Yellow Ties, Blue Cactus and Snarls

It's Filter-Free Friday™ again - a day when you turn off the natural inhibitors that prevent you from speaking the truth and start telling people how you really feel. The intent is not to hurt, but to help. Whether it's a business, organization or an individual, today is the day you get to say what is on your mind in an effort to help people make a better effort.

I had supper last night at the Blue Cactus in Ottawa after being referred by friends.

I went to www.bluecactusbarandgrill.com and was able to make my reservation on-line. I picked my exact time and number in our party and received a confirmation email within a few minutes. Then, a half-hour prior to my reservation, I was sent an email reminder of my reservation. Brilliant customer relationship management. (This is simple software that any doctor's office, dentist's office, hair salon or any place that offers appointments could use. It is simple and allows your clients to touch you when they're free - and you don't force them to sit on hold while telling them that their call is very important to you.)

The restaurant decor was outstanding. Neil, our server, was friendly and knew his work. The food, however, was kind of ordinary. Neil brought me a feedback card to get my thoughts - mostly compliments except for the kitchen staff who must not taste their food before it leaves the kitchen - or chef has a very dull palate. Regardless, I gave my opinion, my name, address and phone number. I have nothing to fear. I didn't condemn, nor did I become abusive or hurtful. I simply offered an opinion - an honest opinion - in an effort to help them serve their patrons better.

So, that guy that wears the same soup-stained yellow tie to work every day - he gets a polite suggestion from you that drycleaning might be in order. The clerk that snarls through serving you gets asked if you have done something to offend or irritate them. And today, you say something to the person who always seems to be cheery and helpful - something you have failed to do but never have.

It's Filter-Free Friday™. Speak the truth. Stop being ordinary. Find your Greatness.

--
Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Creating An Oasis of Greatness In A Wasteland of Mediocrity
Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

It's Filter-Free Friday™

Several months ago I proposed the notion of a "Filter-Free Friday™" - not a day that you rip the filters off of your smokes and go "cowboy" but a day when you turn off your "I can't say that" filters and you say exactly what is on your mind at work, at home, at the restaurant, standing in line at Starbucks. Basically the notion is that if you can think it, you can say it.

I am starting to see some references of Filter-Free Fridays™ on the Internet these days. The idea is starting to pick up steam so, it being Friday and all, let's remind everyone how Filter-Free Friday™ works.

Filter-Free Friday™ is the day when you stop worrying about what people will think about you and actually say what is on your mind - in a respectful and non-hurtful way.

• If your pasta at lunch today is salty, tell your server it's salty - it's not "fine."
• If you have putting up with a co-worker's bad body odor for days, today is the day you say something - not in front of others to embarrass the poor soul but pull them aside and make a comment about how others are affected by it and too afraid to say something.
• If someone parks poorly encroaching on a second space and you can see them doing it, give them a gentle reminder that they might want to straighten their car a bit so others can use the next space.
• If someone gives you exceptional service at Starbucks (or wherever) today, say something to them.
• If a co-worker has gone long enough without praise that you think is deserving, say something even if you're not the boss.

You get the idea don't you? Stop saying nothing and start saying something. The purpose behind the idea of Filter-Free Friday™ is to tell the truth in a respectful and non-hurtful way. The purpose is to make bad service better for the next person, to offer hope and encouragement when someone does something right, to turn off the filters that stop us all from accepting ordinary and mediocre when it could have been great and to encourage people to start telling the truth instead of swallowing and internalizing it.

Everyone deserves to receive something better and we can all use a reminder that we could do better. Filter-Free Fridays™ is designed to stamp out the word "fine" as a response to, "how was everything?"

We'll start this little experiment with one day, Friday, and see how it goes from there. Maybe you might get used to doing Filter-Free Fridays™ everyday.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

What If You Don't Speak The Language?

The summer of 2005, I spent 5 weeks in small-town, rural Quebec in a French immersion course learning the language. With my high-school French as a base and a lifetime around my French-speaking relatives, I built my vocabulary quickly. Then there was Jean-Louis, whose house I shared. We would converse each night for at least an hour. In week one, I understood maybe 5% of what he was saying. At the end of week five, I was conversing with 95% accuracy.

But I will never forget that first week where 95% of conversation was over my head.

Starbucks is another place where newbies get all nervous at the counter because they don't speak the language. A "venti, skinny, double-shot, extra-hot, no foam, no whip, caramel macchiato" runs fear through the veins of newbies not wanting to be embarrassed when they order a "medium coffee."

P'shaw. There's no such thing as medium because a tall is a small, a grande means large but is the medium size and a venti is Italian for "twenty" and refers to the 20-ounce sized cup - a large. Then there's the coffee. C'est confusant.

How about sending a courier package? Do you speak "courier?" Did you know that "height X width X depth" divided by 194 will give you the dimensional weight - the billable weight of your package - not the actual weight? And that the formula for calculating brokerage, duty and taxes varies but not based on weight or contents?

Are you speaking your language or the language of the people you serve? Take the time to educate clients in how your industry works. Speak plain language. (IT guys are famous for not getting that one.)

Build your relationships based on clear communication and trust, then you can build on that to bring people up to speed. Organizations and people of greatness make it easy for customers to follow them and they don't embarrass their potential customers or make them afraid to do business with them by using jargon.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Raving About the Continental Breakfast

The hotel clerk handed me my room key and then a coupon for a free continental breakfast the next morning. The previous three nights I had stayed in a hotel that included a full, hot breakfast buffet of scrambled eggs, sausages, toast, oatmeal, cereals, bagels, etc. After being treated to the hot buffet for breakfast, the continental breakfast seemed like a cheap, half-hearted effort.

There was a time when a free continental breakfast was fashionable. Now, customers expect their hotels to make a fuss over them. A continental breakfast seems like the very least a hotel could do.

In fact, here's where the market is going and what other hotels are doing:

• The Hyatt Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona offers guests a margarita upon check-in.
• The Gansevoort in New York and Turks and Caicos offer guests a Sony Reader Digital Book for the length of their stay.
• Opus Montreal offers guests Xboxes and PlayStation in their room because packing these can be a pain.
• The Zetter in London boasts an interactive guide to local restaurants, bars, clubs and more - all through the room TV - as well as 4,000 music tracks.
• The Crescent in Beverley Hills leaves a loaner iPod in every room loaded with music.
• Seven hotel in Bangkok lends you a mobile phone preloaded with all contact info for recommended restaurants and bars in the city.
• Doubletree still offers a hot cookie upon check-in (a little thing but a deliciously nice touch).
• Hotel Palomar in Dallas will offer you a goldfish in a bowl as a companion for your stay.
• Toronto’s Hazelton Hotel offers a pillow menu including the Therapeutic Siesta Body Pillow and the Snore No More Pillow.
• The Esperanza in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, will place a painting or sculpture of your choice from the hotel’s collection in your room upon request.
• At the Four Seasons Hotel Washington, you'll get the loan of a Kindle, featuring 80 different newspapers from 15 countries at the breakfast table.
• The Whatever/Whenever service at W Hotels around the world includes free services like staff running errands to get your favorite perfume or foreign newspaper.

So how is that continental breakfast tasting right now? Doing the bare minimum is not how an organization achieves greatness. What was once a nice perk years ago is well below ordinary now. I mean honestly, would you rave to your friends about the continental breakfast? What is your organization doing to add value? How are you separating yourself from being ordinary and mediocre? Become the standard that everyone else follows. Find your greatness.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

When Board Members Don't Pull Their Weight

When you give your commitment to join a board, committee or volunteer organization, is it because you have deep convictions for the project or are you doing it to give the appearance that you are more important than you actually are?

