10 Ways HR Benefits Business

Hello from home base in Santa Fe! After three weeks on the road interviewing HR leaders at the top of their game for a new website I’m developing, I rolled into my driveway late last night with only one thing in mind: Spend Sunday in bed, catching up on three weeks worth of NY Times and cuddling with the cats. But then I found an email promoting another negative article about HR.

Do we really need another negative message to HR? I don’t think so. I think that charming little number that Fast Company magazine treated us to three years ago was quite sufficient, thank you very much. At the time, I wrote a response article entitled, “Why I Love HR.” (If you missed it, email me at Martha@marthafinney.com and I’ll send you a copy.) And so it seems that the time has come for me to contribute yet another positive article celebrating the potential of HR – if only to remind readers that HR is about so much more than just avoiding stupid mistakes.

So, here we go! 10 ways that HR uniquely benefits business:

HR brings humanity to enterprise: Being a people person is actually a good thing. Hold onto that thought, even as more experienced, “successful,” cynical people dismiss your passion for the peeps. Everyone around you may be chasing the numbers, so they may have recused themselves from any conversation regarding how people will benefit the business or how business decisions impact people. That’s okay, let other people do what they do best. Just remember that business is nowhere if it’s not being enlivened by the dedication, passion and talents of high-performing employees. That’s where you come in. Once you start getting cynical yourself about the people side of your business, it’s time to switch functions – if only long enough to discover afresh how much more fun the HR department is.

HR allows cooler heads to prevail. When it comes to high-emotion, high-tension situations between employees, business leaders have two choices: Ignore it and let the courts figure it out later – to great expense both financially or in the eyes of public opinion; or let HR investigate. My advice: Let HR investigate. Now.

HR touches the future. In my interviews with HR leaders over the last several weeks, I asked “Where is the true power of HR today?” One of my interviewees responded: “HR should be looking around the corner and anticipating the talent the business will be needing – not now but 2, 3, 5, 10 years down the road.” Talent management is not too different from inventory management to a visionary HR leader. When it comes to people, just-in-time inventory management is a loser’s game. And the loser will be the business that doesn’t have the necessary talent already in the pipeline (your competitors will, you can bet on that). No one else in your organization is going to be thinking about the people side of your future. That job is yours. Run your talent supply chain that can shift and change with an uncertain future and you just may be the one who saves your company.

HR is the moral compass of business. The moral compass? Bummer! “Who wants to be the scold? I want to be liked, to be respected, to belong. Who wants to be the one to tell leadership that they can’t do what they want? I didn’t sign up for that gig!” Well, actually, you did. Remember Enron? When everyone asked, “Where was HR when these decisions were being made?” That’s you! And sometimes you have to be the one to tell powerful people the truth: That big idea is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. The right company – the one that’s worthy of stellar HR – is going to welcome your feedback.

HR saves families. Families are held together when someone is bringing home a paycheck. Families are saved when a stressed employee can turn to the EAP to come up with a plan of resolution and action. Battered women and their children save their own lives when Mom has a supportive and flexible employer who will give her what she needs to find safe harbor. Whenever I say to an HR professional, “Tell me of a time when you thought, ‘this is why I’m in HR,’” the answers I get invariably move one or both of us to tears. Why? Because the times always involve an opportunity for the person to use his or her HR resources, power and caring to ease the suffering or fears of an employee and the employee’s family.

HR brings hope to communities. We usually think of HR’s impact on communities when a major local employer announces that it’s shutting down operations. That much is definitely true, I get that. And we’re probably going to see more of that in upcoming years. Still, when a new business starts up successfully in a town, or region becomes known for being the cradle of great minds, communities spring up, thrive, open museums, hire great teachers, start symphonies, pave rails-to-trails paths, make the sidewalks safe to walk at night, and my personal favorite: sustain great bookstores. All these great things happen because money is being made. And money is being made because people have jobs. When businesses thrive, communities benefit. When communities thrive, businesses benefit.

HR saves careers. I recognize that as a group HR likes to perceive of its power as being something on the strategic level. That 35,000 feet point of view where one HR decision has a multi-million dollar impact. But sometimes it’s just a one-person-at-a-time proposition. HR is often in the best position of noticing a place where passion is bleeding out of the organization, often in the form of a single employee who is at risk. In one of my all-time favorite interviews of the summer, the regional HR manager of a major retailer (you’d recognize the name) told me of a cherished employee who was announcing that she was quitting to go to nursing school. Well, okay, education is a good thing, but something just wasn’t quite right. She loved working for this company, that much he knew. So why quit? Something else was going on. Sure enough. It wasn’t nursing school that she was running to. It was a reassignment that she was running from. Her manager had made the decision to move her away from a department she loved to a department that she had absolutely zero interest in. She opted not to protest because she really liked her manager and didn’t want to get him in trouble. So she opted to quit the whole shebang instead. My HR interviewee, luckily for everyone concerned, had the boots-to-ground point of view to recognize that there was more to this story than just a resignation announcement. Long story short: Happy ending all around. (And, I’m sure, that fresh nursing school opening was filled by a student who genuinely feels called to the healing sciences.)

