An Unexpected Gift at Work

I must admit, I love tendering job offers.  Match-making a talented candidate to a position where they will add value and contribute to the success of their new organization?  It's a win-win, all upside.  And I get to not only broker the transaction, but also deliver the glad tidings to both candidates and hiring authorities of "yes, they want you for the job" and "yes, they want to come work for you." It's like basking in the glow when you witness (or contribute to) the birth of a child.  My friend Pete is right:  I am a Career Yente.

During the last few years as The Great Recession malingered, the glad tidings were few and far between:  everyone, candidates and hiring authorities alike, were either unable, afraid or both to commit to making many job matches at all. Additionally, hiring authorities learned the sad and difficult task of laying talented people off instead of hiring and retaining them for growth. So last December 31st, as the year ended and the cold weather deepened, I tendered a job offer that gladdened both me and the candidate.  It was not only the job match made:  it also represented the collective envisioned faith that 2011 would signal a shift, a veritable thaw in the economic and vocational winter that had spanned years, not just seasons.

This week, as we celebrated the return of the light during the Winter Solstice, there are small signs of that much-needed shift towards a thaw.  The consumers are shopping again, with or without your approval / agreement:  the net result is that it helps the economy.  The unemployment rate locally keeps dropping.  Anecdotally speaking, a number of my colleagues are hiring, and finding some jobs hard to fill.  Other colleagues are getting new jobs / promotions; or fanning the momentum of their new businesses / practices as entrepreneurs; or both.  For the first time in 3 years, my husband Joel's business was busy during the holiday season.  Spending money on custom picture-framing is a singing canary in the economic coal mine.  There are definitely signs of movement underneath the economic permafrost.

And one year later, an unexpected gift at work from that candidate who received and accepted that job offer on the eve of 2011.  It was meant as a note to accompany a small yet thoughtful holiday gift; however, the note, excerpted here, was the real gift:

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to join this great team! Of all of the organizations I've worked for, and all of the positions I've had, (this) is really the most rewarding and best fit I've experienced.  Thanks for all that you do!

I wish for you, dear friends and colleagues, the same abundant gifts now and into the future, at your work.

Best Practice: Holiday Joy at Work

I attended the best office holiday party of my career last week, with over 100 people in attendance.  Here's why:

• An energetic and organized committee;
• Frequent reminders / communications 3 weeks prior to the event;
• It was potluck lunch:  the variety and quality of the food was fabulous, it was truly a feast (and no cost to the organization except the time used for the party, as we all prepared and brought the food, with minimal cost to us as individuals);
• 3 hours were set aside for the event; plenty of plates, cups and utensils;
• The party was held in a large training room, festooned with tinsel, bows and poinsettias brought from home and desks;
• Jeffrey Jene, a talented friend of a friend, graciously stopped by and got the party started with our laughter and wonder at his great magic and comedy routine;
• The laughter then reach a shared and hilarious crescendo with a White Elephant Trivia Swap, which was supplied by party-goers' recycled / unwanted presents brought from home:  in order to obtain and open a present, you were required to answer a holiday trivia question.  Again, no cost to the organization or the attendees.

The White Elephant Trivia Swap was 2 hours of nonstop laughter, impromptu stand-up comedy and heretofore unknown fierce competition.

The Jewish kids in the room did not know the Hebrew month when Hanukkah always occurs (Kislev) and clearly need to go back for some remedial Hebrew school lessons.

It became clear to many of us in the room that we were frankly unfamiliar with the history / rituals of our respective holidays.

For some reason, I was able to extract the obscure fact from some dusty crevice of my mind that the first artificial tree was made out of goose feathers.  Other attendees had similar flashes as well.

And when a certain number of recycled presents were revealed, then the stealing began.  I love White Elephant Swaps for several reasons:  satisfying the "one person's trash is another person's treasure" curiosity; learning how competitive (or not) people really are; and how there's always one item that everyone in the room wants.

This party's item was a $10 toy Ferris wheel from Wal-Mart that moved and featured tiny pretty multi-colored lights when turned on.  That Ferris wheel must have changed hands 30 times.  The competitive stealing and accompanying laughter was priceless.  And it didn't end after the party:  one attendee who lost out at the Ferris wheel at the party's 11th hour had a memento picture taken of themselves proudly holding the Ferris wheel.

Even more priceless was the shared experience of deep and genuine laughter sustained over good food during the holiday season at work.  All of these factors can coexist and converge joyfully, they are not mutually exclusive.  Especially how our morale soared and carried us for the rest of the week.  What a great holiday gift.

Happy holidays to you and yours:  and at work.

Two Entrepreneurs Stood Up for Each Other's Success This Week

I have been a member of Professional Women's Network (PWN), an intimate and powerful Mastermind / Board of Directors group for nearly 17 years; and I have been proud to serve as President for the last two years.

Two of our members, Jill, an M.D.  and Georgia, a Integrated Care Nurse Practitioner / Nutritionist who both count many of us as their patients, proposed Drue, the owner / designer of an Albany, New York-based jewelery store, as one of our newest members last year.  Since I love both entrepreneurs and jewelry, Drue had me at hello.

Drue has been an engaged and generous member of our group since she first joined:  a wealth of experience, a healthy network and great business advice.  A few months ago, she had us over for dinner at the store after hours, gave us the grand tour including her impressive design studio, and cleaned all of our jewelry.  Definitely a fun / fine addition to our group.

This past week, Drue invited us all to her Holiday Open House:  here's how the invitation read:

Holiday Open House

Thursday December 8th 5pm - 9 pm

First 50 receive a holiday gift bag!

(That's Drue's Great Dane Slater, by the way.)

The food at the party was provided by Jill's husband Tony, a wonderful restauranteur and caterer.  Many of my friends and colleagues were there, socializing and shopping.  I gratefully received my gift bag and saw a small bottle of wine peeping out.  How sweet, I thought.  It was even sweeter when I opened the bag the next day:  Drue had also included 4 gift certificates, including one to her store and one to Tony's restaurant.  And a piece of Krause's dark chocolate to boot, which made my son Noah very happy.  I had never experienced that kind of generosity from a retail store before (much less a small business like Drue's store); it was overwhelming.

Yesterday, I tucked Drue's gift certificate and some cash in my pocket, and headed over to her store.  I had my eye on a pair of silver Officina Bernardi hoops at Thursday's holiday party, and Drue's generosity sealed my decision.

When I entered the store, I made a beeline for the case with the earrings.  I saw that Drue was busy with an engaged couple choosing wedding bands.  Drue waved to me.  I was peering in the case when a familiar voice asked me what pieces I'd like to see in the case.  I looked up, startled.  It was Jill, my doctor and fellow PWNer.  We both laughed.  "What are you doing here?"  I asked.  Jill smiled.  "Both of Drue's salespeople are out today, so Drue called me this morning and asked me to help her in the store today.  You're the 8th patient of mine that's come into the store today."  

