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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Women In Business

Combating Employee Apathy

Today I had lunch with a friend who is a cognitive neuroscientist. She was telling me about her research that identifies which patients are more likely to comply with their doctor’s instructions – whether regarding diet, medication, smoking, etc. – and which are likely to ignore instructions and continue their unhealthy habits, undeterred. She said there was one variable that was the strongest predictor of which path a person would choose: whether or not they demonstrated apathy.

In that situation, apathy stemmed from a variety of beliefs ranging from denial that the risks of their current lifestyle were as severe as doctors claimed, to lack of confidence that they would be able to maintain the new routine, or fear that it would simply be too much work. Whereas her examples pertained to healthcare, I realized that the apathy factor is just as obstructive in leadership and motivation.

For me, the question of converting apathy into motivation brings up an interesting question regarding who is responsible for this change. To what extent is it the employee’s responsibility to motivate themselves to perform better, and to what extent is it yours, as their supervisor, to help them find a reason to feel motivated?

An apathetic employee can be toxic to an organization. The longer you let them be, the more damage they can cause. Some would say that these are the employees you need to terminate, and soon. But sometimes it’s not that simple, such as when the company process for termination can take months or longer, and require substantial consistent documentation. Plus, many have the potential to turn around and become productive contributors with the right guidance and opportunities.

But how can you recognize apathy early on, before it’s too late?

There are a variety of warning signs of apathy. As all communication is conveyed through three primary channels – verbal, vocal and visual – let’s take a look at some of the signs in each area.

Verbally, listen for specific comments that indicate that someone is not on board, or doubts the value or validity of what he or she has heard. Passive-aggressive comments like, “Whatever,” “Here we go again,” or “it doesn’t matter what I say because nothing is going to change anyway,” are clear indicators that there is a serious disconnect between their perception of a situation and yours. Alternatively, a lack of voluntary, proactive engagement in conversations may indicate a lack of interest or a lack of confidence in something. Try to notice patterns in the person’s comments, as the words he uses will often either implicitly or explicitly indicate the nature of the problem.

Sometimes, however, the words themselves may not overtly indicate a problem, but as the saying goes, “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” It becomes important to listen past the words to their delivery. Vocally, when that person speaks, do they sound interested in the topic, or tend to mumble their way through most conversations? Are they rushing through their comments like they just want to get the meeting over with? Is there something in their voice that sounds anxious, frustrated, terse, sad or distracted? What if you’re not sure what you’re hearing? The answer is simple: Ask.

Finally, trust your eyes. Look for behaviors that indicate a lack of connection, such as substandard performance, poor attendance, or lack of participation in group conversations or activities. Physical and behavioral signs can also include sighs of resignation or exasperation, eye-rolling or lack of eye contact, poor posture, and frowning.

It’s not to say that the occasional demonstration of any of these signs is an immediate red flag; after all, we all have good days and bad days. But when the behavioral exception turns into the rule, it’s time to give it a second look.

At that point once you have identified some patterns, it’s critical to speak with the employee and get to the heart of the apathy. You can’t determine a solution, or even guide someone else to finding their own solution, unless you find out what the root cause of the problem is. Often, apathy can be an indirect cry for help.

This kind of conversation can be one of the most intimidating and challenging conversation for leaders, but whatever you do, don’t ignore apathy. For those who are conflict-averse to start with, the issue is fraught with hazards and uncomfortable topics from the employee’s objectively poor performance to their subjectively negative attitude. If you need some help in broaching this discussion, check out my previous post and video for strategies and tips on how to initiate sensitive conversations.

You might discover that they don’t understand the importance of their role or how their work fits into the big picture. Alternatively, the work could be too easy and thus unstimulating, or too difficult and thus overwhelming. Maybe they are dealing with a stressful home situation such as a sick and elderly parent or child with special needs. Or they could feel like they don’t know how to fit into the company or departmental culture, which can be demoralizing.

