Managing Death at Work

I'm in a bit of a surreal state right now: Brian, the beloved husband of my dear friend Lisa, passed away in his sleep Saturday morning from an unexpected and shocking heart attack at the too-young age of 44, a day after Lisa and Brian's 15th wedding anniversary. My son Noah is buds with their sons Charlie and Timmy. I'm not quite grasping that he's gone. I spent yesterday and today calling Lisa's extended circles of friends and colleagues to share this very sad news, the minimum mitzvah I can offer at the moment, aside from urging you to love the ones you're with, every day, like Brian and Lisa did.

Brian totally rocked. In additional to being a wonderful husband and father (we all attend the same church, which is how we met), he was a Senior / LEED Mechanical Engineer with a great professional reputation, reinforced by his calm, direct and almost Buddha-like presence. Which served him and our church well as a member of our Trust Committee. He also reminded me of my Grandaddy Nat of beloved memory: Brian could do all of his own electrical, plumbing and carpentry work. He knew how to run natural gas lines, which allowed him to completely renovate their kitchen and bathroom. Brian also cooked up biofuel to use in the family diesel cars. He had been spending the summer putting new siding on the family house. He has just taken Charlie and Tim on our church camp-out in Cooperstown, and then journeyed with them to use their season tickets at Six Flags in New Jersey. Lisa had given him a brand new toilet last Christmas, in anticipation of his next project to renovate the second-floor attic space. Our collective handyfolk are discussing how they will complete Brian's projects for him.

One of the few beacons during this tragic weekend was the response from Brian's manager to the news of Brian's unexpected death. The manager, extremely emotional himself, told Lisa on Saturday that Brian was highly respected at their company, and that their customers specifically asked to work with Brian. A heartfelt, authentic and welcome message for Lisa in the midst of her grief, demonstrating how as Brian's manager, that he truly saw him and his gifts, and lifted them up. Well done.

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?

Declare Your Independence in Business and at Work

I must admit, I'm a bit sentimental about the Fourth of July holiday, e.g. patriotic. It annoys my husband Joel ever so slightly, sometimes reminding him of more rigid, intolerant and oppressive flag-waver types, and for that reason questions the authenticity of wearing red, white and blue as an expression of freedom given the occasional abuse of power.

However, I'm not that type of flag-waver. My patriotism - and pursuit of happiness and autonomy, in my career and in my business - is grounded more in gratitude. Gratitude for those generations who came before me, making my life so much better today than it clearly was for them. Grateful for my great-great-grandmother Katie Markowitz of blessed memory, married at 15 years old and a mother at 16 years old. Who, according to the 1900 census, emigrated to Manhattan from Moscow, Russia with her two oldest children in steerage for what was definitely not a luxury cruise for nearly 3 weeks in 1896, following her husband Davis of blessed memory who had emigrated before her almost 2 years earlier, arriving with little more than a few clothes and no job or business. My own private refuse of foreign shores. Who proceeded to have four more children, including my grandfather Joseph of blessed memory, also known as Markie, who died years before I was born at the age of 51. When Katie died, and of what, we don't know; however, I suspect she died young from a hard life of poverty and childbirth / child-rearing thereof.

Gratitude for my great-grandmother Rose of blessed memory, who's husband Abe, my great-grandfather of blessed memory, died in the 1918 influenza epidemic just a little less than 15 years after they both emigrated here from Austria as young teenagers, also with very little in the way of personal belongings and no jobs: but in search of a better quality of life and more personal freedom.

I found out only eight years ago that Rose, a master needle-worker, subsequently opened her own notions store on the Lower East Side after Abe's death, to support her two sons, Nat and Eddie. My granddaddy Nat of blessed memory was my son Noah's age, 11 years old, at the time of his father's death, and he quit school to get a job to help support the family. In the tradition of my tribe, Noah is named for Nat.

My ancestors of blessed memory came to the United States to find a better life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren, leaving everything and everyone they knew, taking the risk and arriving with nothing but their smarts and their stamina. In the process, they learned and worked hard at their trades; to build careers; to run their businesses; with the hope that their children and their grandchildren would find even more blessings. We did. Thank you for bringing our families here to live and thrive.

As one of their children, I have been blessed with great opportunities and a wonderful career that has forged the strengths of the person I am today. In honor of the 2012 Fourth of July holiday, I am proud to follow the path of my ancestors with the blessing of enough client work to step full-time into my consulting business, Deb Best Practices - in the arch of my combined family history, one of the mildest of risks to date, indeed.

For my colleagues, friends and family: I wish for you the authentic prosperity of your own independence and autonomy, born of those who came before us to bring us to this moment: to express the vocational music within you, whether you are in a career job or your own business, or both. As my friend Barry would say: "Nike! Just do it!"

 Happy Independence Day!

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.

