Category Archives: Performance

HR has “You” Problems

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Did you know 67% of second marriages fail?

That seems high to me.  You would think conventional wisdom would teach us that those folks failing the first time what they did wrong, and what they need to differently the second time to make marriage successful.  But it doesn’t work that way.  By the way, 73% of third marriages fail.  We get worse, not better!

Why?

It’s because of you.  You suck at marriage.  Stop getting married.  Now, no one really wants to believe this, which is probably the foundational problem to begin with, but the one common denominator in every failed second and third marriage, is you.   You are the problem.  For whatever reason that might be, you’re just bad a picking a spouse that you are compatible with, and the more times you do it, the worse you’re going to get.  Buy a dog, there great companions.

HR has ‘You’ Problems.

We tend to want to think it’s everyone else.  It’s not us!  We get it.  It’s those damn idiots over in sales, they’re morons!  Stupid operations never does anything right!

Yeah, it’s them, not us.

We have ‘you’ problems because we refuse to believe that maybe, just maybe, we are the ones who don’t get it.  Maybe it’s us, that needs to change.  Maybe, all this time, the reason we haven’t gotten that seat at the table, no respect, lacked influence, had nothing to do with everyone else, it had to do with us…

No way, can’t be.  We get it. Right?

Leadership and Chili Recipes

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For those who might not have caught it on the news wire, I won the HRU annual Chili cook-off!  You see I’ve figured out the secret code to winning.  I’m the boss, if they don’t vote for me, I don’t let them out early before the holiday weekends!

But seriously, I do make some good chili!

It’s funny when you have a Chili Cook-off, everyone really believes their recipe is the best.  It’s a lot like leadership.  Have you ever met two people who thought that ‘great’ leadership was the same thing?!  I’m doubtful.  You see leadership is like chili, everyone believes they have the best recipe for success!

Here’s how I won.  I was going against all guys.  Guys like their chili spicy!   Half my workforce is female, they don’t like their chili as spicy as the guys (I literally had guys sweating and looking in pain while eating their chili!).  All I had to do to win was to be the least spicy option!  I had to bland leadership to win.  Don’t go right ditch, or left ditch, just keep that puppy in the middle of the road, and I win.  Easy.

Leadership isn’t that easy.  As soon as you think you have the winning formula, someone young sexy new hire brings in her white bean chicken chili and changes up the entire game!  You’re not suppose to have chicken in chili!  How dare you come in and mess up the status quo! That’s what happens right?  Your great leader of a year or two, becomes yesterdays news.  No one cares about who won last years Chili Cook-off, they only care about who won this year.

By the way, I made the same chili, exactly, now for three years.  My Chili leadership style is consistency.  Sure I love trying the new hot and sexy recipes.  I love white bean chicken chili.  But when push comes to shove, a giant pot of traditional chili tends to satisfy the masses.  Puts them into a food coma.

I wonder what your chili recipe says about your leadership. Are you constantly changing it up, looking for new recipes?  Are you all vegetables and no meat? (I don’t even know what that means, but it made me laugh!) Are you one of those weirdos from Cincinnati who puts spaghetti in their chili?  Are you right about now wondering how I just correlated making chili with how you make yourself a leader?

We decided come January/February when the heart of winter is kicking us in the teeth here in Michigan our next Cook-off will be soups.  I’ve got that one in the bag as well – Mrs. Sackett has some great soup recipes!

External Hires Are Sexier

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It was announced last night that the University of Southern California (USC) will hire the University of Washington’s head coach, and former USC assistant, Steve Sarkisian.  It was been an up-and-down season for USC who fired their head coach, Lane Kiffin, halfway through the season after starting 3 -2.  Kiffin was replaced by current assistant coach Ed Orgeron, who then took the team and went 6-2 the rest of the season after taking over for Kiffin.  The players wanted Orgeron to get the head coaching job.  USC’s athletic director decided to go outside the program to find his next head coach, despite Orgeron’s success.

I know, I know, you thought you were coming to read about HR stuff – well you are – kind of!

Doesn’t this sound familiar to you?  Not the coaching and football stuff, but how the decision was made to hire?

