Managers Responsible For Poor Employee Engagement

Have you made a decision to improve your corporate culture in 2010? Look, you can't keep putting it off. 2010 is going to be the year of mass exodus of employees to new jobs. You are going to lose some good people unless you stop digging in your heels and get with the program.

Right Management's survey results last month says it all: 60% of employees say they will move to a new job in 2010 and another 21% are actively networking right now to see what's out there. That's 81% of the workforce on the hunt for new work because during this recession, you let your people develop fears and feelings of uncertainty. You abandoned them when they needed you most. You took away their training, their perks and the things they looked forward to just to hang on to a few lousy dollars. They feel abandoned now and they have as much loyalty for you as they felt you had for them.

Employees don't leave an employer - they leave their managers and their culture - specifically managers who make your corporate culture hard to swallow.

Now before you hire the Employee Engagement consultants as a knee-jerk attempt to fix the problem, let me clue you in on what the real problem is and why employees don't engage. It's not because there aren't enough perks. It's not because the work isn't rewarding. It's not because the cubicle is too small. It's, most times, because the supervisor is a jerk who under-appreciates them, who treats them like a number, who plays favorites and who has little or no compassion or soft-skills as a decent human being.

Can you honestly say that each and every manager in your group could muster up the courage to have a heart-to-heart with an employee about a sick child at home or to be truly thankful and grateful for the work of their employees? Do your managers, in addition to being taught how to manage, have the ability to communicate feelings or just to bark orders?

You may have been able to get away with that when you had a full complement of Baby Boomers working for you but the numbers are turning and by late next year, Gen Y's will outnumber Boomers in the workplace. Your workers want only a few things and they will actively engage themselves:

• a decent work environment - not a funky new office but a place where they feel like they matter, are told so and are asked their opinions and ideas on company initiatives.
• a rewarding career - not just a job but something that they can become more than just proficient in and be encouraged to become considered one of the best in their field.
• a manager who is as much a coach and mentor as they are a boss - someone who can find the drive, the spark and the magic in every single employee and find ways to inspire those employees to reach for the next level daily.
• a senior management that doesn't just pay lip-service to the softer side of doing business - but a senior management team that actually encourages it and if a manager is incapable of coaching and inspiring, they fire his ass to save their good people.

If you've got a manager or two who refuse to accept that business is run by people, for people and to serve people then I encourage you to pay the legal bills to remove that manager instead of having to pay the recruiting, re-training and recurring bills of getting a constant parade of new employees up to speed.

If you want your employees to engage, you had better engage your managers. If you've got high attrition numbers in one or two departments, it's because of your managers. Stop buying the department manager's excuses and remove them. Your managers are costing your company good people and a lot of money.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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How To Improve Company Morale

Why is it that I have never heard of a senior manager being dragged to work kicking and screaming and bemoaning their job? I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I've never actually seen it. But how many times do you witness an employee or middle manager moaning about their job? You know exactly who I'm talking about in your office don't you?

Why is the practice of whining about work only reserved for those not in senior management?

Also, while we're at it, why is it that two people working in side-by-side cubicles doing the exact same job can view their jobs so differently? One can choose to complain about the job and the other loves the job. Why the difference? It's obviously not the job or both would be either happy or whining. The key to job satisfaction and company morale is to understand and acknowledge the differing attitudes toward the work. Fix the attitude of the one who dislikes the job and you improve the workplace for two people - the complainer AND the person who has to endure the constant complaining in the next cubicle.

And that's how you change workplace morale; by affecting the prevailing attitudes regardless of position. I urge senior management to demonstrate these traits by example and most do when it comes to complaining about their job. But the truth is that those outside of senior management will always do as they please regardless of the example set, always. This leads me to believe that it's not the job that people dislike - it is the perceived lack of control over the job and their own destiny and/or contribution. And that is an attitude of feeling dominated/controlled by another which can be reversed by addressing the underlying attitudes and opinions.

