Worst Employee Relations Practices

I read this interesting article by Liz Ryan in the Business Week magazine.

It is an apropos article. It reminds the reader that although the US employee still leads the world in productivity, US employee relations practices might still lag behind. The US is not alone in engaging in these practices. I have seen them alive and well elsewhere.

Often, under the guise of competitiveness, sound employee relations practices are set aside to justify lower salary increases, dumbed-down performance ratings, and a less respectful work environment for the individual.

As long as we continue to view human resources in elastic terms, we will continue to treat them as an expense rather than an asset. It has been said that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but ...

So, here we go with the worst practices discussed in the article:

1. Make sure you let your employees know that you do not trust them.

2. Do not let them know when they do something great.

3. Keep employees in the dark.

4. Make sure employees know that docility is more important than ingenuity.

5. Squash any signs of individualism.

This list reminds me of a sign I saw in an employee's cubicle some years ago. It said: "Management treats us like mushrooms. First, they keep us in the dark. Then, they feed us shit. And lastly, they 'can' us".

I have never forgotten this. There is much wisdom in popular humor.

Is your organization guilty of any of these five worst practices? If so, what are you planning to do to get rid of them?

We live in the 21st century. These practices have no place in a modern society.

Enjoy your journey ... continue to learn.

Understanding Perceptions

I just returned from a visit to Kuwait and Bahrain. I had the opportunity to visit with colleagues and friends from my previous alma mater. I must admit that it was a bitter-sweet visit. Sweet it was because I had the opportunity to see my colleagues and friends after I retired nine months ago.

Bitter it was to see, at the Group level, the organizational paralysis generated by the uncertainty about the future of the corporate group once the African assets are transfered to their acquirer. It is quite clear that the Group needs to shrink down and possibly relocate. But who will be retained? Who will be offered a position in the acquirer's organization? Folks seemed rightfully uncertain about their retention, afraid of perceived or real purges that usually follow when there are major changes at the top. In essence, who are the winners and who are the losers in the rearrangement of the boxes?

The visit reminded me of an important lesson I had learned a few years back, earlier in my career. The importance of perceptions in people's decision making. Perceptions are real and they are facts that people use to make decisions. Never mind that they might be inaccurate, they are still facts, albeit erroneous, that people rely on to render their judgments. So, even though perceptions are not always reality, we must beware of their impact. So what you might say?

We are responsible for the perceptions we create and as such we must be alert to what they are and play a responsible role in their shaping. After all, perceptions affect our jobs, our relationships, our future, to a certain extent. Lack of awareness is akin to flying blind. We all know what the risks are of just that.

I recall fondly the advice I received from a dear colleague way back. He said to me that in order to better manage the perceptions I created in others, I needed to know what those perceptions were and take action if they were out-of-alignment with those I expected. How do you do that? You seek feedback first. You let people tell you how you come across, positively and negatively. You accept the feedback that you get as the reality out there, whether supported or not by objective facts. You do not argue with it, you do not discount it, you do not rationalize it. You accept it and take responsibility for having contributed to its reality. Those who choose to do the opposite are vulnerable because they choose to continue flying blind.

There is more to it that soliciting feedback. There is disclosure on our part. That is we need to balance the communication flow with our own perspective, with our heartfelt motives, and with our own sense of humility. If people do not know enough about you, they will fill out the blanks on their own. The better people know you, the more accurate can their perceptions of you can be.

I know that the subject of perceptions is a tough one to digest for those of us who are accustomed to dealing with scientific data. We see perceptions as unfair judgments based on flimsy data, not necessarily backed by facts on the ground. So what? People still have them and use them to make decisions, and to reach conclusions.

Have fun on the learning curve! Nitzche said it well. What does not kill you, makes you stronger. Hemingway said the same thing but in a different context. Life breaks you and makes you stronger in the broken parts. I have found both to be useful pieces of wisdom.

Why Companies Fail?

On my last trip to Madrid, Spain last week I bought Jim Collins latest book, HOW THE MIGHTY FALL. He is the best selling author of GOOD TO GREAT, and co-author of BUILT TO LAST.

The book was an easy-read during the long flight. It is a little over 200 pages, including charts and appendices. It is well written and easy to absorb.

While writing his book, Collins was overwhelmed by his research stats. Unlike the research for his previous books, he was confounded by the number of variables. He soon realized that, while companies can succeed by focusing on a handful of effective practices, failure can come from a multitude of sins.

To more effectively communicate his findings Collins arranged the results into five step-wise and coherent stages of decline:

1. Hubris Born of Success.
2. Undisciplied Pursuit of More.
3. Denial of Risk and Peril.
4. Grasping for Salvation.
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance and Death.