Here you have someone internally who has been loyal and successful, and instead of giving that person the promotion, the organization decides that an external person, who really hasn’t proven anything (in this case Sarkisian has been marginally successful at the University of Washington).  This just doesn’t happen with football coaches at big universities, this happens at every level of organizations all over the world!

The fact of the matter is, external hires are sexier!

It’s a weird organization dynamic that takes place.  Internal people become idiots, external people are genius.  Why do you think your organization pays big bucks to bring in consultants to basically tell you to do things you already knew you needed to do, and have been trying to get your organization to do?  It’s because you’ve hit ‘idiot’ status in your organization – which means, you’ve been there over a year, and are no longer considered and external genius!

I see it constantly when I go and consult in the Talent Acquisition field.  I’ll go and talk with the rank and file workers who are doing the work each and every day.  I’ll then go and talk to the executives.  The rank and file know what needs to be done, the executives don’t thing their people have a clue, and the big miss is usually the executive who is unwilling to give his or her team the resources needed to make the change.  That is until I tell them that is what is needed, then all of sudden ‘my’ ideas, the same ideas the team already knew needed to be done, are ‘genius’!

How do you combat this phenomenon?  You have two routes:

1. Quit every 12 months and move to a new company to regain your sexy status.

or

2. Don’t make your ideas your own.  We get caught up in wanting ‘our’ ideas to be what we do.  If you know you’ve reached ‘idiot’ status in your organization, this will work against you, because your ideas will be considered worthless.  Show your executives who else in the industry have tried this and how it went.  Give examples of companies outside your industry having success with it.  Best of all, show how your competition has had success with something.  Make you idea, someone else’s idea, someone more sexier than you!

Remember, you’re not alone in feeling this way.  It’s very common for organizations to believe external hires, thus their ideas and beliefs, are much sexier than you.  It doesn’t mean you need to give into this belief, you just need to show you can be more savvy about how you move things through your organization.  Also, be positive about using the influence a new sexy hire has.  They have this brief window of being a genius, find out ways to work with them to use this fading power!  Soon they’ll be an idiot like you.

 

5 Things to do at work the day after Thanksgiving

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The Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday has to be the most useless day of work ever.  I know many folks who still don’t get this off as a holiday, and either have to burn vacation or burn PTO to get this day off paid – obviously not including all of those folks who work in the service areas and have to actually work to deal with all those crazy black Friday shoppers!  I’ve been there – both working on the service side of the world on the day after, and on the side when you work for some lame company who makes you come in on the day after, when clearly none of your customers will be working – so you just try and find stuff to do, before sneaking out at 3pm to meet the family at the mall.

Don’t fret, I’m here to help.  Here are my Top 5 things to do when you’re stuck at work the Day after Thanksgiving:

1. Clean out your files – I know this doesn’t sound fun but it needs to be done and it makes you look really busy with your desk all filled with files and stuff! Really cleaning of any type works really well on this day and burns a solid 2-3 hours.

2. Research – What does that mean!?  No one knows, that’s why it’s so great! You can be on LinkedIn, Facebook, reading blogs, it doesn’t matter – it’s Research!

3. Policy Revisions – Again, what does this really mean!?  You bring up some electronic versions of some policies and you have them in the background as you search the internet for the best Black Friday Deals!  When someone walks into your cube – you click on the Word file and say “hey, just working on these policy revisions, what are you doing?”  They say, “I was just doing some research, what do you want to do for lunch?”

4. Rewriting Job Descriptions – see #3 Policy revisions.  The good thing, really, about any of these is you can also have Pandora playing in the background and just become a complete vegetable for about 8 hours.

5. Updating Performance Plans – you can also call this reviewing performance reviews, etc. Basically, you’re going around talking to employees about what they had for Thanksgiving dinner and talking about how awful it is watching the Lions and Cowboys play every Thanksgiving.  Just make sure to mention something about their annual goals and Bam, mission accomplished.

I will say that this is a great day to send notes to executives as well.  Let’s face it, they’re not in the office – they’ve got more vacation than you and know it’s worthless to come in on the day after Thanksgiving.  But you sending a note and “actually” working makes you look like a champ!  The best part is you don’t even have to be working – I just pre-write my emails and then schedule them in Outlook to be sent to executives at 7:23 am on Black Friday, then a follow up on how I solved the issue at 6:12pm on the same day!  That’s a Pro Tip, use it wisely!

