How To Be A Good Boss In A Bad Economy

HI!

I “stole” the title of today’s blog post from the Harvard Business Review. Pretty cheeky I know.

The article I was reading…”How to Be a Good Boss In a Bad Economy” is in the June 2009 edition of the HBR.

A couple of things struck me as interesting:

First, the author, Robert I. Sutton, writes about the challenges that “bosses” face in today’s tough economic climate.

Let’s face it. There are some pretty nasty bosses out there.

BUT there are also a lot of really great bosses who are trying their best. Best of all the old models of management and leadership are changing. 

Second, Robert Sutton shares some practice wisdom for leaders who have the difficult task of laying off employees:

1. Help people (as much a possible) predict what will happen.

2.  Help people to understand what is happening.

3. Provide people with some sense of control.

4.  Be compassionate!

Sutton is also quoted as saying:

“The sign of a great boss: bosses who increase predictability, understanding, control, and compassion for their people will allow employees to accomplish the most in a time of anxiety–and will earn their deep loyalty.”

Compassion is something that I would expect from an organization espousing spiritual values. I find it rather interesting that compassion is now finding its way into the lexicon of corporate America.

Check out this site for a more detailed look at the subject of compassion in the workplace:

www.compassionlab.org/docs/whatgoodiscompassion.pdf

Cheers,

Lesley

The Time Has Come For Changes In The Workplace

Hi there, today I’m going to write about Corporate Social Responsibility. 

Two recent posts to healing the workplace got me thinking about how organizations change and why:

One person wrote that she had discovered that her boss was “untrustworthy and unethical” and the other person wrote “the lack of jobs in the U.S.A. has bosses thinking that they can overwork and emotionally and mentally abuse employees and (sadly) nothing appears to have been done to stop this.”

I think that when these things are happening to you it seems like nothing can be done and that this is happening to everyone, everywhere.

I know, I’ve been there and it is a not a very good place to be.

Unfortunately there are abusive and unethical bosses. It is a fact of life.

If you work for one of these you have to make some difficult choices about whether you stay or whether you leave your job.

Sometimes you can’t leave the situation immediately because you need the job. If this is the case you need to find ways to look after yourself AND you need to start looking for another job.

But on the macro level…if we look at the big picture in North America (and this is where I segue into Corporate Social Responsibility) I believe that we are seeing a shift in how organizations operate and how they treat their employees.

Corporate Social Responsibility is not a new idea. In fact an early proponent of CSR was the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

CSR has been debated and discussed in one form or another through-out the 20th century.

It has only really “taken off” in the past 30 + years.

So, what is CSR and what has it got to do with how employees are treated in the workplace?

Here’s a definition of CSR from a 2002 article in the South China Morning Post:

“The notion of companies looking beyond profits to their role in society is generally termed corporate social responsibility (CSR).

 It refers to a company linking itself with ethical values, transparency, employee relations, compliance with legal requirements and overall respect for the communities in which they operate.

It goes beyond the occasional community service action, however, as CSR is a corporate philosophy that drives strategic decision-making, partner selection, hiring practices, and ultimately brand development.”

CSR is more than the “right thing to do” from a moral and ethical perspective.

There is firm evidence that businesses that adopt a CSR approach do just as well or better financially than businesses that don’t adopt this approach.

I am also certain that CSR is more likely to be adopted by businesses in more affluent countries where people have a choice about where they work and where they spend their hard earned income.

This is reflected in North America by the choices made by the “baby boomers” and more recently by generations x and y whose values line up with those of organizations that embody the values of CSR.

The recent economic crisis, that began in America and resulted in massive economic upheaval around the world, has resulted in a growing demand for transparency and a renewed focus on the “triple bottom line”–people, profits and the planet.

People, otherwise known as employees, are key organizational stakeholders.

Organizations that recognize this and treat employees as “having a stake” in the organization are on the rise.

Have you read the book “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell? If you haven’t you should because what Malcolm has to say is VERY interesting:

“The tipping poing is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”

CSR is at a threshold…and there is no going back.

As you have probably figured out by now I am an optimist and I see the glass as half full.

 I firmly believe that there will be a continued shift toward organizations that are socially responsible.

Bye for now!

Healing the Workplace BEFORE and After Layoffs

Happy Canada Day! If you are living in Canada you may be fortunate to have the day off today and so hopefully you won’t be thinking about work.

Or perhaps you have been laid off recently or are in the unenviable position of having to layoff employees sometime in the future.

Since the economy tanked last fall, hundreds of thousands of people have “lost” their jobs in countries around the world.

