Category Archives: Retention

Don’t Ask Me To Take Less Money!

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I love pro sports – football, basketball, baseball – it doesn’t matter, I love watching the best athletes in the world compete against each other.  I also love watching college sports – but for a different reason.  Pro sports and college sports are different.  One is a business of entertainment and one is competition.  While their is an element of competition in pro sports – the bottom line business proposition is still to entertain.  99% of college sport athletes will never go on to become pro sport athletes and get paid for playing the game they love.  They play for a number of reasons, the biggest one is that they love playing the game and they love the competition.  Some pro sports athletes also do this – but if they weren’t being paid, most would not be putting their bodies through the punishment they do. Still, there talent is awesome and it’s why we pay big bucks to see them ‘perform’.

That is why I love the Tom Brady story.  An all-pro NFL quarterback who takes less money then he could get on the open market, so his ‘team’ can go out and get better talent for him to play with and possibly compete for future Super Bowls.  Great pro athlete story.  Here’s the breakdown from the NY Times:

“Brady took a deal that will pay him well below the market rate for a quarterback of his caliber at a time when the Patriots and every other team are struggling to manage against a salary cap that is expected to remain nearly flat for several years.

Brady is now under contract through the 2017 season, when he will be 40. But the contract will pay him just $27 million, far below the annual $20 million that is the current average for the game’s top quarterbacks. The terms of the contract were first reported by Sports Illustrated.

Brady also took a below-market deal in 2005, with the thought that he wanted to give the Patriots the chance to sign and keep other players. That is what drove his decision-making this time, too.”

I love when guys from the teams I root for do this because of all the reasons Brady is doing this.  When anyone turns down millions of dollars to make your organization better – that means something! But, this doesn’t make it right for everyone!

Let’s face some facts.  Brady has more money then he’ll ever need, a super-rich wife and incredible earning power after sports in the broadcast booth.  He can take the pay cut and not flinch.  The problem with these kinds of stories is that companies believe you should be willing to do the same thing.  “Hey Tim, we need you to take a $10K cut to help us out through this rough patch we’re facing.”  Um, No!  I’m not Tom Brady – and I’m guessing you aren’t either – pay cuts in ‘real’ life, don’t work.  Yet, we see organizations, even our own government, trying to do this.  It’s a disaster.   Don’t get me wrong – I understand why organizations do this.  If the alternative is to go out of business – I’m going to offer up some pay cuts.  The reality, though, is this a downward spiral of doom – 99.9% of organizations that force pay cuts don’t make it.

They don’t make it because the good people, the real talent, bail as fast as possible.  Leaving you less talented, under paid, desperate employees – that is not a recipe for success.  So, what can you do?  Do more with less.  Don’t cut everyone – just eliminate the lowest performers and keep the pay at where it should be.  People are willing to pick up more if they feel like it truly is going to make a difference. Cutting pay, across the board, only demotivates the entire staff, further compounding your problem of survival.  As an HR Pro don’t allow yourself to be pulled into this leadership trap – it won’t work.

The ‘F’ Word’s Final, Shallow Breath

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By Cali Ressler

The memo from Yahoo!’s CEO Marissa Mayer has put telework, flexible work schedules, and other work/life balance programs into the spotlight in recent days. It’s perplexing, laughable, and almost unfathomable that we’re still debating whether or not people should be able to work outside of the office.

The evidence is clear that every important metric goes up when you give people freedom to work where and when they want: employee engagement and satisfaction, productivity, customer satisfaction, to name a few. But with autonomy comes accountability. Are employees accountable for results or just accountable for ‘showing up’? Is everyone aware of how their results are being measured? If people aren’t delivering, why do they still have a job? Just pulling people back into an office does not, in any way, shape or form set a better foundation for collaboration, communication, or innovation.

We know that communication and collaboration can (and does) happen between and among people anywhere at any time. So what’s the real problem? We’re still following a very deeply rooted formula of time + presence = results. If I can see you in the office, I believe you’re working! When I see you talking with your colleagues, I get all warm and fuzzy because I think you’re solving our business challenges or coming up with the next big idea. When I hear everyone talking about working 80 hours a week, I feel like they’re earning their keep.  When I see them complaining about missing out on important aspects of their lives, I feel good because I’m in the same boat…and really, we’re all in this together.