My point is always, if you're not making your conscious choices about making your own life better, then you're going to get whatever is left over from everyone else. If you are not acting to create the results you want then you are, by default, allowing whatever happens to be your choice. If there are more "good-natured" people going to work, then we end up having more good places to work.

Everything starts with the individual. Take the people out of a building and you don't have a business anymore: you have a building with a lot of stuff. There is no business without people. My mission is to improve the people and let the business improve itself. And I mean everyone - regardless of position.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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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. 
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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Attitude One of Seven

Attitude one of seven is the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety.

Don't you feel safe when you've got a few extra bucks (ideally anywhere from 3-12 months) set aside? How much better are you able to do your job knowing that your job is not tenuous? Do you feel secure about your contribution to your workplace and know that your contribution will be traded off with fairly good job-security?

To know that the your finances are in order, that your basic needs of food and shelter are well looked after, doesn't that bring a sense of relief? It's amazing how much more you can accomplish when you don't feel that downward pressure of out-of-control finances and uncertainty. To know all is well in your world allows your focus to be clearer.

This is the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety. When you have a steady stream of money (or a guaranteed source of it = regular paycheck) and are living within your means, there is a great sense of security that comes with that. You are secure in knowing that should something tragic befall you, you'd be OK at least in the short-term. Knowing that, there is a sense of safety for yourself and your family. Once you have that sense of safety, you will not find yourself taking stupid risks - you will still risk but it is likely to be calculated enough to the point that you wouldn't impact yourself beyond your financial cushion.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If you're not feeling safe and secure in your world, then money is likely the issue. You have not given yourself a cushion should something happen. Go to work there first. Build your cushion. Give yourself some peace of mind, security and safety. The person who has the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety will outperform all others and likely attract better results.

If you or any of the people in your organization don't have this attitude nailed down, your corporate performance is going to suffer, morale will decline, worry and fear will permeate the organization and your people will be looking for new jobs at every opportunity - hoping the grass is greener somewhere else. Help your people develop the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety and you will have a healthier organization for it.

The Attitude of Money, Security and Safety is the first of the seven attitudes in my forthcoming book, Your Attitude Sucks - Fixing What's Wrong With Corporate America.

Claiming “Offended” is Offensive

There is nothing that offends me more than someone who plays the “offended” card and claims righteous indignation. You can’t even have an attempt at humor around these people. Have a little fun and you can see that sour look coming over their faces and looking down their nose at you.

Worse yet are the people who feign offended when it serves to advance their own agenda. Politicians are really good at this one. In fact, in Canada today, there are a whole bunch of politicians pretending to be offended at what another politician supposedly said and turning it into a media circus. It’s cheap politics and it’s as transparent as bottled water.

People who claim to be offended are manipulators, plain and simple. Claiming to be offended is an act that people of poor self-worth pull when they want to get attention. It’s the equivalent to a child’s temper-tantrum, only supposedly more refined. Their offended-act is a ploy to make the offender seem as though they are not as smart and refined as the one who claims to be offended. It’s childish. It’s counter-productive. And it will alienate and divide a good staff. It makes the issue all about the person claiming to be offended and not about the issue itself. That’s selfish and offensive.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: People are people. No one person is better than another in the workplace. Every person has their own value. And, they bring their own values, opinions and beliefs to work just like you. Trotting out your offended act when it serves you won’t change another person’s behaviour so get over yourself. Your little “high-and-mighty” act is tiresome and divisive. You’re forcing your co-workers to take sides when you do that. And shouldn’t your team be working together instead of breaking apart to choose sides? Force people to choose a side and you may be surprised at the outcome. Most people see right through these little acts of indignation.

The truth is, if you’re a competent worker, any goodwill you may have built with your co-workers purely as a result of the quality of your work and your abilities is lost when you pull the “I’m so offended” crap that offends everyone else and forces an uncomfortable silence and awkward moments – more so than the person who supposedly offended you.

If you’re pulling the “holier-than-thou” act in the workplace then you need to go or at least be put in your place. No one is forcing you to be there. No one points a gun at your head in the morning and demands you show up. So if something in the workplace offends you, stop going and instead find a group of people who will tolerate your intolerance. There is no place for righteous indignation in the workplace. The truth is people have tolerated you up to now. Why can’t you act with the same courtesy they’ve shown you and tolerate them?

