Thursday, December 27, 2012

Reinforcing Values Drives the Right Behaviors

Most established companies are built on a set of values, underlining the business’ core purpose and setting forth principles to guide their employees in the future to sustain the organization’s health and success.
       Values are not and never should be an after-thought. Rather, they should accurately reflect the vision and mission on which the company was created and built, as well as the attitudes and behaviors of its founders. If they are encouraged effectively, values can serve as a fixed point of truth for succeeding generations of managers and employees to hold true to the founding principles of the business.
       As a means of “living its core values” and reinforcing employee behavior that reflects those values, a former client used to conduct an annual contest among its employees. Each year, managers and supervisors would nominate individual employees or teams who they felt best exemplified the meaning of the company’s five core values: “customer focus,” “honesty,” “innovation,” “respect for people,’ and “team spirit.”
       Each year, ahead of the year-end company holiday party where the awards were announced, the company president and the head of human resources would sit together, review the nominees, and select the most worthy teams and individuals in time to honor them at the annual party. Winners would receive gift cards for local shops. It had become a well-established tradition of recognizing and rewarding the behavior that senior leadership sought.
       I remember thinking at the time that it was a grand idea because it put the spotlight on and rewarded the individuals and teams who were living, behaving, and acting the way the company had expected them to operate, in a manner that perpetuated the founding principles of the company.
       I once got the opportunity to peruse the nomination papers and was impressed with the kinds of efforts people made, and the wonderful ideas many had offered. Most of these people went beyond their 9-to-5 routines and extended themselves for the betterment of the company. There were instances of individual creativity that saved the company a lot of money and/or improved products and efficiencies, or customer services.
       People do pay a lot of attention to how employees are rewarded and recognized. How else do you explain the plethora of entertainment and sports awards, as well as those in every other field? People like to acknowledge superior performance in any field. So these kinds of programs are a good idea.

Meeting Expectations?
It all seemed very inspiring and a good way to reinforce good work. But there was something about it that troubled me: the sense of a predictable routine of it all and the realization that there would be winners every year.
       It’s a bit like the “Employee of the Month” plaques you see in the lobbies of many hotels and restaurants. With a finite number of employees, it’s likely that everyone will eventually be honored. The first few times the award is given, everyone will generally agree that the selected winner is worthy of merit. But by the time you’re into the fourth or fifth year of the program, with 50 to 60 out of 75 or so employees having been honored, the award has lost all significance and meaning.
       Suppose the president of my client company had felt that none among the nominees were worthy of recognition? Would he decide not to give any awards that year? Would he be prepared to stand before the holiday gathering and say, “Sorry, nobody was worthy of the ‘Core Values Honors’ this year”? Nope. It’s not going to happen – though it does happen in some realms. Occasionally, for instance, the Nobel Committee does not give a Nobel Prize for Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize – justifiably.
       But skipping a year in what had become company traditions like this “Core Values Honors” would have had a negative impact. So it continues year after year and inevitably begins to feel a bit tired and predictable.
       Not to discourage this very appropriate recognition of outstanding service on the part of hard working employees, but organizations should be nimble and creative in how they do so. They should break out of the cookie-cutter expectations of an annual or monthly prize and be more spontaneous – and a bit unpredictable. Rewards and recognition are most meaningful when they occur randomly.
       There’s nothing wrong with flagging someone’s outstanding work one day, and then highlighting someone else’s three days later. Nor is there anything wrong with not recognizing anyone for a long stretch of several months, if no one merits the recognition. Taking that approach will have greater impact and meaning to people.
       The important thing is to be paying attention to what the employees are doing, ready to provide constructive criticism, to help people be better at their jobs. And, at the same time, be ready to say “thank you” or give a pat on the back when someone does a good job. And give a significant reward and/or recognition when they go above and beyond, especially when that effort embodies the values on which the organization was founded.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Employee Engagement is a Two-Way Street

The responsibility of keeping employees well informed about and engaged in the business is a mutual one. 
            That is to say, it is critical that company leadership and managers maintain an ongoing dialogue with employees to assure that they understand, comprehend and act on the challenges and opportunities that confront the business.
            But, at the same time, it is just as important for the individual employee to stay engaged in, be curious about, and stay informed about the business: what makes it tick, its history and heritage, its internal and external challenges and opportunities, and its paths to success.
            That said, I surprised myself last week when I momentarily forgot this little truth. I had the honor of delivering a webinar on behalf of Citrix and Ziff-Davis on the subject of keeping a distributed workforce engaged and connected to the business. It was done as a companion piece to a parallel white paper I'd prepared on the same subject.
            As the date of the webinar approached, I was polishing my presentation, which focused mostly on what I assumed the audience would be most interested in: techniques and new technologies for communicating with remote employees and keeping them informed and engaged, topics that I did indeed cover. Belatedly, I realized I was forgetting one important element – which I added almost as an after-thought to my presentation.

