There Are 2 Kinds of Leaders

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College football season is upon us and one of things I enjoy most is reading all the leadership articles written about college football coaches.  These types of articles come out in two ways during the year: 1. preseason when everyone is still in love with their coaches; 2. post-season when certain teams and coaches overachieved.   GQ came out with one recently on one of the most polarizing coaches, and most successful coaches, in college football, Nick Saban.  People assume I hate Nick because I’m a Michigan State fan and he left us to go to another college football team, LSU, that was in a better ‘football’ conference and had more tradition.  I don’t hate Nick.  I was disappointed he left, because he was good!

Nick Saban is probably the most hated coach in college football because his teams kick everyone’s butt!  3 out of the last 4 national championships and favored to win another this year.  He doesn’t joke around with the media and he never looks pleased.  Here are some tidbits from the GQ article:

“A few days after Alabama beat LSU to win the 2012 national championship, Rumsey and Saban were on the phone together…The two men almost never discuss football—Rumsey is the rare Tuscaloosan who doesn’t know or care much about the game, which, he suspects, has something to do with why he and Saban have become friends. But given that his golf buddy had just won the national championship, Rumsey figured he ought to say a few words of congratulations. So he did, telling Saban his team had pulled off an impressive win.

“That damn game cost me a week of recruiting,” Saban grumbled into the phone.”

Being upset over missing a week’s worth of recruiting because you had to play, and win, the national championship.  HR folks should love that.  It’s about the process.  Have the right process and the results will happen, but please don’t change or stop my process!

“Saban’s guiding vision is something he calls “the process,” a philosophy that emphasizes preparation and hard work over consideration of outcomes or results. Barrett Jones, an offensive lineman on all three of Saban’s national championship teams at Alabama and now a rookie with the St. Louis Rams, explains the process this way: “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

Taken to an extreme—which is where Saban takes it—the process has evolved into an exhausting quest to improve, to attain the ideal of “right is never wrong.” At Alabama, Saban obsesses over every aspect of preparation, from how the players dress at practice—no hats, earrings, or tank tops are allowed in the football facility—to how they hold their upper bodies when they run sprints. “When you’re running and you’re exhausted you really want to bend over,” Jones says. “They won’t let you. ‘You must resist the human need to bend over!'”…

Jones says that while all the talk of “the process” can sometimes seem mysterious—the cultic manifesto of that demonic head coach—it’s actually quite straightforward.

“He pretty much tells everybody what our philosophy is, but not everyone has the discipline to actually live out that philosophy,” Jones says. “The secret of Nick Saban is, there is no secret.”

I think there are two kinds of leaders in the world:

1. Charismatic Leader — This is the leader you love and will follow over the edge of a cliff.  You feel connected to this leader.  Your organization might be very good results with this type of leader, but that isn’t necessarily a guarantee.  99% of folks think they want this kind of leader. It’s Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh and Barack Obama. They capture your heart and mind.

2. Directed Leader — This leader seems more aloof when you meet them one-on-one, but they have laser like focus of your organization’s vision and mission, and they will not let anyone or anything take your off course.  In the long term, if you buy-in to the vision and get to know this leader, you’ll do more than follow them over a cliff, you’ll throw others over the cliff for them!  Saban falls into this camp. So would Abraham Lincoln.

I don’t see these two leaders being at polar ends of leadership. They are actually running parallel, like two behavioral traits, because the best leaders have some of each. Steve Jobs could hold the stage, but he also had great vision.  Some leaders just have more of one bucket than the others.  To be a directed leader, to be so focused in on a singular vision, you have to be a little odd, a little different from what people perceive  you have to be a little odd, a little different from what people perceive as normal. The fact is, most people don’t have the capacity to have the kind of focus it takes to be as successful as Nick Saban. One last thing from the GQ article:

“Saban is a fit 61, owing in part to regular pickup basketball games with staff, a frenetic pace on and off the field, and a peculiarly regimented diet. He doesn’t drink. For breakfast, he eats two Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies; for lunch, a salad of iceberg lettuce, turkey, and tomatoes. The regular menu, he says, saves him the time of deciding what to eat each day, and speaks to a broader tendency to habituate his behaviors.”

