Category Archives: Culture

Employee Narcissism At All-Time High

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Do you feel that our fixation on employee feedback is perpetuating our narcissistic society?

It’s a question I thought of recently and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.  On one hand, I truly believe we have a major issue with narcissism in our society that is getting worse, not better.  I also believe giving feedback to employees, on the work they do, is very valuable and needed to have a strong workforce.

So what gives?

We are told Annual Employee Evaluations are broken and not enough.

We are told you must give feedback to your employees frequently throughout the year.

We are also told that we have multiple generations that have gotten ‘hooked’ on feedback, like a junky is ‘hooked’ on crack.  You get up and you put up a selfie waiting for your ‘followers’ to comment, to ‘like’, to give you a fix.  You get to work, one more selfie – just a quick hit.  Out to lunch, with my bestie, just one hit before I return to the office.  Okay, it’s late afternoon, I’m going to need a little more to make it until 5pm, hello bathroom selfie, you’re my savior. Look at me! I’m home, bottle of wine selfie should at least get me through the evening.

Is it a stretch to compare the desire for social feedback to our desire for work feedback?

Here’s what I know.  The more feedback you get, the more feedback you desire.  If that is the case, is your new constant feedback evaluations at work creating a monster that you’ll never be able to satisfy?  I feel like by solving one problem (lack of feedback), HR is helping to cause, or at least sustain, a bigger problem we are facing with an employee culture that is becoming overwhelmingly narcissistic.

Maybe the bigger question should be, what are we going to do with rampant narcissism that is running amok in our organizations?  Have you created Anti-Narcissism training yet in your organization?  If so, what does that entail? I’m thinking it must have some sort of aversion therapy elements (post a selfie and you get a shock from you desk chair!). Or maybe a little  public shaming, which doesn’t seem to work on Narcissist, they actually like it – ‘oh look, someone is talking about me!’

I’m not sure what I dislike more in HR – employees who spent all of their time trying not get noticed, or employees who spend all of their time trying to get noticed!

 

 

 

 

5 Top Regrets of People Leaving a Job

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Being in my line of work, I get to hear from a ton of people who have left jobs.  One of the questions I like to ask people is to give me one thing they regret about leaving a certain position or company.  You might think that most people would find this hard to answer, but I’m always surprised at how quickly people can answer this question, and the fact that no one ever answers it with “I have no regrets.”  I use this question to help me understand a candidates level of self-insight.  If a person can look back on a job, and say you know what, the company might have sucked, but I could have done ‘this’ better, that’s someone who gets it.

Here are the Top 5 Regrets people have when leaving a job:

1. “I could have done better.” I like people who can come out and say, I just didn’t do enough.  It’s usually followed with reasons why, lack or resources or tools, etc. But it shows me they have a desire to be successful at anything they do.

2. “I should have made more work friends.”  I talk to a lot of people who have been at a company for years, and after they leave they realize they weren’t really close to anyone.  They realize they miss some of the people, but never really put in the time to establish enough of a relationship to carry it beyond just a working relationship.

3. “I didn’t let the executives know what I was really thinking.”   This happens to so many people. Even when leaving they somehow justify to themselves that it won’t matter, so they never share what they really thought of so many things.  While some of it might not matter, there might have been a great idea or change in there that could have a positive impact to the organization.  Yet, they walk away with it unsaid.

4. “I wish I would have celebrated my accomplishments more.”  You know what happens when you celebrate your accomplishments?  People begin to notice them as accomplishments.  Those things turn into positives for the organizations.  People are drawn to you and want to be a part of what you’re doing.  Celebrations, real celebrations, make a closer bond between you and your coworkers.

5. “I wish I never would have left.”  (or “I left for the wrong reasons.”)I hear so many people say these words – “I loved that job!”  My next question is – “Why did you leave?”  It’s always followed by a reason, promotion, more money, different location, etc.  After they left, they found out how much the job they had, was a really, really good job that they loved.  I always caution people from leaving a job, especially when they tell me they love the job.  Don’t discount loving your job.  It’s hard, really hard, to find jobs you love.

The beginning of the year is always a good time to reflect on your regrets from the prior year.  I know many people who took on new positions in the past year.  I always love to find out how the new gig is going, but I also love to ask about what they regret about leaving, and I’ve never disappointed by the response!

