HR Bartender
The Importance of Servant Leadership
Several years ago, I participated in a program called Leadership Broward. The program is designed to encourage business leaders to become active community stewards. One of the concepts shared during the program was the concept of servant leadership. I found it fascinating.
A while back, I was reminded of the virtues of servant leadership after seeing a quote from Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines. “To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower.” This is the essence of servant leadership.
To give you a little history, servant leadership was started in the 1970’s by Robert Greenleaf, Director of Management Research at AT&T. Greenleaf’s job was to study how the best leaders emerged in organizations. During the same time, Greenleaf was personally troubled by the student unrest on college and university campuses.
So, Greenleaf decided the best way to understand the youth movement was to read a novel that was very popular with youth at the time. The novel was The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse.
The Transparency Test
A little while back, I talked about how transparency seems to have faded from our conversations both on and off social media. One of the reasons for this could be that we don’t really know what to look for in terms of transparency. It got me thinking. How do we know if an organization is operating in a transparent manner?
So I started a list. Here’s what I came up with:
No surprises. Not being open, particularly with regard to how money is spent, could be a dead giveaway. I’m not talking about the $4 spent on a box of staples, here. If you’re involved with an organization that has a defined process for budgeting money, selecting vendors and expense allocations, chances are you should know all about commitments to these things long before someone signs on the dotted line.
Showing respect. This can take many forms, of course. I can say my doctor has no respect for my time when he makes me wait 90 minutes to see him (hmmm . . maybe he’s not transparent). But, what I’m really talking about here is making an effort to do what’s right for the customer, employee, volunteer, etc. If an organization is just doing whatever is easiest or it appears there’s a hidden agenda behind their decisions, it’s possible they aren’t being fully transparent.
The Business Case for Managing Ourselves
The Harvard Business Review published a post by Vineet Nayar on Who is the New CEO? The article is a well-thought out vision that, in the future, successful CEOs will focus on building decentralized organizations and enabled employees.This makes total sense to me. I’m sure businesses right now don’t want to build extra layers and structure. That can be very expensive. What they want are people who understand the organization and feel comfortable identifying problems and taking action without a lot of supervision.
The challenge is, this concept is somewhat new to companies. Let’s face it, the empowerment phase never really caught on. Many organizations only know how to operate in an environment of “approvals” or “directives.” For example:
- When two employees have a disagreement, where do they go? Either to their supervisor or HR to solve it.
- If there is a problem with a process, what do employees do? Ask their manager how to fix it.
The only way I can think to enable your workforce is to teach them how to become self-managing. Give people the resources to manage their own behavior and hold themselves accountable. But I’d add – instead of just a high-level theoretical overview of the concepts of self-management, offer employees hands-on tools they can use every day. Include specific sessions on:
Opportunity, Empowerment and Communism
But the one thing that I’m a bit unsure of is its premise that, for businesses to take advantage of these opportunities, they will have to “empower employees” to react at a moment’s notice.
Most of us probably remember empowerment. It was a big business catchword in the 90’s. The idea was to empower employees to make their own decisions as long as they benefited the customer. Most companies heralded it as a customer service savior that would put decision-making in the hands of front line staff. All to the delight of their patrons while freeing up management for, um . . . well . . . let’s just say more important things.
A classic example of how empowerment works would go like this: guest stays in a big fancy hotel. At checkout, the guest notices that they had been charged $4 for a Snickers from the minibar. Guest tells front desk clerk they didn’t eat a Snickers and the clerk, without requiring approval from management, would take the $4 charge off the account. Guest leaves happy to return often and repeatedly.
The Fine Line Between Cliques and Teams
Franny Oxford over at Do the Work blog wrote a post a while back about SHRM (aka the Society for Human Resource Management). While her post was about something completely different, she made reference to SHRM affiliated chapters being cliquish.The comment really struck me because, during my involvement with SHRM, I’ve heard the same remark…many times. And I always walk away scratching my head about cliques, the perceptions of cliques and their relationship to teams.
I guess to understand my view, you have to know my definition of a clique. I define it as a group that excludes other people from being a part of it.
That being said, if the group doesn’t exclude you, but you don’t participate, the group isn’t being cliquish. You’re choosing not to participate. Here’s a common example: after our local chapter meetings, some of the current board, past board and anyone else who wants to hang out, will grab a drink at the bar. You decide to go home. The group at the bar isn’t a clique…they just want to hang out together.
Do You Work In The Gray Zone
One of the absolutely fabulous readers here at HR Bartender sent me this question. It was a question asked of her during a job interview and she wanted to know how I would have answered it.Jan and John are working together on a project. HR is planning to suspend Jan. Do you tell John that Jan is going to be suspended knowing that they have a project that they are working on? I then was asked the same question but a bit differently. What if you were investigating the matter and you were not sure if Jan will be suspended? Do you tell John?
This is one of those situations where I end up having more questions than answers.
For example, what roles do Jan and John have in the organization? The positions they hold could answer the question. Let’s say Jan is a director and John is a manager – the answer is probably no, you wouldn’t tell John. On the other hand, if John is a vice president and Jan is a director…then maybe you do.
5 Business Lessons from Watching Mythbusters
- What happens when you put a real live bull in a china shop?
- Which is worse – driving while drunk or while using your cell phone?
- How far does snot travel when you sneeze?
