Earlier this year, Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based quick service restaurant chain, became the unwitting object of a firestorm following President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy’s direct answer to an interviewer’s question about his views on marriage. The interview was in the context of the ongoing national debate on same-sex marriage, spurred perhaps by contributions reportedly made by the Cathy family foundation, Winshape (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinShape_Foundation) to some not especially LGBT-friendly entities.

The refreshing part of Mr. Cathy’s answer, regardless of content, or anyone’s position on the matter, is that it was direct, and without obfuscation. And, in view of Mr. Cathy’s straight-laced image, it was about as surprising as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pick for the 2012 Super Bowl.

Nevertheless, outrage ensued with some fresh meat, ‘er chikin (as the company’s bovine advertising mascots spell the word) thrown into the fire. While many accepted Cathy’s right to express views different from their own, others were not as tolerant. The mayors of Boston and Chicago even threatened to block the company’s development in their respective cities (apparently they had all the jobs they needed), until the ACLU, hardly a bastion of conservatism, reminded Their Honors that they really couldn’t do that. It seems that issuing government sanctions in response to protected speech kind of tramples on that First Amendment thing, and so they dialed back the rhetoric.

Since neither Mr. Cathy’s views on marriage, nor ours, are especially relevant to our work, or the reason you subscribe to this newsletter, we’ll spare you the discussion. But we’d like to highlight a few lessons that we can all walk away with.

1. Authenticity Means Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin

Leaders who aren’t comfortable in their own skin tend to become petty tyrants. Frankly, we see too many leaders fall short of their peak because they spend precious time every day twisting in the wind, seeking polished, popular positions on the subject du jour – positions that don’t necessarily jibe with their inner beliefs, if they even have inner beliefs. The end result is messy, because none of us is a good enough actor to pull it off for very long. If nothing else, our people have become good consumers of content, and they recognize bad acting when they see it. For further reinforcement on this topic, just rewind some of the video from the recently completed U.S. election.

2. Say it Loud, Say it Clear

Our work with high performance organizations and leaders of choice (they can usually be found in the same place) suggests in the strongest possible terms that these organizations, Chick-fil-A being but one example, have a crystal clear sense of who they are, where they’re going, and what they stand for. They aren’t bashful about it, and it doesn’t change overnight with their socks. They know that not everyone is going to like their products and services, or the way they do business. And they certainly understand that not everyone’s going to be happy, productive, or successful working there. Accordingly, they take considerable pains to recruit and retain people who are able to work comfortably within their value system.

This is not, repeat, not, a wink and a nod to employment discrimination. The leaders in these organizations know that discrimination on the basis of irrelevant factors is bad form, bad for business, and generally indefensible in legal terms, so they don’t do it.

If your company is a tough place to work, say so, and be very explicit in explaining why and how. The same advice applies to you as a leader. That said, if you can’t consistently find, retain, and engage enough truly great people to work for you, you might want to make some changes.

What Chick-fil-A does seems to work, and work well. The company is growing like a weed and has always enjoyed a stellar workplace reputation, and, not coincidentally, is perennially rated among the very best in customer service for Quick Service Restaurant chains. (Witness recent articles in Fast Company and The Los Angeles Times.) Their annual employee turnover rate has consistently been a fraction of the industry’s triple-digit figure. There’s no indication that this year’s controversy has made the slightest dent in that outstanding record.

As we point out in Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk (and in all of our books), a company’s decisions about how it treats its customers, and its employees matters, and matters a lot. Not so much for social or moral reasons, but because it drives business outcomes. The market is a wonderful thing. Our latest group of “Contented Cow” companies have 70 billion reasons (as in dollars) each year to remain committed to their people-oriented employment cultures.

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 Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, published by John Wiley & Sons, is now available. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Have the rumors started stirring up your office employees about impending lay-offs? If so, you as a leader have your hands full. Lay-off season is one of the most stressful, not only for the employees, but also for the people who manage them. You will undoubtedly hear a number of inquiries from your team, people may start abandoning ship in fear of losing their position and productivity will likely decline. Still, there are projects to finish and deadlines to meet, and you need everyone on board if you and your company will succeed.

As a manager, you have a job to do, and in order to keep your current position you must help your team through these tough times. Here are a few tips to help.

• Stand up to the plate as a leader– When times get tough, leaders lead. When your team is facing a challenge they will turn to you for support and motivation. This is your chance to shine and pull everyone back together. This will not happen without you putting your leader hat on and wrangling the troops back in to focus on the job at hand. As lay-off season approaches you must keep your team motivated and centered even in spite of the life changing risk they face.