We need to stop using this formula. We need to stop using the F word. Flexibility and these other terms are not worth of our energy. Yahoo! has organizations all over the country asking if they should do a rigorous study of their telework programs. Um, no. Instead, do a rigorous study of whether your people know what they’re supposed to be doing…regardless of where they are. And so…death to the following words:

1. Telework

Back in the days when dinosaurs walked the earth, someone came up with the brilliant idea to allow some people to telework. Now there are a million different flexible work programs to make people excited about flexibility–like My Work, iWork, My Mobile Workplace, Mobility ‘R’ Us, Mobile Me, and Teleriffic.  No matter how you market it, it’s the same thing: a program that manages people’s time because we know they can’t be trusted to manage it themselves. A program that says “I’m inept at managing what you need to achieve, so I’m going to manage how you spend your time.”  We need to go beyond telework. Its time is so over.

2. Flexible Schedule

Flexible schedule is an oxymoron. Think about the poor manager who is managing their employees’ flexible schedules. We’ve seen it time and again: “Bob, you’re telling me you want to switch your flex days from Tuesday and Thursday to Monday and Friday.  Hmmm…I’ll have to think about that and get back to you next week.” Is Bob incapable of knowing when he needs to be in the office and when he doesn’t need to be?  The manager might think so.  But in the end, if the results aren’t achieved, it’s a performance issue that must be dealt with, not an attendance issue.

3. Remote workers/virtual workers/teleworkers

Telework implies that you’re not a real worker, just a teleworker. It is the label we put on people who are just not where they should be: the office! Everyone back at the office is talking about the people who get to work outside the office. “I wish I could work from home!” “Those of us in the office do all the work!” Sound familiar?  Telework programs foster a sense of entitlement – not consciously, but because they cause people to think in a backwards manner: “I want to work from home…so my work better fit into that.” Without a telework program in place – when you have an environment that determines measurable results, and fosters and accountability, you have people instead thinking “These are my results, this is how I’m being measured, so now I can figure out the most productive, efficient ways to do that.”

4. Permission

With discussions of flexibility and telework, the end result is the employee asking managers for what amounts to a hall pass.

You have my permission to work from home on Fridays. You have my permission to leave work at 4:30 to pick up your child. We allow employees to telework twice a week – aren’t you happy about that?!  I let my employees go to the dentist. 

If you want to work from a different place or at a different time than the socially accepted standard office hours, you have to ask permission. And at that moment, the manager is in the position of managing your work location and time … not the work itself. It makes you feel like you’re back in high school asking your parents’ permission to stay out an extra hour on Friday night.

5. Flexibility

The more we talk about flexibility, the further we remove ourselves from talking about the one thing that’s important: the work.  Change the conversation. Get crystal clear about the measurable results each person is accountable for, and get out of the managed flexibility game. People can manage their own time. [“But what if they can’t?”  Then they most likely aren’t getting to their results and need to head into the land of consequences.]

Let’s face it. The world is changing. Fifty years from now nobody will be talking about flextime, compressed workweek, telework, reduced hours, remote working, virtual working or home-officing.

We will not be segmenting people who do work by labeling them. LIFE will happen. Work will happen. Wherever. Whenever.

 

Cali’s Bio

cali

Cali Ressler, along with her partner Jody Thompson, is the Founder of CultureRx and co-creator of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). Cali is a nationally recognized keynote speaker and author of bestselling business book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Her second book, Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It is the field guide for how to manage work in the 21st century.

 

I Love Work From Home

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Now that everyone has calmed down about Yahoo pulling their ‘Work From Home’ program and making those Yahoos working from home come back to the barn – I wanted to comment.

“I LOVE Work From Home.”

You can quote me on this.  I know, I know – all you big business, strategic HR types have come out and given us WFHers a real ear full.  Good for you strategic HR pros!  It only took you the last 10 years and a Great Recession to figure out you better get on the business side of things and jump off the sinking employee boat!  Well played.  Screw work-life balance – nobody wants to support those kinds of crazy programs!  We’re HR Business partners – not HR Employee partners.

I love WFH – my wife works from home.  And what they say about WFH employees is exactly correct – she faces communications challenges every single day.  She doesn’t get the respect or appreciation that non-WFH employees get.  Getting people to understand the amount of work you do, is almost impossible.  Everyone wants to change positions with her, believing It is easy.  Everyday is a struggle, but at the same time a blessing.

