able to put some structure to the things we can control can help us plot our way through.
At work we use agendas to schedule our time, walls to define our work space, files to organize our papers. We label people and put them in boxes and then fill out standardized forms to show them how to move to the next box. Training classes follow a proven instructional design process, Six Sigma evaluates organizational processes to identify and eliminate waste. Our need for order shows up everywhere. There is even a correct order for working through change.
“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit." - Henry Brooks Adams
There is something to be said for learning how to live life a little less structured and orderly. Any business book you pick up these days talks about how organizations need to build nimble structures and cultures that foster creativity in order to survive in the global economy, and attract the new generation of workers. It starts with a basic understanding that even in chaos there is order underlying the seemingly random events and ideas.
Learn how to live with chaos:
• Read “Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution” by Tom Peters
• Identify where too much structure might be impeding your success
• Allow your logical order to leave some room for surprises.
Perfect solutions
The last time I was visiting Baton Rouge, I made a comment while we were stuck sitting still at a green light about how the traffic would move a little better if the lights on this one road were synchronized more effectively. “Michelle, you can’t fix the world” was my mom’s reply.
She’s right, and at the risk of disappointing Oprah, it’s not like I have aspirations to. But I would like a few corners of it to move along a little better. Sometimes simple solutions are so painfully obvious you wonder why nobody has done anything about them. Then you go to work and sit in a committee meeting tasked with finding ways to help the front-line employees greet your customers with more authentic enthusiasm and for every one idea there are ten people who point out all the reasons something won’t work rather than helping find all the ways it can. Oh yeah, now I remember. That’s why we’re sitting still at a green light.
Perfectionism can absolutely stall progress. Sometimes it’s best to just pull anchor, point your ship in the right direction, and course correct along the way. I mean, really, how many times has something played out exactly like you planned it, from start to finish? So why do we put that unrealistic pressure on ourselves and others?
I have seen organizations invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in determining the perfect solution for their high-priority issues, only to have the solution waylaid in the implementation stage when a bigger, higher-priority item comes along that requires the same resources to identify the perfect solution.
Save yourself the time and money and try an approach that emphasizes progress, not perfection:
• Be crystal clear on the mission, objectives and desired outcome
• Set a framework for ongoing communication, key milestones and touch-points
• Measure and evaluate progress continually and course correct as needed
Perfect people
I first became aware of the concept that there are perfect people with Blake Edwards’ movie “10.” While I wasn’t old enough to actually watch “10” when it first came out, the trailer told enough of the story for me to get the gist.
At the time, it was hard to turn on the TV and not see the clip of Bo Derek running in slow motion along the beach. I still can’t resist doing my best impersonation of that scene anytime I find myself jogging on a beach --which thankfully for innocent bystanders, isn’t all too often. As an impressionable teen, what stuck with me from the commotion the film created was the notion that to be worthy of love, one had to be perfect.
So I tried that for about a decade. I set out to be the perfect student, the perfect child, the perfect friend, the perfect 10… The problem I found out with this approach is that everyone has a different definition of what perfect looks like, and a lot of those ideas conflict. I just ended up confused. And exhausted.
What I grew to recognize is what I love most about the people in my life are their odd mannerisms, their outlandish senses of humor, and their unique perspectives. And thankfully, that’s what they love about me. I think that intuitively we all recognize this need to be our most true selves and long to leave a bright red mark differentiating our existence on the otherwise ordinarily beige landscape of everyday life.
We have a little more difficulty replicating this at work. For example, we recruit and promote candidates we feel best mirror our organization’s existing structure and ideas rather than asking “Do we have a culture that will allow people with different thoughts, ideas, and approaches to succeed?” Studies show that we like people we view as similar to ourselves. But will 100 more of you really build the thriving organization you envision?
Perfect people are the people who bring out the best in others by just being themselves. They are the ones who challenge us to be better, by their actions as well as their work and words.
Redefine “perfect” for your organization and learn to:
• Celebrate differences
• Seek out a wide variety of ideas and opinions outside your normal circles
• Allow room for imperfections
Perfect mess
Like a staged model home, when things are too perfect, they somehow lose their soul. Life is messy and perfection, even if you achieve it, is fleeting. The bumps in the road are what keep life interesting and what makes us human.
