“Culture Builders Heed These Words…Givers Take All”

  By MikeCook | May 12, 2013 - 10:03 pm | Engagement, Health,Wellness and Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Talent Management
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The May issue of the McKinsey and Company newsletter is one I’ll be holding onto for a while, it has at least four articles that I know I am going to read…I do wonder though how we’ll ever read everything we want to, especially now that so much of it just comes to us because we asked for it.

Anyway, as I was saying, good stuff from McKinsey this month and among it all one piece in particular has captured my attention.  ‘Givers Take All: The Hidden Dimension of Corporate Culture is by Adam Grant. He is author of the recently published ‘Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success’, a book that seems to be getting a lot of attention from a business community that continues to struggle for answers on how best the attract, develop and retain the millennial generation.

Before I get to far let me ask you this; “It is Better to Give than Receive” … when was the first time you heard this adage? Maybe bible study class, maybe catechism, maybe your grandmother said it first? Of course…when you read ‘All I Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten’ by Robert Fulghum right? I thought so, me too!

OK seriously, the idea of giving being inherently a better way to live than taking isn’t brand new by any means. So why, when a Wharton School PhD. writes about it does business leadership suddenly sit up and take notice? I imagine for the very simple reason that in the economically driven business world we live in things don’t really catch on until they have economic impact. At work where many of us spend most of our adult lives, it is apparently not obvious that helping others without expecting anything in return, something most of us do without a great deal of forethought in our personal lives, is a wise way to operate. Doing anything for its own sake simply does not compute and is not necessarily even encouraged.

In his article for McKinsey, Adam Grant introduces us to a range of research that demonstrates that individuals and teams that operate from a helping context bring measurable benefits to an organization’s effectiveness:

  • enabling employees to solve problems and get work done faster
  • enhancing team cohesion and coordination
  • ensuring that expertise is transferred from experienced to new employees
  • reducing variability in performance when some members are overloaded or distracted
  • establishing an environment in which customers and suppliers feel that their needs are the organization’s top priority

Unfortunately, as Grant says…

“… far too few companies enjoy these benefits. One major barrier is company culture—the norms and values in organizations often don’t support helping.”

And who does Grant say we have to thank for this tradition of taking rather than giving? In his words…

 “All too often, leaders create structures that get in the way… many organizations are essentially winner-take-all markets, dominated by zero-sum competitions for rewards and promotions. When leaders implement forced-ranking systems to reward individual performance, they stack the deck against giver cultures.”

So once again “we have met the enemy and he is us” and “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” These are lessons we continue to learn the hard way and yet that seems to be the way we like it.

Fortunately Grant doesn’t leave us hanging on the question of how to bring about change in a business culture that is less than giving….

 “Creating  such a culture (Givers) starts with expanding performance evaluations beyond results, to include their impact on other individuals and groups.”

He describes three methods of giver culture building that any organization should be able to implement…

  • facilitating help-seeking
  • recognizing and rewarding givers
  • and screening out takers.

Grant provides several examples for implementation as well as his own suggestions on how to take steps to revolutionize cultures with taking histories.

As I had hoped as he neared the end of his article Grant concluded with a word to leadership…

“When it comes to giver cultures, the role-modeling lesson here is a powerful one: if you want it, go and give it.”

Now go out there and give em one for the gipper!

Collaboration: Lessons Learned from a Five Year Old

  By MikeCook | April 30, 2013 - 11:40 pm | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Relationship
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This past Sunday afternoon I found myself in the midst of a standoff with my five year old grandson, Miles. A few minutes earlier his mother had suggested that maybe I’d like to give him some help with a jigsaw puzzle that was partially completed. Both he and I thought this was a grand idea so we set to it.

I immediately noticed that while he had successfully located many pieces he had failed to complete the border. It looked like he had been focusing on the mid section of the puzzle. Here was an opportunity for grandpa to help! I began sorting pieces, looking for those that had the one flat side of an outer edge. Everyone knows that with jigsaw puzzles the most efficient approach is to complete the border then work toward the middle which I helpfully pointed out to Miles. He wasn’t nearly as excited about this information as I thought he would be but “Oh well, we do what we can!”

Within a few minutes I had sorted through the edge pieces while he continued to work the middle. I passed these over to him and he made the proper connection, always returning to working the mid-section of the picture.