• Do what you can to lighten workloads – Part of being a leader is to understand the position your employees face. This means you will have to face the reality that your team is in a difficult position and will not be as productive as they are when they are at their peak. To help, lighten their workload so that they have less to stress about and can do what tasks are assigned to them exceptionally well. This may not always be easy to do as there is a lot that needs to be done but it is important to help wherever possible.

• Keep everyone organized – There is already a sense of chaos permeating the company as people scramble to do what they can to prepare for the future one way or another. Because of this, you need a solid organized approach to keep everyone together and on the same page with the work that needs to get done. To do this well, create a streamlined system so that everyone can stay in the loop as much as possible. This will help to increase accountability for the assignments delegated out as well as to stay as transparent as possible with what needs to be accomplished helping your team to stay organized.

• Lend a listening ear – This is understandably a challenging time within the organization and some people may not be able to handle the challenges they face as easily. Do your best to answer questions as honestly as you are able to and listen when people need to vent their concerns. This will help your team to feel more confidence in the company, even if they are unfortunate enough to be laid off.

• Take care of yourself too – You are still human and even if your job is not on the line you will still feel the burden of the lay-off season. Do your best to take care of yourself as well as your employees. If you are not healthy or are stressed, your employees will feel it and will lose confidence. This can have a direct impact on the quality of their performance which can ultimately have negative effects on you. For the sake of your team, do what you need to so you can stay motivating and helpful to your team.

When layoff season approaches it is important to step up as a leader and provide your team with a positive spirit. This will help make the days less challenging and still allow the organization to move forward with the work at hand.

About the Author:

Patrick Del Rosario is a Filipino business and career ninja. He works at Open Colleges, one of the pioneers of Online education in Australia and one of the leading providers of human resources courses and cert iv training and assessment. Aside from blogging and being a business ninja, Patrick is an aspiring photographer. If you want to feature his writings on your site, connect with him at Google+ or drop a line at patrick (at) oc.edu.au.

In the spirit of full disclosure, mine is a British-American family. My wife was born and raised in Scotland, and I’m the only member of our household who does not hold a British passport. We like the Royals around here and agree with most Britons that the monarchy is a positive force and should remain in place.

I know that many Americans, indeed many others around the world, don’t “get” the monarchy, and therefore don’t value the institution. That’s fine, but if the Brits are happy with the arrangement, then who are the rest of us to bring it down?

Over the years, the Windsors have weathered rough patches, many of their own making. Today, as the U.K. and the rest of the Commonwealth celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – 60 years on the throne – 80% of Brits polled express approval for the monarchy, Queen Elizabeth, and the royal family. No other head of state, including our own, even comes close.

The reason it works? The Queen herself. Here are a few Elizabethan traits that I think we as leaders could all do well to emulate:

• The Queen knows when to keep her mouth shut. She’s well aware that she was endowed with one royal mouth and two royal ears, and she uses them in proper proportion. She’s met every week, since 1952, with one of her 12 Prime Ministers, and by all accounts, she’s the one who does most of the listening, and less of the talking.
• She represents constancy and consistency of purpose. In an age when too many leaders change their “mission” more often than they do their socks, the Queen’s purpose has always been, as she said on her 21st birthday,  “service”.
• While anchored in constancy of purpose, she’s not been afraid to change with the times. The monarchy has morphed. Rules and policies have been reviewed, and when deemed archaic and no longer useful, they’ve been abolished. Charles married Camilla. The Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned. And in October of 2011, a centuries-old rule was scrapped, giving royal males and females equal succession rights to the throne. When was the last time you asked what rules and policies of yours need to be scrutinized and possibly scrapped? And the monarchy hasn’t let social media pass it by. You can like the monarchy on Facebook, and follow it on Twitter.
• The Queen is 100% devoted to service. At age 86, she still attends more than 400 functions a year and supports more than 600 charities. She’s one of the hardest working CEO’s I know of, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
• She knows how to correct her mistakes. The Queen’s not perfect, and she knows it. When she famously misjudged the people’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana, she appeared on worldwide TV in an honest appeal for understanding. People will forgive a host of flaws in their leaders, especially when those leaders take time to explain and understand the needs of those they lead. The institution recovered, indeed rebounded from the misstep, if today’s popularity is any indication. The Queen never forgot the lessons associated with Diana’s death, and it shows in how the monarchy conducts itself today. The next time you get it wrong (if you’re like me, you won’t have to wait long), take quick action to get it right again.
• She has a sense of humor. All those who know her talk about it. The Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted as saying, ” “I found in the Queen someone who can be friendly…informal… extremely funny in private – and not everybody appreciates just how funny she can be…I think we’ve been enormously fortunate in this country to have, as our head of state, a person who has a real personality.”
• Finally, she knows what her job is – and what it is not. She said in her Christmas broadcast of 1957, “I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.” The best leaders know what to do – lead – and not to interfere where they can’t bring value.