Recently I received my “Toastmasters Magazine” in the mail. As an aside I have found Toastmasters International to be a great organization for helping  me to development public speaking skills. 

What do most people think about when they hear the word Toastmasters?

They probably think about public speaking. BUT, if you join the organization, Toastmasters will also help you develop a range of communication AND leadership skills.  

Now, what was I talking about? Oh yes, healing the workplace “before and after layoffs”.

In the most recent issue of the Toastmaster, David Zielinski has written an article called, “Talking Through Tough Times at Work: The value of communication after company layoffs.”

In my experience there are lots of reasons why people are laid off: mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, outsourcing, and closing of businesses are just a few.

Sometimes the organization has no lead time but sometimes the layoffs are part of a “planned change” and the organization has months or even years to plan and organize the layoffs.

A few books have been written in the past two decades to help people in organizations cope with layoff “survivors”:

• Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations by David Noer.
• Charging Back Up the Hill: Workplace Recovery After Mergers, Acquisitions and Downsizing by Mitchell Marks.

It is important to support the “survivors” following layoffs.

But HOW you let people go is just as vital because the people who remain in the organization–the “survivors” will be watching this process closely.

Everything that the organization does during the time leading up to the layoffs will be put “under the microscope” so to speak.

You can begin the healing process before you actually layoff, fire or displace anyone and it will make it much easier for everyone post-layoff.

What can you do?

Well, years ago I worked for Providence Health Care (PHC) in Vancouver, B.C. This was during a time of ongoing change which included the outsourcing of the housekeeping and dietary departments AND the closing of two hospitals.

In my opinion what PHC did well was to really think about how the organization would care for people who were being “displaced”. 

This was the term that PHC used to describe people who were losing their jobs.

Here is a sample of the things that PHC did to help employees who were being displaced:

• worked with the major unions (it was a highly unionized organization)
• created a timeline so that people would know exactly what was to occur when.
• povided options for people with years of seniority (e g posting into unfilled vacant positions)
• provided information about retirement for those in a position to take early retirement
• provided information about employment insurance (EI), benefits and sick time
• provided assistance finding another job (working with community agencies)
• provided funding for retraining
• provided on-site classes on how to seek employment (interviewing tips, job search strategies, resume writing)

Wait there’s more!

Providence Health Care also offered the following services:

• employee and family assistance program
• cummulative critical incident stress management
• occupational health and safety nurses
• spiritual care workers
• human resources specialists

Leaders were also provided with information and support during this process.

Finally, the organization communicated, communicated and communicated to ensure that all employees knew and understood what was happending, when it was going to happen, who would be affected AND what support was available to those who needed it.

Of course, support was offered to the “survivors” but the healing began long before the “displacements” happened. 

Lesley

Personality Conflicts in the Workplace

Hello, hello, hello.

It’s TGIF day! For those of you who have not seen this “code” before…it means: Thank Goodness It’s Friday!

This will be especially important for those of you who are not happy at work or who work with people who “drive you crazy”. 

One of the things that makes work a pleasure or a pain is…the people we work with!

And, unless you work on your own you probably have to deal with other people either at work or at some time during your work day.

According to psychologist Dr. Judith Sills,

“Personality, that quirky grab bag of traits, tics, reactions, and beliefs that distinguish one person’s projected self from another’s, is the wild card of the workplace.”

There are many things that can cause us to become stressed at work but many of these “things” can be controlled in one way or another.

What we can’t control are the personalities of the people we work with.

Would it surprise you to know that “personality conflicts are the most commonly reported office problem?”

 What do psychologists mean by personality conflicts?

Well, first of all we know that people tend to be either introverts or extroverts.

Introverts prefer to spend time alone especially when they are stressed out or need to recharge their batteries.

Extroverts, on the other hand, need to be around other people and enjoy talking about their work, the projects they are working on, their lives etc. etc.

Now, most people need both quiet time and time to connect with others BUT sometimes we end up working with someone who is an extreme introvert or an extreme extrovert.

I think that these two people could work together if they understood each other’s behavior. BUT without this understanding, and a willingness to compromise, these two people could end up with a personality conflict.

What can we do when this occurs?

Dr. Sills has the following 4 suggestions:

• Resist recruiting allies–in other words don’t spend time talking about the individual who is giving you grief. This won’t help you and it creates a toxic work environment.
• Focus on strengths–remind yourself of the contributions that the other person makes to your team, your organization etc.
• Get out of the way–some personalities will push your buttons and the best thing to do is to stay out of their way. It is always important to know what triggers you so that you can prevent your own inappropriate reactions.
• Look in the mirror–this relates to the one above. If you can figure out your role in the dynamic or the source of your response, you’ll learn something important about yourself.

