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.

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

That fact notwithstanding, last weekend I decided to pressure wash our house. The all-white structure has a large expanse of siding at the back that faces due north, and is therefore hospitable territory to a gray-green coating of mold and algae. Although the heat index was in the triple digits, I was actually looking forward to the task. And I knew why.

It’s the same reason that I actually enjoy mowing the lawn, even though there’s a fully capable onsite teenager, who would do it more often if I’d let him. The reason I like these tasks so much, and eschew others, like laundry and disinfecting toilets? Instant gratification.

Every swipe of the pressure washing nozzle was like applying graffiti in reverse. Expend labor – see result. It was magnificent! And enough to keep me at it in less than ideal conditions until the job was done. At which point I stood at the back of the house gazing up and admiring my handiwork.

We all need at least a little instant gratification at work, too. A strong need to know that what we do makes a difference. Some jobs come with this feature onboard. With others, this feeling of accomplishment is more elusive.

If you lead others, and help manage and design their work, here’s an assignment:

• Pick one job you manage and assess it for instant gratification potential. Does it happen often, occasionally, rarely, or never?
• If the answer is rarely or never, change that. Build into the job at least the occasional opportunity to see the fruits of the labor that goes into it.
  • Give back office people some direct customer contact.
  • Balance sales professionals’ account portfolios of tough customers with a few easier sales.
  • If the task is an intermediate step in a process, let them at least see the finished product and have a clear understanding of the part they played in it.
  • Make sure no job is all frustration – no fulfillment.
• Once you’ve had a little immediate gratification with this experiment, do the same with the other jobs under your direction.

We all need to see the needle move from time to time. It’s part of what keeps us going.

==========================================================

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

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

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.

I love my Amazon Kindle. And not just because Rebooting Leadership is available in that format. So I was positively disconsolate when it stopped working on the first day of a 3-week trip.

From the Delta Sky Club at JFK, I logged into my Amazon account, clicked support, typed in my mobile number, and immediately my phone rang. They called me! I didn’t have to look up a number, dial it, navigate through an infernal scheme of menus, listen to hold music, and plead for a real human. One called me!

By virtue of my having logged into my account before I requested the call, the Amazon rep knew everything I wanted her to know. She didn’t ask me for my account number once, let alone twice. She grieved in sympathy with me, for a moment, over the demise of the e-reader, and without further inquisition, said she’d overnight me a replacement! Can you believe this? Did you know they did this? I didn’t.

Luckily for me, my wife was joining me on the trip 2 days later, and brought the new Kindle, completely loaded with all my stuff, to me.

Bravo, Amazon, all around!

Not so Panasonic. Our new Lumix digital camera (great camera – takes terrific pictures) arrived without the software, described in the manual, that lets the camera commune with the computer. Sending CD’s, I thought, is so first decade, surely it’s a download these days, and they just haven’t updated the manual.

Wrong. Went to Panasonic’s site (such as it is). Got no help there. Got on the phone. Customer service sent me to tech support, which sent me back to customer service, where a snippy woman who didn’t believe my story gave me the number for the “parts department”. I’m not making this up.

Twenty minutes later, Parts answered. They wanted my name, phone number, email address, account number, and – get this – the serial number of the item I was calling about – before they’d entertain any questions.

I asked how I could download the software. You can’t. We have to send you a CD. Please do. It’ll cost you $15. An argument ensued, and to cut my time losses, I surrendered the credit card number.

Ten days later, I got a paper receipt in the mail from Panasonic. Someone actually cut down a tree, refined its pulp into paper, printed a receipt, stuck it in an envelope, put it in a truck, took it to the post office, transferred it to a jet, put it on yet another truck, then a van, and then a nice man walked it to my house.

Five days after that, the CD turned up on my front doorstep.

Point: Both Amazon and Panasonic have now burned into my psyche their respective “brands”. I associate Amazon with terms like “pathfinder, state-of-the-service-art, newfangled, impressive, and going above and beyond to help the customer.” Panasonic, to me, now means “obsolete, outdated, obstructionist, old-world, traditional, clueless”, and a host of other things, none of them impressive.

Product brand, and service brand, extend to workplace brand. If someone were to ask me where they should explore selling their talent, Amazon would be one of the first names off my lips. Panasonic wouldn’t even occur to me.

