Overworking In America

In some place I’ve worked, it is a badge of honor to share how many hours you worked in a week or a month.  People competed to see who could log the most hours in the office while others talked about how late they were on email the night before or how early they got to work in the morning.

This really isn’t something to be proud of.  I remember my first job out of college where I had a boss who said, “The only people who know you work late is the night janitor or the security guard you see on the way out.”  I also had a boss once who used to count the cars in the parking lot at 6 pm or 6 am and then tell me that we had a morale problem since people weren’t working late or coming in early. My response was always, “Is the work getting done?” If the answer is yes, then why do people have to spend more time in the office—especially since most people are on email long after they leave the office.  Technology frees most of us from being tied to a specific place to do our work.

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza left his car at the office one night when he was working for the New York Yankees?  The next day, he heard George Steinbrenner telling someone, “That George Costanza is a real go-getter. He was here when I left last night and he was already here when I came in this morning.”  No, George wasn’t there—his car was in the parking lot. So George Costanza being George, decided to start sleeping in his office so Mr. Steinbrenner would continue to think he was a great employee!

According to a recent article in the Washington Post by Christopher Ingraham  titled, When Working Longer Hours Doesn’t Add up, he says that “half of full-time workers report working 41 or more hours per week and nearly a fifth say that number ticks up to 60 or more.”  He says this isn’t healthy—not for the worker nor for his/her family relationships.  The Centers for Disease Control reports that “overtime was associated with poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates, more illnesses, or increased mortality.”

Ingraham goes on to say that most Americans say that family takes priority over work—yet  many of us are willing to make personal sacrifices for work including going to work when we’re sick; missing out on personal experiences due to long hours or no vacation; and working different shifts from a spouse because they couldn’t find child care.

So the next time you brag about how many hours you worked or hear someone else doing it, think about your health, your relationships, and your life and go home. Spend some time relaxing with family or friends and get enough sleep that you don’t make silly mistakes!  Find ways to be as productive as you can be in a reasonable day/night at work and as always, do your best and if your boss still wants you at work all the time just because, maybe it’s not the right job for you.

Getting Innovation Right

Throughout the year we’ve been talking about innovation. Innovation equals success. Innovation is about adding value to your organization and to the marketplace. As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time to reflect how you can position your organization to leverage the marketplace and add value.

In his book, Getting Innovation Right, Seth Kahan's theme is the best ideas are useless if they don't add value. Kahan highlights suggested activities for leaders in order to drive success for their innovations in the marketplace.

1.  Pursue and leverage inflection points - those dramatic and decisive shifts in your relationship with the market whether positive or negative. Anticipate them and use them to your advantage. Positive ones can grow your base, increase you offerings and customer loyalty, and improve your place in the market.

2. Build innovation capacity. Developing new products and services has a stress factor. Does your organization have what it takes to channel those pressures and turn them into productive use? Strong innovation leaders do this through strong internal leadership, exceptional talent management, and robust idea management. They manage critical forces, talk to the right people, build partnerships, and hire and develop people who understand and embrace the power of innovation.

3.  Collect intelligence. The best innovation rises from a sea of products, services, customers, competitors, and internal equities. Your intelligence gather efforts should start with the interrelated areas of customers, market conditions and organizational capabilities. Be sure you’ve defined the scope, determined your goals, conducted interviews, consulted sources, and performed your due diligence.  Gathering and applying pertinent information must be an on-going effort to enhance the quality of your strategic decisions.

4.  Shift perspective. Challenge your own assumptions. They may be constraining your ability to see new opportunities. Get out from your own box. Listen to your employees, partners, customers and competitors.  Seeing the world through new alternatives and points of view helps to identify opportunities to pivot into a positive inflection point that will drive success.

5.  Exploit disruption. Disruption is part of business life today and it can come from anywhere. Just like conflict, if it’s ignored or mismanaged, it can be disastrous. Successful leaders identify the opportunity embedded in adverse conditions and exploit it – disruptions such as customer challenges, industry change, fierce competition and new business models. Turn turmoil to your advantage.