For more information about Judith Sills check out her website www.judithsills.com

She has published a number of books and articles.

So, enjoy the rest of your TGIF day. The weekend is just around the corner.

Lesley

Creating Workplaces That Foster Health And Collaboration

Hi there, as I mentioned the other day I always think of people skills when I think of collaboration in the workplace.

What do I mean by people skills?

• the ability to communicate
• the ability to work with a diverse group of people
• the ability to be aware of how one is affecting other people
• the ability to develop relationships quickly
• the ability to work in a team
• Etc. Etc.

But, after doing some research for this blog I learned that there are a few other things that are required for us to be able to collaborate at work:

• a workplace environment that enables people to interact
• technological tools such as wikis, blogs and social networking sites that connect people who need to collaborate but who do not work in the same building, city or even country for that matter

The March/April 2009 edition of www.yourworkplace.ca provides an article written by Paul Whelan. The article is called Workplace Design for Health: Part 3 (somehow I missed the first two parts) and in it Paul talks about, “the relationship between workplace design and health.”

He also talks about the importance of workplace design in creating “collaboration space”. 

According to Paul (and I agree) workplaces must also have high-quality air and natural light.  Prior to becoming self-employed the last office I had was just the opposite–having no windows and poor ventilation.

Now I work from home and my office window faces south allowing lots of natural light and of course I can open the window any time I want to. But enough about me.

One interesting fact that I gleaned from Paul Whelan’s article,
 

“In Canada, typical office workers spend less than 50% of their time at their desks.”

To meet this need organizations should to have a variety of rooms that can be used to accomodate different work styles and needs. Here are some examples of “collaboration spaces”:

• meeting rooms
• stand-up meetings
• touch-down spaces
• project rooms
• work lounges
• cafes
• technology (roaming telephones and wireless connections for laptops)

Today these ideas probably seem somewhat utopian to you but some organizations are taking them seriously.

If you work for an organization that is reorganizing, rebuilding or renovating you might want to explore Paul Whelan’s ideas in more detail.

Enjoy your weekend! Lesley

Oh, I just had another thought…there is a need to do something about workplace bullying and I wonder if these “new”  collaborative workplace environments deter bullying? What do you think???

Creating Collaborative Workplaces

Hi,

Recently someone asked me for information about collaboration in the workplace.

My initial reaction was to write about relationships in the workplace and how people collaborate with each other to get work done.

 This brought me to Jim Tamm’s website.

Jim and another fellow have written a book called Radical Collaboration. They make the distinction between two types of workplaces:

1. The Red Zone

2. The Green Zone

See if you can tell which zone your workplace is in!

If your workplace is a Red Zone you will probably not be experiencing much collaboration and in fact you may well be working in an environment characterized by turf wars and conflict.

Now, if you are fortunate enough to be working in a Green Zone organization you will notice such qualities as trust, optimism and goodwill among your colleagues.

Green Zones are fun places to work and people who work there share a vision and value collaboration. They also have a strong sense of teamwork and the skills needed to make teamwork happen.

Jim Tamm has been working with organizations for over 15 years teaching collaborative skills in “highly adversarial Red Zones”.

Here are the five essential skills needed to create collaborative Green Zone work environments:

• Think win-win
• Speak the truth
• Be accountable
• Be self-aware and aware of others
• Learn from conflict

Now, if you’d like to learn more about these five essential skills you’ll have to check out the book Radical Collaboration yourself. I haven’t read it but it looks very interesting.

While I was doing my research on collaboration I came across an interesting article on Creating a Collaborative and Comprehensible Workplaces in the www.yourworkplace.ca journal.

I’ll say more about this next time.

Enjoy the rest of your week!                    Lesley

Organizations CAN Thrive During Difficult Times!

Hello again!

At a recent Your Workplace Conference Dr. Peter Senge spoke to the audience about “building organizations that can thrive in difficult times.”

In order to do this we need to create learning organizations. I’m not going to talk about learning organizations in this post. If you want more information about the work that Peter Senge is doing check out the Society for Organizational Learning or SOL.

What I want to talk about is how organizations deal with change and stress.

“In times of stress, organizations hunker down, become protective, enable old habits and suffocate experimentation and joy.”    Peter Senge

I think there are a few things worth mentioning:

• change and stress are here to stay so we might as well understand how they impact individuals in organizations
• organizations need to change in order to stay current and remain in business (both profit and non profit)
• there has been a lot of research into how to help organizations change
• there has been a lot of research into how to create healthy organizations

 Which leads me to the work of William Bridges who, in the 1990’s, popularized a model of organizational change and transition which was geared toward helping organizations manage change successfully.