Naturally, some of those issues are easier to address than others in helping the employee find solutions that inspire internal or intrinsic motivation (see Sharon Smith’s series here on this issue). But through constructive dialogue, you can determine mutually beneficial and responsible steps to take, such as empowering the employee with training for greater skills development and future career opportunities…. Or you may jointly decide that it’s in everyone’s best interest for you to introduce the employee to someone outside the company who could offer them a position that they will find fulfilling, and leave of their own volition, on good terms. But sometimes, just knowing that you noticed and cared enough to ask what’s going on can be a huge first step toward overcoming apathy, and changing attitudes, behaviors and performance.

Of course, the employee has to make the ultimate choice for him or herself, but part of leading and mentoring is helping people gain new perspectives and grow. The best leaders can find the right path to lead anyone.

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Best Practices Growth Skills

Are We Creating Bullies and Wimpy Kids?

A Tennessee middle-schooler, Keaton Jones, was on a video where he lamented about being bullied at school. The video pulled at our hearts as he asked, in a cracked voice, why some kids are bullies. Keaton stated that he was teased because of his looks and for being different.

Keaton is not alone. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that twenty-eight percent of students in grades 6 – 12 have been bullied at some point. Looking at just cyberbullying, the number of those bullied went from 18% in 2007 to 34% in 2016. The increase in suicides by those tormented has increased so much we added a new word for it: bullicide; a combination of bully and suicide.

A bully is a person who is habitually cruel to smaller or weaker people. There are several actions that a bully uses: name calling, making fun of, pushing, spitting, and stealing, along with excluding them from activities or groups. Kids who are bullied are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, loss of eating and sleeping, a drop in their grades and less interest in activities, to name a few. Being bullied can have a negative effect that will stay with children, even when they become adults.

There are also effects that bullies carry with them as adults. Kids who torment others are more likely to get into fights, vandalize property, drop out of school, abuse drugs and alcohol, have poor relationships and have criminal convictions. Whether a child is the bully or being bullied, there is a lasting negative effect that can be played out when they are adults.

Both sides of bullying need to be addressed and parents are a great influence on their kids. Let’s look at the bully side first. Being a bully is a learned behavior. A York University study found that children who are bullies have little support from their parents, live in homes of high conflict and their parents don’t monitor their children’s activities. Bullying is a learned behavior that a child picks up from people they live with.

Parents of a bully can counteract this behavior by:

Active relationships – spend time with your kids. Set expectations and have some rules.

Physical exercise – take the kids outside to play. Teach them to play fair.

Look at your behavior – what are you modeling for your child in the way you speak to and treat others, in violence, with racism, etc. Demonstrate better behavior with support and unity. Remember, you are their parent, not their best buddy.

Now let’s address the child being bullied. In a perfect world, there would be no bullies. Since there are, we can prepare our children not to be tormented. Teach kids that their differences are what make them who they are. When you encourage and support their uniqueness, they will gain confidence. The most successful people are those who have embraced who they are.

Bullies use the unbalance of power; physical strength, embarrassing information or their popularity as weapons. Kids who are bullied need to take back the power so they can stand up for themselves.

Here are a few things parents can do to teach their children how to avoid being bullied:

Model confidence in the things you do. Be an example to your children.

Encourage them to try new things. Be there with them. Set them up for success.

Let them fail. Failure is learning. Don’t remove obstacles. Praise them for their hard work and their resilience.

Let them weigh out the options. Children with low self-esteem have parents who advise them too much. Children have to learn to make decisions.

A bully needs a victim; teach your child not to be a victim. Coddling your child doesn’t give them the capacity to handle negative situations. Build up their confidence. Teach them to take criticism so they won’t internalize what someone says.

Parents are the first line of defense against raising a bully or raising a victim. Standing back and asking, ‘what are we going to do to protect our children while expecting someone else to step in isn’t a solution. The most effective thing you can do is equip your child with the tools he/she needs to stop being a bully or to overcome bullying.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

I’m a State Champion

In my senior year of high school (yes, we did have electric lights and flushable toilets) I was part of a state championship basketball team. This was a big deal. We were a small Catholic school competing with players from the “big cities”. And I made a significant contribution to that victory. My mom saved the press clippings if you need validation of that claim. And I was over 40 years old before I gave that accomplishment much thought. Why is that?

