Is my rude behavior your fault?

Well of course it isn’t, I am responsible for my own behavior.  How you interpret my behavior is your business.   I had a friend who used to say

If there are two ways to interpret what I said, and one of them is going to get me in trouble, please assume I meant the other one.

Not a bad policy actually.  

You’ve probably noticed, that I’m on an empathy kick these days.  I’ve been attempting to closely monitor my reactions, doing everything in my power to subscribe the best intentions to others, especially when my first reaction is otherwise.   

This week, someone pointed out yet another annoying tendency I have, that does a great job illustrating a difference between my intent was from how it is perceived. 

I am inclined to use the word “my” in a description of people.  For example, I will frequently refer to Amy as My Strategist.  What I mean by this language, is that I greatly admire Amy and I am glad I am on her team.  I use this language to make clear that I would be devastated if any other team were to steal her away.  This is how I feel about great people that I work with.  When I say “my” I am not implying that I think these people report to me.

So, you can imagine how surprised I was, when I heard that others are perceiving me to be pushy and arrogant when I do this.  Wow.  This completely took me aback.  If (when) the roles are reversed I feel good when people use similar language about me.  It would never have occurred to me that someone might find this offensive.

What is great about this example, is that someone was kind enough to point it out to me.  Now, I can attempt to find a better way to express myself.  By clarifying how they interpreted my language, I am able to communicate in a way that is less likely to be offensive.  Instead of assuming I’m a jerk, they gave me the benefit of the doubt.

I think that everyone could benefit from the following habit.  When someone says (or does) something that you find annoying

First: Ask yourself if maybe there is another way to look at their actions that would do a better job giving that person the benefit of the doubt. 

Second: If, attempting to see it a different way doesn’t work and you still find yourself annoyed, then find a way to let them know what is bothering you.

I would respectfully suggest, if you don’t have  the courage to do these steps, then maybe your behavior is equally offensive.

_____________

PS for those of you who are married and/or related to me, who are very quick to tell me what I do wrong, and who know full well my intentions, all I can suggest is that you remember what cute children I brought into this world for you.

Managing your boss

Here at TalentedApps we have had a few discussions about bosses (both good and bad) but we after reading the WSJ article on How to manage your boss I thought it might be a good idea to spend a little more time on this topic.

First I can’t talk about this topic without a mention of our  legendary family story, where an unnamed person [I'm married to], once told his friend that he had to go “manage his boss“.   Of course, the meeting he was anticipating, informed him of massive layoffs in his industry (manufacturing) of which he was participating (doh!).  Being a supportive family unit, we are still bringing up this story several decades later.

Second I was struck by this  in the article

…According to the theory, we tend to assume that other people’s faults stem from internal, fundamental flaws. But we attribute our own faults to temporary environmental factors. For instance, when our boss manages poorly, we believe that he does it because he intends to and is inherently a bad leader. When we manage poorly, we’re simply making a mistake because of the pressure we’re under.

Essentially, most of us are quick to believe the worst in our boss and expect others to cut us some slack when we are at our worst.   I’ll give you a minute to take that one in as it relates to your own situation with your boss.  Do you empathize with his/her job?

Third I was thrilled to see Wally Bock suggest the following additional point

Your job is to help your boss succeed. If you can’t do that, it’s time to find someplace else to work. Without that commitment, all techniques become manipulation.

What an outstanding point.  How many of us define our role as helping our boss succeed?  Do you focus your energy to help make him (or her) look good?  Do you put your energy on aligning around a positive relationship built on a common goal?  I would submit, that if you are not, it’s not just your boss missing out.  Worth thinking about. 

To that end, I checked my quarterly goals to see if I’ve addressed this issue and here is what I found.

 Support my boss as best I can, making sure my teams don’t spend too much time on any wall of shame.

 Yup, looks like I’ve got skin in the game (in my own underachieving way).  What about you?

Top Talent – in it for life?