HR promotes innovation. Those who dismiss HR as being the in-house compliance police have overlooked the immense amount of creativity required to run the people side of great business. I’ve heard people say that HR is the place where all dreams go to die. After a little digging I discover that their experience has been in fact where all stupid dreams go to die. Or all illegal dreams go to die. So in my speeches and workshops I always recommend to my HR listeners to make their offices “destination yes,” where leaders can come with half-baked (or half-something else) ideas and collaborate with HR to find a way to achieve the desired result in a way that doesn’t have the SEC or EEO come sniffing after them. When you hear of a company that has managed to survive a downshift in the economy without a single layoff, I promise you, HR is behind that story somewhere.

HR brings balance to the boardroom. Now, this may sound blasphemous to some people, I recognize that. But maybe there’s something to be said for leaving the numbers conversation to the numbers people. There’s only one person specifically charged with the responsibility of addressing the people ramifications of business decisions, and, again, that’s you. I also recognize that few HR folks are lucky enough to have CEOs who are so evolved as to say, “Please, I need the people side from you, stick with that.” But, in your attempts to achieve boardroom legitimacy – if not supremacy – don’t throw the people baby out with the bottom-line bathwater. You’re the People Guy…that’s a good gig. Don’t check it at the door when entering a business conversation. That’s the balance – the value – that you bring to the group. If anyone else at the table wanted that job, they would have competed with you for it long ago.

HR gives talent a home. I’m not so naïve as to believe – or try to make you believe – that companies can only be innovative when they have an empowered HR team. But I think I can say with great confidence that when you have an empowered HR team, you put yourself in a far better position of being able to attract and keep high-value talent that will pioneer new products and services for you on a daily basis. A company that cares enough about its people to cultivate a spectacular HR team cares enough about its people to inspire creativity, productivity and greatness throughout its org chart.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself, “Oh yeah? Well, you don’t have to collaborate with my senior counsel on the revised employee handbook.”

And I would have to say, “You’re right.” But then I would also have to add, “You don’t deserve to be treated with disrespect in HR.” I would also say that if your major concern is avoiding stupid HR mistakes (and getting counsel to actually listen to you), as opposed to achieving your full potential in one of the most significant roles in history, then you’re robbing yourself of the potential of a deeply rewarding career.

If you work for an organization where the leadership gets pleasure keeping you hunkered over transactional HR minutiae, and you don’t like that feeling, find a company where you will be happy and treated with respect. Sticking with a company that prides itself on demeaning its people…well, that would be the stupidest HR mistake of all.

You deserve better.

Just in case you might be thinking you can't make a difference

Hello from Los Angeles!

Am staying with the ultra-marvelous Libby Gill, who has an amazing way of coaching and getting right down to the a-ha that flings possibility doors wide open. (You should have seen her in action with me yesterday morning. In just five minutes, she led me off an analysis paralysis path, much to the delight of everyone working with me on getting Engagement Journeys finally on its feet (more on that in the fullness of time). ) If you're looking for a coach or an amazingly inspiring speaker on risk taking, leadership, or branding, she's the one you want. (And read her book, Traveling Hopefully.)

I've been in California for two weeks doing initial interviews for a blown-out web version of HR Journeys (more on that later as well). And I have to take this moment to thank my initial, brave, pioneering sponsor Tom Larkin, of The Larkin Company, who is helping me get this dream off the ground. My dream: To help high-potential HR professionals -- you know, the ones who feel called to the field -- gain a full understanding of the entire personal/professional journey that comes with signing onto this life's work.

So. In the two weeks I've been here, two items have hit the news, which creates today's subject: The difference that individuals can make in a twinkling. First the bummer difference: Tucked in among the headlines of Hurricane Ike, the stock market, Freddie and Fannie, AIG, and Where's Caylee? has been the terrible news of a commuter train crash here in LA. Over 130 people were hurt; 25 lost their lives. What was the engineer doing right before the accident? Text messaging. Investigators are still reluctant to point the finger at the engineer and texting before the full investigation is complete, but it's not looking good.

