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?

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?

Happy Employees Make Happy Customers at the Blue Ribbon Restaurant

My good friend and colleague Dale and I decided to have our meeting over dinner at the Blue Ribbon Restaurant this past week. It was crowded as usual, and we were happy to score one of the last remaining booths near the counter.

Our server Jenny was Juanita-on-the-spot with menus and ice water, without prompting from us. She kept checking on us, taking our orders quickly and following up to see if we had enjoyed our dinners. She even encouraged me to try one of the Blue Ribbon's great sugar-free desserts. Jenny smiled, bounced and beamed as she multi-tasked taking care of all of the customers in her section, including us.

Intensely committed to providing great service to my customers, whether they have been internal to my organization or external customers, I love when I experience great customer service myself. Jenny's diamond demeanor was infectious, and she energized me even at the end of a long and very busy day of business meetings.

When Dale and I worked together at the same company, we'd have our business cards poised to recruit talent like Jenny to work in our stores; it was a no-brainer.

I had no job for Jenny that night, but I had a question. "Hi, I'm Deb," I said, introducing myself as Jenny brought us both take-out containers and bags to carry them in without a second request (Great service, I told you!). "You do a great job, what's your name?" "Jenny," she replied, beaming even more if that were possible. "Thank you." I asked her another question. "Jenny, you seem really happy. What makes you happy to work here?" Jenny answered without missing a beat. "The family who owns this restaurant treats me so well. They're respectful, they care about me, and they trust me. At past jobs, I've been yelled at and micro-managed. Not here." I loved Jenny's answer. "How long have you worked here?" I asked, my last question. "Two years," Jenny replied. "And I love it here." That was crystal-clear.

As Dale paid the bill at the cash register, I couldn't resist. "Are you one of the owners?" I asked the young man at the register. "I'm the son and nephew of the owners," he replied, smiling slightly. "You might say I'm an owner-in-training." I smiled back. "I just wanted to let you know that our server, Jenny, is great." He smiled wider, glancing at her bustling around the customers in her coverage area, and without missing a beat as he handed Dale his change, replied: "Yes, she is great. We're lucky to have Jenny."

We were all lucky that night, because at the Blue Ribbon Restaurant, they clearly know that happy employees make happy customers.

Good Things Come to Those Who Network Well

My 11 year-old son Noah and I spent some quality time together today at The Great Escape in Lake George, New York, thanks to the free admission tickets, parking and lunch door prize I won from The Hudson River Community Credit Union, as a result of networking at the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner Vendor Fair. Aside from the great door prize, one of the reasons I love the Rensselaer Chamber is the fact that it's a connection hothouse for small businesses like mine on the growth curve.

As we finished our lunch under The Great Escape North Grove Pavilion (declared "delicious" by Mr. Best the Younger) while sharing dining space with the Credit Union's employees and customers, Noah held up his hand in appreciation. "High-five on your power networking, Mom," he said, clearly pleased and proud of how my business networking had benefited him. We also stopped at The Hudson River Community Credit Union's booth at the Pavilion and thanked the Marketing Team for the door prize, and they rewarded us further by taking Noah's picture for their website.

Our Great Escape trip is a great metaphor for the rewards of networking well and how the success can cascade and ripple out like a stone skipped on the water of our SmAlbany economy to benefit many. Great networking:

• Creates new opportunities, experiences, connections, and customers for all involved in the networking contact;
• Is an ongoing, symbiotic process - it must be a two-way street to ensure both authenticity and results;
• Shines the reputations of all involved by the good will (in this case, the door prize) which invariably ignites success for all involved;
• Allows us networking mavens to creatively connect the dots to create new and successful customer opportunities / transactions. Like the Melanie Griffith character Tess McGill in Working Girl who put together Trask Industries and a radio station acquisition from reading articles in both Forbes and The New York Post ("Trask, radio; Trask, radio.");
• Can be long-cycle, short-cycle, direct or indirect: while we can't control where the act of networking will take us, the fact that we have taken action (and continue to take action) keeps our businesses, and therefore our economy, moving forward;
• Is fun, rewarding and ultimately profitable for all involved in the networking contact (in that order).

I consider networking at any vendor fair the opportunity to meet new customers, vendors and partners. The act of introducing myself, handing my business card to the company representative / owner manning / womanning the vendor booth is an act of marketing, connection and economic good will, especially considering that these vendors usually pay for the privilege of participating in any vendor fair and the very least I can do is stop and say hello. The door prizes I win are a symbol of my perpetual-motion marketing work. The people / business connections are priceless.

 Eleven years ago, when I was 7 months pregnant with Noah, I won five door prizes at a CRHRA Vendor Fair using the same philosophy. At this year's Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce Vendor Fair, the door prize from The Hudson River Community Credit Union was one of four door prizes that I won. I'm grateful for the generosity of all of these good vendor fair participants, and that I'm 60 pounds lighter 11 years later.