To Be Truly Powerless

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I was part of the Great Ice Storm of 2013 over the past week in Michigan.  I went without power for about 43 hours, and another 3 days, after that, without TV or Internet. That doesn’t sound like much, especially when there are people still without power six days after the storm.  I consider myself lucky.

Here’s what I learned about being powerless:

1. It would suck being Amish.

2. It is exhausting to not have power.

3. People talk a lot more when you don’t have power.

4. You appreciate day light hours when you don’t have power – they become critical in getting things done. Once it gets dark, your day is pretty much done.

5. It’s stressful not having power, after you’ve had power.

6.  When you don’t have power, it seems like those with power are mocking you with all of their power. (I had neighbors who had power one street over and I swear they actually turned on every single one of their lights just to show my how much power they had, and possibly put up even more lights!)

7. People in like circumstances, those of us without power, tend to work together better to help each other.

8. I never considered ‘electrical power’ to be a convenience, I do now.

9.  I’m assuming there will be a Great Ice Storm baby boom in Michigan in about 10 months.  Staying warm is critical in a power outage, in Michigan, in December.

10.  You can’t plan for ’10 year events’.  People in Michigan are HOT over the reaction and timing to electrical worker crews responding to outages. They feel the power companies should have been better prepared for this.  The reality is, companies don’t plan for once-every-ten-year-events, they plan for monthly and annual events.  You wouldn’t want to pay the extra cost on your monthly utility bill to ensure they were prepared for once a decade events.

Organizationally, you have many people without power, metaphorically speaking, and it is not much different than not actually having electrical power in your home.  It sucks.  Having an understanding of what they feels like, is critical to how successful your organization can be.  It’s stressful and tiring not to have power.  It grinds on your over time.  People get frustrated.  People get short-tempered.  People feel not in control.  None of that is good.

Having compassion for the powerless is not enough.  Having empathy and understanding, is not enough.  You need to be able to share the power within your organization, to make sure everyone has a little.  It might not be equal, but it sure helps if everyone has some.  Being the one with none, is completely ostracizing.

To be truly power-less, sucks.

 

 

 

Hire More Pretty People

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This post originally ran in January of 2012, and in one of the most read posts I’ve done.  It as so popular, Kris Dunn, stole the idea, tweaked it, and made it his most downloaded whitepaper in Kinetix history!  You’re Welcome, KD.  After 2 years, I still find this concept has merit! It’s also very close to how Hitler’s Germany started! Enjoy.

What do you think of, in regards to smarts, when I say: “Sexy Blond model type”?

What about: “Strong Athletic Jock?”

What about: “Scrawny nerdy band geek?”

My guess is most people would answer: Dumb, Dumb, Smart – or something to that context.

In HR we call this profiling – and make no mistake – profiling – is done by almost all of our hiring managers.  The problem is everything we might have thought is probably wrong in regards to our expectations of looks and brains.  So, why are ugly people more smart?

They’re Not!

Slate recently published an article that contradicts all of our ugly people are more smart myths and actually shows evidence to the contrary. From the article:

 Now there were two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone’s intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question: Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?

Here the data were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains. Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and scores on standard intelligence tests.

When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.

That’s right HR Pros – Pretty people are smarter.  I can hear hiring managers and creepy executives that only want “cute” secretaries laughing all over the world!

The premise is solid though!  If you go back in our history and culture you see how this type of things evolves:

1. Very smart guy – gets great job or starts great company – makes a ton of money

2. Because of success, Smart guy now has many choices of very pretty females to pursue as a bride.

3. Smart guy and Pretty bride start a family – which results in “Pretty” Smart Children

4. Pretty Smart Children grow up with all the opportunities that come to smart beautiful families.

5. The cycle repeats.

Now – first – this is a historical thing – thus my example of using a male as our “Smart guy” and not “Smart girl” – I’m sure in today’s world this premise has evolved yet again. But we are talking about how we got to this point, not where are we now.  Additionally, we are looking at how your organization can hire better.  So, how do you hire better?  Hire more pretty people.

Seems simple enough. Heck, that is even a hiring process that your hiring managers would support!

Problem Solving 5 Push Ups At A Time

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Have you noticed almost no one in business uses push ups to solve problems, or laps.  I never liked running, and it takes to long to get your team back on task, so I use push ups as ‘motivators’ when coaching. Here’s how it works:

1. You screw up.

2. You drop and give me 5 push ups, immediately.

3. You go back to trying to do it right.

It works really well.  You didn’t call for the ball. Drop and give me 5.  You forgot to box out your man. Drop and give me 5.  You missed your serve. Drop and give me 5. You missed the steal sign. Drop and give me 5.