I wonder – no I don’t – which company’s getting the best candidates turning up on its front doorstep.

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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the brand new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

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?

*****

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.

*****

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

*****

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.

*****

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

Dear Workforce:
I’d like to start implementing “Stay Interviews”.  What kinds of questions should we be asking and how do I convince managers that this is important?

As opposed to exit interviews which are triggered by a staff member’s departure and yield nominal benefit, or “no interviews” which is akin to playing Russian roulette, “stay interviews” are conducted for the express purpose of strengthening the bond with your best people, and discovering what causes them to remain with the organization.

They can be one of the lowest cost, highest yielding activities by a management that is striving for greater levels of engagement and productivity. That’s exactly how it should be presented to your management team. (i.e., If we won’t make time to have a 40 minute chat with our best people, how and when will we make time to replace them?)

Our research, and others’ has consistently demonstrated that the top things which create stickiness between the individual and the organization, and the attendant discretionary effort include:

• Having meaningful work and the freedom to pursue it
• Working in a positive, challenging, high performance (read, elite) culture
• Getting lots of opportunities to learn and grow (preparing to leave, if necessary)

Aside from not getting enough of one of the above, the chief cause of hitting the exit ramp is working for an unskilled, immature, or self-absorbed leader.

Conducted by a trained interviewer with position authority, stay interviews should focus on the above factors. Though some organizations find it convenient to conduct them coincident with the regular performance review cycle, we don’t recommend it, as performance reviews often carry too much baggage. Often times stay interviews are conducted on a skip-level basis as a means of adding credibility and objectivity to the process.

It is as important to realize what a stay interview is not as what it is. They are not a negotiating session, or a platform from which to rationalize or defend the status quo. Be plain about this from the start. Rather, the interview is an opportunity to listen (really listen) to the very people your annual report likely credits as being your most valuable asset. The interview should deal with questions like:

• Why do you stay (with this organization, team, leader)?
• What do you like best/least about you job?
• If something has caused you to consider leaving in the last 6 months, what was it? Has it been resolved?
• What would you like more/less of? What one thing would you like to see changed?
• What’s your dream job, and are you making satisfactory progress to achieve it?
• What can I/we do to support that effort?
• Do you have any similarly talented friends or acquaintances who should be working here alongside you?
• Is there one person in the organization who has really been helpful to you of late (so we can thank them appropriately)?

Not unlike the financial audits that every company does periodically, a combination of stay interviews with your best people, and engagement surveys of the entire workforce will inexpensively provide the organizational equivalent of color Doppler radar, with measures of actionable intelligence and goodwill. Good luck!

*****

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

Unfortunately, during the 2011 Super Bowl, she failed to deliver her best performance, butchering the tune, and forgetting words she has known since childhood. Everyone has an off day now and then. It’s better when it doesn’t happen in front of 100 million people, but hey, it happens.

There are thousands of singers in America, who, in terms of raw talent, could have outsung Ms. Aguilera, but let’s face it, talent was probably not the only, or even the primary, consideration in her selection. And that’s fine. The NFL, who does usually place a premium on talent, to the exclusion of less relevant factors, can hire whomever they like. In this case, it didn’t turn out so well, but it didn’t seem to detract much from the enjoyment of the game, especially for Packers fans.

All indications are that hiring in the US is slowly waking from a long hibernation. As employers get back into the hiring game, those who can’t afford a lot of missteps would do well to focus more on factors that predict job success, and less on criteria that miss the point.

Examples of the former:

• Talent. Pure native talent. Are they naturally good at the job they’re expected to do?
• Fit. Do they “fit” the organization’s culture, by virtue of temperament, nature, values, and character?
• Behaviors. Do they tend to exhibit behaviors needed for the job under consideration.
• In some cases, and I emphasize in some cases, experience doing the kind of work, industry and environment notwithstanding, they’ll need to do.

There are valid and defensible ways to screen for all of the above. Find them, and use them.

Examples of the latter:

• Looks, height, weight, age, race, gender, politics, connections, and who they sleep with.
• Credit score, unless it’s pertinent to the job, which in most cases, it isn’t.
• Experience in your specific industry, again, unless it really matters. Hint: it often doesn’t. Employers in some fields in particular labor under the arrogant and often mistaken notion that unless the candidate has experience in their specific industry, they’ll never make it.  Banking and healthcare are good examples, but they’re not the only ones. If you’re looking for lenders and anesthesiologists, industry experience would be a must-have. Accountants and project managers, not so much. Talent, skill, and “fit” transcend industry.