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.

The Fine-Print Attitude Adjustment

So what do you think would happen if you stood up in a public forum and announced, “Our Company is in trouble and we now need a big injection of cash to keep our company going. If we don’t get the cash injection, we will be forced to lay off a lot of our workers, we will have to consider closing some of our plant locations and our future as a viable company will become tenuous at best.”

Do you think that a public declaration like that would inspire customers to continue doing business with you?

Well that’s exactly what the big automakers did in late 2008. And guess what? The report came out today saying auto sales dropped substantially in December. Now who would have ever thought that people would stop buying cars when the car makers say that they’re in trouble?

Has your organization stopped spending because of the media-induced, economic-crisis hysteria? Many companies say that they have stopped spending but not for things they need. If your computer crashed today you would be buying a new one tomorrow because a computer is necessary to get the work done. So companies are still buying. They’re just ensuring that they get value for their money.

Many companies have ceased their training and management meetings and conferences – yet continue to pay the Meeting Planner on-staff who is planning no meetings. That seems like a senseless waste of a good salary. Ceasing training at this time is just about the most ridiculous idea an organization could follow.

It’s right now that your people need reassurances that your company or organization is solid. It’s right now that your workplace needs a shot of courage and conviction. Many of your competitors have rolled up their sails and are waiting out the “storm.” But there is no storm. It’s a media-induced frenzy. And if you’re buying it, you’re hurting your own bottom-line.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: So what message are you sending your customers? What message are you sending your people? You see, whatever you say to your people is going to be the same thing your people say to your customers.

Let me repeat that one: whatever you say to your people is going to be the same thing your people say to your customers.

So stop catastrophizing (or making up words).

So how bad is it really out there? Well, outside of car sales, retail sales fell 1.8 per cent in December. 1.8 per cent. Are you kidding me? The mass hysteria is about a 1.8 per cent drop in retail sales in December – which is compared to December 2007. That was the month, if you recall, that retailers were surprised by how much we were spending. We overshot expectations in December 2007 and evened it out in December 2008.

Do not let your organization suffer from the media-induced, ratings-grabbing, hysterical headlines. Read the fine print. Get the information for yourself. Pay attention. Don’t panic and for goodness sake, don’t panic in front of your people or your customers.

Now is the time to give your people a shot in the arm – not a kick in the teeth. Now is the time to arm them with confidence – not uncertainty. Now is the time to give them an attitude adjustment on what’s really happening in the marketplace – not rumours and supposition. Now is the time to rise above the cowering competitors and take a bigger market share.

Now is the time for leadership. Leadership is an Attitude.

The 2% Economic Attitude Adjustment

I’m getting fed up with the media hysteria of the state of our economy. Sensationalism and ratings-grabs are leading the news these days and it’s sickening. Companies and their “Chicken Little” CFO’s are buying into the hysteria while sitting on piles of reserve cash. The sky is NOT falling. In fact, we’re perhaps better off than we were two years ago. How so? Think this way: the Canadian economy for the past three years was running too hot. When you run a car too hot, you do more damage to the engine than when you run it at a constant speed within the “moderate” range. When a machine gets too hot, it needs to slow down to allow the engine to cool a little. In other words, what we’re experiencing right now is a simple push of the “Reset” button. That’s how Canadian Business Magazine has described this time in our economy.

Now if you want to witness an economy out of control, let’s go back to Canada in the early eighties. The unemployment rate was over 12%, inflation was 12.5% and interest rates were over 20%. Twenty percent! Compare those figures to today (January 2009): unemployment at 7.2%, inflation at 1.07%, and the Bank of Canada Rate for January was 1.25%.

