Resentment In The Workplace

Most people don't realize that resentment comes from being victimized. In fact, remorse, regret and resentment are all feelings of the victim. Before you can feel resentment, you have to have been victimized by a situation or circumstance. You must have given up your power to someone or something else before you can feel hard done by that someone or something else. My friend Bobby Ng taught me that years ago.

Accountability, on the other hand, is free of resentment, remorse and regret. Through accountability, you agree that somehow along the way, you attracted this situation or circumstance. And perhaps this situation can teach you something. That is, without a doubt, the most difficult personal notion for people to wrap their heads around. But once they do it, it's freeing.

Some say that resentment is more difficult to overcome than substance abuse. I think that is accurate. You can walk away from alcohol, cigarettes or drugs and once they are out of your system, you can begin your new life. However, resentment can stay with a person for a lifetime. Some people just never get over being hard done by. They use that feeling to garner attention - not necessarily positive attention. They are filled with concern about how they look to others more so than how they feel to themselves. Resentment comes from a poor self-image. Until a person's need to be happy outweighs their need to be right, nothing will ever change.

Is there resentment in the workplace? You bet there is. But organization after organization believe that they have no need for soft-skills training. They think it's too fluffy. So they allow many of their people to harbor feelings of resentment and represent the company in this way. People who harbor feelings of regret, remorse or resentment become the victims in the business world. They come back to the office claiming that their own prices are too high or the customer isn't buying or it's the economy. Victims have a pile of excuses for why they're not doing well. But still, there's no need for soft-skills training.

You need to change your attitude on soft-skills training.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Any good leader will know that you build your organizations from the inside out. Build up your people on the inside, allow them to do the work within the organization, and build your organization stronger from the inside out. It takes more than just time management or communication skills training to improve an organization. The more you fix your people, the more you enable your people to fix the problems on their own. Business gets better when the people in the business get better.

Greatness Is A Soft-Skill

You know, for being such a dominating force in the world of business, Corporate America really doesn’t have a clue about the stuff that REALLY makes business successful - you know, the people part of it?

If you think communication and presentation, management, human resources, sales and marketing, project and time management, customer service, administration, accounting and finance and purchasing are soft-skills, then you really don’t have any idea of why you are not the best in your market do you? Imagine telling the Human Resources director that they have no real technical expertise because HR is a soft-skill. Imagine telling the VP of Customer Service that her entire department is an unnecessary soft-skill. The same goes for accounting, finance and purchasing.

There are some training companies that would have you believe that sales, finance and management are soft-skills.

If it’s a skill you need to perform your job, it’s a technical or a performance skill. If it’s something that makes you a better person, it’s a soft-skill. It's that clear. There is no gray area here.

Let me illustrate: two job candidates sit in your office with exactly the same technical skill-set. Who do you choose? You choose the candidate with the better soft-skills (friendliness, confidence, optimism, etc.).

It’s exactly the same way your customers choose to do business with a particular sales person, or why some companies offer better service, or why some companies have better management. Given that the product is equal, the choice comes down to which personality you would prefer to work with. Your choice is based on a soft-skill.

If you want to improve the corporate culture of your organization, you can not do it without addressing attitudes and soft-skills.

The Attitudes and soft-skills of your organization are the difference between mediocrity and greatness. Oh, and by the way, greatness is a soft-skill.

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.

Does It Matter?

When you see your doctor, does it really matter to you what place he finished in his class or is it more important that he have compassion for you and be able to explain your situation clearly and with caring?

When you hire a lawyer, does it matter that he was fourteenth in his graduating class or is it more important that he be good at reading people, be willing to spend a an extra few minutes with you explaining your options and looking out for your best interests?

When you hire an accountant, does it matter which school she received her degree from or is it more important that she be well-versed in changing tax laws, understanding your business needs and be willing to help you set yourself up for maximum success?

When you hire a Realtor, does it really matter that he barely passed his licensing course or is it more important that he keep up to date on market changes, spends time getting to know the properties in your neighborhood and is willing to work hard for his commission?

When you hire a new employee, does it matter that they come to you with the highest marks or is it more important that the new employee is willing to learn, accept guidance, work well with the rest of the team, accept that he or she has a lot to learn and shows determination in helping develop better customer relations with your clients?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The truth is your education doesn’t really start until you leave school. It’s in the real world where you are forced to deal with the ever-changing economic realities. You are obliged to adapt to change, correct your course and handle adversity as it shows up daily – both personally and as an organization.