Innovation and Growth in Work and Business Love a Vacuum (Breakdown)

My husband Joel's business, The Best Framing Company, celebrates its 18-year anniversary this month.

The Best Framing Company was conceived early in 1994 when the owner (Joel's boss at the time) of the local Deck-the-Walls franchise decided not to renew his 10-year franchise. Before he closed the store down, the franchise owner offered Joel and me the opportunity to renew the franchise for $350,000, at a 6% interest rate. The franchise owner offered to hold the 10-year note, and we would make the astronomical and discouraging monthly payments to him, with little hope of making any profit. No, thank you. Joel had had enough of mall working life. And we had just purchased our first home, so our savings account was a bit thin and our bills were much more substantial. Joel and his boss proceeded to make arrangements to close the store by April 1994, and Joel commenced his job search, a bit discouraged at the thought of working for one of the competitors.  

That offer from Joel's boss sparked an idea. Why not open our own store, in a small strip mall, and Joel could make his own hours? As a skilled custom picture-framer, Joel had a healthy client list of happy customers. Armed with that unique selling proposition and our respective skill sets and smarts, Joel and I proceeded to complete the four months of research and legwork to build a business plan to obtain a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to open The Best Framing Company's bricks-and-mortar storefront.

By the time Joel was laid off, we completed the business plan. Joel continued his job search and fixed up our new 1944 house while I shopped our 40-plus-page business plan around to SBA loan providers.

One of the local nonprofits at the time ran an SBA loan program: I sent the business plan to the nonprofit, and the 21 year-old pisher loan coordinator said that 1) our business plan was great; and 2) we were a shoe-in to get our loan. The Pisher assured us we would be on the May 1994 loan review committee agenda. Armed with that information, I made arrangements to lease a store space effective June 1, 1994 and order the materials Joel would need to open the store, using a $6,000 credit union line-of-credit.

The day before the loan review meeting, I called the Pisher to ask when we would appear. "Oh," he said, rightfully embarrassed. "I forgot to put your loan review on the agenda. He heard me choke. "But don't worry," he hurriedly said, hoping to avoid my expected outburst. "We can get you on the July agenda. I was deadly and sadly, calm. "You've just put my husband and me into financial jeopardy," I carefully said. "What are you going to do to fix this?" The Pisher did not man up. "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do," he said. "But let me give you the phone number of Manny Choi at Fleet Bank, who is on our loan committee. He may be able to help you." I hung up the phone and cursed loudly, dropping F-bombs for 15 minutes straight. When I was done, and calm again, I called Manny Choi.

 He agreed to meet me the next morning. I did not sleep at all that night. And while I'm not normally a crier, I cried bitter tears all night long. Joel tried to console me, but I was inconsolable. "Who the hell do I think I am," I wailed to Joel. "What business do I have thinking that I can put together a business plan?" Now I've pushed us deeper into debt. $6,000 will not cover all of the initial carrying costs. I'm so sorry I've gotten us into this!"

Joel knew better. "It's a great plan, and we'll get a loan somewhere else, I know we will," he said, 110% solid in his belief in my abilities, and his own. "We can definitely do this." I took a much-need break from the tears, sniffling. "You're just saying that because you love me," I said, whimpering a bit around the edges - also unlike me. Joel hugged me. "No, I'm not," he said, firmly. "I would tell you if I thought we should quit. We haven't explored all of our options yet."

The next morning, calm from lack of sleep and all cried out, I donned my best blue navy suit and met with Manny Choi. I watched him for nearly 45 minutes as he read all 40 pages of our business plan, occasionally nodding. He closed the plan, and looked up at me. "What do you think?" I asked him. He smiled. "I think we can get you a loan. I'll just need current résumés for you and Joel. You have a good plan here." I exhaled. Joel was right. We got the loan.

As I learn and grow incrementally wiser from these wonderful adventures, I'm quicker to remember my Daddy's advice: if you make 30 calls and you get one sale, you're doing well. In order to start The Best Framing Company, we only needed to make two calls before we got the sale. Or as my friend Barb Wisnom would say: just try and collect 20 "no's." We were only able to collect one "no" before we got the "yes!"

Good hunting for your "yes's" this week, and every week. And savor the creativity and growth that you will produce when faced with the vacuum of a breakdown. For that - and you - are the gift and the breakthrough in the face of every breakdown.

 Happy Anniversary, hon!  

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?

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.

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.

Say Yes to Mentees at Work (and on LinkedIn!)

At the beginning of my HR career, as I laid off many discouraged Aerospace employees weekly, I discovered that I loved giving them career and job search feedback.  It was like practicing Reiki:  I was equally energized at the end of a conversation inspiring them to try something new in their job search or their career, based on what I learned about their talents / interests.  When that ignition conversation produced results for my clients:  wow, that was great.

