Best Practice: Leading with an Attitude of Gratitude and Appreciation

Last week, I was privileged to bear witness to an amazing recognition experience.

Like many of us who volunteer our time and talent, I am a professional volunteer mediator for Mediation Matters in the Albany, NY area.   The life-long learning experiences of co-mediating employment, family and small-claims court disputes and the companion basic and advanced in-service trainings have been and are thanks enough for me; they had me at hello.

A definite bonus was the annual volunteer recognition dinner held at Longfellows in Saratoga Springs, NY last week and underwritten by one of Mediation Matters' donors.  Great food by Longfellows as usual.  Several of the judges whose courts are supported by the alternative dispute resolution services offered by the organization expressed their gratitude for the work of the volunteers; wonderful to hear as well.

Clearly, the icing on the cake was when Sarah, the Deputy Executive Director, stepped up to the podium to recognize us volunteers.  Before one of her colleagues handed each of us a recognition certificate, Sarah proceeded to recognize each and every volunteer and staff member (including her boss, Peter, the Executive Director) with a heart-felt and authentic description of the unique talents and contributions each of us - at least 5 - 6 minutes for each volunteer and staff member, nearly 40 of us in the room - had brought to support the good work of Mediation Matters in the past year.  I was completely blown away by the time and care Sarah had taken to lift each of us up publicly.

Of course, Peter, her boss, completed the process by lifting up Sarah's wonderful contribution as well.

I don't quite remember exactly what Sarah said when she spoke about me (I was misty-eyed and realizing in the moment why Sarah had urged me to attend the dinner), however I do remember her saying that I brought hope to my mediations with my positive energy.

In return, Sarah reinforced my hope and optimism for how leadership can not only engage, but literally transform organizations.  What gifts would we all, as leaders, engender in our organizations if we were to all authentically recognize the true gifts of each member of our organization, one by one, publicly, privately and consistently?

It is Appreciative Inquiry in action:  that we will only as individuals and organizations (and athletes and sports teams, by the way) accelerate success to the level of transformation we all seek by focusing on recruiting, placing and developing strengths, not weaknesses.

As mediators, we are taught the simple but powerful tenet that the source of all human conflict comes down to needs met and unmet.

And that mediation is hosting the conversation between two parties in conflict, so they can together create a new solution that meets the needs of all.  It is tranformative justice on the micro level.  It is the same process used to negotiate peace in international conflicts

How will you use your leadership role to transform the path of success by leveraging the strengths of all to meet the needs of both the organization and the individuals who comprise it?

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.

Taking a Stand Against Bullying is Good Business

At the end of the last school year, with a substitute teacher at the helm of the class, my son's best friend punched him in the stomach.  Noah, with the intent of being helpful, pointed out a misspelling on the project his friend had slaved over and was about to submit.  Noah's friend, whose forte is not spelling, lashed out at Noah in frustration.  The punch surprised and hurt both of them.  They were both sent to the principal's office, and Noah's friend spent the whole school day there.

I saw the friend's mother that night at a school event that Noah's friend could not attend as punishment for the punch.  The look on her face was difficult for both of us.  "It's okay," I said.  "It sounds like the school took care of it."  Noah's school, like many progressive schools, has instituted anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, and more importantly, follow through in their enforcement.

She brightened.  "Yes.  I think they went a bit overboard - I mean, it was just rough-housing.  But they can't act that way at school."

"No," I responded kindly but clearly.   "We don't hit in our house.  And it was a violation of school rules."

"Yes," she said, and we parted the awkward company.

Noah also thought his friend's punishment was a bit extreme.  "I'm not upset anymore,"  Noah reported.  "Why did he have to stay in the principal's office all day?"

I thought for a moment, and spoke out of my own experience.  "Because, honey:  if he doesn't learn to control himself and act respectfully now in school, he'll be fired from his job when he's an adult for that type of behavior.  It's for his own good."  Noah's eyes widened, and he nodded.  He's 9 years old, and he gets it.  Mom has fired adults for hitting and bullying each other.

Taking a stand against bullying, regardless of age or organization, is taking a stand for inclusiveness, which in turn, is good business.

How is it good business?  Banishing bullying from your organization will help minimize the chance that your customers will be treated badly by your employees.  Simple as that.  The internal organizational behavioral norms and values absolutely dictate how your employees interact with your customers.

Without that integrity between internal and external behaviors and values, your customers -- and your business -- are at risk.  It is a paradigm bereft of all authenticity.  And your customers crave authentic interactions.

Taking a stand against bullying also minimizes the needs for third-party involvement, e.g. proposed and current anti-bullying legislation and regulations.  If you're keeping the house of your organization clean, what impact will such mandates really have on your organization?  This stand also minimizes the risk of violating other current harassment and other laws and regulations protecting employees.

