Such a fraud was committed yesterday when National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern opted to suspend rather than terminate the services of a player for a vicious, deliberate hit against an opponent. The player in this case is Ron Artest (aka Metta World Peace), who leveled Oklahoma City Thunder player James Harden in Sunday’s nationally televised game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Thunder. No stranger to unacceptable, violent behavior (on court and off), Artest has reportedly been suspended twelve (yes, 12) previous times in his thirteen-year career as an NBA professional.

Two things are evident from this record: 1) Mr. Artest is an individual who no longer deserves to be called a professional, by virtue of his unwillingness to control his behavior, 2) Sending him to “time out” doesn’t do any good. Where are Donald Trump and his elevator when we need them?

The question, for us at least, isn’t what to do about the NBA’s latest thuggish behavior, but rather, what happens to the Ron Artests on your team? No, you probably don’t have anyone on the payroll who has committed multiple batteries, but what about those who can’t seem to control their bigotry or bully tendencies? How about those who are clearly incapable of playing nice with others, or perhaps those who Professor  Robert Sutton referred to so aptly in his book, The No Asshole Rule?.

If you’ve been in a leadership role for any reasonable length of time, you’ve likely faced at least one of these characters. But have you dealt, really dealt with them? Our experience suggests that in too many cases, managers duck the issue because it’s hard, because it can damage your popularity for a while, you don’t want the hassle of extra scrutiny and lengthy termination procedures imposed by the folks in HR, and besides, as short as job tenures are these days, you might get a hall pass and title of the problem will transfer to a new owner. When that happens, not unlike the current day NBA, both you and the organization will pay a high price in lost respect, credibility, and business outcomes.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Deal with these situations sooner, not later. The passage of time with no intervention almost always makes the matter worse. The minute you decide that an employee needs to be on someone else’s payroll (preferably a competitor’s), start that process.
2. Not unlike any other surgical procedure, get a 2^nd and 3^rd opinion. Ask a fellow manager whose opinion and discretion you trust to dispassionately review the matter. Invite an HR professional to do the same. Trust us on this one. Most of them provide valuable advice, and they really do have your (and the organization’s) best interests at heart.
3. Be mindful of your own culpability. If you have in some way failed to be clear with the person about your expectations, or giving them a fair chance to succeed, own it and rectify it. Otherwise, step up to your duty.

“Avoiding the solution of a tough, miserable, volatile problem is not discretion. It is cowardice. And it is robbery. … Any coach who doesn’t kick the complacent ass on his team will end up kicking his own before long.”–Pat Riley, The Winner Within

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, the next edition of which will be released in July 2012 by John Wiley & Sons. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

One of those vital personal characteristics, whether I’m helping choose the next president or a mid-level manager in the corporate world, is the person’s level of consideration and affinity for those who are south of them in the socio-economic order or org chart. I want some insight into how much or how little they care, really care about those whose interests they will be representing, or who they will be providing leadership and direction to.

Observing their interaction with a food server, retail clerk, or flight attendant provides a window into their world, but it’s just a start. I want to know, is the person naturally at ease with subordinates, and vice versa? At one company I worked for, a finance SVP had a habit of parking at the rear of his office building every morning and sneaking through a back door that no one else used, simply so he wouldn’t have to interact with the people who worked for him. The sad thing is he actually thought that no one noticed or cared.

Are they at ease interacting with those who may not dress as well as they do, or whose speech is not as polished? How quick are they to smile (really smile, not that plastic version) and greet a subordinate or service worker? Do they mumble “how are ya?” and keep right on moving, or do they stop and actually wait for an answer?

Some might argue that this is nothing but a touchy-feely academic exercise since once you are declared the leader, at any level, and have position power, people pretty well have to do your bidding and learn to live with it. Au contraire! As pointed out in our first book, upon entering a leadership role, you are immediately faced with a simple, ongoing high school physics problem – There are more of  “them” than there are of you. Failure to respect this iron law can have a drastic affect on one’s career. Remember that finance SVP who parked around back? It turned out that his people didn’t work very hard for him, because they had long since figured out that he really didn’t like them very much, or care about them. Ultimately, it cost him his job.

Conversely, we’ve seen any number of leaders with modest intelligence and skills race up the career ladder, propelled by the “little people” who were putting it all on the line for them every day.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, the next edition of which will be released in June 2012 by John Wiley & Sons. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Earlier this week, a political shock jock who is as loved by some as he is loathed by others made completely uncalled for and by most measures, out of bounds comments about the morality of a young female college student. Days later, at the point of spears held by his show’s advertisers, he issued something of an apology.

Though it is entirely appropriate to personally and genuinely apologize when you’ve stepped in it, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that an apology doesn’t undo the wrong. Acts of contrition may serve as salve for a wound we’ve created, but make no mistake – there is still a wound there. Only in Hollywood does the wound get undone and those who created it or got themselves voted off the island get to come back at season’s end.

