Category Archives: Leadership

T3 – StandOut by The Marcus Buckingham Company @StandOutTMBC

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This week on T3 I review the engagement and performance management platform StandOut.  StandOut was the product created by The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC), to further his work and research on helping organizations become world-class. For anyone who has read Marcus’s books or heard him speak, you can imagine this technology is very important to him.

If you’re like me, and like what Marcus has to say in regards to engagement and performance, the philosophy about why and how StandOut was created becomes an easy sell. StandOut was built around the concept of leadership and coaching, specifically around what is it that the best leaders, across industry do, and how do you get your own leaders to emulate this behavior.

The StandOut platform is a comprehensive engagement and performance management suite designed around the interaction between your team leaders and team members, not around HR.  I see more and more HR technology going down this path. If you want high user adoption, design the software for the end-user. Makes sense. With performance management, HR is not the end-user, your team leaders are the end user.

StandOut’s feedback philosophy is designed around a quick ‘pulse’ concept. The process should only take a few minutes each week to complete. It’s not task management, but more of a sharing of priorities, getting everyone on the same page quickly and going about the work at hand. Social recognition is built within the platform as well with ShoutOuts amongst the team members.

5 Things I really like about StandOut: 

1. Engagement Pulse is built around quick and easy questions that are nationally benchmarked, and also give your Team Leaders real in the moment coaching suggestions to drive great conversations with their team members, specifically around their needs.

2. Performance Pulse gives you a great view of the organizational as a whole and allows you to drill down via each team. Ultimately, organizations still need a way to compare the performance of their employees, and this does an excellent job. All the data is also weighted across the organization so it gets calibrated accordingly, so you don’t have one team always ranked higher because that team lead is an easier rater, etc.

3. ShoutOuts. Social recognition is huge, and having a system that encourages this, and tracks this is great.  This can also help those team leaders who want to do more recognition, but get caught up in the daily grind and they just forget to do it. ShoutOuts helps establish great habits by your team leads that drives positive engagement.

4. Engagement dashboard is a great tool that allows you to see who is leading your most engaged teams, but also who and how you need to help with those teams that aren’t as engaged as the rest.

5. The entire platform philosophy is built around how do we leverage our employees strengths, which you could assume being its a product of TMBC. Still, this sets it apart from many performance management platforms on the market.

StandOut is well worth taking a look at and a demo if you’re in the market for engagement and/or performance management software. It’s quite new and they have a ton more on the roadmap they are looking to add.  The team they have in place to is top notch, so I expect to see more great stuff from StandOut in the future.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

The Next Generation Just Named Itself! #NicknamingYourselfIsStupid

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Have you ever had a nickname you didn’t want?  You were in the third grade and crapped your pants and some dumb kid called you ‘Stinky’ and it stuck, for life! The rest of your life you got to go around being called ‘Stinky’ and having to explain this to people.

I think most people in those situations try to create a new nickname!  “Hey, guys, just call me Dice! I was at summer camp and all the guys there called me “Dice”! We played this game with dice and I was really great at it, anyway, it stuck. So, you guys can call me Dice, I’m cool with it.” Okay, Stinky, we got you!

There’s only one rule in nicknames. That rule? You can’t make your own nickname!

To my surprise the great folks at MTV decided it would be a great idea for the kids over at GenZ, that generation under the Millennials, to just come up with their own generational nickname.  The MTV crew actually surveyed thousands of high school kids from across the country to determine what they would prefer to have their ‘generation’ called.

Say hello to The Founders!

Why the founders?  Well, apparently this next generation has attached itself the Silicon Valley culture of founding companies.  Not they have really actually done this, but it’s what they identify with, so why not act like you started this whole dot com, startup thingy.

What do we really know about these Founders? A few things for sure, that I think will help organizations understand this next generation entering the workforce:

1. They were raised during the Great Recession. Not since the Great Depression, have so many kids witnessed parents and adults close to them lose so many jobs and struggle financially. This will impact their work ethic, the importance of keeping a job, etc. Think the opposite of how Millennials view work! The Founders probably have more in common with the Greatest Generation, than the Millennials.

2. They have never not had a Smartphone. This will impact how they do their work, how they socialize and how they communicate. The Millennials had flip phones to start!

3. The media has bombarded them with unrealistic views of what work looks like.  Google is an outlier, not the norm. Yet, they tend to believe it’s the norm because the ‘Googlized’ work environment gets so much publicity. 99% of work environments do not look like Google. This will cause some ‘hey, I didn’t expect this’ moments for a ton of kids in their first jobs.