The answer to the conundrum in our search for perfection is that perfection itself is an illusion; and it’s not until we learn to embrace the imperfections that our life will begin to unfold – perfectly flawed and gloriously unpredictable, as it should be.
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Now I have been accused of “wearing my heart on my sleeve” on more than one occasion, mind you. I attribute this to my ability to empathize to a greater degree than most people. It is what makes me gifted at improving organizational dynamics and teaching, and what makes me uneasy with employee investigations and office politics.
But other than mourning the state of professional baseball, what on earth would allow me to empathize in this scenario? It’s not like I have ever been called before a congressional committee, played professional athletics, or even had a personal trainer for that matter. Replaying the hearing debacle in my head, I tried to figure out why it had such an impact on me.
I realized that the familiar sensation I was feeling in my gut was the pain associated with betrayal.
A betrayal is a violation of trust
Typically, when you think of a betrayal you picture a broken personal partnership like an extramarital affair or an accountant who leaves the country with all of their clients’ life savings – the severe drama that makes for great cinema. But I would venture to guess that there are very few people who haven’t encountered an on-the-job betrayal at some point or another in their professional careers.
Some corporate cultures are hot beds for fostering betrayals. They thrive on gossip, unhealthy internal competition, subjective decisions, and a scarcity mentality. It’s the “dog eat dog” and “sink or swim” mindset that activates the ego and results in brownnosing and relational maneuvering to clamor up (or hang on to your rung on) the corporate ladder. This becomes particularly prevalent in times of mergers and acquisitions, and downsizing or changes in leadership. If you have ever been involved in a layoff, you know that this can arouse feelings of betrayal.
But there are other subtler and equally painful forms of betrayal that can show up at work.
Betrayal is when someone you trust lies to you, breaks confidences, gossips about you, doesn’t keep their commitments, or hurts you in any way by putting their own self-interest first.
I think the thing that gets us most with betrayals is that unlike losses associated with death or illness, betrayals are the result of someone’s intentional choice and are often something that didn’t have to occur. If we believe the choice was wrong and preventable, it leaves us asking “Why would they do this to me?” We start to question ourselves, our ability to accurately judge character in others, and what we did to deserve it.
A betrayal is a form of loss
Just because the loss of trust in a relationship is intangible, it doesn’t mean the loss is any less intense. So the first step in dealing with a betrayal is to recognize that to move through it will require you to move through the same stages of grief you go through when dealing with any other loss: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance.
If you are dealing with recovering from a betrayal, it’s important to note that you can’t reach the final stage of acceptance without going through all of the prior stages. Which means you aren't doing yourself any favors if you try to "do the right thing" and just forgive and forget, or if you get stuck in anger and adopt defensive behavior, or if you avoid the feelings by digging into a project or activity that will take your mind off of it. It’s important that you allow yourself to experience the emotions, which is the body’s natural way of allowing us to heal and move on.
Should you stay or should you go?
If you are dealing with a betrayal at work, you may be asking yourself if you should stay and work through it, or cut bait and move on. I always tell people “Trust your gut!” but answering these questions may provide you more clarity:
• Is the behavior typical in the organization or a single occurrence?
• Did they recognize the hurt they caused and try to change their behavior?
• Did they apologize, accept responsibility, and ask for forgiveness?
• Was the behavior intentional?
• Are they likely to do it again?
• What makes this relationship worth your forgiving the betrayal?
The Center for Nonviolent Communication has a needs inventory which is a list of words that describe some of the foundational elements required for a healthy and productive connection between people. I like to use this list as a litmus test of sorts. Think about the relationship you are questioning, look through the list, and guage how you feel. If you end up with significantly more pluses than minuses, it's a pretty good sign. Plus, it may provide you a way to objectively remind yourself of what the other benefits come with working through the betrayal.