So, because the interest rates and inflation rates are so low right now, let’s just take a look at just the unemployment rate and talk about it. On average in Canada, for the last ten years or so, the unemployment rate has run around 5.2%, which means that 94.8% of people who wanted to work were working. Today, 92.8% of people who want to work are working. That’s a two percent difference folks. Two percent! How would a drop of two percent affect your business? No really. Seriously answer that question. Is your business on the brink of financial ruin with a drop of two percent in the employment rate? Seriously?

Interest rates are so low that borrowing money is almost free. Inflation is so low that you can almost guarantee that the prices you pay today will be virtually the same prices tomorrow. The market is consistent with its own performance over the past five years for the most part. So what’s with the panic?

Many people think attitude training is hokey and it's a soft skill that you can do without. But the truth is that if your people are quoting chapter and verse from the media about the sky falling and your people end up passing that uncertainty along to your customers, your customers are going to be uncertain about doing business with you. The attitude of your people transfers to your customers.

US President Obama has recently made a commitment to reduce the US deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars by half within the next four years. In doing so, the plan is to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs. When President Bill Clinton did the same in the nineties, he got rid of the deficit. And guess what happened? He produced 24 million new jobs. The US had eight years that were the most successful in the second half economically of the 20th century.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The truth is Attitude, in this time of economic uncertainty, is far more important than fluff like Time Management. It's the attitude of your people, when they speak with customers, which will make you a winner in a “down” economy. It's Attitude that keeps your people's perspective in check when they hear the media say the sky is falling. It's Attitude that will cause your people to realize that business is in the toilet if you "believe" that business is in the toilet. If your people accept that they can't be successful while times are supposed to be hard, then you may as well close your doors until the economy gets better because you are going to bleed red ink.

Attitude is perspective. Change the perspective and you change the results. You can't do the same thing the same way everyday and expect to magically succeed. But once you change someone's perspective, once you change how they see problems, once you change how they believe things can be, you change results.

There are companies around the world who are succeeding in spite of the "economic downturn." Would you be willing to take the time to find out their secrets? I'll save you the trouble. Companies become successful when they don't allow excuses, reasons or justifiers to stand in their way. The Economic Downturn is nothing more than a convenient excuse for companies doing poorly. That excuse lets business off the hook for being mediocre. That's simply "Attitude" in play.

Leadership is an Attitude. Service is an Attitude. Safety is an Attitude. Success is an Attitude. Winning is an Attitude. Perspective is an Attitude.

None of it is measurable or tangible. But you won't find a single successful organization without it.

If your people are scared when they work or deal with clients, you're doomed. If they've got Attitude, there isn't a single thing that will ever stop them from achieving.

So, what's your next step?

Hope I Didn't Complain Too Much

I spent a little time with Bill recently. He’s in his eighties now and lives alone. He spends most of his days in front of the TV as he needs a walker to get around. He has a boarder who lives downstairs and she is supposed to fix his meals and keep him company in exchange for a substantial reduction on her rent. Meals are mostly frozen prepared dinners from the grocery store. She never spends more than five minutes at a time with Bill and he complains about it. And I understand that. For a man in his eighties, he’s being taken advantage of.

Our conversation lasted about an hour. We covered a lot of things including some regrets he has in his life, his loneliness, his estranged family and his quality of life. There’s no one to talk to. His meals come out of a microwave. He can’t drive anymore. He’s bound to his house. It’s kind of tough to be upbeat about life when those are the results you have near the end of it.

As I was walking down the front walk after our visit, he simply yelled out, “Hope I didn’t complain too much.”

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Perhaps Bill’s last words to me that day should be the last words you leave people with. Instead of saying, “goodbye” or “so long” perhaps you should close with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

What different conversations you’d end up having with others if you knew you were going to end the conversation with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

In fact, I think ending a conversation with “hope I didn’t complain too much” would actually cement the conversation you had with someone else. Both of the talk partners would be forced to reflect on the conversation to see if one or the other did complain too much.

But it will never fly. People just don’t want to be accountable for their conversations. People just want to complain. They want to whine and moan about how tough their lives are and use it as an excuse for not doing better. They don’t want to get out of their ruts and routines and enjoy something better. They don’t want to improve their circumstances or their lives because, well, it’s hard work and they already work hard enough. No. You’ll never hear those words at the end of a conversation because no one really would mean it.