I hate naming generations. Millennials, Founders, Gen-X… They’re kids.  They won’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, and you’ll have to teach them most everything they’ll need to know about your company and your jobs, because our educational system continues give them real-world skills to compete.

Call them whatever you want.  Entry level always seems to fit best.

How President Obama Would Build a Team.

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One of my favorite writers is Bill Simmons of Grantland fame.  Recently, Bill got the chance to interview President Obama for GQ Magazine. Bill is traditionally a sports writer, huge NBA fan, but also does a ton of pop culture pieces as well. So, why not the President!?

The article is great. A good read for sure. One thing I took out of it was how President Obama explains how he builds a team around him. It came when Bill asked him who he would take a call from of he was out to dinner with his wife, Michelle. A tricky situation for all husbands! My wife is the most important person in my life, BUT sometimes you have to take that call!

From the GQ article:

“Malia and Sasha. [laughs] And maybe my mother-in-law. My national security adviser, Susan Rice, and Denis McDonough, my chief of staff. Those are the only people whose call I would take during a date night with Michelle. But the entire White House is full of people who have enormous responsibilities. You can’t do this by yourself. The principle of team building in the White House is really no different than the principle of team building anywhere, on a sports team or a well-run business. Do they put team ahead of themselves? Do you make sure all the pieces fit together? Because just having the best athletes, if they’re knocking heads and nobody’s doing rebounding and everybody wants the ball, it isn’t always going to work.”

It’s the essence of leadership, right?

Surround yourself with great talent that is willing to work as a team for the greater good of the whole organization. Sounds so easy, but it’s so freaking hard to get right!

We tend to overly believe in just getting the best talent, but too often the team with the best talent fails.  Too many organizations do not put enough time into the concept of the pieces fitting together, but that is the secret sauce of great leaders.  The talent doesn’t have to be the best. Usually, the space between the best and very good is so small you wouldn’t be able to tell anyway!

The one thing you must get right is whether or not the talent you have, fits together and works together. The final step, once they all fit together and work together is getting them to works together towards that overarching organizational goal. Another tough thing to consistently make happen. Some teams love working together, but can’t complete the task of reaching the organizational goal.

President Obama gets it. It’s probably the reason he got elected for two terms. Any leadership position has very little to do with what you know, and everything to do with the team you are able to put around you. That team will define your leadership success.

How To Fall In Love With Your Job. Just. Do. This.

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A psychologist, Arthur Aron, came up with a way to get to strangers to fall in love with each other.  His research is fascinatingly simple!  It basically comes down to having the two people sit down facing each other, then methodically going through and asking and answering a set of 36 increasingly more intense personal questions.  This experience gets the individuals to understand each other a highly personal level.

Here are some of the questions:

They start somewhat easy:

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

begin to increase in intensity:

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

and continue down an emotional path:

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

The science behind this study, is if you can honestly answer all 36 questions with this other person, you will probably share more with this one person, and them with you, then you have ever shared with any one person in your life!

So, how do you get someone to fall in love with their job?

Modify the technique and questions between an employee and their direct supervisor. The questions don’t have to all be asked at one time. Strategically, using these questions to drive frank discussions between employee and supervisor over time will get both to truly value and understand each other.

You can imagine how some of these questions would look:

1. Tell me about the job you loved the most and why?

2. What part of this job do you love doing? Hate doing?

3. Who has had the most influence in your life, to this point, and what do they do for you on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

Here’s the deal, though. It takes two to fall in love! Your managers/leaders have to become as vulnerable as the employee. Turns out HR has very little to do with getting employees to fall in love with their job.  Having strong, understanding relationships at work, have more impact than some silly HR program. But, HR could help develop this employee/leader process!

Crazy. Real conversations with employees. Truly getting to know them. Makes a difference. This isn’t your parents leadership model!

Check out all 36 questions. They could make for some really dynamic ‘date night’ conversations!

HR Pros! You Should Be Going To Court More!

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There’s one thing we as HR pros are pretty consistent on. We never want to go to court! We do just about anything to mitigate risk for ourselves and our organizations.  The first step of HR Club is don’t go to court!

Now, that’s how most HR pros feel.  I don’t.  I don’t believe it’s HR’s job to mitigate risk. I believe it’s HR’s job to advise our decision makers of risk. Of course, if you are a decision maker, in HR, then it’s your job to mitigate risk over what you’re responsible for. All that being said, I’m in the minority of that opinion.

So, why do I feel this way?  It’s all numbers to me. Check this out from FloridaOvertimeLawyer.com:

-In 2014, there were 88,778 Employment Related Charges Filed in the U.S.

-In 2014, from those charges, a total of $372,100,000 dollars was awarded to the winners of those cases.