Using my method things moved swiftly. Shortly thereafter I handed him what looked to me like the final piece of the border. He looked at it, turned it around in his hand and then declared, “Grandpa, you know I am the Puzzle Master.” I thought this was cute and replied that I knew he was masterful and had been doing a fine job. He continued, “I am the Puzzle Master and this piece doesn’t fit.” This struck me as odd; it was obviously the correct piece, so I suggested that perhaps if he tried the piece even though it didn’t look right it might just fit.  He gave me the first of several “looks” that would follow. He put the piece in, the edge was completed and he said “See, it doesn’t fit! I am the Puzzle Master and I say it isn’t the right piece.” OK, I was confused, here I was providing plenty of help and he was balking.

I thought about it for a moment. Maybe as the grandpa he only sees a couple of times a year my say so doesn’t carry a lot of weight. I decided to invoke the opinion of the one authority he always responds to, his mother. So I said that we’d have his mother look and if she said the piece fit it would override the Puzzle Master. After all, right is right, time was wasting and we had a puzzle to complete! This suggestion brought about the second of “the looks” from my grandson.

I asked his mother to come over, she did, immediately verified that it was indeed to right piece and went back to what she was doing. “Good”, I thought, “Now we can get on with the business at hand.” My grandson placed the piece into the proper place, gave me the third “look” and plopped his chin in his hand and started playing absently with the remaining pieces.

Someone needed to keep the project on task so I set about sorting pieces myself. As I found other matches I slid them over to my grandson and suggested where they might fit. He weakly replied that he didn’t think they would work so I turned them into their proper perspective and made the connections.

At this point my grandson sat back with a sigh and said, “Grandpa, I want to take a break…and I want you to take a break too!” OK then, I thought we were doing great but obviously finishing the puzzle was a top priority after all.

As we drove home I reflected on the puzzle incident. I was not happy with the experience and it didn’t seem that my grandson was all that happy either. What could have gone wrong? He had already completed quite a bit of the puzzle before I arrived, how had he done that without starting with the edge? Then it dawned on me, he had showed me the picture on the box several times, he was looking at the image on the box and finding the pieces based on the color patterns. This was a much more complex approach than I was taking, based on an entirely different set of criteria than I had been using, and he had figured it out himself. Geez! I suddenly realized that my idea of help was to show him the “right way” to get the puzzle done without asking him what sort of help he wanted from me.

As a manager you may have had this experience yourself when working with someone who reports to you.

Thinking back I realized that his mother had not said “help get the puzzle done” she had said “help you get the puzzle done.” Oops! Nice going Grandpa, rather than ask what was needed from me I assumed the value of my wisdom and experience and then proceeded to impose my will on my now unfortunate grandson. Oh dear!

Before getting on the plane last night, my reflection complete, I called the Puzzle Master and thanked him for what he had taught me.  He seemed to be glad that I had called but much more interested in playing Angry Birds Star Wars with his brother. And so it goes!

Maybe Your Organization’s Biggest Problem is a Failure to Address Problems

  By MikeCook | April 14, 2013 - 11:10 pm | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Relationship
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Clever headline, wouldn’t you agree? Yes, it is clever but at the same time it may be a profound statement of truth. Think for a moment about your working environment. Do you think your organization addresses all serious problems in a timely manner? Rhetorical right? So read on and see if where I am going makes any sense for your organization.

Webster offers this as one definition of the word “problem”…

 …an unsettled matter demanding solution or decision and requiring usually considerable thought or skill for its proper solution or decision : an issue marked by usually considerable difficulty, uncertainty, or doubt with regard to its proper settlement : a perplexing or puzzling question.

By this definition doing business itself would be included among those things in life we consider problems. What to produce, how to price it, how to market what we produce, how to get it to market, etc., etc., etc. All problems commonly accepted, studied and addressed in most businesses. Notice in the definition offered above there is nothing said about problems being something we should not have. In fact we seek out problems to be solved in order to create businesses. But these are most often problems we expect to have or ones we understand in business or that go with the territory being covered. You would not expect to hear a business leaders complain about the necessity of finding methods to sell products. We’ll call this problem type “ours” or “challenges” because they arise logically, at least to us, due to actions we take or circumstances we choose to be involved with.

Change of direction now…there are also problems that present themselves which we do not logically look at like something resulting from our actions, at least according to us. We’ll call this type “not mys”, as in not my problem.