Charitable societies, social projects or community prosperity initiatives all require brain trusts and people to follow through on decisions, ideas and commitments. All too often, we see people who initially show excitement and support for a project only to lag behind and blame their busyness, schedule or various other commitments to other boards, committees and social projects.

People who sit on volunteer boards can be categorized as either heroes or zeros. The heroes make no excuses for their involvement because they find the time to just get things done. Zeros, however, want to give the outward appearance of caring about something but their level of care is evident in their participation. Zeros are aptly named because other than attending the meetings, their output is a zero.

It's one thing to be involved and to make your commitment to the project you choose to be involved with. It's quite another thing to give the illusion of being involved only so you can use the name of the humanitarian effort to advance yourself, not your project.

Volunteer organizations have a culture just like regular business. As volunteers, you are allowed to fire other volunteers who are not advancing your cause. In fact, if a board member is not advancing the cause by claiming to be too busy to do more than attend the meetings, then he or she is dragging down the cause. Separate yourself immediately from laggards who are "using" you to advance themselves. That board member is taking the space of someone who would be willing to do the work. Get rid of the roadblocks. Sometimes that means removing people.

If you're not prepared to participate fully to elevate your cause to one of greatness, then you are standing in the way of a group of people making a difference. And you become the reason why nothing changes.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Friday Is Employee Recognition Day

Friday, March 5, 2010 is Employee Recognition Day. Now you might think that a day like this is kind of cute and meant to be lighthearted but it's not a really serious thing. That may be true, but then so is Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Try not to take those two days seriously and see what happens. You would never dishonor your mother on Mother's Day nor your spouse on Valentine's Day if you want to have peace and harmony at home.

Think of Employee Recognition Day the same way. If the employee knows that it's Employee Recognition Day and no attempt is made by management to recognize them, you might as well have forgotten your spouse on Valentine's Day. You will have created a bigger chasm between employees and management.

Yes, there is the argument that you don't need a special day to recognize your employees and you would be right. But you don't need a special day to recognize your sweetheart or your spouse but it seems to be the only days of  the year that many do honor them. So we have this day to force the laggards to get with the program and show their gratitude. It is a day designated to REMIND managers that they have a staff who do their work without a lot of recognition: managers get so wrapped up in attending endless (and pointless) meetings that there is little time left to say "thanks" to their people.

So this Friday, show your Attitude of Gratitude by springing for pizza for the staff, buying a $25 Starbucks card for each member of your team or giving a heartfelt, handwritten card personally prepared for each member of your team. Do NOT hand out awards that day. Friday is Employee Recognition Day. That means all employees are recognized - not just your superstars.

If you want to build a culture of engagement in your organization, you will recognize your people on Friday. Then, make a decision to make the first Friday of every month, Employee Recognition Day. One simple change in your corporate attitude will spread the word that yours is a great place to work. More people will be lining up to work there - good people - not just the ones who are available.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Solving Social Problems

How would you go about improving a sales culture of a small business? You would get all staff to buy into a few new ideas, to focus their attention on ways of turning each customer interaction into a potential sale and to encourage each other to improve their sales ability.

How would you go about improving an environmental culture in a multi-national, publicly-traded company? Likely the same way as a small business just on a larger scale.

So why, if it is possible to improve a company's culture by focusing on the problem and connecting it to the desired outcome, why don't we think we can solvethe social problems that exist in the towns and cities we live in? Why do we throw up roadblocks when it comes to improving the volunteer culture in a small town or the help-the-homeless culture in a small city or making sure every child in every school in a large metropolitan area has enough to eat during the day?

It's not that difficult. It just requires three things: focus, desire and effort. So why do so many of our communities have so many problems? My guess is that the "effort"part is missing.

If it seems like work most turn their backs. Probably the same people end up complaining that nothing is getting done. Those who are making the effort and getting it done are too busy to whine about things not being done.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Why "Help Wanted" Is Not A Good Sign

Coming out of a recession, the last thing that should be cluttering the sides of roadways are "Help Wanted" or "Now Hiring" signs. Here's why: with unemployment rates the highest in years, you would think that people who are out of work would be taking the initiative and applying for jobs that are not being advertised - at companies that they would WANT to work for - not just those that happen to have an opening. If the job-seekers have not taken the initiative to be proactive, are these really the kinds of workers you want working in your organization?

Also, your "Help Wanted" sign sends a message to job seekers and your competitors that you don't have a lineup of people who are clamoring to knock down your door and come work for you. That means that your corporate culture is not attracting the best and brightest minds or you would be flooded with resumes all the time and never have to place an advertisement or a roadside sign.

Do you think Google has a road sign of neon red letters which reads, "Now Hiring?" No, of course not. Google has thousands of applicants everyday trying to join their company. And they have a full complement of HR administrators who sift through the thousands of resumes submitted daily and make contact with each of them. They even tell you on their web site that if you can differentiate yourself, you have a good chance of getting an interview. Does your HR department operate like that?

If your HR department is only accepting resumes when there's an opening, find a new HR director. You don't get the best and brightest minds when you advertise a job opening. You get whomever is available. That's not how you build a strong culture that attracts more of the best. It will simply attract more of the available - you know, the people who couldn't find work elsewhere.

Half of the North American workforce are actively looking for new work in 2010 (according to Right Management Survey results). Just because there may be no openings today, doesn't mean you can't start a conversation with potential candidates today.

Oh, and if you're a job-seeker and you see a big "Now Hiring" sign or big ad in the newspaper on Saturday don't get terribly excited. It probably hasn't got much of a culture of innovation or leadership or people would be busting down the doors to work there. It'll probably be just like the last job you had - kind of mediocre.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

7 Ways To Detect Fake Job References

News that job-seekers are now buying fake references in an effort to jump ahead of deserving candidates struck me as being the lowest of the low. Even the slimy name of the company helping these liars makes my skin crawl - CareerExcuse.com. These guys, for money, will build a great reference for you, create a fake past employment history, create a fake company with accompanying phone number, fake web site, fake logo and even a fake LinkedIn profile.

This is a site for people who don't work well with others, are jerks on the job, get fired often, show up drunk or high and put their co-workers at risk or who have done criminal acts while on the job. In other words, this is a blantant attempt to avoid accountability and personal responsibility.

How popular is this site? Well, they aren't taking any more subscribers at this time because they are full. That means thousands of job-seekers are lying their way into companies and organizations as we speak. Thousands of organizations are falling victim to unscrupulous job-seekers and their accomplices. Possibly, organizations will be stolen from in short order: recruitment and training time, training budgets, deserving candidates and expertise.

But, HR Directors can unite and fight back. Follow these 7 strategies to ensure that liars and cheats are NOT infiltrating your organization and rotting your culture from the inside-out:

1. Build a network of real people on the ground who can check addresses and business licenses to ensure that the companies are real before you accept the reference at face-value. Fake companies don't have real business licenses and real addresses. Google search the address. Google search other businesses in the area and call a business across the street or in the same building to see if they can see the sign on the building from across the street and if it really does exist.
2. Spread the word. When you discover a fake business and/or a fake reference, let your network know about it immediately. Hold nothing back. You would like to know if the business is a fake before you hired wouldn't you? Well, so would your fellow HR Directors.
3. Don't stop checking after the candidate has been hired. There may have been enough window-dressing to keep you distracted while a fake reference made its way through. Follow up monthly while the candidate is still on probationary period and tell the candidate up front about your plan.
4. Stop placing so much emphasis on the reference. If an HR Director is following potential candidates on social networks long before they ever get close to hiring, they will discover the truth and not rely solely on a piece of paper.
5. Track the candidates on social networks like their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts and look for things out of the ordinary. Watch how the candidate interacts with others and messages he or she may leave on the walls of others.
6. Watch for job titles that don't make sense in the context of the organization. Question someone who was "director of personnel" for a five-employee company or "vice president of production" for a service organization that doesn't manufacture anything.
7. Trust your gut. If something seems hinky, it probably is. Ask the candidate to provide any personal particulars of their former workplaces (or fake workplaces) like how many worked in the department, the receptionist's name, the name of their favorite co-workers, the name of their co-worker's dog, spouse's name, co-worker's golf handicap, etc. Liars are never prepared for questions like that and get very nervous when asked.