A few months ago CA passed legislation banning text messaging while driving. I was visiting friends here at that time and marveled at who would be stupid enough to text while driving. My friend looked at me sheepishly and said, "I do." She's a corporate executive. Uh oh, back pedal, I told myself. But I still didn't get it. Fast forward to this trip I'm on right now, I have gotten in the habit of checking my emails while waiting at traffic lights. And, if I'm in the middle of replying when the light turns green? Well, no biggee, what will it hurt if I just drive a little slowly for a few secs until I click send?

Yesterday I was so distracted by my emails while pulling out of a parking lot that I forgot to release the parking brake and drove 35 miles down the Pacific Coast highway with the brake on. What's that squealing of metal against metal I kept asking myself as I was thumbing my Ipod click-wheel in search of a specific song among 7,000. Those darn trucks, I continued contemptuously. Then I noticed the red light on my dashboard, and realized that I'd been watching that red light for miles. Duh.

Just a little text here and there won't hurt, right? After all, we're all just one individual. How much damage can one individual do? A burned out parking brake is nothing to the burnt wreckage of 25 lives and their families. So I guess I better take that parking brake as a gift.

So here's the more inspiring take on the difference one individual can make: You probably remember the story of the 13-year-old boy with autism who swam too far out off a Florida beach and got caught up in the currents. His father went after him, and before they both realized what was happening, they were swept out to sea. Two tiny specks of humanity dressed in nothing but sunny-day swim trunks bobbing in the waves for 15 hours. The sun went down, the moon and stars came out and they still treaded blackened water under the pin-prick bowl of constellations, galaxies and satellites. Even though the father couldn't see the son after a while, they kept in voice contact by trading favorite movie lines.

One of which was from Toy Story. The father would holler into the black night: "To infinity!" And somewhere embedded deep inside the pillowy waves, a little boy's voice would respond: "And beyond" And they did that all night long.

There are so many ways to tell this story, but here's the one that especially speaks to me. A decade ago there was a young story supervisor having a very good time at work at Pixar. In a moment of genius he came up with this fantastic line. At the time it was just a fun line in a way fun movie. And, as an upstart business, Pixar's prospects were looking pretty darn good with such delights that were springing from the minds of a bunch of wacky creative types.

I know the guy who headed Pixar's HR department at the time, and emailed him the story of the father and son. And then said, "Can you pass this story on to the guy who came up with the line?"

His response: "I think the gentleman who came up with that line was Joe Ranft, Story Supervisor on most of the early big hits of Pixar but we unfortunately lost him in a car accident just before I left Pixar. He was also the voice of Heimlich the caterpillar in A Bug's Life."

Once upon a time there was a guy sitting at a desk in California who came up with four simple words that would save two lives in Florida ten years later. And, even though he's gone, his story continues.

One person can make a huge difference, in a twinkling blink of an eye.

I'm reminded of the Jackson Browne song, For a Dancer, in which he is encouraging the listener to follow his/her heart because that will lead to destiny. The concluding lines are these:

Into a dancer you have grown...
From a seed somebody else has thrown.
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own.
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know.

How Much Fun is Fun at Work Really?

It has become all the rage these days to have vision boards. Well, let me just say, I have a vision wall. It started out with just one picture, torn from an American Express magazine ad from a few years ago. Kate Winslet is prettily chewing on a fingernail and studying what can only be the script for her next movie. It was published about the same time I was single-mindedly focused on a book proposal. So I tore it out and taped it to the wall behind my desk chair. My hope was that it will remind me that it’s possible to be attractive while looking like hell, focused on work, sitting like a man, chawing down on an expensive manicure and surrounded by the tedious detritus of paperwork. You know, kind of like what my day is like, when I’m not on the road interviewing people who love their work.

That picture quickly began attracting company. Now I have pictures and headlines and inspirational words taped all over the place. Clippings have reached around corners, jumped the empty space where my door is always open, invaded the closet bi-fold doors, and threatened to knock over the 7 ft. tall twin bookshelves so they can have those bare walls as well. It’s a regular Stephen King novel of the invasion of inspirational magazine snippets. (If I’m ever tempted to sell in this down market, all I have to do is remember the clutter of clippings and what a drag it will be to take them down. That should snap me right out of any idea of selling low.)

Anyway, I’ve got a few clippings that I’m especially fond of. One I’ll tell you about because it just makes me smile. The other one I’ll tell you about because it’s actually pertinent to this blog posting. (I always take such a long time getting around to the core theme of my blog posts, don’t I?)

So, the clipping that makes me grin is a picture of a penguin leaping, vertical and stiff-legged into mid-air with his flippers flapping behind him like angel wings. I found a headline that reads “footloose and fancy free,” which I taped directly under his feet. I’ve found two clippings of the word “joy,” which I’ve taped around his head.