Two Sides to the Same Coin
In talking about the attitudes and behaviors that leaders and managers must have toward a distributed workforce, as well as the communications techniques, messages and tools that organizations must use to reach them, it occurred to me that there are two sides to that coin.
            Yes, it is incumbent upon communicators, managers and leaders to make every possible effort to keep employees in the loop and engaged in the business. It is one of their most important roles. And doing so with employees who are not, as a rule, in the main office but rather working from afar in a remote or home office presents additional communications challenges. Yet it is even more critical because distributed employees can become easily disengaged.
            But this is a two-way street, as I told my audience. The burden of staying connected and engaged in the business is just as much a responsibility of the individual employee as it is his/her employer.
            So, the natural question arises: how do you instill in employees the urge to stay engaged and informed? Frankly, it has to be self-motivated, something they desire, connected to their urge to succeed.
            If I were to give a speech to a college graduating class, I would tell them that if they're going to get ahead in business, they must be engaged in the business itself at least as much as their own role. While they learn their job, master its intricacies, and doing the job well, they must, at the same time, strive to understand the details of what drives the business. In fact, they must make a concerted effort always to connect their role to the larger mission of the business.
            Managers, whether consciously or not, gravitate toward those employees who are fully engaged in the business over and above their own narrow role and responsibilities. These are the employees that managers are eager to hire and promote – as opposed to the clock-punchers, the folks who are out the door at 5 o’clock, regardless of what’s on their desks.
            Comparing the two types of employees, it becomes obvious which is going to contribute more to the company’s strategies and ultimate successes: the one that connects consistently what he/she does every day with where the company is going, the one whose individual efforts always support the organization’s larger purpose.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Is Apple Falling Back to Earth?

Has the post-Steve Jobs era finally arrived at Apple?
      It has been a full year since he removed himself from company leadership at Apple, a short time after which he succumbed to his long battle with pancreatic cancer.
      In his stead, the former COO, Tim Cook, was appointed as the company’s new CEO. Cook has had one year to remake the company in his own mold and, if that’s the case, Apple fans are not giving him high marks.

      Witness the lead story in todays Wall Street Journal. Headline: “Apple Makes a Wrong Turn as Users Blast Map Switch.” That pretty well sums up the gist of the story. The rollout this week of the latest operating system update for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, iOS6, brought with it a new Apple mapping app, replacing the Google mapping app that had been a mainstay since the 2007 introduction of iPhone.

      Even casual followers of Silicon Valley news know that the once loving relationship between the two companies is ancient history. With this latest move, Apple has made a clean break from its erstwhile informal partner.
      But the complaints about the new mapping app are numerous, quick to arise, and, apparently, well founded. The app is deeply flawed. Its maps are inaccurate, identifying place names incorrectly, and often spotting locations in the wrong place. Also, the maps are not as detailed and current as Google’s.

Not ready for prime time
Simply stated, the app was not ready for prime time. But is this a fluke? After all, though he had numerous blockbuster successes, Steve Jobs was not without his mistakes. The initial Apple TV, for instance, was a dud. But still, it makes you wonder.
      On the other hand, is everyone just sitting back waiting for Tim Cook and his team to foul up Steve Jobs’ creation?
      Those of you who read this blog with any regularity will know that I am an inveterate Apple and Macintosh fan. So it may come as a surprise that I, too, had a less-than-satisfactory experience with the company recently.
      Last Saturday, I acquired a new MacBook Air laptop, a beautiful machine that’s remarkable for the computing power and speed it packs in such a thin, lightweight package. Being so thin, however, it lacks a DVD drive like most other laptops. So, how was I to load the Microsoft Office software I already own in a DVD format?
      And therein began the problem. Failing at my attempted amateur work-arounds, I finally called Apple Tech Support and, in short order, was speaking to a pleasant woman who immediately understood my problem. Her recommendation was that I call Microsoft’s Mac Help Desk, which, she said, would offer me an online URL from which to download a digital version of the software I had previously bought.
      Long story short, after sitting on Microsoft’s hold for 35 minutes, listening to static-filled elevator music, a young lady kindly and patiently explained to me that Apple’s own tech support web pages include a full explanation of how to address my (apparently very common) problem. She added that she and her Microsoft cohorts had gotten numerous such referred calls and were annoyed at Apple for palming off the problem on them.
      She was kind enough to stay on the phone with me and walk me through the process. Problem solved, no thanks to Apple – which from my perspective is shocking. The Apple Tech Support team has always been top-notch, a model for any other company aspiring to Apple’s greatness. Not this time.

