Think For Yourself

Soloman Asch, a Polish-born social psychologist, was one of the first to show that people blindly follow others in order to fit in. In fact, the findings from this experiement from the 1950's would probably be even worse today.

Asch chose some 123 unwitting test subjects to, one at a time, sit amongst 8-10 other so-called "test subjects." The 8-10 other were not actually test subjects. They were "plants," planted into the experiment with full knowledge of the details.

Each test subject was shown these test cards below and each was asked to identify the line that looked closest to the Reference line and to voice their choice out loud. The actual test subject would voice his or her choice last.

The 8-10 plants all gave a wrong answer forcing the test subject to either go along with the majority or stick to his or her guns and voice what he or she thought was the right answer. 75% of the test subjects gave into peer pressure and knowingly gave a wrong answer. When asked to explain why they chose the wrong answer, the subjects blamed their poor vision or said, "There were so many against me that I thought I must be wrong."

You know the right thing to do at work. You know how to treat a customer with respect. You know how to show up on time and do your real work during the day. You know how to not take advantage of your employer by checking out early or surfing the Net because you're bored. You know that the customer is the lifeblood of your organization. You know that stealing paper and paper clips is still theft. You know that talking about co-workers behind their backs is petty and mean. You know that whining and complaining about the job affects your co-worker's productivity.

So when you see your co-workers doing the opposite of what you know to be right, how come you sit back and say nothing? Because you are part of the 75%. You will give up what you know to be right so that people will like you. You don't want to cause problems for your co-workers even when they are blatantly doing the wrong thing, treating customers with disrespect, stealing office supplies or backstabbing.

Grow a spine. If you don't speak up you then you, by default, give your blessing to this kind of behaviour. Not speaking up only fosters more of this behaviour. And if you're worried about someone losing their job because you said something, then let me ask you this: are you OK with working with morally bankrupt, disrespectful, backstabbing thieves?

Where's your Attitude of Leadership? Think for yourself. Set a standard. If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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The Separation Of Leadership

Can leadership survive without values? How can leadership takes so many big bonuses for themselves while throwing people out of work? Why is leadership always looking out for themselves?

These are questions that are asked a regular basis on the bulletin boards, articles and blogs. Personally, I think it's just a bunch of people with titles on their business cards that are hoping to be considered leaders purely by their position but they have to lower the bar first so that it's possible for them to slide into a leadership position. They don't want to be called managers anymore. Managers are boring. Managers have to get their hands dirty doing that icky management stuff. Eeeew (yes that's the sound of a 15-year-old girl).

And no matter how many times these questions get asked, the answer is still the same: you don't get to be considered a leader by your position. Yet, so many of the so-called leadership experts are still referring to senior executives as leaders. It's muddying the waters. It's becoming a point of confusion for the average person to try to better understand what leadership really is. Leadership is not a title on a business card.

If it were simply a title on a business card, then we could call up and make appointments for morning coffee with Jeffrey Skilling of Enron, Bernard Ebbers of Worldcom, Tyco 's Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, Computer Associates International's Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia 's John and Timothy Rigas, Daewoo founder Kim Woo-choong or Dynegy's Jamie Olis. Oh, but we can't can we? I almost forgot, these guys are in PRISON. Imagine that, leaders in prison. Based on the widely accepted model of leadership, all of the above listed former CEOs would qualify as leaders because they led their organizations.

Look, if you conive, cheat and steal while you are running the place then you're not a leader. If how you run your organization is illegal, illicit and immoral can you still be considered a leader? No you can not!

These people weren't leaders. They were just greedy CEOs. It was greed and a thirst for power that caused them to let go of what they knew to be right and instead embrace what they knew to be wrong. If you are purposely letting go of your values, morals and ethics in the daily performance of your job duties can you be considered a leader? I would say no.

In fact, the vast majority of the world would agree that the CEOs listed above were not leaders but were criminals: a truth proven once they were caught. When a person knowingly engages in illegal activity in order to advance their own career then they are no longer leading but stealing. As you can see, from this list of CEOs, leader is not a title that should be afforded these criminals.

It's time to start separating the word leadership from those in positions of power. Managers are not leaders even if they have returned from a weeklong leadership course. They are still managers. Elected officials are not afforded the title of leadership simply by the number of votes cast for them. There are as many crooked politicians as there are crooked CEOs. But if you call one politician a leader you must call them all leaders. If you call one CEO a leader you must call them all leaders. There are no sort-of leaders. Leadership is an on-off switch: you either have it or you don't. And you don't get it by achieving a certain position within an organization.

If your organization, during the recession, is choosing not to grow but instead battening down the hatches and pulling in your horns, then you are by the very definition of the word not leading. You are managing. That makes you a manager. Managers manage. (You know, it really pains me to have to explain this. I would have thought that even the worst manager could figure this one out on his own but apparently not.)

It's a real insult to real leaders to have them lumped in with the list of crooked CEOs above. Besides, leader is not something you call yourself: leader is something your followers consider you to be. Leadership is an attitude. Management is a position.

If you are attempting to fleece the company for as much as you can then you're not leading, your "greeding" (I'm not sure if that's even a word but we will go with it). There is a huge difference between a manager or senior executive and a person with leadership ability. Let's not confuse the two. They are not interchangeable. So take down the Jeffrey Skilling poster in the executive washroom and get back to managing the place. We'll see over time whether or not you will be considered a leader.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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Leadership And Fake Boobs

Leadership is an Attitude. Management is a position. Leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. A parent is as much a leader as a CEO - perhaps better.

Stop thinking that leadership is a mere list of traits that you simply check off. A leader has only ONE responsibility: to lead. How he or she leads really doesn't matter. If a leader leads poorly, the followers will choose to follow someone else. If the leader leads well, the followers continue to follow. That's why they're called followers - because they follow. And you're only a leader if people are following. You can't force them to follow you. Authentic leaders understand that. Artificial leaders (those who think that by reading a book or attending a course that they can now call themselves leaders) don't get that.

Artificial leaders are the "fake boobs" of the corporate world. Just like some women say that implants make them feel better about themselves, getting a certificate from a leadership course makes some people feel better about themselves too. But in both cases, there is a difference between authentic and artificial. They look real but you know they're not - you just don't say anything.

Leadership is not management nor is it power, nor control, nor affluence. Who gets chosen to lead is based on the attitudes, opinions and beliefs of followers who believe that the leader they are following is the best person to lead them to where they want to go.

There are no irrefutable laws to leadership. Everything is refutable. Everything is questionable. Anyone who says different is asking you to blindly follow - which means you are not leading.

There is no explaining why some people are chosen leaders and some are not. Osama Bin Laden is a leader, as was Hitler, Charles Manson, Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Buddha. Leaders are not defined by their ability to make the world a better place necessarily. Leaders are defined by having followers - good or bad. Period.

There are 350,000 books on Amazon on "leadership." That means there are 350,000 varying opinions on what leadership is. Not much wonder you can't define it. But you so desperately want to be seen as a leader because you've been convinced that "following" is for the weak. Well maybe you are weak, too weak to acknowledge your weakness. You don't become a leader by self-anointing. Leadership is not a diploma or certificate of course completion. Leadership not something you get in exchange for money. And there is no certification necessary to offer leadership courses.

Want to be a leader? Start saying "no" to the whole idea that leadership is something that you can buy. If you have to take courses, read books and convince others you're a leader, then you're probably not.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What's my definition of leadership? I define it as the biggest time-waster in Corporate America today. It wastes more time and money, sucks more resources and makes more people pompous in their search to be on top than any other single item in the corporate world - and only because you've been led to believe that you have to be at the front - the winner.

The truth is, people recognize authentic leadership when they see it - they just can't explain it - in the same way one hundred people would be challenged to come to consensus in describing the same sunset.

Trying to convince people that by simply following a few rules makes you a leader is perhaps the biggest thing wrong with Corporate North America today. That is not authentic leadership. That's artificial leadership - a fake, a sham, a lie. Leadership is not something you achieve - it is an Attitude.
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Ten Strategies To Never Get Promoted

Why would you want to sabotage your own career - to be relegated to the ranks of the "constantly overlooked" or to become the cause of poor office morale? Well, it's not like people set out to do it on purpose but that doesn't mean they don't still find creative and unconscious ways to ensure that they never get a promotion or, Heaven forbid, a management position.