Relationships at work are important
I once heard the advice “Be friendly, but not friends” when dealing with co-workers. I think that advice is absurd. Next to your family and inner circle of friends, your most immediate relationships are at work. We spend a lot of time at work, so how you feel there and the quality of your relationships there has a big impact on your quality of life. Plus, scientific studies show that when we feel good, we are much more effective at work. So the key isn’t to avoid relationships, but to form healthy and appropriate ones.
If you have experienced a betrayal at work, don’t allow yourself to retreat and disengage. Instead, allow yourself to grieve the loss. And when the sky clears, which it will, recognize that out of darkness comes light.
After all of news surrounding the baseball steroid investigations, the New England Patriots spying allegations, and Indiana's Coach Sampson's illegal recruiting tactics, I am ready for some light in the form of light-hearted fun. Suffice it to say that Spring Training is right around the corner and I will be keeping my sunglasses handy.
In case you haven’t heard, United Airlines is implementing a new policy to charge passengers who aren’t their elite frequent fliers, and who buy their non-refundable tickets, a $25 fee to check a second bag. In reading the article, my mind began sputtering with annoyed rebuttals around the logic the airline used in making this decision. I could spell them out here, but comments and blogs of every variety have pretty much covered all my points and then some others I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. If you want to check them out for yourself take a look at these two articles from USA Today online:
Fliers will have to pay to check a second bag
New United bag-check fee ruffles travelers' feathers
Allowing my reaction fester for a few days, as I have a tendency to do, I think I finally got to the root cause of why this new policy has so many people up in arms.
Consumers have reached the point with corporate America where we have a short fuse for short-term solutions.
What is the real issue?
United Airlines is couching this new policy as a way to recoup some of the expenses related to the increase in oil prices. So for them, the issue is the fluctuation of oil prices. Ok. We are aware of that issue; we are all dealing with that to a certain degree in our own budgets. But isn’t the real issue the airline’s dependency on oil?
Wouldn’t it be nice if for once a company, rather than issuing a reactive policy to offset their woes, introduced their short-tem solution in conjunction with a long-term strategy? Just so you know, United Airlines holding company (UAL Corp) announced their highest annual pre-tax income since 1999 just 2 days prior to announcing the new fee. How about investing some of that income in the future?
For me, if United had announced the new policy and at the same time announced an initiative to work with GM or Boeing or even Richard Branson to explore alternative fuel engines, or engines with improved efficiencies, or something that would indicate an attempt to address the root issue, well… then perhaps I could have accepted the $25 fee in the same spirit I would take medicine with a spoon of honey.
Sound financial practices are form of corporate responsibility
I was taken by surprise last year when I got my water bill and there was a new $55 monthly fee to recover expenses associated with building an EPA mandated arsenic removal facility. Now I don’t mind paying to support building the structure for arsenic to be removed from my water, but there was no indication how long this fee would be in place. So I called the company and was informed that the fee would be “forever” and that it would soon be incorporated as just a normal part of the bill. Forever? Really? How much did this facility cost? Because won't it be paid off at some point? At least, that’s how my construction loans have worked in that past.
I understand that capital expenditures can put a significant dent in operating income. Again, it is something we all deal with to a certain degree. But knowing that I need to purchase a new HVAC system next year, I put a plan in place to pay for it. And my plan doesn’t include charging a fee to my friends who come inside to cool off in the summer – even if my utility rates increase. In that same spirit I have no intention of sharing the profits with them when it comes time to sell the house. (Sorry guys!) Isn’t that how ownership works?
I take responsibility for my financial health; I make decisions that will help me be strong in the future; I don’t expect others to pick up the slack. And I think that is where the frustration sets in. When we don’t see corporate leaders making the same responsible decisions in running their companies, it’s inevitable that you are going to get that short-fused response.
Reactive. Proacitve. Blah, blah, blah….
We have all been in those meetings where someone uses those million dollar buzzwords. There is even a corporate bingo game you can play to keep you entertained. But at the end of the day, how are you evaluating the long-term quality of the decisions made in those meetings? Because truly proactive solutions address the root causes of organizational performance, not just the current causes.
