Category Archives: Succession

Why Do We Hire Horrible Leaders?

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Have you ever worked for a boss that was horrible?  That’s an easy question to answer, isn’t it!  The person came immediately to your mind (for my staff reading this, if I came to your mind first, you’re fired! I tease – you’re not fired – just come see me after your done reading this…) Almost all of us, probably 99.99% of us, have worked for a boss/leader we thought was just God awful.  It’s the perplexity of leadership.  I like to blame the entire leadership book industry.  Someone gets a promotion to a leadership position and they instantly get online for the latest leadership babble that’s being sold by some idiot that was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time of a successful company and now she or he is going to tell us how to be a great leader using 7 simple steps!  BS!

But, really, why do we hire such bad leaders?  CNN had an article recently that looked into this:

“The short answer is, we focus on all the wrong things, like a candidate’s charm, their stellar résumé or their academic credentials. None of this has any bearing on leadership potential. And despite claims to the contrary, even a candidate’s past results have little bearing on whether the promoted individual will succeed once promoted.

At best, a “track record” tells only half of the story. In a new position, the candidate will have to face new obstacles, deal with a new team, manage more people introduce new products and do it all without a clear road map.”

Ok, so we aren’t focused on hiring the right traits that makes a great leader.  The reality is, in most of our organizations, we hire “next-man-up” philosophy.  “Hey, Jill, is the best producer in the group, congrat’s Jill! you’re now the next boss!”  About 90% of leadership hires happen like this!  Most of you will attempt to call that “Succession Planning”, but it’s not, it’s “convenience planning” and it’s bad HR.

Can we all agree to one thing (this statement is a setup because I know we can’t agree to this!)?  Being able to do the “job” (meaning the specific tasks of the functional area you’re a leader for) has very little to do with one’s success at being a leader.  Can we?  And yet, it becomes the first thing we focus on when going to hire a leader.  “Well, how good of a coder are they? How do you expect them to manage coders if they aren’t the best coder?”  You’ve had this conversation haven’t you!?  Most of the best leaders of all time, had very little functional skill of the leadership position they were successful in.  What they did have, were these things:

  • Integrity
  • Passion
  • Courage
  • Vision
  • Judgement
  • Empathy
  • Emotional Intelligence

We pick bad leaders because we don’t focus on the traits above.  It doesn’t matter if the person can do the job of those they are managing – great leaders will overcome this fact very easily.  If that’s your biggest worry, they probably won’t be a good leader anyway.  When you have a great leader – the conversation never goes around whether the person can do the job of those they manage – it’s a non-issue.  They can lead and leaders know how to engage those who can do to make their departments great.

It’s Criminal Not To Recruit Your Competition’s Talent!

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If I get 100 Talent Acquisition Pros in a room (no this isn’t going to be a dead lawyer joke) and ask them if it is ‘ethical’ to recruit each others employees, about half will say ‘No’. In fact, there are even a number who will say, “we have an agreement to not recruit from each other”! I’ve heard this, out in the open, with no restraint. It’s normal practice in the corporate world. It’s very common to hear inside Talent Acquisition departments say they don’t ‘actively’ recruit from each other because they’ve been told not to by their executives. That type of conversation will soon be a thing of the past, although, I doubt highly the activity will be!

From SHRM on the highly publicized lawsuit of many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies who ‘conspired’ to not recruit employees from each other:

“From 2005 to 2009, the leaders of Northern California’s largest and most powerful companies agreed to reduce competition for workers by entering into an interconnected web of secret, bilateral agreements not to solicit—‘cold call’—each other’s workforces,” the plaintiffs allege.

“By shielding their employees from waves of recruiting, defendants not only avoided individual raises, they also avoided having to make across-the-board pre-emptive increases to compensation,” the plaintiffs claim.

Agreements among the companies to refrain from the common recruiting practice of cold-calling each other’s employees deprived workers of information regarding pay packages that they could have used to find higher-paying work or to negotiate for higher salaries with their existing employers, according to the lawsuit.”