What Queen Elizabeth II has done, and done so well, in her 60 years on the throne, is to hold a diverse group of people together, through good times and bad, people with a wide range of political views and perspectives, to imbue them with a sense of identity, of imperfect unity, that somehow works, with varying degrees of success. That, I think, is what a leader does.

She must be doing something right. On Sunday, more than a million people braved a cold London rain to stand outside for hours to honor Elizabeth and her 60 years of service. What other CEO’s might hope for a similar tribute?

Long live the Queen.

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 Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, is due to be released by John Wiley & Sons on July 3, but is available for pre-sale now. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

A core part of every leader’s duty, regardless of rank, is having the wisdom and courage to sever the relationship with someone whose performance or behavior either persistently or grossly fails to meet expectations. It’s what we get paid to do. Failure on our part to either notice the condition or take decisive action represents a fraud against the person, their teammates, and the organization as a whole.

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

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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 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

Click the cover to buy!

There is a new cow, ‘er book in the barn, and we want to tell you about it. But first, a little background.

Fourteen years ago we published our first book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Our purpose in writing it was to create the first definitive but useful treatise on the real, tangible bottom-line benefits of treating employees right. Among other things, the book contained an exhaustive business case analysis of companies that have excelled in this fashion relative to their peers, coupled with how-to prescriptive advice for leaders who want to replicate those results.

Compared to the average business book, it has done well commercially, especially for a work that was self-published by two guys with modest bank accounts and no big name publisher behind them. That owes in large part to a loyal following of thousands of “Fresh Milk” readers (subscribe now, if you haven’t already), organizations that have hired us to bring the message to them in person, and others who believe in our work. We remain grateful to you every day.

About nine months ago we were approached by John Wiley & Sons with the idea of doing another book, specifically a re-write of the original. Though flattered by the offer and the prospect of working with the best business book publisher on earth, initially I wasn’t wowed by the idea. My thinking was that the principles of leadership are timeless (they really are), and we’ve made our point – let’s move on. It was only after a couple of in-depth conversations with my co-author and business partner, Richard Hadden and the folks at Wiley that they were able to pierce my sometimes thick skull with the realization that, whereas leadership principles may be timeless, the context within which organizations and leaders are trying to survive and apply those principles is different – radically different today. Indeed, it would be nearly impossible to connect the dots between the world of 1998 and the one we live and work in today.

The external environment notwithstanding, work itself has changed in material ways. The rules and the deal are different, the field of play is bigger, the pace exponentially quicker, the goalposts narrower, shareholders less forgiving, and the talent more elusive, mobile, cynical, and mercenary. An entire project or career can be launched or terminated with 138 characters and an RT.

One aspect of workspace physics remains rock solid, however; the precept that focused, fully engaged workers produce more and better stuff, yielding better outcomes. Motivated people move faster; they always have, and always will. So, how does an organization, how does an individual leader apply those precepts in a vastly different context? Our newest work, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, addresses this specific issue. I’m very glad that we went ahead with the project. We’re proud of it, we’re delighted to be partnered with Wiley, and we think this is our best work yet. But we want you to be the judge.

With a brand new and even more compelling business case, fresh, contemporary examples and exemplars, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk addresses head on:

• the trust gap that business leaders (all of us) must overcome,
• the process of communicating (really making meaning) with a workforce that is as distracted as it is diverse,
• how to recognize and reward great work without having access to a pile of cash,
• the realities for employers of the ongoing health care saga in the U.S.,
• how to let your people know that you really care,
• reskilling our management workforce after a four year training hiatus.

You’ll hear about heretofore unheralded exemplars like:

•  LaRosa’s Pizza, where work process issues are reworked in order to make staff and guests alike a lot more satisfied
• Plamex, the Mexican division of headset maker Plantronics, where thanks to workplace weddings (yes!), employees are a lot more than “engaged”
• Alaska Clean Seas, where they’ve taken workplace safety to a whole new level
• Toronto’s Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, where they feel that fans shouldn’t be the only ones having fun
• Rackspace, where recruiting is really a contact sport

Like its predecessors, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk is an easy, high protein, unpretentious, slightly irreverent read. It is available NOW in both paper and digital formats at your favorite booksellers. Click HERE for a link to a free sample chapter, and HERE to buy the book from your preferred bookseller.

Please, buy the book in your favorite format, read it (a great vacation read), and tell others about it. We’d be delighted if you would take time to post a review at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, or both. And, as always, if you’d like for one of us to deliver the message in person at your management or association meeting, our dance cards still have open dates. Just get in touch.

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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 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