An anti-bullying stance is also an educational stand.  Not only only is risk minimized, but the potential for enlightenment and re-direction is possible even for adult learners:  a manifestation for my continual hope for resurrection on the human level.  If not:  then organization bullies need to be made available to industry, as they say.

Noah and his friend remain pals.

Why There's No Crying in Baseball

A League of Their Own is one of the movies I love to watch over and over again.  Literally, I've seen it more than 20 times. 

Now, I'm not necessarily gender-centric in my movie re-run hobby:  another favorite that I never tire of watching is The Hunt for Red October, and there is nary a woman to be found, much less relate to, as a female viewer.  The passion of the strategic intrigue is genderless, at least for me.

If there were a 12-step program for such an addiction, my husband Joel, instead of rolling his eyes and sighing every time I'm glued to one of my repeat favorites, would arrange an intervention and attend the Movie-Anon meetings for enablers.

One of the best scenes in A League of Their Own, I think most of us would agree,  is between the Tom Hanks character Jimmy, the team manager, and Bitty Schram character, Evelyn, when she makes an error that ends a key inning in the game, a.k.a. the "There's No Crying in Baseball" scene.

As I mentioned earlier, I've watched this scene literally dozens of times, and my visceral reaction rarely wavered:  I simultaneously ached for Evelyn and was ashamed of her.  On the surface, I related more to the Rosie O'Donnell character, Doris:  I'm a born and bred 3rd-generation New Yorker.

The shame is as simple as this:  don't let the assholes see you cry.  It just reinforces their gender stereotypes in the workplace and ruins it for the rest of us.

However, when I watch this scene from an organizational / leadership effectiveness standpoint, the perspective is startlingly different.

Jimmy is jonesing for his end-of-season managerial bonus for winning the World's Series, and Evelyn's error does not support his goal.  In order to ensure that she does not make the error again and jeopardize his bonus potential further, he gets in her face and kicks her ass.  Publicly.  "Use your head, " he barks.  "You know -- that lump 3 feet above your ass?" 

The rest of the team is visibly stunned, a mixture of anger, disgust and helplessness.  Doris asks Jimmy to lay off, and he tells her to zip it.  And she does. Why?  Chain-of-command.  While he's an asshole, he's still her manager. So much for the New York attitude advantage.

As Evelyn cries, he's incredulous. "There's no crying in baseball!," he exclaims repeatedly in amazement.  He tells her that he's suffer much worse abuse from his manager, and he didn't cry.  As if he were the incarnation of the Dalai Lama for that alleged accomplishment  She cries harder.  The umpire approaches.  "Sir, she's crying!"  Jimmy exclaims in frustration, appealing to another man.  "Perhaps you should address her as you address your mother," the ump primly advises.  I wince.  He's like a sanctimonious substitute for baseball field HR. 

Hey Ump, I know it's supposed to be 1944 in the movie:  but they taught us in diversity training that using the treatment of mothers and other female relatives as examples of how men should treat women respectfully in the workplace does not consistently wash, e.g. what happens if domestic violence exists in your family?  You think Jimmy kisses his mother with that mouth?

Only when Jimmy calls the umpire a penis in a hat does the ump exercise his discretionary power and throw Jimmy out of the game.  But how does that help the women and men on the team (organization), and the game, move forward?

Everyone here is marginalized.  From Jimmy grasping at the last straws of a wasted career to the women players busting their butts only to lose their jobs when the men return from war to the HR ump, who has no real and lasting impact beyond the current game.

I know the answer isn't for women to emulate these abusive, outdated and stereotypical power behaviors.  Women with Men's Heads, my friend Nan coined years ago.  Watching that in action is even worse than when men do it.  Again, it ruins it for the rest of us and undermines the credibility of women leaders in the workplace.  No one wins, everyone is still marginalized. 

I love the answer Chris Flett proposes in his book, What Men Don't Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook.

Contrary to what the title implies, Flett first lays out the rules of the current power structure; and then lays out a practical plan-forward:  that for organizations to move forward and evolve, they require managerial skills that tend to be more native to women (but also available to men).  In order to do so, we must first understand and learn how to facilitate the power structure where it is (There's No Crying in Baseball) to where it can be (There Are No Assholes in Baseball.)

There's even hope at the end of A League of Their Own.  After making another error in the World Series, Evelyn comes off the field and Jimmy meets her again. "Now Evelyn, I'd like you to work on that for next season," he says, clearly controlling himself.  "I know, I will" she says gently, and walks off the field.  He fribrillates and smiles, nearly choking on his chewing tobacco.