The other one is a headline I’ve pulled from some ad. I feel kind of badly that I don’t know who the sponsor of this particular inspiration was – that company deserves the credit (well, at least the copy writer does):

“When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure it’s fun to watch.”

Fun, huh? What a concept.

How many people can you think of (notice I didn’t say, “know”) who actually have fun at work? Here’s what I’ve come up with: Richard Branson and Samantha Brown. (And me, sometimes, which we’ll get to in a moment.) I would have said Anthony Bourdain, but I can’t imagine how eating still-beating cobra hearts would be anyone’s idea of a good time.

When was the last time you actually had fun at work? What were the elements involved? And what would you do to replicate those elements and ha, ha, ha, ha, do it again? It’s kind of hard to fold intentional fun into the strategic plan, isn’t it? Unless Necker Island figures in the scenario somehow, I just don’t see how you can go after fun without turning your workplace into a totalitarian romper room, where no one is having a good time really – although they’re expected to look like they are.

Companies that want to position themselves as a fun place to work may be barking up the wrong tree. Why? Fun means different things to different people. And how desperate does an employer look when they’re saying, “We’re fun! Really, we are!” Uh. Yeah.

Even seeing those words, “fun place to work,” makes me feel like a party pooper. Can I really, for instance, sustain all that dependable levity that Southwest Airlines is famous for? I just know that sometimes I would want to say, “Sit down, shut up, and fasten your seatbelts so we can get on with this stupid flight. OKAY?”

Well, I guess that’s why I don’t work for Southwest, although I do have plenty of heart.

Fun in the workplace is a scary notion. You can’t make fun, just like you can’t make romance. Sure, you can set up a certain, shall we say, environment, that is conducive to fun, but you can’t make your people have fun on the job.

And fun is a personal kind of thing (just like, well, romance is). What’s a barrel of monkeys for some people is about as fun as a death march for others. Say, for instance, that lovely tradition of the waitstaff gathering ‘round a cringing diner and singing Happy Birthday. Frankly, I’d rather have a tooth pulled.

To make matters worse, you may not be keeping up with your employees’ idea of what’s fun. I have one client that started life as a fun company, complete with margarita machine Friday, beer and pizza at the drop of the hat, and flip-flop wearing every day. That’s what it’s all about, man! The thing of it was, as the years passed extremely quickly (as they always do in the high-tech world), that founding group of employees grew up, got serious and got married. Suddenly they had to get home to the kids. “No time for the ‘rita, man, gotta split before day care closes.”

While doing culture audit for them a few months ago, I heard the management say, “We’re a fun company! We’ve got parties, and outings, and we get to wear flip flops.” But then I asked the rank-and-file what fun means to them, and they said, “The satisfaction of filling a busy day doing great work with really terrific people I can respect and count on.” Wow. Cool.

By setting up the wrong kind of fun, you’re also attracting the wrong kind of employee. As this company was discovering. It was still attracting candidates who liked the idea of ping pong tables. And it was really irritating that core group of original employees who couldn’t concentrate with all that pock-pock pock-pock pock-pock going on.

You want employees who get jazzed by booze? Set up those margarita machines and knock yourself out. Brag about the flip flops. Put that bennie front and center, and you’ll get candidates who think you’re a groovy place to work. But then don’t go asking yourself why there are Youtube video clips of them Xeroxing their butts.

You too can have fun at work! Find out what’s fun about the work you do, the people you serve, the people you work with, what gives you OTJ grins, and then go with that! You don’t have to try so hard to be merry, jolly, a good time. That’s about as authentic and attractive as an over-eager date.

Okay, so am I a sober-sides? Maybe. This is what’s fun for me: Interviewing people who are absolutely over-the-moon about the work they do. Meeting total strangers and then parting company a couple of hours later with a hug and a new, laughing, friendship. Loading my convertible for another roadtrip through America’s highways in search of ordinary folks who love their job. Hittin’ the highway with the top down and the tunes up. And then, back home in New Mexico, sitting at my desk in front of my vision wall, shoulder bopping to the Squirrel Nut Zippers on my I-pod, while typing away as thunderstorm rolls in over the Sangre De Cristo mountains right outside my window.

The fun comes in capturing the passion of others who believe in the work they do.

What We Can Learn From the Burger King Bath Caper

Yesterday morning I woke up to my regular routine of CNN and coffee. I don’t know why I do this to myself, because I almost always see something I could have gone all day without exposing my tender little soul to. Yesterday’s Dread Treat o’ the Day was the YouTube film clip of the Burger King employee celebrating his birthday by taking a bath in the utility sink of a Xenia, OH, Burger King.