One issue that has always been around in the category of “not mys” but has only in recent years become defined as a problem by management is employee engagement. As a problem it has begun to get a lot of attention, though not enough to make any difference.  Recent statistics from credible sources tell us that employers are spending $720 million annually on employee engagement and that represents only 50% of the companies who say they have an interest in addressing the issue. And as we all know even with this level of investment according to other recent reports …

“…almost two thirds (63%) of U.S. workers are not fully engaged with their work and struggling to cope with work situations that do not provide sufficient support.”                        Towers Perrin

 Maybe…when it comes to engagement we are working on the wrong things!

How about this? Here’s a list of problems I see that I think managers either fail to acknowledge or explain away as “not mys” and they have a direct bearing on levels of employee engagement. Ironically these are problems for employees and they see them as “not mys” as well; they believe them to be management’s responsibility. For employees they are incidents of cognitive dissonance and their persistence has a downgrading effect on employee engagement and actually works to counteract other attempts to elevate engagement.

  • Executive compensation way out of line with what employees in general are earning and attuned strictly to shareholder interests
  • Incentive programs that favor the few (certain levels of management) over the many
  • Ten plus years of asking employees to do more with less
  • Employees everywhere are working more hours for no more compensation, taking less time off and experiencing higher levels of stress
  • Failure to address performance issues in a timely manner, allowing subpar performers to continue working because qualified candidates are hard to find
  • When the going gets tough laying off employees, especially front line rather than or along with cutting management compensation
  • Technology is escalating the pace of change and altering the nature and structure of work itself, but the work environment and experience aren’t keeping pace
  • Companies continuing to shift costs and risk to employees, especially in the U. S. with its high labor cost structures
  • Employees, even at entry levels, are showing more interest in security and express doubts about their future in terms of retirement preparedness, career growth, and the rewards available to them for their efforts on behalf of their employers
  • Management’s myopic focus on cost management, complaining about lack of innovation but unwilling to invest in the unproven

 Trust me, these are all problems affecting engagement and as meaningful as anything else management has its attention on. They are almost all on the back burner if even acknowledged. They are also all a drag on engagement because despite the rhetoric their persistence constantly reminds employees that they are disposable.

 Is there any hope? There is always hope but hope usually proves to be the least effective means of dealing with problems. But at least it is free.

Are You Scuffling for Talent? Welcome to Geezer World!

  By MikeCook | April 1, 2013 - 2:39 pm | Diversity, Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Talent Management
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I have heard that recently a lot of companies are having trouble finding the talent they need . I would love to help them solve their problem but they seem to have a problem with me. I am 66 years old and am not looking for full time employment!

These days most mornings I am usually up between 7 and 8 unless it is the weekend and then I’ll sleep in until 9. I get up, head downstairs, feed the first cat, heat the water for coffee, uncover the parrot and scratch his head. Gotta scratch his head or he starts yelling!

Once the water gets hot I make a cup of coffee for myself and a cup of decaf for my wife, go out to the garage to bring in the other cat, (he has night terrors!) and get his breakfast then take the decaf upstairs to my wife where she has usually started her work day on her laptop while still in bed.

Back downstairs I check the morning news ~ usually three or four websites each day and maybe a favorite blog or two. Being on the west coast gives me the advantage of knowing that both business and politics are well underway by the time I get going so there is almost always something to entertain me at the start of the day.

By about 9 AM I’ve had a second cup of coffee and have begun the process of sorting through the email that has arrived by now. Usually there are about 25 new entries, most from various professional sites that I subscribe to, Inc., Fast Company, Forbes, Chief Learning Officer and others. I scan the subject lines quickly deleting the majority and saving the ones I’ll spend time with for later in the day. I handle the various notes from clients asking for meetings and sometimes I get inquiries to see if I am able to accept any new clients.

I understand there are more and more people spending their days like I do. The statistics I found on the internet stated that beginning in 2010 we were entering a ten year period where 70 million US workers were going to retire and only 40 million new workers are going to enter the workforce. I know we’ve been experiencing somewhat higher than usual unemployment but I expect that simply this shift in demographics will impact the unemployment statistic in a positive way. Of course that assumes that those of us who’ve been leaving the workforce are being replaced by people with equal talent and skills. The newer folks won’t have as much experience of course but eventually they’ll catch on, don’t ya just hope!

I still like a good professional challenge, but honestly I am not interested in full time work or showing up anyplace from 8 AM-5 PM five to six days a week. I don’t have to earn what I once did but I would like to be paid a respectful amount, something that reflects the value I can bring to a workplace. Often times I wonder whether an employer might be interested in having me as part of their team. I’ve asked around but find that more often than not employers are more interested in control of my time than they are in my productivity, even though I could probably produce in three days a week what some of their new people produce in a week.