The lesson here for leaders is that we must be very mindful of the fact that once we open a can of worms, it’s open. We can no more put worms back in the can than we can put uttered words back in our mouth. There a number of faux pas that our teammates in the workplace simply aren’t going to forgive, let alone forget, apology or not. Chief among them are the following:

1. Lying – as in knowingly and deliberately misleading people
2. Taking credit for the accomplishments of others
3. Publicly reprimanding or embarrassing someone

In each case, we lose the benefit of the doubt both with the individual(s) involved and bystanders, and a good bit of their discretionary effort as well. Quite often, those losses are permanent. Don’t go there, please.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Bound in part by human nature (but not powerless against it), it’s relatively easy for a manager to step into the favoritism trap. Most of us, perhaps in response to the tough business climate, are running pretty lean, with little room for error. As a result, we rely heavily, maybe too heavily, on our stars. We give them the toughest, most important assignments, and most ridiculous deadlines. The most hours. The best schedules. More training. Cooler opportunities. And because they’re going above and beyond, maybe we grant them some privileges not afforded to all. We cut them a little more slack, and overlook the odd transgression that would surely be pointed out with lesser performers.

The average and poorer performers see this and cry favoritism, while the workhorse wonders, “Why am I the one carrying all the water?” Come to think of it, this is sounding more like parenting all the time.

If we’re really honest, we might admit that we just like some people better than we do others, for reasons not remotely related to job performance, and that we let that preference bleed through, even though we know that’s a lousy way to lead a group. Once we’ve gained control over that tendency, we’re left with the problem of favoring some over others for what we’d like to think are legitimate, performance-based reasons.

So what’s the difference, you might ask, between favoritism and performance management?  Isn’t it only fair to reward based on results? And, doesn’t it make sense to use your best players for the toughest plays?

Well, yes, but there are better ways to reward the strong performers on your team, and strengthen the others, than playing the favorites game.

Favoritism almost always produces unwanted results. It rarely motivates the lackluster towards stardom, and can breed a sense of entitlement in the favored. And you can bet that, in a doomed attempt to prevent it, some bureaucrat or lawyer will devise a scheme of rules, the imposition of which will serve only to tie your hands, kill creativity, and squash good tries by the best on your team.

It forms the basis for too many labor grievances, and a protracted pattern of favoritism helps cultivate an interested audience for union organizers. In short, it’s a practice we want to avoid with the same fervor and determination as we do those difficult conversations about declining performance, hygeine, and the questionable wisdom of dating a direct report.

Here are some better alternatives to playing favorites.

1. If someone’s not performing up to snuff, show some leadership, actively manage their performance, and don’t take the passive-aggressive route of ignoring them, mistreating them, and hoping they’ll get the hint and take a hike. Poorer performers deserve to be coached, and given the opportunity to improve, not left out in the cold, to figure it out themselves (amid shouts of favoritism).
2. Establish clear standards for performance, and then be unambiguous in communicating those standards. Leave no doubt as to what behavior leads to which results. Clearly articulate the steps that lead to where they’d like to go. You wanna make more money? Work a better schedule? Do more of the fun stuff? Here’s what it takes. How can I help you?
3. Build a culture of excellence, by making a clear connection between performance and rewards of all types. Above all, be consistent in providing a platform for visibility, and the opportunity to excel, but distinguish those who do their best work from those who are mailing it in. That’s anything but favoritism.
4. Just as it can be difficult to see the spinach stuck to our front teeth without a mirror or a caring observer, favoritism is usually hard to self-recognize. Ask about it on your employee survey. (You are doing surveys, aren’t you? If not, we can help.) Or, give your peers permission to tell you when they see it. When you become aware that there’s a perception of favoritism on your part, seek to understand why. If you’re convinced it’s not really favoritism, make the case. Otherwise, make a change. In you.

There’s a big difference between rewarding the best, and playing favorites. Build a culture of excellence, and soon you’ll be leading a whole field full of stars, and that will be the favorite part of your job.

****

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by virtue of a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He and business partner, Bill Catlette are the authors of the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Before the flaming begins, understand one thing – this is not an anti-lawyer piece. Lawyers and those in the legal profession serve a necessary and useful purpose. Most of them, I suspect are fine people. The principle of having a nation or any large aggregation of people bounded by laws is a good thing.

Yet, too much of a good thing, any good thing, is problematic, whether that “good thing” is principles espoused by HR professionals, military officers, or lawyers. In the latter case, owing in part to the 1.1 million or so lawyers in our midst (and their heavy concentration in government), we have allowed the law to become too much the de facto standard for acceptable behavior. In many cases, we conclude all too quickly (conveniently, perhaps) that if something is legal, it must be okay.

This week, playing out before our very eyes is a sad, sorry affair involving Penn State University, its legendary and now former head football coach, and behavior on the coach’s part that, while within the law, was hardly acceptable. It has been said that, “The law is hardly a lofty standard.” That certainly rings true in this case.

The Penn State saga is an excellent reminder for anyone in a leadership position that compliance with the law ought to be the bare minimum standard for our decisions and behavior. It is for this reason, perhaps, that there is a Danish admonishment that we should always “beware stepping over  the lowest part of the fence.” In reality, the standard that those who follow us quite rightly hold us to is that we will do what is right even (no, especially) in the absence of an established guideline, policy… or law. That standard can indeed be a difficult one to live up to when lives, careers, and large sums of money are on the line, but that’s the deal when we sign on for a role as a leader.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

We collect bushels of information these days, to feed the ravenous appetites of our Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), and other databases. I often wonder, though, how well that data is used, and just how much of it is operationalized in the form of applied knowledge.

It was clear in the case of the restaurants that the hostess staffs were collecting my information not because they intended to use it with me, but because someone in management was requiring it for another purpose. What they (and each of us on a too regular basis) lose sight of is that when you take the step of asking for someone’s name, personal information, or opinion, even once, let alone a second or third time, we expect you to use it in a form that is at least visible, if not beneficial to us. Otherwise, it reeks of arrogance.