So I guess life will just go on the same way, getting the same results and complaining about the same things. It’s easier to be lazy and complain than it is to fix a sorry life. So feel free to make your choice. It probably won’t be any different anyway.

Hope I didn’t complain too much.

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.

The Customer Is Rarely Right

Imagine for a moment, as you serve one of your customers, that the customer begins to become belligerent and abusive towards you despite all of your best attempts to please the customer. Even though you are doing your best to diffuse this tenuous situation, the customer is just being an ass and is rejecting your offers of service. This customer just, it seems, wants to be abusive.

Now, also imagine your boss walking in on the conversation as the customer increases his abusiveness towards you and your boss sides with the customer. How would you feel? Would you feel like the rug was just pulled out from under you? Would you feel your value decreased? Would you pledge your undying loyalty to the company from that point forward? Would you give a damn about the customer anymore?

The sad truth is that this is happening all too often. Bosses, in their mistaken belief that “the customer is always right” will sometimes do whatever is necessary for the sake of keeping a customer (and his or her money) – even if that customer abuses one of his or her employees.

The customer is NOT always right. In fact, it could be argued that the customer is “rarely” right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk. Does being a jerk make a person right?

If you want to keep, not just your good people - but all of your people, working for you, then fire the customers who are insensitive, rude to or abuse your staff members - regardless of who that staff member is. Tell the customer that they are no longer welcome in your business. Refuse to take any further orders from them. Stand up for your people (hey, you trained them, paid for that training and have coached them all the way along – don’t let them down now).

You can’t afford to keep customers who make your staff look like idiots. Money in a wallet doesn’t give a person the right to act like a jerk. And as a staff member, don’t allow yourself to be belittled in the name of job-security.

Bosses, imagine that one of your top performers witnesses a lesser performer getting dumped on by a customer and you, as a boss, do nothing to stop this from happening. You will not only likely lose the loyalty of your lesser performer but your top performer as well.

In a situation like that, everyone, regardless of the performance abilities, will see exactly what kind of company he/she works for. Jumping to the defense of a top performer in the same situation and not jumping to the defense of a poor performer shows complete insincerity. You will not keep any performers if you are not genuinely dedicated to your staff.

Managers serve their employees - not the other way around. Staff serves customers; manager serves employees; the CEO serves managers, employees and shareholders. Every one serves someone. Employee loyalty is far more important than customer loyalty. If you are going to charge your employees with serving the customer, you had better make sure they feel that you (as a manager) are loyal to them if you want them to be loyal to the customer and in turn, make the customer loyal to your business.

Attitude Adjustment: The days of dumping all over your people and the fairy-tale belief that "the customer is always right" is dead. You will never have a relationship with your customers if you don't have a manager to employee relationship that works first. Think long and hard on this one. Customer loyalty is only as strong as employee loyalty. Serve your employees well so that they may serve your customers in the same way. If you, as a boss, don’t stand up for your people, you will probably end up serving the customer directly - you’ll be the only one left in the workplace willing to work with you.

Eye-Opening Survey Results

Perhaps we’ve become deluged with surveys but over the past week I’ve seen some survey results that were interesting enough that I thought I’d pass them along.

American Management Association:
Being kind to employees seems to be the right move for a boss when it comes to boosting performance.
Out of 660 respondents, the findings are as follows:
75% characterized their boss as “kind.”

• 84% of these said they plan to work for their company a long time
• 74% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 70% said they work as hard as they can
• 73% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 84% said they believe their boss really listens

14% considered their boss a “bully.”

• 47% of these said they plan to work here for a long time
• 32% said they look forward to going to work each day
• 54% said they work as hard as they can
• 42% said they believe they can speak candidly with their boss
• 24% said they believe their boss really listens

11% were neutral

Jobfox.com
Generation Y workers, the youngest of the four generations in the workplace, are not making a great impression on the job.
200 recruiters polled and the findings are as follows:
Who are the Great performers?