Come on in and join the fun: walk the next Vendor Fair with me. We need to spread the door-prize wealth around and more importantly: ignite our mutual success by continuing to make these critical and long-reaching business connections.

          

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?

Focus the Strengths of Your Own Team of Avengers at Work

Warning Before Reading: Spoiler Alert for the movie The Avengers.

Joel, Noah and I saw The Avengers this weekend. It was a great movie on a number of levels, the best movie we've seen as a family in a long time. Of course, what delighted me personally were the plot elements that addressed The Avengers often-exciting and frankly chaotic team-building process - it was more of a series of brawls than a process. Their storming phase included but was not limited to the triggering of weapons of mass destruction and destroying large swaths of New York City. No time or patience for an HR geek to facilitate the Avengers through the universal development phases that all teams experience. Movie or reality: chaos is definitely the more common state.  

When I attended and subsequently taught facilitation training at GE, one of the optional overnight homework assignments was to ask the class to watch 12 Angry Men: not only a great flick with a wonderful ensemble cast, but also a great "show me, don't tell me" way of absorbing the challenges and rewards of developing and working with high-performing teams.  

The Avengers is more complex and nuanced than 12 Angry Men, however. The plot thread of the marginalization and eventual integration of Dr. Bruce Banner / The Hulk as one of the Avengers is a team effectiveness nugget to note.

As we're re-introduced to Bruce Banner, he's banished himself from his life's work and from any stress triggers to keep The Hulk from making an appearance. He can't even off himself to escape his volatile burden: he and his alter-ego the Hulk are both indestructible. Bruce is self-deprecating and at times ashamed: the last time he was in New York City, he sheepishly admits that he "broke Harlem" and was not quite welcome back there.

Some of the Avengers keep their distance: Nastasha Romanov (The Black Widow) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) however immediately engage him as a respected colleague who they admire and want to get to know better.

Of course, The Hulk subsequently returns and wreaks havoc and destruction in his usual psychopathic way. The rest of The Avengers are similarly challenged, by both external and internal demons, not unlike what the Hulk experiences.

However, when the going got tough, the Avengers regrouped as a tough team and got going. Captain America marshaled The Avengers, doling out assignments; for example, Tony Stark was charged with repair and engineering work while fighting off alien enemies swarming like killer bees. When he got to Hulk's assignment, Cap directed him to "Hulk: Smash!" Hulk grinned and there was a sea change: Cap not only acknowledged Hulk as a team member and "saw him;" Cap also asked Hulk to take his strength and use it for the good mission of the team.

Hulk subsequently teamed with Thor and saved Tony Stark, and got his confidence back in the process: while the punch he gave Thor after they defeated their group of bad guys was not appropriate behavior for the workplace, for The Avengers' comic-book work environment and norms, it signaled that Bruce / Hulk had come in from the margins and regained his confidence in his abilities and his contribution. The team saw it and he saw it. When there work was done and one team member asked him how he kept his anger (and the Hulk) at bay, Bruce grinned confidently and declared that "he was always angry;" e.g., that the Hulk was always there, a part of him, and clearly he embraced that as a strength and a contribution.

Which made the last scene after the credits all the more delightful: The Avengers, sitting together in a destroyed NYC deli, have a quiet sandwich together.

You know you've made it as a team when you can share a quiet meal together without the need to chat.

How will you marshal the strengths of your own team of Avengers - inviting them in from the margins, self-imposed or otherwise - to support your mutual success at work and in your business?

Your Leadership Presentation for Every Audience at Work

Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman.
 

-Coco Chanel

First, a disclaimer: I'm not a professional stylist, or, by a long shot, the best-dressed professional I know. Nor would I compare myself to Coco Chanel. I learned the quote from one of my all-time favorite movies, Working Girl. I'm just another blue-collar girl from Queens who acts on her dreams using her smarts. Like most of us, I learned from experience to dress professionally enough for each situation to the extent where the focus was on my smarts and not on what I was wearing.

Which is why I loved working at the GE plant where the main manufacturing ingredient was a diluted acid running in pipes overhead. In that environment, the only practical uniform for men and women alike was safety glasses, metal-toed safety shoes, dirt-streaked jeans, polo shirts and hard hats with our last names on the front. I felt right at home; and my Granddaddy Nat, a skilled electrician who passed away before I graduated from college, would have been proud of me.

The Vice President of Human Resources for my GE business, not so much. I had been invited to attend a meeting for promotable women managers at Headquarters facilitated by the VP of HR. I did have enough sense at that point in my career to wear clean clothes (dress pants, no jeans), regular shoes and glasses sans my beloved hardhat. We were told that the dress code for the meeting was business casual. However, the Headquarters version of business casual was clearly a step up from our plant-level definition of business casual. They all wore blazers. I wore a sweater.