I saw this again yesterday in a visit to the emergency department of an otherwise well run hospital. Despite having proffered my medical information via both a url to a secure website AND in writing, I was asked a third time for the same basic information.

This week our firm is in the midst of working with two clients on their employee opinion surveys. In each case, these organizations have figured out on their own, with no prodding from us, that if they are to truly get some ROI on their survey investment, it behooves them to feed the results back to their employees, and, at the end of the day, to act on the information received. Otherwise, management’s reputation, not to mention investment will have been squandered.

What about you? Are you in the data gathering or data using business? Do you at least acknowledge the information that people have given you? (Note to recruiters: This includes you.) Do you use it well? Do you bend the data gathering process to accommodate the preference of the information giver? If not, why not?

As we march on with the vital journey of creating electronic medical records and ever more powerful informational databases, let’s not lose sight of some of the low hanging fruit that is immediately at hand:

• If we know a person’s name, let’s use it. That will never offend them.
• Let’s show a little more consideration in the data gathering process. One thing our survey clients both insisted on was explaining to their workers on the front end, how their opinions would be used (and not used), and when they would get to see the results.
• Let’s resolve to being a bit more “subject-friendly” when gathering data, making sure, for example that any redundancy owes to real necessity, and not laziness.  Let’s resolve to put more focus on both the primacy and privacy of data, collecting only that which is needed, and truly safeguarding that which has been entrusted to us.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Thinking back on the things that have impacted my life significantly, one of them indeed involves apples, but it is not apple pie. Rather, it is apple (make that Apple) products.

For better than two decades, nearly every word that I’ve “written”, including three and one-half books, has been created or archived on an Apple computer or device. Ditto for every business plan, tax return, letter, photograph, and email. If we’ve met or come into the same sphere at any time during that period, your contact information, ‘er “stuff” is recorded on one (likely all) of those devices. Many of my executive coaching sessions are conducted via videoconference on Facetime. Every morning, I awaken to a claxon-like sound blaring from an iPhone that, contrary to manufacturer’s recommendations, never gets turned off. During time in the gym and aboard airplanes for thousands of hours, music, other entertainment, and sometimes just peace and quiet has been piped into my body via an Apple product and those iconic white earbuds. Speeches are delivered with the assistance of visual aids created and stored on a MacBook Air. My daily schedule and nearly all electronic voice comm. is similarly enabled.

I bought my father Apple computers to add functionality to his life, and enable me to keep tabs on him from 600 miles away during his later years. When I called to wish him a happy 80^th birthday, he proudly informed me that he had given himself a PC (as in WINTEL) computer. When I inquired as to why, he said, “The Mac isn’t enough of a challenge”, a comment that I passed along to Apple founder, Steve Jobs, suggesting that it might be the basis for his firm’s next ad slogan.

Though his products will remain deeply imbedded in my life, like millions of others around the world, I will miss Steve Jobs, a lot. No, I never met him personally, but due to a single leadership characteristic that he had in abundance, my life has been profoundly impacted. That characteristic? High Standards. Apple’s stuff isn’t “insanely great” as Mr. Jobs described it because they have the smartest people on the planet working for them.

No, lots of companies have smart people. Rather, it’s because Steve Jobs had standards that were higher, far higher than others, most particularly when it came to design and execution. Those standards were imposed on the people, ideas, and products that Jobs came into contact with via the company he co-founded. I’m sure the imposing was more welcome some times than others, but it clearly paid off, for Apple customers, employees, and yes, shareholders.

So, while we continue to enjoy the products that he helped introduce, Mr. Jobs may have left us an even bigger gift in the form of his example and an unrelenting insistence on setting a high bar that enabled, indeed compelled people to do something that is entirely too rare… their very best work.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Vick’s complaint stems from the belief that, within the league’s caste system, other, higher profile (make that champion) quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or Drew Brees would have gotten a different call. He may well be right. Yet, whining is neither becoming, nor the stuff champions are made of.

I’ve met a lot of people who, by virtue of various twists of fate, have been given plenty of reason to complain, if they wanted to. The Walter Reed Army Hospital is full of them. But they seldom do. Instead, they leave the whining to others. Indeed, I’ve never met a champion (at anything) who was a whiner. There is a lesson here for young Mr. Vick, and a reminder for the rest of us.

Whether our “game” is played at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, a factory floor, or an office building, it behooves those of us who are leaders to set an example whereby gloating doesn’t accompany a win, and losing, or failing to get our way doesn’t prompt a woe is me display. Play on.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

This week, Steve Jobs took a step back from his role as CEO of Apple. Not unlike Dr. Kissinger, Mr. Jobs is known for a lot of things, but accepting mediocrity is not among them. The introduction of uber-successful products like the iPod, iPhone, IPad, and Macbook Air would never have come about without Jobs’ relentless focus on producing “insanely great” gear, to use his words.

(One can only wonder how the U.S. Congress would be behaving right now if Dr. Kissinger was the Speaker of the House and Mr. Jobs the Senate Majority Leader.)

Most of us understand deep down that high standards are a necessary requirement of winning. Sure, we whine about it at times, but nobody gets up in the morning and says, “I want to go lose today. I want to go to my job, hang out with some really mediocre people, and do crummy work for a supervisor who is a self-centered weasel.” We get it that high standards and winning performance go hand in hand.