• 20% Gen Y
• 58% Gen X
• 63% Boomers
• 25% Traditionalists

Who are the Poor performers?

• 30% Gen Y
• 5% Gen X
• 4% Boomers
• 22% Traditionalists

Human Resource Professionals Association in partnership with retirement lifestyle consultants Life’s Next Step
627 HR pros surveyed and the findings are as follows:
With somewhere between 20% and 40% of the workforce scheduled to retire over the next five years, is your organization prepared for the coming talent shortage?

• 14% are fully prepared
• 60% are somewhat prepared
• 23% are poorly prepared

Hirescores.com
3000 British workers surveyed and the findings are as follows:
Almost half of British workers waste about a third of their workday pretending to be working. Typical time wasted: 2 hours 20 minutes every day.
96% admitted to doing unnecessary tasks to avoid work at some point in their workday.

Attitude Adjustment: We’re in trouble people – unless we all get a serious attitude adjustment soon.

Arrogance vs. Attitude

Question posed this week: What would you do from your own professional perspective to overcome an arrogant attitude in management and encourage to them in being proactive in accepting the necessity, convenience and relevance of an organizational change?

Let's be clear. In most instances, it's not "management" that is arrogant. It is the individual people who hold the title "manager” who may be arrogant. Some managers have come to believe that their title carries with it a deluded belief that they are superior to those who work for them. Change the attitudes of the individuals and you can begin to successfully change the culture throughout the organization. But without acknowledging the existence of the arrogance attitude within oneself, there is likely to be little change in this regard.

Management is not the same as leadership. Management is a title. Leadership is an attitude. I doubt that a true leader, one who genuinely wanted his or her people to become better, smarter and more efficient and to become the best people they could become, would operate from a place of arrogance. But one who chose to try to keep his or her minions down would be operating from that arrogance place.

Here’s a self-test for managers: have you met every single person in your department and had at least one conversation with each of them? If not, what is keeping you from doing that? I can guarantee that employee engagement will increase when the employee begins to feel that their contribution matters. Leadership is encouraging performance that perhaps even surpasses the abilities of the leader. Leaders are selfless. It’s impossible to be arrogant when an individual is selfless.

In any organization, it is not only leaders holding management positions. In fact, arrogant managers actually fear employees who are perceived by their peers as leaders within the ranks. Employees with leadership abilities are influencers. Arrogant managers fear influencers who could undermine their position.

But a real influencer may also be able to influence the arrogant manager by having a private conversation, away from prying ears. It takes courage but it is possible.

Also, it takes courage from consultants and speakers to say what needs saying instead of plying platitudes to ensure the check gets signed. This is an all-too-sad truth in our industry – saying what is safe to say instead of saying what needs to be said.

Attitude Adjustment: There is good news on dealing with arrogant managers. As the market changes (customers expecting better service, expectations of quality products, purchasing patterns, economic forces, etc.,) so will the attitudes of managers ... eventually. All is not lost. This transition time, as Boomers leave the workplace and are replaced by Gen Y's or Millenials, the dynamics of the relationships between those at the top and those who actually do the work will begin to change. The one saving grace is that the customer (us) can tell the difference. We customers vote with our dollars. When the polls (dollars) start to swing away from those organizations with arrogant leadership, the shareholders of those same organizations will correct the problem in short order. The market always has a way of correcting itself.

One Person Makes Every Decision

Here’s a question that was posed to me this week: what do you think is the major cause for an organization suffering unnecessary employee attrition or turnover?

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people would point the finger at: bad hiring, bad management, poor wages, stifling organizational culture, not keeping promises, misrepresentation of the work involved or failure to align with the corporate vision or mission statement.

There are a ton of possible reasons, most of them pointing the finger at a nebulous position or something else. Have we lost sight of the prime component here? Don't we undertsand that as long as we blame an entity or a position that we can’t quantify, that we will continue to face the same issues?

What about the employee who “needs” daily ego-stroking? Is it management’s job or the responsibility of “culture” to ensure that needy employees get their daily dose of Vitamin “Ego?” Not every single employee is cut from the same cloth. Just because they may have attended the same school doesn’t mean they have the same qualities and values as the next person.