-That averages out to just: $4,191.35 per case.

Here’s the reality of employment related cases:

-Most cases are won by the employer.

-Employee and Past Employees believe their cases are worth millions.

-Most end up settling for a few thousand dollars.

First, I’m not advising you to not be safe and just go all willy-nilly and go to court!  Don’t be stupid.  Also, don’t allow yourself and your organization to be held hostage by an employee or past employee threatening a lawsuit.  Most you can settle for way less than you can ever believe!

When I first started in HR I was always shocked by how small of amount of money it would take to make ‘problems’ go away, from a legal standpoint. The numbers above say the same thing. Sure, there is always a risk of a big score.  Usually, the companies that get hit with those are truly doing something very bad.  If you’re doing good work and trying to follow the letter of the law, rarely do those cases turn into major scores for employees.

Do you want to go to court? Of course not.  You, also, don’t want to allow your organization to be bullied by an employee who is taking advantage of your fear of going to court.  Judges are really smart people. They see through most con-artists pretty quickly.  I’ve been to court on employment matters a number of times, and each time the judge was fair to my organization, and called out bullshit when they saw it.

Do good work. Do good by your employees. Don’t allow your organization to bad stuff. Trust our legal system will do what’s right.  Don’t allow yourself to be held hostage!

Open Office Spaces Now Suck…But wait for it…

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This just in! Google got it wrong! It seems like we keep hearing that more and more these days. The company that seemingly invited HR and Talent Acquisition keeps getting it wrong. This time, it’s around the open office concept. To be fair to Google, they weren’t the first ones to jump on the open office bandwagon. They just became the poster child for crazy office spaces gone wild. From The Washington Post:

Despite its obvious problems, the open-office model has continued to encroach on workers across the country. Now, about 70 percent of U.S. offices have no or low partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association. Silicon Valley has been the leader in bringing down the dividers. Google, Yahoo, eBay, Goldman Sachs and American Express are all adherents.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg enlisted famed architect Frank Gehry to design the largest open floor plan in the world, housing nearly 3,000 engineers. And as a businessman, Michael Bloomberg was an early adopter of the open-space trend, saying it promoted transparency and fairness. He famously carried the model into city hall when he became mayor of New York,  making “the Bullpen” a symbol of open communication and accessibility to the city’s chief.One more reason we should be allowed to work from home!…

…But employers are getting a false sense of improved productivity. A 2013 study found that many workers in open offices are frustrated by distractions that lead to poorer work performance. Nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem for them and more than 30 percent complained about the lack of visual privacy. Meanwhile, “ease of interaction” with colleagues — the problem that open offices profess to fix — was cited as a problem by fewer than 10 percent of workers in any type of office setting. In fact, those with private offices wereleast likely to identify their ability to communicate with colleagues as an issue. In a previous study, researchers concluded that “the loss of productivity due to noise distraction … was doubled in open-plan offices compared to private offices.”

But wait for it…

Why is all of this Open Office hating coming out right now? Are open offices really that bad? My own opinion is that the office furniture industry is truly behind all of this anyway. Every decade or so, they need to sell new furniture and the way to do that is to tell executives that a new design will give them magical productivity gains and super happy employees! Just buy our new desk and chair!

I suspect this round of Open Office hating is coming from another corner of the universe. Can you guess?  So, closed offices don’t work. You don’t get collaboration. Open offices don’t work, because you don’t get privacy. So, what are we HR Pros to do?

Oh, I have an idea, came from the corner, of the employees who just don’t’ feel cozy enough at work!  The NEW research says that Working From Home is the real answer to all of our problems!  Yep. Open offices suck because working from home is soooo much better!

Did you see that coming?

There are seven-year-old kids in China making $100 Nikes by candle light, and amazingly their productivity goes up every day! Be careful about getting pulled down the rabbit hole of what next great office design will ‘fix’ your company.  Everyone has an agenda. Your employees who really would rather just work from home. The office supply companies who need to push product. The HR executive who needs productivity increases to show the board or at least, a reason we aren’t getting them!

What is the magical office design after work from home crashes?  I hear working from the beach in Cayman really, really increases productivity!

2015 Top Post: Sometimes A Job Isn’t Worth It

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I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy! 

Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died last month at 52 from an inoperable esophageal cancer. Turns out Linds didn’t really like his old job and mad hours he spent creating a successful career. Here is what Linds wrote before he died:

“I think you’re all f—— mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f—— TV commercial. Nobody gives a s—.

This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.

Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. It would all be worth it in the long run…

This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be. We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast as I called it on my more cynical days.

So was it worth it?