Leading organizations that identify top talent are often asked, “Do you tell them?” The answer is “Yes.” Though the sharing of this critical and juicy information comes with it’s headaches (and lots of coaching and guideline tweaking), it is generally well worth it for a couple of reasons:

• Motivation – the individuals get an extra kick to step up their game and know that their future is *bright* at their current company.
• Necessity – the individuals are often placed in a special development pool that includes superior opportunities like executive coaching, mentoring, international assignments, etc. Why? they would ask if they didn’t know the full details.

Another related, but far messier question is whether the Top Talent assignment is temporary or permanent? Once a person is selected, are they developed until they leave the company (retired, fired, or just rewired)? Or, should the pool be continuously tweaked, with people coming and going, based on regular talent review meetings? As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Organizations are working through this as we speak. Without a firm best practice here at the moment, I suspect that this will emerge over the next few years. Let’s consider the opposing arguments:

Organizations are better able to establish a long-term strategy if there is a sense of permanance to talent pools. Candidates can feel more confident in a 5-10 year development plan with long-range goals. It also gives organizations the ability to measure the effectiveness of programs with such a systematic approach. However, there are downsides too. The candidates may develop a sense of entitlement rather than a mindset for growth. It may also de-motivate other “not quite there” candidates for whom there is no room in the future.

Organizations that take a temporary approach are able to react more nimbly to changes in the business such as predicted demand in particular regions, need for particular skillsets, changing diversity requirements. Such organizations can quickly adapt development goals and bring on rising stars that meet the needs of the business. However, there are downsides too. Former pool candidates may feel “dumped” and therefore, demotivated. Also, measuring effectiveness may be more difficult due to the short-term nature of the development programs.

Messy indeed. Unfortunately, many organizations do wallow in the middle and feel the pain of both sets of downsides. I hope that we will see a best practice form that mixes the upsides of these two approaches, focusing on achieving and adapting organizational strategy, keeping employees motivated with a growth mindset and with the opportunity to practice deliberately.

Job Seeker Mojo

I’m sure I’m not alone in having close friends and family members with the unfortunate task of looking for a job.  Almost every day I’m see new information about job loss statistics with close to 1 in 10 being recently unemployed.

In the good news category, I’ve seen a lot of  great advice being offered to job seekers.  I’ve seen job openings being shared on twitter, I’ve seen recruiters coming together to help people find the scarce jobs.   There is a real sense of community going around.

There is a real emotional toll to all this.  I’m sad to be the one to say it, but the reality is that there are less job openings and more job seekers.    We economists call that a buyers market.  Being a good candidate is just not enough.  You need to have serious “job seeker Mojo“. 

After losing your job, you cannot afford to spend time wondering why this happened to you.  You have to dust yourself off and get your groove back.   Those who have job openings are not really going to be interested in hiring candidates who feel that life has conspired against them.  Hiring managers are drawn to Mojo.  If you aren’t careful, job seekers with Mojo will get your job.

It’s time to start looking on the bright side.  Specifically you need to

• Get a plan for what you will do while you are looking for a job.  A long job search can be a red flag for a hiring manager.  Find something to fill your time that you can talk about during an interview.  Volunteer.  Give back.  Anything that will fill you with purpose and passion.  If I have a choice of hiring “Joe, the enthusiastic volunteer” vs. “Joe the mad at the world” who do you think I would choose?

 

• Get support.  Find a group of people who care about you, that can listen and help you move past any rough spots.  If you don’t have someone who immediately comes to mind, consider someone in your church or a counselor.

 

• Pace yourself.  Given the economic indicators, this is not going to blow over quickly.   Prepare yourself emotionally and financially, for a long cycle.

 

• Master your elevator pitch.   There should be no doubt in your mind what your unique skills are and how any company would benefit from picking you to join their organization.  If you don’t believe it, why would anyone with a job consider you above the competition?

I know you can, time to show your depth of character and find your Mojo.  If you do, I’m confident you will look back to this time positively one day.

Becoming a better version of myself

Thanks to Ken for inspiring me to challenge myself (by more than just his post),  I am ready to renew my commitment to change this year.

I’ve shared my trivia, my weaknesses, my passions already.  Today, on this day of change, I’m going to share one of my key personal goals.  The one that takes me outside my comfort zone the most.  It’s not really a new goal, it’s a continuation of a goal I set mid last year, but in 2009 I plan to put even more energy to mastering the art of personal networking. 