HR needs to stop considering candidates for interview primarily from resumes. The world is changing. The new generation of worker bounces around from job-to-job looking for a fit. The new generation of workers doesn’t interview as well as older workers (unless they can interview by text message). The new generation of worker doesn’t even think like their interviewer (generational gaps). Can your HR department figure out what makes this worker tick?

Ask yourself this question: when your place of business has an opening, does it simply hire a body or does your place of work see the value and skill-set in a potential candidate and make a place for that person? There's a difference. Discover what your people are really good at and encourage them to do what they do best. Then hire someone else to do the work not being done but make sure they want to do it.

Want to change the culture? Change the people. I’m not talking about firing the lot. I’m talking about providing tools that employees could grow as people, could get better, more confident, build their individual self-esteem, improve their decision-making capacity, improve their communication skills and improve their daily dispositions and attitudes. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. It’s soft skills training. But if you really want to grow your organization you will first have to grow your people.

Organizations work fine. It’s people who screw them up. Fix the individual and you will fix the organization and the performance of the organization. But unfortunately, we’ve become a society of finger-pointers and blamers. And in doing so, it’s easy to blame an entity or a title (department) for the results.

In fact, some will actually argue with me that it’s got to be harder than just making the people better. My response is; have you tried it yet? Have you fully experienced poor results from actually implementing some sort of personal-development culture within your organization and can, from a place of experience, say it doesn’t work because you’ve actually tried it?

Attitude Adjustment: If you don’t make a change on the focus of the problem, you will never solve it. Every decision, every success and every screw-up in every organization can be traced back to just one person. Improve the person and you improve the decision. Improve the person and you improve the work. Improve the person and you improve the performance. Improve the person and you improve the attitude towards the job. Improve the person and you improve the attrition rate. Simple huh? Now stop blaming “management” for not allowing this to happen and go talk to the one person who can make the decision. It all boils down to one person – always.

$1000 Quit-Now Bonus

“You’ve been on the job for a week now, and we’d like to offer you $1000.00 if you quit today.”

How would you like to be greeted on your seventh day at work by that statement? Does that statement even seem possible? Well it’s real. And the company that is doing it is called Zappos – an on-line retailer of shoes. It’s called their “quit now” bonus.

Zappos will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. The employee will be paid for the amount of time they’ve worked, plus they are offered another $1,000 bonus if they quit immediately.

Why does Zappos do this? As it turns out, Zappos wants to ensure that the employee they have hired has the same sense of commitment that Zappos is looking for in all of their employees. The Zappos culture is clearly defined and they want to ensure that the employee engagement of the new hire is up to par with the other employees.

Zappos would rather pay now than pay later for weeding out the deadwood. They also want to ensure that the employee is committed to the company the same way Zappos would like them to be before they invest any more money in the employee. The work is not necessarily glamorous. The work is in a call centre. It’s not for everyone and the percentage of new hires taking Zappos up on their offer is about ten percent.

Zappos has figured out a way to not be saddled with a “dud” employee and are willing to pay one thousand dollars early so they don’t have to pay many more thousands later in finding a way to terminate an employee who isn’t working out, to keep the morale high and to stop the cancerous spread of negativity before it gets a chance to take root. It’s also another way to test commitment levels of the new employee to the job.

Attitude Adjustment: If more businesses would be willing to adapt the Zappos example of weeding out problem employees in their own businesses, there would be fewer problems with customer service and employee engagement down the road. It may seem like a lot of money for some smaller businesses but not really when you consider how much could be lost to customer dissatisfaction, whining and complaining on the job and by actively disengaged employees working against good productivity. This may not be the only way to weed out prospective problem employees but it’s got to be better than the way things are working now. The real learning from Zappos is that they are willing to think of creative ways to eliminate problems before they become problems that affect the bottom-line. So, what’s it worth to your organization to get rid of some of the problem employees that you may have right now? If you’re the problem employee, would you take the thousand bucks to make you go away?