Same meal every day, so you spend no extra time or energy even thinking about what to eat.  Focus. Laser focus.  Does your leader have this?

 

Should Colleges Give Job Seekers A Refund?

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Can we all dispel the notion that Colleges and Universities are non-profit institutions?  They’re non-profit like hospitals and churches are non-profit!  Have you seen what those types of organizations are building nowadays!   These types of non-profits are not really in business to make a profit, but to grow and keep growing.  They don’t have a ‘profit’ for the simple fact is that they spend each dollar on their ‘mission’, which mainly entails continued growth.

Many recent college grads who started college believing a college education was a way to a high paying, or at least a normal paying, career have become disenchanted with this notion.  College graduates find it more and more difficult to find good entry level professional employment.  Colleges and University marketing machines keep churning out the ‘dream’, though, with little disregard that this graduates can actually get a job.  You see, universities aren’t job placement agencies, they are educational institutions.  People get confused with this – it’s great marketing.  It’s like when that creepy old guy buys the Corvette with the notion he’ll be sexier – he’s not!   You bought into the commercial – “Come to our School! You’ll have a great career!” Not necessarily!

By the way, the U.S. Circuit Courts agrees with the Universities.  You, college graduate, have no right of an expectation that you’ll get a job from attending a certain university. Here is what the courts have to say:

“The court ruled Tuesday in a case involving a dozen unhappy graduates from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, which has campuses across Michigan and in Tampa, Fla.

The graduates claimed they were fooled by rosy employment statistics published by the school. The appeals court, however, said Michigan’s consumer protection law doesn’t apply, and the graduates put too much reliance on Cooley’s job survey of other graduates.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 3-0, affirmed a similar decision by a federal judge in Grand Rapids…

The graduates who sued Cooley said they had difficulty finding full-time, paid jobs. Shane Hobbs of Pennsylvania graduated in 2010 but has worked as a substitute teacher and at a golf course. Danny Wakefield of Utah graduated in 2007 but ended up managing the delivery of phone books, according to the 6th Circuit decision.The Cooley graduates accused the school of fraud by reporting in 2010 that 76 percent of graduates were employed within nine months. The graduates claimed that should be interpreted as full-time positions requiring a law degree. But it actually included jobs outside law.”

Can you imagine if most companies ran their business like this?   Yeah, I know you just paid $30K for that new car to take you to and from work – but we can’t guarantee that will actually happen!  Would you buy the car?  No, you wouldn’t.   What if a university ran a commercial saying:

“Hey! Come to our university and we Guarantee that you’ll get a job in your chosen career path degree, or we’ll give you a 100% tuition refund!”

Would that change where you went to school?

But don’t fret recent grads, if you didn’t get a job with that degree you just got – the university will more than willing to take you back for that graduate degree! Then you’ll really get a job! Or not – there’s no guarantees!

The Crack of the Bat

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I’ve been around baseball my entire life.  Started out playing little league, moved to high school and my sons all started playing when they were 4 and 5 years old.  I was never good enough to play past high school, but I love the game.  As Labor Day is upon us I recall sitting out at the campfire with my folks listening to the great Ernie Harwell call the Tiger’s games on AM radio.

Great announcers make the game come alive in your head.  You can actually see your Tiger rounding third, hear the crack of the bat and imagine the play at the play as if you were sitting right there watching the game.  The announcer made the game larger than life, and when you finally arrived at the stadium to watch a game in person the experience was just like you imagined it.  No letdown, no hype, you walk through the tunnel and arrive in heaven.  The grass is greener and uniforms are as white as clouds.  You can smell the hot dogs and the cotton candy.

I know most folks today love football, I’m also a huge fan.  But going to a baseball game takes me back to my childhood.  It’s my religion.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.  Go take your family to a ball park.  Teach your kids how to keep score with paper score sheet and pencil.  Walk around the stadium so you can see the entire thing.

I miss listening to Ernie. Check out Macklemore’s tribute to his childhood announcer, Dave Niehaus, and go to iTunes and buy the song, the proceeds all go towards the boys and girls club:

Being a Minority Can Cost You in your Career

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Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

This just in from the very smart folks at NPR – being a minority might have a negative effect on your career! Really!?