That’s right Talent Acquisition Pros it’s actually illegal to say you won’t actively recruit from your competition because you’ve agreed between each other not do it.   I get it, I get why you do this.  Having a hot job market and constantly taking talent and losing to each other seems like a never ending treadmill of work, but that’s the life of a Recruiter.  You know there are ways to stop this from happening.  Pay better.  Engage better.  Develop talent better. Have a vision that is real and share it.  It’s the age old business conundrum, do you want to pay on the front side or the back side.  Reactionary companies end up paying on the back side – more money in wages to attract talent because they turnover people who leave for better companies, more wages, etc.  It eventually catches up.

Other companies pay up front and keep their talent by paying at market or above, then constantly evaluating the market and changing pay whenever it’s needed without having employees ask, or have to leave to get paid fairly.  They develop talent from within and spend the money to do it right, giving themselves an internal pipeline.  They make sure to only allow people into leadership positions who are engaging and visionary.  It’s a lot of work, and costs money, but in the end it’s still cheaper and you have a better company.

I would actually love to see legislation that makes it illegal if you’re a corporate recruiter and you don’t make cold calls to recruit!  You saying you’re a ‘Recruiter’ but you don’t actually recruit!   That’s the real criminal activity going on!

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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I’m a sports geek and recently the sports talk shows and Twitter have been blowing up over The Mt. Rushmore of the NBA.  This happened because Lebron James came out and said he wants to be on the Mt. Rushmore of the NBA when his career is done.  His current NBA Mt. Rushmore is: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Oscar Robinson.  The reality is, is had no bearing on anything, but people love to argue the concept!  Why Oscar? What about Russell or Wilt?! Wouldn’t you put Lebron on it right now!? It’s a never ending argument that sports geeks, like me, love to have.

The Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about my own world and the Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers.  People can start the argument with just the title! Why not just HR? Aren’t those two separate mountains!?  I don’t think so. While there are thousands of bloggers in the space, I don’t differentiate the two, because to me Talent is part of the HR function, not a separate thing (although I do think it will be out of HR in the future!).

So, here is my Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers:

– Kris Dunn – Mostly HR, writes every freaking day for the past 5+ years at the HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, has great opinions on topics, ties in pop culture, sports, politics, etc. He entertains and educates. First and foremost he is and has been an actual practitioner in the field – he has gotten his hands dirty cleaning up after an employee picnic, had to do I-9 audits, design hiring processes, facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment meetings. KD knows your world and knows how to give you information to help you get better at what you do.

 – Jessica Merrill-Miller – Jessica is one of the few HR blogger types who has actually made this a paying career.  Also a one-time real HR person, over the past few years she now only blogs and consults, but is a content machine with great opinions, and super helpful advice to HR pros, candidates and leadership alike.  JMM loves this stuff!  In fact, I would put money down that if you made JMM chose between Blogging4Jobs.com (her website) and her husband, it would be a quick divorce! You feel her passion when you read her stuff and go to her site.  Everyone wants to make money blogging, but no one puts in the time and effort that JMM does.

 – Glen Cathey – Many will know Glen by his site Boolean Blackbelt.  Glen gets recruiting and sourcing at a completely different level than 99.9% of people in this industry, and that isn’t an exaggeration!  While some will be intimidated by his writing – it can get technical – the information he provides is more valuable than a Master’s degree in HR.  Also, he does have a beginners guide to get people started, and he loves to use screen shots of what he’s doing to help visual learners.  Of all the people I read, Glen puts the most effort into his posts. Super detailed, great research, it’s like my own personal training guide on how to find talent better and faster – and he just keeps delivering!  Glen is also a working Talent pro – so he’s giving you real, live up-to-date stuff. Not something he did 10 years ago and is still trying to sell as relevant.

 – Laurie Ruettimann – While LFR is currently on blogging hiatus, or sabbatical, or vacation, it really doesn’t matter – she’s the queen of HR blogging.  No one is more opinionated and spot on, usually, with those opinions.  That’s why I love her writing – she can make me laugh and not like her all in the same post.  That’s what a great blogger does, she challenges the way you think.  LFR is the also the only HR/Talent blogger I know who can talk about her bathroom habits and have a thousand people comment. She’s got a great audience and the HR folks love to read her take on things.  She the prototypical anti-HR lady, who was an HR lady, lady.  She’s a CHRO, who decided not to be a CHRO.  For those who need a LFR fix – she has a Tumbler, or you can read her years of content still up at The Cynical Girl.  