I don’t need a job, I’d just like to do some interesting work and that’s a problem for most companies, I don’t fit. I told an HR manager recently that I thought I be interested in working in some capacity for at least the next five years. She wanted to know how she would sell me to her CEO if I was only going to be around for five years. I said, “Ask your CEO, him or her, how long they are going to be around!”

Look, I know the idea of hiring a bunch of people my age has its challenges, but you know what? … so does hiring people at any age. Be honest with yourself, is your company strapped for talent these days? And I mean talent, not just filling your vacancies. If the answer is “yes” you might want to consider the non-traditional workforce all around you.

I know I am not alone, the pool of people like me is growing daily and the opportunity is there for the companies with vision. The advantages should be obvious. The folks in my age group, call them geezers if you will, are likely not looking for full time employment, most don’t need benefits, we probably don’t need to be managed, we’ll do what we say we’ll do it when it needs to be done, we have organizational savvy and skills and respect is probably more important to us than money so we’ll be less expensive in the long run. Oh, yes, and we don’t have the ego needs of the younger people either.

Your job is to figure out how to utilize our talents when we don’t give a hoot about your pay grades, vacation policies or work hours. If you can deal with that, we might be able to strike a deal, and I am betting you would be the winner in the end.

To Listen Authentically, You Must Be Willing to Be Changed by What You Hear

  By MikeCook | March 24, 2013 - 9:58 pm | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Relationship
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A story appeared in the national news recently that for me had truly wide ranging implications. I suppose it depends on what you consider significant but when a prominent figure from one of our two main political parties changes a long and strongly held position on a subject that is controversial, I think it warrants some analysis not only on its own merits but for what the process offers in terms of transferable learning.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio recently announced a reversal of a strongly held position on same sex marriage. In case you’ve been living in a cave, he was an opponent of same sex couples being able to call or having their civil unions recognized as “marriage.” His historical positions, in his own words, were largely faith-based…

“…my position on marriage for same-sex couples was rooted in my faith tradition that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.”

Rob Portman is 57 years old. That means for quite a long time he has held strongly to beliefs that were not subject to modification and which held firm in the presence of what has no doubt been considerable social pressure to alter his views. And then something changed…

 “Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is.”

I know it is tough to create enough distance from some issues to be able to subject them to objective analysis much less extrapolate from the process and apply the lessons in other settings but bear with me please. Unless we are able to do so, it is hard to imagine much of anything new coming into our lives much less into our businesses and that is where I want to go with this dialogue.

For the largest portion of his life Rob Portman held to a belief that worked for him inside a chosen field of endeavor. For years his position had been reinforced by external sources allowing him to continue to hold to this particular set of beliefs without objective analysis; this despite growing evidence of a change in the marketplace of ideas. He had suffered no personal or professional consequences for failing to modify what for him had been a winning strategy.

In the days and weeks following his son’s revelation he Portman to struggling to reconcile his faith and this new truth that could potentially threaten their relationship. This might seem like one of those classic situations where both the baby and the bathwater were up for grabs, an either/or if you will. Rob Portman found a way through to a both/and position and no doubt his life and that of his son will be better for it. Now he states that his support for gay marriage is grounded in his conservative roots not in spite of them.

“We conservatives believe in personal liberty and minimal government interference in people’s lives. We also consider the family unit to be the fundamental building block of society. We should encourage people to make long-term commitments to each other and build families, so as to foster strong, stable communities and promote personal responsibility.”

Now see if you can make this jump with me. The central question I am winding my way towards is a parallel to what I see many business leaders facing today …what is so sacred in your beliefs about business, your business; the way things should be, etc., that you’ve not been willing to consider alternatives offered by non-traditional (for you) sources?

How would you feel if you found out that your failure to consider new ideas or information was the reason employees were not engaged in your workplace? Hopefully this thought is pretty compelling.

What if having your employees as committed, creative, energetic, passionate and accountable as you’ve always wanted them to be doesn’t have much at all to do with the pizza parties you throw each quarter or the atta boy/atta girl that comes with your fancy recognition program. What if it comes down to your willingness to consider their ideas thoroughly even when they seem to contradict what you have held to be true.

If you knew that it is some of your beliefs that stand in the way of the business environment you’ve always wanted to create, would you be willing to change your mind? Could you change your mind or do your beliefs mean more to you than what you say you’ve always wanted? Do you even know what matters to you most? Rob Portman found out first hand what mattered most in his life.