I look at it this way: there are some things that past employers won't tell you (because they are afraid of lawsuits).  So take the offensive. If you have just discovered an employee who falsified his resume, fire him and sue him for the expenses incurred by recruitment and training. And don't forget to sue the accomplices like CareerExcuse.com. Make them feel the pain of consequence too. A good dozen or so lawsuits ought to shut down their motivation to continue to lie. It also sends a very strong message to your employees that you will not stand for lying. A great way to foster a culture of honesty is to toss the liars.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

How Managers Can Ruin Culture

Three middle managers who worked for the City of Calgary were discovered to have been making money on the side using City technology (email) and contacts and contractors. This information was discovered by audit of the department. A few others were found to be visiting gaming sites on company time and using the City email account to make money while off on disability.

Management is not a right but a privilege. Those who have been elevated to management need to lead by example. It's hard to do when the manager is obviously devoid of scruples, ethics and morals. How do people like this get promoted?

These managers need to be fired immediately. If you don't, you risk giving your own organization a black eye. Being afraid to do the tough thing is exactly how corporate cultures rot from the inside out. If the leaders are corrupt, they will corrupt culture. Those who are easily swayed will come to believe that this sort of  behavior is acceptable.

Fire those who can't tell right from wrong - especially if they are in management. Then, gladly pay the legal bill to get rid of the offenders. It will be much cheaper in the long run once you send a message to your people.

If you want to create a culture of Greatness, stop thinking "ordinary." Nothing gets swept under the carpet. Everything is dealt with. Everything is talked about. Everything is in the open. Set a standard for your people to rise to. They will.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Savvy Shoppers Are Kicking Your Butt

This week, I went looking for a specific item, an AV cart for my office, but didn't know the name of any stores that would carry what I wanted. For the office supply stores, it is a "special order" anyway. So why not just save a useless trip to the store (only to be again disappointed) and instead just order it on-line - like they would at the store. So I Googled.

I didn't bother with opening my copy of the Yellow Pages because, well, the information in the Yellow Pages is from last year - and besides, there are no prices - and no pictures of the specific item - and no updates - and no way to check if it is in-stock - and no info on new stock - and no way to see their web site - and no interactivity - and no way to compare against others - and no video showing how to use the product - and no recommendations - and no reviews from customers - and no pictures of the storefront - and no interactive maps with directions. And businesses still spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars monthly on their Yellow Pages ad for basically a billboard on paper that only gets seen when someone needs your product immediately and is willing to haul out a big book and you hope they can find your category.

I search on-line. I am a Baby Boomer with no fear of technology. Today I know the name of a great kitchen store because I've read some great reviews on it. Today I know to NOT deal with my neighborhood flower shop because they're out of business - caused by poor service that I discovered on-line. Today I know which restaurants are great, which car dealers to avoid, which hotels have the best view, which second-hand store has that classic guitar I've been looking for and also that people, no matter how great the review, will not put their trust in a hair stylist that isn't recommended by a friend or neighbor. I might use the Yellow pages at 2 in the morning if I wanted a pizza - but then maybe not - unless I were in a strange city.

If you are using the Internet to do your homework before you buy, wouldn't it stand to reason that your customers are doing the same thing? You've got to be on-line and on-line needs to be one of your primary marketing strategies. You can probably forget that big, flashy Yellow Pages ad and go with a simple free listing in the book with your web site address included. Then, make sure you are where everyone else is already gathered - on-line. Besides, if your customers already know your name, they'll find you in the white pages - not the Yellow Pages surrounded by all of your competitors.

I bought the AV cart, not from a local company, but from one in the USA. They had the best web site, the best selection, outstanding pricing, free shipping to my front door (even to Canada) and it was in-stock today and would be shipped immediately. Add to that the fact that their web site was so easy to navigate, didn't ask me to set up an account but automatically set one up for me (with user name and password) once I keyed in the credit card info, gave me a tracking number for my shipment, had hundreds of testimonials from over-the-top satisfied clients who rated each product individually ... and ... they also said "thank you." And I think they meant it.

Stop being ordinary. Start being the standard to which your customers become raving fans and your competitors bristle. Change your Attitude about how you do business. Your customers have just as much knowledge as you do. Don't ever treat them like you're doing them a favor. You're not.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

How To Excel When Business Is Down

Jeffery Gitomer, perhaps America's top sales trainer, said yesterday, "When business is down, it’s likely morale is down. Invest in attitude training for every member of the team FIRST. The best way to get more sales is by creating more friendly and human interaction. The best way to gain loyalty from existing customers, and get more sales (the surest path to survival and growth), is by making service IMPROVEMENTS, not service cuts."

When business is down, there is greater competition for fewer dollars in the marketplace. My audiences always seem amazed to hear that 51% of buyers buy "Attitude" factors like staff, friendliness, approachability, ease-of-business, after-sale service and follow-up. A smaller percentage buy from you because of product knowledge.  

More people buy your Attitude than your knowledge. Pay attention to that. The companies who will be successful when times are tough are the ones who have the right customer-focused Attitude. A buyer expects you to have product knowledge but the competitive edge goes to organizations that address Attitude factors.

Attitude also happens to be tied for second as most popular criteria on job performance reviews: first, quality of work followed by Attitude and productivity. Attitude finished ahead of teamwork, goals, customer service and skills development. Why then do most organizations spend the majority of their training dollars on teamwork, goals, customer service and skills development if the top three criteria for how you judge your people aren't even in that list? When times are tough, you're wasting your money if you're not addressing Attitude.

45% of workers feel "work" is the biggest source of stress in their lives. That's about half of your staff who hate coming to work because they get stressed. Great Attitude to build a successful organization on.

Your Corporate Culture is nothing more than a collection of prevailing Attitudes in your workplace. You will never, and I mean NEVER, improve your culture without addressing Attitude. Without addressing Attitude, you will be never be more than an ordinary, mediocre organization. To go to a "Greatness" culture requires you to do something that none of your competitors are doing - like, change your attitude about Attitude.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture
JAR4DXQC2YZ5

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Whiny Complainers and Pointless Meetings

According to survey results, the average manager spends over seven hours per week sorting out personality conflicts among staff members. In addition, that same manager can spend anywhere from 20% to 80% of his or her time in meetings too.

Let's work the worst-case numbers. 80% of an 40-hour week is 32 hours spent in meetings. Add another seven hours per week spent sorting out personality conflicts among employees who can't seem to get along and you have one hour left each week for a manager to get some work done.

Hmm, seems to me that the least productive member on-staff is the average manager.

If these numbers hit close to home for you, then I would suggest that you're doing management all wrong.

How could any manager be involved in meetings for 32 hours each week and be a productive member of the staff. Asking a manager to attend that many meetings is a waste of a good salary. Let your managers do some work.

And managers, if you're sorting out personality conflicts for the same few people bringing up the same few issues about the same few co-workers who annoy them each week, then get rid of them. People who should be putting their nose to the grindstone but instead put their noses in other people's business are a drag on productivity.

I agree that workplaces work best when everyone gets along. But some people don't want to get along. They just want to complain. If they want to complain, let them complain about being unemployed. The longer you let the whiners hang around, the worse your company culture will get.