One plus one equals…
Could this anecdote and Apple’s widely panned mapping app indicate that Apple is coming back to earth to join the other mortals among the world’s corporations? Is Apple a victim of its own success? Has the company over-extended itself in its ability to support the millions of new customers buying its iPhone, iPad, and computers?
      Steve Jobs was famous for his ability to say “no.” He said no to numerous good ideas because they didn’t fit the Apple model, or they over-reached the company’s ability to deliver greatness: great ideas, great products, great design, and great service.
      In fact, do any of the senior people at Apple have Jobs’ sense of what works and what doesn’t? Tim Cook is a superb operations guy, which is why he was Jobs’ chief operating officer. He got things done, usually in a very smart, efficient way.
      Jonathan Ive is one of the greatest, most creative industrial designers of our age. He is the genius behind “the look” and feel associated with the Apple products we all know so well.
      Scott Forstal is the driving brains behind Mac OS X, and the iPhone operating system, as well as their many iterations.
      Phil Schiller is the company’s chief marketer. But while Jobs was alive, he could never hold a candle to Jobs’ genius for marketing. I always got the sense that Schiller was Steve Ballmer to Jobs’ Bill Gates.
      Collectively, these guys and their support teams are top-notch. Virtually any company would be better if they hired any or all of them. But they lack the innovative insight and blockbuster genius of Steve Jobs.
      I sure hope I’m wrong because I’ve been an Apple fan since 1984 when I bought my first computer, an Apple IIc, followed five years later by my first Macintosh, an SE.
      But it’s hard to believe that four smart guys can equal and replace Steve Jobs. I think we can only conclude that, like Sir Isaac Newton’s falling apple that inspired his law of gravity, Apple is coming back to earth.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Deal with Disaffected Employees Directly

When our son was a pre-schooler, he was plagued by repeated ear infections and persistent colds. Each case meant a trip to the pediatrician for diagnosis and appropriate medication and treatment. After several instances, his doctor recommended a permanent fix: a tonsillectomy.
            So that’s what we did. The effect was almost immediate. The ear infections ceased and the frequency of colds dropped to nearly zero.
            Sure, we could have continued treating the symptoms rather than the cause, but our son wouldn’t have been the happy, playful boy he became, nor would he have thrived.
            The same case is often true in business. Recurring problems can point to deeper issues that are not being addressed. And in the case of recurring efforts by employees to organize a union shop, the deeper problem often can be traced to poor communications and an insufficient effort to engage employees in the business.
            A few years ago, a midwestern manufacturer asked for our advice and counsel in nipping in the bud a surging effort to unionize its assembly line workers. I paid a visit to their headquarters offices along with a colleague who specialized in labor union communications.
            We had been provided preliminary background information and insights into the issues and the current situation beforehand, and brought with us a two-part presentation proposing both an immediate solution and a longer-term strategy to stop this situation from recurring.

A Recurring Challenge
As we learned, this union organizing effort seemed to pop up every few years. To date, the company had successfully defeated it each time. This time, it seemed more serious and threatening than in the past.
            The two of us sat down with the operations management team, the head of human resources, and director of corporate communications to hash out the challenge, and to offer our solutions.
            The managers listened intently to my colleague’s recommendations for dissuading the workforce from voting for union representation. I’d worked with him before and knew his ideas were sound, and had previously proven effective.
            My part of the presentation came next and centered on a strategic approach to employee communications to gain the trust and understanding of the workforce in the future, something that was currently missing in this case.
            In essence, my proposal called for more frequent contact by senior managers with the hourly workers through a variety of means, including occasional walks through the shop to engage individual employees in conversations, and town hall type meetings where they could share relevant information about the state of the business and listen to ideas from the employees.
            I also recommended an on-going flow of information, through a variety of means, about the external marketplace and its impact on the company to help employees better understand the larger picture.
            Though the company team seemed to like our ideas, we left without a commitment and went back home to await their response. They never called back. They somehow headed off the union threat on their own. But I later learned that the effort to unionize the shop resurfaced again a couple years later.

Avoiding Their Medicine
Why didn’t the company management team opt for the medicine of more effective long-term employee engagement? Let me guess.
            Like a lot of long-term commitments, it demands that you make changes in the way you operate day-to-day. And in the current business climate, that is not a choice a lot of managers like to make. The kind of choices they do like to make are often those that have a short-term pay-off: cost cuts that improve margins; changing suppliers for higher quality or greater reliability; adding staff and production throughput to address increased demand for their products, and the like.
            But the kinds of changes I was urging were behavioral, asking managers and company leadership to operate outside their comfort zones and spend more of their limited time on the job engaging employees more than they were accustomed to. It would also have meant they’d have to think more about the connections between the employees’ world and where the business needed to go.
            I’m afraid to say that some managers and leaders seem to take their workforces for granted. The individual employee is brought into the company to perform a specific set of tasks and, in return, is paid a fair wage and benefits. Shouldn’t that be enough?
            No. It’s not enough.
            Union organizers find disgruntled employees in dysfunctional organizations and promise them more formal, rigidly controlled engagement with company management on their behalf – albeit with union representatives serving as intermediaries – to level what is perceived as an uneven playing field.
            This appeals to employees who feel cut off from the business anyway and, frankly, have ceased really caring about much beyond the paycheck, and a fair and safe work environment.
            The frustrations that shop floor employees sense when they feel detached from the company’s purpose and when their ideas and insights are not sought are the kinds of aggravations that build up over time, festering to the point where a union organizer finds fertile soil in which to sow his seeds of dissent.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Futile Pursuit of "Perfect" in Job Postings and Its Impact on the Workplace