It energized me so much that I approached a Ph.D organizational effectiveness consultant hired by my company at that time to ensure that we maximized our restructuring / layoff efforts.  I explained to him what I just explained to you above, and I asked him what type of training / education I could pursue to develop and follow my newly discovered vocational bliss.  He barely made eye contact with me.  "I don't know what to tell you," he answered, distracted and disinterested.  I was momentarily discouraged, and not at all impressed.  I followed my bliss and found my way anyway.  It was just another instance of whistling in the dark along my career path and following my instincts, which are usually spot on.

This past week, I received a LinkedIn message from a young man named Daniel who is as passionate about Corporate Recruitment and Change Management as I am.  He wanted to speak to someone who shared his vocational interests and who was farther along in their career.  Apparently, his manager did a LinkedIn search and came up with my profile, particularly since I indicate on my LinkedIn profile that I'm open to expertise requests.  So naturally, I said yes to Daniel.  We set up a time to talk, and I offered to share my experience, strength and hope.

Daniel is enthusiastic, talented and lucky to work for an organization that encourages his high level of engagement and personal vocational vision. As with the vast majority of the mentees who seek me out, I validated and verified the treasures that are already there, some recognized and some unrecognized.  Like Glinda (The Good Witch), I shine the light on the ruby slippers and delight in their joy that the answers were always there.  And in return, I am once again energized and renewed.  I learn as much, if not more, from my mentees as they do from me.  And Daniel, my first mentee via LinkedIn, was no exception.

Thank you, Daniel.

Keep saying "yes!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

The other source is Buddha, of course.

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

But what the hell do I mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Work Friends Are Risky Rungs on the Career Ladder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Banish Bitter and Blotchy From the Interview (Sales Call)

Several years ago, I sat at my company's booth at a large job fair. I was alone covering the booth as the other members of my recruiting team were out on a break.  

A job-seeker approached the booth:  a gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a nice navy suit, red silk tie, polished shoes, equipped with a leather portfolio and linen paper résumés.  On the outside, he looked great, quite hireable.  On the inside:  he was a mess and he proceeded to over-share with me (A career-long occupational hazard for me:  I'm a recruiter, among other SME gears, yet candidates more often than not mistake me for their therapist, whether it's on the phone or in person.).  "Hi!" he chirped, slapping one of his résumés on the booth counter.  "Need an accountant?"  I smiled back.  "Not at the moment.  However, I'd be happy to have your résumé in the event we need one in the future."  

His face fell, and he was visibly annoyed.  "It's because I'm 53, right?" he insisted.  He shook his head.  "It's why my boss let me go, and it's why I can't get hired:  no one wants to hire anyone over 40."  He began to walk away before I could even respond.  Usually, I'd let bitter-and-blotchy candidates like him go their miserable way.   The first candidate contact is like the first date:  candidates are (theoretically) on their best behavior, and hiring bitter-and-blotchy usually doesn't end well.   But he was clearly discouraged and clueless, not a winning combination.

"Excuse me, please don't walk away," I requested.  The job-seeker turned around, surprised.  "Are you talking to me?" he asked.  "Yes please, if you don't mind:  I can't leave the booth right now," I replied.  He came back to the booth, clearly curious.  

I leaned over the booth counter.  "I know why you're not getting hired.  Are you interested in hearing why?"  He nodded.  "You need to move past how your last boss hurt you, and let it go," I confided.  "And if you can't do it yourself, ask someone you trust to help you work on it, so you won't ever speak to a hiring manager like that again."  He was a bit stunned.  "I am hurt," he said, sadness replacing anger.  "I know," I replied gently.  "And it's stopping people from hiring you."

He paused for a moment.  "I've never had a recruiter speak to me like this before. I appreciate the feedback, but why are you telling me this?"

I smiled.  "Because you have a great résumé, and I just hired a 73 year-old last week."  

He laughed, and thought for a moment.  "Well, I have a good friend who's a Vice President of Human Resources:  I could buy him a cup of coffee and talk it through with him."

"Perfect, please do!"  I said,  extending my hand.  "Good luck."  He shook my hand.  "Thank you for telling me."  he said. "I appreciate your honesty."

I know what you're thinking:  how could this candidate not know the impact he was making with his bitter-and-blotchy presentation and baggage, especially spewing his grief and anger all over a hiring authority / decision-maker?   It's pretty simple:  a lot of folks are so verklempt over their losses and challenges that their feelings are driving the bus instead of their common sense and sales ability.  They're not focused on consciously managing their changes.

Change Management SME's emphasize that in order for people to effectively manage change, they must achieve some closure with the past and let it go, so they can move forward and resiliently embrace change.

Whether you're selling yourself in an interview, or selling your product to a potential customer (same thing in my reckoning),  leave the past and the bitter-and-blotchy attitude behind:  so you can move forward, close the sale and build your success.