My beloved boss and mentor Bill coached me the very next day, displaying minimally the discomfort of a male-to-female dress-code coaching discussion. "The VP of HR liked you," Bill began. "Great!" I said, starting to leave. Bill waved me back into the chair. "However, he didn't know how smart you were until you opened your mouth." I was puzzled. "What do you mean?" I asked. Bill paused. "He liked you a lot, which is why he asked me to speak to you about your executive presentation, in the spirit of supporting your career path and ongoing success." I was still confused. "So he liked the way I talked but he has an issue with my executive presentation? I don't understand." Bill got to the point. "He had an issue with the way you looked." Great, here I am back in high school. I started to pick up my planner to leave. "Bill, if this is going to be a discussion about my weight or the fact that I'm no great beauty, let's please not go there." Bill was a bit taken aback. He down-shifted into Queens, my native vernacular. "Stop being a pain in the ass and sit down," he directed. I sat, subdued. He leaned over the desk. "When is the last time you wore a blazer to work?" he queried. Oh, I wasn't wearing the right uniform for that group - that was the issue. "When I interviewed for my job here," I replied sheepishly. Bill smiled. "Point taken," I continued. "I will take care of it immediately." Bill leaned back in his chair, relieved and proud. "Thank you, I knew you would." I hightailed it to the store right after work that day and bought four new suits. A bit much, but I needed to make up for lost leadership presentation / credibility.

How you dress at work demonstrates your vocational choice as well as your situational leadership: whether you dress so you'll be noticed for your talents or skills; or whether you dress like the executives because you aspire to be an executive; or whether you proudly wear your hardhat so the guys in the plant won't think you're a stuck-up elitist. Or Madonna.

The Power of Blend at Work

I sing in the alto section of my church's choir. My range is actually in between that of an alto and a soprano: so I don't cringe like the rest of the altos when we are called upon to sing in the soprano range. All I know is that I'm most comfortable singing Bette Midler, Carol King and Barbra Streisand songs: they're members of my tribe and make good money at the singing gig. It would be fun to be them when I grow up as a singer.

In the meantime, I'm thoroughly enjoying the choir gig. We have fun and we have a marvelous musical impresario as our choir director, Gary. She's a woman, and her given name is Gareth: a suitable name indeed for a noblewoman of music. My 10-year-old son Noah is in the Junior Choir. We choir kids adore Gary, who is also an avid gardener and dessert baker (and she shares!). Because of Gary, my voice has gotten stronger; I've learned to read music a bit better (I call myself the learning-disabled alto, as I sing mostly by ear and have never quite gotten the hang of reading music), and most importantly, I've learned how to blend my voice with the choir instead of instinctively belting it out like I'm on the stage in Vegas.

Gary manages both the adult and Junior Choirs with a firm hand both in person and via email. Because we only rehearse one (1) hour every Sunday morning before services, I get at least 3 emails from Gary a week; Here are some of her email communications:

 Folks - This is Sundae Sunday so please have your kids go get their ice cream FIRST and then come right to Jr. Choir. They can finish eating in the Emerson Room! We will have Pam, the society choir accompanist with us for Peace Is. 

Thanks.

 Gary

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Folks - Usually the choir gets January off but we will rehearse again in mid-late January for the cabaret. I will let you know well ahead of time. In the meantime, enjoy the warm(er) weather!

 Gary

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Cabaret performers: First of all, thank you for spending time in preparation for your performance this Sunday! The Music Committee is very grateful. This Cabaret promises to be the best yet. As you know, the dress rehearsal is this Sat. morning. You do not need to wear performance clothes. We will be checking microphones for everyone. Both choirs are dressing especially for the cabaret. We want to have a professional look to the show and therefore are asking that blue jeans and t-shirts not be worn. Anything red is good!  

See you on Saturday.

Sarah, Christine and Gary

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Gary is a musical perfectionist and I am decidedly an amateur - Gary rehearses us rigorously and uses every bit of her weekly hour with us. However, when we sing well, Gary lets us know:  

Folks - That beautiful bouquet should be divided many ways as Cabaret was a true team effort again this year. For members of the Music Committee, I will say thank you so much! Days are getting longer and the iris and tulips make me think spring is around the corner. Thanks as well for all your good and hard work AND major contribution to Cabaret. You sang beautifully and looked so smart! It was all just so much fun preparing for cabaret with you.

Gary

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Thank you Jr. Choir for the best performance of that song EVER! You remembered all the words (hooray!) and sang out and well, you were a great hit. What did I tell you about the Albany line??? Great job!! See you on Feb. 26th when we will begin rehearsing again.    

Gary

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And Gary also shares good wishes from our "customers:"  

To Gary and Choirs, Holiday greetings, and thank you for the lovely music Sunday; it was a good antidote to the holiday music we hear in stores, etc. I’d much rather have your music running through my head this season!