There are hundreds of ways to never get a promotion but in the list below are ten of the top suggestions if you're really searching for creative ways to ensure that you live a life of quiet (or not so quiet) desperation. Laid out here are ten surefire ways to make sure you are overlooked for promotion, recognition, alienation on the job and to become the brunt of jokes by your co-workers.

I know you're waiting impatiently to find out how you too can professionally shoot yourself in the foot, so here we go.

1. Never offer a compliment - You want to make sure that you are never heard uttering a compliment to any of your co-workers or bosses because offering a compliment would simply show the bosses within earshot of just how much better your co-worker is at the job than you.

2. Never smile - When you smile, you give the impression that you are having fun and enjoying your work or, worse yet, that you are a happy person. You certainly don't want to offer any indication that you are anything but moody, self-absorbed, angry and despising your work.

3. Shoot down co-worker ideas at staff meetings - Look, if you let one staff member's idea gain ground, people might like the idea and thank your co-worker for making the suggestion. At which point you will be confronted in having to offer a compliment - see strategy #1 for clarification.

4. Always bring the conversation back to you - If a co-worker leans on you for advice, do not offer any but instead offer up a far more gut-wrenching story of how much more hard-done-by you actually are. Their problems will seem minor in comparison to yours.

5. Treat your co-workers as though they're idiots - you already know that you have a superior intellect so make sure that your co-workers know that you're so much brighter. Otherwise, they will never admit it to themselves and never get any smarter. Make sure you voice your opinion on the promotion of someone who is clearly dumber than you.

6. Laugh at co-workers who do self-improvement - point out their flaws and illustrate how the things they are improving about themselves really aren't worth the effort anyway. Make sure you point out more things that they really need to work on. Besides, learning really is only for losers.

7. Always be right - win every argument. You must ensure that no matter what the discussion, no matter how well-versed you are in the subject, no matter how many people may be against you, always win by arguing your co-workers into submission until they give up and walk away. Never back down. And if you're wrong, raise your voice and make stuff up to baffle your opponent.

8. Be petty - make sure that you argue about every little thing. Also, make sure whatever is being argued is meaningless and the effort spent to argue the point is a complete waste of everyone's time. You will have achieved success when your co-worker either screams, throws their hands in disgust or swears at you. Until you witness one of these three, do not let go of the petty argument.

9. Blackmail your co-workers - if your co-workers are not willing to see your point of view, offer to blackmail them by threatening to spread rumours about them. People love to be talked about and people love to talk about other co-workers. See, there really is a use for office-gossip.

10. Pretend you're an expert in things you know nothing about - Tell your co-workers how to do their jobs even if you've never done the work. I mean, how hard can it be anyway? This gets its best results when you are new to the organization, are meddling in other departments in which you have zero experience or you read a Blog post once from some nobody which has apparently made you a vicarious expert.

And there you have it - the top ten ways to commit corporate hari-kari. And it's easier than it looks. After all, who wouldn't want to be working under a recently promoted, know-it-all, morally superior, self-absorbed, intellectually-deluded jerk who is not in command of his or her Emotional Intelligence? And what boss wouldn't want to promote someone who treats others with contempt to a position of power?

Attitude Adjustment: Contempt for others is not a workplace attitude. It's a emotional problem that needs addressing by professionals before it creates toxicity and volatility in the workplace. Contempt reaches far beyond just the ranks of the workers - it touches customers, clients and eventually communities. Contempt can not be contained. Therefore, it needs to be dealt with severely.

If you want to create a decent workplace, hire decent people, promote decent people to supervisory positions and, most important of all, create an anger-management program in your workplace or get rid of the toxic elements altogether. And NO NOT offer a good reference for people like this. That's just moving the problem on to someone else.

Leadership is an Attitude. Management is a position of responsibility. If you have employees that need help or guidance, get it for them. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it sends a message to your people that certain behaviours are not tolerated. It also says that you have compassion and that you will look after your people if they are prepared to look after themselves.
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"Poor Leadership" Is An Oxymoron

First of all, there is no such thing as poor leadership. Poor leadership is an oxymoron. If it's poor, it's not leadership. There may be poor management or a complete lack of leadership but poor leadership is non-existent.

There are some leaders who are destructive - people who get others to follow their destructive ways. There are also some leaders who do things to better the planet. Think David Koresh versus Mother Teresa. Both were leaders who had plenty of followers - one destructive - one for the good.

Leadership is not a title nor a position. Leadership is not the result of taking a course or reading a book. Leadership is neither good nor poor - that is a values-based judgment any person can make based on their own values and ethics.

I've said this before, a parent is as much a leader as a CEO could ever aspire to be. Therefore, leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. Leadership has NOTHING to do with work. It is a character trait, a state of mind, an attitude. How do you define an attitude?

So, with that being said (and it needed to be said again), people who blame a lack of leadership or poor management for their inability to succeed are simply blaming someone or something for their own ineptness. Anyone can succeed under any circumstance if they so desire.

Sorry, but no one or no thing holds anyone back. You can succeed under any circumstance. If you don't, don't blame the person above you. You don't get a free pass to mediocrity just because your boss is a jerk. Your mediocre life is your doing - no one else's.
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Donald Trump Is No Leader

I am astounded that so many people when asked the same question (can you define leadership?) can have so many varying answers. What has become clear is that there is NO universally accepted definition of leadership. Why, because leadership is not tangible. It is not something you can hold in your hand. It is not something you can define. It does not exist in the material way and there are as many opinions on it as people walking the Earth.

With that being said, if someone promises that they can make you a leader in exchange for money, you are dealing with a charlatan. If it can not be defined specifically, you shouldn't pay money to anyone who promises it to you.

A parent is as much a leader as a CEO could ever aspire to be. Therefore, leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. Leadership has NOTHING to do with work. It is a character trait, a state of mind, an attitude. How do you define an attitude?

You will never get people to follow you by simply checking off a list of traits. That definition of leadership is too cerebral. Leadership is a state of being, a way in which we walk the Earth. The belief or promotion of leadership being exclusive to the workplace is simply a money-grab: a way to market services to improve "leadership" even though it cannot be defined. Our thirst for being out front (the need for title of "leader") is so great, we are willing to pay handsome figures to people who have never done it to teach us how it's done.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The truth is, people follow people they want to follow. There is no explanation for that. People who are natural leaders are people whom others wish to emulate. But if you are going to follow someone, it has got to be about following the person and not their results (money, power, fame). The accumulation of "stuff" is not what makes a leader. The Dalai Llama is a far better example of leadership than Donald Trump. People follow Trump for his power, money and fame when the world would be a different place if we'd all follow the Dalai Llama's example of treating our fellow man.

I'm not promoting any religion here. I'm making a point. Ruthless is not leadership. Money is not leadership. Power is not leadership. Fame is not leadership. But decency is. Making the world a better place is. Courtesy and caring is. When we as Corporate America learn to follow decency instead of thirsting for power, we'll finally start seeing the real leaders emerge - not these pompous, arrogant, egotists that we currently refer to as leaders.

Oh, and if you use the word "leader" to describe what you do, you aren't one. Get over yourself.

The Act of Leadership

Question posed yesterday: What do actors and leaders have in common?

I don't think that acting and leadership have a single thing in common. Actors spend their lives being other people. Leaders spend their lives fine-tuning themselves.

Leadership is not something you DO. Acting IS something you do. Management is something you do. Politics is something you do. Blogging is something you do and you do NOT have to be a leader to do any of them.

Leadership is NOT something you do. It is something that you "BE."

Management school is not leadership school. Acting school is not leadership school. These schools may sharpen your skill set but they do not make you a leader. Can leaders be great actors? Of course. But that doesn't automatically mean that actors can be leaders.

We all have to stop thinking that Leadership is something we can attain in a week-long course or by reading a book. That's a load of crap. Without addressing context (deep-seated opinions, beliefs, values - the way you view the world) in a course, you are not going to become a leader.

John Maxwell's "21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" is fundamentally wrong. His book teaches some new-age North American leadership culture as though if you simply do all of the 21 things in his book, you too will be a leader. That's pure bunk. Leadership can be learned but not by simply following 21 "laws." Maxwell has made a huge promise that if you follow the "laws" (and don't question them - remember they're irrefutable) in his book, you can become a leader. That is simply not true.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: We have muddied the waters in recent years by equating leadership with holding a top position in an organization. Leadership is not a position. Leadership is not something you do.