I’m not talking the easy stuff, like sending an invitation on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.  I’m great at that.  I’m talking the sticky stuff of [gasp] talking on the telephone or having coffee or even remembering your name.

It’s not that I’m a shy person, but I really am terrible at being in the moment with people.  I loathe breaking the  conversational ice with someone I don’t know.  I’m the person who will hide underneath a ball cap on a flight to avoid talking to you.  Don’t get me wrong, I probably want to talk to you (at least if you are someone interesting, if you are creepy please allow me to back away slowly) I just wont make the effort.  This is one part lack of confidence and two parts laziness and today, I resolve to do better.

I’m pulling out all the stops on this one people.  

• I’m making a concentrated effort to initiate conversation with people I meet. 

 

• I’m continually reminding myself to listen when you tell me your name (and to ask again when I’ve forgotten). 

 

• I’m reading books that remind me that being in the moment is more important than the lists of things I’m going through in my head. 

 

• I’m writing this goal down and sharing it with the world (at least the small subset of the world that reads this blog) to hold myself accountable.

 

• I am allowing myself to “Act as if“, planning to fake this skill,  knowing that with deliberate practice someday it will become real.

This is a big step for me, I once quit a job that required personal networking.     I believe that mastering this skill is necessary to get me where I need to be (both personally and professionally) so I commit to you right now to become this better version of myself. 

Wish me luck!

_____________

Photo made with help of http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/new.html

Confessions of a paranoid, antisocial, perfectionist blogger

Perfectionist – one who has a propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet an extremely high standard.

 

Paranoia – extreme, irrational distrust of others.

 

Antisocial – unwilling or unable to associate normally with other people.

 

I have yet to fully embrace the mainstream social networking revolution.  By mainstream I mean the average individual who blogs for work, to earn a living, or just for the simple pleasure of writing.  I do not mean the people who share every moment of their lives through word and picture.  Frankly, you people scare me.  Many of my colleagues have already jumped into the deep end of this pool where they gently and persistently call to me: ‘Come on in, the water’s fine’.  For a time I took comfort, and not a little snarky pleasure, with others who embraced the antisocial lifestyle, like Kathi.  But as I’ve watched our numbers diminish over the past year – even Kathi now has a Facebook page – I wondered why I was still so hesitant to dive-in and join the fun.

 

The truth is I very much want to be all in – a fully vested and contributing member of our virtual community; but I’m afraid and my natural response to fear is to move away from and not toward other people.  Now I don’t think my paranoia and antisocial tendencies are engrained personality flaws – though I have my fair share of these as well – rather I’ve come to see them as a by-product of the perfectionist rooted to the core of my being.  And believe me when I say this is way more than a mere tendency.  It’s part of my DNA.  This means that no matter how trivial the task I almost always create an unreasonably high set of standards and as a consequence end up feeling disappointed and ashamed when I fail to measure up.  So when I post a blog or a comment and later find a typo or misspelled word I feel every bit as bad about myself as when I make a mess of a relationship or fall short of my performance goals at work.  With perfectionism there is no sense of proportionality – every failure, real or perceived, leads to the same crushing sense of defeat.  That’s when the paranoia begins to seep into my consciousness – “they’re laughing at you” – which then leads to antisocial behaviors like lurking.

 

Rationally I understand that I am mostly successful at the things I do and that generally I am a competent employee, friend, and blogger.  But I also understand that I cannot simply get over being a perfectionist.  I have to learn to live with it and accept that I am going to make mistakes.  This won’t be easy, but I’m committed to doing better and commitment requires a plan – and a good plan needs a set of goals.  So to that end I’m setting the following goals for myself:

 

1.   I will not give in to fear or isolation.  Solitude is okay, monasticism is not. 

2.    I will participate, not just lurk, in our online community. 

3.    I will create a Facebook account.  Understanding that I may have to spend a few weeks chanting my first goal before I’m actually ready to do this.