People always want to know who I read – it’s these four consistently.  I also read all the folks at Fistful, I think they’re all great as well.  Who would be on your Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers?

 

3 Things Parking Lots Can Teach HR

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I read an article last week and found out Parking Lots have their own industry! Just like Healthcare, Banking, Automotive, etc. Parking lots are big business around the world.  I live in a small town in Michigan, the only time we have a parking problem is one weekend in August when we have the annual Ox Roast.  The carneys come to town, we fire off explosives and we eat Ox. God Bless America!

If you live in a big city, you probably get to deal with the parking lot industry on a daily basis. Like most industries Parking is finding ways to use technology to make themselves more profitable and more efficient.  From PandoDaily:

According to a 2011 IBM survey, drivers globally spend an average of nearly 20 minutes per trip in pursuit of a parking space. Despite this colossal waste of time, the concept of pre-booking parking prior to arriving at a destination is still nascent. Most people continue to drive around searching for a spot, either on-street or off-street, typically unaware of what parking inventory is available to them. In a perfect world, they would not only know what spots are available at any given time, but also be able to compare the price, location and amenities of those available spots, to find the one that suits them best…

Over the next few years, parking will undergo a shift that will be a tipping point for the industry.  Some of the changes we may see include a single source solution that combines off-street and on-street parking availability at the time you need it. Or it may include urban mobility solutions that will focus on getting consumers from point A to point B to point C, whether that involves taking a car, public transit, biking, or walking. Parking facilities will also integrate relatively low-cost technology solutions to streamline and better the customer experience through the smartphone and the connected car. Lastly, demand-based pricing will become a tenet to parking, maximizing revenue by matching driver to the right space at the right time at the right facility.

1. On Demand Talent – Parking lots have figured out that you don’t need all parking spaces all the time.  You usually need them for peak times, and then they stay unfilled for most of the other times. Example: Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm will be at or close to 100% full, while Saturday and Sunday will remain mostly empty.  HR, especially in the US, will eventually have to decide do we really need all these employees all the time, or just during peak times.  Billions of profitable dollars are wasted hanging onto employees that organizations don’t need all the time.  European markets already use far more numbers of contractors to help with this problem. The US market is slow to adopt, mainly do to historical hiring practices.

2. True Pay for Performance. Parking figured out if you want the spot right next to the stairs or elevator, versus one all the way on the back of the parking deck, certain people will pay more for this space.  Organizations should be willing to truly pay more for better, measurable talent.  HR is a major roadblock to this, maintaining a banded compensation system that does not truly reward the best talent.  Not the best talent you have, but the best talent in the market.  Those few employees who can truly make a difference as an individual contributor.

3. Talent Sharing – Parking lots have figured out if they work together in reporting open spaces, their customer base will benefit and ultimately they will benefit.  Why don’t we share employees across like minded work?  Because in HR we are to lazy on how to figure this out.  But if my building is right next door to another company and we both have a need for developers, why couldn’t we share these skills?  It would take work to make it work from a legal, pay and benefits standpoint, but it isn’t something that can’t be done.

 

5 Crippling HR Behaviors That Keep Employees From Becoming Leaders

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In HR (OD, Training, etc. – pick your title) we like to believe we develop our employees constantly and ongoing to become the next generation of leaders.  But many times our actions tell a very different story.  We (HR and our Leadership teams) do and say things daily that keep people from truly reaching their full potential.  Self awareness of these behaviors is the key to making sure you are the roadblock to creating great leaders in your organization.

Here are 5 things you are doing to stop leadership development in your organization:

1. We try to mitigate 100% of risk.  Leaders need to understand and experience risk.  It’s part of the growth process to becoming a leader.  If we never allow our future leaders to experience risk, they’ll fail when they finally face it, or will be unwilling to face it, thus missing out on huge opportunities for your organization.