Leadership is a state of being, a state of mind, an Attitude. It is not the accomplishment of a series of tasks. It is not a passing grade at some course. It is not a title. It is not something you achieve. It is a way you exist. It is how you carry yourself. It is how you choose to walk the Earth.

Don't compare actors and leaders. It's like saying leadership is just acting. What an insult to genuine leaders. Leadership is a life-long pursuit - a work in progress. Everything else is a title.

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The Attitude of What Goes Around

It's incredible how your organization sees soft-skills training as a luxury or worse yet, a tool to placate your people - lip service.

During this last year, as personal stress went up over the economy, your organization shrunk the training budgets - especially training budgets for for non-technical and "unnecessary soft training" like stress-management. How laughable and yet how sad, that an organization really doesn't care as much about their people as they do about protecting reserves of cash. So, stress goes up, productivity goes down, revenues drop due to decreased productivity and top management claims, "see, proof-positive there's a recession. We have to tighten our belts."

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need stress-management when stress is high. You need sales training when sales are down. You need confidence training when confidence is low. You need attitude training when attitude sucks. In fact, you need these programs on-going before you "need" it. And yet you claim to put your people first by cutting the help they need exactly when they need it because times are tough? You launch a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative and really only concentrate on "corporate" - not so much on social or responsibility.

Don't think for a second that your people aren't watching either. The moment times are good again and the economy has rebounded there will be empty chairs in your workplace because you failed your people exactly when they needed you. They will fail you when you need them. Rule of life: you get what you give.
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Leadership and Management Are Opposites

Leadership is not exclusive to work. Why are you confusing Leadership with management? The business bulletin boards and social networking sites are filled with questions about identifying the difference between the two as though Leadership is some sort of goal you attain by checking off a shopping list of traits.

Leadership and management are not even remotely related. In fact Leadership and management are opposites. If you're managing, you're not leading. If you're leading, you're too busy to manage.

LEADERSHIP ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Do you manage your life or do you lead your life? Do you manage your kids or do you lead them, inspire them, and teach them? Did you pick your spouse or are you simply managing your love-life? On the dance floor, do you lead or do you manage to follow?

Just because you've been given a supervisory title does NOT mean you are in a leadership position. I would guess that the guy who undermines you at work and manages to convince others of your incompetence obviously is more adept at leading others than you are or they'd all be on your side.

Leadership is not reserved for those with a corner office and a shiny new business card. Leadership is an Attitude - an attitude not required to be in management. In fact, a manager who thinks himself a leader would be neither well.

Leadership is offense. Management is defense. Playing defense is trying to manage your opponent’s scoring attempts. Leadership is scoring despite what your opponent does to try to stop you.

Stop thinking Leadership and management are one in the same. You're showing that you really have no idea of the difference and you're starting to annoy the leaders who get it.

ROI In Training

If you can't determine whether you're actually getting your money's worth and a decent ROI (Return On Investment) after sending an employee to training, then you're doing the wrong training. Employee training is a waste without addressing the human component. Sorry but it's true.

For example: Time Management is a waste of time if you don't address self-discipline. Sales training is a waste of money without addressing confidence. Team building is really only tolerance-building: you really don't change people - you just get them to tolerate each other better.

If you want to get decent ROI then train your people to be better, decent human beings. They will be more willing to do what is necessary to help the organization move forward and more readily accept future training.

According to a recent survey by Adecco, one of the world's leaders in human resource solutions, an incredible 41 percent of Gen Y respondents said they would do something dishonest in order to keep their jobs. These behaviours include blaming coworkers for mistakes, setting up situations for co-workers to fail or even blackmailing colleagues. Good luck training that bunch to do honest, good work without addressing values and ethics.

Oh and stop sending jerks to management training. They're still jerks when they get back – but now they have a title.

As for leadership? Leadership is an attitude. Management is something you could do with a leadership attitude but it's not a pre-requisite for the job.

Sorry Attitude

Question: Do you think apologies are required in the workplace when the situation warrants?

Forgive me for my answer here ;-)

Apologies are not "required" in the workplace nor anywhere else for that matter. The trick here is to never put yourself in a position where you would ever have to apologize. In other words, don't be selfish, arrogant, hurtful, spiteful, mean, uncaring, unsympathetic or unfeeling and you should never have to apologize. Simple huh?

Or, you can think of it the other way: be selfless, humble, giving, grateful, caring, sympathetic and empathetic and you will never place yourself in a situation where you would ever have to apologize. Sometimes though, people need to hear the truth. If the spirit for being blunt and direct is to truly improve a situation, you should never have to apologize for that either.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: No one should ever have to apologize for being decent and kind. Stop thinking of work as a place for the ruthless. That's ridiculous. If your co-workers or bosses aren't decent, they aren't worth following. And don't feel that you have to apologize if they get knocked off of their high horses. They probably had it coming.

Oh, and don't apologize to people who seem to be offended by every little thing. They're just seeking attention and looking for some way to elevate themselves by making you feel small. What you said likely didn't really offend them anyway. They just want to draw attention to themselves. Overplaying the "offended" card is selfish and hurtful. That deserves an apology.

Consequence of Consequence-Free

Consequences are the guideposts of your moral compass. If there were no consequences, people would run roughshod over each other. Items in your garage would be stolen by your neighbors. Police forces would become irrelevant. You would leave the doors unlocked. Business would hire Grade 6 dropouts into senior management positions. You get the idea. Anarchy.

So what happens when you take an individual who has been raised in a virtually consequence-free environment and place him into a corporate environment where there are rules, expectations, structure, failure, mistakes, unfulfilled promises and bosses who are unforgiving? Think this visual over.

That's exactly what many parents are doing to their kids - raising them in a consequence-free environment. They try to protect their kids from falling down, skinning a knee, falling out of a tree and experiencing bullies. Parents interfere with the educational process and tell teachers what grade their child should be getting. They strip a child's competitive nature by celebrating a participant ribbon instead of 1st place. They raise their children in houses that are beyond large and buy anything the child wants so they never have to go without. They lie to their children telling them they can be anything they want even though they're too short to end up in the NBA and too fat for supermodel work. But they're still special.

Those same kids grow up to enter the work world and find out in short order that they're not special – they’re average at best perhaps even below-average in social-skills and maturity. They learn they can't be anything they want to be. They come face-to-face with the office bully and don't know how to handle it. They disappoint their bosses. They fail. They miss their targets. They lose a job. They live in dinky apartments because it's what they can afford. They drive a beat-up crap car. They suck with money because they've never had to earn it or handle it before. They end up moving back home with mom and dad because they haven't learned anything about life in their whole lives.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Parents, if you want your children to grow up to be something special, stop doing it all for them. Make them work. Make them earn. Make them do charity work. Make them encounter and face-off with bullies. Let them hurt themselves so they learn where boundaries are. Let them earn respect. They are not entitled to it.

Forty percent of kids coming into the workforce today say they would lie, cheat and sabotage others to get ahead. This, mom and dad, is what you taught them. They learned this from having no consequences. You can be real proud. Zero morals, ethics and values. Good job Mom. Good job Dad.

Look, if you want your child to be tomorrow's leader then at least arm them with a few leadership skills, basic stuff they can use in the real world like accountability, responsibility and consequence. They'll be more prepared to make a difference and less inept at caring for you when you get too old to look after yourself.

Just Got A Feeling

You have assembled a group of four university graduates into your interview room. All four graduated from the same university, all with relatively the same marks, and all are willing to work for the same money.

You’ve perused their resumes. They’ve all had the same basic life experiences, history and upbringing. So how do make sure that the candidate you choose will be a perfect fit with the rest of your staff, that your customers will like them and that they bring something to the table that is valuable to your organization?

You will trust your gut. It’s that same gut instinct that you’ve used to help make your business grow, to make good choices, to seize opportunities and to take risks. Your gut has been your best ally throughout your business career. Now you’ll make a gut-instinct choice for the best candidate.

You use your gut instincts, so why aren’t you encouraging the development of your employees’ gut instincts too? Instead, you train them in Time Management, Communication Skills and Team Building – all courses that appeal to the brain. You say you want your people to be more creative in solving customer problems but the courses you’re offering just teach them how to conform. You say you want new ideas and new innovations but you train them in last year’s old-school seminars using old ideas that are mediocre at best.