In the midst of a persistently high unemployment rate, the job market continues to be a buyer’s market. Because of that, people who may be unhappy or feel frustrated with their current jobs are stuck, reluctant to leave for fear that they won’t find another position elsewhere.
      This double-edged sword is changing the nature of many workplaces and the inter-relations there, while stifling the vital organizational renewal that the natural attrition of normal times brings companies, with new employees coming and established employees leaving.
      With little movement of people out of organizations (except in cases of lay-offs), postings for the rare openings these days have become pursuits of perfection. Requirements are often absurdly detailed and lengthy, virtual shopping lists of specific talents, skills and experience.
      That’s fine for highly technical jobs where familiarity and facility with various equipment and/or computer software is necessary. But for those positions that require intellectual curiosity, agility, and creativity, as well as an ability to work well with a variety of people, there is no ideal job description.
      Still, the employers advertising for many such positions apparently operate under that delusion that “perfect” is attainable.
      An article in The Wall Street Journal reported that a study found that 31 percent of the 811 small businesses surveyed had unfilled job openings in July because they couldn’t identify applicants “with the right skills or experience.”
      In an opinion piece, “Mind The Gap,” in the July 9 & 16 issue of The New Yorker, author James Surowiecki cited the “dearth of qualified workers… and the gap between the skills that American workers have and the ones that businesses need.”

The “Right” Candidate
That’s recruiters talking. I say that in the pursuit of the perfect, employers may be overlooking the right candidate. Working from that notion, that there is the perfect candidate out there, creates an insurmountable barrier to the applicant who, in the light of day, could be the best fit for the team and contribute the most to the greater good of the organization.
      Unfortunately, the resume screening software in wide use today seeks the perfect candidate, but makes no accommodation for anything except for the candidates that match nearly the entire shopping list. So, as the Journal article notes, positions go unfilled.
      On the other hand, the right candidate is going to be the one that comes with his/her own unique skills, talents, abilities and intelligence that may or may not meet all the specificity outlined in the job posting.
      While the job certainly has its roles and responsibilities, in addition to fulfilling those, the right candidate will also ultimately make the position distinctively his or her own, reflecting his/her unique personality, approach, and talent mix. In the long term, the team and the organization will be stronger for it.
      This paradox is compounded by businesses’ own reluctance to prepare new people fully and properly for the job. Both the Journal and New Yorker articles note that, to an increasing degree, businesses are loath to invest in training, on the assumption that the perfect candidate is ready to go full speed on Day 1.
      As Surowiecki notes, the ultimate irony of this weak economy is that “most companies worry less about getting every possible dollar of new business than they do about keeping costs down. That makes them slow to hire, which keeps unemployment high, which keeps the economy weak, which in turn makes employers more reluctant to hire,” adding that they are similarly disinclined to hire anyone who needs the least bit of training because of the attendant time and money investments.
      With unemployment stuck above eight percent for the past 41 months, employers can afford to be choosey, willing to wait to find that one special needle in the haystack of resumes and cover letters.
      While they make little accommodation for training, they also likely don’t provide chances for the new hire to gain an understanding of and appreciation for the company's culture, how things work, or anything much more than learning where the washrooms and parking lots are. “Just do your job. Oh, and by the way, do it at a salary far less than your last job.” And yet, they still get thousands upon thousands of applications.

A Changing Workplace
What does this do to the workplace? What kinds of employees begin to populate an organization like this? How do the older, more established employees – those who may consider themselves “stuck” – feel toward and about the newbies who are working for less money? Are there still time and opportunities for camaraderie, for personal moments and friendliness anymore?
      What's increasingly missing today is the notion that new people come into a company, feel their way around a bit, find their niche, and establish their own style and unique contribution to the larger whole in their own unique way. They grow into the job. They learn and understand their role, the nature and heritage of the company, how the business works, its customers, and the idiosyncrasies of their new boss. Given that opportunity, they feel encouraged to bring fresh insights to old challenges.
      Instead, we have an expectation that new hires will attain the necessary insights and understanding to do the job – through osmosis or ESP, I suppose – and do so quickly because there’s no time to waste.
      Is it an anachronism to believe that people can grow into the job? Is it wrong to support the notion that every job is unique to the person who holds it, that people can mold the job to their unique skills and style and thus contribute to the strength of the team and the advancement of the organization?