With that one hour per week that you have left, find a way to get rid of the annoyances like whiny staff and pointless meetings. Start hijacking your own schedule. Change your Attitude and the way you do things.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Where's Service In A Tight Economy?

It's no secret that this recession has hurt many businesses. There are only a handful of businesses who are having, or have had, a banner year over this past 12 months.

That means that more businesses are fighting for fewer dollars from fewer customers in the marketplace.

That last statement begs the question: so if there are more businesses fighting over fewer customers trying to win a larger share of fewer sales, then where is the increased customer service experience you would expect to see in a tight economy?

I'll tell you where it is: it was eliminated (cut) with all of the other so-called "wasteful" programs that organizations felt they could do without as mediocre organizations made cutbacks and sat on hoards of cash hoping to weather the storm. Unfortunately, most organizations think that Service is something to be addressed by only their Customer Service department - when, in fact, Service is an Attitude, not a department

Ironically though, 80% of senior executives have reported they would use this recession to improve their competitive position (Bain & Company Survey 2009). Has your organization done anything about your customer experience over the past year? Hmm, then you must be one of the 20% who aren't doing anything about it (or the other 80% who are simply blowing smoke about re-tooling in a down economy). Service is an Attitude, not a department.

80% of senior executives believe that their companies are delivering an exceptional customer experience (Bain & Company Survey 2005). Only 8% of their customers agree. Why is there so much delusion at the top? Because senior managers believe that by training their Customer Service Department using the same trainers and same training models that churns out the same mediocre service of every other competitor, that somehow it's good enough. "Good enough" is mediocre - not great.

88% of companies view Corporate Culture as important as Strategy for business success (Bain & Company Survey 2009). So why then are 60% of North American workers actively looking for a new job in 2010 (Right Management Work Force Survey 2009)? They're leaving because they feel abandoned by their bosses which creates a terrible corporate culture - the same culture that 88% of companies apparently view as important as Strategy. They work in a culture of "good enough" which obviously isn't good enough to keep their people.

The numbers don't add up. Organizations are becoming so out of touch with their customers that they think they know what is right for their customers and employees but in reality, until you create a two-way dialogue, you will never know. It's arrogant to think you know what is best for people without asking.

There are too many sides not talking to each other - and that makes for a corporate culture that sucks.

The difference between a mediocre culture and a Culture of Greatness is seven distinct Attitudes. Here's a 7-minute video overview of the Attitudes that make organizations "Great."


--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Comparing Corporate Culture to Homelessness

How is it possible to fix a corporate culture that is good for employees, clients, customers and shareholders? Why would you fix something that doesn't need fixing - not improving - fixing. You wouldn't fix a culture that is working and giving you the results you want would you? You wouldn't feel the need to fix a culture where employees are productive, happy, service oriented and a culture that attracts the best talent and more customers. In fact, you would encourage more of the same to get more of the same. You would build on what you have to go up to the next level. You would move forward - not backward.

A culture that works is the result of a strategy that works. Culture is not the strategy. Culture is the result of strategy.

So if your culture sucks, don't blame the culture - blame the strategy that gets you the culture. Remember, culture is not the strategy. Culture is the result of the strategy.

Let me illustrate: homelessness is not the problem - it is a result of the problem. People end up homeless through a long-term series of choices and circumstances. You see, no one can have everything going for them on Monday and suddenly wake up homeless on Wednesday. In the same way, you don't have a productive and happy workplace on Monday and suddenly a culture that sucks on Wednesday. Nothing happens overnight.

Can you fix homelessness overnight? Sure. Rent each homeless person an apartment. Problem solved - for now. But over time, many of those same people will end up homeless again because homelessness isn't the problem, it is the result of choices. If you don't address the choices they are likely to repeat. Change the choices and you change the results.

Culture works the same way too. Culture doesn't magically shift overnight. You can fire your entire staff and start over and your culture would no longer suck - for a while. But unless you address the long-term processes, policies, management and attitudes, you will end up with the same sucky culture before long.

In the same way you have sales targets, every organization needs to have culture targets if they want to attract the best talent, retain their good people, lower turnover, raise morale and increase customer spending and numbers of loyal customers. None of it happens by accident. Ignore your culture and it will end up sucking over time. Pay attention to what you want to go right.

If the turnover rates of employees and customers is high, your culture sucks because the underlying attitudes in your workplace suck. Culture never improves by ignoring the contributing factors. Morale never improves because you demand it. It changes because you address the contributing factors.

A culture of greatness is the result of a strategy of greatness. If you don't develop a strategy of greatness then you will, at best, end up as just another mediocre organization whose people could care less about their work and their results. The choice is yours.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy To Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Are You Beaten?

Just prior to Christmas, I was engaged in a conversation with an elegant lady - the owner of a sheep farm.

"You had better be prepared to laugh at yourself," she said.

"If not," I added, "then you'll be the only one not laughing."

We both broke out in laughter. 

Change your Attitude. Quit taking yourself so seriously. The times may have been much gloomier but there's daylight on the horizon. Lighten up and get back to work.

Sure, running an organization is serious work but it doesn't mean you have to be a humorless dolt while you're doing it. Enjoy your work - but don't make it the bane of your existence.

And make sure that your people get that message too. Enjoy the work. Be thankful for your job. Have an Attitude of Gratitude for what life sends your way. And, at the end of the day, smile for goodness sake. It makes you look less beaten down by your work.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Managing By Hug or by Handshake

Do you shake hands with your mom or do you hug her? What about your siblings? How about your spouse? Your kids? How about your close friends? What about your employees?

I suppose we were on a roll with hugs until the employees question huh?

So what is the differentiating factor between offering a hug and a handshake? Perhaps it is this simple: a hug is reserved for people we care about and have feelings for. Everything else would be a handshake.

Managers, do you not care about your employees? I mean, is your corporate culture one of faceless people doing a job or is your culture one of only hiring people who matter to do work that matters? That's the difference between a handshake and a hug.

If you treat your employees as "handshake" people, you will attract people who view their work as "just a job." But if you really value your people, are grateful for their performance and diligence and care about them as people, you will attract people who value their work, are grateful that you chose them and will reward you with performance and diligence. They will take ownership of their work.

People who feel valued and cared for outperform all others by 20%.

A Culture of Greatness is created by managers who know the difference between a hug and a handshake. You don't actually have to hug them - just make them feel like you care enough about them.

If your managers can't do that, then get new managers. The world is changing and your attitude is out of touch with reality. You had better get with the program or you'll end up attracting the employees that no one else wants - you know, the "handshake" people.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Leadership Fad Has Created A Culture Crisis

Too many people want to be perceived as being at the forefront of their niche so they will use the word leadership to describe just about anything that will help them make a few bucks. It's sad really, that the word leadership has been sold out. Authentic leadership, servant leadership, reflective leadership, thought leadership, absolute leadership and transitional leadership are nothing more than vacuous terminologies of self-importance in a desperate attempt to carve out a money-making identity that no one else has yet exploited.

Truthfully, this preoccupation with the leadership fad is so last year. It is time to get your head out of the clouds because it's about to rain - hard. Corporate North America is headed toward a corporate culture crisis in 2010 because, in spite of all of the leadership books and all of the courses available, no one has actually been leading.

The truth is, you don't become a leader in a few days or weeks in exchange for money. (If you need proof, go find out which leadership course Winston Churchill, JFK, The Dalai Llama and Ghandi enrolled in and also find out their passing grades.) So while marginal managers have been off trying to re-shape their personal brands from dolt-manager to leader-of-minions, they have been forgetting (or ignoring) their work: managing. And now because of it, workplace culture is crumbling.