I think a lot us don’t give ourselves enough credit. We don’t think about the good things we accomplish, the way we take care of our families, we way we serve our employers or our customers. Why is that?

Is 99% of the populations suffering from lack of confidence based on what they think they DID NOT accomplish? I know a lot us focus too much on our faults and our challenges. And we are not encouraged and inspired by what we have already REALLY accomplished. We don’t think about our successes.

In his book Let Me Out: Unlock Your Creative Mind and Bring Your Ideas to Life, Peter Himmelman, the founder of Big Muse, a company that teaches creative thinking, leadership skills, and deeper level of communication in all facets of life-personal and professional, talks about MARV (Majorly Afraid of Revealing Vulnerability). This is the human voice that tells us we are not worthy. We are not capable. We are NOT……………you get the idea.

MARV is the bullshit we listen to when the facts say the opposite. You, did pass that test. You, did get that job. You, do have a great family life. You, did do that marathon, You, did write that song. You, did organize that little league team, you did break that glass ceiling at you company. Your life is overwhelmingly filled with positives.

Sometimes I need to pull out that scrapbook from my high school days to see my picture in the paper, to remind myself that along with my tremendous teammates, I am a state champ.

You are a champion. Pause for a little bit and think of all your successes. Then move forward confidently. You do have a history of success. You can accomplish that task.

Congratulations! You’re a winner!

PS: I have interviewed Peter Himmelman more than once on my Business Builders Show. Go to www.c-suiteradio.com to find those encouraging discussions!

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Management Marketing Personal Development

The Decision Process IS the Product!

Your decisions are the result of the decision-making process you employ to make them.  Let me illustrate using a story.

When my kids were growing up, we had a family tradition of going out dinner every Sunday night. My wife and I were both great cooks. While it was easy to eat well at home, the dedicated — OK, captive — family time in a restaurant setting was great for connecting with each other, and started the coming week on a great footing.

For the first few years of this tradition, the process of picking a restaurant went like this: as we were driving out of the church parking lot, discussions – actually a low-intensity argument – would start. Options were proposed and rejected by one or more family members in what seemed like an hours-long process of consensus-building. The product of this process: about 95% of the time, we ended up at Chili’s. That was the only option that could survive that process/ discussion gauntlet relatively unscathed. We all knew we were in a rut, but every time we tried to propose options, the process we used directed us back to the same place. Our “variety” became “table or booth?”. Chili’s is a great place, which is why it made the cut so consistently, but…sheesh.

Same Program, Same People, Wildly Different Results

Then somebody had the great idea to change the process. Each week, one of us got their turn to pick the restaurant for the family. The oldest, in high school at the time, introduced us one week to the Mexican dive hangout he learned about from friends. Our kids were introduced to sushi, Greek, Thai, seafood and more – and loved every single one. My youngest developed a love for the culinary arts – I’m positive in part, due to his wide exposure. I can’t remember a single flop; we almost always walked out of a family meal happy about a new experience. We repeated a few of the big hits (usually at the request of somebody other than the original “chooser”), but the variety and quality of the choices when way up. Importantly, every single one of us agreed that they loved the new results better every. single. week.

Here’s the lesson: the people – the Buying Influences — involved in this decision didn’t change: same personalities, same preferences, same budget, same geographic constraints, same everything. Yet, we achieved far different, far better results.

If you are a Sales Professional:

How groups choose drives what they choose. Consumers choose different decision processes or heuristics. You can guide them to use different heuristics within reason.  They’ll easily choose from a short list of processes they’ve used in the past, for instance. Groups of people organize decisions in certain ways, and often default to the same process they used most recently even if the results were less-than-ideal.