Boss Tip #8 - The Credit Score

Is this column about financial background checks and credit scores? Well, not in the way you might think. This column is about credit scores but not about qualifying for credit as a consumer. It’s about how much credit you give as a boss.

Take a survey of your people and ask them what they want from their work and their boss and you will find this answer in the Top 5 every single time: recognition. People want to be acknowledged for the work they do – not just when they need to be raked over the coals for a screw-up.

People want to be recognized for their contribution, their diligence and the quality of their work. If the only time you talk to your people about the quality of their work is when you dump on them, well then you’re the village idiot aren’t you? Don’t believe me? Just ask your people. No better yet, secretly listen to what they’re saying about you in the coffee room.

Just because you’re the boss, don’t believe for one second that your people are doing everything in their power to make you look good. That’s just not true. People are doing a great job likely because of the personal satisfaction they get from doing a great job. If you overlook this fact, and regularly steal the credit for a job well done, you will be spending more of your time training new people to replace the people who left than you will on having the spotlight shone on you.

If you want the spotlight and the credit, then take the credit for attrition numbers being on the rise, training budgets being escalated because you have to train more new people and also poor morale.

Nothing knocks the morale out of people faster than stealing the credit from them after they poured their heart out on a project. People want a reason to take personal pride in their work and if you’re going to steal it when they do go above and beyond for you, or at the very least not acknowledge their effort, you are going to be a very lonely boss working by yourself.

If you work by yourself, well then you’re really not the boss are you? You’re just an employee who no one wants to work with. And that would be no surprise either. You brought it on yourself.

Are you giving someone credit for their work daily? I’m not referring to just a “Good job” in the hallway, but something public and heartfelt. The more you let your people know they will get the credit for a job well done, the more you will have a job well done from your people. What goes around comes around.

Publicly acknowledge and privately criticize. Make sure the rest of the staff know when someone has done a good job. Don’t play favorites and don’t blame someone else for a shortcoming in your department. More on that next time.

Boss Tip #6 - Keep Your Mouth Shut

Over the Christmas holidays, I ran across an article in the Winnipeg Free Press that claimed that 27% of employees said that their bosses made negative comments about them to other employees and other managers.

Now just picture this: lining up 100 bosses in a row, having 27 of them step forward and accusing them of talking about their employees to other employees behind their backs. How incredibly juvenile and malicious is this, really?

I couldn’t believe what I read. It was sourced from the College of Business at Florida Sate University who surveyed some 700 people in a variety of jobs. This was only one of their findings. But this is the one that surprised me the most. Bosses? Talking badly about employees to other employees? Jeez are we still in high school?

It’s time for these bosses to start growing up. What possible good can come from talking to employees about the performance of other employees? You can only hope, as a boss, that the person you’re telling doesn’t clue in that in five minutes you may be talking to someone else about him or her. Gossip is one of the most demoralizing factors in any office. And when that gossiper is in a supervisory position, the company is in big trouble.

Employee morale drops. Performance numbers fall. Attrition rises dramatically. Training budgets become stretched to the max from having to hire so many new people. The company will have a bad reputation with its employees. And once it becomes part of the corporate culture, good luck finding qualified people willing to work there.

If this gossiper sounds like your boss, risk the loss of your job by going over their heads and demanding a change. The boss that talks about their people to other employees needs to be fired today. If their immediate supervisors are reluctant to do something about it, they should be fired too.

And if you can’t find a way to make senior management do something about the problem, then plan your exit strategy and perhaps consider doing what they do: talk to others behind their backs – others like the media.

Nothing solves a problem quicker than the watchful eye of the general public and a subsequent drop in business. No business can afford to keep loose-lipped bosses in their ranks. Business, be prepared to take your lumps if you choose to keep these poor excuses for mentors on-board. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from anyone in a supervisory capacity. Doing nothing condones the behavior and actually fosters more.

Make sure your supervisors are skilled in the art of tact, confidentiality and diplomacy. If you don’t, you’ll pay – one way or another.