Get a Job (Or Find an Employee, Customer or Vendor) on LinkedIn, The New Career Frontier!

After only 5 months after their layoff from a slowly dying organization, Recently Laid-Off Colleague #1 got a great job offer this week at a growth-economy firm, at a salary higher than their last job.

The only place their new job was posted was on LinkedIn.

#1's new boss called me for a reference.  She already knew about my background and relationship to #1, because she looked up my profile on LinkedIn before she picked up the phone.  A new network connection was born, and I look forward to meeting #1's new boss in the near future.  We both agreed that #1 was a great find, given their esoteric skill set and how difficult, in any economy, to source talented candidates like #1 in that particular discipline.

Yet another reason why I love LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is like a multi-dimensional Rolodex (and much more!) for me:  I grow and keep track of my network and my business on LinkedIn.  It is a wonderful tool that perfectly complements my in-person networking / connecting, as I network for both fun and profit.

How is LinkedIn working for you, and how are you working LinkedIn?  Connect with me here or on LinkedIn, and share your LinkedIn experience, strength, hope and success! too.

Come In From The Margins

I'm challenging our property tax assessment again this year.  I just finished our complaint, due on Tuesday, chock full of new data and pictures.  I'm looking forward to talking to the Board of Assessors again later this week.

Joel and I watched in awe as the value of the house we bought nearly 18 years ago essentially doubled by 2008.  Yep, the same year our town decided to reassess all of our houses at full market value.  The housing market crashed just a few months after the new tax rolls were published.

No one taught me how to put together a property tax complaint.  But thanks to the experience of researching and writing discrimination complaint position statement responses and appearing at discovery hearings, that honed skill set, with a bit of help from my girlfriend Google, served us well last year, as I expect it will this year.  Rather than just complain (no pun intended!) about how outdated our 2008 property tax assessment was, I took the risk and completed work in an area I never imagined experiencing.  And saved us, at minimum, the cost of using someone else to represent us in an area we know so well:  our own house.

When Joel was laid off in 1994 because his boss decided not to renew the 10-year the Deck the Walls franchise (and we declined the offer to take on a new 10-year, $350,000 franchise agreement ourselves on a note that Joel's boss also offered to hold, a new level of their working relationship Joel and I simply did not want to explore), he spent 4 months on unemployment while I researched and wrote the business plan to get us a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to start our own picture-framing store, The Best Framing Company.  No one taught me to put together a business plan.  However, I knew how to research (using AOL in its infancy); use MS Excel; and write a great story, factual or fictional.  Working at GE during that time was also a boon to this process, to this day a key and foundational career experience.  I doubted myself every day during the process, but Joel's faith in me and my abilities never wavered.  Long story short:  we got the loan.  Unsecured, based on our collective talent and experience.  It was a bit like a pregnancy and birth process:  our first joint creation, before our son Noah.  With some of the same pain, complaining and self-doubt:  but in the end, a great product.  And we created it ourselves, from scratch.  No stinkin' franchise for us.

What will you do this week to create something that you've never done before:  to create from scratch, your skills and experiences manifested in a new area; your own vision, realized?  With the sure knowledge that you can come in from the margins:  layoff; career and business set-backs; personal pain and crisis:  and start once again, with courage, creativity, renewed faith and irrepressible energy that comes from the best source:  you.

Love in the Time of Layoff

The Cold War had ended during the previous decade, sealing the downward spiral of the aerospace business where I started my HR career.  I had spent more than 3 years as part of an HR team charged with laying off nearly 5,000 people in a small and isolated city.  The repetitive finality of our work was wearing us down, and we were all tired.

So when Tom, the site HR Manager, took me out to the nicest restaurant in town to lay me off over lunch, it was at first viscerally a relief.  It was not my first visit to the Recession Rodeo.  I had been laid off by a non-profit a few years earlier after a major stock market flop eradicated their endowment:  the non-profit went out of business and I was unemployed for 8 months.  I networked with over 150 decision-makers during that time period, which resulted in one immediate job, and one eventual job:  the eventual job was working for Tom.

While it would be flip of me to recommend the layoff experience as an opportunity to cleanse the vocational palate and gain clarity regarding life / career goals and priorities, that experience without exception has consistently delivered gifts that I never expected in the form of career, mentoring, self-development and entrepreneurial opportunities.  I always gain skills and strengthen my ability to earn money for myself and my employers / customers.

Over a luscious and extravagant lunch, Tom, my site HR Manager, was far more upset than I was during the layoff discussion:  uncharacteristically so, as his usual demeanor was laid-back and affable in a typically reserved HR manner.  He then gave me an unexpected gift:  the gift of transparent authenticity.  "Headquarters unexpectedly told me that I had to cut another HR headcount," Tom related, his eyes suspiciously moist.  "While you're one of my strongest performers and promotable, you have the shortest service in the group.  I had no choice but to lay you off, Deb."