 

 

Is Struggle a Dirty Word? If You Plan to Lead You Best Make the Most of It

  By MikeCook | March 17, 2013 - 9:49 am | Engagement, Health,Wellness and Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Wellness and Engagement
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Life in general and certainly in business has its dark side. If we are in the game we are most certainly at risk to some extent. But we are told that’s where the learning is and to learn is to embrace the failure and the struggle associated with both our wins and losses…but who wants to fail much less talk about it. And the opportunity to struggle doesn’t exactly sound like an invitation to many of us. Do you know anybody who made the cover of Forbes simply because they put up a good fight?

So now we have a new book about the benefits of struggle and and it suggest no less than that there is an art associated with it. As it turns out it makes for pretty solid reading. What follows here is a short guest post written by Molly Page inspired by Steven Snyder’s new book  ‘Leadership and the Art of Struggle’  which was just formally launched the week of March 11th. I am half way through the book now and plan to make this a regular part of my coaching curriculum…

…Is struggle a dirty word?

We live in a culture dominated by positive psychology. Struggle has become something that most leaders want to avoid at all costs. Its perceived negative connotation is off-putting and even occasionally frightening.

Who really wants to struggle?

In his book “Leadership and the Art of Struggle,” Steven Snyder suggests that we all should.

Snyder believes struggle has gotten a bum rap. He suggests we have lost sight of its benefits and unintentionally placed roadblocks in our own paths. Our purely negative view of struggle is the result of a misinterpretation of popular positive psychology and also an inaccurate understanding of struggle itself. Snyder calls this the paradox of the positive.

To resolve the paradox leaders must first reexamine our understanding of positive psychology. We must understand that it has never suggested we ignore life’s challenges. Nor has it ever advocated a denial of struggle. That would be naïve and dangerous. Positive psychology is not a call for tunnel vision concentrated only on the good. Instead, it simply suggests we spend as much time focusing on our strengths as we do on our weaknesses. It is a call for equal attention but is often misconstrued as an elevation of one over the other. And it’s this misunderstanding, Snyder believes, that leads us to see struggle as undesirable and something to be avoided.

And that brings us to Snyder’s second step in resolving the paradox of the positive, a new understanding of struggle itself. It is time for struggle to be reconsidered and redefined. What if instead of avoiding struggle, leaders welcomed it as a necessary part of the journey?  What if we move away from stereotypical thinking and embrace the positive aspects of struggle? Snyder argues that struggle must no longer be seen as a symptom of failure but rather a path toward success. Snyder explains, “Instead of denying struggle, or feeling some degree of shame, savvy leaders embrace struggle as an opportunity for growth and learning, as an art to be mastered.”

Surviving struggle is a badge of honor. If navigated well, struggle can shape and grow us. It can be a teacher. A leader that emerges from a difficult challenge can be stronger, wiser and better prepared for the next trial. Snyder suggests, “Teaming the courage to confront conflict with openness to new learning and the energy of positive thinking can turn struggle into transformation, paving the way for accelerated growth and development.”

Snyder believes great leaders grow through challenge and adversity. He argues that open, honest discussion of these struggles will unlock leader’s greatest potential. In his new book Leadership and the Art of Struggle, Snyder shares strategies to resolve the paradox of positive. He challenges readers to embrace struggle and then recommends numerous tools and practical ways that leaders can implement his suggestions…

…Thanks Molly, so that’s the official line, must read, ground breaking and so forth, from the publisher of course. From me, this is a really solid effort, a worthwhile read and a book that should become a gift for developing leaders wherever you meet them.

 

“A Coach, a Coach, My Kingdom for a Coach!” : Coaches May Be Old News but Coaching is Forever

  By MikeCook | March 5, 2013 - 11:45 am | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Talent Management
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With apologies to William Shakespeare and Richard III…. Is it just me or has it been raining coaches in the business world for about the past fifteen years…and they come with certifications in case you need one, from all sorts of sources:

  • Coach U
  • Coach Inc.
  • Center for Executive Coaching
  • International Coach Academy
  • Etc.

Some of these programs are several months in duration, some offer ongoing support, some are available on-line and some even offer certification in as little as 16 hours! I guess the familiar saying, “Let the Buyer Beware” pertains no matter what the offering.

