Managing Our Reputations

I recently read a very small sidebar in a weekly magazine that was focused on the "hockey mom" image of Sarah Palin.  The sidebar quoted the money spent in 2008 on clothing to ready Palin for the Republican National Convention.  The sidebar went on to state "and she still managed to look like she worked in human resources!".  Hmmm - I wasn't certain what I was to take away from that comment.  What I did know was that many employees and, in some rare cases, entire organizations still view human resources as stodgy, annoying, and out of touch with the average employee.  They also feel that human resource managers will "side" with the management team despite evidence of wrongdoing that tells another story and "protect the sham of performance reviews" in the words of one contributor to About.com.  Here, a Wharton School of Business article entitled Is Your HR Department Friend or Foe restates this rather succinctly:

"According to its critics, HR departments can be needlessly bureaucratic, obstructionist, stuck in the "comfort zone" of filling out forms and explaining company benefits, and too closely aligned with the interests of management yet lacking the business knowledge to be effective strategic partners. Dealing with these types of HR departments is like going to the dentist..."

Many employees have had only negative interactions with human resources and so - no wonder - they have formed such an opinion.  Unfortunately, sometimes human resource managers allow their department's reputation to be managed for them rather than taking an active role in forming the outward in view employees have on human resource functions and roles.  We all are aware of the push to make, and keep, human resources a partner at the strategic table.  This means pushing up change rather than letting change dictate what you will do next as in a reactive scenario.  This means using metrics to discern trends and establishing a sound case for acting on those trends when those at the top level are not reacting.  Taking an active role in the human resource department's reputation is a sure way to effectively manage it - don't let human resources just "happen" - drive it....and stop wearing "soccer mom" (or "soccer dad") business clothes...

Where's My Lunch?

Thought I would lighten things up a bit and write about a subject that, while a little light, is a sore spot for some employees. Imagine that it's early afternoon and you've put a solid few hours of work - you are ready for an energy infusion (e.g. lunch). You open the fridge and find that someone else has beaten you to your lunch and decided they needed it more. You now feel like this is not going to be a good afternoon. Other than the fact that you have to eat out of a vending machine now, you realize that there is someone in your office that has very little respect for boundaries. Maybe though, this person left you a little bit of food (you know, because they felt bad)...

What should you do? You could take the route of striking back and some passive-aggressive tactics. Some interesting ideas (culled from actual employee strike backs): 

hide your food in a jar labeled "medical specimen"

hide food in the back of the refrigerator

camouflage your lunch as in this clip at HuffingtonPost Canada

Or, you could make an attempt to instill a little guilt and peer awareness into the perpetrator by leaving a note stating "hope you enjoyed that leftover chicken and rice, maybe try bringing in some for yourself".  If lunch stealing becomes a constant issue, your office manager could try posting signs that send a clear warning to stay away from food they didn't bring.

There are several articles on the topic and even a web site, Passive AggressiveNotes.com *(note: site contains some content not entirely suitable for children) devoted to the topic of addressing (or redressing) those individuals who feel compelled and entitled to liberating your lunch. 

School is Over but the Bullies are Still Around

Within the field of education we stress a no bullying policy and make efforts to educate every student, parent,  teacher (instructional employee) and non-instructional employee regarding bullying. It is apparent why we would educate students, parents, and teachers but why educate employees who are not in contact with students? The reason is workplace bullying. When you were in school I'll bet you could name the bully (or the person that had that reputation) and you hopefully steered clear of that person and never had to deal with them. For many people, it was not too difficult to avoid the bully - that is, unless he was in your class.  You were "captive" then. An easy mark. The same goes for adults and bullies in the workplace. You must be at work and there the bully is - waiting for his/her captive target. 

Workplace bullies go by many titles: co-worker, boss, vendor. They have many pseudonyms: shark, know-it-all, screamer, snake, gatekeeper, critic, attention seeker, two-face, etc.. (of course, there are quite a few more colorful names I have left off - you know them...). Bullies intend to circumvent the typical path to making something happen (whether it be gaining acceptance for their idea all the way to promotion) and use manipulation as their means to accomplishing their goals. To confirm as to whether that difficult person you deal with at work is actually a bully - take this test adapted from Psychology Today:

1. Does your boss blame you for fabricated "errors"?
2. Are you given unreasonable job demands?
3. Does your boss threaten you with being fired?
4. Does your boss insult you and/or criticize your abilities? Does this happen in front of others?
5. Are you excluded by the bully given the silent treatment?
6. Does your boss yell, scream, or curse at you?
7. Does your boss inconsistently enforce rules?
8. Does your boss deny or discount your accomplishments and/or take credit for your success?