You see – my wife is a stay at home mother.  She is raising 3 smart and well adjusted boys to go out into the world.  Boys don’t communicate very well – it’s a challenge she faces everyday. Children have a hard appreciating all that their mother does for them, and her husband doesn’t appreciate her enough.  It’s hard – financially.  We don’t have brand new cars.  We don’t have a 2nd lake house. We don’t go on Disney Cruise vacations.  We are saving for 3 college educations, while at the same time attempting to give our kids all ‘those things we never had’.   Our WFH arrangement is the best decision we have ever made.

I’m envious many days of my wife’s WFH job.  While it’s a job I could not do successfully – she gets to see some of the most wonderful moments of my kids lives. Things I will never get to see.  She has a relationship with my children, I’ll never have.  She has sacrificed most of her career and professionalism to raise 3 young men.   We are winning.

I hear you – a Stay At Home Mom is not the same as the WFH Yahoos.  You’re right – instead of Yahoo paying for my wife to “WFH”, I’m paying her.  I’m not asking a corporation to pay my wife a full-time salary to raise my family.  The fact of the matter is organizations who are failing, like Yahoo, can’t sustain paying employees to work at home and raise their family. Raising your family isn’t a part-time job, so who’s getting the short end of the stick – Yahoo or your kids?  “Well, I don’t have a family and I was a WFH Yahoo Employee.”  Good for you – but it begs the question – if you didn’t have to be at home to raise a family or take care of a loved one, etc. why were you working from home to begin with?

Regardless – I love my Work From Home arrangement – I wish more people would find a way to do it.

The Most Expensive Hire Ever

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Yesterday I went to a retirement office party.  Nothing special – cake, bad punch, obligatory cane with tassel and horn.  The party was for a guy named Mike.  Here was my exact conversation with Mike’s boss, a friend of mind:

Me: “What does Mike do?” (Me making small talk)

My Buddy: “I don’t know.” (only half kidding)

Me: “Are you going to replace him?” (me trying to drum up business)

My Buddy: “Probably not.”

Me: “How long has he worked here?”

My Buddy: “33 years”

Me: “33 years and you don’t need to replace him?”

My Buddy: “We had an intern last summer who did his job while he took an extended vacation to Europe – and did it better.”

Me: “How much do you pay him?

My Buddy: “$53K”

Me: “Seriously – what does he do?!” (me now getting annoyed at all of this)

My Buddy: “Mike got hired 33 years ago because his uncle was the General Manager. He hired Mike as a favor to Mike’s Mom.  Mike is suppose to handle client problems.”

Me: “How does he do?”

My Buddy: “We don’t have client problems – ever. Our Account Managers take care of any problems that crop up, which are normally very minimal.  Mike is the next level in case those don’t get resolved.  I can’t remember the last time Mike had an actual conversation with a client.”

Me: “Do you realize you’ve paid Mike over a Million Dollars in his career here!” 

My Buddy: “Yeah – I consider it the most expensive hire we ever made.”

Do you have a Mike working for you?

Why Hasn’t Paying Employees To Leave Caught On?

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Remember a few years back when Zappos, the darling of the HR world, announced it was offering new employees $1000 on their 90 day anniversary to Leave the company?  At the time that’s all HR people talked about – it was revolutionary – pretty soon every company would be paying their employees to leave.  What happened to that?  Zappos is still offering to pay employees to leave.  Is your company? Why not?

It hasn’t caught on because your leadership is afraid your good hires would actually take you up on your offer!

Of all the HR gimmicks Zappos does, offering employees at bonus at 90 days is the best one – because it puts everything on the table.  It’s the one thing they did that other companies are too afraid to steal!   When you go to an employee and say we need you to be all in – so – if you can’t be all in, here’s $1000 bill, all you have to do is leave.  That’s having true faith in your organization, your culture.  We only want people to work here – that really want to be here.  Many of say it, but 99.9% aren’t willing to back it up with an offer.

It hasn’t caught on, because your HR team is too weak!

Think about the HR person who takes that idea to the executive conference room.  They’re either really good at what they do, or crazy.  Because most leadership teams are not going to buy in on the initial idea.  To get an idea like that approved, you have to have executive buy in, in a major way.  You have to be able to sell it.  That person is not your average HR person. That’s an HR person willing to do thing different, willing to put their beliefs on the line.  Those kind of HR folks are the ones who get the corporate logo tattooed on their ass – and don’t even tell you about it.