I’d Be The Worst Life Coach Ever

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I believe the concept of ‘Life Coaches’ is a biggest con anyone has been able to pull off in the history of mankind.  That being said I personally know some folks who love having a life coach (#WhitePeopleProbs).  I do like the concept of ‘Business Coaches’ or ‘Leadership Coaches’, I see those things a bit differently based on what I see in organizations.  Two unique things happen in organizations that make the concept of Business Coach more viable:

1. We promote our best workers to managers.

2. Leaders are put on an island with no one to confide in.

Both ideas above are systematically flawed.  Just because you’re the ‘best’ worker doesn’t make you a good manager.  You might be, but you also might be a colossal failure.  Being in a senior leaders role and giving you no one to really be able to be honest with in in your thoughts, also has bad consequences.   A business coach can help both sides succeed, where normal organizational training fails.   You can give new managers all kinds of training, but there comes a time when one-on-one, let’s walk through a specific scenario you are having, just works better for learning and development of the that person.   Also, a leader needs to get ideas out of their head to someone they trust will give them good and honest feedback about how freaking crazy they are!   Subordinates won’t do this, and peers might use it against them to position themselves for the next move.

I’m a big fan of Business Coaches.  I think organizations under utilize this approach because it seems expensive.  The reality is, it’s usually a billable hour or two per month, to ensure you have well functioning leadership.  That total cost might be $5000 per year.  I’m really hoping any manager or leader you have brings in exponentially much more profit than $5000 per year!

Which leads me to Tim Sackett, Life Coach.

I could be a life coach.  I have a feeling it would go a little like this:

Mark, Life Coachee: “Hey, Tim great to talk to you, just wanted to dive right into a problem I’m having, is that okay?”

Tim Sackett, Life Coach: “No, it’s not okay. That your problem Mark, you’re always thinking about you!  What about me and my freaking problems!”

Mark: “Uh, sorry. But I thought I’m paying you to help me on my stuff.”

Tim: “No, you’re paying me because I’m smart and have my shit together, and you can’t figure out how manage you own daily simple life.”

Mark: “I don’t think this is what I expected.”

Tim: “Yes it is. That’s your problem Mark, you think too much.  You’re now paying me to do your thinking.”

Mark: “Okay, I’ll play along and see where this is going.”

Tim: “Mark here’s what ‘we’ are going to do. First, you’re getting your butt up each day and you’re going to work. Second, you’re going to stop whining about your life. Third, you’re going to go home and be an active part of your family life, and stop acting like you should be able to have a family and still act like you’re in college, you’re not.”

Mark: “But you don’t understand, I work in a stressful job!”

Tim: “Shut up, you’re an accountant. Stress is not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight because you don’t have a place to live.  You don’t have stress, you have normal.”

I have a strong feeling my ‘Life Coaching’ sessions would only go one session, and everyone would be fixed, so I’m going to have to figure out that pricing model.  If you want to set up an appointment, just hit me in the comments and we can get that set up immediately, I take PayPal!

 

You Don’t Want To Know How The Sausage Is Made

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I was talking with a friend of mine recently who is an executive in operations for a large private company.  We catch up a few times a year and swap war stories. His latest had to do with some frustrating dealings he was having with his HR team.  Part of this executive’s role is to ensure that sales are made for this company.  These sales are the revenue that keeps this company in business and creates thousands of jobs.  From time to time, he has a sales professional that might do something that, let’s just say, is not quite by the book.

Let me give you an example of something that may or may not have happened:

Sales professional is competing against your biggest competition over a major multimillion dollar contract.  Your sales person has the inside track because they have a strong relationship with the potential clients main decision maker.  This main decision maker likes to party, and your sales person knows this.  Sales professional goes out and drops $3,700 at a strip club on the corporate credit card with said client.  Multimillion dollar contract is signed the next week.  On the expense report there is no other name or company listed, your client has a policy of accepting any type of gift or gratuity from vendors.

Finance alerts HR of said activity on corporate credit card, and HR continues to push the issue and wants your sales person fired over their actions.  Yes, policy was broken, more than one policy.  This was not normal behavior for your sales team.  You weren’t given a ‘heads-up’ this was about to happen (trip to strip club).  This was the largest contract anyone on your sales staff has ever gotten signed.