On the surface Dr. Bridges model is deceptively simple. BUT having worked in organizations that were going through non-stop change I know that it takes a lot of effort to apply this model.

There also needs to be an awareness of how people change and how change is different from transition and an agreement from leadership that this is important and needs to be attended to!

William Bridges proposes a three-step model:

1. Grieving the losses

2. Exploration and learning (also known as the neutral zone or transition zone)

3. New beginnings

This process is not linear and people go back and forth between the three areas.

ALSO, during organizational change, some people may be still grieving their losses while others have moved forward and are celebrating the new beginnings.

The other important distinction that Willima Bridges makes is that change is different from transition.

Change: Is a shift in the external situation. In the workplace this could mean a change of office, a new leader, working with a new team, layoffs, closing of departments or moving services from one site to another.

Transition: Is an internal shift. This is the psychological re-orientation that takes place when we respond to change. For transition to be effective it usually begins with a period of grieving (acknowledging the loss) and then perhaps a change in the way we see the world and, of course, a change in who we are.

Transition takes longer than change. Change can happen in a heartbeat. One minute you are employed and the next minute you are not.

But the psychological process of readjustment takes much longer.

Now, getting back to organizations.

 The transition zone is the time when organizations can really benefit. If organizational leaders have some sense (common?) and awareness of what is going on they can…dare I use this word? CAPITALIZE on this time by encouraging people to:

• experiment with new ideas
• take risks
• explore new ways of being and working
• innovate
• learn new things
• tap into people’s creativity
• encourage people to grow

Of course the transition zone is also known as the “wilderness” and it is characterized by chaos and uncertainty.

This is why organizations don’t want to spend much time here. Leaders in these organizations want to RUSH people from what is finished (ending) to what is starting (new beginnings).

AND this is why Peter Senge told the audience at the Your Workplace Conference:

“In times of stress, organizations hunker down, become protective, enable old habits and suffocate experimentation and joy.”

 Both Peter Senge and William Bridges are advocating for the same things.

The choice for organizations is whether or not to THRIVE during difficult time or mearly to SURVIVE.

I don’t think surviving is an option. In recent months we have seen too many organizations go bankrupt and too many people lose their livelihoods and their hopes for the future.

Lesley

The Peter Principle Is Alive And Well 40 Years Later!

Hello again!

Did you know that the Peter Principle was written in 1969 by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter ? This is important because the Peter Principle is alive and well today. How many of you know managers, leaders or supervisors who are incompetent and who create stress and misery in their workplaces?

You may be witnessing the Peter Principle in action!

Here is Dr. Peter’s original definition of the Peter Principle:

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence.”

This often  happens when people are promoted into positions that require skills and knowledge that they do not have.

These people were probably very good at what they were doing when they got promoted.

Consider the excellent health care clinician who is promoted into to management position that s/he is not prepared for, or the construction worker who is given the responsibility of supervising other workers and doesn’t know what to do.

What to do if this happens to you?

1.  If you are an employee who is unlucky enough to have an incompetent manager or supervisor…there may not be much you can do other than to look after yourself.

Start by finding ways to manage your stress and then update your resume!

2.  If you are a manager or supervisor who has been promoted and you are aware that you lack the necessary skills to do a good job…you can do something about it. 

If your employer doesn’t offer leadership training there are numerous places in the community where you can go to learn these skills. Some courses are expensive but  many are not.

School boards and colleges provides courses and there are opportunities to learn leadership skills by doing service work with the Lions Clubs International or the Rotary.

But you must “bite the bullet” and admit (at least to yourself) that you need to do something.

If you don’t you will become increasingly stressed and this will not be healthy for you or the people you work with.

Manage yourself! Become a better Manager!

Lesley

Leadership’s Role In Rebuilding Trust – Lessons From The Harvard Business Review

Hi! What a week! My operating system crashed and I was sans computer for a few days. All is now back to “normal” whatever that means.

So, today I’m going to write about an article that I just read in the Harvard Business Review (HBR). For those of you NOT familiar with the HBR it is a great resource and a very respected journal published by Harvard University’s Business School. 

The HBR is written primarily for people in senior leadership roles but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t benefit as well.

The focus of this month’s HBR is rebuilding trust in the workplace and as the editor of the HBR states,

“The public’s trust in business leaders has never been weaker.”