Tom was always a wonderful mentor and coach.  His first coaching to me was my nickname.  "You're definitely a Deb and not a Debbie,"  he advised me.  "Deb is more serious and commanding:  Deb you are."

I was a mix of emotions:  genuinely grateful for Tom's support and positive feedback in the moment of laying me off; and a bit anxious, given that Joel and I were planning to be married in 4 months.  "Tom, I'd like to thank you for your kindness, and your mentoring, it has really meant a great deal to me.  I'd like to be able to use you as a reference,  How can I help with transitioning my work in return?"  I replied.  Tom smiled for the first time during lunch.  "I'll do better than that," he said.  Let me work my internal company network and see what I can do."

I continued to work during my 60-day WARN notice period, while Tom reached out to his network in other divisions of our company.  A week before I was due to hit the street, Tom recommended me for another job locally in a different division, at a 14% pay increase.

And it happened because Tom and I stood up for each other, authentically.  Even at the time of layoff.

Recently, I have borne witness to another example of love in the time of layoff manifested in Peter, the Executive Director at Mediation Matters, in the form of authentic and transparent communication to the organization's volunteer community, paraphrased here:

Dear Volunteers:

By now, you all know that we absorbed a significant cut in our state allocation, virtually cutting our budget in half.

As a result, we have had no choice but to make some wrenching staffing decisions.

I have laid off both Heidi and Quent, effective Friday, April 28, 2011.  Both Heidi and Quent are amazing employees and exceptional human beings, and they will be sorely missed.  

This decision was almost certainly the most difficult of my life.

Peter.

Here is Heidi's good-bye email to us, paraphrased:

Dear Volunteers,

My last day is Friday and I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you for an amazing nine years.

I worked for Peter for a month before going out on maternity leave. Peter took a chance on me in 2006 and hired me back on with Mediation Matters and for this I will be forever grateful.

You all will always be very near and dear to my heart.

Thank you and I wish you all the very best!

Heidi.

As an HR practitioner, I strive to walk the talk authentically and with love, even in the time of layoff.  Peter, however, has taken that love to a new and even more authentic level.

More importantly, however:  for those hiring authorities who without exception screen out laid-off candidates:  how can you resist hiring authentic and passionate talent such as Heidi and Quent, who have been lucky enough to be mentored by managers like Peter, who will unconditionally and publicly stand up for them in the time of layoff?

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HR Leadership: Counselor; Consigliere; CEO

At this point in his life, it's easier to explain to my 9 year-old son Noah one of my concurrent vocational paths: Human Resources, or HR.  Noah gets that I've often performed many of the functions of his elementary school principal:  hiring, promotion / recognition / reward, intervention, mediation, discipline.  And while his principal has not fired anyone during Noah's tenure, he knows what that is, too.

It's the adults who often don't understand the role an HR leader can play in positively contributing to an organization's success, particularly in a more progressive organization.  It's more than just hiring, firing and processing paperwork.  I'm not going to bore you with the history of the human resources function.  If you're interested in that information, here's a resource (and for some, a sleep aid).  Since the HR function basically originated in the Finance / Accounting function, you'll generally find HR reporting to the CFO in more traditional organizations.  In more progressive organizations, HR reports directly to the CEO / President.  The proverbial and coveted "seat at the table."

I have as a general practice used the following two popular cultural references to explain with more depth and texture the value-added organizational role an HR leader can play.

For Trekkers:

In the Star Trek universe, Counselor Troi is the HR Leader for Star Trek, Next Generation.  Here's the Star Trek.com take on her leadership role (Note: just for the record, I do not at all resemble this physical depiction, nor would I show this much cleavage at work):

Although actually of mixed human and Betazoid heritage, Troi is one of many from her planet active in the Starfleet counselor corps and was ship's counselor for the U.S.S. Enterprise throughout its service life and now aboard its successor namesake. Troi's race is known for its inter-species telepathy and its emotional empathy with most other species whether on board the ship, in a ship at close proximity or on the planet below. While such a capacity has heightened her counseling skills, they have also aided her captain's command mission decisions on several occasions, including hostile encounters, negotiations, and first-contact missions.

Also for the record:  I am not an empath and I was born in Queens, NY, very much of this earth (although there are some who have a different opinion, I have the floor in this blog).  However, the last part of the excerpt:   they have also aided her captain's command mission decisions on several occasions, including hostile encounters, negotiations, and first-contact missions -- is spot on.

Whatever organization I've worked in, I thankfully was taught to become as much of a subject-matter expert as my client leaders, so that I could provide the best advice and counsel.  In the more traditional organizations / leadership teams, I give my best advice and professionally accept the fact that the decision is ultimately up to the operations leader I serve.  (E.g. Troi's service to Captain Picard.)