Progress, Not Perfection, as they say in the 12-step rooms.

Are You Teflon, or Gold?

Earlier in my HR career, a new senior manager was referred and recruited by one of our newer senior executives.

The manager, whom I'll call Teflon (the name is changed to protect the guilty), immediately made a big splash with his aggressive tactics.  He was an equal-opportunity asshole, beating the crap out of his vendors, his new colleagues and his new team of employees. He got the best price (in the short term) from his vendors, and he leveraged his senior executive mentor to finger-point cross-functionally and consistently across the organization to further pad his bonus potential by driving down any cross-functional costs that might impact his area.  Of course, this drove up costs in other areas of the organization.

He was a recruiter's nightmare.  I can recall at least 3 candidates who declined to work for the organization because of Teflon's prisoner-of-war interview tactics with them.   "That guy is a lunatic,"  one candidate memorably related.  "I like your organization, but I can't work for him."   Teflon then complained how we weren't filling his jobs quickly enough.  I know you're shocked.  

Whenever Teflon was challenged, he went aggressively postal and blamed his accuser(s) back, loudly and profanely.  Nothing was ever his fault, he was always right.  Teflon's often irrational belief that he was always right was so ingrained in his reality that he was deeply and genuinely hurt by the attacks of his colleagues in response to his attacks.  I once spent an hour in a conference room with him, reluctantly and incredulously offering my maternal HR shoulder as he cried bitterly at the unfairness of it all, drowning his sorrows in his own Kool-Aid.

Teflon's initial coup de grace, however, was how he nailed one of his subordinates for taking bribes in the form of free goodies from vendors. Teflon alerted Internal Control, and sure enough, Teflon was right.  Teflon's subordinate was promptly fired, mortified at being caught.  But apparently not mortified enough to not take bribes in the first place.

How did Teflon know?  As it was discovered later, he had in all likelihood accepted bribes himself periodically during the course of his career and recognized the behavior.  At least, this was the likely conjecture, as Teflon was eventually terminated for cooking his numbers to drive up his bonus.

Now this cautionary tale is on the extreme end of the scale.  However, it forever soured me on employees / managers / executives / colleagues who finger-point, whine and make excuses instead of manning-up / womanning-up, taking responsibility and proactively offering collaborative solutions.  And those in organizational control who condone or even worse, encourage such behavior.

Seriously:  my 9 year-old is more solution-oriented and takes more responsibility (and is extremely hard on himself, interesting how genetics play out) than some of the adults I've witnessed in the workplace.

It's particularly disturbing to witness managers engage in this teflon behavior.  "My (subordinate) screwed up the order," instead of "It's my responsibility, and this is how I'm going to work with my team to fix it."

And when it happens on an organizational scale, you start to feel like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight:  is this really happening?  Who's the crazy one here? 

Which is one of the reasons I love Get Rid of the Performance Review! by Culbert and Rout.  No more finger-pointing power plays or whining self-victimization:  the performance of both the manager and their team is inextricably dependent and success or failure is a joint responsibility.  Which is organizational and bottom-line gold.

So what will you mine this week to drive mutual / bottom-line success:  teflon, or gold?

Every Call is a Sales Call

I reached out to a few good colleagues recently networking for specialty candidates here in SmAlbany.  I called after 6 PM expecting to leave a voicemail and instead reached a live person whom I didn't recognize.

"Hi, is Gladys there?" I asked. (The name is changed due to the SmAlbany factor and to minimize reader distraction.)

"Sure, hang on a second," the deep and friendly voice said.  I listened to some generic on-hold music for about 30 seconds.  The voice returned, no longer friendly.  "Who are you and what do you want?"

Hmmm.  A bit abrupt, which surprised me for a minute.  "I'm Deb Best and I'm following up with Gladys networking for (specialty) candidates," I replied.

"Sorry," said the Deep Voice, not sorry at all.  "I thought you were a sales call.  We're in the middle of a sales meeting and she doesn't have time to talk to you. (Click.)"  He hung up on me.  Charming.  And ironic.

Later that week, coincidentally (and I don't believe in coincidences), I learned that Deep Voice was the CEO of Gladys' company by observing him asserting himself rather stridently in a meeting and watching him subsequently facilitated by the meeting moderator to let other meeting participants contribute equally.  

Deep Voice's company, by the way, relies heavily on its reputation, more than the average company, as part of its business model.

Which is why I continue to maintain to the point of proselytizing that every call is a sales call.

Internally and externally, you can't let current and potential customers see you sweat, literally and figuratively.  Because the downstream reputation impacts on sales are undeniable.