Coaches are now available on nearly every street corner and make up a large portion of the attendees at any local SHRM meeting or networking group. The rise of the coaches seems to be coincident with the proliferation of large-scale downsizing that swept through the country in the late-1990’s following the first wave of re-engineering initiatives, also known as “right sizing” our organizations. It has provided individuals a low-cost avenue to get into their own business, does provides a valuable service, can be tailored to support just about any lifestyle and it is a rewarding profession.

While I am concerned for the proliferation of coaches and the quality of their training I am more concerned for the continued absence of demand for coaching in general, most dramatically among many who ought to be involved in employee development, namely mid-level managers. And of course the coaches all want to work with executives assuming that’s where the big $$$’s are, and for the most part they are correct.

There are limits to everything in this world, why lessen the chances for accomplishment by trying to approach tough challenges without support? For business leaders…why let your primary employee developers struggle with the limits of their natural abilities?

As Americans I am afraid it is an affliction of our heritage. We have actually bought hook-line-and-sinker into the mythology of the self-made person or the ‘rugged individual.’ Asking for help, especially in the highly competitive environments of many of our commercial organizations has been/is often seen as a sign of weakness or insufficiency. These American myths persist despite the fact that any close examination of what might be interpreted as individual success can readily be understood as the talents or vision of any famous business figure being heavily complimented and supplemented by others around them far less visible but nonetheless critical to the success realized. As the English poet John Donne so rightly said several centuries ago “…no man is an island, entire of itself…”

It is easy to establish that there are plenty of coaches available and quality issues notwithstanding there are a goodly number of high-caliber coaches. However, this is a case of supply waiting for demand to catch up. There are undoubtedly numerous factors to account for the lag in demand  but I’ll venture that among them the foremost is the willingness to be coached, an openness to outside perspective and a recognition that anything truly remarkable or worth attaining will likely result from embracing the principle of inter-dependency.

For those among you that are up to something and might be ready to take the plunge into a coaching relationship I recommend a baby step to get started. There are today many fine coaches writing and making their insights, experience and wisdom available free of charge in the form of their regular blogs. A quick review of “leadership blogs” on the web will yield an array of possible thinking that might appeal to you. It may be that you are more of a humanist or perhaps more a rational bottom line thinker. A review like I am suggesting will quickly give you an idea of who thinks along lines that might be in parallel with your own perspectives.

In addition to blogs simply reading a variety of leading thinkers can stimulate you to realize what it is you are looking for. I can’t tell you how many times I had an itch but didn’t know where to scratch until I started searching. Just the simple act of looking helps you get out of your inertia and develop new vantage points.

If you think you can handle or benefit from coaching or if you like variety in your messaging try the “buffet” that goes by the name Human Capital League. Once you get an idea of the type or coach you are looking for it is likely that there is someone close to home that can adequately provide the service you are looking for.

  • Can you identify your reluctance to asking for help or seeking a personal advocate to keep you at the top of your game? It will be something simple, look for it first as an emotion, then as a statement of fact, a rule you have adopted about what it would mean if you needed help, something you have come to by reaction without reflection.

 

Seeing the Miraculous in the Everyday World May Change Your Experience of Work

  By MikeCook | February 19, 2013 - 10:45 am | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Talent Management
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Maybe you’ve heard this story before. I heard it for the first time today.

A hunter walks into a field one autumn morning. Alongside him is his newly acquired full pedigree retrieving dog. This is their first hunt together.

Within minutes they arrive at the duck blind and the hunter takes his position. Soon a small flock appears. The hunter rises up and quickly dispatches a single duck. His retriever leaps from the blind and bounds across the surface of the water and returns with the fallen duck. The hunter, not believing his eyes, shakes his head and decides that he was just seeing incorrectly in the early morning haze. Again he takes his position in the blind and within minutes another flock approaches. The hunter fires his gun and his aim is once more true. The young hound leaps from the blind and again dashes across the water’s surface to retrieve the fallen fowl.

Now in complete amazement the hunter calls over a comrade from a nearby blind and asks him to watch with him as yet another flock approaches. Again he fires and again his aim is true. Yet again the young dog dashes across the water’s surface to retrieve the fallen duck. The hunter turns to his friend and asks him to explain what they have now both just seen. “Well”, the other hunter replies, “Too bad it looks like your new dog doesn’t know how to swim!”

Each day we arrive at our places of work and each and every day our colleagues dance across the water’s surface and we fail to see the miraculous in their actions as well as our own.