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Gary organized an impromptu welcoming gift from the choir for Madison, our lead soprano Christine's new daughter, who arrived for adoption with one week's notice. When Christine, Madison and Madison's daddy Dan arrived as we sang You Are the New Day for the first time, we all wept with joy as Madison studied us seriously. After we performed You Are the New Day in church, this note made it all worth it for me:    

Well, I just HAD to write! This morning was some of the loveliest singing the choir has done! Several years ago the choir could never have done an a'cappella piece and today it was done with expression and diction and BLEND!! I have been on a high all day - music has that kind of power. George, former bass with the choir, spoke to me with tremendous emotion - he could not comment enough about the beautiful sound and blend, especially. Marta said the same thing. The point of being so picky is not just because I am obsessive (!) about those things but because without pitch and dynamics and blend and therefore, beauty, music loses its power to transform and uplift. And that's our responsibility when we sing in the services.  

Gary

What is the power of blend at work for you? Whether you inspire blend like Gary, or contribute to blend like a learning-disabled alto who sings by ear: how and when does the music you create at work together delight your customers? And you?

How We Inspire and Teach Each Other at Work

My 10 year-old son Noah woke up at 3 AM Saturday morning with only the second earache of his life and recurring bouts of nausea that really need no further detail.  What a blessing.  I fully attribute it to being hooked up to a breast pump machine like Elsie the cow for the first two months of his life during my maternity leave 11 years ago.  If two months of short-term aggravation have given Noah sterling immunity, it was a great gift all around.  Another blessing, in contrast to my childhood, were the emergency weekend hours at Noah's pediatrician's office.  He was dosed up with antibiotics by noon on Saturday.

As we caught up on our sleep yesterday and today, confined along with Noah to the house, I decided to tackle building my first WordPress website.  I had purchased the very cheap hosting and even cheaper themes at least a month ago, and the timing seemed opportune.  I previously built free Google websites for my husband Joel and my friend John, and this was my next personal challenge.  Some people hike higher and higher mountains; I geek-hike this way.  Viva la difference.  Given our earache quarantine, it was more stimulating than tackling our taxes:  next weekend's project.

As I wrestled the plugins, widgets, themes and other WordPress quirkiness, I thought of the chain of events that brought me to this WordPress weekend:

• My friend Deb recruited me to take her place as the Director of Publications at a lobbying firm, so she could start her own business.  Thanks to Deb, I learned how to use both an Apple computer and Adobe PageMaker.

• I proceeded to do freelance copy-writing work for Deb on my own time, introducing me to contract / consulting work.  I purchased my first fax machine 20 years ago, as Deb and I worked collaboratively via fax and floppy disk. That fax machine (which burns the images on paper) still works, and we just moth-balled it last month due to the purchase of our HP wireless all-in-one printer. 

• Thanks in part to my PageMaker knowledge, I got my first job at GE in Human Resources / Employee Communications, where one of my responsibilities was writing and developing the weekly plant newsletter  (Graphic layout, BTW, is not my strong suit.  Dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a graphic designer). We had PROFS email back then, which was an IBM green-screen email client.   We were only permitted to email each other internally, and we were able to send TXT extension files as attachments.  The fax machine was still the main communications channel.  I loved email, and started sending shorter version of the plant newsletter via PROFS email.

•  My brother Rob got a job with Prodigy and kept handing me down his outdated computer equipment. He suggested that Joel and I join America Online (AOL).  We did.  Thanks to Rob, I was able to research and write the business plan for The Best Framing Company (Joel's custom picture-framing business) using AOL in 4 months without stepping foot once in the library.  That business plan got Joel the unsecured SBA loan to start the business.

• I suggested to Deb and Professional Women's Network, the group that Deb invited me to join, that we all get America Online accounts so that we could email each other rather than fax each other, as a time-saver.  Not well-received.  Too radical-geek.   However, they did all eventually get AOL accounts, and soon thereafter, work email took over.  I love how attached they all are to their smart phones today, remembering the AOL uproar all those years ago.

• On the weekends, I would design simple postcards in PageMaker to market The Best Framing Company. It helped grow Joel's business and reinforce his reputation as a great custom picture-framer.

• When I worked with my friend Ron, Palm Pilots were all the rage at work:  all the cool kids (e.g., Ron) had the color Palm Pilots.  For a number of years, before the advent of smart phones, my purse was weighted down by both my Palm Pilot and my cell phone.  No stinkin' planners for me.

• A few years ago, I started attending Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley.  As a LinkedIn geek, it caught my interest, particularly the panel on blogging.  I hadn't written anything for myself since I was a senior in college.  I put a pin in the blogging presentation for later use, maybe.

•  My friend and fellow writer Katie (we're both members of FUSS) kept talking about how she wanted to be paid to be a writer.  For 4 months, I joined Katie's husband and noodged her to set up a blog for free and start writing; I had just seen Julie & Julia and I was freshly inspired.  From my FUSS work with her, I knew that Katie was a talented writer, and frankly, I wanted to watch her swim in the blogging pool first before I gave it a try. She finally relented and started writing her WordPress blog, Capital District Fun.  Katie, by the way, is now a paid writer.  I watched Katie blog for 4 months, and then created my own blog, Deb Best Practices, when tweeting only 140 characters was no longer sufficient expression for me.  It's a Google Blogger blog, as my girlfriend Google is my BFF.