Actually, NPR presents a social science study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that does a very good job explaining what we all already know – but want to easily push off as racism.  From the article:

Economists have long noted that multiple companies in an industry often congregate in an area — think of movie companies in Hollywood or investment bankers on Wall Street — and observed that these firms become more profitable. Indeed, this may be one reason why an up-and-coming tech company would want to locate in Silicon Valley, rather than in Tennessee, where costs are far cheaper.

But why do companies that congregate become more profitable? It has to do, Ananat says, with the fact that when a number of companies involved in similar work are concentrated in one area, they effectively create an ecosystem where ideas and refinements can spread easily from one company to the next, and increase productivity overall.

“It’s stuff in the ether — you know, these tips that get communicated,” Ananat says. “For any given job, it’s going to be specific to that job. That’s why they are so hard to identify and so valuable. We say, ‘Oh, you’re not doing that quite right. Do it just this way instead.’ “

What does all of this have to do with the racial wage gap? Much of this valuable information that gets transmitted and shared in the ecosystem happens in informal or social settings — over lunch, or a beer after work, or even at church on Sunday. Those social settings tend to be segregated, with whites tending to spend time with whites and blacks with blacks. (The next time you are in an office cafeteria, notice who sits next to whom at lunch.) In a world where ethnic groups cluster together, those in the minority are less likely to share and benefit from spillover effects in the ecosystem and are therefore less likely to learn early on about important company developments or technological innovations.

“People of the same race are much more likely to have conversations where they share ideas,” she says. “The fact is you just talk more about everything with people who you feel more comfortable with than with people you feel less comfortable with. And we know that one of the big predictors of who you feel comfortable with is whether you are of the same ethnicity.”

Ananat explains the findings with a hypothetical example: “Say there are 1,000 black engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 20 in Topeka, and there are 10,000 total engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 500 in Topeka. Then blacks make up 10 percent of engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 4 percent in Topeka.”

“A black engineer in Silicon Valley has 980 more black engineers to get spillovers from than does a black engineer in Topeka,” she writes in an email. “Meanwhile, a white engineer in Silicon Valley has 8,500 more white engineers to benefit from than a white engineer in Topeka. Thus, while both white and black engineers’ wages will be higher in Silicon Valley than in Topeka, the white engineer’s wages will increase more than the black engineer’s do — in effect, the white engineer is living in a much bigger city (of engineers) than the black engineer is, if only people within one’s own race matter for urban spillovers.”

How do companies take advantage of this knowledge?  The study went on to explain that certain individuals in companies cross the racial divide (they call them ‘code-switchers’).  Companies who want to ensure all employees are sharing information will engage these code-switchers, and actually work to recruit more code-switchers, as they will work as links between both bodies and knowledge, almost acting like a bridge to the knowledge and to the relationships where the knowledge is coming from.  The companies with more, and more active, code-switchers can gain the most from their complete body of knowledge that all of their employees have.   Using code-switchers as mentors, especially with your minority employees, is also a great way to ensure the knowledge is being shared between the groups.

I love how social science takes the emotion out of a topic like this and looks at the reality of why this is happening.   HR wants to plan events so we all get to know each others cultures better, etc. When in reality, science will show us differences will continue regardless, focus on finding ways to gain the value from all of those differences by finding ways to ensure sharing of everyone’s knowledge is being done.

 

 

I Have A Dream Today!

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When I was a senior in high school I took U.S. Government.  I had a young, kind of odd but brilliant, teacher.  He was very liberal. He was like a lot of us when we first came out of college, he believed with every ounce of his being he was going to change the world and his vehicle was going to be his students.  He wasn’t liked by most students, though, because he required a major project to be completed in his class — Research Paper!  As seniors the only research we wanted to do was what we were going to do after high school!  99% of the kids, begrudging, did the assigned task.  He did, though, give options.  One option was to recite a famous speech.  Ever being the one to look for the easiest way out, I thought ‘heck, I’m doing a speech!’ That has to be easier than writing a paper…

I was the only one in my class to give a speech. I was to memorize a least 5 minutes of a famous speech in U.S. history, standup in front of my classmates and give this speech on the last day of class.  The speech I selected was Dr. King’s I Have A Dream.  When I selected the speech I had never actually heard the full speech.  I had seen parts in movies he had shown in class, but never heard the full speech.  It was so powerful.