6.  Generate value.  Value is what causes people to separate from their hard-earned cash, drive investors to invest, and shoppers to shop. It’s a perceived benefit – such as the value of brand (Coke vs. Pepsi). Skillful innovators understand what drives value, what it looks like to customers and all their stakeholders, and how to generate by delivering something more, better or new.

7.  Drive Innovation uptake – customer acceptance of a new product or service. When you align your innovations with what your customers value, they become your ambassadors. Every stage of the innovation process holds opportunity to introduce new ideas into the market and engage your customers. Working together you move from a mere transaction toward a generative relationship.

To help his readers get innovation right, Kahan provides tools and techniques, templates and guidelines, and step-by-step instructions. If you’re thinking of what you want to accomplish in 2016, this may be a great place to start!

Vision, mission, strategic plan – no matter the size of your organization, you have (or should have) these in place. Large organizations go through great lengths to establish them. Entrepreneurs often do, but they often fly by the seat of their pants. (In the writing world, this is called pantsing!)

This was the topic of a recent leadership breakfast – what an individual leader does to develop a leadership vision for herself and for her organization. See how you do. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

1   1.     What is my vision for my team?
2.     What is my individual leadership vision?
3.     Do I have energy around that vision?
4.     Does that energy and vision permeate the team and the workplace?
5.     Is it manifested in my actions, values and goals?
6.     Is there character and spirit around it?

Some of the leadership qualities reported by Forbes, and this list is not inclusive, are listed below. Can you think of a leader who’s exhibited some or all of them? What have you done to embrace these qualities?

• Honesty
• Ability to Delegate
• Communication Skills
• Sense of Humor
• Confidence
•  Commitment
• Positive Attitude
• Creativity
• Intuition
• Ability to Inspire

However, leader’s don’t do it all on their own. What does it take to manifest your leadership vision? Consider the following:

• An inspired team
• A shared vision
• Expert help and support
• Courage to face the unknown
• Strategic planning
• Hard work and determination
• Having an advocate or coach
• Pausing to celebrate the journey

Use the following questions as a roadmap to develop a leadership vision, whether it’s for yourself or for your organization:

•    Why? Why are you in business (or the role you’re in)? What motivates you to continue
•   What? What is the corporate/organization/team mission? List a few goals. What will it take to get there?
•   Who? Who is your business impacting? Who can help your business?
•  Where? Where are your strategies and goals taking your business? What is your growth plan?
•  When? When do you forecast reaching your business goals?
• How much? How much time, energy, and money will your company need to invest to reach these goals?
• How? How will your company get there? What methods, means and actions are required?
• What makes your vision unique? What makes your vision inspiring memorable and important?

Thanks to Mali Phonpadith CEO, SOAR Community Network, for an inspiring and thought-provoking session.

Thanksgiving – A Time to Reflect

Children in classrooms around the country have been making crafts from construction paper this month – Pilgrim hats, “Indian headdresses, leaves, pine cones – symbols of fall and Thanksgiving culture. Stories will be told in school about how the Indigenous people of North America (Native Americans) shared their harvest feast with the starving English settlers -- turkey, waterfowl, venison, fish, lobster, clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin, and squash. Not exactly the turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, yams and pumpkin pie on this week’s Thanksgiving table.

For the Wampanog tribe, the purpose of the harvest feast was to give thanks for the bounty of food that the growing season had produced -- for the rain and the sunshine which caused the plants that bore the food to grow.  Giving thanks is integral to the Native American culture.  The harvest celebrations allow a time to reflect on being thankful, to be with family, and to count blessings. 

The Wampanoags were caring people who lent a hand to the settlers who were, at the time, less fortunate.  They were heroes who shared their celebration with the Pilgrims.  Yet somehow this has become lost.

Did you know that the day after Thanksgiving is designated as our country's official day to pay homage to Native American heritage and culture?  Somehow, this too has become lost.  Black Friday (and now Gray Thursday) morphed into the official kickoff of the "holiday" shopping season where we pay homage to retail.