• My friend Keith is the Webmaster on our project, and because of the nature of the work we're currently doing, he needed to teach me how to use Interwoven to update our website in a pinch.  A frustrating and quirky program.  WordPress,  in comparison, is a dream.  However, thanks to my experience with Google Blogger and building Google websites, I'm able to stumble my way through Interwoven successfully.  Keith is building our new website in Joomla, and I'm looking forward to learning Joomla as well, as Keith tells me it's a lot like WordPress.

• My friend Linda, who I met when we were both PWN members, asked me to teach the opening course, Strategic Thinking and Leadership, at her organization's Leadership Institute.  This year will be my 6th year teaching the course, tweaking the presentation I developed in MS PowerPoint.  A few years ago, there was a student in the class;  a brilliant, young and up-and-coming lawyer:  my friend George.  The break-out exercise that I ask the students to do each year is the secret sauce that always sparks them to a new level in their professional development, even if it's just a small step.  In George's case, it was spontaneous combustion.   He manifested and later implemented his vision:  his growing firm, LaMarche Safranko Law.  He's still on fire, and it's great to see.  George has a great WordPress website.

Just a few of the wonderful family members, friends and colleagues who inspired my WordPress weekend; and really, so much more.

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.

Be the Vendor (Not the Applicant) in the Job Interview (Sale!)

It's a point-of-view game-changer:  are you an applicant in a job interview, or a vendor?  I've witnessed the paradigm-shift as I've coached two talented professionals over the last month.  It's like watching the switch flip back to the authentic human capital offering.

Approaching a job interview as an applicant forces you into the frame of supplicant. Beggar. When you approach the interview in the sad context that the hiring authority is doing you a favor by talking to you, you're just another dancer in the Chorus Line, murmuring the meaningless mantra of "God, I hope I get it."  Oh, you'll get it all right.  Rejected, with that attitude.  You're starting out one-down from the hiring authority, in the supplicant's unmistakable veil of fear.  Fear of rejection; fear of not being able paying your bills, fear of (insert your worst fear).  In this fearful stance of the supplicant, the hiring authority has you at hello.  You're trapped, you're at their mercy and you did to yourself.  Don't get me wrong;  the "What Does He Want from Me, What Should I Try to Be" mantra is not necessarily the recipe for disaster:  supplicants are hired every day.  The hiring authorities who need that kind of control need that kind of applicant who surrenders their personal power for a paycheck.

It doesn't have to be that way.  You control this interview conversation more than you know.

This interesting switch dwells in all of us:  it's just a matter of being open to its possibility and creativity.   In coaching the First Professional, who had not been on an interview in several years and who with real anxiety asked me to put together a top-10 list of the toughest interview questions and answers to expect, I did something unexpected.  "Don't approach this as an applicant," I coached.  "If instead in this meeting you were the vendor providing these services on an outsourced basis for this customer, tell me why you're the vendor they should choose."  The Professional's fear evaporated, and the sparkle returned to their eyes:  the switch was turned on and they instantly empowered themselves.  They proceeded to knock my socks off with their proposal and their energetic self-possession.  They did the same with their new employer the next day.  They were head-and-shoulders above the other candidates in their expertise and self-confidence, who I'm sure were merely supplicants.

It's not just a matter of the supplicant answering the employer's questions correctly:  the real conversation is the subject-matter expert (SME) vendor meeting / exceeding the potential customer's needs.  And as my daddy taught me:  when the customer is doing most of the talking, and is selling you on them and their organization, the signs are positive that you can ask for the order (job), and close the sale.

I saw the switch turned on again today with the second Professional.  While their current employment situation is a bit sketchy due to economic forces, they have several potential "customers" interested in their services next.  The pressure is off, there's no veil of fear, they don't have just one potential customer.  As they engage in their initial customer conversation this week, they can be completely present, authentic and centered as the talented SME Vendor they are, exploring the potential possibilities together with the customer of working together, rather than stoop to some bizarre and hellish personal version of Quiz Show.

May the week ahead present innovative proposals and produce fruitful new partnerships for us all.

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.

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.

Skin-in-the-Game Customer Service at the Skyport Restaurant in Scotia, NY

At least once a month, my husband Joel, my son Noah and I have lunch at the Skyport Restaurant on Freeman's Bridge Road in Scotia, NY after we attend Sunday services at The First Unitarian Society of Schenectady, where we have been members for several years.

It's the type of diner where my father, a career salesman, would buy me breakfast as a treat in Queens, NY when I was a little girl.  Good food at a reasonable price.  Run by blue-collar folks just like us.  Nothing fancy, but clean, satisfying and good.