The five stages seem to track an organization's lifecycle.

Collins' findings suggest that every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline and eventual death. Contrary to Darwin's premise that only the strong survive, he points out that the mighty can also falter and die. Decline is more often than not self-inflicted, and recovery is within management's reach. He goes on to show cases where mighty companies faltered, but never gave in.

As I was reading the book, my brain was searching its recesses to find examples from my personal experience that validated Collins' findings. I found two groups: one large group of mighty companies that never recovered, and another populated by a few that did. As I mulled over the difference between the two groups, a light bulb started to blink.

BLINK ... Institutional success is dependent on superior leadership, but institutional failure or decline often comes from mediocre or poor management.

For some time I have toyed with the idea that leadership and management are two sides of the same coin: leadership being the maker, and management being the breaker... BLINK. That is, superior leadership gives you a competitive advantage while lack of management skill makes you vulnerable. I might have read in Collins book more than he intended...BLINK. But since I had written about this notion earlier in one of my blogs, my brain could not resist making the connection...BLINK.

BLINK ... I have been watching long-distance the turmoil in my alma mater. "Making money" trumped "making history." The latter being the goal of the CEO, and the former the objective of the major shareholder. Inability to manage different expectations might have contributed to the early sell-off of its African assets and a resizing of the institutional dream. Hindsight? Perhaps!

How about you! Have you seen any mighty fall? Did they recover? Think about what made them fail and what made them succeed.

Career Management

How things have changed during the past quarter century!

It used to be common practice for people to join an organization fresh out of school and spend their entire worklife with one or two companies. You started at the bottom and worked your way up by performing well in your current job and by gaining the experience needed to move up a notch at the time.

You had to wait your turn, but your turn would come if you were a superior performer once your boss moved up or retired or if you had a sponsor.

In these earlier times, we saw our career progress hierarchically: non-management, supervisor, manager, director, general manager, vice president, and president. We grew with our companies; we put our time "in grade". This is the way the military did it and still does. Few would be on the fast track, most would be on the slower track. You wait your turn in line.

Times have changed. People no longer stay with one or two companies their entire career; they move more frequently, often to new locations. We are more mobile and more impatient. We are more loyal to our profession than our employers. Why? Because our employers have become less loyal to us, and because they have become more unstable in a more complex global economy.

So how do you manage your career in such a setting? The more unpredictable the environment around us, the more difficult it is. But people still succeed, they still progress up the line or across the line.

Our focus has shifted, by necessity, from the hierarchical view of career progress to a more circular one. You must work on growing your knowledge, enlarging your skill set, and expanding your capabilities. You must try to open up more choices, up and sideways. You have to find mentors and coaches who can guide you in your development, and maybe, even open up a door or two. You will need to gain traction in a rather slippery environment. You must differentiate yourself, and you have to invest in your brand.

You now need to focus less on job titles and more on job content. You find your sweet spot where your capabilities match your organization's requirements, and capitalize on your passion. You strive to do what you love, and love what you do.
You harness your motivation, your ambition toward being the best you can be in whatever field you choose to work.

It used to be that status and perks came with the job title. Now they can also come to those who are in high demand. Pay is not a significant differentiator anymore. Highly skilled professionals earn more than most vice presidents in banks, for example. Scientists often earn much more than managers.

It has been said that we spend more time at work than we do at home (awake)or in any other activity. My suggestion is simple. I have said it already. But, let me repeat it if you missed it: DO WHAT YOU LOVE, AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO.

Commit yourself to lifelong learning! In a fast changing world you cannot afford to stay still because you will soon fall behind, and you become obsolete. What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.

The landscape is full of successful companies' carcasses who failed to adapt and change with the times.

Enjoy the journey along the learning curve; it will help your career.

Productivity & Job Satisfaction

Productivity and job satisfaction have been debated over and over. But, we seem to forget the lessons the debate has taught us. We seem to be too busy chasing "new" stuff, to strut our bonhommie, to "polish the brass while the ship is sinking."

My recollection of the debate is as follows. Organizations can choose one of the four outcomes, each with distinct consequences. We have four general options to choose from:

1. An environment where productivity and job satisfaction are high.
2. An environment where productivity is high but job satisfaction is low.
3. An environment where productivity is low but job satisfaction is high.
4. An environment where both productivity and job satisfaction are low.

We will all agree that the fourth option is a non-starter since it is apparent that it is a lose-lose proposition. But, there are advocates for option 2. They are motivated by the short term gain. Often that is the goal of many turn-around initiatives: To prove the initiative has achieved its intended results. Option 3 is often pursued to stem morale problems that make the organization vulnerable to unionization or in response to confrontation from disaffected unions.