So...what to do? First, be professional, be professional, be professional. I can't stress it enough. Many times when an employee confronts a bully in the workplace it does not have a happy ending - for the employee. Make sure to take some time to think through the specifics of what is occurring and even take notes. Practice responses to the bully so when you are in a particular situation the next time, you are ready to be assertive (not aggressive). Know when to escalate your concerns and when to walk away.

For additional information on how to handle a workplace bully, check out these links:

 http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/867-workplace-bullying.html

 http://money.howstuffworks.com/deal-workplace-bully.htm

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michelle-callahan/work-bullies_b_833977.html

More $$ = Less Innovation

Why have business practices seemingly stagnated over since, say, the invention of management? Notice I said invention of management.  I refer to management (or the act of managing) as an invention because I agree with Dan Pink, a career analyst and former speechwriter, who makes the point in a TED - managing is a creation of man. Business, as a whole, seems to be fixated on the traditional model of employees and manager and how compensation is structured. Most organizations, as well, like to think they are driving productivity and even innovation by offering incentives (bonuses, stipends, trips, special parking spots, tickets to a game, a private bathroom stall with the toilet paper roll guaranteed to be loaded where you don't have to spin the roll to find the starting point, you know - the usual).

Guess what - those incentives are not working. Incentives are extrinsic motivators - motivators that are unrelated to the task the person is performing or to the problem that needs to be solved. Want to know what works? Creating a business climate where employees feel their work is meaningful and where employees can make a connection between what they are working on and a larger purpose - intrinsic motivators. Yes, this is sounding a lot like your college psychology teacher's lecture on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs but this is science supported by a large number of studies and real-life examples. Take a look at Pink's TED talk below and do a little research yourself - it's pretty interesting stuff that directly relates to how we manage our human resources:

How Not to Conduct Team-Building

I'm green and gold. I learned that I am green and gold through a team building exercise that was intended to bring insight to "an individual's pathway to self-confidence and esteem".  The pathway is part of the "True Colors" system of identifying character. The exercise was meant to be both fun and practical and it was, at least, interesting. The majority of the staff participated in the exercise fully, curious as to what their color/s would be. There were, however, some of the staff who sat in the room, arms crossed and head shaking in sarcastic disregard, who were less than fascinated by the whole attempt. While I wouldn't label the exercise a disaster, it was not altogether successful in building team togetherness and structure. Based on the MSN Careers article, The worst team-building experience you've ever had, others have had much more disastrous team-building experiences.

This comment,  regarding a ropes course that rubbed everyone the wrong way (yes, pun intended), from Rebecca Staton-Reinstetin, president of Advantage Leadership Inc sums up the main reason why a team should be well-developed prior to such an exercise: "It was an extreme example of how team-building events are mistaken for the long, hard work of actually building a team with shared goals and responsibilities". Put another way, any team-building exercise must start with a team - and a group of people who happen to work together does not make a team. Where to begin? Start by ensuring team members understand the "big picture" and the reason why their collective work is important to the organization and to each other. Susan M. Heathfield, human resource contributing writer for About.com puts it this way "You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team-building objectives. This is why so many team-building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants".

One of the best team-building experiences I have had was with a group I undoubtedly consider a team. We had been through forming, storming and norming and were comfortable and efficiently in our performing stage - the goal of any team. The goal of the exercise was to pass a ball between all the participants' hands within a few seconds time. We had sincere fun trying to come up with creative ways we could accomplish this goal. We first tried simply passing the ball to each other - not quick enough. We then tried lining up with our arms outstretched and having someone from the team run past us all while running the ball across the top of our hands - still not quick enough. We then, in a wonderfully symbolic show of a group of people working together, stood huddled in a circle while placing our hands clasped and in a circle and stacked on top of each other. All it took was one team member to drop the ball from the top and - tada - mission accomplished...