I loved it.  First the business / marketing cross-pollination at the Thursday Holiday Party between Drue's and Tony's businesses; and now Jill happily helping customers with trays of Drue's beautiful baubles.  Now that's where the rubber meets the road in standing up for each other's success.  

After the initial chuckle, I was not surprised to see Jill helping Drue out.  Jill, among several talents which include Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees, is also an accomplished waitperson, proud of her ability to balance up to six plates of food at one time when she helps out at Tony's restaurant during peak periods.  Jill was raised by her father and mother, who owned a small chain of successful drugstores, to do whatever it takes to run a successful business.

Jill and I proceeded to play dress-up with a few pieces, and she and Drue (multi-tasking like a hummingbird around her store) helped me decide on a pair of earrings.  

I was hooked; I helped myself to a cup of fudge-flavored coffee from Drue's customer Keurig machine, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching Drue and Jill work together helping engaged couples and holiday shoppers, and making myself useful by keeping the cases fingerprint-free with the Windex and polishing cloth I had confiscated from the multi-tasking Drue.

And grateful to be part of a team of professionals / entrepreneurs who stand up for each other's success.

Stand Up For Everyone's Success

What did you do this past week to stand up for everyone's success, including yours?  I'm no success savant, by the way:  I just instinctively pay forward what fuels and multiplies my own success.  Here's my list from last week, not meant to be inclusive:

• I coached two talented professionals to recognize and organize their own native talents, which resulted in job offers for each of them;
• I joyfully helped a friend spread the word about her wonderful clothing art textiles; I offered to do the same for a new product recently launched by a local company who was our neighbor when The Best Framing Company had a bricks-and-mortar storefront, as a thank-you for a recent kindness granted;
• I helped a nonprofit maintain their HR compliance; 
• I counseled two small business owners on two very different tricky HR questions;
• I helped a third professional with résumé wording, which in turn helped a fourth professional;
• I referred a client to my friend and colleague Lisa Jordan;
• I made the case to promote an extremely talented young fifth professional;
• I celebrated the launch of a talented colleague's new small business as a vocational / centering complement to their current mundane "day" job;
• I polished the CV of another colleague in support of better representing their business in the Tech Valley community.

What was on your success list last week?  Share it here with us.

Moreover:  can you claim at least one (1) weekly success list win, in support of our mutual success and prosperity? Small wins absolutely add up! We all have that discretionary power to stand up for each other, we talented professionals / entrepreneurs, firmly and resolutely for our respective / mutual success, which can absolutely build success momentum for all of us.  Think of it as success gone viral!
 
In this season of giving, I wish for all of you the gift of standing up for everyone's success:  the gift that keeps on giving.

What's Your One Sentence (Purpose) at Work?

I just finished Daniel Pink's Drive, recommended by a friend / fellow GEer from my congregation.  A great read, many wonderful nuggets to explore and contemplate.  The three-legged stool of autonomy, mastery and purpose is especially relevant.

The one that sticks with me right now is Pink's reference to Claire Boothe Luce and her advice to John F. Kennedy, resonant with Kawasaki's seminal Positioning Statement in his own book, Enchantment:

In 1962, Clare Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some advice to President John F. Kennedy. “A great man,” she told him, “is one sentence.” Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.” Luce feared that Kennedy’s attention was so splintered among different priorities that his sentence risked becoming a muddled paragraph.

You don’t have to be a president—of the United States or of your local gardening club—to learn from this tale. One way to orient your life toward greater purpose is to think about your sentence. Maybe it’s: “He raised four kids who became happy and healthy adults.” Or “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.” Or “He cared for every person who walked into his office regardless of whether that person could pay.” Or "She taught two generations of children how to read.”

As you contemplate your purpose, begin with the big question: What’s your sentence?

My own sentence sounds something like the quote on the banner I bought at Peaceful Inspirations a few weeks ago:

It is literally true

that you can succeed best and quickest

by helping others to succeed.

What is your one sentence (purpose) at work, vocationally or both? Share it so we can all know it and uplift it, too.

What We Have Here is an Opportunity to Communicate at Work

My friend and colleague Lisa gave a seminar on the Enneagram last night:  in some ways, I find it a deeper dive on the Myers-Briggs assessment. Lisa uses it in her practice, The Right Fit Coaching.  

Whether you're using the DISC, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram or other instrument to determine communications styles, I have found that such instruments can turn personality conflict issues into more objective discussions of individual style and consequently how to most effectively navigate and communicate through our respective differences, especially in the workplace.

Early in my HR career, my HR teammates Steve and George appeared solemnly at my office door threshold.  They filed in, shut the door and each took a seat in front of my desk.  "What's up, guys?" I queried.  This was an unexpected visit.  George began.  "Deb, we like you and we think you're very smart."  Steve nodded in agreement.  "Because we like you, we're here to give you some advice to support your success,"  George continued. 

I leaned forward in my chair.  I respected George and Steve as well, and I was learning a lot from them.  "Okay, I'm all ears,"  I replied.  Steve shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked at George.  George smiled at me.  "Bluntly, you're a show-off and a career-climber."  I was a bit taken aback and not quite comprehending the feedback.  George, Steve and I were all wearing safety glasses, metal-toed safety shoes, dirt-streaked jeans, polo shirts and hard hats.  Somehow, I envisioned a more glamorous environment (a la Katherine Hepburn in Adam's Rib) with accompanying wardrobe accoutrements for dialogue like this.  "What do you mean?"  I sputtered.  "I don't understand."

Steve spoke up.  "At every staff meeting, you have to talk about your latest HR challenge,"  he clarified.  "We work on the same issues and you don't see us talking about our work."  I was still confused.  "I talk about my HR challenges because I'm looking for your feedback and coaching:  that's how I learn,"  I explained.  "I'm sorry if you think I'm showing off.  I'm sharing with the purpose of learning from each other."  Both George and Steve looking at my face, then at each other.  "I believe what you're saying," George continued.  "But we both find it irritating.  Can you at least not talk as much?" 

"Sure,"  I replied, still puzzled about the formal chat.  "I enjoy working with both you."  George rose to leave, and Steve followed suit.  "Great!"  George said.  "Thanks for the time."  I was still processing the conversation.  "Wait, before you go:  could we talk to Bill (our boss) about this?"  George and Steve looked at each other.  "In the spirit of supporting our work together."  I continued.  George smiled, and nodded.  "Yes, that's a good idea,"  he replied.  They both left.  I rose from my desk and went to Bill's office.

"What am I doing wrong?"  I asked Bill after I shared my recent visit from George and Steve.  Bill thought for a moment.  "Have you ever taken the Myer-Briggs assessment?" Bill asked.  "Yes, a couple of years ago,"  I replied.  "I'm an ENTJ."  Bill smiled.  "Don't worry, I'll take care of it,"  he replied.