Complex selling is a consensus sale among a group of humans making a group decision… much like my family’s restaurant selection decision. High-performing sellers become students of the group dynamic, and harness different group decision-making processes in order to optimize results. You can add critical players, propose new processes yourself, get coaching to help shape decisions from within the group, and even work within formal processes like RFPs and bids to optimize your chances of success.

If you are a Sales Leader or a Business leader:

Understand how process used determines the outcome achieved.

If you don’t like the product, you may not need to change the people or other resources. To change results, look at your processes. Great leaders become students of group decision-making, and learn how process affects product.

On making decisions: look at your decision process. The way you facilitate each decision shapes it. The process you and your team uses to make a decision indelibly shapes the product – the outcome — of the decision.   If you don’t know how the process you imposed is affecting that decision, you’re either blindly replicating old decisions (for better or worse) and hoping for better results this time…or relying on luck.

On looking at your Processes: Don’t kid yourself about what you already have. In my sales performance consulting practice, I help customers change selling processes. The clients who initially think they don’t have a process are wrong. They have a process, even if it’s just an “everyone does what they want” process. That’s why changing it is hard (it would be a lot easier if “no process” really existed).

Feel free to comment below, or contact me directly. I offer tools to help sales professionals effectively and efficiently optimize customer processes, and love talking about them with new people. If I can help you guide your thinking on your own processes, I’m happy to share my thoughts.

To your success!

#sales, #salesprocess, #millerheiman, #millerheimangroup, #MHIglobal, #salesperformance, #customercentric, #process, #decisiondynamic

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Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Can I Speak With Someone in the Customer Prevention Department?

What company would even have such a department?? You would be surprised and horrified to find out, especially if that department existed in your company!

Make it easy for customers to do business with you… or they won’t! Have you ever tried to do business with a company that seemed like they had a Customer Prevention department? It might sound silly, but think about it!

Here are some signs that a company does not want your business or care about you:

  • You call them and leave a message but they don’t call you back……. ever
  • You ask them to send you something and you never receive it
  • They answer their phone and sound bothered that you are calling them and interrupting them
  • They don’t have their phone number listed on their website
  • You can’t leave a message if you call after hours for a return phone call
  • You visit their business and you can’t find anyone to help you
  • You go to the counter to pay for your purchase and the person behind the counter is too busy texting on their cell phone to notice that you’re even standing there with money in your hand
  • The employees of the company complain about their bosses, co-workers, policies or other customers in front of you

If you encounter such a company when you’re the customer, my advice to you is to pass them by. A friend of mine recently went to a local hair salon to get a blowout before a special event. She told me that although her hair looked beautiful, the hairstylist spent the entire time on a personal call on her cell phone. Not only did my friend feel unimportant, she felt like an inconvenience. Why should she return to a salon that clearly does not appreciate or value their customers, when there are numerous salons who do?

Business owners need to remember that they’re not the only game in town.  Actually, they probably have many competitors whose product or service is in all probability very similar to theirs.  The price is likely comparable as well.  So why should you buy it from them instead of “Joe down the street?”

Imagine getting into a car accident. You call up your insurance company and explain the situation. The first thing out of the agent’s mouth is, “What’s your policy number?” This agent is in the Customer Prevention Department. How should they have handled the call? “I’m so sorry to hear that you were in an accident! Are you alright?”

According to a survey by Bain & Company, 80% of companies surveyed believe they deliver a superior customer experience.  However, only 8% of their customers agree.  Those numbers just don’t add up, and it’s a recipe for disaster.  If you think you’re doing a great job taking care of your customers but your customers think otherwise, they may not be your customers for very long.

If you suspect that your company has a Customer Prevention Department, then it’s time to eliminate that department – and quickly!

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Accounting Best Practices Economics Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Investing Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Life is Always Testing You; A Negotiation Inspirational Insight

“Tests are meant to measure your improvement. Life’s tests are meant to improve you!” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“Life is Always Testing You”

“This is a test. For the next 60 seconds …”

“Fear not the passing of time. Fear instead your lack of ability to use the gifts that time gives you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Life is always testing us and thus, life is always a test. Be thankful for that because it means that you’re alive, with the ability to go higher in life.