In the words of Edwin Markham, “Choices are the hinges of destiny.” And a lot of our destinies are hinging on the choices being made in the boardrooms of corporate America. Perhaps when the public’s feathers are ruffled, it’s an indication that you might want to take a second look at your decisions.
In the meantime, I will be reconfiguring my suitcases so that if by some misfortune I end up on a United flight, I will be prepared to carry-on my 2 bags that I usually check. Please save me some bin space.
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For the past few weeks, a variety of tents and stages and bleachers have been going up around Old Town Scottsdale. Yesterday, while I was doing some research at the library, I watched stage hands construct the outdoor venue at the Civic Center Mall that will be the site for ESPN Magazine’s 2-day Super Bowl bash. I counted no less than 100 different people happily hammering platforms, setting up equipment, and checking configurations --working to transform the park into a playground of a different nature.
Even in my tai-chi class today people were all a-twitter about hanging with the hipsters at the various fundraisers. It is fun to participate in such an endeavor – even as an observer.
So knowing there is something to be said for the excitement that anticipation can generate, how is it that we manage to suck the fun out of planning and execution when it comes to our corporate lives?
I think we as leaders could learn a thing or two from these events and perhaps in the process solve some of those pesky HR issues we’ve manufactured, like employee engagement, commitment and productivity.
Anticipation is a form of hope, after all. And who couldn’t use a little more hope?
What are your headlines?
All too often in my career I have been brought in at the tail end of a project and asked to generate some enthusiasm and buy-in from the employees to support the project’s execution– like it’s a simple flip of a switch.
Building anticipation requires getting people interested, which means giving them something authentic they can connect to and care about– a story. For example, to get to this year’s Super Bowl, each team had to win some games. The Giants finished their regular season 10-6. The Patriots were undefeated with 16-0. Are you bored yet? I could quote you some more statistics if you’d like. Would it help if you knew what brand of shoes they were wearing?
The point is the numbers or facts don’t come alive until you put the human story with it that conjures up some emotion. Here are some examples from today’s headlines: “Brady’s ankle not mentioned on injury report.” “Can the Giants upset (the Patriots’) perfect season?” “Moss matchup welcomed.” “Who wants it more?” Even news from the FBR Open details Phil Mickelson’s recovery from a respiratory illness, and that he is expecting to have a good week. Who can’t relate to a pesky respiratory infection? "Way to kick its ass Phil!" Now I’m watching to see how he does.
We care about the outcome and participating when we care about the players and the story. Project plans and timelines and statistics are great, but they should never stand alone. People want to be connected to meaningful work. That meaning doesn’t come from one-dimensional numbers, but the real human story that surrounds those numbers. So what’s your story?
Broadcast progress
We all know that sometimes the best plans can hit a snag that causes things to go awry. Still, even if we all executed our plans perfectly 100% of the time we wouldn’t necessarily get the outcome we were striving for. So you go back to the drawing board and try again. That’s what keeps it interesting. Why would you want to keep those details inside the walls of your boardroom?
To humanize an event and build anticipation, there needs to be some uncertainty of the outcome. Will it work? How will it play out? Who will be there? What will the response be?
Imagine if at the beginning of the NFL’s (ever-lengthening) season, you were merely told “We have 32 teams that are going to be playing 16 games and we’ll let you know how it goes.” What if the updates you got looked like this: “7 teams in the AFC have a .500 or better win percentage.” Or “This week 5 quarterbacks were sacked for a total of 12 sacks and a 14-yard average loss.” “6 teams lost and 6 won.” How long would you keep tuning in?
Talk to your employees about the wins and losses and challenges. Talk about the events, and also the emotions and impacts surrounding the events. Instead of trying to avoid conflict, use it to drive your story. Noone expects leaders to be perfect. (Bill Clinton helped us let go of that unrealistic expectation.) Show how you are overcoming obstacles and before you know it, your employees will find their own way to participate in helping the organization win. (AKA: employee engagement!)
Celebrate wins along the way
From ideation to execution can be a long road to hoe. We don’t all have a press corps waiting outside our executive boardrooms, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t interested in understanding the challenges and how they were overcome. People are very interested in knowing about leadership’s changes in thoughts or plans, and typically are secretly dying to be asked to participate in helping you celebrate the small wins along the way.