What do you do?

You can see how this has many issues.  There are definitely some concerns.  How do you rectify a $3700 strip club visit by one of your top sales pros, which looks like he went by himself, and ‘on the record’ won’t say that anyone went with him.  What if it gets public that is how your company is closing sales? Do you owe it to your client to let them know that their own people are breaking policy?

Here’s what my friend told me: “Tim, I like sausage. Do you like sausage? (I said I did — he continued) If you ever saw sausage being made, you wouldn’t want to eat it, it’s a disgusting process.”

He didn’t have to say anything after that.  I got it.  Sometimes in organizations we do things for the good of the organization that outwardly might not look good.  HR can realize reality, or they can hide behind policy.  Either way, we are going to have sausage makers in our organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many hours of work are too many?

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An article out last week on NFL.com spoke to the Detroit Lions head coach’s, Jim Schwartz, work schedule which averages 100 hours per week!  That’s break that down:

– 7 days * 24 hours = 168 total hours in a week

– 100 work week / 7 days = 14.2 hours per day

What does a 14 hour day look like?  You get into the office at 6 or 7am and you don’t get home until 8, 9, 10pm.  Every day, every week.  I know what you’re thinking.  Well they only play 20 games.  He gets half a year off!  Plus, he makes millions of dollars.  First, NFL never stops working.  Off season might be busier than the actual season.

Why do so many of these coaches work 100 hour weeks? From the article:

“The mentality of most coaches borders on the paranoid-obsessive end of the spectrum. Good coaches care about the littlest details. It takes time to wade through film, meet with coaches and players, script practices, design game plans and perform the oodles of other responsibilities that need to be perfect…

“We’re here a ton, but then I go up and I talk to a coach about anything and I’m sitting in his office and I peek down and glance underneath his desk, and there’s a pillow and a blanket,” Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson said. “For a brief moment, I laugh and I’m like, ‘Holy smokes, this guy sleeps in his office.’ But then when you really think about it, it’s like, ‘This guy really sleeps in his office.'”

It begs the question, should the NFL or any employer put a limit on the amount of hours that a person can work?  Airlines do it for their pilots and flight crew.  Safety is paramount and the last thing you want is a pilot that has not slept for 18-24 hours.  Many other occupations do it for similar reasons.  Safety always seems to be the one factor in limiting work hours.  Is the NFL not concerned about the safety and health of their coaches?  They limit the amount of practice time for their players.

How many  of us wish we had employees who loved what they did so much they wanted to work 100 hours per week!?

BambooHR’s founders limit their entire staff to 40 hours per week.  They kick them out if they try to work more.  That seems a bit radical.  I’m sure my staff would love me doing that to them, but 40 hours in most workplace environments seems to be the minimum, not the maximum.

I’m not even focusing on whether the hours in the ‘office’ or at home.  Just total work hours.  How many hours are too many?  Hit me in the comments.  My feeling is there are times in every occupation when more or less hours are needed to do a great job at whatever it is you’re doing.  One week I can be a rock star 40 hours.  The next week I might look like a total slack for working 60 hours.  I’m a big proponent of work when you need to.  The old farmers saying of ‘there are times to make hay’, runs true in every organization.  If you have someone who is consistently, over long periods of time, working 60+ hours, you’ve got a staffing problem.

 

12 Things Happy HR People Do Differently

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I always like to surround myself with happy, positive people – I have enough pragmatism for us all! – you should see the people I work with – it’s like one big happy convention everyday at work.  Which is great for pick-me-ups, not so great if you’re just having a bad day and need to punch someone!  It’s not say everyone is happy, every second, but I think when you search out happy people, for the most part – they are usually happy.  I going to list 12 things that Happy HR People do more than non-Happy HR People – see if you see yourself in any of these –

1. Express Gratitude – When I let someone know how truly thankful I am for what they do, or did, it makes me feel happy, and I’m sure it makes them feel happy.

2. Cultivate Optimism – I start everyday truly believing I can accomplish anything I set out to today.  Not in a naive way, but in a way where I don’t feel anyone is going to put up a roadblock in front of me – except myself.