Now you have to remember back in 1988 we didn’t have Google or YouTube or iPods or MP3s or CDs even — I had a vinyl copy of Dr. King’s speech.  I had to listen to the speech probably 100 times, manually write down each line, then memorize it and give it.  Because I had listened to the speech so many times, I gave it with the same timing and inflections as he did (well, not even close, but I tried).  I got an ‘A’.  My teacher was very happy to see this 115 lb, small white kid with Red hair speaking the words of such a great black man — to him I think it was the essence of what Dr. King’s speech was all about.

If you haven’t heard this for a while take a listen on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream Speech:

Lifetime Employment = Death

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Did you know in Japan it’s socially unacceptable for a company to lay you off!?  I didn’t, until I read an article in NY Times. Check this out:

“Shusaku Tani is employed at the Sony plant here, but he doesn’t really work.

For more than two years, he has come to a small room, taken a seat and then passed the time reading newspapers, browsing the Web and poring over engineering textbooks from his college days. He files a report on his activities at the end of each day.

Sony, Mr. Tani’s employer of 32 years, consigned him to this room because they can’t get rid of him. Sony had eliminated his position at the Sony Sendai Technology Center, which in better times produced magnetic tapes for videos and cassettes. But Mr. Tani, 51, refused to take an early retirement offer from Sony in late 2010 — his prerogative under Japanese labor law.

So there he sits in what is called the “chasing-out room.” He spends his days there, with about 40 other holdouts.

“I won’t leave,” Mr. Tani said. “Companies aren’t supposed to act this way. It’s inhumane.”

The standoff between workers and management at the Sendai factory underscores an intensifying battle over hiring and firing practices in Japan, where lifetime employment has long been the norm and where large-scale layoffs remain a social taboo, at least at Japan’s largest corporations.”

Can you imagine?

I might be out on a limb here, but how does one come to the following conclusion:

1. Company hires you.

2. Company trains you.

3. Society, for whatever reason, stops buying companies product or service.  No money coming in.

4. Company should still employee you, forever!

Can someone explain that to me?  We have folks right here in the good ole US of A that believe the same thing.  I’ve seen the General Motors ‘Resource Centers’ where hundreds of UAW workers would go each day, sit, wait, get paid, to essentially do nothing.  It happened right in my own city.  The contract said GM would have ‘X’ number of workers, so even though they had no work, they had to show up to ‘work’.  It’s a joke.  It’s the definition of what’s wrong with unions.

Lifetime employment is the responsibility of a company or a government. Lifetime employment is the responsibility of you as an individual.  To continually educate yourself and add valuable skills to your resume.  To stay fresh on technology. To stay hungry.  If you want a company to employ you forever, you better give them a reason to want to employ you forever!

I understand the pull for some folks to want to have that one job they can just work forever. Show up each day, get paid, go home. It’s easy. It’s comfortable. The same job each day, every day, for your entire life.  On second-thought, I don’t that sounds exactly like death!

Why We Have Chronic Low Performers

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Do you guys want to know a little secret?  You know how I like hanging out with smokers, because they have all the cool inside information before anyone else?  Your chronic low performers have a similar skill.  It’s kind of like information.  Chronic low performers are really good at being low performers!  They’ve figured it out!  They’ve figured out how to do the bare minimum, without getting fired, and you still pay them for showing up and continuing to give you low performance.  If that isn’t a skill, than I don’t know what skills are!

Let that marinade a little on your mind.

The only reason you have a chronic low performer, is they’ve figured out how to master low performance.

All of us have chronic low performers.  We’ve shot them a million times behind closed doors, but never pulled the trigger when the door was open.  I can distinctly remember having conversations about a certain manager when I was at Applebees at 6 straight calibration meetings over 3 years, and heard stories about him before I’d come into the organization.  He just was good/bad enough to keep hanging on.  One meeting we’d be short, so he’d make it one more session. Then next meeting we’d have some idiot do something really bad – Mr. Chronic Low Performer lives to suck another day!  The next meeting it would be some other lame reason.  Each time just squeaking by.