No, not after practice, or the game. Now.

“But coach, everyone is watching in the stands. I’m going to leave my team one person short.”  Yes.  Yes, they are watching. Yes, you will leave your team short.

Give me 5, now.

There’s something about correction in the moment.  I don’t really think it’s about embarrassment, I think it’s about understanding this is so important, we are doing to address it right here, right now.  Not later.  Not after. Now.

Individually or as a team.  Always effective.  Don’t like turnovers.  After each turnover, the entire team has to do 5 push ups on the floor, game clock running.  You want to know what happens?  The other team kind of giggles, referees always wait, and parents don’t lose their minds.  Oh, and turnovers go down.

It’s not hard doing 5 push ups.  It’s about taking a moment in time to show what just went wrong is important.  We need to take a moment to think about it.  That moment needs to last as long as it take you to do 5 push ups.

It works really well when coaching both boys and girls.  I’m wondering how well it would be in coaching adults in the workplace. It’s not about punishment, it’s about letting everyone know what’s important.  Being crystal clear.  Suit and tie, khakis and button-down, pumps and dress, drop and give me 5.   I’m not convinced adults would see this the same as kids, but I wondering what the real difference is?  Definitely not normal.  Effective ideas rarely are.

What do you think?  Would push ups work as a motivator in your environment?

5 Things HR Can Learn from Airports

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I know many of you will be getting on an airplane over the next few weeks to fly and see friends and family over the holidays.  Some of you fly all the time, so this will be something you experience often.  Many of you rarely fly, so you get really frustrated because you feel it should work better.  We work in HR everyday.  We get use to the stuff that doesn’t work, but we shouldn’t.  We should be like infrequent fliers, everything that is wrong should bother us greatly.

1. The airport never appears to have anyone who wants to take responsibility for anything.  Every airline is on their own. The security folks only handle their ‘area’ of concern. Food vendors only do their thing.  Does it sound familiar?  It’s your department and/or organization.  Some needs to take charge of stuff no one else wants to take charge of.  HR can fit that role perfectly.  Too many times in our organizations we/HR sees things that need someone to take responsibility. We need to be that person.

2.  The one thing about 90% of air travelers need to do after landing is go to the bathroom and charge something (phone, computer, tablet, etc.).  Airports figured out bathrooms, I’ve never had to wait to use the restroom in an airport.  I almost always have to wait to use an electrical outlet!  Should be an easy fix – go buy 100 power strips and increase the amount of charging points by 5 times.  But no one does this.  HR has this issue. We see things that can be fixed, by doing something simple, instead we don’t fix it, because we want to fix it permanently.  Believing is we fix it ‘temporarily’ we’ll never fix it the right way.  Do the temp fix first.  Tell everyone it’s a temp fix. Then work towards a permanent solution.

3. Airports use to treat everyone the same.  Everyone had to check in at the counter. Everyone had to wait in the same security line.  Airports figured out this doesn’t work for those they need most, frequent fliers.  Now, those who fly often, get treated differently.  They can by pass the TSA line through special pre-check lines.  They check in before they even get to the airport (most people can do this, but frequent fliers learn the tricks!). They have special clubs to sit in and get away from the rest of us.  HR needs to treat employees differently.  The only employees/people who want to be ‘treated’ the same, are those who are low performers.

4. Planes won’t crash is you have a little fun. For years Southwest was the fun airline.  They showed you could still fly planes and and have a little fun.  Others are beginning to follow in that same path.  HR is not known for being ‘fun’. In fact, we are probably known for not having fun.  We like to tell ourselves this comes with the territory of having to fire people. “Tim, this is serious business, there is no room for fun in HR.”   You can have fun in HR.  You need to have fun in HR.  Our organizations need proper role models of how to have fun.  People will still have to be fired, might as well have some fun along the way.

5.  It only costs a little more to go first class.  Actually it costs a ton more, but have you ever really seen an empty first class?  And, no, it’s not all frequent fliers filling those seats.  Some people are willing to pay more for a better flight experience.  You might not be willing, but some are.  Your employees are the same way about a lot of things.  Don’t think you know what is best for them, because it’s best for you.  They might want something totally different.  Well, we (in HR) like having half day Fridays in the summer, so we are willing to work 9 hour days Monday through Friday to get those. Everyone will want this.  Unless your the department that can’t take a half day on Friday because your clients need y0u there at 4pm on Fridays.