Intuitively managers know that job satisfaction per se does not increase productivity. All the research studies I have seen validate this point. But there are studies that point out a correletion between dissatisfaction and long term productivity. Dissatisfied employees have a way to vote with their feet, to do enough to get by, to clog the grievance process, to offer passive resistance. These behaviors do impact productivity.

While there might not be any evidence that happy cows give better milk, there is ample evidence that unhappy cows will gore you. This is how I have explained the negative correlation between productivity and job satisfaction over the years. And, yes, people get it when explained in this way.

During the past 10 years we have learned that job satisfaction is pointless unless it yields higher degrees of engagement. Engaged employees are those who are willing to go the extra mile to help the organization achieve its objectives. There is mounting evidence that organizations with high level of engagement enjoy higher productivity, increased retention, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

The same can be said about customer satisfaction. What good is it to have satisfied customers if they are not loyal to your brand? We spend large sums of money chasing satisfaction rather than building customer loyalty. Example: I change cars every 3 years or so. I have bought in the past a Mercedes, an Infinity, a Jaguar, a Ford, etc., and I have been satisfied with each, but every 3 years or so I change brand because I am not loyal to any, just interested in trying different brands.

What distracts us from pursuing the longer term objective of creating organizations with a balanced purpose: higher productivity and higher job satisfaction? One of the distractions comes every time we fall in love with "what's new" and forget "what really works." Let me elaborate a bit more.

New is not necessarily better. Modern is not superior to classic; contemporary does not trump traditional. This observation is demonstrated vividly in the field of cooking. As an avid foodie myself, I observe that although we have many innovations in cooking, we still long for the way our grandmothers or mothers did it. Fast food, a rather modern way, is responsible for clogged arteries, obese children, and unheathy diet. But it has its vertues: it is fast and it is cheaper. The slow food movement is trying to go back to the traditional -- the way our ancestors did it, not the way McDonald, Burger King, KFC and othet popular fast food chains do it.

Americans have discovered that the traditional Mediteranean diet is superior to the fast food craze. Folks who live around the Mediteranean Sea have known that for more than 3,000 years. Indeed, new is not always better, just some time.

Enough about cooking. Let's reflect on ways we can humanize the workplace. Everyone has the right to enjoy their job, it does not matter how humble it might be. After all, we spend a good portion of our lives working.

Enjoy the journey along the learning curve. I welcome your comments and ideas.

Reflections on Change Strategies

As an elder, I enjoy the luxury of looking back without worrying about my future job. You might say that my career is, by and large, behind me. I have been quoted to say that "there is no future on getting old." I have been quoted accurately! Some say pessimistic, others say realistic.

I have been taught that there are different ways to learn ... by doing, by experimentation, by abstract conceptualization, and by reflective observation. They all give us slightly different takes on the target situation.

Several years ago, through an paper published by University Associates, I was exposed to a powerful piece on eight pure strategies of change. Pure, in the analytical sense, rather than in implementation. Let me summarize them here:

1. Power-Coersive. This bundle includes the following approaches to change: political, economic, military, and confrontational. Each has its strengths and limitations, each meets a specific need in time, each has its archtypes. These approaches do not describe the position or academic training of the change agent, just his/her approach.

For example, the military strategy is also used by non-military folks, the economic strategy by non-economists, the political strategy by non-politicians. Archtypes associated with this bundle are: brown-noser (political), dictator (military), colonialist (economic), rabble-rouser (confrontation).

2. Rational-Empirical. This bundle includes the following approaches: engineering, academic, fellowship, and behavioral sciences. Again, each has its strengths and limitations, each meets a specific need in time, each has its archtype. These approaches do not describe the position or acedemic training of the change agent.

For example, the engineering strategy is used by non-engineers, the academic strategy by non-academics, fellowship by non-religious persons, and the behavioral sciences by non-behavioral scientists. Archtypes associated with this bundle are: mechanic (engineering), pedantic (academic), missionary (fellowship), and shrink (behavioral sciences).

On a personal level, these strategies manifest themselves in rather comical-tragic ways:

1. The slash-and-burn style. The notion behind this approach is that the best way to go forward is to level everything in sight. Rebuilding is seen as much easier than rennovating. This Ghensis Khan approach to change has some short term benefits. It gets people's attention, but it also generates fear and lack of candor. People are criticized in public, reprimanded for small infractions, ridiculed for their foibles. The dictator is exploitative. He/she leaves behind a lot of wounded folks whose time is spent dressing their wounds and plotting revenge. Many resources are wasted by fixing what might not be broken. The legacy is one of plunder and opportunism. Change agents with this style have a short lifecycle. Few, if any, dictators die in their bed.