You don’t have to go to an extreme comparable to having a locker room web-cam, where every move is watched, reported, and analyzed; but taking a moment to pat some people on the back for a job well done in moving you closer to your goals certainly does help everyone involved enjoy the ride that much better.
When you think about the time and money, and people and energy that goes in to creating a successful event it can be mind-boggling. It’s a lot of moving pieces and parts to coordinate. But as we all know from going through the process to a lesser degree at some point ourselves -- whether it be preparing for a party, a holiday, a wedding, or a celebration of a different sort, half the fun is in the anticipation and the payoff of having help actively participate in the planning can be huge.
Enjoy the ride. In the meantime, I am heading out to see if I can find Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins from “Friday Night Lights”) hanging around shirtless somewhere. Yes, anticipation is a beautiful thing.
It gave me a sense that the lords of the mountain were casting a decree to the mere mortals in the valley below. “You will have a HAPPY year” is how it read to me. Which made me think, what if everyone who saw the sign did take it as an order? What if we all made the conscious decision to just be happy? How different would life be if in every situation I responded like a happy person would? I decided to experiment with that. For 21 days, with the sign in mind, I attempted to foster my new happiness habit. Here is what I found.
Everyone likes a good challenge.
For starters, I once again realized that the minute you make a declaration like “I am going to be happy, no matter what!” all the forces in the universe will rise up to challenge your declaration.
The first week of my experiment was full of nothing but naysayers, complainers, people who wanted to argue and people who were just plain rude. It was like riding on a standing-room only transit bus packed with Yankees fans whose team just lost (again) and news media on their way to a Britney meltdown. UGLY. Obviously, I thought, these people didn’t see the sign.
Not one to give up so easily, I reflected with each interaction “What would a happy person do?” and smiled my way through the week. I have to confess though, initially, my “happy person” response to the mood challengers was more smug than sincere. Like, “Ha ha! You didn’t suck me into your grouchiness, so I win!” But the minute I realized that a sense of superiority (my mood is better than yours) is not really indicative of true happiness, I changed my tune.
It took a dedicated effort to keep my mind on my goals and wins and blessings for the day, and let the other stuff just roll off. It was worth it. Once you find your authentic happiness, it creates a nice protective shield against anyone else’s bad mood. The key really is in where you place your focus.
Misery loves company.
Week two I began to notice how our attention is continually directed to things that could make us unhappy. Pick up a newspaper, turn on the television, or listen in on your company’s quarterly financial update (unless you work for Apple)… Given that there are only 24 hours in a day and that during that time we have a limited amount of attention we can devote to any one topic, I am amazed at how much of that time we are willing to allocate to things that get us riled up-- and most of those being things we can do absolutely nothing about. (Side note for my regular readers: Remember my post about my LSU Tigers? They did win that national championship after all!)
It takes concentrated effort to not be swayed because let’s face it, drama can be so much more entertaining. It’s far more interesting to create a conspiracy theory around why the department head happened to leave early the very same day the VP got a pink slip. But have we really allowed ourselves to get to the point where we expect our lives to unfold like a David E. Kelly script?
It’s time to give up our “dramaddiction” and leave the creative writing to the experts and the scenes to the screen. Our lives will be much happier when we don’t feel every day needs to be Reality TV worthy to be worthy of living.
Hey babe, what’s your sign?
By week three I fully recognized that in every interaction in every relationship or situation, we have a choice in how we respond. “What would a happy person do?” It’s a split-second decision, and whatever direction you take it is how it will play out. It really is your call.
Yes, it would be nice if everyone had a sign indicating their mood or disposition for that day or moment – you know, like the ones we use on web-based meetings, or the smile icons on instant messenger. It would be much easier to know who we could comfortably engage with to avoid any negativity. It would be much easier to be able to wear a sign that essentially said “Don’t bother me, I’m happy.”
What I am finding though, is that the more I play things out the way I imagine a happy person would, the more happy people and situations I seem to come across.
We do have a choice.