Right Management's recent survey results show that 60% of North American workers will be actively seeking new jobs in 2010. Another 21% are actively networking to see what's out there before they decide to update the resume. That's a total of 81% of North American workers who are not happy with their workplaces. Why aren't they? Because while the economy was crumbling, managers weren't managing and weren't responding to the very real concerns of their people. They were too busy pretending to be visionaries who were above that icky business of managing.

That's what happens when no one pays attention to the very people who make the whole business of business work. When people feel let down, culture follows. And people will quickly exit a crumbling culture. And who was supposed to be looking after the culture? The same people who were trying to getting a passing grade in leadership courses.

North American organizations are about to suffer the largest workplace exodus in decades due largely to, you guessed it, a lack of real leadership.

Your need to be seen as a "leader" has been overshadowed by your inability to lead during tough times. You may have passed the course but you have failed the test. 
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Fire The CEO To Shift Culture

Fritz Henderson is gone as CEO of the "New And Improved" General Motors. He was on the job only nine months. Had he done anything wrong? Not really. His removal was due to one simple reason that far too many companies succumb to: complacent culture.

It's hard not to feel sorry for Mr. Henderson, who had little time to prove himself. But his removal was the right move. He is a GM lifer, and job one at the company is to change a management culture.

Once asked about the culture at GM, Henderson said, "It's fine. In reality, it's the only culture I know." Which was precisely the problem. If you're going to try to be different or going to try to shake things up, then you need someone at the helm who isn't a product of the culture that you're trying to change.

I believe it was Einstein who said that you'll never solve a problem with the same thinking that created the problem.

If you're going to to attempt to shift a culture dramatically, it will rarely happen with the same faces running the place. You can make culture shifts gently keeping the same senior management but to do so effectively requires a shift in the senior management's communication, involvement of lower levels of management and inclusion of front-line workers.

Sorry, but you can't sit in the ivory tower and hope things on the ground are going to shift by decree. If you want to institute a culture shift, you have to first shift the attitudes of the employee. Once you can get a buy-in from the employee, only then will you get lasting changes in your culture.

GM wasn't getting that so Fritz is gone. What about you? Are you near the top thinking everyone else's attitude needs to change except yours? The answer to that question might explain your culture.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

When Workers Hate Their Bosses

When workers hate their bosses, you can't always openly tell. Some have disliked their bosses from Day 1. Others learn to increasingly disrespect their bosses and begin to shut down over time - eventually arriving to that point where they actually, in their minds, resign from the job. They end up doing just enough to not get fired.

Now before you go thinking that as long as they continue to do their jobs all is OK, let me clue you in. The levels of employee motivation have tangible ramifications for your organization:

• Rates of theft will rise.
• Quality of work will drop creating more defective products.
• Work accident numbers rise.
• Turnover and absenteeism both increase.
• Customer service scores drop.
• Profitability of the department drops.

If you've got any of these issues, then you've got a group of workers who have become disillusioned with their immediate boss. People who shut down like this don't have it in for the company (in most instances), they have it in for their immediate manager. It's not the corporate culture that irritates people over time, it's usually an immediate supervisor. Once an employee loses respect for their boss, good luck getting them motivated and engaged again.

Stop buying the excuses of department managers who always have an excuse for why theft is up, safety incidents are up, reports are late, turnover is high or why so many people seem to be sick. They're sick alright - sick of their boss.

Act quickly when you see the signs.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

When Middle Managers Blame Upper Management

Upper management isn't perfect. They are humans just like their middle-management counterparts. Just because upper management doesn't seem do the job as well as they could doesn't mean that middle managers can just give up, throw up their hands and blame upper management for their own sub-par performance. Where is accountability? In spite of what your organization does, if you have personal values and ethics, you're supposed to plow through the difficulties and model to your staff what resilience looks like.

C'mon folks, sure it's never perfect no matter where you work. And if it's so painful being in middle management, then get out of it and go do something else. This blame game does nothing but hurt corporate culture.

Contrary to public opinion, upper management does not create the culture, the workers do. Culture is nothing more than a collection of attitudes. If everyone thinks the job sucks, the culture will suck. Add to that middle-managers who encourage blaming upper management - not by their words but by their actions - only makes the culture worse.

It's so easy to complain about how bad it is in middle management. And it is tiresome that people simply accept the attitude of blaming someone or something else for their own shortcomings. To blame is to choose to be a victim of your circumstances. You know for a fact that you're better than that. So be better. Take a stand. Set a standard. Ask for a heart-to-heart with a decision-maker but stop the blame. It's counter-productive and it is actually disengaging your employees.

Middle-managers are measured by their department's engagement and productivity. Productivity and engagement go up when blame goes down. You have no control over what upper management does so get over it and get on with the work you're here to do. 
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Bad Management Creates Disengaged Employees

Employee engagement is already a big enough challenge. And as many solutions as there may be to fixing the employee (since it is widely believed that it is the employee who needs to be engaged - after all it is called "employee engagement"), I believe that an employee will focus and engage when the external forces are right. That means, if there is poor engagement in one department over another, you likely have a management problem. Your managers are disengaging the very people you want to be engaged.

Here's what I mean. A well-meaning and engaged employee shows up to work each day and is constantly pestered by:

• Unnecessary meetings,
• "can you come into my office?"
• "what are you doing for lunch?"
• too many surveys,
• talking loudly outside the office or cubicle doorway,
• random verbal announcements (can I have your attention for a minute),
• Christmas party planning,
• managers who really take the MBWA (Management By Walking Around) far too literally,
• and more.

Add to that the chatter of co-workers, gossip and useless social planning meetings and you have a recipe for, at best, a four-hour workday of productivity. Each interruption requires an employee to have to collect his or her thoughts and re-focus on the original task.

Look, I'm a man. I understand that we're not the greatest multi-taskers so why are you interrupting? (Yes, I know the ladies are snickering here.)

Interruptive and ego-driven managers cause attrition to rise. Want to find your own company's worst offenders? Check your own company's attrition numbers by department. The highest attrition usually means the worst managers.

People don't abandon a good manager; a great boss. People leave lousy, awful, terrible and inept managers.

So if you want to engage your employees, give them a manager that encourages engagement. If you've got high turnover in one department, stop listening to the excuses from that manager and do your own due diligence, before you lose more good people. Change your attitude and engage yourself in solving a recurring problem.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Why People Leave Their Jobs

People don't leave the work. They rarely leave the work. Contrary to what you might think or might even hear from the employee who chooses to leave ("this job sucks") it isn't the work that they're leaving most times. They leave the rest of the staff, the managers, the people and the culture - which is largely created by the people. Its almost always a people issue when people leave.

Only 12% of people who leave a job for another job leave for more money. (A survey of managers thought the number was 89%. Oops.) 88% of workers end up leaving because the job was less exciting than advertised, their manager turned out to be a jerk, there were personality conflicts or the culture didn't fit. Everyone of those reasons for leaving is "people" created.

So if you're trying to figure out why your attrition numbers are high and your retention numbers are low, it's because of your people - the rest of your people. They're creating a culture that doesn't work, which gets managers promoted that shouldn't be, which creates personality conflicts and turf-wars which means you have to over-promise your job excitement/reward levels to try to get people to come and work for you. That means that your fibbing will be found out, someone will leave, someone will have to pick up the slack in the short-term, some people will get angry and frustrated because the culture is lousy and they'll end up leaving too.

Are you catching on here yet? It's an Attitude thing. You need to fix it before you lose more people.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Training - Killing Time or Filling Minds

Professional development courses that play like Kindergarten class having you build newspaper towers, run scavenger hunts or other useless games are not courses you should be paying big money for nor taking them incredibly seriously. It might be fun and the facilitator might have some lame "creativity" excuse but training is not play time - unless you work in a toy store. Professional development is serious. Do you want people who are more adept at the job or someone who is more playful?