And Bill did take care of it, in short order.  He arranged for a Myers-Briggs team building session for our HR team with an outside consultant who was certified to administer the Myers-Briggs assessment.  Turns out I was the only Extrovert (E) on my team (Myers-Briggs E's think and talk at the same time) while the rest of the team, including George and Steve, were Myers-Briggs Introverts (Is) who think and then talk:  sometimes, not until the next day.  And that my type, the ENTJ, represented only 3% of the entire population; and only 1% of all women were ENTJs.  And the success profile at my organization was ISTJ.  And finally:  that ENTJ was not a typical Myers-Briggs profile for HR professionals.  For example, Steve Jobs was an ENTJ.  "So," our Myers-Briggs consultant explained, "Deb is a contrast when compared to the rest of the team, where Introverts are the norm.  Now that you all know that, you can focus on the facts, rather than the personalities."

The Monday morning after the HR team-building, George and Steve appeared at my office threshold again, and sat down, definitely with a different tone.  Steve spoke first this time.  "We wanted to apologize for accusing you of being a climber," Steve said.  "We know now that it's the way you're wired, and that's not your intention," George added.  I smiled back at both of them.  "Thank you, I really appreciate that," I replied.  "However, I'm also now aware that I'm the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard for both of you, based on our profiles.  It's also my responsibility to manage myself with both of you, and modulate accordingly."

And in typical Myers-Briggs Introvert style, they both smiled, nodded, said nothing, and got on with their day.  And so did I.

Celebrate Success with the People Who Make it Possible: Your Customers

I attended two business anniversary celebrations in the last 24 hours.

The first celebration was the 6th anniversary of a retail store in Delmar, NY.  The owner, a kindred-spirit transplant from New York City, sent us customers several emails promoting the anniversary sale.  The store filled with her happy customers shortly after opening for the day,  who were and are clearly grateful for the haven she creates with her store and the equally kindred practitioners she sponsors in her space for the benefit of all.  She rewarded us with anniversary discounts.  In the spirit of the moment, I purchased a wall hanging:

Success

It is literally true

that you can succeed best and quickest

by helping others to succeed

And at the same time succinctly articulated the vision of my professional practice.  Thanks, Anne.

I just returned from the 16th anniversary of another business:  a vibrant entrepreneur who took the risk 16 years ago to implement her vision in a mentorless wilderness to become a successful and well-respected independent financial planner.  Although I am not a customer, she graciously included me in the celebration, and I brought my friend Lisa as my guest.  There was delicious food and a lively band (also one of her customers!) for her roomful of happy customers.  I was grateful to bear witness to this scene of mutual celebration and success.

This week's best practice, as we enter this season of Thanksgiving:  create your own success celebration with your customer(s) and share it with your network, here or in person.  And let us know how you succeeded best and quickest by helping your customers to succeed.

Do the Job Before You're Hired

I love Nick Corcodilos of Ask the Headhunter fame.  Among the plethora of gems in his wealth of sage advice for all of us -- candidates and hiring authorities alike -- is his mantra to do the job in the interview.  In other words, a successful interview is not the hiring authority asking you a prescribed set of questions to which you provide a pre-rehearsed set of stock answers.  Think about it:  how do the participants in an artificial conversation like that determine authentically how well they will partner and contribute to the bottom line together, or not?

Instead, Corcodilos encourages candidates to adopt the salesman's stance to discover the business needs the hiring authority has and then effectively provide and demonstrate how their needs will be met / exceeded during the interview.  Clearly, a much more authentic and revealing evaluation.

One of my best experiences of doing the job in the interview was when Bill, the best mentor / manager of my career to date, gave us both a break from the formal interview and asked me to write a press holding statement based on a chemical accident scenario he provided, giving me 15 minutes to do so.  I loved it.  I banged out the holding statement in 5 minutes and handed it over to him.  Bill looked at me, looked at his co-interviewer and smiled.  I knew then that I had the job.  More importantly, I had the wonderful experience of witnessing Bill's appreciation for my talent and abilities as part of the interview process.  Because Bill had the insight as the hiring authority to ask me to do the job in the interview, we had each other at hello.  It was the beginning of a rewarding work experience for both of us.

During this last transformative trip to the Recession Rodeo, my trope or variation on this theme is to do the job before you're hired:  as a 1099 contractor / consultant performing a small / short-term project for the potential employer.  

Doing the job before you're hired via a contract project is all upside.  Both you and the hiring authority get to experience what your shared work life will be like, allowing both parties to assess each other in much more detail than the much shallower artifice of an interview process.  You get to interact with both your potential boss and your potential co-workers in the daily routine of their work environment.  You can weigh the positives and negatives of working with the potential employer more objectively when they are your customer:  frankly, it's less emotional and for the most part, more collegial.  It also levels the playing field to the cost / benefit of a commercial relationship, rather than the often distracting power dynamic of the employer-employee relationship.  

During such a contract trial period, the employer benefits from the product you produce to move their business forward, and you are paid for your work product / talent in the process.  It's a business transaction:  it's a win-win.  

And if one or both parties decide not to move forward with an employment relationship, no harm, no foul.   The employer has not made a bad hiring decision; and you do not have a short tenure on your résumé to explain to the next hiring authority.

Both interview parties -- candidate and hiring authority -- literally putting their money where the static interview used to be:  now that's a human capital investment I can get behind. 

The Meritocracy is Dead: Long Live the Value Proposition!

I spent a good part of the day on Saturday in a mini-retreat with my Mastermind group, Professional Women's Network.  A mixture of business owners and executives, our discussion turned to the well-worn and tiresome workplace variation on the Just World Theory:

If I work really hard, and do a great job, I'll get:
a)  The job of my dreams
b)  The promotion
c)  A larger raise than anyone else
d)  More clients / customers than I can handle
e)  All of the above
f)   Fill in the blank.

We had a lively discussion about how misleading a belief system this is from both a career and an entrepreneurial perspective.  "I've had to ask for every promotion I've ever gotten," one member remarked, and the rest of us agreed.  In my case, I have always put together a short presentation for the decision-maker on the value (money saved, money earned, etc.) that I had accomplished for the organization in the last year and would accomplish in the upcoming year, thanks to my father's sales mentoring early in my career.  Depending on the size of the metrics, I invariably get a larger raise, a promotion, or both.  The key is to ask the decision-maker for the order with the facts and figures that have and will meet / exceed the decision-maker's needs.

The If I work really hard, and do a great job, I'll get: belief system is academic in origin and even becoming outdated in that paradigm.  Instead of just teaching our 10 year-old son Noah to work hard and get good grades, he is also learning that those efforts can't happen just for their own sake or in the narrow vacuum of the student's magical thinking.  Noah is witnessing through the work of his parents (Joel and I), that the hard work and great results must first happen in the context of always meeting / exceeding customer needs:  whether the customer is one employer or the many customers of his family's business.

When there is that context - when there is clear customer agreement on exactly what hard / great work and precise, metric-based results will receive rewards / renumeration, it will be then that the workplace will truly become a marketplace (or propel us into the larger marketplace as evolving entrepreneurs) for us all to profit from the valuable products, both tangible and SME-based, that we all have to offer.

In my book, that beats getting the highest grade on a test, hands-down.

HALT Manic Mondays at Work

80% of success is showing up.