You’ve taken your cue from the educational system which is all about the marks and not about creativity. A University grad who finished at the top of his class doesn’t guarantee your organization any new ideas. “Top of the Class” just means someone knows how to study and remember course information and be able to regurgitate it when called upon.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need creative thinkers on your team who are not satisfied with “good enough.” Perhaps you have employees that are already capable of developing new ideas. But they don’t because since taking the Time Management course you sent them to, there’s no time for idle (creative) thought in their workday.

You want your people to develop new ideas and innovations. You want them to solve customer problems and internal productivity. You want them to be adventurous. You want them to treat others with decency. You want them to step up and be accountable. You want them to discover their leadership abilities. These are all personality and character traits and yet you’re trying to appeal to their brains in a logical way?

Soft-skills and personal development training is where you will find the skills your people need to succeed in the future. Build better people and you build better organizations. Get on it now or be left behind.

Greatness Is a Choice

I will admit that I am a huge movie buff. In fact, most times, if there isn’t a movie or a hockey game on TV, it’s probably off. I have a few favourite movies that I will re-watch: Sahara (Matthew McConaughey), The Usual Suspects (Kevin Spacey), The Rookie (Dennis Quaid), Finding Forrester (Sean Connery), anything with Gene Hackman and a movie that my friend and mentor Ken Larson turned me onto, The Hunt For Red October (Sean Connery). Ken can recite the dialogue from the movie doing the Sean Connery accent rather well. “Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.”

This weekend, The Replacements with Gene Hackman was on the tube. I’ve seen it many times before but this time, at the end of the movie, Gene Hackman’s character, Coach Jimmy McGinty, narrated a line that I had missed in previous viewings: “Their lives had been changed forever because they had been part of something great. And greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man.”

That’s a powerful statement. Greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man. Do something great at some point in your life and you develop a thirst for more or at the very least, you can remember the times when you were great. It does stay with you, either in drive or in memory.

There are two choices that every person faces in life: in their work, their relationships, their pursuit of dreams, their lifestyles, their personalities and their contribution in all they do. Those two choices are 1) greatness, and 2) mediocrity. Everything in life fundamentally comes down to one of those two choices and choosing which side of the equation you will sit on. Will you be great or will you be mediocre? It’s one simple decision really.

Greatness, throughout history, has been fundamentally challenged, violently opposed and systematically dismissed as idiocy by those with mediocre minds - people who don't get it and don't want to get it because when faced with their own mediocrity, it seems as though there is a great deal of work involved in doing something about it. So they attempt to tear down those who would be great in the hopes that by deflating the greatness within someone else, they somehow magically elevate themselves.

In fact, the mediocre have, throughout history, attempted to disparage, discourage and disprove greatness in all forms. So my question here is this: what side are you on? Make your decision right now. You've been, throughout your life, playing for one of two sides. Everyone has the chance to do something great, but you must first decide if you want to be great. If not, save us all a bunch of wasted time and find the door or at the very least, keep it to yourself.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Greatness is not for everyone. If everyone were great, greatness would be considered mediocrity. No, in fact, we need people to be mediocre. Without mediocrity, there would be no comparison point that would allow us to recognize greatness when we see it. No one would ever stand out as a leader. Everybody would be blindly bumping into each other looking for someone to follow. They would just try to get through each day without having to face anything difficult because the thought of facing something difficult paralyzes the mediocre.

The mediocre are so busy keeping up the appearance of being great that they don’t have any time to do something great. In fact, attempting to appear great is far more work than actually doing something great. Reasons and excuses are in the tool chest of the mediocre. Getting things done are in the tool chest of the great.

So the challenge you must face up to today is to simply answer this one question and answer it truthfully: have you, by default, allowed yourself to become mediocre or will you choose to do something great?

The Recession: What’s In It For You?

General Motors, Chrysler, Air Canada and Canwest Global are “on the ropes.” They, of course, are all blaming the recession for their current situation. They won’t admit that they have been building sub-standard quality products or offering sub-standard service, sub-standard programming, over-extending and over-leveraging themselves when times were easy or possessing a “take as much out of the market while you can” attitude. No, it’s the fault of the recession. It’s much easier to point the finger squarely at something out of your control and not be accountable for your performance.

This time in our economy has been nothing more than someone pushing the “reset” button to weed out the weak, the lazy and the greedy. It’s easy to make money when everyone is flush with cash and many did. The challenge is in listening to what the market wants, what the market demands and what the market expects and give people what they want – not what business thinks they need. The companies who will survive this time in our economy will be the ones who deserve to – not the ones that have an entitlement attitude because of their tenure in history.

Last week, the Federal Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported that personal bankruptcies increased over 50% in March 2009 compared to March 2008. That’s “personal” bankruptcies. But what about business bankruptcies during the same period? Business bankruptcies have actually declined by 10% over the same period which means that when times were good in March 2008 there were more bankruptcies than there were when we are supposed to be in a recession. Business is actually doing better during this time in our economy because they are changing, adapting and responding to their customers in a positive way. For those businesses that are in trouble, natural selection and market cycles have a wonderful way of weeding them out.

Let’s not ever forget that you, as a consumer, vote with your dollars. You get to vote who stays in business and who doesn’t. You don’t vote for mediocre service and market complacency. No business is entitled to your money. Every single business should earn it. You get to vote for those businesses you want to succeed. In other words, if there’s nothing in it for you, why would you give your money freely to a business that is doing little for you?

As a consumer, you also get to choose whether or not you participate in this recession. Oh yes, you have a choice. You always have a choice. My friend Marty Park (www.martypark.com) said something so profound recently that I have been finding myself repeating it at every opportunity. He said, “The recession? I’m not participating.”

Here’s why you should make the choice right now as to whether or not you participate in the recession: what’s in it for you? No really, ask yourself what’s in it for you?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If there is nothing in it for you, do you participate in something anyway? Of course not. So why do you think that you NEED to participate in the recession? You don’t. Plain and simple, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. The economy is resetting itself. You have no control over that. Let it go and stop worrying. It doesn’t really affect most people. It’s your “personal economy” that’s most important right now. Spend a little less and save a little more. Make business work for your money. You’re in charge. Even during the boom times, people got laid off, got downsized and got squeezed by mergers. They just dusted themselves off and went and found a new job or went back to school to upgrade their skills. You can do that now too.

You’re still buying groceries, the lights are still on and the doors to work are still open for 92% of Canadians. What really has changed? Not much. In fact, in the last year, small businesses with fewer than 20 employees created 36,800 new jobs across Canada. Why can small business create so many new jobs? Because they respond to what customers want. Small business knows that consumers vote with their dollars.

Before you spend a dime today, think about whether or not the business you’re considering spending your money with is actually earning it or not. Don’t give business “pity money” because you feel sorry for them. Make them earn it. Most businesses, fortunately, are starting to figure that out. Those who don’t ever figure it out though, will join the list at the top of this article. But that’s not your problem is it?

Love The Work – Hate The Job

How is it that people can love their work but hate their job? I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s not the job that they hate. It’s likely the work environment. In other words, they love their work and responsibilities but hate the commute, despise their little cubicles, simply tolerate their fellow employees, agonize through the dress-code, get annoyed by meaningless interruptions during the day, hate getting sidetracked by office chatter and overall, simply wonder in deep silence “what is his problem?” when it comes to hearing the office whiner in the next cubicle doing the exact same work.

People who love their work but hate the work environment will usually be the first to seek another job. The average cost of replacing a good worker is about 1.5 times the annual salary of the worker. Simply put, if you’re paying a good worker $50K per year, it will cost the organization about $75K to replace a worker once he or she leaves.

It’s likely that only four hours out of an eight hour work day are productive anyway (perhaps even lower depending on the number of memos flying or how crappy the photocopier is). Idle chatter, noise all around, pointless meetings, quick conversations standing in the doorways of a cubicle, gathering in the coffee room to celebrate Mary’s birthday, figuring out a place for everyone to go for lunch, fifteen minute coffee breaks that last 20-25 minutes. You get the point here. There’s a lot of clutter to struggle through before people actually get to work. And the more people you gather in one place the more distractions there will be.

As an employer, the question you have to ask yourself is: are you paying your workers for their productivity or their presence? Sometimes though, they are one in the same. For example, a house framer has to be on the job in order for the work to get done, but someone who is researching marketing trends doesn’t actually need to be in the office for that to happen. If a worker has a high-speed Internet connection, a computer, email and a phone, they can pretty much work from anywhere.