2. We don’t allow our employees to fail.  There are two parts to this. First, we get personal gratification by saving the day.  Second, we have this false sense that ‘great’ leaders won’t allow their employees to fail, so we step in quickly when we see things going south.   We tell ourselves that we need to let our people fail, and failure is good, etc. But we can’t stop ourselves from stepping in when failure is about to happen, or is happening.

3. We mistake what is expected with great.  Words are so powerful.  It’s so easy to say “You’re doing Great!”, when in actuality the correct phrase is probably closer to “You’re doing the exact job you’re paid to do!”  That’s not great. That’s is expected.  You can’t blow hot air up everyone’s butt and think they’re going to get great.  They have to know what great is, and then get rewarded with praise when great is reached.

4. We mistake high performance for the ability to lead.  Just because you’re great at ‘the’ job, doesn’t mean you’ll be great at leading people who do ‘the’ job.  This might be the one behavior that is hardest to change.  All of our lives we tell people the way to ‘move up’ is through great performance.  But it isn’t.  The way to move up into leadership, is to do those things that great leaders do – which does include high performance, but it also includes so much more than just being good at ‘the’ job you’re doing.

5. We are not honest about our own failures.  Developing leaders will learn more about leadership from you, if they know and understand your own failures at leadership.  We all have major failures in our lives, and many of those are hard to share because they are embarrassing, they show weakness, they might still be a weakness, etc. Developing leaders will learn more from your failures about being a great leader, then from any of your successes.

Developing future leaders has always been a critical part of HR in organizations, but we are quickly approaching a time in our history where your ability to develop leaders might be the most valuable skill you can provide to your organization.

(adapted from the Forbes article “7 Crippling Parenting Behaviors That Keep Your Children From Growing Into Leaders“

Bad Hires Worse

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I wrote this 2 years ago.  It still rings true.  I still need to be reminded of this.  I still run into examples of this monthly. Enjoy.

If I could take all of my HR education, My SPHR and 20 years of experience and boil it down to this one piece of advice, it would be this:

Bad Hires Worse.

In HR we love to talk about our hiring and screening processes, and how we “only” hire the best talent, but in the end we, more times than not, leave the final decision on who to hire to the person who will be responsible to supervise the person being hired – the Hiring Manager.   I don’t know about all of you, but in my stops across corporate America, all of my hiring managers haven’t been “A” players, many have been “B” players and a good handful of “C” players.  Yet, in almost all of those stops, we (I) didn’t stop bad hiring managers from hiring when the need came.  Sure I would try to influence more with my struggling managers, be more involved – but they still ultimately had to make a decision that they had to live with.

I know I’m not the only one – it happens every single day.  Everyday we allow bad hiring managers to make talent decisions in our organizations, just as we are making plans to move the bad manager off the bus.   It’s not an easy change to make in your organization.  It’s something that has to come from the top.  But, if you are serious about making a positive impact to talent in your organization you can not allow bad managers to make talent decisions.  They have to know, through performance management, that: 1. You’re bad (and need fixing or moving); 2. You no longer have the ability to make hiring decisions.  That is when you hit your High Potential manager succession list and tap on some shoulders.  “Hey, Mrs. Hi-Po, guess what we need your help with some interviewing and selection decisions.”  It sends a clear and direct message to your organization – we won’t hire worse.

Remember, this isn’t just an operational issue – it happens at all levels, in all departments.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is look in the mirror at our own departments.  If you have bad talent in HR, don’t allow them to hire (“but it’s different we’re in HR, we know better!” – No you don’t – stop it).   Bad hires worse – over and over and over.  Bad needs to hire worse, they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to protect themselves, they make bad decisions – they are Bad.  We/HR own this.  We have the ability and influence to stop it.  No executive is going to tell you “No” when you suggest we stop allowing our bad managers the ability to make hiring decisions – they’ll probably hug you.

It’s a regret I have – something I will change.  If it happens again, I won’t allow it.  I vow from this day forward, I will never allow a bad hiring manager to make a hiring decision – at least not without a fight!

5 Things HR Can Learn from Airports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Former HR Lady Makes It Big!

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

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

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

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

Bam! It pays to be in HR!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

 

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.