Too often, as leaders, we handicap the performance of our team by setting the bar too low, by holding ourselves and others to a standard that is less, far less than our best effort. We do so for lots of reasons… because we’re tired, or we know our team is tired, they haven’t gotten raises in a while, they haven’t been fully trained or equipped, the list goes on. And all that is probably true.

Yet, when we do that, we step onto a very slippery slope by enunciating that there is a new operative standard called, “good enough.” In so doing, we absolutely incense those who really are giving it their very best. In effect, we are telling them that their expenditure of discretionary effort is foolish. No one likes to feel foolish, to wit a decline in their effort is almost certain, and mediocrity becomes the new norm.

Very frankly, I think sometimes we’re too quick to apologize for having high standards. There’s nothing wrong with asking people to do their very best work. And when we fail to ask for or expect it (starting with ourselves), our chances of getting it are greatly diminished.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be on a team where I’m surrounded by mediocrity, or striving to do mediocre things. I’d much rather create a big smoking hole in the ground as the result of a failed effort at something fantastic.

As leaders, it is imperative for us to push through the rough patch that we find ourselves in right now. It is entirely possible to expect (and require) best effort while still being sensitive to the needs, feelings, fears, and aspirations of our teammates. Indeed, that is the only way to secure a better future for them and ourselves. Let’s get on with it.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

He told me that nearly 3 decades prior, he had been shot at on a daily basis while flying F-4 Phantom jets off a carrier deck in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Viet Nam war. It was a job that provided him a salary of about $20,000, and personal living space aboard the carrier of fewer than 50 square feet.  He then told me that while his current job paid him about 10 times as much, affording him a 6,000 square foot home, and no bullet holes in his aircraft, the old job was better, much better than his current gig. Responding to my rather obvious question as to why, he said, “Well, Mr. consultant, I know you guys like things in short, 3 word bursts, so I’ll give you one… It’s leadership, stupid!” He went on to define, with all the grace and precision of a laser-guided smart bomb, the differences between his former and then current leadership groups.

If, as a nation, we’ve ever been in a “It’s Leadership, Stupid” moment, it is now. As profiled in our new book, Rebooting Leadership, Harvard professor, Bill George has very aptly noted that the near collapse of our financial system (and ongoing debacles) had less to do with subprime mortgages than with subprime leadership. Truer words were never spoken.

In that vein, I will submit that rather than wait for someone in elected office to do the job, each of us should bear just a little more perhaps than our rightful share of responsibility, and take steps individually and collectively to pull our national automobile out of the ditch, onto the road, and set it in motion in the right (make that correct) direction.

Following are five leadership precepts that we would do well to heed at the moment:

Leaders are Optimists

Operating on the well-proven premise that you get what you expect to get, leaders are optimists. They wreak optimism. They realize that for the same reason that crowds associated with parades almost always out-number those at funerals, people will not follow a pessimist for long.

As a nation, we need to get our heads out of… the sand (I’m so tempted to say something much more graphic), and realize that America’s future is as bright today as it ever was. We just need to get our mojo back. We may not have the market cornered on brains and good ideas, but we have more than our fair share. We have abundant (yes, abundant) natural resources, including hydrocarbons that burn. Though failed by individuals at times, we have a system of government that works for the most part, and let’s be reminded that it’s a damned sight better than all the others. Most of all, we have our liberty. So, step #1 to regaining our altitude is to fix our attitude, each of us. The “good ‘ole days” weren’t all that great, and today is not as terrible as the folks on the cable “news” outlets would have us believe. And yes, I lost a bunch of money in the market this month, too.

Leaders Display Courage

Courage is defined neither by the absence of fear, nor an overabundance of brass (as in cojones). Rather, courage is at once a matter of being willing to stand tall in the face of both physical and moral pressure or threat, to be willing to do what is right regardless of possible pain, discomfort, economic loss, or unpopularity. You are afraid, but you proceed anyhow.

So, too, is courage a matter of being willing to act in the face of uncertainty. If I hear one more business leader whine that the uncertainty of tomorrow is keeping them from taking steps today to grow their business, I’m going to puke on their wingtip loafers. As Warren Buffett put it recently, “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” There is always the risk that the world will end tomorrow, too, but we don’t hold our breath just in case it does.

Each of us needs to summon that moment from our youth, or some other time in our lives, when we stared down a mean looking dog and continued walking down the street. Just as a congressman (or woman) with an ounce of courage would say, “no” as readily to Grover Norquist as they would the Teamster’s Union, each of us must find it in ourselves to call bullies or haters by their rightful names, and evict those who like to yell, “fire” from crowded theaters. Why not insist that facts, rather than partisan objectives and shrill rhetoric rule the day for a while?

Leaders Build Commitment

The process of harnessing the attention and effort of others begins deep within the leader themselves. We must be masters of our own time, priorities, and attention if we’re asking others to follow us. We must have, and be able to credibly articulate an abiding sense of purpose, direction, and priority.

In his book, Beating the Street, uber-successful investor, Peter Lynch maintained that people ought not invest in something unless they could explain it with a crayon. The same holds true for those of us who would lead others. If we can’t explain with that same blunt instrument what we’re about and where we’re going, then we can’t explain it well enough for today’s rightfully cynical audience, and people won’t buy it. Mr. President, take note.

We must ask and expect that our elected representatives focus like a laser on things that really matter, and that are in our strategic national interest. There will always be 2^nd and 3^rd tier issues that can be dealt with as time permits, but at this point we have neither the time nor other resource to deal with them. If, as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has suggested, we should get their attention by withholding campaign contributions until they figure this out, so be it.