It hasn’t caught on because the recession put people 2nd and business 1st. (Remember when your employees were 1st!)

In a down economy the importance of your workforce has taken a back seat.  It has.  Leadership and management training was almost non-existent, retention programs disappeared and work-life balance turned into get-your-ass-back-to-work balance.  That’s simple economics.  When your pool of labor far outreaches your needs, the employer holds more of the power.  This makes the exercise of giving people money to leave, seem a little silly.  First, people aren’t leaving because they have no where else to go. Second, if someone sucks, I’m getting rid of them because I have 100 others waiting to take their spot.

HR Pros discount this policy.  They say it’s meaningless. It wouldn’t make a difference in their environment.  They have a performance management process that gets rid of ‘those’ kinds of employees. The fact is, we are scared.  We are scared to go and do this because we know the truth.  That it would cause turnover, that would cause our systems and processes to be taxed.  We don’t have the resources to handle it.  We don’t have the leadership to handle it.  We don’t have the guts to try it.

It’s the single most brilliant thing that Zappos has done in the HR space, and you’re not doing it.

 

HR – An Autopsy

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HR is Dead. I got called yesterday to come down and ID the body.

They ran an Autopsy to discover the cause of death and to know one’s surprise they found a number of issues, including:

–Deficient creativity – apparently HR bored itself to death.  So caught up in ‘creating’ process, it forgot what ‘creating’ actually meant.

–Lack of Soul – Organizations need that immortal essence that is given by it’s people.

–Formality Glutinous –  To be stuffed so much with formality that you explode from the inside that people can’t stand being around you.

–Analysis Paralysis – Stuck in indecision unable to move forward surrounded by so many metrics.

–Feline Rabies – Yep, in the end, having 4+ cats on average, did in HR.

HR wont’ be missed by many.  The fact is not many really knew HR.  For years locked behind a department door that had not only a keycode to gain entry, but a palm and retinal scanner as well – security of your employee files being of the utmost importance to the organization.  Where we once knew them from the annual company picnic, alas, it has been years since HR was willing to plan that employee event.  Even our annual open enrollment meetings were cancelled for online, interaction-less, enrollment – efficiency over relationship.  Survey Monkey engagement surveys, email follow-up, phone screen interviews – some have questioned was HR really ever a person at all.  One time, through the sliding window, I once spoke to someone, “Here” I said, as I handed in an exchange of address form, “Thanks” she said.  HR seemed friendly enough.

I don’t mean this to be an anthem to a dead profession, but let’s face it – HR as we have known it, thankfully, is almost there.  I’m asked frequently – “What’s the future of HR?” and I say, “HR will change organizations more than any other single functional area in business.  We have ways to hire a more talented workforce.  We have ways to increase engagement of our workforce. We can increase performance and productivity that has a direct bottom-line impact.  We can make the workers we have better, faster, stronger.  The future of HR – won’t be like ‘HR’ at all.”  But let’s forget the future.  Let’s focus on the present. Let’s make HR not HR.  Let’s make HR everything we want it to be.

Let HR be technology leaders. Let HR be financial leaders. Let HR be Performance leaders.  Let HR be operational leaders.  Let’s plan the picnic and at the same time drive the highest productivity our organizations have ever seen.  Let’s flawlessly administer benefits and simultaneously attract complete freaking studs and studettes to our organizations.  Let HR not be HR.  Let HR be a driver of every part of our business – not a functional area – but an integration into what we do best.

And if we don’t, then yes, HR, as we know it, will be completely dead.

Better Performance Through Hanging Out with Ugly Coworkers

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Girls and guys both do this at the bar.  Want to look prettier?  Hang out with your ugly friends! Believe me, being a 5’7″ ginger, I’ve had my share of invitation from my better looking friends to hang out, knowing I was just a prop in their little scheme to look great.   Don’t feel bad for me, gingers are resilient, being the ugly prop has a ton of advantages – you can negotiate free drinks with your good looking friend, maybe even free dinner.  This is why I was so excited this week when Science finally validated what I’ve always known – The better looking you are, the better performance people will perceive you to have!