Each time we arrive, we're greeted by an upbeat sprite of a waitress who is a cross between Cyndi Lauper and Joyce DeWitt from Three's Company.  She is the best waitress I've ever met in my life.  I feel like I'm welcomed into her home every time we eat there.

On our first visit, she brought Noah his hot chocolate in a special extra large cup with delightfully too much whipped cream and chocolate syrup flourished on top.  She had Noah at hello.  She calls us all honey and has a megawatt smile.  She's not a normal waitress:  she acts like she owns the place.  I've been wondering about her status for several months:  if she owns the place, why is she waiting on tables?

I found out why today.  My good friend Lisa and I both like the Skyport and decided to have our slightly overdue lunch there.  We sat for 2 hours catching up.

Our waitress approached us.  "Where are your boys today?"  she asked me.  "Amusing each other at home," I smiled back.  "Mine too," Lisa chimed in.  She looked at Lisa.  "Where do I know you from?"  she asked Lisa.  They wondered aloud together for a few minutes.  As they both caught their breath, I jumped in.  "You know, you're a great waitress.  You work like you own the place."  She beamed.  "Thank you, it really means a lot to me, I work really hard at it." 

Her name is Joanna. It turns out that her father has owned the restaurant for 52 years.  He's 91 years old and sits in the back, chopping the potatoes and onions up for the delicious home fries and the homemade corned beef hash.  Joanna's two sisters buzz around the kitchen and cook all the food.  A younger brother or nephew always brings our coffee and cleans the tables.  "Well, we love coming here and you're a big reason, thank you," I said.  Joanna beamed again and bustled to other customers.

Lisa and I closed the diner this afternoon, along with a couple from California, who stopped both Joanna and I.  "She's right, you are wonderful," he said to Joanna.  "Thanks!" Joanna beamed one last time.  We all wished each other a good week.

Now, I've worked with and for family businesses for a good part of my career that employ family members.  Sometimes it works, with all of the family members pulling their weight.  Sometimes it doesn't work. When family members don't pull their weight, it's painful.  Painful in that it's both morale- and soul-sucking.  Like working with no-show colleagues.  Everyone gets paid, but they don't work, you do.  Just because they're family, it doesn't always equate to having skin in the game of the family business.

And I'll submit that employers can't buy that kind of skin in the game:  e.g. mitigating an employee's base salary (and more often than not, their dignity) with the carrot-and-stick of the bonus-plan-of-the-month.  Skin in the game is the equity of partnership, either through blood, or through investment (financial or sweat), or optimally, both.

At Skyport, they not only have skin in the game:  they're all in the roles that play to their respective strengths which in turn support the success of their business.  Joanna is the customer service expert / fan in the family, so she waits on the customers.  And we customers love it.  Her skin in the game is that she does what she loves, partnering with her family to make their living and make us diner foodies happy. 

A customer service best practice, great company and a good brunch:  business, and life, is good.

Success with Customers and Employees is a Matter of Trust

I just finished reading Gary Vaynerchuk's The Thank-You Economy.   Great nuggets there to consider.

While Vaynerchuk as he usually does explores several cutting-edge concepts involving social media reputation that all entrepreneurs should consider, his musings on trust caught my attention:

• Building, sustaining and growing the trust of your customers (your employer is your customer, too:  my trope on Vaynerchuk) is the key to success, in good times and bad, and most importantly, whether they're happy or unhappy with you;  

• It's critical to engage and respond authentically with customers especially when they're unhappy with you; ironically, you gain loyalty by being present when they have problems more than when everything is peachy.  Think of the bank run scene from It's a Wonderful Life;

• Demonstrating that you authentically trust your employees to do the right thing (and hire employees in the first place who reflect your "success" DNA to build, sustain and grow customer trust) will in turn not only result in higher customer satisfaction, but will also engender trust and retention in return from your employees.  (I also love Vaynerchuk's vision of a Chief Culture Officer or CCO, charged with ensuring the trust culture that grows the business.)

Vaynerchuk also reminded me of the great mediation training I experienced with Duke Fisher and Mediation Matters.  Duke emphasized all throughout our training to stand our ground, gather our courage and listen for the needs underneath the yelling:  that the source of all human conflict is needs met and unmet.

Troping further on Duke's coaching and Vaynerchuk's trust concepts, I assert that the source of all business struggle to succeed is our customers' needs met and unmet. And that when we, as their vendors, listen to and respond authentically, with genuine care and human connectedness to the needs underneath our customers' yelling (even when there isn't an answer, and all we can do is commiserate as peers and offer other ways to meet our customers' needs, a la Miracle on 34th Street, when Kris Kringle sends a harried mother to Gimbel's for the toy that Macy's no longer has in stock), trust, which engenders reputation, which in turn engenders business growth:  is inevitable.

Or as Billy says:  it's a matter of trust.