Leaders Subordinate Self Interest

If we, as leaders, are to have any hope of gaining the commitment of followers in any endeavor, we must elevate the legitimate interests of the organization and those we lead above our own selfish wants and ambitions. We don’t have to take a vow of poverty or anything, just remain very clear about whom we are there to serve.

Indeed, one of the chief causes of the aforementioned pilot strike at Northwest Airlines was that senior, C-level officers had, at the same time that they were forcing pay cuts on company employees, like hogs at the trough, taken overt, outrageous steps to enrich themselves.

Similarly, the most glaring leadership failure of the recent debt ceiling fiasco was the nearly unanimous disregard for the financial security and reputation of an entire nation, in pursuit of narrow, partisan, and in some cases, personal interests. Many of our so-called “leaders” (more accurately, “politicians”) seemed only too willing to drag Americans (indeed the world) through weeks of clumsy, bad faith negotiations with the attendant anxiety and uncertainty, willing to allow the nation to go into default, but by golly, they weren’t going to abandon their “ideals” or do anything that might risk their political standing. In choosing such a path, many may have created their own term limits (so maybe something good will come from it, after all). Nonetheless, I’ve seen 3 year-olds behave in less self-serving ways than our elected officials have of late.

Leaders are Grown-Ups With High Standards

Deep down, we all understand that high standards are a necessary precursor to winning, and let’s face it, none of us get up in the morning saying, “I wanna go lose today. I want to hang out with mediocre people and do some really crummy work for a third rate company, or live in a AA+ nation.”

We must accept the fact that America will be exceptional only so long as we, each of us, maintains an adult perspective and is willing to live up to high standards. Whenever high standards and lofty expectations get divorced from one another, the outcome is akin to what happened at Chrysler and GM and Lehman Brothers.

Not everybody deserves an “A’, re-appointment, or re-election. Sometimes, “no” really does mean no. We can start by explaining that to our kids, together with the fact that life is not a TV reality game where the losers are voted off the island, but get to come back at season’s end.

I, for one, firmly believe that America’s glass is indeed half full and that our best days really are ahead of us. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to be here. Let’s get going.

*****

A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Memphis, TN 7/14/11

(sponsored by Memphis Daily News)

Keynote Speaker:  Philip Johnson – Argyle Benefits

Panelists: David Elliott (Baptist Healthcare), Scott Morris (Church Health), James Terwilliger (Duncan Williams)

1.  Most of the enabling legislation for the Affordable Healthcare Law (Obama-care) is still being written. Hence, you & I can still have an impact.
2.  “Sexiness is having insurance.”
3.  In 1960, Healthcare represented approx. 5% of U.S. GDP. In 2011, it represents 17% of GDP (and growing). Sound like a problem?
4.  Employer h/c benefits cost increase has averaged 10% since 1960’s
5.  In 2010 Avg. employer h/c benefit cost/employee was $8211. Avg. contribution by single covered employees was $415. Avg. contribution per covered family was $1009,
6.  Coverage changes created by Affordable Healthcare Law

<51 Employees – No new rules on coverage

>51 Employees – IF you offer coverage, there are minimum coverage and maximum cost requirements
>51 Employees – IF you do NOT offer coverage, a financial penalty is incurred

7.  McKinsey survey suggests that 1/3 of employers will eliminate h/c insurance coverage, pay the fine, and dump employees into state exchanges, which become effective 1/1/14.
8.  Prediction that many employers will convert employees to “Part Time” in order to avoid insurance requirements.
9.  Beginning in 2012, employers will  be required to auto-enroll employees into their h/c insurance coverage.
10. Employers will need to do a MUCH better job of communicating with their workforce re h/c benefits, charges, coverages, challenges, or will lose the ROI from that investment.
11. The much ballyhooed Individual Coverage Mandate becomes effective 1/1/14.
12. Each state currently has available a “Pre-existing Condition Uninsured Plan” for residents who have not had coverage for 6 months and have pre-existing conditions that would otherwise limit the coverage they could get. Despite the fact that this is touted as a “great product”, only 21,454 people nationwide have enrolled.

If the answers aren’t coming to you quickly or clearly, don’t feel bad. I suspect you’re like most people, including many in Congress who vote to fund NASA, and even some at the agency itself. To wit, is it really any wonder that America’s space program as we have known it seems to be riding off into the sunset?

On our way to Titusville, Florida to view the Atlantis launch yesterday, friend and business partner, Richard Hadden asked for my thoughts, as something of an aerospace junkie, on the eminent conclusion of NASA’s shuttle program.  In the pre-dawn darkness some eight hours prior to the launch of STS 135, I hadn’t yet sorted out my emotional reaction to the program’s ending. What we talked about instead is just how similar NASA’s current situation is to other entities (e.g., governments, companies, et. al.) that lose their way, their funding, and their mojo.

The Bible’s book of Proverbs 29:18 suggests that, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” In this case, an agency that has long operated with a very cloudy, or at best misunderstood sense of purpose, direction, and priority is in real danger of going away, not because a nation has grown tired of space venture, but because of the persistent failure to clearly articulate a credible and compelling vision for the future.

Operating on a raison d’être tantamount to, “we do space”, or with a charge like that established by former President George W. Bush to revisit the Moon, something we accomplished nearly a half-century ago, isn’t going to get the job done. It’s almost as if we’ve fumbled the ball and are waiting for private ventures like SpaceX or Virgin Galactic to pick it up and see what they can do with it.