Check this out from the Time article, Guppies Use Ugly Friends to Seem More Attractive:

“An article published Wednesday by Britain’s Royal Society says that male guppies prefer to associate with their drab-colored counterparts when females are around.  Males actively choose the social context that maximizes their relative attractiveness,” the article said. Or, as lead author Clelia Gasparini put it, “If you are surrounded by ugly friends, you look better.”

Gasparini and her colleagues at Italy’s University of Padua built their theory on a kind of guppy dating game. An aquarium was set up with one female in partition on either end. Guppy bachelorette No. 1 had two attractive, brightly-colored males placed on either side of her. Guppy bachelorette No. 2 was stuck with uglier, drab-colored fish.

When a male guppy was put in the middle of the tank, and given the choice of which female to sidle up to, Bachelorette No. 2 was the more popular pick, with male guppies spending about 62 percent of their time hanging around her side of the aquarium.”

Science!
I know that no one who reads this blog would ever mistakenly give higher performance feedback versus that of their uglier peers!  My readers are Pros! They’re above this.  This begs the question, though, why is it executives, male and female, on average, are better looking and taller than their workforce on average?
Answer: We’re all stupid.  We like pretty things.  It’s why makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry.  It’s why we all want to date the prom queen. It’s how the fashion industry gets you to believe you need that new outfit.  We’re all lemmings.
We, deep down in our subconscious, believe that how someone looks, outwardly, speaks positively about how they perform (or will perform if we’re talking about selection).  We’ve heard it since we were kids from our parents and grandparents – “Oh, I like him, he’s ‘sharp'” or “Look the part”. Physical attractiveness =’s Better Performance, is one the hardest stereotypes you’ll ever face as an HR Pro – because it seems like a victimless crime.  What’s wrong with have a sharp looking, smart team!?  Nothing. But you’re selling yourself fools gold.  Physical attractiveness and High Performance do not correlate at all – Zero.
I will tell you, though, if you’re struggling with your performance, you’re probably hanging with a coworker peer group that is substantially better looking than you. Stop that.  Go find a whole bunch of ugly coworkers and start hanging with them.  It’s the cure for bad performance, guaranteed!

3 Steps to Getting Rid of an Overpaid Employee

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One of the biggest issues we face as HR Pros is trying to get rid of our overpriced employees.  Let’s be real – we made our own bed with this issue!  We were the ones going to our ‘comp’ guy, going “No, we have to go over range, this talent is worth it!”  Now you’re living with an employee making $20K more than the rest of team and all hell is breaking loose!  To be fair, we aren’t the only ones who do this.  Pro sports are classic for overpaying talent, that when the person signs looks like a great deal, but by year 4 or 5 all of sudden you wonder how do we get rid of this stiff! Hello, A-Rod!   The Yankees overpay worse than any other pro sports team in history.  For those who have been following recent developments with the Yankees – they have a major overpay problem with Alex Rodriguez.  From CBS Sports:

“Rodriguez has five years and at least $114 million left on his deal and is recovering from a major hip injury that will cause him to miss a huge chunk of the 2013 season, if not all of it. He’s 37 years old and, while still productive when healthy, is clearly in the decline phase of his career. So obviously the Yankees would love to get out of this contract.

The only issue is … they likely have no shot at doing so.”

$114M – for a broken down, can’t hit his weight, third baseman!  Makes you feel better about your overpaid employees, right!?

Let’s assume your overpaid employee isn’t horrible, but has become just average.  Familiar? How do you get rid of an overpaid, high priced, average employee?  I’ve got a few ideas:

1. Buy Out/Severance/Job Eliminataion – These aren’t all the same – but can be used to help you with this issue. For those HR Pros who have never used these options – you’re missing out.  Let’s be clear, it costs money – but it also gives you legal protection and gets rid of a problem very quickly.  Don’t blow this option off – you would be shocked at what amounts of money an employee would accept to go away.  Start low in your negotiations! Make sure you work with legal to get the right paperwork drawn up to protect yourself against future litigation!