                                                                                                         - Woody Allen

I've been an HR practitioner twice as long as my tenure as Noah's mother.  So yes, I'm often guilty of front-loading my parenting to ensure Noah's success in whatever career (Chef / Restauranteur or Video Game Mogul at the moment) that he chooses.

With Noah, the basic blocking-and-tackling of teaching him the commitment of showing up is fairly easy.  On school nights, especially Sunday nights, his bedtime is a hard-stop of 9:30 PM, no matter how well he makes his case to the contrary.  On Monday mornings, if he's not already awake, he must extricate himself from bed by 6:30 AM to be ready at the bus stop by 7:30 AM.  (And yes:  he's wide awake by 6 AM on weekend mornings on his own. Sigh.)  

On those occasionally difficult mornings when he resists and growls at us like a rabid squirrel and hides under blankets all over the house, Joel and I consistently move Noah along, instruct him to cease and desist the PITA behavior and reinforce his responsibility to stick to his schedule, whether it's getting himself ready for the bus stop, practicing his violin or completing his homework.  His future employer (or, if he goes into business for himself, his future employees) will thank us one day.

Noah's newest challenge linked to the milestone of turning 10 years of age is to start managing these tasks himself so Joel and I can eventually be relieved of our nagging duties.  (Well, you know I'm an eternal optimist.) 

It is my parenting experience that is gradually eroding my already minimal tolerance for adults less able than my 10 year-old son to manage themselves similarly in preparation for the work week / work day.  I'm not your attendance mother, and now, more than ever, I don't want to be your attendance hall monitor.

Calling in sick and/or being late consistently on Mondays is a worn-out workplace cliche'.  At minimum, you're in danger of violating your workplace attendance policy and eventually getting fired. Or suspected of having too much fun over the weekend to drag yourself responsibly into work.  Most importantly, it damages your reputation in that you're eventually labeled as unreliable and therefore expendable.   Which is not the type of workplace attention you seek. 

So do us all a favor:  keep your HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) needs front and center on your radar the night before a work day.  Think of them as base Maslow's hierarchy of success needs that are well within your control to manage.

Some tips on consistently showing up physically to the workplace are obvious but often ignored:

• Get enough sleep so you can wake up on time (or at all);
• Cut off your alcohol consumption to ensure at least 10 alcohol-free hours before work, if not more (Sober and chipper does start a Monday off right);
• Strive to eat well and exercise;
• If you're angry and/or lonely, get support from your friends, family or a professional or two.  Not in your workplace.  Don't Mess Your Nest.

Now, let's talk about those of you who do drag yourselves to work in spite of a raging case of HALT.   Especially on Monday mornings, operating on 3 hours of sleep, an unresolved fight with your spouse / ex-spouse, a raging hangover and a queasy, empty stomach:  do us all and yourself another favor:  don't inflict it on us.  While you may be present physically, you are entirely absent mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And that is most certainly not a recipe for career success.  The best thing you can do for your reputation and out of respect for the rest of your workplace team when you cannot or will not manage your HALT is to keep a low profile and keep your mouth shut.  No one deserves the detritus of your mismanaged HALT, including you.

Sweet dreams for a successful week!

Leadership Start-Up Lessons from 5th Grade Entrepreneurs

My son Noah and his friend Frankie played at our house all afternoon on Saturday.  But it wasn't all play, as they disclosed at the end of the day.  For a good 3 hours, they hunkered over Noah's laptop and formulated the business plan for their new video game software company, to be named later.   Here's the first page of the plan, a mixture of website structure, branding (which is protected under the auspices of Deb Best Practices, in defense of our young moguls), governance structure and company values:

Frankie founded the Company-to-Be-Named-Later, so he felt that he should be the final word on all the decisions. "I started the company, why do I have to listen to Noah, or anyone else?" Frankie asked.  "I'm the boss, I make all of the decisions."  Frankie's father then coached him that collaborative leadership and decision-making was the best way to start and run a business from a values standpoint. "Or else you'll just cheese everyone off," Noah added.  Sometime during the second hour, Frankie fired Noah for not agreeing with Frankie's decisions.     Noah called Frankie on it, saying it wasn't fair.  Frankie listened to Noah's case, and hired him back.  Then they worked together on the Human Capital plan, below:

Although Noah was born 4 years after I left GE (where I started my HR career), this Human Capital grid looked eerily similar to a form that we used to prepare the Annual Human Resources review, rating the promotability and values of each employee.  Or perhaps we humans just like to sort things in 4 quadrants, and it's wired into our shared racial intelligence?

I particularly love the "Anger Issues" and "Stubborn" ratings:  ain't it the workplace truth?

Noah was rated GWT (Good With Tech), so he's been slotted into 3 jobs:  Tech Team, Video Game Development and Video Game Musical Theme Development.  "I'm getting paid half-pay for each job, because I have 2 jobs," Noah explained to me.  "Actually, I have 3 jobs, but I'm doing the music job for free."  I tried to correct him.  "But if you have 3 jobs, you should make more, not less," I explained.  Noah shook his head. "That would upset the rest of the team if I made more money than them.  I also don't want to cheese Frankie off by making more money than him, since he's the boss."  I chuckled.  At this juncture, the influence of UU Religious Education is stronger than Noah's exposure to his capitalist mother.  "Isn't rule number one at work 'Don't Cheese Off the Boss?" Noah queried.  "Not in this case," I answered.

Frankie and Noah made their presentation to the parents.  We were impressed, and made some suggestions.  "It might be interesting for the two of you to visit Vicarious Visions:  it's a local video game company started by two brothers who went to the same college as your dad, Frankie,"  I recommended.  "Yes, " Frankie's dad chimed in, "then you can sell the business and get a million dollars."  "And buy all of the parents houses in Vermont,"  I added, with a smile.  The boys looked at each and went back into Noah's room.  Noah the arbitrator came back out.  "This is a kids' company, and we don't want adults meddling," Noah informed us.  We respectfully backed down.

Apparently though, I'm part of their nascent marketing plan, as Noah is actually happy he's featured this week, and is instructing me to Tweet and Facebook this post as I'm finalizing it.

We hope they'll review their policies on excluding adults at some point, and consider hiring us.  Or at least give us stock options for giving birth to them.

Plan for Success

As I prepare to teach the opening workshop,  Leadership and Strategic Thinking, at the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute this week, I look forward to the breakthroughs that I invariably will witness from the students.

I've been teaching versions of this workshop for a number of years. And I don't just teach and facilitate strategic planning:  I believe in it and I practice it myself.  Every goal that I've written down, shared and on my own, from personal goals (e.g., giving birth to my son Noah) to career and business goals, I've achieved.

Not that the act of planning makes the path any easier:  there are always struggles and setbacks.  At times, the plan's timing is out of your control, and/or you may be paralyzed by fear, self-doubt, or worse.  However, with plan in hand, I see the rockiness of the path as a series of tests of my commitment to my created path. Particularly where no path exists, and I bush-whack through the wilderness, living the journey as Frost articulated:  it has made all the difference in my well-lived life and career.  And then I begin to understand why some of the most successful businesses of the 20th century started with just such an idea during the Great Depression.