You rarely get the choice of who you work with. You are thrust into an environment of diverse people, genders, racial backgrounds and incredibly diverse opinions. Your marks aren’t going to help you here. It’s your “people skills” that will make or break your team. It’s the attitudes of your people towards “service leadership” that will separate the winners from the losers.

Every career, every position and every employee must understand that the job – regardless of what your title might be on your business card – is service. Everyone in every job in the world serves someone else. There isn’t a job that doesn’t serve someone else. Customer Service reps and salespeople serve the customers. HR serves the employees and senior management. Marketing serves the sales department. The CEO serves the employees and shareholders. Every employee serves every other employee by being able to get along, accept people’s foibles and idiosyncrasies and move forward toward the common good. Everyone serves someone else. That’s the definition of Service Leadership – taking the lead in serving others.

Those who can’t or refuse to comprehend Service Leadership will fail miserably. Service is an attitude. Customer service is a department. If you’ve hardly picked up a book on how to be a better, more compassionate, empathetic, genuine service to your community and clients since you left school, well then; you’re likely to wallow near the bottom of your success potential for years to come.

You want to work with people who have people-skills. You want to hire professionals with good people skills. You want to feel valued and respected in every interaction. It’s the people with excellent people-skills who will excel in life. Credentials on a wall don’t make you a decent human being. Your education has just begun. Yes, it matters.

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?

Soft Skills vs. Technical Training

Question asked this week: Why are so many companies fixated on technical training with little or no emphasis on soft-skills training (management development, interpersonal communications, customer relations skills, etc)?

First of all, the training listed in the question is, I believe, technical skills training. These are not soft-skills training courses. Soft skills training is the kind of training you would offer to make the individual a better person, not a better manager. Management development IS technical training – you are training a manager for the work place. That’s a technical skill. However, a personal leadership development course which grows a better individual with better self-confidence and compassion is a soft-skills training course. The better the individual, the better that individual would perform their job.

I believe that business gets better when the people in the business get better. Improve the individuals at the personal level and the workplace will naturally improve. In fact, ask yourself, “Will the workplace deteriorate when the people I work with become better, decent, courteous human beings? Of course not. The truth is that sales get better when the sales people get better. Customer service gets better when the people who serve customers become more compassionate, understanding and communicative. Management gets better when the managers get better.

Most technical training (sales, communication, time-management, teamwork, etc.,) in the workplace is a complete waste of money. Organizations and corporations throw away billions of dollars every year on useless training that is designed to make people more proficient at a job that they, as people, are not capable of doing. And it’s not because they don’t want to become better. It’s because they, as people, lack the “self” skills to do it better (self-confidence, self-esteem, self-discipline, self-motivation, etc.).

Here’s what I mean by that. Let’s just say that there are ten representatives working in your sales department. Five of the reps have outstanding sales track records: they consistently hit their targets every month, customers love doing business with them and they seem to achieve their targets effortlessly. Then there are the other five reps who struggle every month to come close to meeting their targets. They can’t seem to get motivated to either get on the phone or make the in-person sales calls. They struggle with dealing with tough customers and know, in the backs of their minds, that they need to improve their respective performances or risk being let go.

Here’s what many companies would do: bring in a sales trainer to improve “company sales.” Even though five of the ten reps are consistently meeting their targets, the company thinks sales training is the key to get the whole team performing well. So, in comes the sales trainer to solve a problem that is clearly out of his realm since the problem isn’t corporate sales, it is five specific sales people. So the company penalizes the five top-performers by making them sit through a course that they already don’t need help with, and then place the five under-performers into a situation where they are now being studied by the peers – and judged as well.

Sales training is a waste of time on someone who lacks the self-confidence to ask for the sale, pick up the phone or make a cold-call in person. Time Management training is a waste of time on people who have no self-discipline. People without self-discipline revert back to old ways because, well, they have no self-discipline to stick with a new strategy. Teamwork training is wasted on individuals who have low self-esteem since they already feel they don’t deserve to be part of the team. And on and on the list goes. You can’t build a structurally sound house on a shaky foundation. In the same way, you can’t build a high-performer out of someone with a poor sense of self-worth.

Attitude Adjustment: Leadership is an attitude – management is a title. Service is an attitude – customer service is a department. Engagement is an attitude – employment is a paycheck. One is personal and one is technical. Organizations, on their own, work fine - it’s people who screw them up. Fix the people (at soft-skills level) and you fix most every problem in the organization.