Why There's No Crying in Baseball

A League of Their Own is one of the movies I love to watch over and over again.  Literally, I've seen it more than 20 times. 

Now, I'm not necessarily gender-centric in my movie re-run hobby:  another favorite that I never tire of watching is The Hunt for Red October, and there is nary a woman to be found, much less relate to, as a female viewer.  The passion of the strategic intrigue is genderless, at least for me.

If there were a 12-step program for such an addiction, my husband Joel, instead of rolling his eyes and sighing every time I'm glued to one of my repeat favorites, would arrange an intervention and attend the Movie-Anon meetings for enablers.

One of the best scenes in A League of Their Own, I think most of us would agree,  is between the Tom Hanks character Jimmy, the team manager, and Bitty Schram character, Evelyn, when she makes an error that ends a key inning in the game, a.k.a. the "There's No Crying in Baseball" scene.

As I mentioned earlier, I've watched this scene literally dozens of times, and my visceral reaction rarely wavered:  I simultaneously ached for Evelyn and was ashamed of her.  On the surface, I related more to the Rosie O'Donnell character, Doris:  I'm a born and bred 3rd-generation New Yorker.

The shame is as simple as this:  don't let the assholes see you cry.  It just reinforces their gender stereotypes in the workplace and ruins it for the rest of us.

However, when I watch this scene from an organizational / leadership effectiveness standpoint, the perspective is startlingly different.

Jimmy is jonesing for his end-of-season managerial bonus for winning the World's Series, and Evelyn's error does not support his goal.  In order to ensure that she does not make the error again and jeopardize his bonus potential further, he gets in her face and kicks her ass.  Publicly.  "Use your head, " he barks.  "You know -- that lump 3 feet above your ass?" 

The rest of the team is visibly stunned, a mixture of anger, disgust and helplessness.  Doris asks Jimmy to lay off, and he tells her to zip it.  And she does. Why?  Chain-of-command.  While he's an asshole, he's still her manager. So much for the New York attitude advantage.

As Evelyn cries, he's incredulous. "There's no crying in baseball!," he exclaims repeatedly in amazement.  He tells her that he's suffer much worse abuse from his manager, and he didn't cry.  As if he were the incarnation of the Dalai Lama for that alleged accomplishment  She cries harder.  The umpire approaches.  "Sir, she's crying!"  Jimmy exclaims in frustration, appealing to another man.  "Perhaps you should address her as you address your mother," the ump primly advises.  I wince.  He's like a sanctimonious substitute for baseball field HR. 

Hey Ump, I know it's supposed to be 1944 in the movie:  but they taught us in diversity training that using the treatment of mothers and other female relatives as examples of how men should treat women respectfully in the workplace does not consistently wash, e.g. what happens if domestic violence exists in your family?  You think Jimmy kisses his mother with that mouth?

Only when Jimmy calls the umpire a penis in a hat does the ump exercise his discretionary power and throw Jimmy out of the game.  But how does that help the women and men on the team (organization), and the game, move forward?

Everyone here is marginalized.  From Jimmy grasping at the last straws of a wasted career to the women players busting their butts only to lose their jobs when the men return from war to the HR ump, who has no real and lasting impact beyond the current game.

I know the answer isn't for women to emulate these abusive, outdated and stereotypical power behaviors.  Women with Men's Heads, my friend Nan coined years ago.  Watching that in action is even worse than when men do it.  Again, it ruins it for the rest of us and undermines the credibility of women leaders in the workplace.  No one wins, everyone is still marginalized. 

I love the answer Chris Flett proposes in his book, What Men Don't Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook.

Contrary to what the title implies, Flett first lays out the rules of the current power structure; and then lays out a practical plan-forward:  that for organizations to move forward and evolve, they require managerial skills that tend to be more native to women (but also available to men).  In order to do so, we must first understand and learn how to facilitate the power structure where it is (There's No Crying in Baseball) to where it can be (There Are No Assholes in Baseball.)

There's even hope at the end of A League of Their Own.  After making another error in the World Series, Evelyn comes off the field and Jimmy meets her again. "Now Evelyn, I'd like you to work on that for next season," he says, clearly controlling himself.  "I know, I will" she says gently, and walks off the field.  He fribrillates and smiles, nearly choking on his chewing tobacco.

Progress, Not Perfection, as they say in the 12-step rooms.

Are You Teflon, or Gold?

Earlier in my HR career, a new senior manager was referred and recruited by one of our newer senior executives.