A tattooed guy sitting starkers in the suds just isn’t my idea of celebrating joy in the workplace. And it really bums me out. Why? Because, as a consultant specializing in employee engagement, all my work revolves around my core principle: The workplace is where excellent employers can partner with high-passion employees to save the world. It can be one vaccine at a time, or one Whopper at a time. When both sides of the employment equation (employers and employees) treat their shared enterprise with respect, amazing things can happen.

So when I see examples of low-passion people abusing the privilege of serving the world, I see evidence of people giving up on their dream – and, by extension, themselves. And that breaks my heart. By giving up on the dream of excellence for yourself, you’re wrecking it for everyone around you. Mediocrity is like food coloring. Just the tiniest drop in a glass of clear water stains the whole shebang.

My first assumption here is that when someone offered this guy a job, they gave up the dream right then and there. This morning, watching him interviewed post-ablution for what must have been a local tv news show, he’s wearing goth make-up, his hair bundled in a configuration of piglets, and on his hands are fingerless gloves with a skeleton design on them for a trompe l’oeils effect. I’m wondering to myself: Did he dress that way for the job interview as well? In which case, I’m wondering how he got the job to begin with. Or did he just slowly start assembling this new personality in hopes that no one will notice the gradual transformation? In which case, I’m wondering, how come no one pointed out that wearing goth makeup and little piglets might scare away the customers?

Employees who spit on the dream scare away more than just the customers. They disenfranchise the aforementioned high-passion employees. Can you imagine how demoralizing it must have been to work side-by-side with this guy, if you really care about your job and your customers? Can you imagine how demoralizing it must be right now to work at that particular store, knowing that his shift manager was also fired – perhaps unfairly – because she had to keep her eyes on the cash registers and serve the customers rather than stop this idiot from running amok in the back?

Who hired this guy anyway?

Every hiring manager who works in a company that deeply cares about its customers and its culture owes it to the current employees to continue hiring well and wisely. Even if that means holding out for just the right culture fit. As former Apple chief talent officer Dan Walker has been known to say, “I’d rather have a hole than an [well, I think you might be able to finish this sentence; if you’re struggling, email me and I’ll whisper it in your ear].”

And what about chasing away future high-passion employees? Can you imagine how ridiculous the company will look if it now has to include in its employee handbook, “There will be no taking of baths in Burger King utility sinks.” Just having such a policy (or something like it) would be demoralizing to quality employees and candidates who would be wondering, “Does this company hire the kinds of people who need to be told this? Maybe I’d better keep looking.”

By the way, just in case you’re stopped by the notion of Burger King actually saving the world, let me tell you a story. When I was a little girl (around 8), my mother was very, very sick from a disease she’d die from a few years later. And during this period she often was bedridden at suppertime. So my father would take me to a Miami-area Burger King where we would sit together, just the two of us, talking over the day’s trivia over a Whopper and a milkshake, trying to keep each other’s spirits up.

That was 40 years ago (more or less; well, okay, more) and now he is gone as well. But still to this day, every time I bite into a Whopper and fill my mouth with its distinct taste, I remember those nights when a young man and his little girl kept the fears and the loneliness at bay, sitting across the table from each other in the bright lights of a Burger King.

Burger King saved my world. And it deserves some respect. As do all the high-passion people who work there. You just never know who they’re serving. And why.

Do Your Metrics Manage Meaning?

Hello from Arizona! I’m here for two weeks, the guest of the marvelous Kathie Lingle, executive director of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress. It’s a sort of cowgirl’s holiday. While I’m thoroughly enjoying the change of scenery, I am here to work. My mission: to research a speech I’m giving to the Arizona SHRM state council's annual convention in September (you are coming, aren’t you?). My topic is one of my favorites -- Sustain Your Flame! Keep Alive the Mission and Meaning of Your HR Career. And I’m here to interview HR folks who love their work in Arizona. I hope to post their interviews and photos on a specially created website.

My plan has been to fill my days with interviews and between interviews take photos of typical Arizona scenes, like sunset vistas, dusty cowboy boots, bucking broncos and saguaro cacti. But you know what? At the risk of overstating the obvious, it’s just too darn hot to get out of the car. (At 111 degrees, it just stops being a novelty and starts getting really annoying, know what I mean?)

Okay, so this is the real reason why I’m writing today: On my cell phone’s call log this morning there are four entries of the same phone number that I tried calling just seconds apart from each other. No I’m not a stalker. This is the phone number to a way schmancy new cardiac hospital where one of my dearest friends had open-heart surgery late this past week. Why did I call this hospital four times this morning to find out how she’s doing? Well, actually, that’s exactly what I’d like to know. More specifically, what I’d like to know is why did I have to call this hospital four times?