3. Avoid over-thinking and Social comparisons – I know so many people that struggle with this one.  I’m truly one of those people who feel so happy and excited for others when they find success.  I always think that they finding success will have a positive impact to me finding success – so let’s just all be successful together! To many people think the opposite.

4. Practice Acts of Kindness – Just yesterday I almost let someone cut in front of me in traffic! Oh wait, that probably doesn’t meet this criteria!  So, I struggle with this – I like to think I’m a kind person, but I see so many people who are so much more kind than I am – I know I can do better!

5. Nurture Social Relationships – This is why I love HR!  We are put into a position within our organizations where this is/should be the majority of our job description.  We get to build relationships everyday, and we are getting paid to do it – isn’t that wonderful?!

6. Develop a Strategy for Coping – I’m a move forward person – this isn’t to say I’m going to forget about what just happened – I learn from it – but I move forward.  My organization needs me to do this – you take a step back on a Monday – it’s my job on Tuesday to take a step forward – not stand around and laminate about Monday. That’s how I cope.

7. Learn To Forgive – I think my wife would say this is by far my greatest strength – I Forgive – don’t hold grudges. It’s just not something I want to carry around – there is too much great stuff in my life not to forgive and move on.  Again, I don’t want to confuse forgiving someone vs. forgetting what someone did – I can move forward, but it just not might be as it was before – that life.  But I won’t be carrying around your issues anymore!

8. Increase Flow Experiences – Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still.  Watching my sons play sports, listening to my son read aloud to me, laughing with my wife as we sleep in on a Sunday morning, hearing my sons laugh as they tickle each other.  In the end of life – you will never feel like you had too many of these experiences – you will definitely feel like you had to many “work” experiences.

9. Savor Life’s Joys – I love lying in bed, with the windows open and listening to it rain.  Sitting on a perfectly still, calm lake and seeing the ripples of the water.  Watching my sons concentrate when they are writing or doing art and seeing their tongue move around in their mouth, without them knowing they are doing it.  And Diet Mt. Dew – that’s pretty good to!

10. Commit to Your Goals – Have you talked to someone recently who set out to run a marathon or lose so much weight – and they did it!?  Talk about happy!  Committing to, and reaching your goals drives happiness beyond that which you can imagine.

11. Practice Spirituality –  I’m not a church goer, but I know there are forces in life bigger than myself.  Being able to understand we are just one small little piece of what’s really going on, helps put life into perspective.

12. Take Care of Your Body – It’s crucial to your well being – and I know most of us can do much better than we do – but don’t ever underestimate how important this is to the over scheme of your happiness.  Energy is such a critical part of maintaining long-term happiness, and picking yourself up when we hit rough patches.  It’s just that they keep making these stupid restaurants that prepare such wonderful food! 😉

(adapted from 12 Things Happy People Do Differently – by Jacob Soko)

 

 

To Haze or Not to Haze at Work

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If you follow sports, especially NFL football, you haven’t been able to get away from the nonstop coverage of the hazing issue that took place with the Miami Dolphins between two of their offensive lineman. Long story short, veteran offensive lineman, who is white, decides rookie offensive lineman, who is black, isn’t being man enough (whatever that means).  So, veteran begins hazing him to get him tougher by leaving racist voice mails, threatening the rookie’s family, trying to force him to pay for $30,000 dinners.  This Miami Dolphin veteran feels this is normal NFL rookie hazing behavior, which usually includes carrying a veteran’s luggage at away games, carrying shoulder pads off practice field, maybe buying some donuts for morning meetings, or picking up some pizzas for lunch.  The rookie he decided to haze was a Stanford graduate, with parents who are Harvard graduates. Where do you think this is going?

The question comes up constantly in workplaces, of which the NFL should be considered a workplace, shouldn’t ‘some’ hazing be allowed?  It’s easy for all of us to say “NO!”   It’s hard for us to know that in many, many instances our positive, not negative, workplace culture is built on many forms of hazing.  Phil Knight, the Godfather of Nike, wrote in his own autobiography, Just Do It, that his own sales reps, called ‘Ekins’ (Nike backwards), all got Nike swoosh tattoos on their calf when they were hired.  It wasn’t required, but if you wanted to ‘fit’ in, you got it.  Hazing at one of the largest, most successful companies in the world.