It takes a concerted effort to change – like any good physics equation it takes more energy to stop a moving object and then get it going in an opposite direction than to just maintain momentum moving in the existing direction. Or something like that. I’m obviously not a physicist, but you get the drift. It takes some work, but it’s a worthwhile investment.
It's such a worthwhile investment that I’m extending the experiment beyond the 21 days to the full 365. Want to join me?
Step one is just a simple choice to shift your focus to being aware of the things that make you happy.
I could give you a list of the things that make me happy: watching my cats play; discovering a tasty bottle of wine for $8 or less; a new episode of “Gossip Girl, even writing this blog. But I don’t want to take the fun out of your experiment. Because the more we know about what makes us happy, the more we can avoid the things that don’t.
For inspiration, I’m including a video. For those of you whose IT Departments have (innacurately) determined that YouTube doesn’t enhance productivity and blocked your access, I’ve included the lyrics. It’s not completely relevant, but who couldn’t use a little more pop (note: not drama) in their day?
Have a HAPPY year. I certainly plan to!
“The Sign” by Ace of Base
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes
I saw the sign
No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong...
But where do you belong?
So I did what any rational person would do, and went to the blogosphere to find others to commiserate with. It’s the one place where no matter how bad you think you have it, you can easily find 10,000 people who have it worse.
What I found is that a lot of people have their tinsel in a tangle over the office holiday party scene.
Outside of the standard rules for office party etiquette, Google produced close to 4 million recent posts related to office holiday parties (note: I didn’t read them all) with employee complaints ranging from not liking the people they work with, wishing they could just have the money instead, and being offended by any of a million different things that already happened at this year’s party. It makes me wonder: Are these the same people who, as kids, were the first to find out there was no such thing as Santa and proceed to spoil it for the rest of us?
Has it really come to this?
Dram shop laws, sexual harassment cases, and cultural sensitivity efforts have left us about as upbeat for the holidays as the winner of the macramé toilet tissue cover at last year’s white elephant gift exchange.
In the Wall Street Journal On-Line, Wendy Bounds asks “Should We Abolish the Office Holiday Party?” Some of the responses she gets might remind you why you would choose to party solo.
Charles McConnell says Goodbye to the Old-Fashioned Holiday Office Party concluding “the old-fashioned holiday party is too risky to undertake.”
If you aren’t convinced yet, check out MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu’s post
“Holiday parties hold peril for unwary workers.” The office worker behavior she mentions makes me nostalgic for my freshman year fraternity-sorority exchanges.
The optimist in me refuses to believe that the opinions in these articles are representative of the whole. Please tell me: is this just example of extreme journalists building a negative spin for a story? Or have office parties really become such a minefield of potential missteps that I should make sure to have my attorney present at the next one I attend?
If you decide to go to your office party
Check out Slacker Manager’s Office Holiday Survival Tips– particularly item #3.
If you decide not to go to your office party
Make sure you send your regrets. This Holiday Party excuse generator will come up with the appropriate excuse for your circumstances, and will even write the note for you!
Whatever you decide, be safe and be happy. And I look forward to your stories.
Cheers!
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Select your best answer from one of the following options:
a) High Risk
b) Handle Resolutions
c) Holistic Rubbish
d) Human Resources
I guess technically and acronym-wise, the answer could be that HR stands for all of the above. The ideal answer would be, of course, Human Resources – you know, the department that manages everything having to do with the humans who work for your organization.
Unfortunately what I am seeing more of in my OD Consulting practice these days (yes, even with the heightened concern of getting and keeping quality employees) is that many Human Resource resources (did you follow that?) are instead being utilized and deployed as managers of human risk or human problem resolution.
And when HR brings up performance management, leadership development, or getting a piece of the budget to support an overall talent strategy? Eyes glaze over and a “Holistic Rubbish!” mutter can be heard through a poorly-disguised cough.
So if you answered a, b, or c, perhaps its time for your organization to implement some changes that can get you HR department back to d.