The key to productivity is to remove distractions. If a worker can work from home (spouse and kids are gone for the day), why not see what kind of productivity you can get from your workers? Offer them an opportunity to occasionally work from home while they are plugged into the office network. Remove the distractions, remove the agonizing commutes of lost productivity time, remove the reasons and excuses for not being able to concentrate on a specific task and, most of all, remove the office whiner (please, please remove the office whiner before someone staples a “Stop Whining” sign to his forehead).

People who are allowed to remove the distractions from their work are more productive. Productive workers find greater reward in their work. People who find great reward in their work rarely seek greener pastures. In other words, get rid of the distractions and productivity will rise. It has to. There’s nothing else left for people to do but work.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Leadership Attitude means having a mindset that inspires your people to want to be better. Treat your people like the potential leaders that they can be and they will rise to the occasion. Treat them as rats in a maze (think of what cubicles look like from overhead), and they will simply be looking for a way out. Think about creative ways to get more out of your people while allowing them a little freedom to do it themselves. Force them punch a clock and they’ll be thinking up creative ways of punching you. Let people do the work they love but don’t force them to do it in a place they hate. Creativity is a key component of a Leadership Attitude.

Hanging Out With Negative People

Let’s say for a second, you were standing in line at your favourite Canadian coffee shop, or in the grocery store or awaiting your turn to pay for your gas fill-up and you saw a newspaper headline on the front page which read: “Canada’s Recession is Over” or “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” Would you purchase a copy of that paper to bring home with you?

A headline like that would seem like good news wouldn’t it? You would perhaps want to know more wouldn’t you? At the very least, you would be a little curious. I mean, you’ve been bombarded with sky-is-falling headlines for some months now. Aren’t you in the mood for a little good news?

Well, a headline that appeared in the newspaper this past weekend was the following: “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” But that headline was not featured on the front page. It was buried as a three-paragraph story in the bottom left-hand corner of page 2 in the third section of the newspaper.

Here’s why I say that this story was buried. Pages with even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc.) are less-read than odd-numbered pages. Because of how we turn the pages, our eyes focus on the right page first and left page second. That’s why book chapters always start on the right-hand pages. Right-hand pages in the newspaper are prime real-estate: that is to say these are the pages where advertisers would love to be. Right-hand pages get read more than left-hand pages. The chances of readers seeing your ad, if you’re an advertiser, are better on the right page. Left page placement gets a smaller return. But here was the news story, in the bottom-left corner of page 2 in the third section – buried.

I’ll summarize the story: Canada, along with Australia and the UK are expected to be among the first of the advanced economies to emerge from recession and return to normal economic growth. According to Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Canada, Australia and the UK should return to the historical average numbers within the next year. Europe and the USA won’t likely get there for another year after that.

This story would have made a wonderful front-page story. People who have been awaiting a little good news about the economy would have embraced their newspapers. The advertisers who advertised in this edition of the paper would have been advertising to people with a positive mindset. But sadly, that didn’t happen. The newspaper decided that a good news story about the economy wasn’t enough to sell the newspaper that day so they lead with a story of how Calgary’s ring road (a route around the city) may hit $1.5B for a small portion for the road to be built.

Oh, so you know, I got the paper for free at a store that was giving them away. There’s a sign of the economic times huh? They have to give the papers away to get people to read them. Well, I guess sometimes you do get what you pay for.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Be careful who you allow your informational influences to be. Remember that the media is hurting right now. Traditional newspapers are going out of business as more people get their news on-line. Newspapers and television stations are having tough times. The traditional media are desperately clinging to models that clearly aren’t working anymore. And they are still doing their news the old way: “if it bleeds it leads” headlines.

The great thing is that, because you have access to so many news outlets these days, you’re smarter than that. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into the pandemonium vortex of over-the-top headlines and scaremongering. If you want to see good news and some glimmers of hope, you’ll probably have to find another place to get that from - but they are out there.

The truth is, you wouldn’t surround yourself with a very vocal group of whiners, moaners and complainers on a daily basis would you? So why would you allow the same sort of negative influences into your life by what you read? You have the choice of who your friends are. You have the choice of who you listen to too. Make that choice wisely. You have the choice of whether you develop a strong Leadership Attitude or whether you resign yourself to simply being "sheeple" (people who follow like sheep).

9 Office-Relocation Transition Strategies To Boost Morale

Question: My team and I have just learned that our office will close within 10 months or so and relocate to another city on the other side of the country. Some will make the move and some won't. For those who will stay on and make the move with us, how can I boost the low morale prevalent in our office right now?

Most people don’t like change. Perhaps let me rephrase that: we, as humans, are not necessarily resistant to change – just sudden change. The news of moving the office to another city and the short turnaround period are what I consider to be sudden change. Given the opportunity to adapt to the announcement, many will. Some will not. Some have resilience – others simply choose to feel victimized. There’s nothing you can do now to lessen the impact of the announcement. But you must now demonstrate real leadership.

First, understand that there are two targets your people can be looking toward: 1) the day the office closes and many are out of work, or 2) the days after the office closes – when people are getting settled into their new jobs, new location, new environments, new offices, new friends, new people and new perspective. It’s an exciting time and this is where I challenge you to take the focus of your people – not to the day of the office closing but to the days after the office closes.

You can not be heard uttering the words, “yeah I know it’s tough but what are you going to do?” That simply makes people wallow in their pain and not look for the positive opportunities that could follow, regardless of whether or not they are choosing to move or find something else when the office closes. And it keeps your people focused on the day the office closes.

Next, you need to have a plan for the day after the office closes. Be proactive. Show your people that you’re not wallowing in misery but you, as their leader, are getting right to the next chapter of your work life. This will likely inspire your people to quit their wallowing and get on with it.

Here are 9 Transition Strategies that need to go into your plan:

1. Get a firm decision from each staff member right now: are they coming or are they leaving? For those who are choosing to move, get a plan in place to look after housing needs at the other end, arranging movers, arranging flights to visit the new city as early as possible so that those people can get excited about the prospect of moving.
2. If there are a few on-the-fence about moving, make sure they get a chance to visit the new city to help them make a decision. Provided it’s a pretty city, those who are sitting on the fence may be swayed by its beauty and come home with a positive attitude about the move. In other words, get as many of your staff onside as soon as possible so that you are not shouldering the burden of overcoming the negative attitudes alone.
3. If you are not in a position to help them travel financially, then at least develop a strategy to offer your people some time off so that they may travel on their own. Bend over backwards in consideration for your people. Moving is a big step for some.
4. Create a “Relocation Transition Team” in your office. Task your people to work with each other to find Realtors, research good neighborhoods, recreation facilities, schools, contact numbers for City departments, garbage schedules, residential Internet hookups, utilities, public transportation, gyms, park systems, bicycle rentals, organized sports for kids, anything that they currently do now. They will need this information anyway when they get to the new city. The transition becomes easier when they’ve planned in advance. Creating this team keeps everyone pointed in a forward direction focused on the day after the office closes.
5. For those who are choosing not to move, bring a little hope. Bring in an HR consultant to help them define their skill set, aid in developing an updated resume and help them feel powerful as they get ready to hit the streets job searching.
6. Offer those who will remain behind a liberal schedule to attend interviews, respond to want ads, and help them post their resumes to Monster and other job sites. Offer letters of reference with heartfelt words; offer to call interviewers on their behalf and to use the full resources of the company to help them land softly.
7. If your people end up finding good positions early (before the office relocates), let them go. Knowing that you are behind them is an unselfish act and keeps a positive mindset in the office. Let them know that you understand that when they get a great offer, you won’t hold them back. Ensuring that your peoples’ individual welfare is ahead of the company short-term welfare is real Service Leadership Attitude in action.
8. If, however, your generosity is still met with negative attitude in the office, address it immediately. Have face-to-face discussions with the guilty parties about their behavior. Make sure they understand that this corporate decision does not give anyone free license to act out in rebellion. The company is moving forward regardless of any whining. They have an opportunity to move forward with the company or to be job-seeking early. It is imperative that you remove the negative forces that influence the rest of the group and also remove those who annoy the others with their negativity. It is still a workplace and it is business as usual.
9. Most of all don’t dwell on the upsetting of the apple cart. The more you dwell on the downside of “change” the more you encourage your people to grumble and feel sorry for themselves. The decision has been made – let’s get back to work.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: In tough times, people look to leaders who are capable of leading. Are you one? If not, isn't it time you got busy developing your Leadership Attitude?