2. The love-in style. The notion behind this approach is that the best way to go forward is to love one another to death. Much energy is spent on being liked and included. God forbid that somesone's feelings should be hurt. The calm that this style generates is seen as progress, that things are better, that the dictator is benevolent, like a loving father/mother. Unfortunately, this style lulls people to sleep, to accept mediocrity, to promore incompetent folks, and to lower standards of performance. Change agents with this style have a medium lifecycle. Most, if not all, die in their bed.

3. The respect-me style. The notion behind this approach is that the best way forward is to earn the respect and trust from others. The energy here is on best practices, on renewal, on continuous improvement. Professionalism rules and competence is a requirement for advancement and job security. You do not have to love this person, just respect his/her intellect and ability to bring about the right change. This style does not have a need to flex its muscles, is not narcissistic, and is not full of him/herself. Change agents with this style tend to live to fight another day. They teach by examples and produce many disciples. Yes, all of them die in their bed serenely.

What's you style? What are you most comfortable with? How are others describe you?

Enjoy the journey along the learning curve!

Management & Leadership -- An Old Discussion

I recall with fondness my good friend and colleague Ray Burch's lecture on "Stop Bashing Management and Prasining Leadership". Ray, in his wisdom, attempted to bring into light the necessity of both for the long term success of our organizations.

In the past 25 years, people have fallen in love with the word "leadership." They have found it sexier that the word "management."

Many attractive adjectives have been used to describe its role and functions. Here are some adjectives usually associated with leadership: inspirational, transformative, participative, visionary, engaging, effective, contemporary, fun. Terrific words! What is there not to like?

When describing management the choice of the adjectives has been less enticing, and to a certain extent, deprecating. Here are some of the words associated with management: efficient, commanding, controlling, mechanistic, old fashioned, boring. God forbid! Who wants to be labeled "command and control?" The use of this term has been used in some organizations to derail competent people's careers.

In my professional practice, I have tried to discuss the topic in a more inclusive way, not necessarily with a lot of success. I have not given up. I continue to reflect on the subject of leadership and management,and I continue to explore its implications for contemporary organizations.

When the iconic Frank Sinatra was asked to comment on rising fame of singer Elvis Presley during the mid 1960's, he wisely said: "You cannot knock success." The word leadership has indeed captured our imagination, so it is unpopular to knock its vertues. Too many books have been written expousing its vertues, none exposing its weaknesses.

It is my view that, that in the contemporary organization, management's purpose blends sound leadership principles with the art and science of getting things done. the prrof of the pudding, I am told, is in its eating -- execution.

Leadership and management are two sides of the same coin. They are both needed for long term success. Short term success is often clouded by intervening variables such as a friendly market, superior technology, and lucky timing, to name a few. Long term success depends on navigating through a myriad of tough conditions and problematic situations.

Peter Drucker, the recognized authority on professional management, had this to say about leadership: "Leadership has little to do with leadership qualities and even less to do with charisma. It is mundane, unromantic and boring. Its essence is performance... Leadership is a means... to what end is thus the crucial question."

John Zenger and Joseph Folkman in their widely acclaimed book, The Extraordinary Leader, studied the 360 assessments of of 25,000 leaders. They isolated five important pillars to what they called "the leadership tent." The pillars are character, personal capability, interpersonal skills, focus on results and leading organizational change. Supporting the tent, they found 16 specific behavioral competencies. It is interesting to point out that, although they never used the term management, three of the five pillars included established management functions (planning, organizing, and controlling.) A fourth pillar overlaped with another activity of management, motivating others.

In another study, Joyce, Nohria and Robertson, in their book, What Really Works, identified six specific management practices for sustained business success. The primary four were: Strategy, execution, culture, and structure. The secondary two or electives were: Talent, leadership, innovation, and growth. Their five-year project analyzed more than 200 management practices, fads, silver-bullet cures and management buzz-words used by 160 companies. How stunning are their findings?

The old Bible, in Ecclesiastes, teaches us that "there is a time for everything unber the sun." It is a wise admonition. It teaches us that organizations, like humans, go through specific phases, and that each phase has unique challenges and dilemmas. What might work in a particular phase might not be sufficient for the other!

So, what have I concluded after all? I see leadership as the "maker." It will make us successful when effectively exercised. I see management as the "breaker", meaning lack of fundamental management will surely derail us.

Witness how many organizations have imploded over time. The landscape is full of carcasses of yesteryear's most admired companies. The laws of gravity, I am reminded, have not been repealed. What goes up with good leadership, will eventually come down with poor management!

Ponder this topic! Reflect on your own experience! Don't be seduced by the sexy terms -- they are ephemeral.

Enjoy your journey along the learning curve! We all have much to learn.