As the year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect and pay homage to the people and things that are important.  This year we’ve got a great deal to be thankful for and would like to take a moment to reflect on the people who helped us with our success. We couldn’t have made The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook a reality without them. Shout outs to Susan Devereaux, our virtual assistant, for editing and formatting the manuscript and keeping us on track; Marilyn Allen, our literary agent, for her help and; the staff at Career Press for continuing to believe in us; Sharon Armstrong, our biggest cheerleader; and our many friends and family members who labored through the writing process and gave us encouragement.

Reflect on accomplishments and celebrate successes in your organization.   Give thanks to the people who made those successes happen.  Reflect on your own organizations culture -- it traditions and celebrations.  Review the past, look to the future and take some time to just be!

Workplace Bullying—It’s a Bottom Line Issue!

The following is an excerpt from our article that was published by HR.BLR.com on October 12, 2015.. The full article can be found at:  http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Health-Safety/Violence-in-Workplace/Workplace-bullying-bottom-line-issue#

What is Workplace Bullying?

Workplace bullying is defined as the repeated infliction of international, malicious, and abusive behavior that interferes with a person’s ability to do his/her work and is substantial enough to cause physical and/or psychological harm that a reasonable person would find hostile or offensive.

Workplace bullying can take many forms including:

·       Shouting or screaming at a co-worker

·       Singling out a co-worker for unjustified criticism or blame

·       Excluding a co-worker from work activities or social events

·       Ignoring work contributions

·       Using language that embarrasses or humiliates a co-worker

·       Making jokes that repeatedly target the same person

The bad news is that bullies can be anyone in the organization—including managers and leaders. So, organizations must realize that, if anyone can be a bully and anyone can be bullied, having a policy against bullying is their first defense.  Policies can be helpful but to really have an impact, the policy has to be enforced and the subject of bullying discussed so that everyone knows the organization has zero tolerance for bullies.

Elements of a Workplace Bullying Policy

A workplace bullying policy should include:

·       Purpose or objective of the policy

·       Who it covers (all employees, managers, executives,)

·       Definition of workplace bullying*

·       Examples of behaviors that will not be tolerated

·       How to report workplace bullying

·       Investigation process

·       Consequences of workplace bullying

Communication Process

Once you have your policy developed, this is a great time for a communication blitz on the topic of workplace bullying.  Train managers on how to spot bullying and how to report it and on how your policy works.  Hold meetings with all employees to discuss the policy and the consequences of workplace bullying.

Let everyone know that each person has a responsibility to keep bullying out of your organization. This is another place where “if you see it, say it” applies.

Bottom Line

Most of us want to work for organizations where we feel productive and where our contributions to be valued.  Workplace bullying can impact our organization’s productivity and therefore, our bottom line.  Organizations today can’t afford to be silent on this issue—it’s too important to be overlooked.

What the World’s Most Innovative Organizations are Doing Right

Fast Company magazine does a yearly review of innovative companies.  In the most recent study published in March of 2015, they list the Top 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2014.  Not surprisingly, Google tops the list but there are others on the list that are lesser known but still innovative and interesting organizations.  Their study was conducted over 6 months time and they reviewed thousands of organizations.

As they reviewed the data they used, some trends emerged and we’ve summarized five of them for you to consider as you, hopefully, work to encourage innovation in your organization. 

·       “Exceptional is expected”—Google is number one on the list because its people execute at a high level often.  Word like exceptional aren’t often used in business but should be!  We all should be striving to do great work as frequently as possible and to take whatever our role is to new heights—not just once in a while.  I would love to work for an organization that expected me to be exceptional—how about you?

·       “Innovation is episodic”—interesting that only a few of the companies that made last year’s list are on this year’s list and the authors think that is not because those people “lost their edge,” it’s because innovation isn’t a constant in most places—it comes and goes!  This should remind us to grab on to an innovative idea when we find one and not let it go as it may never come again!

·       “Making money matters”—it’s nice to have a workplace where ideas are flowing but if those ideas can’t be translated into new business opportunities or improvements, they really don’t matter.  The really innovative organizations generate new ideas that result in moving the business forward and are self-sustaining.

·       “Happy customers make you happy”—their example of this is Yelp which works hard to reward its customers by adding features that make it easier to use their product. This is in contrast to organizations that were on previous lists that appear to be doing the reverse—making it more difficult to be their customer.  Do you listen to your customers and use that feedback to move your organization forward?