Even more satisfying is watching the students (up-and-coming promotable leaders:  managers in larger organizations and well as entrepreneurs / business owners) solidify their plans, dreams and goals by writing them down and then mustering the courage to walk through their deceptive fear of failure to share those plans with their classmates and hopefully those key individuals outside the class who can become part of the team to implement those plans.  The act of manifesting (writing down) your goals and plans, and then sharing those goals and plans with trusted colleagues and advisors, is a powerful act indeed.

Don't underestimate the creative power of this planning process.  Once the wheels are set in motion, amazing things can and will happen to you.  Some examples from my past students are:

• Becoming a judge;
• Promotion to your dream job (FYI:  most of the time, you just need to present your proposal and ask);
• Starting your own successful business;
• Defining your own work / life balance rather than expecting your employer to do it for you;
• Getting the education / degree you've always dreamed of, but never shared with anyone.

Create your plan and write it down:  start with at least one goal.  Share it with your own Board of Directors.  Build your commitment; never, never, never, never give in.  Implement your plan.  And don't be surprised:  expect success.

One Employee's (Company's) Autonomy Dividends

Hi, my name is Deb and I'm a bookaholic.  I just reserved Daniel Pink's Drive online at my library's website, recommended by a contact in my network last week as a result of a wonderful discussion about autonomy at work. This is after I brought home 12 books from the Schenectady Library annual book sale yesterday.  And after I borrowed books from the Clifton Park Library earlier in the week.    The Mohawk Valley and Southern Adirondack Library systems may arrange for an intervention soon.   I blame it on my mother:  she brought me to the library every week and at the age of 9, starting recommending her favorite novels to me.

 Enough about my mother:  I'd like to tell you about John.

John was the CFO of the company I had just joined earlier in my HR career.  I reported to John, and within the first week discovered that I was the most experienced HR person in the company.  We were without a head of HR, so John quickly pulled me into the fray, coloring outside the lines of my stated job description.  I loved it.  Working for John was an MBA crash course, and I learned so much from him from the very beginning.  But the biggest gift that John gave me came 2 months into my tenure.

My previous company was a much larger international organization, with layers of HR and legal oversight.  We couldn't issue a disciplinary action without thorough legal review.  So naturally, I kept John abreast of every employee relations issue at every step:  I spoke to John at least twice a day.

At the two-month mark, during one of these updates, John stopped me. "Why do you come and talk to me so much?" he asked with his laser-blue stare, which served him well during vendor and M&A negotiations.  I didn't quite know how to respond.  "Well, " I said, "You're my boss.  I'm supposed to keep you updated.  I was trained to get at least one-over-one approval before taking any HR action."  John lowered the high-beams and relaxed a bit.  "Okay, that makes sense," he said.  "Because I initially thought it was due to a lack of confidence, yet I know you're very self-confident." I thought that was a compliment, but I wasn't sure. "Thanks?" I responded tentatively.

John leaned in and delivered the gift.  "Deb, here's the bottom line.  We hired you because you're smart and you know what you're doing.  You only need to update me if we have potential legal or financial exposure.  Otherwise, I trust you to do the right thing."  He leaned back.  "And if you make a mistake, just know that I've always got your back because you work for me."  I was blown away.  I grinned back at him.  "Thanks John.  I will not disappoint you."  He smiled slightly, and the high beams returned.  "Good.  Now get out of my office," he growled.  "I'm busy."

With that vote of confidence, I was hooked.  Not only did I love my job and the work that I did, it set me free to do my best work and to broaden my subject-matter expertise (SME) at the same time:  an opportunity that did not exist at my previous company with its layers of oversight.  There was little coaching from the layers of oversight management at my previous company to learn as a SME, since decisions were made above my head for me.  Consequently, I learned more working for John and the executive team than I ever had working for the bigger international company.  Without the multiple layers of oversight, I was often the SME decision-maker.  And if I was that SME, I was damned sure that I knew and learned all of the facts, laws and regulations before making those critical decisions and recommendations to the executive team.

During my long and satisfying tenure, John tasked me as the HR lead for a critical acquisition (which resulted in no legal exposure) and building the company's recruitment function, among many other projects that supported the company's bottom line.  It was a win-win that paid dividends to both me and my company, both financially and in engagement terms.

Good team members:  what have you done to earn and prove your ability to accept the responsibility and rewards of autonomy?

Good leaders:  what success (profit) would arise by trusting your SME employees to do the right thing, assuring your support even in the face of potential mistakes?


The potential for autonomy dividends is tantalizing indeed.

Termination is a Dish Best Prepared and Served Cold

While it might be borderline entertainment to watch Donald Trump in the reality-t.v. show The Apprentice spontaneously combust fire his victims contestants on the spot:

Real-life terminations of employment, when handled in this fashion, ruin reputations of both the organization as well as the respective executive / leadership team:  to say nothing about the devastating impact on both employee and customer recruitment, retention and engagement.

How you treat people as you exit them from your organization is just as important (if not more important) as how you on-board them as new employees and treat them during the tenure with your organization, impacting the level of your employees' and your customers' engagement.

Engaged employees are productive employees, and productive employees give great customer service, which in turn drives customer recruitment / retention.  Check my girlfriend Google, The Thank-You Economy and other sources, like The Society of Human Resources Management, if you're at all skeptical about those key inter-relationships.

Which makes off-the-cuff and spontaneously combustive real-life terminations, such as the phone termination of former NPR Correspondent Juan Williams or the phone termination of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz frankly puzzling, given the reputation-bruising both organizations received from the resultant negative publicity. 

When Yahoo then put itself on the market for purchase right after Bartz's firing, engagement was clearly not the focus, financial survival was.   Which explains the leadership vacuum on several levels, as exemplified by Bartz's parting email sent to all Yahoo employees:

“To all,” Bartz wrote, “I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.”

This lack of professionalism telegraphs that both terminations were not planned and occurred as a result of an emotional reaction, rather than a factual response.

Which brings the leadership of the organization into question:  if a termination decision is made and handled in this manner, how is the leadership team handling other business / mission-critical decisions?

And that's what I mean when I say that termination is a dish best prepared and served cold.  When an executive or similar decision-maker comes to me as the HR subject-matter expert totally pissed off and ready to fire the target of their ire on the spot, I gently apply the brakes on the situation, with some simple steps and questions designed to minimize / prevent organizational exposure and protect the reputations of all involved.

• What policies / procedures has the target violated?
• Is there any documentation or prior warnings in their file?
• What danger / exposure exists if the target is not fired on the spot? (One of the few on-the-spot terminations I've performed occurred after weapons were discovered and thankfully confiscated in the employee's workstation.)
• If there is a lack of facts / evidence on the first 3 points above, is the decision-maker comfortable with the legal and public relations risks?  That is:  is the decision-maker (and the organization's leadership team) comfortable with reading about how the decision-maker potentially mishandled the target's termination in the local newspaper?
• Is there a plan to minimize company exposure? 
• Is there a plan at all, e.g. how to communicate the target's departure, managing company security, etc.?

If the answer is no to any of the above points, time must be taken to develop and implement the plan factually and rationally.  

The first step of the plan is for the decision-maker to cool off and shelve their emotions so the facts can drive strategic termination planning and implementation.

If not:  the decision-maker may find themselves in the same boat as Trump's hapless contestants; or their former employees.

Job Descriptions are Money in the Bank for Your Business

I know:  talking about job descriptions is like watching paint dry; and reading job descriptions may well be the cure for insomnia.

However, it's when your business or nonprofit organization lacks job descriptions that the excitement can begin.  And I'm not talking fun excitement.  I'm talking about a body blow to your bottom line.

Submitted for your disgust:  the audit conducted by the New York State Comptroller of the Charlton Fire District, located here in the SmAlbany, NY area, entitled Internal Controls Over Treasurer's Activities:  Mismanagement Allows Theft, which describes in detail the multi-year financial field day (a.k.a. theft) the Fire District's Treasurer (who is married to the Fire Chief, by the way) had with the District's finances, spending and paying herself to the tune of $500,000.

Aside from the complete lack of leadership oversight and commonly accepted financial controls, what caught my eye was how the Treasurer paid herself an additional hourly rate in addition to her Board-approved salary for "work in addition to regular duties."  As the Comptroller's Office noted, this is an unusual arrangement for someone who is already paid a regular salary.

What really set the stage for the theft of wages by the Treasurer to occur was the absence of a written job description prepared by the Fire District Board, as well as the lack of a written list of "work in addition to regular duties" approved by the same Board.  Nothing was documented by the Board.

That wage theft amounted to nearly $325,000.  I don't know any business or nonprofit organization that can justify or absorb a bottom-line hit like that.

So if the cautionary job description tale of the Charlton Fire District isn't enough to scare you straight about the financial importance of having current and compliant job descriptions on file for your business or nonprofit organization, here are a few additional financial parting gifts to seal the job description deal for you:

• Audit by the Department of Labor:  if DOL pays you an unannounced visit and you don't have current / compliant job descriptions, how will you prove which of your jobs are exempt from overtime and which are nonexempt?  In these tight government budget times, DOL's fines to businesses and other organizations are a key funding stream, not to mention the multi-year back-wage repayment requirements if DOL discovers Wage & Hour violations at your workplace.

• Worker's Compensation Injury / Liability:  If your employee sustains an injury at work and there is no job description, how will you prove to your Worker's Comp carrier that you've done your diligence in informing your employees about what safe conduct is in your workplace? Can any business or nonprofit organization afford a big increase in your Worker's Comp insurance coverage?

• Unemployment Insurance and Discrimination Claims:  If you don't have job descriptions, you have no ability to provide acceptable documentary proof of employee performance issues, because you never set the minimum standards of performance via current and compliant job descriptions.  Can your business or nonprofit organization afford an unplanned hike in Unemployment Insurance premiums, or worse:  an unplanned discrimination lawsuit settlement totaling thousands of dollars?

Job descriptions on the surface may be great sleep aids, but in this HR geek's reckoning, compliant and current job descriptions are money in the bank.  And that should help any business leader sleep well at night.

The Floods of Irene Bring Out the Best in This Team (Tribe) of Employees

I saw my friend and Entrepreneur Mentor at church today.  He had called me the Tuesday night after the 500-year flood of the Mohawk River retreated back to its banks from its historic trek to Erie Boulevard in downtown Schenectady and the building where his company of 20+ years is located.  He was facing possible relocation to drier temporary quarters (and potential suspension of business operations), as he did not yet know how extensive the damage was to the building where his company leased space.  He was concerned about his employees, and he called me for a reality check.

Dear Mentor had good news to report today as well as best-practice tidings of how his Employee Team rallied to support him and the business that supported all of their families. 

When it became clear that Hurricane / Tropical Storm Irene was going to cause epic flooding in downtown Schenectady, Dear Mentor called all of his employees after the storm subsided to ask their assistance in moving company-critical assets to safer ground before the Mohawk River reached and exceeded its flood stage.  It was Sunday, and it had not been a great day off at home for anyone, thanks to the effects of Irene.

Every member of Dear Mentor's Employee Team showed up that Sunday to help move the business assets, and they brought reinforcements:  some of them brought their adult children and friends to help as well.  They all worked until midnight that Sunday.  At midnight, his team wished him luck.  At that juncture, no one knew if Dear Mentor's business would be there after the flood.

After the State of Emergency was lifted in downtown Schenectady, Dear Mentor and his team were allowed back into their building to assess the damage.   The good news was that they didn't have to move the business out of the building; the challenging news was that the business space was full of mud and without power.

The next day, the Employee Team again demonstrated their resiliency and engagement under the adversity presented by mud and a lack of electricity:  they voluntarily brought their personal generators and power washers from their respective homes, and they got to work.  Dear Mentor was not only grateful for their generosity, but inspired by the joyful collaboration.  "It's not very often I get to witness these men enjoy the opportunity to let their inner boys come out and play as they used the power washers to get the mud out of the building," Dear Mentor remarked, his eyes sparkling through noticeable fatigue. 

As Dear Mentor shared his story, I knew it was his leadership and commitment that created the space for his Employee Team to rally and give of themselves to preserve their shared livelihood:  this in turn allowed the entire Employee Team to demonstrate the leadership stuff they are truly made of when faced with extreme adversity.

You can't get nuggets like this from an employee engagement survey.

More importantly (and thankfully), it was not a familial vibe:  Dear Mentor is not their dad, but their Chief.  Dear Mentor and his Employee Team are an interdependent tribe of business warriors, and they demonstrated their commitment, prowess, flexibility, personal investment and generosity in one of the worst situations a CEO (or a tribal leader) can face.

Now that's a tribe where I'd be honored to be counted as one of their warriors.

Can't Fill That Job? What is "The Help" Saying About You?

In the 1960's setting of the best-selling book and movie The Help, the reputation management channels were limited, but effective:

• In-person social networks that existed within the two distinct groups in the story:  the white (mostly) segregationist employers and the African-American domestic employees;
• Hard-copy newsletters;
• The telephone;
• And of course, the book, the-story-within-the-story, The Help.

Now as this movie trailer intimates (without giving too much away), the white segregationist Hilly clearly was not an employer-of-choice in Jackson, Mississippi:

As of September 2011, there are exponentially many more available reputation management channels available to talented candidates:  LinkedIn, Twitter and Google are merely the tip of the reputation management channel iceberg. 

And just as you as the CEO / Hiring Authority are using LinkedIn and other reputation management channels to perform research checks on just how talented / savvy your candidates are (or are not), they are performing the same reputation checks on:

• You as the CEO; 
• Your leadership team; 
• How you treat your customers; 
• How you conduct yourselves from a values standpoint;
• What the press says about you, good and bad;
• What your organization's long-range value proposition is;
• And most importantly, how you treat your employees.

Savvy candidates, among other methods, can do a simple search on LinkedIn to find your current employees in their own networks, virtual or in-person.  And they're performing reference checks on you. How do you and your organization hold up?  Do you know?

A sure sign to me as a recruiter that an organization is in trouble in any of the above areas is how many applications I receive from the current employees of an organization.  I can also confirm my concern by the rate of churn -- employee departures and new hires within a short period of time -- at a particular organization, also thanks to LinkedIn.  Is that the reputation you want to convey?

Hiring is beginning to pick up in certain markets, and SmAlbany is one of them.  The competition for talented candidates is beginning to splinter the good fishing of the candidate barrel that this last recession had created.

Having a hard time finding talented candidates to fill your positions?  Are you listening to the chatter about you and your organization currently buzzing along the multiple reputation management channels?  Are you coming across as Hilly, or as Skeeter?

Have U Prufed Yr LinkedIn Profile to Suport Yr Sucess??

Gentle readers:

I know, it's annoying.  The English Major is at it again.  I'm reading a lot of your LinkedIn profiles and finding typos / errors.

Frankly, this is much worse than finding these typos / errors in your job applications:  please read my advice to you on this front in my earlier post, Thank You Fer Teh Job Oppertunity.  As a recruiter and a hiring authority, the audience for your errors as a job applicant is just me, theoretically.  The advice, however, is universal to all of your reputation management, online or not.

On your LinkedIn profile:  well, it's the entire online community worldwide, viewing your handiwork (or lack thereof) real-time on their Droids, iPads, and related hardware.  It's like a picture posted of you with clumps of spinach in your teeth, in full view of your potential customers / employers.  Hopefully you already know that your LinkedIn profile, unless you've changed your LinkedIn settings, shows up in Google among other search engine results when a hiring authority / potential customer conducts a simple Google check on you. 

So potential decision-makers in Melbourne (and everywhere else) are chuckling ruefully at your lack of precision and attention to detail, and clicking on the next LinkedIn profile in their search results for a vendor, a consultant, a Ruby-On-Rails Developer, an Online Reputation Manager, or a Controller.

And sadly, not calling you for potential career and business opportunities.

Now, intentional misspellings have been used since advertising has existed.  One of my favorite local examples is the beloved ice cream joint, Kurver Kreme.

The LinkedIn examples I've seen recently are clearly not intentional; and in fact, are actually in (ouch) current LinkedIn profile headlines (censored to protect the careless):

• Business Developement Manager at xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx  (a U.S. profile, FYI)

• Marketing anager at xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx

• Human Resoruce Manager at xxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx

• Here's a doozy - not just one but multiple misspellings at the top of this person's LinkedIn profile:

            HR Manger at xxxx xxxxxxxx

Xxxxxx xxxxxx  | Human Resources

328 connections

Current:

HR Manger at xxxx xxxxxxx

Past:

HR Buisness partner at xxxx xxxxxx

Manger at  xxxxxxx

                  Recruitment Manger at xxxx xxxxx

Now I know that after experiencing both an earthquake and a hurricane within the same week, we all need a little Christmas, right this very minute, with the serene visualization of a manger scene.  But please:  not in your LinkedIn profile, unintentionally!

By the way:  by entering misspelled words into the powerful LinkedIn search engine, I was able to generate a list of nearly one million LinkedIn users with potential misspellings in their LinkedIn profiles.  Yikes!

So, gentle readers:  get thee to Merriam-Webster Online and a trusted editing buddy and fix your LinkedIn profile typos, fast, to best support your online reputation as well your ongoing success.

Hire Smarter Than You to Succeed

The entrepreneurs and business owners in my network by and large already know that they need to hire folks who are smarter than them in key areas in order to build their businesses.  As their businesses grow to a certain point, they know full well that they need to hire the talent and the subject-matter expertise (SME) they don't personally possess as the CEO in order to take their businesses to the next level.

A key success factor for these entrepreneurs is their status as life-long learners.  As Tom Peters tweeted over the weekend:  "Came to agreement with very senior team that one of 2 or 3 most important traits in a senior exec is childlike compulsive curiosity."  In other words, the most successful entrepreneurs love to learn, and they especially love to learn from their SMEs.

These go-getters are clearly secure about their own accomplishments and their roles as business owners and leaders, so feeling threatened by say, an Accounting SME or a Logistics SME they hire (whether they're an employee, a consultant, or a temp-to-perm SME), to bring structure and consistency into their business isn't even on their radar.  Their hunt is to build the team that's going to make their business successful and grow.

Unfortunately, this model is not yet consistently endemic to the employee-leadership paradigm, e.g. non-owner managers and leaders who hire employees.  And they didn't start the fire, frankly.  Most organizational performance / compensation paradigms still reward just individual performance, not the badly needed manager-employee team and/or organizational performance incentives.  In other words, most managers are still held accountable just for their own performance, which creates an inbred culture of finger-pointing at subordinates and ultimately, abstaining from accountability to the performance of the organization as a whole.

I have been lucky enough to have worked with a few non-owner employee managers who chose to put out the fire of that mediocre paradigm and hire SMEs who were smarter to support mutual and organizational success.

It was woven into the fabric of the GE culture.  The manager who hired me into GE saw me eventually becoming the head of GE Public Relations.  "You're a mini-Joyce,"  Chuck would often say to me.  Chuck's prediction did not come true, but I always appreciated his faith in my abilities.

Another GE manager, Bill (who at this writing, is the best manager I've experienced in my career), firmly believed that the success of his employees equaled his success.  And as I mentioned in an earlier blog post lifting up Bill's leadership qualities:  instead of keeping me in position to ensure that his work got done, his goal was to get me promoted:  the merit badge of a manager's / mentor's success.  And he did, pushing me to a promotion at another business unit, even though I wanted to stay in my job, as a member of his team.  But he was right, as usual.

Consequently, I seized the opportunity to pay it forward when I was in a similar leadership role.  When the time came for me to hire a Recruiting Manager, I hired Alison, who is an AIRS-trained recruiting maven and SME.  A great deal of my knowledge base as a Recruiting SME is thanks to what I learned from Alison.  I'm happy to report that Alison subsequently followed her entrepreneurial bliss as the owner of her own successful recruiting firm.

I am a grateful student, indeed.

When the Workplace Student is Ready, The Teacher May Be An A**hole

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."


"When the workplace student is ready, the teacher who appears may be an asshole."

                                                                               
Guess which quote is from Queens, NY, like me?

The other source is Buddha, of course.

I'd like to thank Bob Sutton (author of the great workplace tome, The No-Asshole Rule) for helping me to express myself more authentically as a professional.  As Sutton asserts in his book and elsewhere, the word "jerk" doesn't quite capture the visceral experience of working with an asshole.

But what the hell do I mean?

That the assholes you encounter in the workplace are, more often than not, the teachers / gurus in your path to career excellence and success.

That the asshole who tries to demean you publicly in front of a large meeting can be a test of your belief in your talent, developing your resilency, diplomacy and leadership:  if you Keep Calm and Carry On, there's very little an asshole can latch on to, and they more often then not will, eventually, move on.  If they don't move on, you may need to move on:  only you know the limits of your stress tolerance and the standards for the quality of the work life you envision.

That the asshole who once tried to demean you may become your subordinate, and you can coach them towards compassion:  and if that fails to work, you can make them available to industry.  Sometimes time and consequences heal assholes, sometimes not.

That the asshole who tries to keep you out of the loop as punishment or power play, can be a test of how you can stay centered, continually discover your empathy for them and keep them completely in the loop in return.

That the asshole who gossips about and bad-mouths you in an attempt to destroy your reputation is actually extremely hurt and wounded themselves, and that their venom usually backfires into their own public substandard  performance review.  And that the compassion (and even love) you discover and display for the asshole can heal the world, one asshole at a time.

That the asshole who tries to bait you into a conflict to embarrass you publicly teaches you to more carefully choose your battles (e.g., how important is it) and to stand up factually, professional and functionally when it is a conflict worthy of your time, attention and talent.

That when the asshole has nothing left in their arsenal to hurt you, then they may be ready for a conversation where you are the teacher and they are the student (if they're ready and willing to listen).  Time can sometimes be the universal asshole-healer.

For as I learned as a diversity trainer and as a mediator:  meet ignorance with compassion; be prepared to be the teacher of inclusion; and keep your courage up to discover the real needs under the yelling of the asshole. 

Oh, and the most important learning of all:  don't let the assholes get you down at work; and don't become an asshole yourself to survive.

In that way, you are not only the eternal student of career success, but also the advocate of peace at work:  one asshole learning-opportunity at a time.

Work Friends Are Risky Rungs on the Career Ladder

"There are no such things as friends at work," my friend Barry declared to me one day a number of years ago, coaching me on a (now) minor work dilemma.  A mutual colleague at work, who I assumed was a friend of several years based on our warm sharings together about our child-rearing experiences, had just pulled a maneuver on me worthy of a cannibal cousin of the Borgia clan.  Frankly, and annoyingly, my feelings were hurt.

I uncharacteristically did not respond immediately, processing the paradox of his statement and a bit taken aback.  As we were both Logistics professionals, I responded logically.  "So we're not friends," I replied, a bit puzzled.   "No,"  Barry reiterated.

I started chuckling:  it worked, I snapped out of my moping.  "We eat lunch together at least twice a week; we travel together at least twice a month, and we hang out together voluntarily on non-work-related time.  So we're not friends?"  Barry shook his head, grinning.  "It's business, not personal," he said.

I rolled my eyes.  Here we go, about to take another trip to the Gender Gap.  Barry, however, would not let me off the hook.  "Here's the deal," he continued. "The bottom line is that results count.  We're here to produce, not to play.  You know that as well,  if not better, than I do."  I nodded, and Barry continued.  "That guy's always been an asshole when it comes to getting his work done.  He just needed to get work done, and it happened to be in your area, so it was your turn.  Plain and simple."

I thought for another minute about Barry's assessment.  "But you and I get our work done:  we knock heads occasionally, but the net is that we pull our results, have fun and we're not assholes to each other," I asserted.

"True," Barry agreed.  "It makes our work together more productive and pleasant.  But when the opposite happens, I accept it and move on.  I get the majority of support from my family and friends outside of work.  Now, I may have met some of my great friends at work:  however, it always better when I don't work with them."  Seeing me uncharacteristically quiet and pensive, Barry drove his point home. "As another example, I accept the fact that, while you and I are friends at work, I also know that you, as the HR Director, may someday be in a position to lay me off if our business starts tanking."  He grinned at me again.  "It's part of your job:  it's business, not personal.  The work comes first."

"So you do understand that, especially in my line of work, friendships are always a risk," I responded.  "I appreciate your feedback."  I grinned back at him.  "I'm still willing to take the risk."

Barry rose from his desk chair and put on his coat.  "Great, I'm done.  All this talking has made me hungry.  Let's go grab some lunch."

When You're an Employee, You Only Have One Customer

Ever since my father took me to the office one Saturday morning at the age of 4, I wanted a job.  It dawned on me:  so that's where the quarters and dollars Daddy doled out to me came from.  Cool.  Sadly, I was not invited back, as my fascination / love of technology with buttons also began with that visit:  I destroyed a large electronic adding machine by pressing too many buttons at once.  It was exciting, especially when it started smoking and whining.  I gained the reputation from that toddler experience with the male members of my family of being unreliable around machinery, which was totally unfounded and unfair.  Ask my husband Joel:  I am End-User Support for our house and can resurrect even the most hopeless computer fiascoes, most of the time.

So while most of my contemporaries in high school were wringing their hands next to the phone waiting for a boy to call for a date (or not), I engaged in the exact same ritual with a potential employer.

I asked my father for advice, as he was (and still is) a whiz at getting jobs.   It's always the same advice, it just took several decades to sink in:  "If you make 30 calls, and you get one sale, you're doing great,"  he'd dictate.  "What does that mean, Dad?"  I asked, confused.  "I'm not selling anything, I'm not a salesman."  Dad smiled.  "Yes, you are:  you're selling yourself.  And you know how to do it, because you're my daughter. You're just not concentrating."  I still didn't get it, clearly befuddled.  Dad spelled it out for me.  "Don't focus on one company:  apply to as many companies as you can.  That way, you increase your chances of getting a job, and you don't drive yourself crazy waiting for one guy to call you back and hire you.  Don't put all of your eggs in one basket."

Communication gap bridged, I got it.  It involved a lot more work applying and interviewing at many other companies, but it sure beat the soul- and energy-sucking anxiety of sitting next to the phone waiting for a call from just one potential employer.

Recently, as I was in the middle of a career coaching session with a good colleague, I took my father's advice one step further.  The presenting challenge was how to best frame a proposal to their manager (Read:  Customer) on their next career step up the organizational ladder, with the accompanying increase in compensation.  I coached Good Colleague that the proposal should meet both their needs as well as the profitability needs of their organization.  "What if my manager rejects my proposal?"  Good Colleague asked.  "Well, then maybe you've outgrown the organization, and it's time to look outside the organization,"  I replied.  Good Colleague was dismayed.  "But I don't want to leave the organization, I love it there," they said.  Good Colleague, like Dad, is in Sales / Business Development.

I thought for a moment.  "If that's the case, then you only have one Customer.  And from a business development standpoint, we all know how dangerous it is to bank your success on one Customer."  Good Colleague nodded.  "You don't have to necessarily leave the organization right now:  but there's nothing wrong with reaching out to colleagues in your industry, to ask their advice and grow new and existing relationships,"  I continued.  "At minimum, you'll make some great connections and build your reputation if your current manager ends up accepting your proposal, and at maximum, you'll be prospecting for new potential Customers.  It might be a job; it might be a project; or it might be a business that you'll start and grow.  The Customer potential is only limited by your willingness to try."

How many Customers do you have?  And are you keeping those Customer relationships warm and mutually rewarding by meeting everyone's profitability and success needs?