The sad truth is that many of these play-date activities have made their way into so-called "leadership" courses - not to mention "team" building. The people in your company are looking to their leaders to lead - not play when the economy tanks or when sales drop or when your competition surpasses you.

Trainers, with little else to offer in the way of substance and learning, are incorrectly teaching you that it's OK to play. Look, I'm all for blowing off a little steam now and then and getting monotony out of the way but why do you have to pay someone to have your people play with blocks or dollar-store novelties or sticky notes or voting each other off of the island?

Just going out on a limb here: do you think that this playtime trend in training has anything to do with recent survey results that show workers waste 2.09 hours a day on the job? I'm just saying.

Let me offer a really solid piece of team-building, corporate attitude and culture strategy: stop making all of the decisions unilaterally. Give your team a real organizational problem or issue that is affecting your organization right now and let them come together and solve it. They will. In fact, you will probably be surprised at how good they are at it.

In the meantime, building paper airplanes or gluing new pictures to a dream-collage are not going to make you or your people any more creative or successful. It will not improve your corporate culture or the ability of your salespeople to sell more, your customer service people to serve better or your managers to manage better. A one-time creativity exercise does not magically unlock the brain's creativity for eternity as it applies to problem-solving in the corporate environment.

The truth is, most of the training involving arts and crafts, hugs, personal drawing, paste or chanting together really may only have about an hour of really solid information spread over a whole day. Never insult your people by treating their training as a play-date - if you want them to take you, the company and the work seriously.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Change Is Coming To Corporate Culture

There are a host of changes coming to your corporate Culture as the workplace demographics and dynamics change. Thinking that you can operate in the same way you did ten years is going to get your butt kicked.

Sales & Service
51% of your customers choose to do business with you because of attitude factors: your friendliness, your approachability, your after-sale service, your exchange and return policies and how easy you make it for people to do business with you. But a lesser percentage buy from you because you know your product. In every sales situation, there are two sales being made: 1) you - if you don't do a good job of selling you and offering good reasons why people should do business with you, there is little chance that you will get the chance to make the second sale, which is 2) the product. Train your people in being better people. It's far more important than having facts, figures and ammunition in their heads. I would rather hear a sales rep say, "let me get right back to you with that information," and then get right back to me with it. We like to deal with people with good attitudes and abhor bad attitudes and smarmy "know it all" attitudes. Training of the future is going to need to focus on building better attitudes toward customers and not so much on knowing everything.

Absenteeism
1,000,000 North American workers are home sick today because of "stress." Stress is caused when you don't believe that you can handle what is in front of you today, can't meet deadlines, feel overwhelmed, stretched too thin, etc. All of it is perception. People perceive they have too much to handle and that's why they feel stressed. So their attitude is that work is stressful and they get sick because of an attitude they have developed about work. If you would just help change the attitude, you would lower your absenteeism rate.

Values
A recent survey showed that up to 40% of Gen Y (Millennials) workers are prepared to use lying, cheating, backstabbing and even blackmail to get ahead. They don't see anything wrong with it. Four out of ten new workers think that way. Wake up people. Are you addressing this new worker's attitudes towards getting ahead? Think about it, many have grown up with a steady diet of reality TV and all many of them know about operating in the real world is what they have seen watching the contestants on Survivor backstabbing each other to win the million. In their own real world (which isn't real at all - it's mostly virtual), when they anger a friend, the biggest consequence is being removed as a friend from someone's Facebook page. Values and attitudes in the workplace are changing.

Productivity
Having computers on desks connected to the Internet is a double-edged sword. People need it to do their work but it's just as easy to get sucked into the abyss called YouTube - and be lost there for hours. The average worker today wastes 2.09 hours of productivity doing things like surfing the net or shopping - especially as we get closer to Christmas. Managers knew some time was being wasted and thought it was 0.94 hours. The truth is, workers waste more than twice the amount of time managers thought they were wasting. Why? Two reason: 1) they don't feel they are paid enough (kind of a work-to-rule campaign - I'm only being paid 75% of what I think I'm worth, I'm only going to work 75% of my day), and 2) an attitude of apathy - they just don't care about the job, the work, the responsibility, the customers or the company. They've got an attitude of doing just enough to not get fired.

Management
The future worker does not want to have all of their decisions made unilaterally. The Gen Y worker needs to be involved in the planning and strategy development. Locking them out of the process is only going to dump your corporate culture program on its ear. If you want to engage people in their work, engage them in the decision-making. If employees believe they have a hand in deciding the corporate direction, they are more likely to help you deliver it. Employee engagement's problem is nothing more than a separation of today's Gen Y and Gen X attitudes clashing with old-school, top-down employment hierarchies. Workplaces that have found ways to include their people in critical decisions (not social fluff like Christmas parties) of the day-to-day workings of the organization have a much higher engagement rate because their employees "own" the work. Change your attitude that there is only one person who makes decisions. You have a lot of bright minds working for you. Ignoring that fact is only going to send them someplace else where they will be recognized. 89% of managers think their people leave for another job that pays more money. Truth: only 12% of employees leave for more money. The rest leave because of an attitude of believing management is out of touch with what they want.

Culture
Your corporate culture is changing whether you think you have a handle on it or not. No culture "program" is going to stem that change. Culture is nothing more than the collective attitude of your workplace anyway. If you want to improve your culture, then you must change the prevailing attitudes that are creating your culture right now. Culture is how your employees see your organization. When you see your employees differently, they see the workplace differently and that's when the corporate attitude/culture changes.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Fix Morale - Improve Culture

Workplace morale and productivity are very closely tied together. Low morale typically results in reduced productivity. Further, once morale has taken a downwards turn, turning things around can be a slow and expensive process. So, morale needs to be addressed right now.

You improve morale by working on the Attitude of Resilience of the employees - that ability to bounce back when things get tough. This is not just positive thinking stuff. This is deep-in-the-gut, true-belief perseverance that allows people to feel safe in knowing that they can handle whatever is in front of them today.

Because morale is created not by management, but by the reactions of the employees to the things that happen in their environment.  Management has little control over how people react to downsizing, threats of job-loss, stress and unease. In the same way that I can't control how you would feel at the prospect of having your car stolen, no one has control over the individual employees.

So, if you want to change morale (also known as one of the critical components to corporate culture) you have to change the prevailing attitudes within the building that are creating the morale (or lack thereof).

So, how does senior management help morale? By being open and honest with their people during this time of uncertainty, by providing support to those who are feeling overwhelmed and by not losing their heads and spending money on useless programs just for the optics of looking like they are doing something.

Don't offer team-building when you are downsizing members of your team. Sales training won't get your customers to let go of their money any faster. Don't start Corporate Social Responsibility programs as a distraction to what's really going on.

All you need to do right now is support your people in helping them take control of their own attitudes, fears and uncertainty. Help make things certain. Address their fears directly. Help them develop an Attitude of Resilience.

When this all shakes out, the people you showed your loyalty to will show their loyalty to you. When both sides have an attitude of loyalty to each other, morale jumps up and corporate culture improves dramatically. 
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Connectedness Attitude And The Environment

I'm as environmentally conscious as the next guy. Uh no, let me take that back. Most people are so average that they don't think about the environment until someone tells them to think about it. So no, I guess not. I am not like the next guy. I think for myself which leads me to my thought here today: why would an organization launch an environmental initiative when their corporate culture is stagnating, their mediocre service sucks and their apathetic staff turnover rate is high?

I mean, before you clean up an ocean, wouldn't you want to first clean the beach?

