Bullies at work

I volunteer for an anti bullying program for kids.

We have found that the best antidote to bully behavior is the bystander who is neither the victim, nor the bully. We teach her to go to the kid who is getting excluded from the play, and say: “I am done playing soccer. I would like to shoot hoops. Will you join me?”

As adults, we know that bullying happens, more often than not, when we are not present. Our job is to empower the bystander and call on bad behavior, as ways to prevent bullying. Our job also is to take action and protect victims from bullies.

We have bullies at work too. They are the ones who point fingers, pass blame, call names, don’t carry their weight, or shoot down every thought before it can develop. They sap energy and frustrate people around them. As managers, we have the same responsibility to empower our team against bullies. But when someone in our team is the bully, we have the choice to focus our energy on coaching the bully, or on helping the others get on with life without the bully.

What is your choice?

What are we all really worth?

By now, at least in the States, you’ve seen ads and reviews for “Moneyball”, starring Brad Pitt. It’s based on the 2003 book by Michael Lewis and I’ve referred to it several times in previous posts. My colleague Ravi even posted a cricket version!

My fellow Moneyball fan, Kris Dunn, when he gave us all a heads up about the movie back in July, correctly described the book as being really about thinking differently in valuing talent.

We tend to stick with conventional wisdom and/or what’s worked in the past and this limits our ability to spot new and perhaps better (at least for you) ways to win. You can discover previously unrecognized value in your workforce by changing your perspective on what strengths and weaknesses really apply to the challenge you are currently facing.

It works like this. Right now, you are shaping your workforce around what you think you need it to do in order to best execute on your strategy. Makes sense, right? Here’s the thing, your view of your workforce is shaped by this thinking as well. You tend not to see your workforce capabilities any way other than what you need it to do right now.

If it ain’t broke…

Don’t fix, right? But what happens if:

1) You are no longer able to get or retain the kind of workforce you need to win? For instance, one or more competitors with more resources (e.g. cash) hollow out your workforce?

2) Your company’s circumstances suddenly change and the strengths of your workforce are no longer key to sustainable competitive advantage? For instance, a new technology appears and the marketplace in a very short time does a 180 on you?

And on a slightly more positive note:

3) You come across a new opportunity that is either not recognized or not captured well by other companies. You think it could be a huge money maker for your company, but you don’t really know if your workforce has the capability you need to pull it off.

It’s true you might (and probably really should) take defensive steps to keep key talent. You could also build an employer brand that draws new talent to you. But beyond that, you need to expand your view of what other strategies your current workforce is capable of supporting.

A plan for thinking different

Where to start?

1)  Start by not limiting your view of your workforce to just what you think you need. Each person in your workforce very likely has experiences, skills, knowledge, etc. that are not known or being used right now. Help your workforce see a benefit to them in sharing this information with the company.

2) Next, think about other strategies that could be applied to your company’s business. One way is to put yourself in the shoes of a new entrant and think about possible ways you could disrupt the current incumbent. Or ask what new management would do if current management was fired (i.e. the Andy Grove question.)

3) Also, bring fresh perspectives into your thinking by working with people with a diverse set of experiences. If they have the right kind of thinking skills, can analyze a situation and quickly identify the key leverage points in a challenging situation, then their different perspective should at least be able to give you some ideas for new ways to look at the problem.

Above all, keep in mind this is not about some clever recipe that suddenly solves all your issues (e.g. On Base Percentage vs. Batting Average) - that’s an artifact of the relative constraints around baseball which business doesn’t have. It’s about the difficult thinking required when figuring out how your strategic options interact with your workforce capabilities.

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Believing is NOT everything

Logic and hard facts are not always valued as much as they should be.

Oftentimes people believe that if they just “feel” or “think” something then reality shouldn’t really be taken into account…
I’m sure you all know examples where beliefs and feelings have substituted hard facts whether we are talking economy, environmental issues or politics.

- well, I can’t do much about that, but I can promote research and facts within my area of expertise: e-learning and content creation.

In e-learning and content creation a lot of people have a lot of (different) ideas on how to do certain things.

Therefore it was really refreshing to witness Saul Carliner from Concordia University in Canada talking about his findings about what is scientifically proven to work and what are just beliefs when it comes to Learning.
So here are some common beliefs in e-learning and content creation and whether there is scientific proof underneath or they are just that – beliefs.

“If an instructor narrates an asynchronous learning program, you should not display the text of the narration at the same time. “  –  TRUTH!
This is supported by two empirical studies. Called modality effect, the duplicate message causes confusion in the system.  Instead, just use bullet points (like a Powerpoint slide).
My comment: I was surprised by this and will take notice of this in my future work.