Well of course not. It turns out it was just advertising. There was no higher calling.”

When faced with death, I wonder how many of us will look back on all the time and effort we put into our career and will feel the same?

That all being said, sometimes I think a job might be worth it as well.  Here’s the other side of the coin.  I frequently see articles and blog posts, recently, written by people who have given up their careers to travel the world.  It  all seems so glamorous and adventurous. Until you realize you had a career and job to pay for all those glamorous adventures! From Adweek, “The Couple Who Quit Their Ad Jobs to Travel the World Ended Up Poor and Scrubbing ToiletsThe uglier side of a year-long creative journey”:

 “You remember Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger, the South African couple who quit their agency jobs this year to travel the world anddocument the experience. It sounded like a dream, and the lovely Instagram photos have made it look like one.

But halfway through their year-long odyssey (they’re currently in Athens, having traveled 25,000 kilometers so far), they’ve posted a reality check on their blog—a post titled “Why We Quit Our Jobs In Advertising To Scrub Toilets”—in which they share “the uglier side of our trip.” It turns out that following one’s dream—while working odd jobs in exchange for room and board—involves a lot of dirty work, and more than a few tears.

“The budget is really tight, and we are definitely forced to use creativity (and small pep talks) to solve most of our problems (and the mild crying fits),” Cartell writes. “Don’t let the bank of gorgeous photography fool you. Nuh uh. So far, I think we’ve tallied 135 toilets scrubbed, 250 kilos of cow dung spread, 2 tons of rocks shoveled, 60 meters of pathway laid, 57 beds made, and I cannot even remember how many wine glasses we’ve polished.

“You see, to come from the luxuries we left behind in Johannesburg … we are now on the opposite end of the scale. We’re toilet cleaners, dog poop scoopers, grocery store merchandisers and rock shovelers.”

We work for a reason. Your reasons might be vastly different than my reasons, but we all have reasons. I hope if I look death in the face I won’t regret my choices to work and create a successful career. I’ve missed my fair share of school events and sporting events that my kids have participated in. I’ve missed many of their most joyful and sad moments. Those I already regret. What I won’t regret is that I work to allow my family to have so many of these moments.

I lived poor.  I lived with a single mother who wasn’t quite sure how she was going to pay for dinner that night. I work because I never wanted my family to feel this anxiety.  Sometimes a job is worth it, sometimes it isn’t.  It’s all up to you to decide, though.

2015 Top Post: Top 25 Rap Lyrics That Shaped My Leadership Style

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I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy! 

Last year I did blog series on The Top 25 Rap Lyrics that shaped my leadership style.  The posts, individually, still get clicked a ton, so I decided to do a compilation of the 25 posts to make it easier for new readers to find all 25 (I know my family is really proud of me right now!). Taken out of context of the original post, you might be asking yourself “How the hell did this shape his leadership style?” If you find yourself asking that, click through the link to read the explanation!

Here you go – The Top 25 Rap Lyrics That Shaped My Leadership Style with links to the original posts:

1. “It’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see” -Notorious B.I.G.

2. “Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K., I got to say it was a good day” -Ice Cube

3. “What does it take to be number 1? Two is not a winner and three nobody remembers.” -Nelly

4. “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.” -Jay-Z

5. “When I wake up, people take up, mostly all of my time. I’m not singin’, phone keep ringin’, so I make up a rhyme.” -RUN DMC

6. “It’s funny how someone else’s success brings pain.” -Drake

7. “Success is my drug of choice…” – 50 Cent

8. “Forgive, but don’t forget.” -2Pac

9. “True happiness is not acquired, and you won’t find it on sale.” -Outkast

10. “At exactly which point do you realize, that life without knowledge is death in disguise.” -Talib Kweli

11. “You’re young and dumb and quick with the tongue.” -Kool Mo Dee

12. “I hear the criticism loud and clear.  That is how I know that the time is near. So we become alive in a time of fear” -Nicki Minaj

13. “We all self conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.” -Kanye West

14. “Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity, To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, Would you capture it or just let it slip?” -Eminem

15. “Now you can be a victim, or you can lock and load.” -50 Cent

16. “They say I need to learn, but nobody’s here to teach me. If they don’t understand, how can they reach me?” -Coolio

17. “You’re nobody till someone kills you.” -Notorious B.I.G.