Of course we all know that trust is not just an issue for large corporations. Trust can be an issue in non profit organizations, all levels of government, and just about anywhere that we have levels of authority and an imbalance of power.

The article I would like to focus on is called, “What’s Needed Next: A Culture of Candor.”  The author’s are James O’Toole and Warren Bennis.

In this article the authors state that,

“We need leaders who can create organizations that are economically, ethically and socially sustainable.”

The first step is to increase transparency in the organization. Years ago I remember listening to a a colleague vent his frustration over what he called the lack of transparency in the organization where we worked.

This was an organization that prided itself (still does) on its mission and core values but struggled to communicate with people at all levels of the organization during non-stop restructuring and change.

Not surprising the level of trust in the senior team was at an all time low.

Transparency can, of course, mean different things to different people. According to O’Toole and Bennis the standard business definition of transparency is,

“full disclosure of financial information to investors.”

Other stakeholders in the organization (employees, members of the community etc.) were not deemed important enough to warrent a sharing of information

Now, hopefully, this will begin to change as leaders increasingly realize that they must communicate with all stakeholders and not just those who invest money in the organization.

O’Toole and Bennis provide this more inclusive definition of transparency,

“the degree to which information flows within an organization among managers and employees and outward to stakeholders.”

Linking this back to the purpose of this blog…I believe that transparent organizations are healthy organizations.

When problems occur and organizations become toxic it is a long road back to health.

It takes a lot of time and consistency from those in leadership roles.

Leaders MUST be role models. They must first trust the people who report to them and then this trust will be reciprocated.

Rebuilding trust by becoming more transparent is the way to go according to O’Toole and Bennis. But how to go about doing this?

Here are the 8 suggestions highlighted in the above article:

• Tell the truth (hmmm seems obvious doesn’t it?)
• Encourage people to speak truth to power (this was a new one for me…it means encouraging people lower in the hierarchy to tell their “superiors” what they need to know)
• Reward contrarians (they will help you challenge incorrect assumptions and come up with fresh ideas)
• Practice having unpleasant conversations
• Diversify your sources of information (communicate regularly with different groups and REALLY LISTEN to what they are saying)
• Admit your mistakes
• Build organizational support for transparency (if your organization has been one that is built on hoarding information and keeping secrets developing a “culture of candor” will not happen overnight)
• Set information free (e g don’t hoard it)

 OH, and two other things:

1. Trustworthiness is at the top of the list of things that EVERYONE wants in their leaders, organizations, etc.
2. Create opportunities in which people are REWARDED for doing GOOD THINGS!!!

There are a couple of other articles on rebuilding trust in the June HBR so you might want to pick up a copy at the bookstore or your local library.

Enjoy your week!

Lesley

 

 

 

 

Dignity AND Respect In The Workplace

Hello again,

Before I get started I would like to thank my friend Alpha for being my Muse this week. In a recent email Alpha asked me what people are looking for…what key words are they using to find my blog? She suggested the following:

• inspiration
• hope
• restoring meaning
• inner peace
• growth

These words are quite different in fact from the key words that usually bring people to my blog. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

At the same time that Alpha and I were emailing back and forth I was searching the www for something else and I came across a reference to DIGNITY in the workplace.

Used in this context the word DIGNITY intrigued me so I decided to dig a bit deeper.

As is the way of the web my search took me first to Ohio State University where Sociology Professor Randy Hodson has done research on Dignity at Work.

Dr. Hodson’s motivation in doing this research was to “look at the deeper meaning of work in our lives”.  One of the key findings of this research will probably not surprise you:

“…mismanagement may be the biggest threat to working with dignity. The thing that undermines dignity more than anything is incompetence and mismanagement.”

In my rambling I also found another university that is supporting research into DIGNITY at work. This research is being conducted at the Strathclyde University Business School and the researcher’s name is Sharon C. Bolton.

Dr. Bolton is suggesting that we need to consider the bigger picture. In fact she argues that,

“work quality must be put into the Dignity at Work agenda and suggests an holistic framework that incorporates pressing workplace concerns, including work life balance, pay and conditions, learning and development.”

Now, getting back to my earlier emails with Alpha and her question about key words.

The typical key words that people are using for find HEALING THE WORKPLACE are bullying, harsssment, abuse, and stress…words that lead me to believe that people are hurting in the workplace.

On the work and society website Dr. Bolton has put into words something that I have been thinking for some time:

“Dignity at work has become dominated by the issue of bullying and harassment and that although these are important issues and must be addressed…they draw attention away from a much broader set of issues.”

What do you think? Let’s continue this discussion next week!

Cheers, Lesley