As many are aware, FedEx, the world’s largest cargo airline, and my business alma mater, lost two dedicated pilots and an MD-11 aircraft last week in the first fatal crash in the company’s 37 year history.

Since our first book, I’ve written and spoken extensively about the company’s high performance culture in which going the extra mile is the rule and not the exception. Though I’ve been gone 20 years, chills ran down my spine this morning when I read an internal account written by a fellow employee of lengths the company and its employees went to in order to pay respects to the fallen pilots and their families. Some excerpts…

“As all of you know, one of the fallen pilots was based in San Antonio.  First Officer Tony Pino is a retired Air Force officer and has been flying with FedEx for a little over 3 years. On Friday the 13th of this month, Pino jumpseated out of San Antonio for the last time with a promise to his wife that he would be home Thursday the 26th.  Today, we received about 12 of the Pino family and friends on the ramp, along with 35 uniformed pilots and approx 70 of our FedEx family to fulfill that promise.

” In Narita, Japan there were a number of pilots in full uniform to present the remains of both pilots to the aircraft and see the flight off.  In Oakland for a “gas and go” there were 25+ full uniformed pilots that went up the stairs and paid respects to the fallen ones.  In MEM a full color guard received the two and took them to a hangar where Fred Smith, Dave Bronczek and a large number of executives received 400-500 pilots and personnel that were bused to pay respects.  My understanding is that Mr. Smith was there for the duration.  People signed a book for each family.

“After which, Captain Mosely was flown to Portland Oregon this morning where the Ramp Team received the family and had approx 80 employees lined up on the nose dock.  Their operation was without any issues or concerns and was a very moving presentation according to the Senior Manager.

“F/O Pino was taken to a MEM funeral home and escorted for 12 hours by 2 crew until time for the day-turn show time.  A full honor presentation accompanied the loading.  Flowers were also sent to the MEM funeral home and all of those were loaded on our flight 379 along with crewmen (2 were formal escorts). Our pilots were not ever left without escort from Japan until the funerals and will not be unless the family requests otherwise.

“At San Antonio, it rained today until approx 1400hrs, skies cleared and the sun came out.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  We received the family and parked them on the tarmac at approx 1650hrs along with the guests and uniformed crew.  We made arrangements to have the flight land on the closest runway and touched down straight across from our ramp with a perfect landing.  The aircraft blocked at 1734hrs and the flowers from Mr. Smith  (gorgeous 6’ tall arrangement) and the book signed by all in MEM were presented to the widow and 3 boys.  Tony’s mother and other family were also present.

“The body was covered with the American flag and the pilots and honor guard stayed at full attention then moved to salute when the pallet started in motion forward.  It was lowered and the honor guard stepped up on the loader.  Mrs. Pino came forward with her son, hugged the casket and spent a few moments with her late husband.  She retreated and the transfer was completed to the hearse with proper respect and military bearing.

“I have a ramp agent that indicated in his 32 years with FedEx it was the proudest moment he has experienced.  Our FedEx Team did an exceptional job of honoring these two pilots. Our loader operator, stairs, marshaller and others were absolutely perfect in their execution. One of the pilots authorized to be here was in full UPS uniform and he was absolutely awed by the respectfulness.

“We still work for the best company in the world because we fill it with the best people in the world!  Please feel free to share this with your teams as they also should know as well.”

As we go about trying to figure out what is (and what should be) the new normal in our post-AIG world, it pays to remember that there can still be places where people care about each other, and where work is something more than a pure commercial transaction. That ain’t all bad.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Sometimes when putting together a new presentation, I visit the archives of great speeches done by others in search of useful perspective and maybe a quote or two. Such is the case today, as I work on a presentation for a group of health care professionals.

Tipped off by an email from Brett Stevens, founder and President of The SearchLogix Group, I wound up reading President Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address, given a little over 28 years ago. As usual, the Gipper didn’t disappoint, and I came away with some helpful hints for my speech that will be given in Louisville, in about a month.