Organizations are focusing on environmental policies and bringing eco-speakers into their organizations. Now, I don't have a problem with protecting the environment. In fact, I applaud it. But if you are going to tackle the environment, shouldn't you make sure you've cleaned up your environment first; your work environment - your corporate culture?

Aren't there a whole lot of more important issues that need addressing during an economic downturn? Have your people been reassured about their future? Have you halted the waning morale eroding your corporate culture? How about stopping your high-turnover or helping management find a direction? What about your incredibly ordinary customer service? Shouldn't you be developing a sense of greatness that changes people's lives (both your employees and your customers) before you attempt to change the world?

Come on, focus on the crucial things first: making sure there are jobs to go to tomorrow so that you are able to lend a hand to the environment. Make sure you are operating from a position of strength with your eco-program so that you don't have to slash the eco-program budget later because you were focused on the wrong things for survival.

This could end up as a colossal resource waster: trying to pursue an eco-friendly direction for a company with a bad attitude - people who bring plastic water bottles to work each day and still toss them out instead of recycling but don't care that they do it. You've got to change the unworkable attitudes inside the building before you can convert them to eco-evangelists. Don't get ahead of yourself. Make your people "service evangelists" first. Clean up problem areas before you create new ones. Fix the attitudes that will undermine your eco-program before you try to establish an environmental Attitude of Connectedness.

I agree all should be on-board the environmental bandwagon. But if your organization is achieving mediocre results, shouldn't your focus be on becoming an organization of greatness first - an organization whose example others will follow? Face it, if the culture stinks, you'll end up with an eco-program of mediocre results too.

Launching an eco-program while your people fear for their future makes you look completely out of touch with what your people want and need. That's not a message you want to send if you want to attract and keep good people, increase your customer base and become an organization of greatness.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Support, Follow-Up and Service Attitude

51% of consumers choose the companies they will do long-term business with by "Attitude" factors: approachability of staff, friendliness, exchange and return policies, after-sale service, support and troubleshooting and how easy it is to talk to someone. A smaller number, 44% of consumers choose "product knowledge" as their main purchasing decision (so why companies only train in product knowledge and not Attitude factors is a complete freakin' mystery to me).

More people are using the Internet to research before they buy. They get product information as well as reviews from users and customers before they set foot in a business. Yet businesses still train their people primarily in product knowledge. What they don't do (and they should) is train people how to smile and enjoy what they are doing. 

Customers are "revenue" and you, the employee, are "expense." Let's be clear on the respective roles in business.

So how is it possible that some supposedly-smart, well-educated and experienced VP of Customer Service could make the intentional decision to remove direct contact between their customers and the service/support centers. Who could possibly think that an automated phone tree that requires you to press six or seven menu choices, talk to a voice robot, submit a service ticket or wait on hold for a half-hour is GOOD service? How could anyone with that attitude even be remotely considered for promotion to VP of Customer Service? Whoever made that decision is an idiot.

You may have spent an extra two years of your life getting your MBA, Mr. VP, but your customers have spent a lifetime developing their expertise as a customer. Their experience trumps your schooling. Try not to be so book-smart and common-sense stupid. If your attitude in Customer Service isn't focused on your making it easier for your customers to interact with you then your attitude sucks.

This isn't the 2007 drunken orgy of economic delights anymore. People aren't throwing their money around madly buying anything they can get their hands on. This isn't a time when customer service doesn't matter anymore. This is 2009 and we're in an economic time when families and business alike have pushed their "reset' buttons. They want value. They want quality. They are willing to pay a fair price. And most of all, customers want service - to feel like their business means something.

The "un-service" attitude you took in 2005-2007 when you installed your automated responses, phone-tree-like systems and help-desk tickets need to be re-thought. Customers want to communicate with you and buy from you because you can be reached. Making it harder for them to do so will only annoy them.

In a time of social networking, when communication and connection is supposed to be improving, why is service getting worse? Why is it that a customer can communicate with a CEO on Twitter but can't get anyone in that same company's customer service department to return their calls? How can people speak directly with Presidents, public figures and celebrities around the world but have to wait on hold for a half-hour and before finally speaking to someone in a South Asian country, thousands of miles from the people who sold them the product? How is that possible? Because apparently the companies could care less. If they cared more, they would do more. But by their inaction, their corporate culture and corporate attitude says, "good enough." Their corporate attitude is that everyone has come to expect that level of service. They believe that they don't have to do any better than their mediocre competitors.

The truth is, the more barriers you put between you and your customers increases the likelihood that your customers will view your company unfavorably and at the first opportunity will take their business someplace else.

And stop lying to your customers. You know that framed Mission Statement in your lobby claiming you offer superior customer service? Well that's a lie. You force your customers to jump through hoops to be able to talk to a real person when they need help so you are NOT offering superior service. You offer mediocre service. Superior customer service is doing what the others refuse to do.

Shut down the voice mail trees, the too-many-choices phone menus, the 24-72 hour response to emails and half-hour wait times on hold. Instead, give your customers Live Chat online in real time, comprehensive FAQ sections on your web site that offer real solutions to everyday problems and give them "how-to" videos online so that they can use your product correctly and even fix it themselves if they have a problem. Most of all, let a real person answer the phone in a timely manner - even if they are in another country. Just give customers a human to talk to that your customers don't have to wait a half-hour or more to speak to.

You're not the only ones who are busy. Your customers are too. Customers vote with their dollars. Don't make them jump through hoops. That attitude sucks and, when the time comes that someone else is willing to treat your customers better than you, your customers will spank you financially for treating them like they don't matter to you.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
Follow Kevin on Twitter @attitudeburns
The Official Kevin Burns YouTube Channel

Customer Service Is NOT Rocket Science

Question: How do you measure the success of a corporate culture shift from doing business by transactional model to customer service based?

Anyone who says that the success is measured by money is still using the "transactional" method, which means your Customer-service based approach has failed. Money is a lousy way of keeping score.

So how do you measure? Ask your customers. If they're happy and continuing to do business with you then it's working. Let's not make this whole approach to customer service so difficult that you have to re-write the book on changing a culture.

Whatever happened to people serving people? It is NOT more difficult than that so stop making it difficult. Here's how simple it really is. Be human. Wear a smile. Say thank you. Price fairly. Offer good quality. Make it easy. Keep your word. Be honest. Tell the truth. (Only 2 of these have anything to do with the product.)

If that's not your current model then you're doing it all wrong. And it would be my pleasure to help change your attitude on it.

The Loudest Person In The Room

Have you ever been struck by a line in a movie? You know the kind of line I’m talking about; a line that had profound meaning for you perhaps like the ones below:

• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” (Coach Carter)
• “Writers are meant to write for readers who are meant to read.” (Finding Forrester)
• “Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.” (Braveheart)
• “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.” (Dead Poets Society)
• “Either get busy living or get busy dying.” (The Shawshank Redemption)

Last week, I witnessed another line that spoke volumes about organizational values and could be identified as one a very profound statements for the workplace. Denzel Washington spoke this one.

“The loudest one in the room is usually the weakest one in the room.” (American Gangster)

You know that this quote is bang-on truthful. You know the people that this quote describes. They are the loudest ones in the bar trying hard to be popular. They are the loudest of critics voicing their displeasure at your choice of new car. They will insult you – but say it’s just in fun. They will attempt to bring others on-side to create an “us versus them” situation. They brag about their expensive clothes and lifestyle. They attempt to make you wrong when they themselves don’t understand.

You have worked with people like this. They are the know-it-alls in the room. They poo-poo everyone else’s ideas. They pretend that they work with idiots and attempt to control the work of the group. They think themselves superior and believe that no one else is capable of contributing anything of meaning to a project. No one wants to work with them because they shoot down the ideas of their co-workers. They hate to be challenged. They dislike opposing ideas.