Avoid a $290k Hit to Your P&L By Paying Less Than $1,000 for Sexual Harassment Prevention

In the local news this week (and all over the web) was this report:

Local Franchise to Pay $290,000 to Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Teens Among Victims of Store Supervisor's Abuse, Federal Agency Charged

According to the EEOC, the manager engaged in unwanted touching and hugging and made lewd sexual comments to the female employees.  The EEOC argued that the owner allowed the manager's illegal conduct to continue even after two employees had complained about it a year before.  The manager was finally fired after the employees reported his conduct to the police and he was arrested.  The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

In addition to paying $290,000 to the former employees, the company will be bound by a six-year consent decree enjoining it from engaging in further discrimination or retaliation.  The decree calls for the appointment of an equal employment opportunity coordinator and training for all employees and managers on sexual harassment prevention.  The company will issue a letter of apology to the women; revise its anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures; post a notice to employees about the resolution of the lawsuit; and never re-hire the manager responsible for the harassment.

Rather than walk you through the whys and wherefores of my standard Sexual Harassment Awareness and Prevention spiel, I'm going to bottom-line it for you:  investing about $1,000 or less to proactively have a qualified HR and/or Legal Subject-Matter Expert (internal or external to your organization) to:

• Ensure that your anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures exist and are compliant with state and federal law;
• Train your employees and managers annually on sexual harassment prevention and document it;
• Take violators of your compliant anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures through a progressive discipline (and if warranted) termination process;

will save you the $290,000 the above-mentioned franchise owner will now have to pay as the EEOC settlement.  That doesn't include the lingering cost of the reputational damage inflicted by the negative publicity of the compliance violations.

A $290,000 settlement is a huge bite out of an annual small-business P&L such as a franchise store:  in this tight commercial lending environment, unless the owner has a large cash reserve, that large a settlement can effectively shut down a small business.

In contrast:  $1,000 or less invested proactively in Sexual Harassment policy compliance, training, discipline and prevention by a qualified internal or external HR SME is a much smaller bite of a small-business P&L, and will pay off in positive legal and reputational dividends for years to come.

Pink donut with a bite missing (clipped to Polyvore.com)

OMG YR FIRED ;(

I recently heard through my network of a text-message employee termination, which was brief and in the neighborhood of the following:

Pls don't report to work tmrw; not working out; will pay out yr notice.

I shared the story with my husband, Joel.  "The employer could have just tied the termination note to a rock and thrown it through the employee's car window," he replied in disbelief.  "That really happened?"  I nodded sadly.  "Really, really cheesy." Joel said sadly. "That goes beyond cheesy.  It's like 'Hi, I'm breaking up with you; and oh, by the way, I have herpes.'"

Sometimes I fear that popular media examples of poor people management practices, like firing NPR Correspondent Juan Williams via the phone without due process and/or a progressive corrective action program, unduly influences some harried and hapless employers to hear what they like and leave the rest (E.g., the reputational flak that results from such attention:  could it be true that there's no such thing as bad P.R.?  Best to ask NPR's former CEO, who eventually lost her job as a result.)

Or could it be that some employers believe they have the ultimate power in an employer-employee relationship, giving them carte blanche to freestyle employee hiring, firing and relations?

There are three barriers to such freestyle misconceptions on the part of misguided employers:  legal compliance, reputation and customers.

Failure to observe legal compliance in employee relations exposes employers to legal, financial and reputational risk.  A roll of the employer-freestyling dice here can spell the end of a business.  Can you say "lawsuit judgment?"  Courtesy of a former employee or government regulatory entity, or both?

Reputation can make or break the recruitment and retention of both customers and employees, particularly in a local economy like SmAlbany.  A colleague and I were chatting discreetly about the vagaries of a local small business whose name we did not mention during our conversation in a remote Starbucks a year ago, when one of their former sales managers serendipitously walked in the door of the shop. The colleague waved to the sales manager and remarked to me in a whisper: "Seriously, the owner is a nut:  he continuously hires sales managers only to let them go in about 6 months.  That poor guy is the owner's latest victim, and everyone in the business community knows it."

And finally, and most importantly, customers.  It has been my observation and experience, and recently documented in Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment, that there is absolutely a direct connection on how well (or poorly) you treat your employees and how well (or poorly) in turn your employees will treat your customers.  And how well (or poorly) your customers patronize you as a vendor long-term as a result of mistreatment by your employees; mistreatment by you as the owner; or hearing about your mistreatment of your employees.  In other words:  treat your employees like hammered cow pies, and run the risk of your customers being treated like hammered cow pies, too:  and having both consequently conduct business with one of your competitors.

Bottom-line advice:  reserve text-messaging and other remote media for good news.  For both good news and the tough messages:  nothing beats face-to-face communications, supported with SME (subject-matter expertise) advice and compliant documentation, to drive authentic, accountable and courageous relationships, which in turn will only reinforce reputation and retention with both internal (employees) and external customers.