However, on the more progressive leadership teams I've served, the work of running the organization has been shared and collaborative, cross-trained and therefore seamless:  any one of us on the leadership team, including me, the HR geek, could take the helm and run the ship.  Those have been the best, most fulfilling and most educational leadership experiences, and I strive to recreate that collaborative cross-functional leadership spirit wherever I serve.

For the mainstream audience:  

The HR Leader is the Consigliere, as represented by Tom Hagen in The Godfather.  Here's Wikipedia's take on the role of Consigliere in the leadership structure:

In the movies The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, the consigliere to Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), and later Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), is Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall). Hagen is the adopted son of Don Vito Corleone, and a lawyer for the family. At the end of The Godfather, Don Vito's successor and son, Michael Corleone, temporarily demotes Hagen within the organization, moving him to Las Vegas, saying "things are going to get rough, and I need a wartime consigliere." (In an earlier scene, Santino 'Sonny' Corleone, Michael's older brother and acting Don after Vito Corleone's attempted assassination, similarly criticizes Hagen.) Vito Corleone, Michael's father, replaces Hagen at Michael's side until his death. After killing the heads of the five families, Michael reinstates Tom.
 
In Italian, consigliere means "advisor" or "counselor." It is derived from Latin consiliarius (advisor) and consilium (advice). The terminology of the U.S. Mafia is taken from that of the Sicilian Mafia and suggests that an analogy is intended to imitate the court of a medieval Italian principality. For example, Venice was led by a doge (duke) and a consigliere ducale (advisor to the doge). An underboss will normally move up to boss when the position becomes vacant, so his position is equivalent to that of heir to the throne. Consigliere, meanwhile, is analogous to chief minister or chancellor. (Oddly, in the novel The Godfather, the word is spelled consigliori; in the films, it is clearly pronounced consigliere.) In Joe Bonanno's book (A Man Of Honor) he explains that a consigliere is more of the voice or rep for the soldiers of the family, and may help solve and mediate disputes for the lower echelon of the family. 

The consigliere role is also spot on. I have conducted some my best career work behind the scenes; for example,  mediating disputes that would otherwise undermine the organization, with little fanfare. And when I started my HR career, my dress code was the female version of Tom Hagen's standard 1950's business attire.

However, the ultimate HR leadership cultural reference is Xerox's former CEO Anne Mulcahy, 2008 Chief Executive of the Year, as described in Chief Executive Magazine:

The choice for the 2008 Chief Executive of the Year marks several firsts. By her own admission Anne Mulcahy did not set out to become a chief executive. Nor was she groomed to become one. Neither did she bargain to face what some have called the turnaround of the century when her predecessor, Paul Allaire, called her into his office one day in 2001 to say that the top job was hers. Allaire himself returned to the company at the request of the board when Xerox dumped Allaire's chosen successor Rick Thoman. Fortune dubbed her "The Accidental CEO." One might add "Improbable Turnaround CEO," since everyone knows turnaround bosses tend to come from the outside. (Former Lee Iacocca point man "Steve" Miller is the archetype.) Mulcahy had worked for Xerox for 24 years at the time of her appointment; she spent 16 of those years in sales and the rest heading HR. The company was so much in her blood she bled copier toner.  

Oh yes, Mulcahy is also the first woman CEO to be chosen by her peers for the honor of Chief Executive of the Year. 

 Mulcahy joined Xerox as a field sales representative in 1976 and rose through the ranks. From 1992-1995, Mulcahy was vice president for human resources, responsible for compensation, benefits, human resource strategy, labor relations, management development and employee training. Mulcahy became chief staff officer in 1997 and corporate senior vice president in 1998. Prior to that, she served as vice president and staff officer for Customer Operations, covering South America and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and China. 

Forget about being granted a seat at the leadership table:  Mulcahy built her own seat, and more importantly, used her discretionary power to make even more room at the leadership table. Crowning her career as CEO at Xerox, Mulcahy broke new ground in naming her successor, also courtesy of Wikipedia: 

Ursula M. Burns (born September 20, 1958) serves as chairwoman and CEO of Xerox. She is the first African-American woman CEO to head a S&P 100 company. She is also the first woman to succeed another woman as head of a S&P 100 company. In 2009, Forbes rated her the 14th most powerful woman.^[1] 

From Customer Service to  HR to CEO:  now that's what I'm talking about in terms of cross-functional and seamless leadership, and development thereof.

What role does HR play in your organization: clerk, Counselor, Consigliere, or CEO?  Is your HR Leader bench ready to be CEO? 

Stop and Listen for the Needs Underneath the Yelling

As a native of Queens, NY, I used to have only two communications gears:  speaking loudly and yelling.  Due in part to our geographic location and also due to our family's ethnic and cultural paradigm.

Subsequently, I have spent my entire adult life in the Albany, New York area.  Even at this writing, most Albany natives rarely use their horns to defensively drive.  It's considered rude.  In other words, when you honk your horn around here, it's a form of automotive yelling.  Yes, it's one of my few remaining vices.