Think about all of people you’ve ever let go. They usually fall into 3 – 4 groups:

1. Bad Performer/bad fit from the start (you shot them early)

2. Good Performer did something really stupid (didn’t want to fire, but had to)

3. Layoffs (decision above your pay grade)

4. Chronic Low Performers (hardly ever happens, they do anything really stupid, personally you don’t hate them)

We have Chronic Low Performers because they make it easy for us to keep them.  They say the right things when we tell them they need to pick it up or else. They’re ‘company’ people, all except for actually adding value part.  They give you no major reason to let them go, all except for not really doing that good of a job.  They always seem to have a semi-legitimate reason for not performing well.

I always wonder how much money chronic low performers have cost organizations vs. the good/great performers we had to let go because they pushed the envelop a little too far and we had to fire them.  My guess is the low performers win hands-down.  You could have a great sales person who is constantly fudging his expense reports or a chronic low performer in the same role. Who would you take?  You don’t have to answer – you do everyday.  You take the low performer.  “Well, what do you want us to keep the thief!”  No. But I’m wondering if great performance can be rehabbed?  I know Chronic Low Performance can’t.  My guess is good/great probably can.  Just a thought.

So, why do you have chronic low performers?  It’s not that you allow it. It’s because you just found out what they are really good at!

 

Do you suffer from low HR self-esteem?

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I was talking to an HR Pro recently and it struck me how negative they were about their organization and their HR shop in general!  Don’t think this is going to be one of those blog posts about if you don’t like your job you should quit and follow your passion.  I don’t believe in that bullshit, that’s how people lose their homes and their families.  They get stupid. This is for my brothers and sisters who are running HR shops.  You need to fire those folks. Really, I mean it.  Get up from your desk, walk out to their desk and tell them they can go home — forever.

It’s one thing to have a bad day, it’s a completely other thing to have a bad career!  You know exactly who I’m talking about.  You see them everyday.  It’s like watching Eeyore on steroids.

I try and figure folks out.  I love asking, “Why you so mad?” Which just usually just makes them more mad, but it’s fun to ask.  I have high HR self-esteem.  I like what I do.  I like what we do in HR.  I truly believe that an HR shop in any organization can be the most valuable part of that organization if they have the right folks running it. Folks like me, with high HR self-esteem.  Folks who don’t believe the bad press HR gets.  Folks who don’t believe the haters.  Folks who at their core, understand how attracting, finding and keeping the best talent in your industry is a true game changer.

It’s alright by me that operations, finance, marketing, etc. all think the same thing. They all think they’re the most important part of the organization. That’s Ok. I know.  I know we (HR) is. Knowing this allows me to let them believe their little fairy tale because I know it’s important to keep them happy.  So, I let them believe.  Don’t tell them, please.  ‘Belief’ is important for their continued satisfaction.

I’ll take the blame for when a bad leader turns another hire.  I’ll throw myself on the sword when communicating out another policy change made by executives, but one in which they’ll gladly give me ‘credit’.  I’ll let marketing take credit for the major sales increase, when I know it was my talent find that brought on the winning strategy to our organization.  I’ll let finance take credit for millions of dollars in ‘savings’, when I know it was the changes to our work structure that allowed us to make those savings.  Having high HR self-esteem does that.

I only ask one thing from my fellow HR leaders.  The next time you make a hire in your HR shop, please make sure that person has high HR self-esteem.  I can’t take anymore HR pros who don’t like what they do.

3 Keys To Get ALong Better With Your Boss

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There was a recent study conducted on how to make your marriage better.  I’m not saying you’re married to your boss, but in many cases you’re spending more awake hours with your boss, and co-workers, than you do with your spouse!  The number one key is of course Communication!  It’s always communication.  Have a crappy relationship with anyone and everyone will tell you — ‘oh, you just need to communicate more!’  Well, you know what?  More, or more effective, communication, might not be the key!  I know guys are happy to hear this!

From Time.com:

“Not surprisingly, those who reported communicating more effectively showed the highest satisfaction with their relationships. But the next two factors — which were also the only other ones with strong links to couple happiness — were knowledge of partner (which included everything from knowing their pizza-topping preferences to their hopes and dreams) and life skills (being able to hold a job, manage money, etc.).