More germane to this post and our readership, the very same thing happens to companies, business units, departments, and teams that fail to credibly articulate and maintain a compelling sense of purpose and direction. As leaders, it is incumbent on each of us to determine, articulate, and then permanently illuminate, with one of those big 5-cell flashlights, the path ahead. What are we about? Why does this organization exist? As the French put it, what is our raison d’être? Where are we going? Why does it matter?

Fail to connect the dots on any one of these items and slowly (at first), but inexorably, the lights go out, and the party is over. President Obama desperately needs to do this for our nation at this time, and you and I need to do it with our own teams. A few suggestions:

1. Having decided upon the “vision/mission thing”, it is not enough to announce it once or twice and then hang some relevant testimonial junk on the wall. Rather, to overcome the understandable cynicism that exists inside organizations, we need to practically “carpet-bomb’ the place with repeated signs that this is more, much more than some new program. Rather, it is to be our way of life. Words are important, but actions trump syllables.
2. To operationalize and breathe life into those words, we should make it clear to the folks on our team that good faith efforts on their part to enact the vision will never get them in trouble. Similarly, if they are doing things that do not line up with that purpose, they should stop doing them as soon as practical. On an institutional level, we must take pains to be sure that budgets and reward mechanisms support our declared purpose and direction.
3. To be sure, Level 1 and 2 managers (the folks closest to the front line, and the ones with the toughest jobs in any organization) should be charged with ensuring that their teammates get the big picture. But, because people don’t operate day to day in the big picture, they must see to it that those around them clearly grasp the top two or three priorities. You and I can spot-check this by periodically asking a few people to articulate the top three priorities for the organization. If they can do it, celebrate it, right then and there. If they can’t (more likely), we’ve got more work to do.

In the meantime, Godspeed to the crew of Atlantis sts 135, and the men and women here on the ground who have worked tirelessly in support of them and our nation’s space program.

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A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

I thought about that a good bit last week as legendary basketball coach, Phil Jackson all but confirmed what he had suggested at the beginning of the season, that this year would be his last on the Lakers’ bench. Having advanced to the 2^nd round of the NBA playoffs, Jackson’s team played nowhere near its capability, and was crushed 4-0 in the best of 7 series by the Dallas Mavericks.

Worse, some of the Lakers players embarrassed themselves and disrespected their teammates, fans, opponents, and most certainly Coach Jackson by their behavior. I cannot imagine any of Jackson’s previous teams or players producing or behaving as the 2011 version did. I feel certain that when Coach Jackson faced the post-game cameras for what may have been the last time, what he had just witnessed on the court confirmed in his mind that the time had indeed come for him to move on. I applaud his having the courage to do it.

In recent years, we have seen more than a few people who have been less adroit in exiting stage left. The names Brett Favre and U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd come to mind. What about you? How do you know when it’s time to take your act elsewhere?

One thing that can make a tremendous difference in weighing significant career decisions is having a good friend (as opposed to a Facebook or LinkedIn friend) or coach who cares enough about you to tell you the unvarnished truth. Their only agenda is your best interest, period. If you have such a friend, cherish them, and do all you can to nourish and be worthy of the relationship. If you don’t, seek to develop such a relationship. Either way, make it a point to be a friend.

You might also consider using the following questions as a part of your decision template:

1. Would you put this job on your bucket list today? If the answer is no, is this job an indispensable step to achieving something that is on your bucket list?
2. If your job were open today, would you hire you to do it?
3. Are you happy, really happy in your job? How do you know? How many days per month do you arrive at work with a real spring in your step? How many days are you trudging in? How many days per week do you breathe a sigh of relief when quitting time comes?
4. Are you/your team consistently performing at or near peak? Be honest.
5. Have you taken a job interview in the last three years? If not, why not? What are you afraid of?

This post is intended as nothing more than a thought starter for an important glance in the mirror. Yet, as the economy and job market continue to improve, we think it timely and appropriate that each of us re-evaluate our present situation vis-à-vis our life goals and preferences, and make course corrections as necessary. Good luck.

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A pathfinder 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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

In large part, the urge to celebrate in this case extends from Americans being very tired… tired of being afraid (of losing their jobs, homes, health insurance, more terrorist attacks etc.). We’re tired of being a nation chronically engaged in unwinnable wars, tired of government failure at every level, and tired of being perceived unfavorably on the world stage. We’re tired of having a compromised lifestyle (think TSA), and perhaps most importantly, tired of having precious little to celebrate for nearly a decade.

The ONLY semi-widespread celebration in this country since 9/11 was President Obama’s election… a celebration that was quite short-lived and not especially well shared. Add to that the feeling that, until now, 9/11 has not been avenged, despite the expenditure of another 5,000 American lives and over a trillion taxpayer dollars. So, with that backdrop, I think the desires of many to celebrate are understandable, and probably healthy in the short term.

Celebration of accomplishment is a big part of any winning team’s character. It is as necessary to high performance as having big goals and high standards. Celebration erases some of the pain needed to achieve, refreshes the players for a moment, and rebuilds needed confidence to go on. It is also akin to thumbing your nose at your competitor, to wit celebrating ObL’s departure from the scene likely feels good to many.

So, in that sense, while it is perhaps a bit ghoulish, and it does momentarily distract us from the very real challenges we face, I say let people celebrate if they want to. If it causes those who would do us harm to be a bit more fearful, or at least mindful of the consequences, that may not be such a bad thing either.