At the beginning of my HR career, I was not only lucky enough to receive extensive formal and on-the-job training, but I was also taught and repeatedly trained to develop other communications gears besides downshifting into Queens.  The success profile of my organization at the time was reserved and analytical. I am anything but reserved, but also analytical.  The coaching, for the most part, was therefore successful.  After every meeting together, my boss Bill would take me aside.  "You did very well in the meeting," Bill would say.  "However, I have one piece of coaching for you:  speak less and more softly." Bill was a wonderful mentor and I think of him often, all these years later.  Even at those coaching moments when I sighed and wanted a coaching rain-check, I treasure his perseverance and interest in molding me for success and subsequent promotion.

One of my first HR client managers there was the Purchasing Manager; he was a great guy who drove a Harley to work every day, rain or shine, and relished beating the stuffing out of our vendors, as was our organization's performance norm for the Purchasing function.  He and I were two very loud peas in a padded pod, and very much the organizational culture's exception.  We had a rambunctious debate on an employee relations issue in front of one of my more experienced and very reserved HR colleagues.  "Wow," my HR colleague said, "that's the loudest conversation I've ever witnessed at work." (Wow, I thought -- really?) "Why did you two have to yell at each other?"  He was genuinely upset.  Both the Purchasing Manager and I were surprised.  "We just had a great conversation and resolved the issue, we weren't yelling at each other," the Purchasing Manager reassured my HR colleague.  "No worries.  I need my HR person to be direct and to the point."

Bill's coaching sank in nonetheless:  I consciously and for the most part consistently modulated my tone of voice and developed my HR poker face, and learned to listen first and talk later.  Completely out of my comfort zone, but part of the Zen practice to achieve my goal to do human resources and organization effectiveness work.

At my next organization, yelling was the communications norm.  However, something wonderful clicked early in my tenure there.  Because I listened first -- or as Covey would say, I sought first to understand, rather than to be understood -- that's where I first started to hear the needs underneath the yelling.

We were in the process of acquiring another company, and we were making relocation employment offers to several of the other company's employees located out of town.  Since the acquisition had triggered a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Act scenario, these employees had 30 days to consider the relocation employment offers.

My boss at time, one of the organization's executives and not an HR professional by background, was, to put it mildly, livid.  In the privacy of his office, he yelled for 20 minutes straight about the absurdity of the WARN Act and how it was preventing him (and us) from conducting our business.  I immediately understood that he was mad at the WARN Act and not at me.  "I know, it's very frustrating," I murmured periodically.  At one point, when he paused to catch his breath, I gently observed:  "You know, I find the IRS Tax Code completely frustrating and illogical.  But like the WARN Act, we're forced to follow it too."  He immediately calmed down, and apologized 3 times to me for yelling. "No worries," I responded.  "I know how you feel, legal and compliance boundaries are often frustrating."

Clearly, there's a time and a place for yelling, preferably in private.  And there's a clear distinction between loud emoting and loud (demeaning) abuse.  I'd rather have my partners and customers at work be authentic, and at times, they need to yell.  In a functional culture, yelling is definitely more the exception rather than the rule, at all levels.  When change is occurring, yelling can be part of the flak we experience from each other as we get closer to the change target.

During my training as a mediator with Mediation Matters, our trainer, Duke Fisher, confirmed my HR experience in needs-identification perfectly.  He encouraged us through role-play and other mediation training experiences that the key to mediating conflict (whether it's over dog poop or international relations) is to first have the courage to listen for the needs underneath the yelling without taking it personally.  And that when one party keeps yelling about the same issue, that's one of several divining rods to accurately isolate the needs underneath the yelling, which in turn will become the building blocks of a solution to move forward.  To meet needs and create peace.

The source of all human conflict, Duke taught us, is needs met and unmet.

I'm here to listen, whether you're yelling or not:  just tell me what you need.

Don't Phone in Your Performance

NPR's termination of their correspondent Juan Williams via a phone call after his questionable comments on the Fox Network has grabbed headlines over the last week.

Williams' termination has a number of fascinating facets to consider, and I'd like to focus on how he was terminated by NPR:  via a phone call.  Look how it has bruised NPR's reputation. 

Specifically, terminating an employee by phone (or email, or text message, or by any other electronic or non-electronic means, such as the U.S. Mail) who is not a danger to themselves or others is inauthentic, disrespectful and just not good business. Videoconferencing is even a stretch. 

In the case of terminations for cause, e.g. theft, progressively documented poor performance, failure to adhere to company policies, failure to work scheduled hours, etc., when documented accurately and communicated consistently, the face-to-face discussions are actually brief and to the point.  No surprises.  The employee has effectively terminated themselves.  And they usually feel bad and take responsibility during the discussion, and occasionally apologize.  That's what happens when you conduct the disciplinary / termination process authentically, and consistently, without making exceptions, particularly potentially discriminatory exceptions. 