Talent matters. It matters a lot. Look for it, know how to recognize it, hire it, develop it, and reward it.

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) 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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the brand new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

If the momentum of a slow recovery pans out, with the attendant moderate uptick in hiring whose prediction was reported last week in USA Today, then a lot of employers will need to put on their shirts and straighten up the front room, because for the first time in years, company is sure enough comin’ through the HR office, the metaphorical “front room” of most organizations.

A December 1, 2010 article by Andrea Davis, in Employee Benefit News, reports that with hopes of at least a modest recovery, up to 60% of high-performing employees are eyeing plans to leave their organizations in 2011. That remains to be seen, of course, but what’s certain is that there’s lots of pent-up desire to seek greener pastures, and a more robust hiring picture will certainly open the gates for those who may feel abused and taken for granted during hard times.

If you’re planning to ramp up your hiring after a hiatus, it may be wise to do a checkup on your intake process, remembering that your reputation as an employer has everything to do with the caliber of your applicants. Some (no, lots of) organizations have become sloppy, cocky, and arrogant in how they treat potential new hires, reasoning that the labor supply/demand imbalance gives them the upper hand. They’ve apparently forgotten that every applicant represents a window, with a mouth, into the character of their organization.

If you know an organization like that (wink, wink, nod, nod), here’s a checklist you might want to send them anonymously:

• Do we have enough HR staff to handle an increased workload without botching the job or burning themselves out?
• Is the HR staff sufficiently trained in all aspects of their jobs, especially those who will be conducting interviews?
• Does the professionalism and consideration with which we treat job applicants accurately reflect the way we treat our employees?
• Do we treat every interviewee as we would a guest in our home?
• Who – or what – is making decisions to take applicants to the next step? Do real humans have input at every point? Or are we letting software determine who gets to play on the team?
• How well do we communicate with applicants? Do we let them know, in a timely and professional way, that they’re out of the running? Or do we assume they’ll figure it out by our inaction?
• Are we looking for the right qualities? Things that really matter? Or are we stuck on irrelevant “qualifiers” that leave the best talent to the competition?
• Do those we don’t hire feel at least about 80% as good about us as those we do?

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) 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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the brand new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Golic, a former NFL player himself, argued that, as well paid professionals, football players can (and should) be expected to perform as such, and at a minimum, avoid doing things that are harmful to their team. Though largely in agreement with his co-star, Mike Greenberg held that Cowboys coach Wade Phillips bears a lot of responsibility for the situation by virtue of tolerating persistent, errant on-field behavior.

At one point the show’s producer weighed in with a comment to the effect that things like professionalism are largely matters of organizational culture, which comes about as the result of the efforts of leaders (and other members) over time. Indeed the Cowboys, once known as “America’s Team”, were reknown for having a culture of excellence developed and preserved by men like Tom Landry and Tex Schramm. Things change.

This isn’t a post about the Cowboys, however. It’s about our own organizations. We live in a world dominated by soundbites and the next quarterly earnings report. A world where we make decisions on the fly and struggle to just ‘get the wash out’ before we go home exhausted at the end of the day. Most of us don’t spend much (any?) time worrying about the culture or the level of professionalism  in our organizations. Maybe we should.

If we want to play in and have a shot at winning the Superbowl in our own field of endeavor, we need to pay attention to the ‘culture thing’. Think of it as a powerful and important branding effort for internal consumption. Do the people on your team know what you stand for – what will get them recognized and rewarded, for example, and what will get them ejected like a virus? Are they the right things? Is your culture a matter of words, or deeds? Are you working diligently to recruit teammates who fit and can be comfortable with your organization’s culture, or merely putting fannies in seats?

In the same vein, it behooves us to sweat the details with respect to how professionally things are getting done. Are the phones answered, or does every call roll to voicemail? Are your people (all of them) adequately trained, and do they get that training at the right time, in the right way? In other words, are they competent? How do you know? Do your equipment and facilities look like they are used by professionals, or something else?

At the end of the day, wins and losses accrue as much on the basis of culture (habits and expectations) and professionalism (attention to the right details) as strategy and talent. Or, as a wise man once said, soft skills done poorly get hard real fast.