Call #1: After dutifully pressing 3 for patient update, and then dutifully waiting for my call to be taken in the order in which it was received, I heard the receiver pick up on their end and then get hung up.

Call #2: I got through to an operator who heard that I wanted a patient update (that was Press 3 after all), transferred me with no fanfare to the cardiac unit, which rapidly launched an outgoing message saying that their office is closed for the weekend.

Call #3: See call Call #1.

Call #4: I got a different operator, explained to her that I wanted to get a patient update but when I was transferred to the cardiac unit, well, finish reading Call #2.

Operator: “Their office is closed on the weekends.” I could practically see her drowsily reaching for the transfer button so I responded quickly.

Me: “I just want to get a patient update. Isn’t this the right number for that information?”

Me in my head: “Oh, I’m sorry, am I keeping you awake?”

Operator (after hearing the patient’s name, my name, and my relationship with her): “She’s in ICU right now.”

Which is, actually, great news. That means things are going as they should be. (Whoever thought that hearing that a friend is in ICU would be good news? Well, it is.)

I thanked her for her information and she seemed oddly surprised and pleased that I would take that extra second to thank her. Which surprised but didn’t please me.

I get that working at anything based on repetition and anonymity can be a real drag. Throw in the fact that you’re timed for the average amount of time you take to push the customer along (which might account for the deliberate hang-ups), and the probability of joy in the workplace sinks even lower. And I suppose that it’s no picnic talking to callers who are on the verge of freaking out, worrying about their beloved. But I’m sure that holding in our hearts and minds the meaning behind the work we do has got to be inspiring at least a little bit.

You probably know the story of the bricklayer who knows the difference between building a wall and building a cathedral (if you don’t, Google it, it’s as common as the sand dollar story). So I won’t slow this blog down by retelling it.

But I would like to invite managers to take a fresh look at how they talk about the job expectations of their direct reports. If you’re measuring performance by accuracy, by speed, by completion of the encounter with the customer, you’re missing a huge piece of the story.

Are you also talking about the meaning behind every job that you’re in charge of? Do your people know how their job soothes the human condition? (Unless we’re talking paid assassins and drug dealers, there’s an essential human meaning behind every job – at least there can be.)

Do you even know what the meaning is behind the jobs that you’re responsible for?

This isn’t rocket science or calculus. There only three reasons why people enter into a transaction with each other:

• To relieve pain
• To restore hope
• To bring beauty into the world

In my particular case, my need to transact with the call center this morning was to relieve pain – to be reassured that my dear friend what resting comfortably right where she should be. The pain was minor, to be sure, especially when compared with the anxious needs of other people calling that number this morning. I can only imagine what it must have been like to call inquiring about a loved one who had suffered a coronary, for instance, and have to call back three more times just to get basic information. That would be enough to turn me into Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment.

But these people treated my call as though I was asking for data about my Social Security account on a Sunday morning.

Every job has its tedium, to be sure. But it’s never tedious for the customer – no matter whether we’re talking ICU status of a dear friend or calling our credit card company about frequent flier miles. There’s meaning in every transaction that we do.

If you have a cadre of sleepy looking customer service folks, it’s time to revisit with them the meaning behind the work they do. The ones who wake up and take personal responsibility for their customers are the ones you want to hang on to.

The ones who don’t? Well. Maybe it’s naptime.

Confidential to Management-Level Job Seekers: How to Join the 60% Club

Unless you’re one of those people who enjoy beating their heads against a wall, it’s rarely any fun to be in the job market. But if you’re looking for a job in the leadership levels, it’s even worse. Reason: Chances are almost 50/50 that you’ll be looking for another job before the year is out. For some reason, new hires in leadership roles have an abysmal success record. And, even though the cost of recruiting, hiring, losing people of your level – and starting the cycle all over again – is the most expensive of all the open positions, employers seem to take this hard knock as a cost of doing business.

What a terrible waste of money, resources, precious time for all concerned. Especially you, if you’re the one out on the street in a few months’ time. The good news is that the power is in your hands. You can say, “This cycle of frustration stops with me.” But that means that you have to take control of the interview (hey! Your first leadership assignment in this organization) and be willing to be the one to decide whether you might not be the best culture match (hey! Your second leadership assignment in this organization).

