Over the past dozen years we’ve worked diligently to build a brand centered on the premise that treating people (workers) right yields better business outcomes. The evidence is irrefutable. Whether in good times or bad, companies like Marriott International, Wegman’s Foods, Chick-fil-A, Pebble Beach Company, and a host of others skillfully (and profitably) use their relationship with employees as a competitive weapon.

One thing we’ve not focused on much, and perhaps its time we did, in view of the havoc being created by a still tough economy, is the fact that treating workers well also helps preclude the organizational equivalent of Mad Cow Disease. In other words, it helps keep bad things from happening.

Let’s face it, when people get bored, frustrated, or feel they’ve been mistreated or taken for granted, they frequently strike back. Whether it’s appropriate or not, the target of their ire is often the workplace, specifically the institution and its management. Witness the recent YouTube incident involving two Dominos Pizza employees making “special” orders, or incidents of malicious damage done by fired IT workers at the Wand Corporation and Fanny Mae, as reported at INC.com. These types of incidents do more than just damage brands. They cost real money, and in some cases, threaten the very existence of the enterprise.

Though having an engaged workforce doesn’t innoculate an organization against Mad Cow employees, it certainly helps. For one thing, acts of spite, vengeance, or larceny don’t often occur without the tacit knowledge or support of others. Et tu Bernie Madoff? Engaged co-workers are far more inclined to report such incidents, or take direct measures to stop them before they play out. Those who are less committed are more likely to turn a blind eye. Even if they’re being fired, people who believe they are being treated humanely and fairly in the process don’t often resort to bad behavior. Indeed, some go on to speak quite well of the organization.

For the record, once again, treating people right doesn’t mean lowering standards or giving workers things they haven’t earned, the market doesn’t require, and you can’t afford. To the contrary, it does mean:

• Giving people real work, meaningful work to do, along with the freedom to pursue it. People want to be in the game, not on the bench.

• Maintaining high standards. Deep down, we all realize that high standards are a necessary precursor to winning, and nobody wants to spend the majority of their day losing, or hanging out with losers.

• Making sure people see a crystal clear connection between their work and real, paying customers; and that they understand fully where the organization is going and why.

• Having leaders who are skillful, authentic, and especially important these days, optimistic.

• Showing genuine appreciation for a job well done.

BTW, If you want to see a real mad cow, ‘er bull indoors, check this out:

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

Tom Bergeron, host of Dancing With the Stars has an excellent piece, Does Susan Boyle Know What’s Next, in today’s NY Times. The article posits that, despite a huge adrenalin rush brought on by her incredible performance on “Britain’s Got Talent”, Ms. Boyle will all too soon be dealing with a man-made headwind as we return to business and thinking as usual.

Mr. Bergeron then connects Ms. Boyle’s situation to our world at large, “After all, “Yes We Can!” communal euphoria is tough to sustain and even harder to market. We’re already grumbling about our president’s choice of puppy and asking whether his wife’s arms are too toned for national magazines. It’s always something, and it’s usually nonsense. But it sells newspapers. At least it used to. Now it sells Web sites and cable television.

“The real problem is that too often we don’t have the courage to sustain wonder. Susan Boyle walked onto that stage and faced down a sea of smug. We need that kind of courage nowadays, and not just on reality shows. We need the courage to believe that stirring voices can be found in unlikely places.” By all means, read the full article.

The piece reminds me of a story I occasionally use in keynote speeches about a Lakota chief who sat by the fire with his grandson one night and shared a story with the young boy about a fierce battle between two wolves. One wolf stood for evil, and it represented fear, envy, cynicism, and greed. The other wolf represented good… hope, courage, perseverance, and honesty.

Eager to learn the result of the ferocious struggle, the young boy interrupted his grandfather and asked, “which wolf wins?” The old man paused for a moment and then said simply, “the one you feed… the one you feed.”

Not unlike Ms. Boyle, the rest of us still have demons to deal with, in the form of the fear and cynicism which, for the last several years have played too big a part in our daily operating system. We, too must decide which wolf we’re going to feed.

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

You may have read or heard the story of Mike and his girlfriend, who recently received the typical (bad) customer treatment from a couple of United Airlines agents in San Francisco.

Mike and his girlfriend were trying desperately to get to the girlfriend’s mother’s deathbed, but couldn’t get their United tickets from a San Francisco airport ticket agent, because “it was time for her to go on break”.

Read the whole story, including Mike’s letter to United CEO Glenn Tilton, on The Consumerist.

As shocking as the story is, it’s not surprising to those familiar with United. It’s entirely consistent with the real (not espoused) service standards at United, that arise from the employee philosophy at what is arguably the very worst airline in a crowded field of real stinkers.