Your views as always are welcome.

*****
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, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

As a case in point, USA Today reported earlier this week that New York Jets owner, Woody Johnson will soon spend somewhere in excess of $160,000 for “workplace training” for young, virile, male athletes who act like young, virile, male athletes within the confines of their player’s locker room. Specifically, the training was mandated by the NFL after a post-game incident in the Jets’ locker room when TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz was, to use her words, “made to feel uncomfortable.”  Really… in a men’s locker room?

I’m all for legitimate reporters of either gender having reasonable access to players and coaches in an appropriate forum. That said, I’m confident that we’ll see offensive tackles wearing tutus at midfield before someone can “train” a bunch of half-naked 20-something year old guys to act like monks when in the presence of a not unattractive female. No, the NFL doesn’t have a training problem – they have a policy problem inspired by their slavish obsession with media attention, and a policy decision that there is effectively no place that reporters are not allowed to go.

We see the same thing in our more pedestrian organizations when:

1. An entire class or craft of workers is marched off to obligatory training because one or two knuckleheads can’t or won’t perform/behave at standard
2. A long time non-performer is sent to be “fixed” to avoid the necessity of their boss having a difficult conversation with them
3. Training is used to offset the impact of a broken policy or system

As a result, a lot of time, effort and money gets wasted.

Let’s try something different as we crank up the training machine. Rather than “spending” our training dollars, let’s invest them a little more wisely this time around:

• In areas where enhanced knowledge and skill really can make a difference
• In ways that are completely aligned with our espoused business strategy
• In a manner that allows us to measure progress, and hold both learners and trainers accountable

Maybe then we’ll get a little more bang for our buck, and won’t be as hell bent to work our way out of the next downturn by hitting the brakes on training and thus dumbing down the organization.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

*****
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, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Two days ago I sent a problem note to Comcast via their website about our recent experience with extremely slow Internet service. And, as usual, got a note telling me that, “We have received your e mail and thank you for using Comcast’s online email support. One of our Comcast customer support representatives will get back to you, yada, yada.”

A few minutes ago, I answered a phone call from Comcast. It quickly became apparent that the caller knew nothing about my service issue, but was intent on selling me a more “valuable” service bundle. About a half minute into her spiel when she came up for air the first time, I politely cut her off and declined the offer. Then, I told the representative about my service problem and asked if perhaps she could help me with that. “Oh, no sir, you have to call 1-800-COMCAST.” You can’t help me, I asked again? “No sir, you have to call 1-800-COMCAST.” Click.

Here’s a suggestion. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems of late that most organizations are heavily in “dumbing down mode” and thus hell-bent on communicating  and managing via an ever-increasing number of internal policies and rules. Perhaps we’re just too tired to think.

Though as recently as this morning, in a Fresh Milk article we have pleaded with leaders to avoid the perils of an over-moderated, under-led workforce, here’s a new policy that I think every (repeat, every) organization should adopt: No matter how it comes about, if you become aware of a customer problem, you own it. Translation: You are responsible for telling the customer that you will help them, finding the right person internally to deal with the matter, and then closing the loop with the customer. My guess is that customer service gets a lot better (from the customer’s vantage point) and the greater benefit just might be that everyone is reminded a little more frequently where their paycheck comes from. What do you think?

Now, as for Comcast, I’m still waiting.

*****
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, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Today’s economic environment leaves no room for risk-taking in the talent-acquisition process.  Employers simply cannot afford the costs of re-hiring (estimated to be 2 to 3 times the annual salary of the position).  Conducting limited, perfunctory background checks (e.g., criminal records) is insufficient due diligence for employers, because even in cases of embezzlement, many cases are never pursued through the legal system.  The losses that result from hiring employees without the benefit of checking their references are realized at every level of the organization—from outright employee theft to lost productivity and damaged employee morale and engagement.   Checking references must no longer be limited to senior level positions.

Because employee loyalty is at an all-time low, employers must hire people who stand a greater chance of fully engaging with the organization’s values, style, and strategies.  Will that frontline supervisor be able to effectively deal with the pressures of his/her job?  Will s/he be able to interact with the entry-level staff as well as his/her superiors?  Does s/he have the courage that your organization and the position requires?  History and past performance are still considered strong indicators of future performance, and it is only through a thorough and robust reference-checking process than an employer can gain insight into the critical aspects of what a candidate will bring to their organization.