Webster’s has this to offer as one definition of the term “miracle”

“…an accomplishment or occurrence so outstanding or unusual as to seem beyond any capability …”

A few years back one of my employees asked why I always said “Thank you” when she turned over an assignment as requested. In return, I asked her why she thought it was so unusual. She said that in her working experience the only time she was used to hearing a ‘Thank you” was when she did something unusual and here I was thanking her for doing her job as expected. How sad I thought.

My response surprised her because she, like many in our places of work, was used to walking on water and having it be taken for granted. “First off” I asked, “Do you like hearing the thank you?” She said that indeed she did and each time she heard it she was reminded that I was counting on her to get done what had been asked of her. “I do depend on you”, I said, “And I never take for granted that you get done what has been asked of you. You have commitments to more than just me; you balance those commitments and manage your time so that everyone gets what has been promised as it has been promised. In my view that’s a big deal and worth noting.” She asked whether that wasn’t what she was being paid for so why the added expression of gratitude?

That was an interesting question and I had to think for a moment. “Your salary is for the results you produce and I am thanking you for what it takes for you to deliver those results. I know you are not a machine. From the time you say yes to something I have asked for to the time it gets delivered, you have no control over what else will take place that you’ll have to deal with. Honestly I am amazed that you make it to work virtually everyday, on time, without regard for the weather or whatever else you may have to deal with between the time  you leave here each evening until you return in the morning. If I step back for a moment and consider that same equation for everyone else that works here in our small company, I’d say that what goes on everyday is miraculous, a daily miracle, and mostly we act like it is normal. I say it is anything but normal.”

Statistics complied by Bloomberg BNA for the year 2011 for employers employing nearly 750,000 people showed an average daily absenteeism running between .6% and 1.0% for the twelve month period. You might say, “Well what would you expect in such an economy, I’m surprised it was that high?” Or, like me, you can stand in amazement at the accomplishment of those nearly 750,000 people managing the complexity of their lives and being over 99.4% successful at delivering themselves to their places of work everyday for an entire year. And then there’s everything else they do once they arrive!

I wonder if you said ‘Thank you” more often if you’d need that fancy szmancy, high tech, expensive recognition system you’re considering installing?

“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle. I prefer the later.

Albert Einstein

The Free Market at its Best…Google vs. Samsung…This Will Be Fun to Watch

  By MikeCook | February 12, 2013 - 3:08 pm | Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Philosophy in Action, Talent Management
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Say what you will about a capitalist system, it definitely has its shortcoming but it produces some amazing outcomes.  In my view most of what we might deem as the shortcomings of the system are not so much features of the system itself but rather the “players.” The “players”, those capitalists themselves who are not responsible for the privilege such a system provides them or for the power it makes available. More accurately they are the gamers of the system who seem to feel it is they who are entitled rather than recognizing themselves as natural winners in a game they were born play and have learned how to win. But I digress…

Every so often we get to see something truly exciting in the market economy, something that makes us pay close attention, takes sides, chose a favorite, place our bets and marvel at the creativity that is displayed when the best of the best go head to head. To be sure there will be winners and losers along the way, what fun if there were not, after all this is capitalism. However, as spectators and consumers we are most certainly all going to win.

I am talking about the fact that a challenger has finally emerged to Apple’s dominance in smart phones and tablets computers. And not just any competitor, Samsung a global giant that has deep pockets and is clearly in the game for the long haul.

Not since Apple blindsided RIM (Blackberry) and the rest of the tech world in mid 2007 has the Cupertino,CA icon had to take any other competitor as seriously as they now will need to take Samsung. The two companies are currently the only ones turning a profit in the highly competitive smart phone marketplace with Apple currently maintaining a commanding 72% of the earnings but Samsung already at 28%.

What is truly classic about the battle that has shaped up is that the two companies could not be more different in the way they strategically address the market place. In the New York Times from Monday February 11 tech writer Brain X. Chen does a brilliant job of describing the strengths of the contenders in his article titled ‘Samsung Emerges as a Potent Rival to Apple’s Cool’. Chen states…

“Where Apple stakes its success on creating new markets and dominating them, as it did with the iPhone and iPad, Samsung invests heavily in studying existing markets and innovating inside them.”

Will there be an eventual winner? I am not sure it matters or will be anything other than a matter of interpretation. What is more likely is that market share will be passed back and forth as both companies get better at what they do best and other players join in the fun.