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

While I have no (repeat, zero) interest in the politics of the matter, it serves as a wonderful teaching moment for both incumbent and would-be leaders of any ilk. Before proceeding, in the interest of full disclosure, my wife, business partner, and a few close friends will vouch for the fact that my lips aren’t exactly pure, either.

That said, I learned long ago that crude and vulgar remarks used by a leader in the company of those who would follow them are virtually guaranteed to offend people and cause them to lose respect for the leader. They probably won’t say anything to you about it (they will likely even laugh at your crude joke or applaud your vulgarity, as Trumps’ audience did), but you will be diminished in their eyes for having done it. Moreover, like toothpaste, once it’s out, it’s out, and no, it doesn’t “stay in Vegas.”

Be smart – don’t let gratuitous remarks earn you the disrespect of followers.

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

The next most important managerial contribution is getting the “system” off peoples’ backs so they can actually do the jobs they were hired to do to the very best of their ability. What do you mean by “system” some would ask? I’m talking about rules, procedures, methods, customs, policies and the like. Things that were probably once appropriate and well intended, but make absolutely no sense in that moment today when the rubber hits the road. I’m not railing at all procedures and policies mind you, just the clunkers, of which there are plenty.

I saw a perfect example yesterday in the Atlanta airport. Hustling through Concourse B, I decided to grab a sandwich before my flight, so I stopped at the Muffulettas’ vending station. Two staff members were there busily counting merchandise and cash. I stood for a moment, then interrupted the lady counting the food items and asked if I might purchase a sandwich. Before I even finished asking, and with her back still turned, she replied, “We’re on shift change. You’ll have to wait about ten minutes.” “But I just want to buy a sandwich” I countered, to which she replied, “I can’t sell you anything for about ten minutes. We’re on shift change.” Thud.

Flummoxed, I stood there for a couple of minutes with a $10 bill still in hand. In that time span, four more hungry travelers approached and got the exact same treatment. Two of them uttered some not so nice words at the women before walking off. As I, too ventured off for a sandwich place that might be more open for business, I thought, “what a crappy way to make a living.”

These two women get ten minutes at the beginning and end of each and every work shift ruined by a process that unintentionally but decidedly turns them into idiots in the eyes of customers. They didn’t invent the shift change process, but they have to live with it, and judging from personal experience, it improves neither worker performance nor earnings.

These are the kinds of things that, just like a pinch of sand in the shoe, wear people down, make them crazy, and cause them to unplug, whether they actually leave the job or not.  We’ve all got them in our workspace, and it is up to those of us who are in leadership roles, regardless of the number of stripes on our sleeve, to relentlessly find them, root them out, and make it a tiny bit more possible for our people to do their very best work.

And speaking of best work, I did see some of that yesterday, too. Shortly after arrival at Kimpton’s Ink48 Hotel in New York (and still hungry), I called room service and ordered some food, which was soon delivered by a server who is a recent immigrant from Tibet. In halting but perfectly serviceable English, he politely introduced himself, inquired about my stay, told me that he was proud to work for Kimpton, and explained that he looked forward to being of service both today and in the future.

When replying to his question about where I’m from, I told him that I’m from Tennessee, which drew something of a deer in the headlights look. After a little further explanation to no avail, I quickly popped up Google Maps on my open laptop and showed him, mentioning that the state was home to Elvis, and a couple more localisms. End of story, or so I thought.

A couple of hours later, after calling to secure permission, another room service server delivered a gracious, handwritten hospitality note from my new Tibetan friend, along with a bucket of ice and two miniature bottles of guess what? The world’s best sipping whiskey, which just happens to be made in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

From a socio-economic standpoint, this fellow’s job is very much on par with the two ladies I ran into earlier in the day in Atlanta. He delivers food to guest’s rooms, and they sell it out of a refrigerator in the airport. But that’s where the similarity ends.

They get worn down each day by at least one dumb process designed or approved by someone who I suspect hasn’t spent one hour watching what kind of aggravation it brings to others. The Kimpton guy, working for a management team that has obviously told him to do what it takes to be nice to guests, is free to do his very best work, and it shows.

Evidence abounds that workers who believe that they have an honest shot at doing their best work deliberately turn up the boost on their discretionary effort, because performing at that level is exhilirating. Those who don’t, mail it in. So the choice is there for each of us to make. Do we want to invest a little time every day making the path a bit clearer for our folks, or do we want potential customers putting their hard earned money back in their pockets and walking next door?

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

This is occurring because most of the major domestic airlines introduced exorbitant checked baggage fees as part of their a-la-carte pricing schemes. Yes, they gain revenue from the checked baggage fees, but three costly and undesirable things happen as a result:

1. With a substantial disincentive for checking baggage, most passengers opt to schlep all of their items for the trip thru gate security and onto the plane. Security lines get longer and the inspection process becomes less effective.
2. As no aircraft has ample overhead bin space to accommodate all this stuff, the boarding process groans and drags as passengers make futile efforts to cram it in anyhow. This results in lots of late aircraft departures, not to mention broken overhead bin doors. I was on a flight recently where we pushed back 11 minutes late purely due to “packing” delays.
3. Under pressure to get the aircraft boarded for an on-time departure, flight attendants become the luggage police, which puts them in constant unhappy conversations with customers, and diverts attention from their far more important safety-related duties, like observing that 5 of the 6 passengers seated in an emergency exit row don’t speak English.