The thought that references won’t talk is a myth.  When the right reference is contacted, and credibility is quickly established, references will participate in a conversation.  Interviewing references effectively is an art that is supported by clear processes.

Tips to Effective Reference Checks:

1. Maintain control over the references that are called.  YOU—the employer, not the candidate—determines who will be called.  Ask each candidate to provide information for his/her last supervisor or manager at each prior position, as well as their current contact information.  Today’s research tools make it possible for candidates who really want to work for you to locate these individuals.
2. Request email addresses for the references so the conversation can be scheduled in advance and the reference can allow ample time.  (At RefCheck^® it’s not uncommon to spend 20 to 45 minutes with a reference.)
3. Assign the reference-checking process to professional-level staff, so the reference can be engaged in a true conversation.  Particularly at the senior levels, references want to speak with their equals.
4. Do not adhere to a rigid Q&A format, which leads to limited responses.
5. Thoroughly document the conversation. Take notes as the conversation takes place and review the notes for completion at the conclusion.

Ms. Corkerton can be reached at:

P: 614-777-8844, ext. 12

E: zcorkerton@refcheck.com

Ironically, exactly 24 hours after the incident, I recounted it in a speech to a group of 150 HR professionals in Ohio. Most laughed and applauded as if they could well understand and perhaps associate with the desperate act. Hmm.

There is something else going on here, though that’s not as funny. With employment relationships devolving to the point of being totally transactional, trust and loyalty at their nadir, and a jobless economic recovery handcuffing people to jobs they stopped loving a long time ago, we can be virtually assured of decreasing worker engagement and productivity. That doesn’t bode well for an economy that’s still trying to climb out of a ditch.

Here’s a thought… Let’s enjoy the Steven Slater moment and get a few good laughs from it. We need them. Then, for the sake of the health (survival?) of our own businesses, let’s go to work seeking to identify those things in our operating environments that keep our people from doing their best work and make them just as crazy.

*****
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, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

While driving on I-75 en route to the ATL, a route that Ms. Sherrod knows well, what I heard on the radio caused me to flash back to a former life as an HR executive at FedEx.  Superimposing the Sherrod affair onto my own career, I could envision myself in the office of FedEx founder and chairman, Fred Smith, along with the operational counterpart to Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack. Even more vividly, I can hear Mr. Smith asking the operating exec, “What were you thinking?” and then, turning to me, “and where the hell were you?”  As one who gives his executives considerable operating latitude, pays them well, and generously funds HR initiatives, he’s well within reason to ask those questions, and to expect good answers. That is no less the case with our senior public servants, and so, I hope that Secretary Vilsack and the head of his agency’s HR function have had a trip to the White House, and been given the opportunity to answer those same questions.

It’s not hard to see how the Sherrod affair came to be. The obvious political maneuverings notwithstanding, we live and work in a sound bite world where speed of thought, communication, and execution (often just execution) reign supreme. Doing it better often gets trumped by doing it faster, resulting in the occasional train wreck. It serves as a vivid reminder of the sound advice given us by our mothers in our youth, with reference to crossing the street: Stop. Look. Listen.

In recent years, most HR professionals have struggled with the objective of becoming more “strategic.” What they are really saying is that they are trying desperately to earn a seat at the table, and to remain relevant in a world where meeting this quarter’s numbers, or just surviving to tomorrow pretty well trumps any and all concern for things humanoid.

With respect to our HR friends, for whom I have profound admiration, and who do a thankless job, one of the ways that we earn (and keep) that seat at the table is by finding a way to keep our clients, folks like Secretary Vilsack, from shooting themselves in the foot. We do it by working as business partners with our management team, adding value, weighing in on difficult issues, doing our homework, and certainly by imposing a business-like process whenever someone’s livelihood is in the crosshairs. We do it each time, every time, whether we think the whole world (and Fox News) is watching, or no one is watching.

With respect to our operating exec friends, the HR profession has grown immeasurably in talent and capability (coinciding too neatly with the time I left the business). You would do well to seek their counsel and to involve them (meaningfully involve them) in all of your critical business decisions. In case of doubt, just take a few minutes and replay the video of Secretary Vilsack humbly apologizing on world-wide television to Ms. Sherrod. Play… rewind… play… rewind… play. 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, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows