Liar, Liar, Job on Fire

When an employee falsifies any records for any reason, whether it's time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc.: in my experience as a Human Resources practitioner, it's pretty black and white: it's theft of company resources, grounds for immediate termination. Moreover, in my HR travels: if an employee is stealing company time by falsifying a time sheet indicating time worked when in fact they were, say, sleeping in a warehouse rack location on a pallet 30 feet above the cement floor (a double-play of theft of company time and violating safety rules, both gross / willful conduct violations each worthy of immediate termination), that lack of integrity is usually just the tip of the internal-loss iceberg, an indicator of other internal theft / loss prevention issues, e.g. the theft of company money and/or property.

Now, we may debate that I lean towards the hard-ass side, reminiscent of my Marine-Corps-trained dad. Before we debate too deeply, the following true story of employee falsification and theft of time is submitted for your consideration, straight from the New York State Inspector General's press release last week and quoted by The Times Union:

"Acting State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott today announced the arrest of a New York State Department of Health employee on felony charges, accusing him of submitting an application for handicapped parking supported by a forged doctor’s note. He also was charged with filing paperwork certifying he was working when he was not.

[The employee was arrested] by investigators from the New York State Inspector General’s Office and charged with four felony counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree and one misdemeanor count of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Third Degree. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted. The Inspector General’s investigation determined that in May of 2011, [the employee] obtained special parking privileges at his work location at Empire State Plaza based on a forged doctor’s note.

In addition, Defendant admitted that on three separate occasions in January and February of 2012, he submitted certified time records indicating that he had worked full days when he had not reported to work at all. (Emphasis mine.)

“New Yorkers have every right to expect that state employees will comport themselves with the highest degree of honesty and integrity,” said Acting Inspector General Scott. “Fraudulently obtaining handicapped parking not only is unlawful, but potentially inhibits the rights of New Yorkers with disabilities in need of accessible parking. Further, any fraudulent abuse of time and attendance records undermines public trust. Such conduct is not tolerable.”

[The employee] was arraigned today before Town of New Scotland Judge David Wukitsch and held in County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash or bond. [The employee] has worked for the Department of Health as an Information Technology Specialist II since 2007. His current salary is $58,311.00. Acting Inspector General Scott thanked the New York State Police for their assistance in the case and the Albany County District Attorney’s Office for the prosecution of this matter. The defendant is innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law."

The debate on whether falsifying time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc. is theft takes a bit of interesting turn when it's money from the pockets of New York State taxpayers that's being filched. That outrage that you may feel at having your hard-earned tax dollars unlawfully stolen is underscored by the felony charges of forgery filed by the NYS Inspector General's office. Not to mention the reputational damage to the accused employee, his managers and the NYS Department of Health.

Upholding and enforcing true / accurate records protects the reputations and assets of everyone in your organization, including but not limited to promoting to industry those employees who will not / cannot follow those standards of integrity. You can handle the truth, and so can your colleagues, executives, managers and employees.

Let Go of Resentment to Move Forward Successfully in Business and at Work

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

- Nelson Mandela

As these days of awe draw to a close this Wednesday, I'm reminded of a transformational termination of an employee. How can a termination be transformational? Because the employee took responsibility for terminating himself.

In the vast majority of terminations I have adjudicated as a Human Resources practitioner, the employees have terminated themselves: they exhausted the progressive discipline process (usually, the issue was a fundamental inability to get their butts to the building and work their prescribed schedules). Many organizations require employees to work prescribed schedules to meet / exceed customer needs. For example: like getting your paycheck on payday? It helps when the folks in Payroll are reliable so you in turn can rely on receiving your paycheck.

After many years of conducting termination conversations, I don't expect the terminated employee to be happy about losing their job. Of course, they're almost always upset. On the surface, they're upset with me and their manager, but really, they're upset with themselves and don't have the emotional intelligence to take responsibility for their own actions. If they had that level of emotional intelligence, they in all likelihood wouldn't have terminated themselves in the first place. At the beginning of my career, I alternated between incredulity and indignation at the lack of responsibility for terminating themselves. As time went on and my experience grew, I considered myself a termination doula, with the goal of making the experience of transitioning from their job as dignified and professional as the terminated employee will allow.

Attendance was this particular employee's problem as well. He clearly did not care about getting to work on time, and his manager had given him more than enough chances to work his scheduled hours. I was waiting in the conference room for the employee and his manager. They entered the room and sat down. "You know why we're here?" I asked the employee. His manager, inexperienced with terminations, took a deep breath. Employee looked at Manager, and then looked at me. "I did it to myself," Employee stated calmly. I could feel my eyebrow rise in surprise. Manager finally exhaled. Employee turned to him. "Manager, don't feel bad. You gave me more than enough leeway to clean up my act, and I didn't take you up on it. This is my fault." Manager was touched by Employee's candor. "Employee, you're a smart guy and I really enjoyed working with you. But-" Employee finished Manager's sentence. "But I just couldn't get my ass to work. I know." Manager nodded, and looked at me. I nodded too. "Okay, sounds like we're all set. Manager, please get Employee's coat from his desk so we can finish this up." Manager, relieved, left the room.

I opened up the folder with the two copies of the termination paperwork, and passed them across the table to Employee with a pen. "Please sign both copies and keep one," I requested. "Sure, no problem," Employee replied, and scribbled his signature on both documents. He slid one of the documents back to me, and folded his hands as if he had just bought a house. I was intrigued. "I want to commend you for how professionally you've handled this conversation," I began. "Not the way this conversation usually goes." Employee shrugged. "Why burn a bridge?" he replied. "You've all treated me well, it's the least I can do given the situation." Employee's authenticity invited me to transform my role in the conversation. "Manager tells me that while you're smart, you hated the clerical work you were doing. What is it that you'd really like to do?" It was Employee's turn to be surprised. "No one's ever asked me that before," he replied. "I have 15 credits left to finish my Associate's degree in Graphic Arts - I want to be a Graphic Artist." There was the answer. Bad job fit. I leaned across the table, finding myself, surprisingly, in mentoring mode. "Do yourself a favor," I replied. "Finish your degree, and get a job doing what you love to do. Clearly, you've learned what happens when you take a job hating what you do." He laughed. "Clearly!" The door opened, and Manager entered the conference room with Employee's coat. I stood up, and extended my hand. Employee shook my hand. "Thank you," he said. "No, thank you," I replied. "Best of luck to you." Manager shook his hand too. "Take care," Manager said. "You too," Employee replied. "Thank you." Employee left the conference room. Manager looked at me. "Well, that was different," he said. "Yes," I replied. "He was a good guy in the wrong job. Hopefully, he'll go for the right job the next time."

How will you let go of resentment, take responsibility and move forward to succeed in business and at work this week, and in the new year?

Pop Quiz: How Many of These LinkedIn Success Tips are Part of Your Profile?

• Profile Spell-Checked and Formatted Professionally, Just Like Your Website? (e.g., you're not one of the one million current LinkedIn users that have misspelled manager as "manger")
• LinkedIn Headline Crisply Announcing Your Product Offerings / Areas of Subject-Matter Expertise (SME)?
• Résumé Summarized, Not Posted in Its Entirety?
• Included Your Certifications and Publications?
• Links to Your Blog / Website / Twitter / Facebook Page Included?
• All of Your SME Skills Listed to Keep You in Searches?
• Professional Headshot Photo, Eye-Contact, Smiling?
• Recruiters: When Looking at Profiles, Are You Anonymous?
• Public LinkedIn URL to Optimize Appearance in Search Engines?
• Authentic Recommendations Given Then Received from Managers, Partners, Clients?
• Joined the Maximum 50 Groups Strategically?
• Joined All of the Subgroups You Can?
• Strategically Added the LinkedIn Applications (e.g. Box.net, etc.) That Make the Most Sense for Your Career / Business?
• Posting Relevant / Useful Updates to Your Profile and to Your Groups Several Times a Week? (e.g., Your Blog Posts, Articles of Interest to Your Audience, etc.)
• Purchased a Business LinkedIn Account to Increase Your Reach to Source More Business? (e.g., Is a $50k Sale Worth the Much Smaller Monthly Cost of Your LinkedIn Account? In the spirit of full disclosure, I don't work for LinkedIn or own LinkedIn stock!)
• Managing Your LinkedIn Invitations Strategically, Joining LinkedIn Open Networker (LION) Groups, Following LinkedIn Etiquette and Avoiding IDK (I Don't Know You) / Spam Complaints from Other LinkedIn Users?

Best wishes for a Sweet and Successful New Year!

Customer Service is the Key to Success in Business and at Work

I am a firm believer that Customer Service is the key to success in business, and especially at work. When I'm centered / in the zone that everyone receives the benefit of my Customer Service, whether they're internal team-mates or supervisors or actual external paying customers, I stack the deck in favor of my success. While it's not an iron-clad guarantee, it is exceedingly helpful in preventing distracting and energy-sucking resentment build-up for my internal / external customers, and especially (and selfishly), for me. I'm a firm believer in Nelson Mandela's statement that "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

Case in point: Supervisor Customer Service. When I have serviced / over-serviced my supervisors throughout my career, I know I'm on the side of the angels, and I consequently stay centered and therefore focused on achieving my goals. For one particularly anxious and difficult supervisor earlier in my career, I actually loved the challenge of keeping him proactively briefed before he could check on my work.

This philosophy works particularly well for those of us blessed with sales, marketing and customer service DNA. Or, as my Lower-East-Side-born-and-bred salesman father would say: "Over-service the assholes."

Dad's advice has almost always been helpful (albeit Marine-salty), particularly with the supervisor who wanted the work performed exactly as they would do it, pre-approved; no autonomy at all, and my mastery and purpose were not even considered. Not the ideal situation. "I don't know what to do," I said to my dad, extremely distressed at the time. "I've never been treated this way before as a professional." Dad tapped into my sales DNA. "In order to help you best detach emotionally from the situation," he coached, "I'd like you to look at them as your biggest, most important customer. And your job is to meet / exceed their needs." I wasn't so sure. "Even if my supervisor is being disrespectful?" I queried. He reinforced the coaching. "They're the big hairy customer," Dad replied. "Listen to their needs, meet their needs, make them happy. It will make what sounds and feels like an abnormal situation feel more normal, because you're great at customer service - like me." I finally exhaled. "Okay, my supervisor is my customer. I've handled difficult customers my entire career; I can handle this." Dad agreed. "Yes, you can." And I did. My customer service belief system outweighed my emotional reaction to the unfairness: all that mattered was servicing the customer by listening to their needs and then subsequently meeting their needs. (My fellow mediator friends and colleagues: sound familiar, e.g. the source of all human conflict is needs met and unmet?)

In taking the concept of Holistic Customer Service one step further, I'm also reminded of Bob Sutton's recent blog posts on the poor customer service his friend's 10 year-old daughter received from United Airlines, where Chapman and Thomas's book, The Five Languages of Apology, is mentioned as a path United Airlines should have taken in this situation. In my Customer Service experience, the power of an authentic apology when a customer is distressed is worth its weight in gold for all involved, including me as the Customer Service person initiating the apology:

• Expressing regret - "I'm sorry."
• Accepting responsibility - "I was wrong."
• Making restitution - "What can I do to make it right?"
• Genuinely repenting - "I will try not to do that again."
• Requesting forgiveness - "Will you please forgive me?"

And in their workbook, The Five Languages of Apology in the Workplace, Chapman and Nelson lift up both Mandela's and their philosophy even further, with the LEARN model:

• L = Listen. Hear the customer’s complaint.

• E = Empathize. Let the customer know that you understand why they would be upset.

• A = Apologize.

• R = Respond and react. Try to make things right.

• N = Notify. Get back in touch with the customer and let them know what action has been taken.

Ironically and wonderfully, when we stand up for our customers (team-mates, supervisors, etc.) in their times of distress and in this manner, it is then that we build the strongest business relationship bonds, supporting retention.

 How will you use your Holistic Customer Service skills to best support your distressed customers in business and at work this week?

From Talent to Mastery to Success in Business and at Work

My esteemed friend and colleague Ernie mused during his sermon today as our worship associate for this Labor Day Sunday about the transition our work / business paradigm needs to make from TOP, as illustrated by Good to Great Author Jim Collins:

• Talent
• Opportunity
• Passion

Collins suggests that you ask yourself the following three questions in order to find work you love: A. What are you deeply passionate about? B. What are you genetically encoded for — what activities do you feel just “made to do?" C. What makes economic sense — what can you make a living at? Find or create work that allows you to do the things that are located at the intersection of the three circles (the sweet spot), and you’ll have the basis for a great work life.
  
 To Drive Author Daniel Pink's:

• Mastery
• Autonomy
• Purpose

Pink's Self-Described COCKTAIL PARTY SUMMARY  
When it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does. Our current business operating system–which is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators–doesn’t work and often does harm. We need an upgrade. And the science shows the way. This new approach has three essential elements: 1. Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives. 2. Mastery — the urge to get better and better at something that matters. 3. Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Ernie reiterated Pink's assertion that MAP is not only the realm of the Millennials, but is essential for all of us who find purpose in our work, in order for us as individual practitioners and for business as a whole to keep moving to the next level, authentically. To continue Ernie's conversation a bit longer:

• I have several Talents, singing is one of them, and it is a source of immense pleasure for me; however, in Pink's paradigm, I have not Mastered singing yet, which is why I willingly continue to sing in choir under Gary's watchful ear and eye;
• In Collins' Opportunities, I must rely on others to hire me to sing; in Pink's paradigm, I record myself singing and upload myself on YouTube, removing the middle man and creating my own Autonomy (and the operative, wonderful word here is creative);
• In Collins' Passion, I sing because I love to sing; in Pink's paradigm, I sing in choir as part of a greater Purpose to connect the spiritual and core value dots as part of a larger, interconnected web.

While I have always enjoyed Collins' Venn Diagram appetizer, I must admit I prefer Pink's cocktail party summary more. Here's a review of my vocational and business purpose:

It is literally true

that you can succeed best and quickest

by helping others to succeed.

I look forward to learning more about your Purpose as well as Your Mastery and Autonomy, as we continue this wonderful journey to support each other's success in business and at work.