Seemingly unbeknown to Deep Voice, I am a potential customer connected to other potential and current customers.  In a market like SmAlbany, and in an economy that increasingly connects like SmAlbany outside of SmAlbany, why any customer-facing employee at any level would indulge themselves in anything less than Customer Delight to all company contacts internally and externally is beyond my understanding.

Interestingly, I don't need to understand.  I've been heavily trained and inculcated on intent vs. impact:  the intent doesn't matter, the impact means and drives everything. 

Customer Delight is the responsibility of every employee in the organization at every level.  It's vertical integration at its finest:  it's time to break down the organizational silos and desegregate our organizational roles and constructs and come to the joint conclusion that we're all sales and customer service associates regardless of our respective organizational levels and functions, particularly if we are to sustain and grow our respective organizations within our competitive markets.

A small but poignant example from earlier in my career:  I was conducting a phone-screen with a Chemical Engineer candidate, and as was my practice, I described our chemical manufacturing process from end to end.  I then asked the candidate a few questions about his experience with our particular manufacturing process; finally, I asked him if he had any questions.  "No questions," he said, "Just a comment.  I've never seen an HR person talk about the business like you just did.  I expected you to just tell me about the company benefits.  I'm impressed with your organization and your team, whether you decide to hire me or not."

Exactly.

How authentic are you, no matter what your functional role in your organization, in meeting / exceeding your customers' needs during and after customer-facing contacts?  Internally and externally? 

Every call is a sales call.

Are You My Mother? No. Especially Not at Work.

Everywhere I've worked, the employee lunchroom always has some version of this sign posted:

Your Mother Doesn't Work Here:  Clean Up Your Own Mess.

A variation of the theme of "Don't Mess Your Nest."

Both concepts are related and should be taken to heart, mind and spirit.  It comes down to the hard work of self-awareness and its resultant emotional intelligence / maturity.  The implications of the unexamined life are not only sad; they are, more importantly, life- and career-changing, and more often than not, for the worst.

Cleaning up -- better yet, preventing -- your own mess within the context of the workplace is critical, particularly in an economy where it's a buyer's market for employers (customers).  If for no other reason, check your therapeutic baggage at the door of your workplace.  Think about examining your (inner) life to the extent that it saves you from jeopardizing your livelihood.  Wherever else that journey of self-examination takes you is up to you.

Taking responsibility for recognizing and keeping your therapeutic baggage in check at work is a key step towards ensuring your own vocational success.

As an HR practitioner, I see the lack of responsibility on the part of the employee (employees mean managers here too) play out again and again as the employee hits their bottom in a performance, disciplinary or termination discussion.  I've seen it happen at every level, from executives to warehouse clerks.  Their psychological baggage is so obvious to me that it's not only in the room, but all of their bags are open and the contents are strewn everywhere and hurtled at everyone.

For that employee, as a brief example, their manager is their abusive dad, I'm their detached mom / aunt and their co-workers are their trench-buddy siblings.

And when compounded by substance abuse and unresolved trauma:  I estimate at least half (probably more) of the employee relations issues that I have adjudicated in my career should have been handled through professional mental health treatment rather than the workplace disciplinary process.

If those same employees had taken the responsibility to drag their therapeutic baggage to a therapist rather than to work, we could have taken that time and energy wasted in resolving those employee relations issues and applied it to more productive endeavors such as new product, process and customer development, as well as resultant profit-sharing.

The time to raise your hand for help is not at your termination discussion.  If your employer offers help in the form of employee assistance programs (EAP) and/or mental health benefits, ask for and accept the help before you begin sliding down the slippery slope of the disciplinary / termination process.

One employee who will always have a place in my heart asked for the help before he jeopardized his employment, while he was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. His courage inspired us all.  We were all committed to his treatment, and he not only became a stellar employee, he was also subsequently promoted.

That, in my book, is how you engender mutual loyalty and respect in the workplace.

Now I'm not a therapist, nor do I aspire to that vocation,  and I don't weave anything remotely therapeutic into my HR practice:  I'm clear about both my boundaries and my limitations, personally, professionally and legally.  However, I will reflect back when an employee has dug themselves into such a hole of hitting bottom at work that perhaps they should consider working it out with a therapist, mentor, spiritual counselor -- whatever will get them through the night of their unexamined internal wound(s).

The workplace is not parental, or familial:   it is a place of business, and the interaction of the employer with their employees is a business transaction.  Plain and simple.  Services are sold by one party (the employee) and purchased by the other party (the employer).  The extent to which that business transaction is conducted creatively, collaboratively and functionally separates tolerable workplaces from great workplaces.  And tolerable employees from great employees / contributors / partners.

Leave your baggage at your workplace door:  solutions sell.