4.    I will not feel bad, anguish, or obsess over the small mistakes that are simply a part of being human, like typos, spelling errors, grammatical gaffes, forgetting to buy half-and-half, misplacing my keys, or counting that box of Raisinets as part or all of my five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

 

It’s an exciting time to be working in talent management and the wonderful, quirky, sometimes scary, world of social networking holds almost endless possibilities.  So to all the other paranoid, antisocial, perfectionists lurking in the shadows, I too say, “Come on in and join the conversation, the water and the people are exceptionally fine.”

 

Peace

 

Is your boss making you ill?

 Was reading my AARP magazine (that I, of course, only read for the articles) and found an interesting article that suggested that a bad boss can give you heart attack.

This research was out of Sweden, published in the Journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.  

…responding to a scored series of statements such as “I have a clear picture of what my boss expects of me” and “I am praised by my boss if I have done something good.”

A lower score for the boss translated into a higher risk for the employee. And the longer the employee worked there, the more the risk rose.

Ick!  Sadly I really didn’t find this surprising.  I think that we all know what kind of stress a bad work situation can have, seems logical that, in the worst cases it could lead to physical manifestation. 

Job fit is not just about being in the right job for your skills, it is also about having the right match with your boss.  Figuring out how to manage your boss is something that requires investment .  Do you know the work style of your boss?  Do you know how S/he prefers to be status-ed?  Is S/he a high-touch or low-touch person?  Is there something you can do to make the work relationship more harmonious? 

Often, a bad boss situation can be fixed with better communication, clear goal definition and concentrated effort.   You owe it to yourself to make the effort. 

BUT if the fit is just not there you should be proactive about finding yourself a different manager.  

Since your career is your responsibility, you must resolve the situation.  Not just for your career advancement but also for your health!  As the study proved, these problems do not get better over time, they only get worse.

Pay more often

Wondering what to do with that pile of money in your compensation budget? Considering eliminating it and chalking it up to the crappy economy? That’s certainly one way to go, but how about changing things up this year. Instead of paying less, how about paying more frequently?

Set tight, tough goals that are really going to help you get through the quarter. If people meet them, pay them. Rinse and repeat. The goals should focus on a combination of performing miracles and saving bundles of money. Ann Bares suggest focusing on non-financial goals because of the inability to predict what will be good financially in the near future. The desired outcome is to rally the troops to be part of something (including saving their jobs). And, maybe, just maybe it will work.

Are reduced hours really better than layoffs?

Every time I turn around, there is a news flash about another layoff. Meanwhile, everyone is wondering “is there an alternative?” Last month, companies were weighing the plusses and minuses of an unpaid holiday. Now, there are the possibilities of wage cuts and reduced hours. Peter Capelli explores this in his piece, Alternatives to Layoffs, and wonders why companies aren’t doing this more? Is it due to morale concerns or are companies just following the herd to please Wall Street?

A couple of friends, living the reality, have recently provided me with two different perspectives. Interestingly, the results break between having a college degree versus not and salaried versus hourly workers.

On the one hand is my friend, the attorney for the State of California. They have been asked to take a “weekly furlough” for 2009 (somewhere in the realm of 4 hours/week). He’s not exactly thrilled about it because it does mean less money, but hey he gets a nap on Fridays! He understands the reason and appreciates that he can keep his job. But, most importantly, he can plan for it.

On the other hand is my friend, the district manager for Starbucks. The primary source of her job stress is not the threat of layoffs, but rather the inability to provide her store workers with sufficient hours to pay their bills. It was particularly rough over the holidays; at a time when workers came to expect extra hours, they were suddenly turned away from getting any. Sure, the workers understand why, but it doesn’t really help because they can’t plan for it.

Back to Kris Dunn’s question: is it better to have a college degree? It sure is … and please, use it to plan.

What makes hourly workers happy?

Workforce Institute recently published a whitepaper laying out the impact a Workforce Management system can have on empowering and motivating employees. The paper argues that engagement increases due to things like swapping shifts, working flexible hours, and requesting time off. These things all sound important, but what does an hourly worker really care about?

Working enough hours to pay their bills.

Can workforce management systems help with that? Absolutely.