Your Compelling Offer

As I passed the roadside sign in front of the pet store, I read its message: “10% Off Fish Supplies.” This sign struck me as a little strange and I felt compelled to keep reading it again to attempt to better understand its meaning. But as much as I looked at it, it still read “10% Off Fish Supplies.”

The reason that I found the sign strange is because of the question I asked myself as I passed by: is ten percent enough of a discount to bring in traffic off of the highway? In a world where retailers are yelling at us to notice their deep-cut discounts of fifty, eighty and ninety percent, is 10% a compelling offer? Not knowing the regular prices of the store in question, I was flummoxed to make a determination on that.

To a small mom-and-pop operation, a ten percent discount may seem like a big deal to the owners, but to the consumers, ten percent may not be much of a compelling offer. Twenty nine cents off of the regular price of an aquarium cleaning brush would certainly not offset the cost of fuel to get to the store to purchase the item. In fact, in most provinces in Canada, a ten percent discount doesn’t even offset the sales tax.

The assumption had to be made that the owners of the pet store have chosen to compete in the market on price and not on service as the sign made no indication that their service was superior. Nor did the sign give any indication that an additional ten percent saving would bring pricing far below its competitors. A compelling offer needs to be relative. Ten percent off of the price of a new car is a big deal. Ten percent off of a $2.99 item is not.

Purchase a new aquarium for $200 and get a free fish net, cleaning brush, gravel, some plants and filtration pump would be the equivalent of a ten percent discount. That might seem like a more compelling offer than a few pennies off the regular price of a fish net.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What is your compelling offer? Your offer has to mean something to the potential consumer if you are going to sway the decision. You don’t have to be in sales to have a compelling offer. What was your compelling offer when you were hired? What is your compelling offer now to be considered for a promotion?

Are you bringing something to the table that no one else possesses or are you simply filling a space? Are you the leading candidate for promotion or do you feel that because of your tenure, you deserve to move up? Have you read the books on leadership in an effort to position yourself to be the natural choice for a leadership position or will you not bother learning about leadership until there is a need to know how to be a leader?

Does hiring you for the job benefit just you or will it benefit the organization as a whole? How is the organization different as a result of choosing you for the job? If you can make that case, then you have a compelling offer.

If you won’t grow yourself first, then it could be argued that the organization as a whole wouldn’t grow much if you were in a leadership position. Leadership, after all, is an Attitude. If you don’t have the Leadership Attitude, then you aren’t reading the books, you aren’t listening to the audio recordings, you aren’t attending the seminars and you aren’t prepared to invest in yourself. It’s pretty much going to be a case of “same-old same-old” for you. If you won’t invest in yourself first, then why should any organization invest in you and expect much of a return.

If you don’t invest in you, then you’re likely to continue being a small fish in a big aquarium and it could be argued that a ten percent discount in your value wouldn’t much affect the organization. Now if your organization would change by fifty percent as a result of your not being there, then that’s a compelling offer to keep you and pay you more.

Leadership is an Attitude. If you want to attract investors (customers, bosses, promotions), then you have to show a history of increased value and outstanding performance. Compare yourself to the stock market. Are you a blue-chip stock that continues to increase in value consistently? Or are you a penny-stock that investors overlook or dump to get to the blue-chips? It’s your call. What's your compelling offer?

Worldwide State Of Chasing Balloons

The recession is over … or it has caught the swine flu?

A month ago, virtually every page in the front section of the newspaper had a story on the “recession.” The first ten minutes of a national TV news broadcast featured stories on the “recession.” Recession. Recession. Recession. The sky is falling. Hold onto your money. Doom and gloom warnings.

Now, if you pick up a newspaper today, you will have to search for the stories on the recession. It seems our financial future is not important as the few hundred people in Canada and USA who have contracted swine flu. In fact, most cases of swine flu are relatively mild. Only a few people ever develop the dangerous symptoms. And they will number a few dozen at the most.

But where is the media? They’re sitting in briefings from Medical Officers because covering some new “tragedy” that will end up seriously affecting a few dozen people is sexier than reading financial reports and talking with economists.

In fact, listening to one Medical Officer describe swine flu symptoms, he described them as relatively mild and that the “pandemic” that the media keeps eluding to, is well under control by the qualified medical organizations whose job it is to contain infectious outbreaks like this.

“Wash your hands and prevent catching the flu.” That’s the advice to containing the spreading of swine flu. It’s a very simple solution. No drugs. No hoarding of Tamiflu. No locking yourselves in bomb shelters to wait out the deadly disease. Just wash your hands regularly and you’ll be doing plenty to protect yourself.

So why all the fuss? Because apparently the media spent a little too long in front of the TV watching Will Smith in I Am Legend. The bigger the media attempts to make this story, the more they are saying that our medical leaders are inept – all in an effort to boost ratings and readership. They are reporting a story that they can’t possibly understand without the medical officers “dumbing it down” for them (you can’t fully comprehend the complexities of the virus without some sort of medical or scientific training). Then, the media simply takes the sexy pieces from the briefings and report only that.

I was a member of the media for eighteen years. I worked with reporters whose job it is to get an angle on a story that no one else has – no matter how marginal it may be. They spend more time preening in front of the mirror making sure not a single strand of hair is out of place and that they look fabulous before the cameras roll than they do getting themselves up to speed on what they’re reporting on. If a medical briefing takes place at 7:00 pm, a newspaper reporter will have to return to the office, pour through her notes, find an angle to the story, write it and submit it to an editor before 10:00 pm. In the two hours or so that the reporter has to write the story, there is little time to research, understand the complexities and face the editor.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: I don’t think that media understands just how intelligent we are about what's going on. If the media can be distracted from their work uncovering a drastic so-called “economic disaster” by a disease that can be prevented by washing your hands, then are they like little kids chasing balloons?

Let’s not panic just yet. Let’s keep our heads and our wits about us. Let’s develop our own individual personal leadership qualities and keep relaxed. We can handle these events of our lives. We have up to now. Let's instead let the media go mad. They seem to be worrying plenty for all of us anyway.

Service By Inquiry or Insanity?

Did you know that there are only TWO types of service? I was finally able to nail down these two types of service this past weekend. As with most things in life, you usually only ever have an opinion on one type of service without something to compare it to. This weekend, I found the comparison.

Service Model #1 – Service By Inquiry: As the name suggests, inquiry is the key here. How can I help you? What is it you’re looking for? What specific model/brand are you looking for? These are all questions usually asked by a clerk/service personnel as you wander around their store with a lost look on your face or when you have finally decided to approach the Customer Service counter as a last resort. Then there are the questions posed by the customer: Where do you keep your …? Where would I find …? Do you carry any …? These are simply inquiries which should normally be met with simple answers.

Service Model #2 – Service By Insanity: As this name suggests, the customer has to lose his mind, his patience, his good mood and his common courtesy before he gets the service he should be entitled to. Sending a customer across the store to the Customer Service counter to be helped when there is a perfectly good in-store phone at your fingertips drives a customer nuts. Getting a clerk to help a customer only after they have hit “desperation” is not good service.

However, the worst question in any retail setting is usually asked just before you leave the store if you’re making your way through the checkout line: Did you find everything you were looking for? That’s really a dumb question that makes unhappy customers crazy. Yet more and more retail operations are hell-bent on asking it. Most people simply answer “yes” and silently vow to never come to the store again.

But what if the answer is “no?” Are you going to hold up all of the other disgruntled customers who are also standing in a long checkout line? Answer “no” and the clerk gets a look of terror on their face. Who fixes the problem with you only ten feet from the door? I’ll tell you right now, if you answer “no,” you get the pat-answer, “Oh sorry.”

Look, if you want me to find everything I’m looking for; don’t place your cashier in an embarrassing situation. Put more people on the floor to help the customers. Jeez, it’s really a simple idea. Don’t try to fix my problem when I’ve already gone through your whole store and no one helped me there. Now you think you’re going to help me once I've already decided to leave? It doesn’t work that way. Besides, if I didn’t buy anything, no one asks the question. I’m not in the right line (checkout line) to see if I’m satisfied.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: When a manager has to help a complaining customer with two or three qualified staff standing around doing nothing means your people don’t own a Service Attitude. If you’re a manager who feels compelled to respond to customer concerns, it usually means that your staff is unmotivated. If so, your management style needs a lot of work. Obviously, if as a manager, you have to help, it’s because your people aren’t helping enough. Either get rid of these people or move them to where they don’t deal directly with customers. A manager should be doing PR on the floor. Clerks and customer service reps should be ensuring that a manager never has to actually help customers find things. By the time a manager speaks with a customer, it should be all smiles and chuckles – not complaints.