Here’s a tip to get you through your holiday travel, if you get stuck in an airport.  You aren’t forced to stay at the airport.  If you have an extremely long layover, grab a taxi and go someplace nice to eat, or even a movie.  It beats waiting 4 or 5 hours fighting over who gets the outlet next.

Renting vs. Owning

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I’m proud to say that today starts off our first week as building owners, as HRU, the company I run purchased the building that we’ve been renting for the past 13 years. In fact, my company has rented office space for 34 consecutive years until today.  Today, we are owners.

There’s a ton of reasons why you rent for 34 years.  First and foremost, renting gives you flexibility.  Sure, it’s at a cost, but if you want flexibility you pay for that.

There’s also a ton of reason on why we decided to own.  We aren’t paying someone else for the space we feel we can stay in for a very long time.  We build equity, etc.

This big purchase got me thinking about how many of you, or even my own staff, are renting vs. owning.  Not their homes or cars, but their positions.  You treat it differently if you own it verse renting it.   Being in HR for 20 years I’ve seen a ton of employees who were just renting.  They didn’t want to commit to the company, to their position.  They were just renting it for a while.

I’ve also seen a ton of people who owned their positions.  You know something?  I’ve never seen a renter employee be more successful than an owner employee.  100% of the time, those employees who decide to own their positions are more successful.

Today, I’m thankful to be an owner.

 

Riding the School Bus made me Tough!

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Re-run Friday – this post originally ran in January of 2011.  I still find Jenny Johnson one of the funniest people on Twitter and Instagram, check her out, she’s brilliantly funny. Also, my kids still hate the school bus!

I read a very funny quote today from a comedian, Jenny Johnson, which she said

“If you rode the school bus as a kid, your parents hated you.”

It made me laugh out loud, for two reasons: 1. I rode the bus or walked or had to arrive at school an hour early because that was when my Dad was leaving and if I wanted a ride that was going to be it.  Nothing like sitting at school talking to the janitor because he was the only other person to arrive an hour before school started.  Luckily for me, he was nice enough to open the doors and not make me stand outside in the cold.  Lucky for my parents he wasn’t a pedophile! 2. My kids now make my wife and I feel like we must be the worst parents in the world in those rare occasions that they have to ride the bus.  I know I’m doing a disservice to my sons by giving them this ride – but I can’t stop it, it’s some American ideal that gets stuck in my head about making my kids life better than my life, and somehow I’ve justified that by giving them a ride to school their life is better than mine!

When I look back it, riding the bus did suck – you usually had to deal with those kids who parents truly did hate them.  Every bully in the world rode the bus – let’s face it their parents weren’t giving them a ride, so you had to deal with that (me being small and red-headed probably had to deal with it more than most).  You also got to learn most of life lessons on the bus – you found out about Santa before everyone else, you found out how babies got made before everyone else, you found out about that innocent kid stuff that makes kids, kids before you probably should have.  But let’s face it, the bus kids were tough – you had to get up earlier, stand out in the cold, get home later and take a beating after the ride home, just so you had something to look forward to the next day!

You know as HR Pros we tend also not to let our employees “ride the bus”.   We always look for an easier way for them to do their work, to balance their work and home, to do as little as possible to get the job done.  In a way, too many of us, are turning our organizations and our employees into the kids who had their Mom’s pick them up from school.  I’m not saying go be hard on your employees – but as a profession we might be better off to be a little less concerned with how comfortable everyone is, and a little more concerned with how well everybody is performing.

Too many HR Pros (and HR shops for that matter) tend to act as “parents” to the employees, not letting them learn from their mistakes, but trying to preempt every mistake before it’s made – either through extensive processes or overly done performance management systems.  We justify this by saying we are just “protecting” our organizations – but in the end we aren’t really making our employees or organizations “tougher” or preparing them to handle the hard times we all must face professionally.  It’ll be alright – they might not like it 100%, but in the end they’ll be better for it.

Former HR Lady Makes It Big!

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Don’t know how many of you saw the press release yesterday, but General Motors announced their new CEO would be former GM HR Lady, Mary Barra. Let’s not forget, she will also be the first women to run a major automotive company in history!  From the article CNN/Money:

“Since August, Barra has served as executive vice president of global product development and global purchasing and supply chain, according to her company bio.