Monday, July 23, 2012

Question, Listen, Discuss, Debate and Learn


Much has been written both here and elsewhere about the continuum of communication. That is to say, good communication practices encompass a back-and-forth exchange of information and ideas where the manager is questioning and listening as much as or more than speaking and conveying information.
      But if listening and seeking input is so important, why do so many managers fall short in that department?
      I suspect the short answer has to do with finite time: managers have much to do and not enough time in which to do it. So in the communication continuum, it often feels more critical for them to disseminate information and data to their teams, and then move onto the next task.
      Certainly there are times in the typical workweek when that is necessary. But the manager that falls into the habit of justifying the overuse of one-way communication is on track for failure down the road.
      In this era of Twitter, Facebook, email, and text messages, we have become accustomed to taking the easy route when communicating with our teams. An email to all team members alerting them to a change of process or policy is certainly appropriate. But when email blasts become a manager’s principal means of communicating to his/her team, then he/she is no longer communicating. He/she is spewing. Such information downloads fall on deaf ears.

The Team’s Value to the Organization
The reason we build teams of people within our organizations is to achieve the excellence that several people working together can attain that the individual working alone cannot. So it stands to reason that the person managing that team wants to tap into the best that his players bring to the mix.
      Questioning, listening and engaging in proactive dialogues is how the best managers do that. So what exactly does that look like, ideally?
      Again, I add the word “ideally” because we have to be cognizant that the sturm und drang of the day-to-day business can sometimes overwhelm and cancel out the good intentions of striving for excellent communication.
      So let’s assume that the periodic ebb and flow of busy-ness on the job allows for contemplative moments when one-on-one conversations or productive team meetings can occur. The well-organized manager knows best when those times are most likely to be available – first thing Monday mornings; at the end of the billing cycle; before the next production run gets started, etc.
      The wise manger with foresight finds those periodic opportunities and works them into the calendar. Those times become the most valuable of the workweek or month. When the manager and team members are prepared, much can be accomplished, and the ball figuratively moved down the field.

Preparation is Key
Preparation on both sides is critical but means something a bit different, though it follows parallel tracks. The manager, in particular, should come to these regular meetings with an open mind, ready to hear and learn things he may not expect, as well as a desire to discover and discern specific information related to issues of the moment, in particular the current challenges and opportunities the team is dealing with.
      A significant component of the manager’s preparation is staying plugged into the larger organization and the outside world that impacts the business as a whole. He/she should be able to bring that information to his/her team and make it relevant to their day-to-day efforts.
      These meetings are also chances to reflect together on how their unit might work better with other units, how collectively they can contribute to the organization’s larger purpose. To that end, it is the manager’s responsibility to bring in the outside view that is not regularly conveyed into the confines of a unit’s figurative walls.
      For their part, the employees’ responsibility is to come to these discussions with ideas, insights and open minds. Their preparation is best achieved over the course of doing their jobs, making note of problems that recur or opportunities they sense are not being fully exploited. These are the gems that the alert manager with good listening skills looks for and hopes for.
      At the same time, the manager encourages the sharing of bad news along with the good because he/she knows that responding negatively to the employee who brings the bad news will only discourage others from doing so in the future, which in turn leads to small problems festering into insurmountable crises.
      I fear that the typical team meeting consists of a manager speaking for a short time, concluding his/her remarks and then asking whether anyone has any questions. Hearing none, everyone returns to work. The result is that employees often feel purposeless and a mere cog in a machine, disconnected from the larger operation.
      It is far more effective to allow the team to learn together with the manager posing open-ended questions that force them to think through a challenge or opportunity and arrive at their own answers. They then share those answers and begin a discussion and debate.
      Together, the team learns while often coming up with practicable solutions, or uncovering new ways of looking at and thinking about challenges and opportunities. At the same time, the individual employee becomes more engaged in the business, feeling he/she is an active contributor to its larger purpose, and that his/her voice is heard. It’s all good. It’s effective communications.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Learning Outside Our Comfort Zones

Every business organization consists of people with assignments appropriate to their skills: marketers, engineers, accountants, salespeople, etc. They are hired for their experiences, expertise and talents in their particular field.
      So is there any value in having them learn about specialties outside their own area? Are there benefits for a software company, say, in having its graphic designers, salespeople, and marketers learn how to write computer code?
      The snap answer would be, “No, it would be a waste of time.” But one software company CEO felt differently and began to do just that, launching a program to teach every employee JavaScript programming language, enough so that after a year each would be able to develop a product that could theoretically be integrated into the company’s software.
      To what end? Certainly not to improve or expand the companys product offering. Why, then?
      Michael Jaconi, CEO of 60-employee FreeCause, explains that he did it because he felt it “would facilitate more efficiency, bring teams closer together, and ultimately make our company perform better.”
      This is not a full-immersion course, intent on creating a back-up engineering team for code writing. Rather, the firm devotes just a few hours each week to lessons, plus lunch-hour “boot camps” led by company engineers. The program expects employees to be knowledgeable and moderately proficient after a year.
      So has this been yielding the expected benefits? Apparently so. According to employees interviewed for a Boston Globe article (“Software company wants all workers to know code,” July 11, 2012), internal meetings now take less time because fewer technical explanations are necessary. Time saved with shorter internal meetings creates “found” time for other more productive work related to one’s expertise.
      One sales executive says that his new coding knowledge enables him to better explain product attributes to clients instead of bringing an engineer into every customer meeting for technical explanations and insights.