·       “Unlocking global talent unlocks possibilities”—they cite a company in Kenya, IHUB that is unleashing Silicon Valley potential by signing up 10,000 members, launching 152 companies, and expanding into Tanzania and Uganda.  Are you thinking globally for ideas and markets?

  Our world has become so focused on short-term results that we often neglect the ideas that have long-term impact.  What are you doing to ensure that your employees and dare I say you, are encouraging innovation?  If you’re not coming up with new ideas, what’s to become of you?  Robert Sefan writes in the Fast Company article, “Breakthrough progress often requires wide-eyed hope.”  Not something we think about in business today but maybe we should!

It is encouraging that Fast Company says, “Risk of failure and collapse are always with us. But the culture of innovation across the globe is more robust than ever!”

Building Healthy Organizations and Leadership Teams

The facilitator at a recent breakfast meeting brought the topic of healthy teams for the group to discuss. He framed his presentation and subsequent group exercise around Patrick Lencioni’s 2012 book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business.

A smart organization is one that has a defined strategy and has teams and processes in place for marketing, sales, financial health and technological resources. A healthy organization has minimal politics – the focus is on the team; clarity throughout the organization – everyone knows where the firm is going, how they are going to get there, and what their roles are; high morale – employee engagement is strong; consistent productivity; and finally, low employee and customer turnover. So how do you get there?

Randy Taussig, our facilitator shared Lencioni’s five-step process. It begins with trust, vulnerability-based trust that is authentic. When a leader can be vulnerable and show his or her humanity, it sends a powerful message. If trust is absence, well pack your bags and leave.

The second element or step, once trust has been established, is healthy conflict – Don’t forget The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook!  Too often, conflict is perceived as negative, but the ability to have passionate, positive debate moves the organization forward. It’s not about personal gain or winning an argument. Rather it’s about giving everyone the opportunity to have their say so ideas and issues can be presented, decisions made, and then allow everyone to move on. When there’s fear of conflict or unhealthy conflict, the result is the avoidance of issues, passive-aggressive behavior, and lack of engagement.

Healthy conflict leads to the next step – true commitment. Healthy conflict provides input. When all team members know and understand all opposing points of view, they will be able to commit to team decisions and buy into them. It avoids those situations that we’ve all witness in organizations, where everyone shakes their heads in agreement, then leave the meeting and voice discontent or just don’t stand behind and support the decisions.

When true commitment exists, accountability can be embraced – that is the willingness not just to be accountable as an individual, but to hold others on the team including the leader accountable. If accountability is avoided, feedback does not take place. It’s the old adage of telling the boss (or anyone on the team) what you think he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear – withholding vital information.

This leads to the final step – results – collective team results that supersede any departmental or personal objectives or pursuits. If there is inattention to results, the team loses track and misses what was possible.

Test if your team is a healthy one. You can do this exercise alone, but it’s more powerful to do it with others:

1.     Describe a time when you were part of a team that exhibited some or all of these behaviors. What stands out about the experience?

2.     Then, describe a time when you were you were part of a team that did not exhibited these behaviors. What stands out about the experience on this team?

3.     Generally, how good were the outcomes and results in both of the above?

4.     Looking back, how important was the “health” of your team in achieving the overall results you expected in the scenarios you described.

Teaching Employees To Solve Their Own Problems

The following is an excerpt from our article that was published by FastCompany.com on September. The full article can be found at:  http://www.fastcompany.com/3051480/know-it-all/how-managers-can-teach-employees-to-solve-their-own-problems

Managers often find themselves trapped in the middle of situations that aren't theirs to solve. Arbitrating certain disputes robs your team members of developing their own conflict management skills.

One of your other jobs as a manager is to help your team grow, both individually and together. To do that, you need to help them resolve some of their own issues collaboratively. Here are five tips to help managers do just that.

1. Know When And How To Intervene

Different circumstances call for different responses. If one employee’s weak performance is preventing other employees from getting their jobs done, you most certainly have a role to play. Address the performance deficiencies of that team member.