The manager, whom I'll call Teflon (the name is changed to protect the guilty), immediately made a big splash with his aggressive tactics.  He was an equal-opportunity asshole, beating the crap out of his vendors, his new colleagues and his new team of employees. He got the best price (in the short term) from his vendors, and he leveraged his senior executive mentor to finger-point cross-functionally and consistently across the organization to further pad his bonus potential by driving down any cross-functional costs that might impact his area.  Of course, this drove up costs in other areas of the organization.

He was a recruiter's nightmare.  I can recall at least 3 candidates who declined to work for the organization because of Teflon's prisoner-of-war interview tactics with them.   "That guy is a lunatic,"  one candidate memorably related.  "I like your organization, but I can't work for him."   Teflon then complained how we weren't filling his jobs quickly enough.  I know you're shocked.  

Whenever Teflon was challenged, he went aggressively postal and blamed his accuser(s) back, loudly and profanely.  Nothing was ever his fault, he was always right.  Teflon's often irrational belief that he was always right was so ingrained in his reality that he was deeply and genuinely hurt by the attacks of his colleagues in response to his attacks.  I once spent an hour in a conference room with him, reluctantly and incredulously offering my maternal HR shoulder as he cried bitterly at the unfairness of it all, drowning his sorrows in his own Kool-Aid.

Teflon's initial coup de grace, however, was how he nailed one of his subordinates for taking bribes in the form of free goodies from vendors. Teflon alerted Internal Control, and sure enough, Teflon was right.  Teflon's subordinate was promptly fired, mortified at being caught.  But apparently not mortified enough to not take bribes in the first place.

How did Teflon know?  As it was discovered later, he had in all likelihood accepted bribes himself periodically during the course of his career and recognized the behavior.  At least, this was the likely conjecture, as Teflon was eventually terminated for cooking his numbers to drive up his bonus.

Now this cautionary tale is on the extreme end of the scale.  However, it forever soured me on employees / managers / executives / colleagues who finger-point, whine and make excuses instead of manning-up / womanning-up, taking responsibility and proactively offering collaborative solutions.  And those in organizational control who condone or even worse, encourage such behavior.

Seriously:  my 9 year-old is more solution-oriented and takes more responsibility (and is extremely hard on himself, interesting how genetics play out) than some of the adults I've witnessed in the workplace.

It's particularly disturbing to witness managers engage in this teflon behavior.  "My (subordinate) screwed up the order," instead of "It's my responsibility, and this is how I'm going to work with my team to fix it."

And when it happens on an organizational scale, you start to feel like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight:  is this really happening?  Who's the crazy one here? 

Which is one of the reasons I love Get Rid of the Performance Review! by Culbert and Rout.  No more finger-pointing power plays or whining self-victimization:  the performance of both the manager and their team is inextricably dependent and success or failure is a joint responsibility.  Which is organizational and bottom-line gold.

So what will you mine this week to drive mutual / bottom-line success:  teflon, or gold?

Every Call is a Sales Call

I reached out to a few good colleagues recently networking for specialty candidates here in SmAlbany.  I called after 6 PM expecting to leave a voicemail and instead reached a live person whom I didn't recognize.

"Hi, is Gladys there?" I asked. (The name is changed due to the SmAlbany factor and to minimize reader distraction.)

"Sure, hang on a second," the deep and friendly voice said.  I listened to some generic on-hold music for about 30 seconds.  The voice returned, no longer friendly.  "Who are you and what do you want?"

Hmmm.  A bit abrupt, which surprised me for a minute.  "I'm Deb Best and I'm following up with Gladys networking for (specialty) candidates," I replied.

"Sorry," said the Deep Voice, not sorry at all.  "I thought you were a sales call.  We're in the middle of a sales meeting and she doesn't have time to talk to you. (Click.)"  He hung up on me.  Charming.  And ironic.

Later that week, coincidentally (and I don't believe in coincidences), I learned that Deep Voice was the CEO of Gladys' company by observing him asserting himself rather stridently in a meeting and watching him subsequently facilitated by the meeting moderator to let other meeting participants contribute equally.  

Deep Voice's company, by the way, relies heavily on its reputation, more than the average company, as part of its business model.

Which is why I continue to maintain to the point of proselytizing that every call is a sales call.

Internally and externally, you can't let current and potential customers see you sweat, literally and figuratively.  Because the downstream reputation impacts on sales are undeniable.

Seemingly unbeknown to Deep Voice, I am a potential customer connected to other potential and current customers.  In a market like SmAlbany, and in an economy that increasingly connects like SmAlbany outside of SmAlbany, why any customer-facing employee at any level would indulge themselves in anything less than Customer Delight to all company contacts internally and externally is beyond my understanding.