Investing “Found” Time
Left unsaid is the fact that, instead of bailing out an uninformed salesman, that engineer is able to devote more time to what he does best – a far better investment of his (and the companys) time.
      As I read about this and thought about its broader implications, the secondary benefits became obvious. For instance, because technology has become such an integral part of our lives, and continues to expand in that regard, it often creates barriers between technical and non-technical people inside companies.
      The non-technical side of the population, among which I count myself, knows that having a basic understanding of a relevant technical topic goes far in helping us do our jobs more effectively, especially when we have to interact with technical people or clients.
      We also have a better appreciation for the challenges and achievements of our technical colleagues.
      There’s an ancillary benefit for the individual employees, as the article points out. “At the very least, [employees] realize that knowing JavaScript makes them more marketable. ‘It’s another resume builder for me,’ said the director of accounting operations.”
      In addition, learning something new as a group, exploring an unknown field together, creates bonds among employees from different parts of the company, thereby building camaraderie and morale.
      It also gives employees a new understanding of and greater insights into the company’s products. Imagine the value for marketers, charged with creating and building product awareness among target customers. It’s not a leap for them to appreciate the full import and market potential of a new product. Similarly, as marketers, they are better able to talk with technicians about expanded market opportunities that an upgrade or product line extension might yield.
      This needn’t be limited to non-technical people learning technical subjects. Why not the other way around, too? Why not teach basic marketing or some other aspect of the business to the software engineers?
      And it needn’t be limited to software companies and code writing. No matter the product a company sells, there is a technical product research and development side of the business. Helping others in the organization learn the rudiments of the technical side, and vice versa, goes far in breaking down the walls of misunderstanding and ignorance that can develop in most organizations, in turn helping those organizations thrive and grow.
      At its heart, this kind of activity improves internal communications in the organization. And any time people with a common mission are better able to understand one another and better equipped to talk on a range of relevant business topics, it always accrues to the benefit of the business and, by extension, the bottom line.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

How Volunteers are Like Managers

In many New England towns, the work of government is done largely by volunteers who serve on school boards, planning commissions and the like. Uniquely in New England, we also have elected representative Town Meetings, which serve approximately as towns’ legislatures, while boards of selectmen provide towns’ executive function.
      For the past several years, I have been a member of my town’s Historical Commission, and have also served as its chairman for some three years (so far). This role is new to me in some ways. But in others, it’s very familiar.
      It is new in the sense that I am learning how local government works, as well as the powers and limits on power of my commission, as well as that of other boards and commissions, and where our roles and functions complement one another.
      On the other hand, the experience is familiar in the exercise of management skills and techniques. The parallels with business are not surprising.
      Just as a company’s department or division manager has general, specific and defined responsibilities, the volunteer town commission chairman must be sure that the necessary actions are taken and promises kept, and that the commission and its many meetings operate smoothly and orderly, according to law. Of course, like business, there are bumps in the road and, sometimes, clashes with peers.

Working in Partnership
Often, we work in informal partnership with one or more complementary boards and commissions, such as the planning board in our case, to achieve objectives of mutual interest.
      Conversely, we must sometimes butt heads with other boards that are working at cross-purposes with my commission. As in business, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, and other times we compromise and reach accommodation.
      Naturally, personalities can be a significant factor. There are – excuse the term – some pig-headed people who have their ways of doing things and their peculiar views of how the town’s business ought to be managed, approaches and views that may clash with my own and/or the views of several other of my peers. Again, sometimes we win and other times we lose.
      In at least one respect, town government can be a bit tougher than a business environment in that we are all volunteers with full-time jobs elsewhere. To get things done, we work and meet in our spare time, mostly on weekday evenings. Attendance at meetings of my seven-member commission is rarely 100 percent. Some of us have to travel on business or stay late at the office.
      Along those lines, too, is the difficulty of getting volunteer members to find the time that is often necessary to do the due diligence required of the commission doing its job according to state statutes and town bylaws. Additionally, as chairman, I’m often the one who attends the several other commissions’ and boards’ meetings that require the participation and perspective of a Historical Commission representative. Again, just like a business manager.
      The primary role of the Historical Commission is to preserve and protect the town’s historical structures. That means convincing and working with developers to renovate and refresh older buildings, rather than demolish them to make way for larger, newer buildings (that usually carry higher price tags) that damage the town’s cultural heritage.