The battle between the two market leaders surely will stand in marked contrast to what we are faced with daily as we watch and hope to see excellence as it unfolds but instead are treated to the spectacle of the drone like pursuit of maximized shareholder value, i.e. executive compensation, that has been passing for the market economy for much of the past decade.

There is something inherently engaging about watching companies like Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Sales Force and a few others who are playing for keeps that continues to describe the promise of what the market economy could truly be like if the game was set to contribute to the customer rather than merely turn a profit.

I wonder what it’s like to work in a place where everything is on the line every day?

Should Maximizing Shareholder Value Ever Really Be the Goal of Business When 175,000 Jobs are On the Line?

  By MikeCook | January 30, 2013 - 7:58 pm | Engagement, Health,Wellness and Engagement, Managing for Engagement, Talent Management
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When management decisions motivated by self interest jeopardize the entire economy of a region, we may indeed eventually see the scenario as a question of ethics…

There is no doubt in my mind that the story that continues to unfold at Boeing with the debacle of the “next big thing in air travel” is destined to become a classic management case study in business schools around the world.

Earlier this month Steve Denning offered a compelling two-part analysis of the continuing saga of Boeing’s management and what has become the nightmarish legend of the Dreamliner 787. Denning writes for Forbes and is considered a leading light within the community of proponents for a shift to 21st Century Management Practices.

In Part 1 subtitled “Seven Lessons Every CEO Must Learn”  Denning asserts a related set of “must learns”…

  • Use the right metrics to evaluate offshoring
  • Review whether earlier outsourcing decisions made sense
  • Don’t outsource mission critical components
  • Bring some manufacturing back
  • Adequately assess the risk factors of offshoring
  • Adequately value the role of innovation

These six lessons stem from a single major mistake, a commitment to maximizing shareholder value. He puts it bluntly when bottom lining the management errors that have taken place at Boeing over the past several years.

 “Why did all these smart, highly educated people make all of these mistakes? The root cause of these errors is a focus on the dumbest idea in the world: maximizing shareholder value….”

Denning then goes on to chastise Boeing management for the “the destruction of vast quantities of long term shareholder value.” What he doesn’t say in this article and the question I want to raise here is this: when the actions of management put the livelihoods of thousands of employees at risk as well as the associated ancillary services that form an interdependent economic community, might we not really talking about a question of ethics? Are we afraid of the question?

If you have lived in a community that suffered through the unstoppable decline of a major employer’s business such as what occurred in Rochester, NY, as I have, you are acutely aware of the consequence of such events. When they are somewhat understandable, the pain is as real but you can get your head around the “why” and have it all make sense in the context of business and the inherent risks and eventually get to some sort of acceptance. Such was the case with Kodak which was undone by a technological shift of unprecedented proportions with the rise of digital photography and imaging. Kodak management simply did not have an answer to digital that would have allowed them to maintain either shareholder value or employment at anything close to historic levels.

I strongly suspect that in the case of Boeing and the manufacturing of the 787 executive compensation formulas tied to maximizing shareholder value drove many of what seem now like questionable (i.e., naive  maybe even stupid)  decisions to outsource and offshore. We have all heard of or seen numerous examples of management decisions that led to layoffs without apparent consequences for the decision makers. OK, sometimes these are simply bad decisions based on poor judgment or maybe even honest mistakes based on misunderstandings of the business climate. In the Boeing case major force reductions have yet to happen but we are still in the “all hands on deck” phase of this story. However, I am raising the question of this being something other than simple management error or poor decision making.

Eventually, I think we are going to review the succession of failures at Boeing as a set-up to fail ,fueled by unfortunately designed executive compensation schemes, that could have been avoided and a serious issue of corporate malfeasance that will likely never be fully vetted from this perspective.

An unrelated article from the Drucker Institute, also appearing in January titled ‘The Relevance of Organized Labor’, offered an insight from Peter Drucker that may well apply for those of us who continue to stand idly by while situations like this threaten the livelihood of our neighbors and other communities.

Some years back, when asked by labor leaders for his view on the future viability of organized labor, Drucker was not enthusiastic. Among factors working against organized labor’s viability he made this observation:

“ … union members, by investing heavily in the stock market through their pension funds, were not merely employees but also owners, creating conflicts of interest.”

 

I would suggest that it is the nature of our relationship to our own economic interests both personally and as a nation that has created a grand conspiracy of conflicting self-interests that guarantees that the Boeing 787 debacle will not be the last of its kind. Until and unless we own our own culpability for looking the other way while ethics are disregarded and self-interest dominates we have not much of a future together.