For more than two years before that, she was an executive VP focusing on international design, engineering, program management and quality. Earlier, she was vice president of global human resources. Barra started at GM when she was 18 as part of a cooperative education program.

She was paid $4.9 million in total compensation last year, according to corporate documents. That includes a salary of $750,000.”

Bam! It pays to be in HR!

“Women represent a minority presence in the auto industry, comprising 21% of the total workforce. According to federal data, 39,000 of the industry’s 185,200 employees were women. And women hold about 3.3 million of 12 million jobs in the broader manufacturing sector, or about 27%.

Jared Rowe, president of auto product researcher Kelley Blue Book, said that it’s smart for an automaker to put a woman in charge with a background in product development, considering that “the bulk of the buying decisions are actually made by women, when it comes to purchasing vehicles.”

He also said that Barra’s long history with GM is vital to the company’s leadership.”

I would say GM is smart in deed to hire a women to run the company, but in reality Wall Street will ultimately be the judge on her performance.  That’s the way it goes with large publicly traded companies.  I do feel, growing up in Michigan, currently working and living in Michigan, and my company being a supplier to GM, this is not your parent’s and grandparent’s GM!  The auto industry is an ‘old boys’ network for sure, and GM making the courageous decision to hire a female as CEO, definitely speaks to a broader change in our society.

When people think of Michigan, they think of a broken Detroit and of a broken auto industry.  For those of us who live in Michigan, we are seeing something very different.  The auto industry is strong, and so many companies are hiring in all sectors.  The recession hit us hard.  It taught us a ton.  GM’s failure was a huge part of that.  If you don’t think GM learned anything from it, this hiring should at least be symbolic to show the world it is a different company. One that, while not perfect, is striving to be better.

I’m In Love With Old Employees

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Re-run Friday, this post originally ran in December 2011.  My Dad is now 72, still working, still letting people know what he thinks unfiltered.  I’m hoping he’ll finally retire in the coming months, but I’m doubtful that will happen!  Enjoy.

I’ve recently got to spend some time with my Dad – he’s 70.  I use to think 70 was really old, like let me help feed you that oatmeal old.  My Dad doesn’t seem 70, or look 70, I guess it’s somewhat true – 70 is the new 60.  Here’s what is awesome, though, 70 in work years – is still 70!  When you are working in a professional role at 70, pretty much you’re the oldest person sitting at the meeting.  You know where the bodies are buried, who dug the hole and who has been searching for the bodies ever since.  My Dad works in a professional role – they keep paying him to show up, so he keeps showing up – he’s probably pretty damn tired of answering the question – “So, when you going to retire?”

Lately, he’s been sharing some great work stories with me – from the perspective of being 70 and already collecting full social security. This is what is completely AWESOME about being 70 and still working – you don’t give a sh*t about office politics!

When you know that you could retire at any minute, and you’re comfortable with that – a freedom comes over you that most people don’t have in your organization.  When your boss is 40ish – the same age as your kids – and you’ve got 30 years of work war stories and experience on them – you tend to tell it like it is, when no one else will.  When the CEO says he just wants to hear it like it is – to tend to say it like it is – even when your boss and his boss are trying to duck out of the room or kick you under the table – because they don’t want the CEO to know what “it’s” really like.

It’s Awesome to be Old and be at Work!

To often leadership tends to discount older workers in the twilight of their career – “Oh, that’s just crazy old Guss – don’t pay attention to him – he still thinks we can get great customer service by talking to people face-to-face!”  (the group all laughs loudly, while checking their smart phones for the latest customer service numbers of the electronic dashboard)  We believe that their “sage old advice” has no merit.  In reality we hate the fact that the older worker tends to cut through our political B.S. and tell us what we really don’t want to hear – the painful truth of why we are failing.

Sure many of our older workers could deliver their feedback in a better way, coat it with a little sugar, make it easier to go down.  But, most of the time they don’t.  They just throw it on the table, like a grenade, and watch the fallout as executives start tripping over their spreadsheets trying to explain why they’ve had declining sales for 12 straight quarters, but how they should still be eligible for their performance bonuses.

Look, the next time you hear one of your old workers start to speak – stop – listen – don’t judge.  They aren’t trying to get a promotion, or a raise – realize they probably don’t even need to show up any longer.  What they are saying comes from the heart, comes from years of experience, comes from the fact they have reached a point in their life where they only want to leave a legacy of something they can be proud of.  Your organization can truly benefit from it – but only if you open yourself up to hear it.