Case in Point
A current case shows parallels between town government and managing in a business context.
      We are locked in an extended struggle with the school board over the disposition of one of the town’s older, more noteworthy town-owned buildings, a 1904 Art Deco carriage house that, because of its proximity to an elementary school, was ceded to the school department years ago for its own purposes. But it has been empty and unused for some time now, and consequently is suffering disrepair.
      Like all towns and cities these days, ours is strapped for cash and since this carriage house was not deemed critical to the town's infrastructure, it has not received the necessary attention and funding necessary to maintain it properly. Flash forward to now. The schools are eager to be rid of it to make room for an expanded school parking lot.
      So we are at loggerheads over the need to preserve a historical structure versus a desire to create more parking spaces. I trust we will reach a suitable compromise and save this irreplaceable piece of our town’s history.
      This kind of challenge is not unfamiliar to those of us in who have management roles.
      The core similarity here is that in the two positions, both as a volunteer commission chairman and as a manager with P&L responsibilities, you have discretion to take appropriate actions to effect necessary changes. You also have the power of your personality and good will to persuade people to your way of thinking. And, you have responsibility both to compromise and reach accommodation, as well as to understand and appreciate conflicting points of view.
      It’s how the world goes round, whether for businesspeople or for volunteer government officials.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Cultivate Your Internal Champions

Over the years, through numerous client assignments involving a range of industries, company size and business focus, I’ve seen a pattern repeated in virtually every sizable organization for which I've done work.
      In the course of trying to engage employees in the organization’s mission, vision and values, or a new initiative, people can be roughly categorized into one of three types. These types may be familiar to you. You may have different terms to describe them and feel that my percentage breakdown is a bit off, but I trust our views closely parallel one another.
      At the top of the hierarchy are those I call the Eager Beavers, the ones who “get it.” These are the ones you don't need to convince when it comes to enacting the necessary changes to make an initiative succeed. They readily understand the rationale and its links to the corporate mission.
      They know what underpins the organization, the imperatives that are driving it, and how they personally fit into the larger whole. They can readily draw the connection between what they do every day and where the company needs to go.
      Eager Beavers want to do well, and they want to progress in the company because they believe in it. Generally, because of their positive attitude, these people do in fact get promoted.
      Whether you realize it or not, these are the ones for whom you provide the bulk of the information you develop. When their manager explains a new initiative in a group meeting, he/she might refer their team to the company’s intranet where the background information is provided. The Eager Beavers are the ones who invariably go to that web page to learn more.

The Flip Side
Conversely, at the bottom of the hierarchy are the Disconnected. These are the employees you'll likely not reach no matter what you do. They rarely pay attention to a corporate message unless it affects them, such as layoff notices or benefit changes. They don’t care to stay abreast of the outside competitive environment and what’s impacting the company. They’re likely just showing up every day for the paycheck. You know the type.
      In most organizations, each of these two segments is roughly the same size, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the total employee population.
      I contend that strategic communications programs will have no appreciable impact on them, either in making the Eager Beavers more engaged – who, frankly, couldn’t be more engaged – or in finally connecting the Disconnected.
      Sure, our messages reach the Eager Beavers, and they likely gobble up every word, while the Disconnected ignore most of it. But even if our communications are lacking, count on the Eager Beavers to find out on their own, while, conversely, your best communications efforts will not reach the Disconnected.
      So our communications efforts should target the Big Middle, the 60 to 80 percent of the people who might be convinced of the value of buying into the new change initiative, the corporate mission, or a new strategy. Our challenge as communicators is finding the right messages and the right media to reach them in a compelling way at the right time.

Aiming for the Sweet Spot
It’s likely your Eager Beavers are your best, most effective means to engage the Big Middle. That's if you can get them to be your champions inside the company, leveraging their personal engagement in the company mission to connect to their peers among the Big Middle. Your communications efforts to connect with the Big Middle will be far more successful that way than if you rely exclusively on conventional internal communications tools and messages.
      The head of every unit in your company and every facility manager can readily identify their own Eager Beavers. They exist in all parts of the organization and at all levels. These are the first people you need to reach with critical messages, and then engage them to be your advocates among their peers.
      Another common characteristic of this employee type is that they are out-going and friendly. They generally have developed a high degree of trust among their peers. Naturally, because they stay well informed, they are the ones to whom others turn for news about company changes. Similarly, they are the ones best equipped to knock down false rumors.
      The Eager Beaver group likely includes a lot of supervisors – likely because their high degree of engagement means that you have promoted them. As a rule, supervisors are the most trusted people in an organization, and the primary source of information for most front-line employees.
      Due to this element of trust and their out-going nature, your change messages and breaking news should target these people. They immediately understand your rationale and are readily able to convey your message of change to their colleagues and to answer their subsequent questions.
      These advocates will rise to the extra attention you give them and appreciate the recognition. That has the added advantage of assuring that they will become your willing messengers. Of course, they are not the only means of communicating with the Big Middle; they are supplemental. But they just may become your most credible link.
      Instead of spending the bulk of their time fretting over the nuances of the punctuation of a particular written message or the effectiveness of the latest new media, communicators would be far more successful if they focused more of their energies on identifying and cultivating their internal champions among their most engaged employees.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Assuming the Mantle of Leadership