;)

Reputation Makes Recruiting, PR and Marketing Ring True (Or False)

One night earlier in my recruiting career, I was uncharacteristically awake past 10 PM.  When I'm up this late with nothing interesting to read or watch, I turn on the t.v. for background noise and catch up on my work email.

A new email pinged in at 10:25 PM, not from a colleague but from an executive-level candidate responding to a query email I had sent earlier that day.  Here's what it said:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good evening:

There's no amount of money you could pay me to come and work for your company.  The (hiring manager) is a flaming asshole and everyone in the industry knows it.  Good luck with your search, your (sic) going to need it.

Sent from my BlackBerry
Please forgive any typos
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It startled me.  My husband Joel heard me gasp and woke up.  "What's wrong?" he asked, startled himself.

"Look at this email!  I've never seen anything like it from a candidate before," I replied, offering the laptop screen for him to view.  Joel smirked.  "I'm sure he's drunk," he concluded. 

I shook my head, bewildered at the candidate's carelessness.  "Friends shouldn't let friends email drunk.  Doesn't this guy care about his reputation in the industry?"  Joel arched a sage eyebrow at me.  "Well, is the hiring manager an asshole?"  I smirked my reply back.  Joel went back to sleep.

Just a few weeks after the drunken candidate email, I was networking on the phone with another industry executive to solicit candidates for the same job.  He was coldly cordial and (I presume) soberly to the point.  "I hear nothing good about your leadership team.  Your company doesn't have a great reputation out in the market.  Your sales have sucked for the past few years, and I predict you'll be out of business in the next 3 - 5 years."  I thanked him for his time and hung up.

Now, I love recruiting.  However, I listened to these two poignant and juxtaposed data points and came to the conclusion that no matter how good a recruiter I am, including but not limited to how positive an ambassador I am for my organization, no amount of recruiting lipstick was going to make the organization's reputational pig pretty. 

As the job market and the overall economy continue to rev up in fits and spurts, it's important to engage in organizational listening, in social media and other channels, to understand what your customers, candidates, vendors, etc. are saying about your organization.  And more importantly, to incorporate that listening into both your external and internal customer interactions, to ensure that the communication is consistently authentic.

Have a lot of open positions to fill and not getting a lot of candidates?  What's the word on the market about you and/or your organization?  What does my girlfriend Google say?  Or surely, you should have some inkling:  could it be the 20% of your workforce that you shed during the worst of the recession?  Or the chronic complaints from your customers about your service?  Whatever the facts are for your organization, consider addressing them proactively, factually, productively and future-facing.  And ensure that the recruiting, public relations and marketing streams are integrated, singing the same authentic message about your people and your products.

What's the word on the market about you and your organization?  And what are you proactively doing to address the message authentically?

Needs-Based Networking Supports Success

While I love networking on a number of levels (notwithstanding my irrepressible and lifelong curiosity to meet new people), networking at its best is discovering the sweet spot that meets the needs of both people (or organizations) engaged in the networking experience.

This is where my career experiential knowledge base starts to trope and intersect in new and interesting ways.

• Sales 101 (courtesy of my dad):  selling is not cramming your product mindlessly down your customers' and prospects' throats.  It is instead:
• Identifying the needs of your customer (or prospective employer); 
• And then, once their needs are known and documented, selling is meeting / exceeding the needs of your customer by providing your products and services in exchange for payment (and for those engaged in job search, your products and services are the relevant talent(s) and skills that meet / exceed the especial needs of your potential employer).  Which meets your needs, too.

•  Mediation 101 (courtesy of my mediation teachers and coaches):  The source of all human conflict is needs met and unmet.
• Mediation is hosting the conversation between parties in conflict;
• A critical step in mediating conflict resolution is helping the parties in conflict each identify their respective needs underlying the conflict;
• Once everyone's needs are identified and on the table, the chances are much greater that both parties in the conflict can come to a (often creative, heretofore unconsidered) resolution that meets the needs of all, on their own.

So:  instead of approaching networking as a reluctant supplicant (or worse yet, a noodge), first consider conducting a needs analysis / intake on those companies / individuals who interest you and with whom you'd like to conduct business.  What does the prospective customer (or employer) need to sustain and grow their business?  A great deal of this information is available via my girlfriend Google and LinkedIn, among other resources (including but not limited to your local business journal), and the rest can be gleaned via your network, which may well include current and former employees, customers and vendors of the executive / company / employer who interests you.

Once armed with that needs-analysis, are you able to meet / exceed their needs with your talent / goods / services?  If not, then be prepared to connect them with resources who can meet their needs, as their networking broker (or networking mediator, hosting the conversation); if you can't, then you are just a noodge.

Or, to borrow a concept from social media:  how can you provide useful information that is of service to your network and your prospective network, which in turn will continuously build and reinforce your reputation?

With that kind of preparation to meet the needs of all involved, how can you be anything but confident and constantly engaged as you continue to grow your network, your reputation, your business, your career and your ongoing success?  And, if you're wired anything like me, also have fun in the process?