Here’s why none of this surprises us. In our first book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk, we compared the earnings and growth records of six well-known companies (The “Contented Cows”), to six “Common Cow” competitors. The Contented Cows – companies known as employers of choice, beat the socks off the Common Cow competitors, in every metric of financial performance. In this analysis, we picked Southwest Airlines as our Contented Cow airline, and, you guessed it, United as the Common Cow airline. In other words, Southwest – good employee relations, good customer service, good profits. United, bad in all three measures.

In 2008, we revamped our Contented Cows and Common Cows list, and again, the results couldn’t have been more compelling. Companies with a strategy and reputation of being great places to work simply perform better – a lot better – than their competitors that don’t seem to care as much about their people. While we changed up every other pair of Contented and Common Cow companies for the new list, we carried over the Southwest/United comparison. It’s just too good a pairing.

United has one of the worst employer reputations in the aviation field. Its history is riddled with labor disputes, strikes, and legendary low morale. Once the largest employee-owned company in America (but no longer employee-owned at all), these people used to go on strike against themselves. When the original ESOP was rolled out in the 90’s, the flight attendants opted not to buy in to the program. Instead, many of them sported buttons on their uniforms saying “I just work here”.

Our newer book, Contented Cows Moove Faster, makes the point that those organizations whose leaders who do a better job of getting more Discretionary Effort from their employees simply perform better. And especially in today’s economy, no organization has any hope of surviving without the full, enthusiastic, engagement of everyone on the payroll.

But this latest United customer service horror story makes this point better than any book could. United, one of the world’s worst-performing airlines, with its well-known reputation for a dispirited, apathetic, customer-unfriendly workforce, lost US$1.3 billion in the last quarter of 2008, and just today, announced a further loss of $382 million (I guess that’s progress) for the first quarter of 2009. Again, it makes perfect sense. Treat your employees with a remarkable disregard, and they’ll treat your customers in the same way. And that always ends up on the P&L statement.

And, CEO Tilton, to demonstrate either his complete dishonesty and denial, or his utter cluelessness, said, after today’s financial results announcement, “Across our company, from finance to customer service, our employees are focused on fundamental improvement, from raising liquidity, to improving our costs, to what matters most to our customers – delivering great service and on-time performance.”

Tell that to Mike.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

People who have had the pleasure of meeting Wal-Mart founder, Sam Walton, or blind mountain climber, Erik Weihenmayer have quickly come to grips with the fact that appearances can be deceiving – very deceiving. In neither case do initial appearances suggest their respective incredible talents and accomplishments.

Though you’d think that sooner or later we’d get it, many of us seem destined to learn the same lesson over and over again. It is as though we’re “stuck on stupid” to use an expression borrowed from Lt. Gen. Russel Honore (US Army, ret.). We’re constantly “amazed” when someone who has had every conceivable advantage (name your favorite Hollywood pop-tart) steps on their crank, and, when someone who has not enjoyed the genetic blessings, plastic surgery, private lessons, or 1st rate education hits it out of the park. Go figure.

Susan Boyle, the Scottish singer with a rather plain-Jane appearance seems to have taught the most recent lesson. Her wonderfully performed rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables in the first round of the third series of Britain’s Got Talent on April 11 left Simon Cowell and lots of others speechless. Good for her. And, whereas Mr. Cowell may play a bully on TV, he’s smart enough to recognize talent when he sees it, and will likely attempt to sign her to a recording contract.

As for the rest of us, let’s try to get beyond our learning disabilities on this one. That is particularly the case for those of us who are talent scouts for the organizations we work for. An 8.5% unemployment rate notwithstanding, the war for talent isn’t over! You will find talent in both likely and unlikely places, in traditional and non-standard packages, in people who look the part and those who don’t. You’ve simply got to be looking for it, all the time, with eyes, ears, and mind wide open. Got it?

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

Earl Kitchings died this week at the age of 82. He was a legend here in Jacksonville, as a pioneering football coach – the head coach of Florida’s first African-American state championship team – that was back in 1958, when we had white teams and black teams.

During those years, Coach Kitchings helped groom the late Hall of Fame player Bob Hayes, at Matthew Gilbert High School.  Hayes, once known as the “World’s Fastest Man”, went on to win an Olympic Gold Medal, and to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s the only man to win both Olympic Gold and a Super Bowl ring.

But more than any of that, Earl Kitchings was simply a jewel of a man. It will never be possible to measure the positive influence he had on the young people of his community, for more than 50 years. Though he and his wife had only one child of their own, he was a father figure to hundreds for at least two generations.

And positive influence seems to run in the family. I had the great pleasure of working with Coach Kitchings’s wife, Elaine, back in the 70’s. I was in high school, and worked part-time at the local branch of the public library. Doesn’t sound like a great job, and in fact, the work wasn’t all that great. But some of the people were.  Elaine Kitchings was one of my favorites, and we managed to stay in touch for many years. She’s one of the classiest ladies I’ve ever known.

On this Easter weekend, one of the things I’m thankful for is people like Earl and Elaine Kitchings.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.