18. “Pay us like you owe us for all the years that you hold us.  We can talk, but money talksso talk mo’ bucks.” -Jay-Z

19. “I had nothing, and I wanted it; You had everything, and you flaunted it...” -Ice T

20. “He’s only mediocre, jealousy can’t get with me.” -LL Cool J

21. “Elvis shaved his head when he went into the Army.” -Beastie Boys

22. “When the grass is cut, the snakes will show.” -Jay-Z

23. “ya know a lot of people believe that that word Love is real soft, but when you use it in your vocabulary like your addicted to it, it sneaks right up and takes you right out. So, for future reference, remember it’s alright to like or want a material item, but when you fall in love with it and you start scheming and carrying on for it, just remember, it’s gonna get’cha.” -KRS-1

24. “I think about more than I forget; but I don’t go around fire expecting not to sweat.” -Little Wayne

25. “Change, shit I guess change is good for any of us. Whatever it take for any of y’all niggaz to get up out the hood. Shit, I’m wit cha, I ain’t mad at cha.Got nuttin but love for ya, do your thing boy.” – 2 Pac

The Best Places To Work for Men!

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Have you noticed that Best Places type lists are starting to go a bit far.  I get we need lists like Best Places to Work for Women, Minorities, LGBT, etc. It just seems like we’ve jumped the shark when it comes to best places to work lists.  At this point, anyone can get on one of these lists, you just need to find the right one!

I keep waiting for some company to just allow you to make up your own list. You pay, you get on the list you want for whatever marketing purposes you want. Can you imagine:

-Best Places to Work for Single Dads who have Inappropriately Younger Girlfriends

-Best Places to Work for Pug Owners

-Best Places to Work for Electric Car Owners

-Best Places to Work for Women Who Like Crossfit, but Aren’t Vegan

It’s become a bit much.

I have noticed that I haven’t ever seen a Best Places list for Dudes.  Okay, calm down. I already the hens clucking. But, for real, wouldn’t that list make sense?

The demographic of our working population in many industries now have more female than male workers, so it would make sense in these cases to highlight the best employees for the minority male worker. Right? Oh, wait, I forgot, inclusion only counts if you’re a non-white male.

Think about it. Best Places to Work for Male Nurses. Best Places to Work for Male Elementary Teachers. Best Places to Work for Male Strippers.

Here’s my list of Best Places to Work for Males:

-The NFL (okay, this one is easy, and you can also add MLB, NBA and NHL)

-Any Division I or II college athletic department (yes, Title 9 equaled the scholarships, but it’s still a male-dominated field across the board for jobs)

-Almost all manufacturing facilities (Boy those Unions sure protect workers…)

-The C-Suite of Almost all Companys

-The Executive Board of every Fortune 500 company

-Every Major Tech Firm in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Austin, Chicago, etc.

-Every Service, Retail and Restuarant Company in a Leadership position

-The Banking Industry

-The Oil and Gas Industry.

-Higher Education

Yeah, that’s a good start.  I think the guys would be happy with that list.

I’m assuming you’re all smart enough to catch the irony, but if not, hit me in the comments with how upset you are at me because you just read the title and want to beat me up.

 

 

 

Career ADHD: Is Employee Tenure Still Important?

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I keep getting told by folks who tend to know way more than me that employees ‘today’ don’t care about staying at a company long term. “Tim you just don’t get it, the younger workforce just wants to spend one to three years at a job than leave for something new and different.” You’re right! I don’t get it.

Payscale recently released survey data showing that the average employee tenure is sitting at 3.68 years.  Which speaks to my smart friends who love to keep replacing talent. I still don’t buy this fact as meaning people don’t want long term employment with one organization.

Here’s what I know about high tenured individuals:

1. People who stay long term with a company tend to make more money over their career.

2. People who stay long term with a company tend to reach the highest level of promotion.

3. People who tend to stay long term with a company tend to have higher career satisfaction.

I don’t have a survey on this. I have twenty years of working in the trenches of HR and witnessing this firsthand. The new CEO hire from outside the company gets all the press, but it actually rarely happens. Most companies promote from within because they have trust in the performance of a long-term, dedicated employee, over an unknown from the outside. Most organizations pick the known over the unknown.

I still believe tenure matters a great deal to the leadership of most organizations.  I believe that a younger workforce still wants to find a great company where they can build a career, but we keep telling them that is realistic in today’s world.

Career ADHD is something we’ve made up to help us explain to our executives why we can no longer retain our employees.  Retention is hard work. It has real, lasting impact to the health and well-being of a company. There are real academic studies that show the organizations with the highest tenure, outperform those organizations with lower tenure.  (here, here, and here)

Employee tenure is important and it matters a great deal to the success of your organization. If you’re telling yourself and your leadership that it doesn’t, that its just ‘kids’ today, we can’t do anything about it, you’re doing your organization a disservice. You can do something about it. Employee retention, at all levels, should be the number 1, 2 and 3 top priorities of your HR shop.