We plan for one thing and something else happens. We set our expectations upon what we’ve planned for and life zags when we thought it was going to zig. At times, it can drive you nuts! But, you shouldn’t let it. Consider it as just another test that life is putting before you; it’s doing so to make you stronger. It’s doing so to see how quickly you can adapt to unexpected occurrences. To the degree that you don’t let such occurrences create mental angst within you, you’ll become infused with more resiliency in life, for your life. That can serve as a source of motivation to fortify your mental attitude and enhance your aptitude to achieve more in life.

The way we perceive and interpret what occurs in our life determines how we’ll adapt to those occurrences and how well we interact with them. Thus, if you view an occurrence from the perspective that it’s a test from which you can improve your abilities, the new/altered occurrence from what you expected can be viewed in a more positive light. That positive perspective should allow you to deal with the unplanned, unexpected occurrence easier and with less apprehension.

When something doesn’t serve you, don’t let it disserve you a second time. Occurrences will come to you from many different sources. Let the positive things that come from such sources support you. For those that detract from you and your goals, be thankful for their insights as you say goodbye to them, knowing that they too add value to your life.

Once you look at your life’s occurrences as being a value-add to your life, you will have adopted a mindset of openness, acceptance, and a mental state of ease. Once you do that … everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Negotiations are fraught with occurrences that challenged your preconceived plans based on the plans you assembled for the negotiation. Again, to the degree you’re flexible in the flow of the negotiation and you’re adaptable to the changing flow that occurs in/during it, the better a grip you’ll have on determining its outcome. That means you should manage your emotional state during the negotiation, constantly be thinking of any hidden meanings in unspoken and spoken words and any additional insight that body language gestures convey. That assembly of insights will make you a more formattable negotiator, which will lead to better negotiation outcomes for you.

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to  sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #Lifetest

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Best Practices Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

When You’re Just Too Busy

We wear busy like a badge of honor. Busy has become a status symbol within our society, which is crazy when you stop to consider how terrible it is to our productivity, personal well-being and relationships. We believe if we aren’t busy, we aren’t productive.

Researchers have discovered people are feeling overwhelmed at work dealing with constant distractions that then spill over into our personal lives, affecting our recovery, families and friendships. The result: the feeling of anxiety, stress, fatigue and a lack of focus on what matters most.

The Centre for Time Use Research at Oxford University says the total amount of time people work is the same as it’s always been and data indicates people who say they’re the busiest generally aren’t.

Question is: If we aren’t actually busier than in the past, why do we feel like it?  

Part of the answer is simple – attention is our new currency and is more valuable than ever before. With a constant stream of incoming emails, meetings to attend, things to read, ideas to execute, it’s no wonder we feel unable to give our undivided attention to what is most important.  When you couple everything competing for our attention with the digital age of technology, it’s no wonder we are feeling overwhelmed, overstressed and overtired. Fact is: we work 24×7. We never get a break.

Technology and societal pressures leave us feeling the need to be accessible to everyone all the time. As a result, everything suffers. Ironically, being constantly accessible actually decreases our productivity, not the other way around. When we feel rushed, we actually suffer from decreased production, focus and attention to detail. The pace of which we work slows, we are more apt to make mistakes and more likely to disconnect from meaningful relationships.

When we are overwhelmed and lack concentrated focus, we inadvertently compile our stress by taking on even more obligations than we can handle. Before we know it, we are sacrificing what matters most to suffice what matters now. Even worse, we have preprogrammed ourselves to believe we must always be on, plugged in and responsive. We fail to give ourselves the necessary time to recover and refocus.