From Personnel to Human Resources
Up until roughly the mid-1980s, the group that managed employee-related activities was typically called “Personnel.” Born in the post-industrial revolution era, Personnel was formed to represent the rights, responsibilities and duties of employees (Weber 1947) in a highly controlled environment.
The Human Relations Movement shook things up a little bit when the Hawthorne Studies and the advice of Dale Carnegie highlighted that organizational effectiveness could be improved by attending to the social needs of employees. Maslow kicked that up a notch with his Need Hierarchy and topic of employee motivation. So now you have Personnel taking care of the administrative issues, but also looking at issues like career development and effective management and leadership.
At some point in the 80s, Boomers in the personnel business decided that in order to make any real headway in their careers, they needed to have “a seat at the table.” Their answer was a new “Human Resources” department designed to align with management. So instead of being the advocate for employees, HR now positioned itself as part of the leadership team and began to build systems and processes to approach employees as a corporate resource – or just one of the support tools that help the company achieve its objectives.
What you have now is an HR group still responsible for the administrative tasks, social and motivational needs, and compliance issues associated with managing employees, but also the responsibility to first protect the company’s interest and objectives. Employees think HR is there to support their needs, leaders look to HR to save them from lawsuits and the like, and what HR is really trying to do is just matter as more than an afterthought.
Is it any wonder there is confusion over their role? That’s a lot of hats to wear. It’s like one realtor representing both the buyer and the seller in a single real estate transaction. It’s tough to come out of that unscathed.
What are you promoting?
If you don’t like what your HR department stands for, the first thing to ask yourself as an organizational leader is “What are you promoting?” Because how success is measured dictates the type of people you will attract to your HR group and how they will spend their time.
Symptoms when HR = High Risk
Activities center on:
• Policies and procedures – drafting them, revising them, enforcing them
• Compliance – spinning management goof-ups to protect the company
• Control – building systems and checks and balances for CYA
• Rules and paperwork– making them complicated to ensure job security
Catbert, Dilbert’s evil HR director is the poster child for what this High Risk group represents. For example, Catbert’s Performance Review Generator will help you write an employee’s performance review. With this type, it’s not really important what you say, just that you go through the motions to get it done and get it in on time.
Symptoms when HR = High Resolution
Most time is spent on:
• Employee investigations
• Putting out fires and the latest drama
• Employee relations issues
• Delivering bad news
When management gets HR to do their bidding – having the difficult conversations, conducting the firings, or being the face for a significant cultural change, you will end up with a High Resolution Group. Toby from “The Office” is one of these professionals.
If your HR group is spending too much time listening, start directing your employees to tell Tell Toby their nightmares. If even after you have freed up their time they continue to find drama and problems, you can be assured that over time you've managed to attract high resolution personalities to your team.
Symptoms when HR = Holistic Rubbish
Accomplishments include:
• Soft skills training with no measurable objectives
• Writing feel-good newsletters that feature a “recipe of the month”
• Office tours and “Meet Your Leaders” lunches
• Hovering outside the CEO’s office to get some face time
These are the groups that have not been integrated into the business. They are viewed as a money-sucking cost centers and a necessary evil cost of doing business. If you have managers who say “We would be making so much money if it weren’t for all these darn employees!” you aren’t fully utilizing your HR.
Symptoms when HR = Human Resources
Exemplified by:
• A HR strategy that is integral o the business strategy
• Leadership Transparency
• High employee satisfaction and engagement
• Strong results
A Roadmap to an Effective Transition
If technology gets us to the point where we can download data directly to our brains (like on NBC’s geek spy Chuck) I am calling “Dibs!” on being first in line for everything Josh Bersin has ever written. Odds are that if there is ever a talent management strategy you instinctively know makes sense but don’t yet have the data to support-- he has already researched and written about it.
If you want to change what your HR stands for, I couldn’t do it any better than what he recommends. I highly recommend his blog linked here. There are quite a few posts in there that will put you well on your way to a strategy that will help you today and provide the right support for the next generation of HR.
The Bottom Line
As a leader of your organization, are utilizing your HR group to engage your human resources, or to control your human resources? Because in the “shadow of the leader” what HR stands for is a reflection of how leadership views its people.