When you operate from a premise of truth and you have prepared in terms of documentation, procedure and contingency, the face-to-face discussion, and your potential discomfort in the anticipation thereof, take care of themselves.

Several good reasons which support the good old-fashioned face-to-face method, and your courage to take that route.

I am also a strong advocate of having the supervisor drive the termination discussion. After all, they are the organization's management representative with the best first-hand knowledge of the employee's performance, in continued support of authenticity.  As the HR subject-matter expert, of course I don't mind sitting in on termination discussions to support the supervisor and provide the recommended witness to such discussions.  If a supervisor is inexperienced and asks for help, I will drive the discussion for them as a coaching moment to train the supervisor in order to prepare them to drive their next termination discussion.

Delegating a termination discussion to HR "because they're the experts" deprives both the employee and the supervisor of dignity and closure.

I've experienced very few exceptions where termination by phone or mail make sense.  One memorable example is the employee who was constructing weapons and storing them at their work station.  Upon discovery of their cache, I walked them out of the building and subsequently mailed their termination letter to them, return receipt requested. I was spared the potential safety issue of being in the same room with them thereafter when they dropped their unemployment insurance claim after I included a picture of their weapons in the employer's document challenging their claim.

In Williams' case, there doesn't appear to be any safety issues:  he just shot off his mouth and subsequently shot himself in the foot:  metaphorically speaking, of course.

Another example is acting as a witness by phone to a manager in a remote location while he terminated his employee in person.

In our roles as managers and leaders (and in general), unquestionably, both difficult and good news is best delivered face-to-face.  In the case of Juan Williams, I would have advised the decision-maker to first take a step back and quickly plan the most authentic course of action to best support the needs and esteem of all parties involved.  Terminating Williams by a phone call would not have been one of my recommendations.

In support of your success:  don't phone in your performance.

Chicken Soup and Change Management

The impact of change on the people in an organization is like turning on the burner under a pot of uncooked chicken soup.

As the water around the components - the chicken parts, the vegetables and the spices - heats up and begins to boil, detritus floats to the top, foamy, fatty and dirty, which should be skimmed off several times during the cooking process to optimize the chicken soup product.

In other words, the heat makes the crap float to the top.

Every time you make chicken soup, it's the same reliable routine.

The female relative who taught me to make chicken soup strains everything out of the soup once it's cooked.  She saves the boiled chicken and serves it for dinner, and throws away all the vegetables.  The remaining broth is populated with bland thin noodles.  "Why don't you keep the vegetables and the chicken in the soup?" I once asked.  "Because my mother taught me how to make soup that way," was the answer.

With the availability of fresh chicken broth in local grocery stores, these bland machinations have made less sense over the years.

When I'm at the stove, I leave the vegetables in the soup, add a bit more onion and get daring with garlic, and cut up the chicken in the soup.  Tastes better and it's great when you have a cold; I've never received a complaint.

Now, we've all heard the change metaphor about the frog in the pot.  As you gradually turn up the heat on the pot, the frog gets so used to the heat that it cooks rather than jumps.  Yuck.

I relate more to chicken soup as a change metaphor, for several reasons:

• Without heat (change), you get a cold, inedible and dangerous pot of potentially salmonella-tainted raw chicken and vegetable slop;
• If you do heat up and cook the pot of chicken soup but you don't skim off the crap that initially and subsequently floats to the top, it's still edible but you can't tell from the looks of it, so you probably won't eat it, wasting the effort and negating its impact;
• Chicken soup can be processed antiseptically, or with love; you can tell the difference in the quality and the taste;
• Chicken soup is the cultural manna of my tribe; 
• Cooking a live frog is disgusting and will invariably piss PETA off.

I recently worked with a client, the President of a growing company going through tremendous change.  He hired me to develop and implement the change management plan, which involved among other activities, organizing an event to interview a large group of candidates for potential new jobs.

Everything went well and as planned, actually better than I expected.  As I multi-tasked between interviewing, candidate coordination and paper-shuffling, I went out to the lobby to fetch the next scheduled candidate.  I discovered the President sitting with the group of remaining candidates, shooting the breeze with the group as if they were gathered after work to watch the game.  They were all laughing and having a good time.  That wasn't in the project plan.

"Sorry to interrupt," I interjected, pleased but not surprised, knowing the President.  "I need Jack for his interview."  Jack rose and shook the President's hand.  "Nice to spend time with you," Jack said to the President.  "Good luck, Jack!" the President responded.  Jack walked down the hall to the interview room with me, still smiling.  "What a great guy," he said.  "I wasn't expecting him to sit down and talk to us."

Or help cook and serve the chicken soup, clearly made with (organizational) love.