It’s time to change our mindset. It’s time for an Attention Revolution.  We must stop considering busy as an indication of our importance. We must measure our success not by the time it takes to complete a task, rather the results we achieve. It’s time to prioritize what matters most to us and use those priorities as filters for what we commit to doing. We must learn to say ‘no’ to requests for our time that steal our attention from what matters most. It’s time to start realizing the value our undivided attention brings to relationships, productivity and accountability.

Maybe then, we’ll see we aren’t as busy as we thought we were.

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Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Management Technology

Craig Weiss Shares How His Company Will Allow Us To Control Our Dreams

As part of my nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, I interview top leaders and successful individuals who share their success stories.  I recently had the chance to interview Craig Weiss, Founder and CEO of Aladdin Dreamer, a technology company that is designing a wearable that allows people to control their dreams. He originally practiced patent law. Prior to Aladdin Dreamer, Craig oversaw NJOY, Inc. the world’s largest independent electronic cigarette and vaping company as President and later as CEO.

To hear the entire interview, you can go to the podcast version, which includes an interview with David Mead, who co-wrote Find Your Why with Simon Sinek and Peter Docker: http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/david-mead-and-craig-weiss_118355 or you can see the video interview with Craig Weiss on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3c7OpVTZg&t=1613s

The following are highlights of what Craig discussed in our interview.

  • How Aladdin Dream will allow customers to control their dreams
  • His experience in the vaping industry and how he was lambasted
  • How receiving a law degree impacted his success
  • His startup company and how he is raising funds
  • Serial entrepreneurship issues
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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Are You a Thought Leader? Get Your Ideas the Attention They Deserve

Have you ever heard the term ‘Thought Leadership’ and wondered what it was and who gets to call themselves a ‘Thought Leader?’ True thought leaders shape and shift ideas, perspectives and focus in others.

Thought leaders don’t just know something, they are known for something. People often consider themselves Thought Leaders and yet are actually just thought repeaters. If you really want to stand out as a unique leader who drives passion and focus in others, you must know with conviction, or be willing to develop the skills that meet the following Thought Leadership criteria:

  • Within your business or corporation, you are the go-to resource that best represents your brand, idea and thoughts.
  • You can quickly strategize using thought leadership as a marketing strategy to operationalize your unique ideas.
  • Create ideas and information your business and department can capitalize on by sharing it with the world in a way that is unique and one-of-a-kind.

Utilizing your unique talent and ideas in Thought Leadership can help you inspire and develop top talent within your company. It can also help you attract and retain a larger client base with great connection, engagement and partnership with your brand.

Question is, once you’ve identified your inner thought leader, how can you share your insightfulness to those around you?

1. Capture what you know: You must take the ideas from your head and create ways to communicate them to the marketplace. Thought Leaders can be found in any existing field of work imaginable; however, having a thorough knowledge and unique insights into a topic is only the beginning. Document what you know, your intellectual property. Become a subject-matter expert with unique insights and perspectives to share in your area of expertise. Communicate them in a way that demonstrates value, with language that is uniquely yours.

2. Make your ideas known by others: Of equal importance is the Thought Leader’s ability to educate others on their ideas. It is critical to to share ideas in such a way that you inspire others to want to pass the information along to those in their inner circle. So, package your ideas in an accessible and attractive format to distribute to a market hungry for insights and solutions to problems, and those hearing your message will be eager to distribute it accordingly.

3. Communicate with other Thought Leaders: Communicate with other industry thought leaders, those that are shaking up the way their industry operates. Those with unique insights and ideas often value like-mindedness. They will embrace your approach and engage others willing to listen and learn.

4. Concentrate your messages to the markets that will value your expertise: Your ideas offered must be powerful enough to shift, or contribute to the future direction of an industry, community or even a whole way of thinking. If your thought leadership ideas focus on customer engagement, focus on developing relationships and creating connections with those whose interests concur. If technological ideas are what you’re known for, engage with other like-minded industry thinkers that will see the value in your message and understand the long-term impact your ideas will have.