If you’re a manager who deals with complaints, then your people aren’t doing it right. If you’re a service representative and you’re not looking for ways to help a customer in every moment of your day, then you are not doing enough to ensure you become the most valuable person in your organization.

Help me, the customer, on the floor so that when I get to the checkout line and get asked, “Did you find everything OK?” I can answer “yes” and take the pressure off of the cashier. Your cashier should not have to be the last line of defense of ensuring customer satisfaction. Besides, if I’m on my way out, how are you going to fix it now anyway?

Are You Indispensable?

This is my favorite time of year - hockey playoffs. So on game night, which is pretty much every night, I'm glued to the tube watching in hi-def. It's a Canadian thing.

I was watching the game highlights from the games I missed. The New York Rangers are playing the Washington Capitals. Sean Avery of the Rangers was up to his old cheap-shot tricks again. I began to wonder, would the Rangers be a worse team without Avery playing?

On American Idol, would the show be worse if Tara DioGuardi were not a judge this year? Would her contribution really be missed? Of course, the answer would be different if I asked the same question about Simon Cowell.

How would your workplace be different without your contribution? Honestly. Would the job get along without you if you weren't there anymore?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Have you been able to make yourself indispensable? Are you prepared to become the go-to person in a pinch?

Here's what it takes to become indispensable: continuous improvement. The more valuable you make yourself, the more you assure yourself of job security. And if your position is still tenuous, you set yourself up well to become the person that other organizations "must acquire."

The market continues to shift and change and so must you. You must keep on top of your game - keep sharp, keep adapting and keep learning.

You don't have to be in a leadership position to own a leadership attitude. In fact you don't have to be in management to be a leader.

The truth is, if your workplace could get along without you, then you're an average performer. Average performers get an average wage. Top performers get top wages. The difference between pay scales is in your willingness to improve and to position yourself as indispensable.

Don't complain about the job or the pay. You get paid what others think you're worth.

Why Should You Be Hired?

My friend and mentor, Brian Stecyk, sent me an email recently in response to a Blog entry I had written called Memo From The Customer. In it, I mused aloud as to why front-line staff feels that everything else, other than serving me, is more important at the time of my transaction. All I was asking for is a little attention and a genuine thankfulness for my business – not a tall order really.

Brian sent along the following comments that included a great observation at the end.

Great column. Every time I interview someone, I ask them the question, "Why should I hire you?" I have received the following responses:

• Because I am nice.
• Because I need a job.
• Because I am a hard worker.
• Because you need someone.

But not once in 28 years has anyone ever said, "Because I will help your business earn a profit."

When I inform them of what I am looking for, I usually get an absolutely stunned response. It is as though the thought that they must make a contribution to the bottom line is heresy. On a couple of occasions, interviewees even remarked, "It shouldn't be all about money and profit." Obviously those people did not get hired. Without profit I cannot hire anyone.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: As the market heats up with increasing competition for the same numbers of jobs, what are you bringing to the table that is better than the last guy who was interviewed? What is it that you possess that you do better than anyone else?

At no time in history (I am guessing here) has a paycheck ever been handed to an employee with a little notation in the bottom left corner of the check that reads, “For Being Nice,” or “Because You Needed A Job,” or “Because We Needed Someone.” That’s not why you get hired.

If your Attitude on the job is one of “that’s good enough,” when it comes time for performance and pay review, your employer is likely to say, “What we’re paying you right now is good enough.” If you want to be paid more, you need to be valued more. If you want to be picked over all of the other job seekers, you need to have more value than they. If you want to be promoted, your number of years on the job aren’t enough – you need to be more valuable than the others being considered.

If you think you’ve gotten as far in your current job as you can go and you’re not the person running the place, then people don't think you're worth more and you obviously haven't given them any reason to think differently.

If you won’t do the work to get better, become more knowledgeable and to become the most valuable person in your organization, then why should anyone pay you more? That’s like paying more money for the very same item, made by the very same manufacturer at the store next door. Why would you pay more for it? It hasn’t been improved and it will do the same thing it always does.

What’s your edge? What makes you more valuable? What is demonstrably different about you?

Car Wrecks, Grieving Mothers And The Economy

You’ve seen it happen when a tragedy befalls a family. You see the media clamoring and jockeying for position to try to get an exclusive interview with the affected family members. Family members are in tears trying desperately to remain coherent and composed while facing the barrage of cameras and microphones shoved in their faces.

I get no pleasure from watching events like this. I don’t understand how the media can be so calloused as to think that someone who is suffering a personal tragedy would make for good TV. But they do it anyway because in order to boost ratings, the media feels compelled to put the most sensational, gut-wrenching and over-the-top footage on their newscasts. We, the public, love to watch a car-wreck. Events like this are sadly, just like that.

Shoving a camera in the face of a grieving mother is not factual – it’s sensational. Interviewing the investigating police officers of a crime is factual.

At the same time, we look to that same media for the facts of what is happening to our economy. If they will go through great lengths to make a personal tragedy sensational, wouldn’t it figure that they would do the same with every story – including the state of our economy.

There are many experts who believe that we are turning the corner in the economy right now. There are just as many who believe that we’re headed for more trouble. Those who think more trouble is ahead seem to get more than their fair share of the headlines. Those who think that our economy is on the upswing usually get buried in the story (for balance so they tell us). If you read only the headline and the first few paragraphs of a newspaper story, you get the idea that things are going to get worse.

In no less than twenty stories in various newspapers across the country in the past few weeks, I have found buried inside the dastardly-headlined stories, some hope, some optimism and some good news. But the headline rarely suggests that. My friend and business growth expert, Marty Park, made an interesting suggestion: start telling your friends that the recession is over and claim you heard it on the news. Watch how people react.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Let’s not forget that the media is a business. After being a member of the media for eighteen years, I can tell you with no reservation that the media’s job is to sell advertising. Ads are easier to sell for those with a bigger share of the market. In other words, a bigger audience means bigger dollars. Make the headline sensational. Make it loud. Make it brash. And make it appeal to the inherent “car-wreck watching” parts of us.

The awards for best photo don’t go to photojournalists who shoot beautiful sunsets. They go to those who shoot tragedy. Journalism awards don’t go to reporters who write good news stories. They go to investigative reporters who uncover a major plot. Documentary awards don’t normally go news crews who tell happy stories of companies succeeding during tough times. Those awards go to crews who bring down the big multi-nationals.

Before you think that what you read in newspapers, see on television and listen to on radio is gospel truth, think about what the individual reporters are trying to do (win awards) and what the media companies are trying to do (win awards and raise advertising revenues). Journalism is “supposed” to be fair and balanced – but that doesn’t mean that the headlines have to be.

It’s your own personal economy that’s really most important to you anyway. Your own personal economy is turning the corner if you whatever is necessary to make it turn the corner. For the most part, what’s happening in the rest of the country or the world won’t have much effect on you personally if you look after your own personal economy (household, personal finances, revenue streams, etc.). Let’s keep our eyes on the ball and stop getting so spooked by organizations trying to profit from our difficulty.

If The Job Is Boring, Maybe It’s Not The Job

Ok, you’ve heard about Southwest Airlines. They are the airline in the United States that makes the experience just a little bit different. As a flight attendant on any airline, what do you think the boring parts of the job are? My guess, having flown enough, is that the announcements on most airlines are always the same, the passengers all start to look the same, the airports all start to look the same and you can bet that the boredom factor can be high when you’ve been up and down on five or six flights in the same day.

So that means that the fun on the job would be up to the employee – otherwise it’s a boring affair after a while.

Have a look at the following video to see what happens when you exercise a little creativity in the mundane work each day.



ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Don’t complain that the job is boring. It’s boring if you let it be boring. If you want some excitement, make it exciting. You’ll have many more better days than boring ones.

3 Key Components To Succeeding In Today's Economy

Ray was a former Sales Manager of mine when I sold radio commercial time. Although I had been in radio for some sixteen years to that point, I had never formally been a sales representative. We had, as sales reps, monthly quotas to achieve. The numbers seemed daunting in a relatively new territory which I was taking over. I had also never actually sold radio airtime before. I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to achieve the monthly quotas that were expected of me.

Ray, in his wisdom from years on the street, simply focused me this way: “Kevin, if you look after the weeks, the months will look after themselves.”