In my years of working with organizations – both large and small – and dealing with leaders and managers, I’ve often wondered what makes a leader. Is it something they were born with, something they learn, or a little of both? How do people respond to their new role as leader when it is earned through years of dedicated, hard work? And how does that kind of leader compare with one upon whom the role is suddenly thrust?
            The question of comparison occurs to me as I read Passage of Power, the fourth book in Robert Caro’s planned five-volume biography of Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson.
            This book covers Johnson’s life from 1958 into 1964, a period when he went from serving as one of the US Senate’s most effective and powerful Majority Leaders, to a stillborn presidential campaign, to a humiliating three-year role as Vice President, to the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy, which thrust him into the presidency, a position he had long craved.
            How he responded to the shock of suddenly assuming the world’s most difficult leadership job is a lesson that answers my question – at least anecdotally.

Behind The Scenes
Caro does an extraordinary job, both in writing the story as well as researching it. Certainly, no historical biographer that I’ve read to date can compare with Caro, whose eye for detail and ability to dredge up heretofore-unknown information about highly public people and events is unmatched. Perhaps his most compelling research concerned Johnson’s reactions and actions in the minutes, hours, days and weeks immediately following the assassination, when he assumed the weighty mantle of leadership.
            Lyndon Johnson was a driven man, always on a quest for power. Interviewed about his series and the nearly 40 years he has spent researching the man, Caro said that the books are as much about Johnson’s quest for power as about the man himself.
            Johnson was Senate Majority Leader from 1954 until he became Vice President in 1961. Johnson used the post to its full extent and more, becoming the most powerful Senate leader of the 20th century, a man accustomed to giving orders and expecting them to be carried out.
            He was enticed into the job of VP believing that, in presiding over the Senate, he could finagle even more power than he had had as Majority Leader. But the Constitutional separation of powers limited the role and assured he would merely be casting tie-breaking votes.
            Once ensconced as Vice President, the power he had known and luxuriated in as Senate Majority Leader was gone. Instead, he became a mere figurehead with little to do. He grasped at roles for himself, but JFK and his coterie of aides and cabinet members, especially Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, nixed any meaningful role for LBJ.
            Johnson’s humiliating three years as Vice President was the most difficult and painful period of his life. And then fate intervened in the person of Lee Harvey Oswald. This is where the story of power and leadership gets interesting.

Passage of Power
Awaiting word of the gravely wounded president’s condition, Johnson, his wife and an aide were put in a heavily guarded private room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Throughout the interminable minutes of waiting, Caro writes, Johnson stood with his back to the wall, completely silent and absorbed in his thoughts. The power of the presidency passed to Johnson the moment Kennedy was pronounced dead.
            Initially hesitant, Johnson soon took control. Caro’s narrative describing the re-emergence of his powerful personality is remarkable:

“…His demeanor was very different in moments of crisis, in moments when there were decisions – tough decisions – to be made … in those moments he became … ‘quiet and still.’ He had been very quiet during the long minutes he stood there in the little room… There was a stillness about him, an immobility, a composure that hadn’t been seen very much during the past three years. Though he had been for those years restless, unable to sit still, unable to keep his mind on one subject, unable to stop talking, he wasn’t restless in that little room.

“…the hangdog look was gone, replaced with an expression” described as “set.” … "Johnson’s oldest aides and allies, the men who had known him the longest, knew that expression; the big jaw jutting, the lips above it pulled into a tight, grim line, the corner turned down in a hint of a snarl, the eyes, under those long black eyebrows, narrowed, hard, piercing. It was an expression of determination and fierce concentration; when Lyndon Johnson wore that expression, a problem was being thought through with an intensity that was almost palpable – and a decision made.”

Very quickly, he was giving orders and making rapid-fire decisions of great import.
            For me, as I noted, it is an impressive story of one man’s passage into power. I doubt many people could rise to such an occasion, as did LBJ. The notion of having to succeed a highly popular president on the heels of his sudden, tragic death just staggers the imagination.
            Johnson did it. And he did it with grace, thoughtfulness (for Jackie Kennedy and the Kennedy family), intelligence and tact.
            But he was also aggressive and eager to get himself out from under the Kennedy shadow and mark the presidency as his own. He wasted no time. While he assured the nation he would carry forth Kennedy’s initiatives, he needed something of his own. He alighted on it within his first month in office, designating the “War on Poverty” as his signature cause.
            The central message is this: born leader or otherwise, Johnson had the makeup of a man who knew himself well, his strengths and his limitations, as well as the ability to maximize those strengths and find the right people to make up for the limitations. In other words, a leader.