Thought leadership is a unique skill set and way of packaging solutions to problems others may not consider. Once you’ve identified this talent within yourself, or developed the skills to be known for what you know, move forward with the communication strategy presented so you can spread your knowledge and ideas successfully.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Attempting Fairness Isn’t Fair – The Difference Between Policy and Process

Treating all employees fairly with a specific policy sounds important, reasonable, and necessary.  Fairness is important, correct?  All managers should work to achieve it. Correct?  Unfortunately, the concept of fairness is vague at best and misleading plus harmful to employee engagement at worst.  Being fair depends on interpretation.  Interpretation of a situation can create too much variation.  Any attempt to be fair with all employees using policy alone will create unintended negative consequences.

When my daughter Emily was a junior in college she worked part time for a catering company.  She served dinner to the elderly at a Senior Living facility.  Her boss rarely saw her.  He did little more than create the work schedule for the workers (including Emily).  He never needed to be at the location because the students worked well as a team and needed little direction or supervision. The process for serving dinner was very predictable and relatively easy to learn and implement. Plus, the customers were very happy.

After working a year for this company Emily was scheduled for a raise.  The company policy required employees be considered for a raise only after receiving a performance review.  This policy was an attempt to treat all employees fairly and to ensure employees who receive a raise in fact deserve one.  It sounds reasonable and necessary.   However, there is a problem.  The boss was rarely, if ever, available to observe her performance.  He therefore had to guess.  There was no predictable process in place to access Emily’s performance.  The policy existed but there is no process to carry it out. Senior leadership wanted a fair policy for all employees.  What they got instead was a great policy for damaging motivation.

The boss and Emily met.  He rated her a 3.5 out of 4.  He attempted to justify his rating.  In this company’s performance management policy, the “1” rating is unsatisfactory and requires immediate dismissal; the “2” required immediate improvement with a performance plan; the “3” means “meets expectations”; and the “4” means “exceptional”.  The boss explained that “no one ever” receives a “4” rating because he doesn’t believe in awarding a “4”.  He explained, “everyone can improve and therefore the rating of exceptional is unreachable and unattainable”.  The boss had his own interpretation of the policy. In other words, he had his own process and he was incapable of explaining it effectively without damage to my daughter’s engagement.

My daughter was disappointed in her rating because she had never missed a day of work scheduled, had filled in for other employees when they called in sick or needed an evening off multiple times, and the clients loved her. She continually received unsolicited accolades and even gifts from the seniors.

She decided to speak up, “How can you rate my performance, you are never here?”   “That’s not true” he replied.  “Occasionally I arrive at the end of the shift in time for me to see you mopping the floor.”  She was not only disappointed but also appalled by his explanation.  She was de-motivated and discouraged. All this unintended consequence because she was due a raise.

Policy alone cannot deliver fairness, nor can it deliver engagement.  An event that was intended to increase engagement actually damaged it.  Policies don’t deliver fairness, processes do.  Without predictable processes, based on sound theory, fairness will be non-existent and engagement will be damaged.

While all employees need to understand policy it is not the policy alone that delivers the outcomes.  It is the process.  Employees also need to be treated as individuals.  Their individual needs, characteristics, skills all need to be addressed to honor their unique make-up.  The current performance appraisal process doesn’t deliver this (nor will it ever be able to do so in its current form).  My daughter’s story is not uncommon.  The typical performance review can create a disengaged employee even if it is a “good” review.

A process is needed that is both flexible and clear.  Then the variation needs to be managed to achieve desired outcomes.  Too often a leader “sends down” edicts to the masses and expects compliance.  It just doesn’t work that way. Not in today’s knowledge economy where employee engagement is a strategic advantage. Policy is an unsophisticated and damaging way of achieving engagement and the results show it.  The policy to conduct a performance review will not predictably deliver employee engagement even when the intentions are good.

Check out the interview on C-Suite Best Seller TV to learn more about how to stop leadership malpractice and replace the typical performance review: https://www.c-suitetv.com/video/best-seller-tv-wally-hauck-stop-the-leadership-malpractice/

 

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.