Here’s the problem: Even though companies are becoming increasingly aware of the real importance and impact their culture and values have on engaging the discretionary effort of all their employees, for most companies that awareness isn’t showing up in the kind of leaders they hire from the outside. When it comes to hiring people leaders, employers can be like fish. They’ll leap out of the water for anything bright and shiny, without first taking into very serious consideration what lurks between the feathers and twirly, swirly, glittering things. For fish, of course, the bad news is that there’s usually a sharp hook buried inside all that attraction. But for employers, they don’t discover that buried inside that bright and shiny resume is a set of behaviors that could destroy their carefully cultivated culture.

I’m not implying, of course, that you’ve got a sharp hook imbedded in your resume or personality, but let’s face it, we’ve all got hooks – a branded story of who we are, what we can offer the employer, our set of leadership beliefs, the market performance of our previous employer while we were at the helm. The problem is that if you are luring the wrong employers, there’s going to be a lot of pain, and actually you’re going to be among the 40%+ of new management candidates who lose their jobs before they’ve really had the chance to prove themselves.

I’m torturing this metaphor; I guess it’s time to get on with my point.

The more successful you were at your previous company or the greater the cachet of your company (especially as regards its reputation for an engaged culture), the greater the likelihood that you’re going to land in a new job that could make you miserable. Like it or not, your new employer isn’t just hiring you, they’re hiring where you’ve been. If you’ve been with a successful company that performed supremely in your marketplace and enjoyed a cadre of over-the-top dedicated employees, your new employer is going to want to have some of that mojo. And, because you’ve seen it first-hand and from within, they reason, you’re just the one to give it to them. They’re so invested in asking the questions that will result in a job offer and acceptance that they tend to avoid those questions that could reveal you to be a bad culture fit.

You’ve got to do that piece of the dirty work. Sorry to have to break it to you, but that’s just the way it is. The truth will come out eventually, and believe me, you’re being back out on the street is going to be a lot more painful for you than it will be for them.

During the job interview itself, go deep into questions about the company culture. This is the first place where a big mismatch can be revealed. For instance, it’s not enough to simply know what the company’s values are. (You can find them on their website and after a while they all look the same…integrity; service; servant leadership, performance; collegial; collaborative; people-first…they very quickly appear to be the workplace versions of personal ads. Replace them with “candlelight dinners,” “puppies,” “walks on the beach,” and you’ll see what I mean.)

The trick is to ask your interviews how those values have been demonstrated by decisions and choices in recent years. If the company really takes its values seriously, your interviewers will have plenty of stories at their fingertips. A few good questions to ask, for instance, are:

1.Can you tell me of a time when you hired a star candidate who turned out to be a culture mismatch (if you’re really brave, say, “toxic manager”)? How did you handle that situation?

2.Can you think of a time when you were able to save a new hire who got off on the wrong foot culturally? What happened with that person? Can I talk with him or her?

3. Do you have any mentorship or culturalization onboarding programs in place, so I can be sure to hit the ground running?

4. What exactly does servant leadership look like here in terms of behaviors and expectations? Could you introduce me to someone who is known to represent the best leadership qualities that work in this culture?

Sure. You’ll take your interviewers by surprise with these questions (unless they’ve read this blog as well…in which case they’ll recognize immediately how brilliant you are!). Most interviewers are accustomed to asking behavioral interview questions, not having to answer them. If they draw a blank on these questions, and can’t tell you stories to support their cultural ideals, that’s your first big sign that there could be a culture mismatch here. And that you would get zero support while trying to integrate yourself into your new team.

But others will be so relieved to discover that you recognize the importance of a culture fit for managers, that – assuming everything else is in place – they’ll be falling all over themselves to hand you the keys to the 60% Club. That’s the club you’ll want to join. There’s staying power there.

Tim Russert: A Blueprint for Boss Behavior

If you’ve been following the news over the weekend, you probably fall into one of two camps: Those who think the sad passing of Tim Russert was perhaps a wee bit over-covered (“Oh, you mean the pope?” asked a newspaper editor I had lunch with on Saturday, who clearly had had more than enough of the same looped footage broadcast from the newsroom televisions) and those who think the world can’t get enough exposure to the examples of what seems to have been a genuinely nice guy who was great at his work and who really shouldn’t have died at age 58. While I totally get my editor friend’s point, I would have to raise my hand and join the latter group.

For a while there I thought I knew the reason why I am riveted to this wall-to-wall eulogy of Russert. I sprang from the Washington world affairs scene, on both the journalism and the government side of things. However, my own foray into Washington journalism was destined to be short. Like another daughter of an undercover CIA operative whom I know – who also happened to get into journalism – we were raised to accept the first answer to our questions as the official response and to probe no further. Fora few years there, I thought my father was a television repairman. "What do you do for work Daddy?" "I work for Zenith." "Oh. Okay."