Now, imagine what might happen if the luggage fee was reversed, and luggage could be checked to the passenger’s final destination for free (within limitations), but any carry-on items other than a single, small personal bag would incur a $25 fee.

My bet is that, again, because people (all of us) do what we are incentivized to do, the bulkier items like suitcases would go in the belly of the plane where they belong, airlines would still make money from “boarded luggage” fees, operating expense would improve from a more efficient boarding process, flight attendants would be much better utilized, and passengers would be a lot happier.

Let’s step back and look at this thing thru a wider lens. This situation didn’t get to where it is because airline executives are idiots (okay, a few are, but not in the main.) The fact of the matter is that all (repeat, all) of us have similar situations where, with the best of intentions, we have incented people (employees, customers, vendors, partners, children) to do the wrong things. We pay a steep price for that.

As a suggestion, take a half-hour this week and look for some areas where you might be able to improve organizational outcomes (and maybe some people’s lives, including your own) by adjusting or eliminating counter-productive incentives.

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

In the interest of full disclosure, I am no fan of labor unions. Indeed, a significant portion of my professional effort over the course of 3 decades has focused on helping organizations obviate unions by maintaining a positive employee relations culture, a culture in which both the individual and the organization can do their best work and gain the most from it.

That said, I respect every worker’s right to make a choice as to whether or not they are willing to enter into a direct, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship with their management. That choice is most often based on whether or not management has earned the benefit of the doubt. If the answer is yes, workers feel no need to reach out and seek (let alone pay for) the protection of organized labor. Are you with me so far? Alright, hang on.

Demonstrations notwithstanding, I believe there is an even chance that Governor Scott Walker will pull off some kind of flash bang, middle of the night vote and get his way, even if it means reinventing the law right before our eyes. Even if that comes to pass, while winning the hand, he will lose the game. Correction, the people of Wisconsin will lose. How? Because there will still be a need for thousands of teachers, and every one of them will STILL make a quiet daily decision as to whether they want to give their full measure of effort that day, or mail it in. Given the backdrop, which choice do you think they will make?

For the last twelve years we have worked almost entirely within the field of Discretionary Effort, studying, writing, speaking, and teaching leaders about that extra layer of effort that every one of us can give to a situation if, but only if we want to. Eerily consistent with similar work by Towers Watson and Gallup, our own engagement surveys suggest that barely 50% of workers are, by their own admission doing their very best work, and that most of us routinely expend no more than 60 to 70% of our maximum effort in the workspace. In other words, a lot of unspent capacity goes home with us at day’s end.

So, if just half of the 50,000 or so teachers in a state, any state choose to ratchet the ‘ole effort meter back another 10-20%, what is that going to cost to compensate for the lost productivity? Perhaps more importantly, what will it do to the level of educational performance in the state? If you’re getting a mental image of a post office being superimposed over your local school district, you’re getting the picture.

Since the publication of our first book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk in 1998, we have maintained that giving workers (be they on an assembly line at GM, or a school in Racine) benefits they haven’t earned, the market doesn’t require, and you can’t afford is the antithesis of good employee relations, because some day you have to take all that stuff back. As the folks at GM did, and now a lot of teachers and other municipal workers face that same music, the last thing in the world we, through our elected representatives ought to be doing is rubbing their faces in it, just because we can. It’s not good business or good politics, and it’s certainly not good employee relations. Motivated people move faster.

As always, your thoughts and ideas are welcome

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Amidst the hue and cry, one important fact seems to be escaping all of them, regardless of political persuasion. That fact has to do with how workers, government or otherwise, come to be organized (members of a union) in the first place.

Nearly 40 years ago, Dr. Charles Hughes offered that, “any management that gets a union deserves it”, a precept that is as valid today as it was back then. Employees seek the protection of and hire a labor union to level the playing field when they believe that they are otherwise powerless to deal with an arbitrary, capricious, or unskilled management. In other words, one of the primary root causes of the situation we find ourselves in today is the abject failure of managers who were paid to lead and didn’t. Translation: Much of this damage is self-inflicted.

Regardless of how the pie gets re-divided so that government can continue to function and not default on its fiscal obligations, we’re proposing that, going forward, serious attention be focused on the quality of leadership in government. It will yield far better outcomes than getting into a public pissing contest with your employees and the labor unions that at one time management made necessary.

Now, as for Wisconsin, we’ve got some advice for the governor:

1. Back off from the union busting rhetoric and activities. It’s a losing hand. If you truly want to de-certify unions, do it through better management, as private sector employers have done. Once your employees feel that they are being capably managed, listened to, and have no need to pay union dues, trust me, they will solve the problem for you.
2. Deal firmly with state employees who are abusing sick leave, their constituents, and working peers by skipping work in order to protest. Order all employees who are not on approved leave back to work, and begin replacing those who fail to comply.
3. Lower the volume and sit down (yes) with union leaders and representatives of all employee groups, show them the state’s books, and convince them that reaching immediate, sensible compromise on a phased increase in burden sharing for employee benefits, and making needed work rule amendments is better than the alternative.
4. Initiate an immediate audit of management talent and worker engagement levels. (If you think government pension expenses are outrageous, and they are, take a look at what 40-70% lost productivity due to employee disengagement is doing to you every single day. Can you spell Post Office?) Beginning with your own senior staff, deal swiftly with those who are struggling with the leadership aspects of their jobs. Get them some help (training or coaching) if it’s applicable, or move them out. Perhaps Illinois has some job vacancies.

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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. He is co-author of the newly released book, Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows