Do You Have a $5.3 Million Budget for Sexual Harassment Claims?

Thanks to our state's Freedom of Information Law (also known as FOIL), lately the local press has been peeling back the layers of the cost to settle sexual harassment claims made against state workers over a four-year period to the tune of $5.3 million. In no particular order, these settled claims totaling $5.3 million include allegations of:

• Inappropriate touching / groping
• Inappropriate comments and actions
• Requests for dates
• Repeated retaliation against those who filed sexual harassment complaints.

The state worker targets of these settled claims come from all organizational levels and backgrounds, including but not limited to elected officials, legislature staffers, managers and prison guards. No matter how large the organization is, $5.3 million is a hefty chunk of change in unplanned expenditures to pay out. And the salt in the financial wound is not only that the $5.3 million is funded by taxpayers, but is also FOILable, e.g. discoverable to the general public. Not the reputational / financial data that any organization wants blasted in the news.

If you don't have $5.3 million budgeted for sexual harassment claims (as well as the additional funds that would be needed to manage the negative publicity should the claims become public and featured in the press), do you follow the advice of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to employers to best prevent sexual harassment? "Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring.

• They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.
• They can do so by providing sexual harassment training to their employees; and
• By establishing an effective complaint or grievance process, and;
• Taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains."

The cost (payroll, subject-matter expertise, etc.) to train your employees, managers and executives as well as to set up the proper expectations, policies, due-process complaint and investigative infrastructure in your organization to prevent sexual harassment can be as little as .0005% of a potential $5.3 million budget for sexual harassment settlement claims. Sounds like a cost-savings home-run to the bottom line to me.

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.

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?

Planning Breeds Creativity in Business and at Work

In the course of my client work this week, I've had the opportunity to talk to business owners and professionals whose comfort zone is the creative / R&D. Strategic or business planning for them, at first blush, seems to be the anti-creative. One colleague actually cringed when I suggested that they pull together a one-page business plan. In the spirit of doing what I say, I then showed them the one-page business plan that lives in my planner:

               
I feel your pain. Putting together a business, strategic or career plan used to evoke the same reaction for me as getting ready to do our personal and business income taxes. Remember the days before doing your taxes via computer? I'd do all of the work in pencil first. For weeks. Ugh, now that gives me the willies.

Business, strategic or career planning, however, is the marvelous act of creativity. The act of writing your business plan down is absolutely the act of creation. Financial forecasting, break-even and all.

It was that work of business / strategic plan development that created my husband Joel's business, The Best Framing Company, and my business, Deb Best Practices. Revenue-producing businesses that did not exist until we conceived the idea for each business (focusing on our respective strengths and marketability), and created the respective business plan first before proceeding with implementation.

We update each plan at least annually as our businesses grow and our markets and clients change. Everything we do in our businesses flows from those plans.

As a highly creative professional artist, writer and picture-framer, Joel's advice is always to measure twice and cut once. Pretty planful for a creative guy.

What's your plan to measure twice, which will in turn shore up your successful business and/or career implementation?

Joyful Recruiting Makes Happy Customers

Since my experience as a customer long precedes my experience as a Human Resources / Recruiting / Organizational Effectiveness Subject-Matter Expert (Yes, I remember my mother taking me for all-Saturday shopping sprees in my stroller, complete with a detachable pink strap harness equipped with a leash to give my mother the illusion of preventing me from making a break for it), it's my great experiences as a customer with exceptional employees that tell me which businesses are probably great places to work:

• The nurse anesthesiologist who sang The Beatles They Say It's Your Birthday to me as my son Noah was born via emergency c-section while keeping me well-numbed;
• The dining hall staff who kept us well-fed and well-served at Ferry Beach, Maine camp -- it was more like spa food than camp food;
• The consistently great service I receive from the staff of the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce, who continue to build their success by in turn authentically supporting the success of my business and those of my fellow Chamber members.

This week's Washington Post article on how Zappo's workplace culture directly translates into their best-practice customer experience is yet another key data point that happy / engaged employees absolutely make happy customers.

Conversely, it has been my consistent experience that employees with a bad attitude provide me with bad customer service (customer service is one of those key business areas where you can't fake it until you make it), indicating either a bad hiring decision or even worse, that the employee is a microcosm of a bad workplace culture, which acts as a powerful disincentive to bring my repeat business to their company. Social media on smartphones make these type of experiences painfully contemporaneous on the interwebs and embarrassingly public, such as the tweets I read from a colleague who real-time was experiencing poor customer service at a local grocery store, complete with the sour-puss employee complaining about their corporate management team.

Which is why a great Recruiter -- joyful, full of energy, authentically conveying how happy they are to work for their employer -- is a critical customer service and reputational representative for any company striving for best-practice customer service. As the Executive Recruiter for my company at the time, for example: my extreme satisfaction in my own job was often the decision-point attracting candidates to join my company. Candidates heard the joy in my voice during phone-screens, and wanted some of it for themselves. My company was a great product to present, and I derive a great deal of professional joy to this day vocationally matchmaking great candidates to great companies.

If your Recruiter exposes your candidates / new hires to a negative customer service experience, such as:

• Lack of skill / experience, e.g. slow response times or rudeness to candidates;
• Subjecting your candidates to bureaucratic hoops and transactions;
• Conducting phone-screens and interviews like a grand-jury investigation;
• And worst of all: when the recruiter conveys their own dissatisfaction with their job or the company;

You may be not only conveying a negative impression of your company and your workplace via the key channel of your Recruiter(s), but also hemorrhaging dollars in lost customers, candidates and turnover (e.g., the average cost of entry-level employee turnover is currently running about $6,000 a pop).

Or: if your joyful Recruiter takes leave of your company for happier workplaces because your company has become too negative, and therefore too difficult, to present authentically as a great place for great employees to consider, it may be time to take a step back and reassess your workplace / human capital strategy and branding as it dovetails with your company / customer service branding.

Which is why joyful recruiting is critical for happy customers.

How authentically joyful is your Recruiter about your company branding, your workplace culture and their job? And, in turn: how happy are your customers?

Teach Your Children Well in Business and at Work

I like to tell my son Noah, who turns eleven years old next month, that he attended business meetings with me long before he was born. A bit more jaded now that he's experienced the Family Health unit at the end of his 5th grade career (and on the brink of adolescence: sniggering like Beavis and Butthead over even mild / unintended innuendos), he just asked me recently to tell him the story again. "You had the hiccups constantly, that's when I knew you were awake," I recalled. "I would start giggling a bit in the middle of a meeting, because your hiccups were both powerful and distracting." Although Noah grimaced, I knew he loved the story.

Adolescence aside, Noah's formative years have definitely been different from those of his parents.

Just like Joel's and my formative years were different from our parents. My dad made the happy mistake of taking me to the office at the age of four one Saturday morning to give my pregnant mother a break. That visit - and the subsequent breakfast together at a diner, full of other working stiffs - sealed the deal. So that's where the money came from to buy the Good Humor ice cream, I concluded as I watched Dad pay the bill for our breakfast with dollar bills instead of the Good Humor dimes I usually handled. I wanted a job from that day forward. Fifteen years later, on a hot and aggravating journey north to start my freshman year at SUNY Albany with the initial goal of a double Pre-Med / English major, my father, ignorant of how he had contributed to my journey fifteen years earlier, clearly thought I was wasting my time and my student loan money with a line straight out of Mad Men, repeating the script my mother, his freshly-ex-wife, had followed. "Why aren't you staying home, getting a job, getting married and having kids?" Without missing a beat and a bit taken aback, I replied: "That would involve a date, which I haven't had yet. I'll keep you posted."

As I journey with Noah through his childhood, I marvel at how different his path is from mine and wonder how the mixed influence of witnessing both the career and entrepreneurial adventures of his parents will influence his own career and business decisions.

At the age of five, Noah wanted to be a chef and run his own business: Best Performance Bistro. He talked about it all the time to everyone - his grandparents, his kindergarten teacher, us. I made a sign for his dream business; it hangs to this day on the wall of my office:

Last year, Noah and his friend Frankie spent a Saturday afternoon on a video game company business plan, with Frankie as the CEO and Noah as his second-banana. Noah did not want to be Frankie's second-banana.

As Noah experienced school rules (particularly when a few of his buddies did not follow the rules), I reinforced the learning with an HR geek's eye to the future. "It so important to learn how to follow the rules in school. Because if children don't learn how to follow the rules in school, I usually end up firing them as adults," I hammered home, as Noah listened, wide-eyed.

Noah's career and business vision continues to evolve. He experiments with "Let's Play" videos, which in turn have strengthened his presentation skills to the point where his elementary school principal suggested that Noah consider a career in broadcasting. It's all good fodder for learning marketing on-the-job. Noah is also developing a video game and composing the accompanying soundtrack music, for separate potential sale on Steam. We love his energy, ingenuity, and of course, him. His current goal is:

• Go to a 2-year SUNY college and take computer science, business and culinary arts courses;
• Finish his degree at a 4-year SUNY college (or at the Culinary Institute of America, if he gets a scholarship);
• Work for someone else first before a) starting his own successful video game software company and b) then, once he makes his fortune, opening his own gourmet pastry shop.

Noah is working on a new business plan where he is the CEO of his own video game software company, and his pals Charlie and Tim are part of his leadership team. I'm tentatively slated as the Chief Administrative Officer, grateful to achieve one of my goals to be part of the leadership bench plan of a start-up company. Per his request, I've also shared the business plan for The Best Framing Company, which his father and I worked on together 7 years before Noah was born.

As his parents, Joel and I do our best to also give Noah the gift of authenticity: to see us as fellow creative humans as well as his parents and mentors, taking risks and experiencing, like Edison, the occasional creative failures almost always in stride. For to do otherwise would stifle the music that streams from within each of us that must be expressed / shared. I can't wait to see what Noah cooks up as he approaches adulthood. I'm honored to witness his journey, as we Bests continue to mentor each other.

We May Leave Our Managers, But We Stay for Our Peer Mentors (Friends) at Work

I bonded with Dale as soon I met him after my fait accompli interview process with the rest of the Executive Team. Dale was the last interview on the schedule. All of the prior interviews frankly did not meet the threshold for an employment interview. Instead, they were meet-and-greet chats, e.g.: "So the CEO has hired you for the HR team; nice to meet you;" or "I understand the CEO is very impressed with your background;" or "Let me give you some advice about how to best work with the CEO."

My soon-to-be new company did not have a Head of HR at the time I was interviewed / hired, and hadn't had one for more than two years. I was recruited by the CEO as a Senior HR Manager to help bring their HR Department to the next level and to work with the CEO to recruit a new Head of HR. While I knew that I would do a great job for my new company and I was honored to be hired directly by the CEO, I wanted the same due diligence performed for my candidacy as I performed as a Recruiter for the candidates I hired. I wanted my strong skills, abilities and experience to be reviewed, validated and documented thoroughly so we could all start off in our work together on a high note.

As the Vice President of Loss Prevention, Dale did not disappoint. "So," Dale began, opening up his folder to my rèsumé, liberally highlighted and marked with his notes and questions, "What is union avoidance, and how would it benefit our company?" I exhaled with relief and smiled at him. "Thank you for interviewing me," I replied. "Please ask me all of your questions. If you have the time; I certainly do. I want you and the CEO to get all of the information you need to feel completely comfortable with me in my role." Dale smiled back. "Don't worry, that's my plan."

Being in a compliance role in any organization, especially a new organization, is not the Miss Popularity job, to put it mildly. So to have Dale as a colleague, peer mentor and eventual friend who was also in a key compliance role for the organization was a critical touchstone that absolutely contributed to my career and developmental success. Dale broadened my business understanding and acumen tremendously as we accomplished our work together: mergers, acquisitions, rolling out new programs like pre-employment drug testing, you name it. Small but significant things, such as upon arrival for a site visit, to visit the bathroom first. The tidiness - or chaos - of the bathroom more often than not indicated how well the site manager was doing their job. Dale was also intensely curious about my area of subject-matter expertise, and it was my privilege and pleasure to share my HR / Recruiting / Change Management experience, strength and hope in return. It was a peer mentoring relationship that benefited both of us equally: the type of work relationship flow that is pure business and career development gold. Dale was a significant factor in the length of my tenure with the company. It's the type of retention that CEOs with any smarts strive for.

Dale was subsequently promoted to an operations executive role; and currently, runs his own successful business. All expected and well-deserved. I had my first inkling of Dale's abilities beyond his compliance role about a month into my tenure at the company's national District Managers' conference. When Dale got up to speak on his topic, Loss Prevention, the entire group jumped to their feet spontaneously and gave Dale a standing ovation. Part of it was in recognition for the company's great shrink performance; but really, it was all for Dale: they saw him truly as their business partner and leader, not just the head compliance guy enforcing the rules.

Me, too.

Your LinkedIn Headline is Your Calling Card for Success

I spent last Wednesday night with a great group of women from the Schenectady BPW, sharing my LinkedIn experience, strength and hope in support of our mutual success.

One of the first tips I shared was the importance of your LinkedIn headline: if your LinkedIn profile is your website (which I firmly believe), then the headline on your profile is your calling card, announcing that you're open to whatever opportunities you seek or hope to share. "I'm involved in several endeavors that speak to me vocationally and creatively," I shared with the group. "So I include them in my headline:

Change / Project Manager | HR / Recruiting Leader | Career Coach | Writer |

Small-Business Social Media Marketing SME."

"You include everything in your LinkedIn headline?" one of the workshop attendees asked. "Yes," I responded. "I subscribe wholeheartedly to Dr. Wayne Dyer's assertion that I will not die with the music still inside of me. So I include all of my 'music' in my LinkedIn headline and profile. When we say who we are and what we do, opportunities open up on LinkedIn and elsewhere." The attendee, a wonderful women full of "music" herself, decided to update her headline.

I received a LinkedIn message from her two days later:

Thanks, Deb! After working on my LinkedIn account [and headline] last night, I was invited to [a key business organization] event as a guest next week to network about [my project]. Who knew????

I did.

To our shared success on LinkedIn (and everywhere else)!

Effectively Managing the Ebbs & Flows in Business & At Work

I had a 3-hour breakfast meeting with my mentor John yesterday. Our mentoring relationship cuts both ways: from a business / career standpoint, John is my big brother, e.g. I want to be like him when I grow up; and I am a Human Resources SME resource to him. We mentor each other from our respective SME places, and it works well.

Our mentoring kicked off 3 years ago when John invited me to breakfast and asked me if I had ever thought about working for myself. A fellow GE alum who took the entrepreneurial plunge 20 years ago himself during an economic ebb (Or as I like to call it, a ride to the Recession Rodeo), he saw the same potential in me, for which I am eternally grateful. When a mentor appears in your path and reflects back what's in your heart and mind, unsolicited: well, that's the gift that keeps on giving.

My query for John this week was how he managed the ebbs and flows of his work and business. Our GE training especially geared us not to accept ebbs at all. My Energizer-Bunny belief system heretofore was all flow. John improvised a wave to emphasize his point to me. "It ebbs and flows all the time, it goes up and down all the time," he said. I scowled. "I don't like the ebbs at all," I replied. He grinned at me. "Get over it and move forward," he coached. "That's what my board of advisers always tells me; and you have to accept the ebbs, too. Shake it off and move on." So that's my vocational meditative focus this week: accepting the ebbs and not letting them define my strategic path and goals. His advice works for both entrepreneurs and career employees:

• Ebbs, in business and in work, are a fact of life to be accepted / embraced;
• Build up a great cash reserve (2 years or more is optimum) during the flow times (e.g. live and manage your business below your means, want what you have, etc.);
• An advisory board is an essential anchor for both the ebb and flow times;
• Be grateful and accept the gift of the flow times;
• Always have prospective clients and new products in pipeline during both the ebb and flow times;
• Don't take the ebbs personally;
• Use the ebb times as an opportunity to reflect, recalibrate your strategy; re-charge professionally and personally (e.g. Sharpening the Saw, a la Stephen Covey); refresh your marketing and business plans. (My friend and colleague Lisa Jordan seconded this emotion, too.)

Gratitude today for my fellow travelers along the River of Dreams: thank you for your presence in both the ebbs and flows, as we journey together and support each other's success.

Diamonds or Toads: How Your Hiring Authorities Help (or Hurt) Your Company's Reputation

My brother teases me for retaining my 20 year-old AOL email address.  Call me sentimental:  it's the account Joel and I created the year we were married.  It doesn't have any numbers in it.  My AOL account is a repository for merchant emails, so I basically skim it once a day.

When I opened up AOL this morning, I saw the story on the news feed about the store manager who allegedly told the applicant with 1.5 arms that he would not be able to work in her store because of products placed on a high shelf. (Apparently, the store manager experienced interview amnesia and forgot the store had both a step-stool and a ladder, standard gear for a retail store).  The applicant appears to be a nice, stand-up guy with 11 years of uninterrupted service and retail work experience and a sterling reference from his last manager.  The same applicant who the store manager during a 15-minute interview also allegedly ridiculed for working at Victoria's Secret while allegedly simultaneously sexually harassing her co-interviewer about her bra size.

What immediately popped in my mind was not my 20+ years of hiring and HR legal experience:  it was the Toads and Diamonds fable.  You know:  the fable about the two sisters who are tested by a fairy at the well disguised as a thirsty old woman.

The kind sister, who immediately gives the old woman a drink of water, is blessed with the gift of diamonds, pearls and flowers spilling from her mouth every time she speaks.

The nasty sister, who shooed the old woman away instead of giving her a drink of water, is given the curse of toads and vipers falling from her mouth every time she speaks; and is consequently shunned and shortly thereafter dies in a corner of the forest.

The kind sister wins marriage with a prince she meets in the forest with her new gift.   The Middle Ages' version of career success for women.  But I digress.

Hiring authorities at every level, from CEO to store manager, assume great power and equally great responsibility.

Most hiring authorities understand this role, and represent their companies adequately:  that is, they don't violate the law during the interview or engage in insulting behavior, leaving their job applicants with a neutral experience. No diamonds or toads.  The prediction would be that their customers have a neutral, shredded wheat-type experience, too.  Not the best stance against their competitors, but not the worst.

Some hiring authorities are on a power-trip doomed for personal and reputational failure, acting like the capos at the gates of Auschwitz treating job applicants like prisoners of war.  "Go to the right, and I'll grant you the privilege of working for me," the little power-mad voice in their heads sings.  "Go to the left and be condemned to continued unemployment."  Certainly not freedom through work.  And certainly not companies you would want support with your patronage or your employment.  A nest of vipers and toads to make Indiana Jones sweat, indeed.

And then there are the bleeding-edge hiring authorities and companies who get it. Who have clear values, visions and missions, and know how to walk the talk accordingly and consistently. Who recruit for the diversity in their candidates that equals or exceeds the diversity of their customers.  Who hire managers and hiring authorities who also walk the talk accordingly and consistently, and make available those who don't to industry.  Who understand all too well that their reputations pivot equally on how they recruit their employees and how they recruit their customers. And that the strategies for both employee and customer recruitment / retention are inextricably linked for long-term success.  These are the diamonds and pearls of the leading companies that we want to patronize as customers and where we want to work as employees, leaders and vendors.

Personally, I find diamonds and pearls most becoming.

Doing the Job During the Interview Benefits Everyone at Work

As I mentioned in this post last November, 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.

This past week, a colleague took this best practice one step further and invited their lead candidate to work in the office with them for 3 hours.   Clever Colleague wanted to see how Lead Candidate conducted themselves as they completed a key task together.  Both Colleague and Candidate were pleased, and both are now truly ready to seal the deal with a job offer.  

Clever Colleague was also smart enough to know (without prompting from me) that they should pay Lead Candidate for their work demonstration time.  

This is a best practice because it takes the hiring process out of the theoretical chatter that is the banal and tired employment interview and brings it into the realm of actually demonstrating the work that needs to be done by the prospective employee (vendor) to successfully fill the needs of the job at hand.

It just like good theatrical writing:  show me, don't tell me.  If you don't have the skill to demonstrate how you can you best meet the needs of your next employer (customer), you become like a forgettable movie ending:  like the bad narrative that someone else forced Harrison Ford to do at the end of Ridley Scott's first theatrical release of Blade Runner.  It just doesn't ring true, and it does not do you as the candidate (vendor) any justice at all.  (Or, as illustrated by my favorite line from Human Resources interviewees who have no HR experience:  "I'm really great with people.")

Work demonstration does not need to be just the hiring authority's idea during the employment sourcing process:  how have you (and will you) proactively demonstrate by doing the job in the interview that you will concretely meet / exceed your new employer's needs?  Is it a press release, a custom Crystal report, a draft marketing plan for your first 90 days in your new role?  The creative possibilities are endless, for both vendors and customers.  Make your best work demonstration offer to the decision-maker.

This week:  show us what you can do at work.

The Power of Small Mastermind Groups in Business and at Work

I had the honor and privilege to witness the power of 3 small local mastermind groups engaging together for a great cause this past Friday night:  the Siena College Pink Zone Reception and Game honoring breast cancer warriors and benefiting Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer (CRAAB!), a wonderful local nonprofit organization that empowers people impacted by breast cancer.

The high-energy and hands-on CRAAB! Board of Directors was front and center at the event, giving speeches, selling raffle tickets and merchandise; and some of them proudly walked the pink line of Siena basketball players to be honored for their status as warriors living and thriving despite experiencing breast cancer. Those CRAAB! women are a force to be reckoned with; they literally glowed.  The power of their group is their connection and commitment to each other, to the community and to their clients, both from a fund-raising and a service standpoint.  Their reputation is sterling, and deservedly so.

CRAAB! honored a member of another mastermind group, a local chapter of the national Women Presidents' Organization (WPO). As Marri (clearly moved by the energy of the moment) received her "Power Up the Pink" award, her WPO colleagues, her fellow Presidents / CEOs, were there in force to cheer her on.  Their camaraderie and connection were crystal-clear:  they stood up for each other's success and had a great time together in the process.

There were PWN (Professional Women's Network) members there as well:  my own home mastermind group.  A few of the WPO members are also PWN members.  That synergy has been wonderful for both groups.  I have written before about PWN, and how the group has supported and accelerated my own success, as well as the success of my fellow members as each other's Board of Directors.  The PWN women (current and past) who have contributed to my life and work, and vice versa:  these are vocational and reputational pearls whose value is truly priceless.

The success of all three mastermind groups lies in their smaller size (no more than 15 - 20 members each), intimacy and focus.  All three groups are clear about their commitment to each other, as well as their group and individual goals.  They stand up for each other's success, as well as the success of their respective groups as a whole.

And while all three groups focus on the female gender, their power is universal to both genders.  On an intuitive level, the paradigm is a lot like what George Bailey discovers at the end of It's a Wonderful Life:  he focused on building the success of the people of his beloved community of Bedford Falls; and in turn, those same people reflected not only George's personal success, but also put their money where their reflective support was.

In this new year, I wish you the success, prosperity and joy of your own mastermind group:  whether you join an existing mastermind group, or even more innovative: create a new one.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.