Had I been old enough to have covered Watergate, a certain press conference would have gone thusly:

“I am not a crook.”

“Oh. Okay.”

So when I graduated from J school (that’s, ahem, journalism), I already pretty much knew my limitations. And so I became a receptionist instead. Good career move, that.

But I still watch the goings on in Washington, especially Washington journalism, to run a gut check now and then to see if there is any lingering regret or homesickness, now that I’m exiled west of the Pecos in the land of coyotes, quail and Kokopelli. Happily, latest returns say no. Still good.

And I’m not alone among the Washington expats. Even Valerie Plame has chosen Santa Fe. I keep hoping to run into her at Whole Foods, catch her eye, and whisper some carefully chosen word that would tell her in an instant, “you and me, we have a lot in common. How’s about a cup of coffee?” But, in fact, we don’t have a lot in common, and if I were ever to run into her, I’d probably say, “Oh Mrs. Plame, I mean Miss Wilson, I mean Valerie, I mean, …you’re my biggest fan!”

So I’m living out my destiny as an employee engagement consultant, spending the weekend watching the Tim Russert coverage, flopped on my bed in the desert in mid-June, cooling off by eating Dreyer’s frozen fruit bars, with exactly 1,864.65 miles between my current life and my past more humid, but better air-conditioned life in the DC area, where Dreyer’s is sold as Edie’s.

I’ve already dismissed any romantic notion that maybe I should have been more energetic as a go-get-em cub reporter. So what’s this continuing fascination with the Tim Russert story? Eventually the truth makes its way to the front of my sugar-soaked brain: Yes we’re hearing all about what a great journalist he was. And most certainly we’re hearing all about what a wonderful son he was and, of course, what an inspiring father he was.

But we’re also hearing about what an amazing coworker and boss he was. Oh….now we’re talking my language! Without even having to sit up, I stretch my fingertips toward the legal pad on the bed next to me, draw it nigh, find a pen in the folds of the cotton sheets, pull the cap off with my teeth and start taking notes based on what I’m hearing.

And what I’m hearing is a blueprint for the kind of leadership attributes that will inspire people to follow your example long after you have moved on.

Cheerleader: Russert called his staff his “dream team.” He made his team “all proud” to be who they are, in the business that they are in, working hard for the cause of information and understanding.

Infectious enthusiasm for his work: In this case, one would say that Russert was enthusiastic about the nation, its political process, and the Fourth Estate, if treated respectfully and respectably, could continue to inform its citizens to make the best decisions for the country’s future. Russert got the calling of his profession.

Authentic: I’m a little worried that authenticity might be used so much now that the word itself might be losing its edge of authenticity. But in Russert’s case, everyone agrees that “what you saw was what you got.” He didn’t bother to hide his boyish enthusiasm for his work and his interviewees. He didn’t try to pretty up a face that was made for radio. I would bet he didn’t even bother reading books on how to have difficult conversations with his subordinates. He might never have given a coffee mug or a mylar balloon in his life as a thank you gift to a staffer. Maybe as a joke (he had been known to give a bobble-head or two) but certainly not because he read in a book somewhere that coffee mugs are a great way to retain talent.

Ambitious for his friends (including the people who worked for him; even his competition): He took the time to teach the people around him, celebrated their opportunities to grow, suggested questions for other reporters to use and claim credit for. His friends, colleagues and competitors universally reminisced this weekend that his generosity of time, insight, information and guidance made them all better and smarter.

Aggressive but civil: Every business is, in some way, a competitive one. And you must be willing to invest some spit and spine in your work to be your most effective. But Russert demonstrated that even in the most bull-dog of all businesses, most of the time you could leave your opponent exposed, but still standing and unbloodied.

Enduring faith in humanity: On Meet the Press this morning, Russert’s executive producer, who had been with him 17 years, since she was an intern, stoically remembered him as saying, “The best exercise for the human heart is to bend down and pick someone up.” Only an enduring faith in humanity would inspire someone to hold in his heart the belief that helping someone in need, in pain, or even in ambition would be worth the effort time and time again.

These are attributes that every people leader should hold in his or her own heart every day as they work with their team and their customers. To be a leader is to require that you must be a genuinely decent human being. Share the glory. Take time to teach. Take time to remind your team that they are players on your dream team – and if they truly aren’t, build a team that does represent your dreams for excellence. You would be making their dreams come true as well.

You may not be a reporter or a television personality. You may or may not be a parent. But if you’re a leader, you can draw from Tim Russert’s examples and enduring reputation to inspire a new level of performance in the way you treat your people, ignite their own passion for their work, and inspire generations to come.

And that would be very boss indeed.