They recently compiled a Top 25 Myth Moments which reminded me of the business takeaways you can get while watching the show.
Don’t overthink stuff. While the show gets into engineering and science, the hosts often realize that the key to recreating the situation is to use the simplest approach. Why? Because fewer things can go wrong. It’s the same in business, sometimes we add rules that are unnecessary or cause more confusion. There’s something to be said about keeping things simple and adding layers only as it becomes necessary.
A Crisis of Creativity in the Workplace
But the message made me wonder. Are organizations really ready for innovation? And if they are – don’t we need creative people to fuel the innovation train? Whenever I have these philosophical moments, I rely on the dictionary to help me clarify my thoughts. According to Merriam-Webster,
- Innovation is the introduction of something new. A new idea, method or device.
- Creativity is the ability to produce through imaginative skill (rather than imitate).
In pondering the two definitions, it seems to me that we need to have a certain amount of creativity in order to have innovation. Here’s my reasoning.
Manage Your Office Door
Seth Godin’s wrote a great post titled “Goodbye to the Office“; challenging conventional thought about the traditional office environment. I can certainly see his point. It’s one of the reasons I’m writing at Workshifting blog and am involved in social media. The development of the freelance economy along with the technology tools at our fingertips could make the traditional office obsolete.But eliminating offices is about more than just not renewing a lease. In order to be successful, it’s about training managers how to engage and manage a virtual workforce. And it’s about employees being accountable and managing themselves. Until those things start becoming a major part of the equation, my prediction is the office will still be around.
Not because we need the office space, but because we don’t know how to operate without it.
Anyhoo, Seth’s post reminded me of my previous offices. My first office was a cubicle assigned to me when it’s previous occupant employee was downsized. It was such an uncomfortable feeling – on one hand, I was excited to have my first office and on the other was the guilt and paranoia of how the office came to be mine. Even though I didn’t have anything to do with the person leaving.
Handling Workplace Retaliation
Employees want to believe they can provide honest feedback but are worried something bad will happen as a result – maybe they would get a negative reference or have their hours cut. So, I wanted to take this concern to the streets and ask some business leaders for their insights.
And who could be better to discuss this workplace challenge than Alison Green, author of the very successful blog Ask a Manager. As the former chief of staff for a Washington D.C. based non-profit, Alison has that real-life, in-the-trenches manager expertise, so I posed the question “What would you say to an employee who is afraid they will be retaliated against?”
The Importance of Giving Notice
I read an article recently dealing with the pros/cons of employees giving notice. It’s an interesting read and you can check it out here.
Giving notice should be a two-way street. Employees should give notice to the company so a transition plan can be put into place. Companies also have the opportunity to “give notice” to employees – for example, sometimes when a person’s position is being eliminated a company will provide two-weeks’ pay in lieu of notice.
But when companies don’t treat employees with respect, they create a situation where employees don’t feel the need to give notice when they walk out the door. No business wants to be put in a place where they’re scrambling to cover shifts or work assignments. So it’s important to create an environment where giving notice is proper versus making those final days painful.
On the other hand, employees should remember what it feels like to be left in a lurch and not use giving notice as a way to “get back” at a manager. Honestly, the only people you’re hurting are your co-workers and, ultimately, the customer.
Examining Employee Turnover
The new talk on the street is that the number of people quitting their jobs exceeds the number of layoffs. I wonder if this is the first signs of the double and triple digit turnover that’s been predicted as the economy starts to improve. Any talk about employees quitting always prompts a conversation about the different kinds of turnover.
Bad turnover is the kind you don’t want to happen (naturally.) It’s when good people leave the organization. Usually for your competitors. People that took you forever to find. They did a great job.
Good turnover is when people you want to leave – finally do. Maybe they hung around because they’re set in their ways. Maybe it’s because you didn’t have the spine to fire them. Whatever the reason, they’re finally moving on.
Building Bridges on the Way Out
With any job change, there always comes the “do I or don’t I” decision about sharing your employment experience. You got it, how to handle the exit interview.
Many people will tell you not to burn a bridge. They follow the “if you can’t say something nice” rule. And there’s some truth to that advice. Everyone should think long and hard before severing a relationship with someone. After all, never is a really long time.
But I do get concerned that the advice is misinterpreted as “don’t offer constructive suggestions and feedback”. There’s a big difference.
My Favorite Interview Question
Years ago I found an interview question that I really liked. One that told me a lot about candidates. I forget how I discovered it, but once I did I’ve been using it ever since. The question is:Tell me about a time you had to work with someone you did not personally like.
I think one of the reasons it’s a great question is because it uses behavioral interviewing techniques. People have to reach back into their experience and share a story about dealing with people. The answer will give you some insight into how they would react if placed in that situation again.
I also believe it’s one of those questions you can’t fake. Sorry folks, but if anyone tells you “Oh I’m a people person and I get along with everyone.” They’re lying. Pure and simple. We all have to interact with people that might not be on our BFF list. It’s a part of business and there’s nothing wrong with it. The important part is how people handle the situation.
The Real Reason for Exit Interviews
Employee engagement continues to be an issue for organizations. There’s constant conversation about being over-worked and under-paid. We all realize times have been tough but now is the perfect time to examine some of your processes to ensure your business remains healthy.
A couple days ago, I wrote about on-boarding – the beginning of a person’s career. Today, let’s talk about the end of the employment cycle – exit interviews.