Couples counselors, however, rarely address these two areas, as the focus on strengthening relationships has been on improving communication to reduce destructive behavior and to build support and comfort for each other. “For the last 25 years,” says Tom Bradbury, a veteran couples researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, “the prevailing attitude has been that relationships need to meet our emotional needs.” To be successful, however, he’s also found that relationships need to function in more practical, and perhaps mundane ways as well.”

Ok, so you still have to communicate, but that isn’t the only thing you have to do!
Here are 3 Keys To Getting Along Better With Your Boss:
1. Be a Better Performer!  If you and your boss don’t along it’s probably because she is constantly riding your butt over your low/poor performance.  Get better and things will improve!
2. Find out what’s important to them.  In any relationship a major key to making that relationship positive is it’s a two-way street.  We all expect our bosses to know everything about us, but we rarely work to find out stuff about them.  Your boss isn’t some untouchable God like figure or celebrity. They’re just a normal person with the same normal issues you have.  Those people who make that connection have stronger relationships with their bosses.
3. Reduce Stress In Your Work Environment.  This isn’t you, but some people actually create more stress in their work place for the simple fact that they feel more important if they’re involved in a stressful situation.  Your boss knows who you are.  She doesn’t like you because of it.  If you’re constantly in the middle of crap in your work, you’re part of the problem.  Some of your coworkers are never in the middle of it — your boss likes them better!
Let’s face it, sometimes you’ll have an idiot for a boss and there will be nothing you can do to make that relationship rewarding.  But far more people claim this is the case, than is reality. For most of us, if we want a positive relationship with our boss it can be had with a little work.

The Diversity of Productivity

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It’s widely held in the HR field that the most productive organizations are the most ‘diverse’.  The problem is that concept is misinterpreted by most HR Pros and executives.  Most still believe that concept pertains to the ethnic diversity of your team (the color of the faces you hire).  It might be the greatest fallacy in the HR industry today!   In actuality, Productivity has zero correlation with team ethnic diversity.  So, what kind of diversity does make us more productive?

From Fast Company:

“A growing body of research shows that diversity–in gender, thinking styles, and intro- and extroversion–is needed for teams to be their most productive.

Writing at 99u, Christian Jarrett, the psychologist-turned-writer behind the British Psychological Society’s superlative Research Digest blog“

You need 3 types of Diversity to get the most productivity out of your teams:

1. Gender

2. Thinking Style

3. Behavioral Style

None of those have anything to do with the color of your skin.

Let me breakdown the three types of diversity and why I think they have such impact to productivity:

Gender: To me this is good old nature at its best!  Boys want to impress girls, girls want to look good in front of boys — for the most part. Sometimes boys want to look good in front of other boys.  I get that, I’m that old.  The other thing with gender that I’ve learned from being married 20+ years, is that women and men sometimes think differently. Sometimes…which in itself will lead your team down a path in a number of ways, with a number options if you have a good gender mix.  Gender diversity on teams in relation to productivity might have the greatest impact to positive productivity over anything else we can do.

Thinking Style: Whereas Gender is probably underutilized by HR Pros to help productivity, Thinking Styles might be the one we most rely on when thinking about non-ethnic diversity!  “It’s Diversity of thought!” is the most over utilized statement in diversity.  Primarily because so few of us actually use real scientific tools to measure what someone’s thinking style is. “Oh, Tim’s old and a republican so he must think one way, and Mary is young and democrat so she thinks this opposite!”  Is potentially so wrong, yet how most organization determine ‘Diversity of Thought’.

Behavioral Style:  Having both introverted and extroverted individuals on a team is huge.  Too many people like me on a team and no one gets a word in edge-wise.  Too many introverted folks and either nothing happens, or the one extroverted person controls the entire process.  All can be very bad.  Getting your introverts in an environment where they are comfortable to share their knowledge is key to your organizations performance.

This is not a message that is being shared to your executives at most organizations.  They are still very ‘black and white’ in their thoughts on diversity.  While ethnic diversity can make great additions to your workplace culture, don’t mistake it for having positive impact to your productivity.  There isn’t any science that proves this, yet.