At my own company we tell new recruiters that they have to use their first commission check to buy everyone a round of drinks.  Knowing that this check will never cover the amount of what that tab will be.  (For the record – we just threaten this and don’t tell them the truth, but I always get the tab!) Hazing, all the same.

I’m sure, as you read this, that you are thinking of things that happen in your own company.  “We decorate peoples cubes for their birthdays” or “We make the new employee stand up in a meeting and share their most embarrassing moment” or “We don’t let the new employees know when it’s jean’s day”.  All harmless, all hazing.

Show it comes down to one small question: Should you allow hazing or not?

Or do you just call it something different like, cultural norms, team building, trust exercises, initiation, rite of passage, a test of loyalty, etc.?

I wonder how many of us admonish this veteran Miami Dolphin player (who for the record isn’t a choir boy) as a monster, while we turn a blind-eye to what is going on in our organizations.  What is happening in Miami, and I’m sure many sports franchises, fraternities/sororities, college locker rooms, etc., is very similar to what is happening in the hallways of your office building, on the floor of your manufacturing facility, sales bullpen and cube farm.

We allow hazing because it has become a societal norm.  “Well, I went through it, so should everyone else that comes after me.”  “Getting the tattoo is part of ‘who’ we are.”  “She’s ‘one’ of us, she gets it.”  This is what a NFL player was doing.  He was doing what he was taught to do by those before him.  By the culture he was working in.  No controls.  Just culture.  The funny thing about culture is that ‘it’ happens.  Whether we like it or not, our culture happens.

Yahoo’s Mayer Fails At Performance Management, Again

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It hit the news wire last week Yahoo’s embattled CEO, Marissa Mayer, is set to fire 500 lower performing employees.  Sounds all well and good, right?!  It’s about time!  The HR blogging community as a whole kills managers and executives for not moving fast enough on getting rid of under performing employees.  Mayer is finally doing it! Well, not so fast…

From Business Insider:

“The reviews were part of Mayer’s plans to trim the Yahoo workforce “very surgically, very carefully,” according to a source close to the company.

Now, Swisher reports, Mayer is planning to let go any employees who were rated “misses” or “occasionally misses” at least twice during the past five quarters.

Swisher says as many as 500 employees could eventually be effected. She says that some Yahoo employees are already being let go.

Yahoo has many thousands more employees than many industry experts believes it needs to have.”

Here’s what will happen in reality.
Anytime you ‘decide’ to make cuts based on a large group is rated, as Yahoo is doing above, you’ll always end up with rater error.  Hiring managers are going to know what’s going on.  “Oh, so if I rate Timmy “occasionally misses” on completing projects on time, you’re going to make me fire him? No problem, Timmy “never” misses, now.”  What you’ve done is completely take out your managers ability to develop talent through your performance management process.  You’ve decided to use your performance management process as a weapon.  This will not end well.
When you begin down this path, you end up in a death spiral corporately.  You’ve handcuffed your managers’ ability to manage their teams. “Well, I can’t deliver effective performance messages because you’ll just fire the person. So now, everyone is ‘completely’ average or above!”  Even when their not.  You’ve taken away your ability as an organization to get better internally, and driven home the message “You either be a rock star or we will hire a rock star from the outside”.  No longer can you ‘work’ to get better in our environment.  Most people do not want to work in that type of environment.
How should Yahoo handle this issue?
First and foremost you can’t have a ‘black and white’ cut off.  This doesn’t work anywhere!  What is an employee had two “occasionally misses” three quarters ago, but since has been great.  Under your plan, they’re gone anyway.  Does that really make sense?  Ultimately you need to let your individual leaders make these decisions and hold them accountable to the budget.  This is real world stuff, the budget is desperately important in Yahoo’s case.  Leaders get paid the big bucks to make tough decisions.  Make them, make those decisions.  If they can’t, or won’t, you know who really needs to be replaced.
I get it, Yahoo is in a really bad position.  They need to get leaner and they are attempting to do this by letting the weak performers ago first.  I actually admire that.  Way to many companies just layoff based on seniority and end up cutting great talent and keeping bad talent.  This is better, but I think they could have made it even more effective with a little more leadership influence to the decision making process.