Interestingly, I don't need to understand.  I've been heavily trained and inculcated on intent vs. impact:  the intent doesn't matter, the impact means and drives everything. 

Customer Delight is the responsibility of every employee in the organization at every level.  It's vertical integration at its finest:  it's time to break down the organizational silos and desegregate our organizational roles and constructs and come to the joint conclusion that we're all sales and customer service associates regardless of our respective organizational levels and functions, particularly if we are to sustain and grow our respective organizations within our competitive markets.

A small but poignant example from earlier in my career:  I was conducting a phone-screen with a Chemical Engineer candidate, and as was my practice, I described our chemical manufacturing process from end to end.  I then asked the candidate a few questions about his experience with our particular manufacturing process; finally, I asked him if he had any questions.  "No questions," he said, "Just a comment.  I've never seen an HR person talk about the business like you just did.  I expected you to just tell me about the company benefits.  I'm impressed with your organization and your team, whether you decide to hire me or not."

Exactly.

How authentic are you, no matter what your functional role in your organization, in meeting / exceeding your customers' needs during and after customer-facing contacts?  Internally and externally? 

Every call is a sales call.

Are You My Mother? No. Especially Not at Work.

Everywhere I've worked, the employee lunchroom always has some version of this sign posted:

Your Mother Doesn't Work Here:  Clean Up Your Own Mess.

A variation of the theme of "Don't Mess Your Nest."

Both concepts are related and should be taken to heart, mind and spirit.  It comes down to the hard work of self-awareness and its resultant emotional intelligence / maturity.  The implications of the unexamined life are not only sad; they are, more importantly, life- and career-changing, and more often than not, for the worst.

Cleaning up -- better yet, preventing -- your own mess within the context of the workplace is critical, particularly in an economy where it's a buyer's market for employers (customers).  If for no other reason, check your therapeutic baggage at the door of your workplace.  Think about examining your (inner) life to the extent that it saves you from jeopardizing your livelihood.  Wherever else that journey of self-examination takes you is up to you.

Taking responsibility for recognizing and keeping your therapeutic baggage in check at work is a key step towards ensuring your own vocational success.

As an HR practitioner, I see the lack of responsibility on the part of the employee (employees mean managers here too) play out again and again as the employee hits their bottom in a performance, disciplinary or termination discussion.  I've seen it happen at every level, from executives to warehouse clerks.  Their psychological baggage is so obvious to me that it's not only in the room, but all of their bags are open and the contents are strewn everywhere and hurtled at everyone.

For that employee, as a brief example, their manager is their abusive dad, I'm their detached mom / aunt and their co-workers are their trench-buddy siblings.

And when compounded by substance abuse and unresolved trauma:  I estimate at least half (probably more) of the employee relations issues that I have adjudicated in my career should have been handled through professional mental health treatment rather than the workplace disciplinary process.

If those same employees had taken the responsibility to drag their therapeutic baggage to a therapist rather than to work, we could have taken that time and energy wasted in resolving those employee relations issues and applied it to more productive endeavors such as new product, process and customer development, as well as resultant profit-sharing.

The time to raise your hand for help is not at your termination discussion.  If your employer offers help in the form of employee assistance programs (EAP) and/or mental health benefits, ask for and accept the help before you begin sliding down the slippery slope of the disciplinary / termination process.

One employee who will always have a place in my heart asked for the help before he jeopardized his employment, while he was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. His courage inspired us all.  We were all committed to his treatment, and he not only became a stellar employee, he was also subsequently promoted.

That, in my book, is how you engender mutual loyalty and respect in the workplace.

Now I'm not a therapist, nor do I aspire to that vocation,  and I don't weave anything remotely therapeutic into my HR practice:  I'm clear about both my boundaries and my limitations, personally, professionally and legally.  However, I will reflect back when an employee has dug themselves into such a hole of hitting bottom at work that perhaps they should consider working it out with a therapist, mentor, spiritual counselor -- whatever will get them through the night of their unexamined internal wound(s).

The workplace is not parental, or familial:   it is a place of business, and the interaction of the employer with their employees is a business transaction.  Plain and simple.  Services are sold by one party (the employee) and purchased by the other party (the employer).  The extent to which that business transaction is conducted creatively, collaboratively and functionally separates tolerable workplaces from great workplaces.  And tolerable employees from great employees / contributors / partners.

Leave your baggage at your workplace door:  solutions sell.