But the truth is the loudest one in the room is usually the weakest one in the room. Real confidence requires no proof so those with confidence don’t feel the need to prove themselves. People who feel the need to be loud usually need the attention focused on themselves. Attention seekers have low self-image and a big ego as their defense. They compensate for low self-image by looking for attention to fill them up inside. They outwardly point out your faults so that the attention is not focused on their own. By tearing you down, they believe that they somehow elevate themselves. That is the classic definition of the workplace bully. Bullies hate to be found out.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Every organization needs confident leaders: those with a good sense of self-worth. Sending the loudest person to management training only feeds their desire for superiority. Sending the loudest person to management training only creates tyrants for managers.

Bullies need to be challenged by the rest of the staff. In group projects, outvote the tyrant in every opportunity. Calmly and confidently challenge every insult immediately. Refuse to back down from a bully’s barbs because deep down, bullies are cowards who use insults to make you feel inferior.

The loudest person in the room has a need to be the loudest person in the room. Take that power away from the bully and he or she will either leave on their own or be labeled as a non-team player and be removed by management as not being a good fit.

The Service-Leadership Attitude™ says that you, as a leader, give people a reason to follow. Fear is not a reason to follow. Bullies use fear as a tool to deflect criticism on themselves. Leaders use inspiration and ideas to give people a reason to follow. Bullying, tyranny and conflict will sink an organization quickly. Leadership has difficulty surviving in this environment. That's why bullies need to be fired - even at the cost of expensive legal bills.

Is Stress Really The Problem?

The Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health conducted a survey to determine the Top Ten Stressors at work. Here they are:

• 10. "The treadmill syndrome" - Employees who consistently have too much or too little to do create a lot of stress.
• 9. "Random interruptions" - Keeps employees from getting their work done - telephones, walk-in visits, supervisor's demands.
• 8. "Pervasive uncertainty" - Created by constant, unsatisfactorily explained or unannounced change.
• 7. "Mistrust, unfairness, and office politics" - Keeps everyone on edge and uncertain about the future.
• 6. "Unclear policies and no sense of direction" - Causes additional uncertainty and undermines confidence in management.
• 5. "Career and job ambiguity" - Creates a feeling of helplessness and of being out of control.
• 4. "No feedback - good or bad" - People want to know how they are doing, and whether they are meeting expectations.
• 3. "No appreciation" - Generates stress that endangers future efforts.
• 2. "Lack of communication" - Leads to decreased performance and increased stress.
• 1. The greatest stressor in the workplace is "lack of control" - Employees are highly stressed when they feel like they have no control over their participation or the outcome of their work.

In reading this list, I was struck by a single thought: there really is only ONE stressor at work – lack of control. The lack of control is really the one constant in every one of the other nine stressors. Lack of control in workload, interruptions, change, mistrust, direction, job security, feedback, appreciation and communication are what are causing the stress.

Now it’s been said that stress is a killer. I don’t buy that. Instead I believe that our inability to handle stress is the killer. It’s not the stress. It’s our in ability to handle it.

It’s not the job. It’s our inability to handle all of the issues that come up in the job.

As I wrote in a recent Blog entry, there’s a difference in the outcome of the work you do when you take on the attitude that your job is your career, even if it’s only your career for now. It no longer becomes just a job. A career is something you manage. A job is just something you grumble about having to do.

Change your attitude on your work and your work will begin to improve. Don’t argue with me on this one. I am right (been there done that). The moment you change your attitude on your “job” being more than just a job and instead being a career, you will begin to see the “job” in a whole new light. And believe me, there is a whole lot less stress when you start taking control of where you work, how you work, the quality of your work and the contribution you make to your work.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Are you feeling out of control on the job? It’s likely because you’re letting every one else decide your career for you. Stop it. Take back the control.

You may need A job but not necessarily this one. Are you working because of the pension you’ll receive at retirement? Then you’ve already checked out mentally and are counting the days until you retire. That’s no way to manage a career. That’s a prison sentence.

I’ve said it before and I perhaps need to say it again: the more valuable you become on the job, the less likely you are to be replaced. Increase your value. Get better at communicating, thinking, sharing ideas, focusing and embracing change (it is a good thing most times). Read the Leadership books. Listen to the CD’s. Go to the seminars. Get better. Get stronger. Get more valuable. And if you choose to NOT do the work to improve yourself and your value, well then sorry. There is no one then who can possibly guarantee that something drastic won’t happen to you. That should stress you a little.

You Are Here

It was 1942 when Bing Crosby first sang the immortal White Christmas in the movie Holiday Inn. As a Canadian, there haven’t been a lot of Christmases that I can remember that weren’t white. But the trick in Canada, because the country is so large with weather that is so diverse, is having a coast-to-coast-to-coast (Pacific to Atlantic to Arctic) white Christmas which hasn’t happened in Canada since 1971. This year it will happen.

The weather across the country has been, well, wintry this year. The East Coast is getting hammered with snow this week. The central provinces have had their snow and Canada’s busiest airport, Toronto’s Pearson International, is still trying to catch up with the hundreds of delayed and canceled flights over the weekend due to heavy snow. Those flight delays and cancellations have rippled across North America creating a backlog across the continent. In the meantime, the Prairie Provinces have been hammered by snow and brutally cold temperatures. Then there’s the usually seemingly tropical West Coast - which usually has more rain during the winter - which has been pounded by snow this year (a foot of snow or 30cm which is huge in areas where hardware stores don’t normally stock snow shovels) this weekend alone. It’s white right across the country and we’re just a few days from Christmas.

In fact, this morning, as I was starting my car to warm it up because the temperature this morning was at -28°C (24° below zero F), my neighbor from across the road asked if I would give him a jump. Now if you’ve never heard that term (it is so Canadian), it means to help him start his car by connecting “jumper” cables from my car battery to his. Sometimes cars don’t start when it’s cold like this. I was pleased to oblige.

I recall my Uncle in Northern Ireland once asking me while I was on a visit there, “So what kind of temperatures do you have in Canada?”

I replied that depending on the area of the country, you could see swings of +40°C to -40°C (112°F to 40° below zero F).

Incredulously he asked, “Well why do you live there?”

Funny, but I never really thought about it before. I just live here. It’s the way it is and it is definitely winter (first day of winter was yesterday) in Canada. Canada is where I have chosen to live and the weather is the weather and there’s not much we can do about except embrace it and deal with it.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: As you walk through the shopping malls at this time of year looking for a particular store, you may find yourself in front of the big mall directory sign by the entrance. The most important thing on that big sign is the little red arrow that simply reads, “You Are Here!”

Nothing else on that sign makes any sense without the “You Are Here” arrow. And that’s the way it is in life. Without knowing where you are, you will never find a way to where you say you want to go. So as you take stock of the year you have just completed and begin to set your sights onto where you want to be in 2009, tell yourself the truth. Where you are is not the fault of the economy, the government, your boss, your spouse, your education, your circumstances or anything else outside of you. You are where you are by your own doing – no exceptions.

The economic downturn happened. Were you ready for it? Did you make the decisions this year that prepared you or hindered you? You always have a choice – always. You may not like the choices before you but there’s always a choice. (This part will require a serious attitude adjustment for some. If you’re resisting this idea, then life is NEVER going to get any better for you – ever.)

My friend and mentor, Ken Larson, says something that makes such perfect sense, “If you aren’t living your life by design then you are living your life by default. If you aren’t actively choosing to design your own life then you are living by default, and allowing anyone else’s design to be your life.”

Over this Holiday season, do something that helps you take better control of your own life for 2009.