But if the matter comes down to disagreement over strategy or tactics involving a certain project, that might be a time to step back and encourage your team members to sort it out. You can and should give guidance, but you don't always need to make a final call from on high.

2. Give Your Employees Room To Grow

Employees need the freedom and authority to solve problems that relate to their work. So give them the opportunity to learn conflict management techniques and develop problem-solving skills. In the midst of a dispute, your team members can get frustrated and aren't always likely to see it as a teaching moment. That's where you come in.

3. Recognize When Egos And Emotions Get In The Way

Define the problem and the impact it’s having in the workplace—tempers and egos aside. That won't calm everyone down automatically, of course, but it will help your team members focus on the issue itself and not how they feel about it. Remember that the dispute could involve someone's passion project. If emotions flare, help your employees control them so they don’t interfere with the resolution.

4. Facilitate, Don't Dictate

As a manager who takes this approach, you’ll be a neutral observer. From that vantage point, you can help mediate the discussion. […] define roles and set ground rules. Again, the employees are the primary players here, not you.

5. Make The Conflict Mean Something

When team members butt heads over a project-related issue, it's sometimes the sign of creativity and innovation trying to break through. Employees who are close to the work often have great ideas for better solutions. So help them brainstorm these ideas, then help them evaluate and prioritize them.

That employee who asks you to step in and resolve an issue may not know it at the time, but they're really asking for help to grow. So embrace the conflict, don't solve it. When everyone on your team can step up and own the issues they confront by working together, everyone benefits.

This article was published on FastCompany.com on September 25. It is adapted from The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager, Team Leader, HR Professional, or Anyone Who Wants to Resolve Disputes and Increase Productivity (Career Press, September 2015) by Cornelia Gamlem and Barbara Mitchell.

Dining In The Dark

Two separate events had similar outcomes, namely how we experience things differently when we draw on different senses.

The first was a morning meeting lacking sufficient caffeine – a lesson on mindfulness. The facilitator instructed us to pick up the small cup containing the strawberry. Look at the strawberry, closely. What do you observe? Now pick up the strawberry, feel it and smell it. What do you observe? Each step, each question was focusing us on how we use different senses, sight, touch, and smell to experience the same thing. Finally, close your eyes and take a small bite of the strawberry. What do you notice? With eyes closed and in a quiet room it was amazing. The strawberry was one of the sweetest tastes I can remember - a natural and succulent sweetness. It melted in my mouth.

The purpose was to widen our awareness and make us think about where our attention was at a particular moment – one moment when you’re looking at the strawberry, another when you’re touching it, etc.  Just like you strengthen your muscle memory, you can strengthen your awareness.

The second event was a dinner sponsored by the Foundation Fighting Blindness. After a reception of sushi and wine - plenty of stimulation - the dinner began. The salad and wine were served, while the lights were still on. Then preparation for the main course began. All attendees were given a "Mindfold" - a black blindfold with foam cushioning for comfort - and asked to put it on – the main course would be served and eaten in the dark. Quick, take note - wine here, water next to it. Close your eyes and practice picking them up. Do the same for your knife and fork. Memorize where all these items are relative to your reach. Strengthen your awareness.

Once the dinner came, there was a great deal of chatter in the room. I would have preferred quiet so I could focus more of my senses - taste and touch. So many similar events in hotels prepared me for a meal that would consist of a protein, starch, and vegetable or two. Being a sighted individual, I even had a pretty good sense of where on the plate each item would be located - muscle memory at work. No surprise, the protein was chicken. Clue: the knife was an ordinary table knife. Steak would have required a different knife – more challenging in the dark.

The starch was risotto - I could tell by the texture in my mouth. The strawberry experience prepared me for that. I was grateful for the chatter, however. It alerted me that one of the vegetables was cooked spinach - not a fan. As I ate a piece of asparagus, I began searching with my folk for the spinach to no avail. I put the folk down, reached for a glass - good, it's the wine - and took a sip. Then I ran my fingers over the back of the plate and discovered the spinach. Yes, now I know where it is and I can avoid it. I finished just in time for the announcement that the main course was over. We could remove the “Mindfold” and get ready for coffee and dessert – which appealed to all the senses.