Ray refocused me by showing me how to break down the monthly totals into four weekly performances – small manageable steps.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: This is good advice at any time in the economy, especially today. But there are three key components that you will need to consider to succeed in a resetting economy. Perhaps you may have overlooked these in the past few years.

1. Get rid of the need for record-breaking performance. Not every year is a record-breaking year. An organization can still do well in today’s economy if they are prepared to commit to creating relationships based on value with their clients and staff. Relationships based on money only will seriously be undermined and loyalty becomes non-existent. When you teach your clients and staff to buy based on price, then the guy with the best price wins. What are you offering as far as solutions go? People will pay a fair price for something they get tremendous value from. Sell your “value-proposition” and not your need to have a record-breaking sales year. What has that got to do with your staff’s and customer’s needs anyway?
2. Stop comparing to last year’s performance. Last year and the year before were boom-years. If you want a fair comparison, compare to 2002 just prior to the boom. (If we could only teach the media how to do this when they tell us how bad our economy is today.) But in relative terms, comparing apples to apples (2009 to 2002) we are about the same – perhaps a little better today. Make a fair comparison. Measure yourselves by the quality of your work and not the finances. Money is a lousy way to keep score. Customer satisfaction is a better way to check how you’re doing. Keep customers satisfied and they keep coming back. Look after the customers and staff and the dollars look after themselves.
3. Chop the deadwood. When times are good, you get fat. You get bloated. You feast at the table of the never-ending supply of money. You gorge yourselves and treat your lives like a drunken orgy of delights. Now is the time to get lean, to lose weight, to trim the fat. Because times were so good you had to hire people who were not necessarily the right fit for your organization. But you needed warm bodies and any body would do. But now is the time to eliminate waste. Companies are getting rid of programs that don't positively impact the bottom-line directly. Feel-good motivational stuff doesn't make people better salespeople, better workers or better managers. But change an attitude, a perspective or point of view and you can make a difference in the day-to-day functioning and results of any organization.

Now is the time for personal and professional leadership - not being paralyzed by the scare-mongering of the media. Now is the time to strike while a company's competitors are sitting on their hands waiting out the storm. Now is the time to create relationships with customers - not to agree that the sky is falling. Now is the time to bring value to the market - not just price. Now is the time to be bold while everyone else is being conservative. Now is the time to change minds - not agree with the media-induced perspective. (Even the media is in trouble - having spent the better part of the past year telling people that times are hard. It has come back to bite them in lower ad revenues. It's the old adage of what you think about, you bring about.)

People want to believe that there is something positive coming out of all of this and they want something to look forward to. People want a reason to believe that what they do matters and that they are valued. People want believe that they can still succeed in this economy. And I believe that they can. Anyone can. And I will argue to the death with anyone who believes anything to the contrary.

You Don’t Have To Go To Meetings

Recently, I was chosen to address the full staff of a small municipality – everything from Administration and Social Services personnel to Fire, Police, Library, Recreation and Public Works staff. This was their annual Staff Day, a half-day session to inform all of the members of the municipal government staff of what was happening with new projects, new staff additions and new directions for the coming year. I was brought in to wrap up the morning offering a new perspective and a new attitude towards work, safety and developing a personal leadership role within the job environment.

During the early part of the meeting, while representatives from each department were addressing their updates to inform the rest of the staff of the goings-on, a few employees sitting in the back row decided that it was more important to chatter amongst themselves instead of keeping up to speed on what their own employer and organization was doing and how it may affect them, their work and the community in which they live and work. There was little respect or courtesy being demonstrated by these few workers especially during the part of the program in which the CAO was addressing the topics of Respect, Trust and Integrity.

Just prior to my session commencing, there was an open forum to ask questions. One back-of-the-room disruptor muttered under their breath loud enough for others around them to hear, “Do we have to be here?”

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: No you don’t have to be here. You don’t have to attend any staff meetings. You don’t have to show up at work on time. You don’t have to endure three hours of coffee, donuts and free pizza for lunch. You don’t have to give your attention on the job. You don’t have to be considerate to your fellow workers. And no, you don’t have to sit through a boring meeting. Simply hand in your resignation and you’re free to do whatever you want.

However, if you take the job, you need to suck it up. You take all of the meetings, the procedures, the bosses, the whining of your co-workers, the hours, the holidays, the paycheck and the benefits you’re entitled to. You don’t have to do any of the jobs you don’t like – but you will have to give up everything you do like in order to stop doing what bores you. Some parts of the job are not as much fun as other parts of the job, granted. But they are all necessary.

My guess is that the Staff day was developed in response to, “How come no one ever tells us what’s going on?” I’m willing to bet those comments came from the people in the back row who chose not to pay attention anyway. And in a few weeks they’ll ask, “How come no one told us this was going on?”

Full kudos to the Administration for bringing the staff together to communicate what is happening with the municipality. They demonstrated respect, trust and integrity with their employees. Too bad not everyone reciprocated.

People who show no respect for their fellow workers will likely show little respect to their work, their equipment, their responsibilities, their co-workers, their bosses and their customers. Would it be a loss if these people left the job? Really?

Look Who’s Talking

There is one very powerful voice today that is speaking to your staff, your customers and the customers of your customers. That voice is shaping purchasing decisions, growth strategies, corporate training, hiring practices, customer service models and your corporate culture. Left unchecked and unchallenged, that voice will continue to chip away at your bottom-line.

I’m not speaking of that one big dissenter within your organization that the rest of the staff wish would just go away or get fired. This one voice doesn’t even work for your company. It stands outside of your organization like a lone protester carrying a “The World Is Ending” picket sign and creates havoc and warns people that they had better not spend their money with you because tomorrow, there won’t be any money left. That voice is like a single mosquito in a tent at 2:00 a.m. – incredibly annoying until it has been squashed. But people are listening to that voice and they are making decisions about doing business with your organization based on that single voice.

Why are people listening to that voice? Because you’re not challenging that voice. You’re not engaging in the same public forum to reassure your customers and your staff that doing business with you is a good thing to do. That voice is doing huge damage to your organization right now because it is being allowed to singlehandedly make a lot of noise, disrupt your business, scare your staff and sully your customers.

That voice is the voice of the media who look for evidence every single day to justify the “Sky Is Falling” headline in their stories. And since there are very few opposite opinions telling their “good news” stories, that one voice is allowed to continue to dominate the discussion with your clients and staff. People are listening to the only one voice that seems to be talking. And since you’re not talking to your customers and staff, since you’ve decided to suspend training until the “recession” is over, that voice is allowed to dominate the market and potentially bring about the dire consequences it is predicting. Say something enough times and people start to believe it.

Had your decision to pull back training, or have a hiring freeze or take a “wait-and-see” attitude been done during a Boom-time, your decision would have been interpreted as a corporate strategy. People applaud corporate strategy. Most time corporate strategy makes an organization stronger at the end. During this time, however, any of those same decisions are perceived to be a reaction to the marketplace and makes each organization look like a follower and not a leader. It makes customers nervous. It makes staff nervous. And when customers and staff are nervous, you will see the evidence on your bottom-line.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Yesterday, in the Edmonton Journal, read the following headline in 72 pt font: “City Economy Will Shrink In '09.” The truth is, in Edmonton, this year’s growth is expected to be down 0.2%. That’s zero point two percent folks – for a city. Is that even news? Of course it is – if your mandate is to sell newspapers. Make it loud. Make it scary. Make it a must-read and people will buy the paper. More papers sold means more advertisers attracted.

The story went on to explain that Edmonton’s growth will bounce back to 3.1% growth in 2010, and 3.8% in 2011 to 2013. But the headline doesn’t indicate that the 0.2% decline is short-lived. So, you, your customers and your staff read headlines like this (since virtually no one reads the whole story anymore) and start to pull in your horns a little. Everyone gets nervous and the nervousness spreads like a virus. Sorry, but to the average organization, a 0.2% decline in growth would only seem like a small correction in the market – not the basis for an outlandish headline.

I challenge you today, to find a good news headline in your organization and either call a meeting or send a company-wide memo telling your people about your positive growth story and do it every day. Ask your people to pass it on to your customers. Let’s start talking about what’s good in your organization and let’s start drowning out the voices of the dissenters. Those dissenting voices are not good for your business. Why are you allowing someone outside of your company to dictate the success of your organization? Speak up. Where’s your Leadership Attitude?