(I’ve been able to get middle management levels folks to go away for $25K!  Huge positive impact to the team, production, engagement, etc.  Best $25K I’ve ever spent)

2. Put them in a box – Most of our leadership teams suck at accountability – to get rid of an overpaid person you need to turn up the accountability to an uncomfortable level – this usually pushes them out the door. You can’t let off the gas – you really have to follow up on the accountability until the person bails.  This can be painful and loud – and usually isn’t the cleanest way to get rid of person – if they’re smart, they’ll know exactly what you’re doing and could cause further problems then your overpay issue! Ironically, most HR Pros use this technique, over all else.

3. The Breakup Conversation – I’ve also had some good success having the breakup conversation.  Face-to-face, nothing in writing, close the door and just get ‘real’.  “Tim – we need to talk. You’re making $20K more than the next highest person on the team, and you’re not delivering that level of compensation.  We’ve got to do something. That could be you leaving in some form – or, what do you think?”  I’ve been amazed what my overpaid workers have come up with in terms of possible solutions.  I’ve had people retire after these conversations. Put themselves into a tighter box then I ever would have created. Even offered up taking a pay cut because they love the company and the job – and realize ‘we’ made an error and it’s become a problem.  I’ll be honest – in my career – pay cuts rarely work out – be cautious using them – but breakup conversations can lead you to a solution!

The Importance of ‘Dear John’ Letters

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Check out this great letter from Coach K to Michael Jordan, after Jordan told Coach K he was going to North Carolina:

Jordan letter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coach K gets it.  Yeah, Jordan went to North Carolina, won a national championship and became the greatest basketball player of all time.  But Coach K gets it!

Coach K understands what over half of HR and Talent Pros don’t get – in recruiting top talent – you never burn a bridge.  I’m sure he was upset about losing MJ to UNC – but he never let on that he was.  He sent a very cordial letter, complimenting him and wishing him well.  How many of you do that when a candidate turns you down?  My guess is – not many.  Better yet, how many actually have these letters coming from the hiring manager that interviewed the person, hand signed?  BETTER YET, how many of you have these letters coming from the CEO of your company, hand signed?

The world is a small place and you’re going to be on for a long time.  MJ respects Coach K, because Coach K treated him with respect and always left the door open.

People make mistakes all the time.  Candidates take jobs thinking its going to be great, and some times it turns out to awful.  Many of those folks believe, since they turned you down, and her nothing after – you were pissed.  So, they’ll never reach back out to you and say – “Hey, give me a second chance – this current place sucks!”  Takes about 33 seconds to send this letter out – could have years worth of payback.

 

 

How Does HR Think?

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I’m not sure how HR thinks.  I know how I think, and from what people tell me, I don’t think like a ‘normal’ HR person.  One thing I really like, though, is to see how other pros think.  I learn a lot from how maybe an engineer addresses an issue versus say how a Designer would address the same issue.  I like to take aspects of how other professionals think and incorporate those thought processes into how I think about HR.  I think this helps me solve HR issues in ways that the business can grasp onto better.

I found a cool article recently on how Designers think.  Here are some of the ways Designers think:

– “Design is not about solving problems.  It’s about making people happy. And there are always so many personalities and ideas to consider. So you’re trying to simplify it to its fundamental structure.” 

– “You have to understand when the timing is right for dialogue, and when its time to move the limits. Designers arrive at a company to move its limits.”

– “Try to pare things down. Very few moves do a lot.”

– “Unoriginal, ugly and cheap. Revolutionary, gorgeous and luxurious. These do not have to be contradictions.”

– “The idea of innovation as a structured process has been taken to the extreme, where it is no longer a really useful or robust concept. You’ve got to go about letting people take sensible risks.”

– “…Pain is temporary. Suck is forever.”

In HR, I tend to believe that most HR pros don’t believe they work in a creative function.  In reality what you create in HR speaks volumes about the culture you’re shaping in your work environment.  If HR lacks creativity – your work environment is going to lack creativity.  The rule setters need to show the organization that from time to time, we need to break the rules to get us to the next level.  Sensibly, but rule breaking nonetheless.  Breaking the rules is like ‘kryptonite’ to HR Pros.  It goes against our very being.  Most HR Pros pride themselves on being ‘the one’ part of the organization that actually follows the rules. “If we don’t do it, Tim, who will?”

I don’t know.  What I know is I like how designers think.  It seems like a thought process that opens my mind and gets me thinking about how I can make things better.  It’s a thought process that challenges me to rethink what I’m doing and why.  That seems like a good thing. I don’t want to suck.  I hear suck is forever.