This month is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Individuals with disabilities have the courage to stare into the waves, know the limitations of some senses and rely on the others. Organizations can be courageous too. Understand the reasonable accommodations individuals with disabilities need to succeed in the jobs for which they qualify!

Legal Eaglets

While visiting my friend Donna this summer, we drove past the building in her home town that once housed the law office where she worked as a legal secretary right out of high school. Donna went on to become a legal assistant and was part of the movement to first certify as a legal assistant in her state. She was surprised when I told her what I’d read recently about the State of Washington, where the legal profession is taking a page from the medical profession’s songbook and authorizing a new class of professionals called “limited license legal technicians” (LLLTs). Essentially, LLLTs are the nurse practitioners of the legal field.

Washington state was inspired to implement this ambitious experiment because of the high number of people with civil legal problems -- 80 to 90 percent -- who never consult an attorney because the cost is prohibitive. The government is required to provide counsel for criminal cases, but for consumer, employment, real estate, and family law, people are on their own if they can’t afford a lawyer.

To qualify as an LLLT, individuals will have to take classes at a community college, sit for a licensing exam, and apprentice under a lawyer for 3,000 hours before they open their own practice. This will entitle them to prepare court documents and perform legal research, just as lawyers do, but at a significantly lower cost. Revolutionary and groundbreaking, except that legal secretaries, paralegals and legal assistants have been doing this for years under the license of the law firm that employed them. While LLLTs will be able to fill a void, they will not be able to represent their clients in court.

Not surprisingly, economic issues are driving this evolution of the legal profession. The cost of the program is estimated at $10,000 -- far less than the cost of law school. Lawyers incur tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of educational debt and need to charge high fees just to pay it off. Clients often can’t afford to pay these fees. On the other hand, there is a glut of law school graduates competing for limited positions. The irony: too many lawyers and too many clients being underserved. Over time, as the program grows, the services LLLTs may be able to offer could expand. More individuals who are drawn to a career in the legal field may opt to become LLLTs rather than invest in a pricey law school education.

It’s not only organizations that have to innovate if they want to remain vital and grow. Professions also have to look for ways to change and open up opportunities -- not only for individuals to join the profession in new roles, but for consumers to receive the assistance they often need.

Video Interviewing—Good or Bad Idea?

I love learning new things so when I was asked to do a webinar for BLR on tips for using video to interview candidates I said yes.  I thought I knew I something about this topic because I‘ve been in HR for a long time and recruiting is my favorite part of HR. However, as I began to research the topic in order to prepare my slides for the webinar, I found out there is more to this than I imagined.

That got me to thinking about how often I just jump in and start doing something before really giving it thought or doing research.  I’ve always been this way—it would never occur to me to read the instructions before putting something together. I remember the last car I bought and the sales person making me sit in the car before I left the dealership while he went through the driver’s manual. It was torture for me but paid off the first time one of those dashboard lights came on—I knew what it was and didn’t panic.

Wish I could tell you that now I always read the manual before turning on a new appliance but at least I now know it pays to keep those instructions manuals in a place where I can find them if needed.

Back to video interviewing—I had no idea that organizations are using videos to replace phone screening interviews.  What a great idea to send applicants 4-5 questions and ask them to record their answers on a video and email it back—since everyone is so good at short videos from watching YouTube, most applicants are happy to do it.  In fact, research shows that less than 2% refuse and most of them, I think, hope that by saying no to the video, they will get a face to face interview with the hiring manager—which is probably faulty reasoning!

Then, two way video using technology like Skype or Facetime or Google Hangouts is a great way to interview a candidate in another country or even in another town—so much more cost effective than flying people in before you know if they have the skills you need.  Better to do a video interview to probe for their strengths before you go to the expense of bringing them to your location.  Another benefit of video interviews is that the hiring manager can share the tape with others in the organization to get additional reads on the candidate’s qualifications.

Of course, the same good interviewing skills are needed whether it’s a face to face or video interview.   Interviewers need to know how to do a fair and legal interview and how to ask open ended questions.  I’ve said it before and I will say it again—there is nothing more important than bringing the right people into the organization and video technology can be a real asset to making that happen.