But I got something else, too. In his email piece, titled “Going for It”, Brett highlighted a quote from the aforementioned speech that is as relevant and useful to today’s America as it was the day the speech was given. I thought I would share it…

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look.” –Ronald Reagan

Make today an excellent day.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Something unusual happened this week… A major American company announced that it had paid out nearly a billion dollars ($933.6 million to be more precise) in bonuses to its employees, and practically no one even heard about it, let alone howled about mis-spent money.

The reason? The company was spending its own money, not funds contributed by taxpayers. And, get this… the bonuses were actually earned. The company? Wal-Mart. Yep, you read that correctly. According to an article in the March 19 issue of Business Week, the self-styled King of Cheap “paid $2 billion this year to its U.S. employees in bonuses, merchandise discounts, and retirement contributions.”

To those who, during the go-go 90’s gave us a fair amount of guff for having profiled Wal-Mart as a “Contented Cow” (exemplary employer), I would ask, where are you now, when the economy is going to hell in a Gucci hand-basket and the folks at Wal-Mart are among the very few, certainly in the big box retail arena, who are enjoying honest work, job security, health insurance (yes), and of all things, bonuses? I can’t hear you.

Before it was even re-introduced in the U.S. Congress last week, the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) legislation produced howls from many in the business community over the fact that, if approved, the bill would make it decidedly (and unreasonably) easier for unions to organize workers. While it will take time to play out, some who read Washington tea leaves think they see signs that the bill’s passing may not be quite the slam dunk (pardon the March Madness) that had been expected.

That said, employers who who are firmly interested in maintaining a union-free posture would do well, regardless of the outcome, to re-visit their employee relations practices, identifying, and improving those policies and programs that annoy workers, stifle effort, and give them pause…the real stinkers. One example: Sick Days.

In recent weeks, Johnson & Johnson has run full page ads in USA Today for its Tylenol Cold medicine. The tag line of the ads is, “If you’re sick, take a sick day.” Easier said than done, especially if you work in many parts of the hospitality industry where, when you’re sick (really sick, as opposed to just wanting a day off), you either go to work, find someone to cover your shift, or call in dead. Those are effectively your options. There is no such thing as calling an individual whose job title is “manager’, reporting your illness, and going back to bed, the toilet, whatever. In other words, the organization has somehow offloaded the staffing obligation long reposited in the manager’s domain to its hourly paid worker-bees.

While we can debate the merits of affording workers paid time off for sick days, it is fundamentally stupid to tell someone that, in addition to providing timely notification of their intended absence, they are expected, while sitting on the throne with violent stomach cramps perhaps, to disturb off duty coworkers at some glorious hour in search of a replacement. Aside from being inconsistent with good employee relations, this practice is an absolute deal breaker for customers, who really resent being sneezed and wheezed on, particularly when it involves food. Come on folks!

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Chapter 22 of our latest book, Contented Cows MOOve Faster deals with the subject of motivation and rewards. A central tenet of the chapter is that organizations (and individuals) need to be very careful what they incentivize people to do, because, more often than not, that is exactly what they are going to do. While there is nothing new or remarkable about this precept (Psychologist, B.F. Skinner wrote and taught extensively about it in the mid-20th century), it seems that some of us have serious learning disabilities when it comes to our need to continually re-learn the lesson, often the hard way.

Witness the revelations over the weekend that insurance giant AIG planned to proceed with bonus payments ranging from $1,000 to $6.5-million ($US) to about 400 employees in its financial products division, the arm of the company that brought AIG, and the entire U.S. financial industry to the brink of collapse.

While word of these payments has led to a hue and cry about how a firm that recently posted one of the largest quarterly losses in the history of commerce, and has dined at the public trough to the tune of $170 billion can be paying bonuses to its employees, it should be of greater concern that company management, backed up by the board’s compensation committee, has evidently deemed the bonuses “earned”, consistent with established compensation plans, ‘er schemes. Yikes!

Before we get too sanctimonious, though, it would behoove all of us to revisit how pay and incentives work in our own organizations. How many of us, for example, are still paying people purely as a function of how long it takes them to do something? How many of us are incentivizing people who should be cooperating to compete against each other, and, how many of us, under the auspices of a poor economy have slashed or eliminated recognition and incentive programs altogether?

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com