“Providing learners with control of the e-learning experience increases learning.”  -  MYTH!
No empirical evidence supports this point and 2 empirical studies support the opposite. As the extent of learner control increases, learning decreases except for a very small number of the most advanced expert learners.
My comment: This is what I have always said (without knowing if it was true…). We, as content producers, know how to structure the content in the best possible way and we should use this to help the learners learn in the most efficient way.

“Because digital natives tend to multitask, we should incorporate multitasking into our designs for learning. “  -  MYTH!
No empirical evidence supports this and several empirical studies support the opposite.
Multitasking may not be as beneficial as it appears, and can result in a loss of concentration and cognitive ‘overload’ as the brain shifts between competing stimuli .
My comment: This is no surprise to me. I have never seen multitasking implemented in a meaningful way in e-learning.

“Young people of the digital native generation possess sophisticated knowledge of and skills with information technologies”  -  MYTH!
No empirical evidence supports this and several empirical studies support the opposite.
My comment: This is probably the most surprising fact for most people and could be used by older people to not give up on all the new gadgets and trends.

“Completion rates are highest for e-learning programs that have associated tangible impacts, such as certifications or compliance. “  -  TRUTH!
This is supported by research.
My comments: This is probably the least surprising fact and something many of our customers have been doing for years.

“As a business strategy, Training groups should transition from training dominated by formal programs to training dominated by informal learning efforts” – MYTH!
This is not supported by any research.
On the other hand research indicates that informal and formal learning interacts in important ways.
My comment: This underlines that both way of learning has its place and should be part of any learning strategy.

“Line drawings are more effective than photographs for teaching technical procedures.”  -  TRUTH!
This is supported by research.
People learn better from multimedia messages when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included.
My comment: Maybe only a small subject, but good to know if you are creating content yourself.

You can read more about this and Saul Carliner on http://education.concordia.ca/~scarliner/

Seven keys to a robust compensation system

The seven keys to a robust compensation system that will help you in attracting, retaining, and motivating the workforce are:

1. You should have a fair compensation policy in place and it should be easily accessible to your workforce.
2. Your compensation policy should be context sensitive. Market data should be used wherever appropriate to keep it fresh and competitive.
3. Your compensation revision schedule (e.g. salary revision cycle) should be communicated to the workforce in a planned manner and in advance. Open communication will help your workforce to focus on their duties instead of wasting energy and time in waiting and guessing about it.
4. Compensation should be linked to the performance. It will keep performers motivated and will help you to retain them.
5. Policy execution should be monitored regularly to make sure policy has “Buy in” at all the levels and execution is not diverting from the planned objectives.
6. Your compensation policy should be open for feedback. Proper and industry accepted channels should be established to achieve this.
7. You should have a built-in audit capability to detect and correct any compensation discrimination. It will save your brand and increase employee engagement.

Strategic HR

The CHRO and CFO oversee the two main assets of a company. They have enormous opportunity to add value to the CEO. Yet, they sometimes fall short of expectations.

Their strategic  function is not about setting solid guidelines on depreciation of capital assets, or putting together employee handbooks. Those may be required activities, and if not done right, may cause enormous harm. However, they are not leadership activities.

A good CEO can chart the strategic plan for the company. He can even channel the money, but it is much harder to channel the talent and get everyone aboard. This is where the CHRO can help. However, this involves changing the tone of the HR communications from mandates and legalese to influencing and enabling.

The strategic function of recruiting is not to enforce pay boundaries; it is to get the right people to fill the right jobs. The strategic function of performance reviews is not to get 100% participation; it is to foster career growth. The strategic function of succession management is not to make sure all critical jobs have successors; it is to help find the right successors, wherever they are. The strategic function of benefits is not to pass top heavy tests; but to provide benefits that are best provided via group enrollment. The strategic function of time cards is not to keep record of attendance; but to compute gross margin per product, so we know which products to continue to build.

HR’s strategic function is to breathe, speak, and live this, and to be able to see everything from the lens of the business. The rest is to HR what accounting is to finance. It may sometimes be essential, but it is not strategic.

I have been super lucky to work with HR counterparts who get this. They keep me from the legalese and the HR policies.  They share information with me. They suggest ways I can avoid obstacles. And they focus on helping me get the job done. This is business execution.

Bell-Curved Pay-For-Performance

Yes, it sounds weird, but it’s very present in most of the companies today in some way or the other, thanks to the economy and tight budgets. I don’t have any intention to start a debate on whether it’s good or bad, but to check the readiness of your compensation system to handle this. Does your compensation system have the capability to accommodate a forced bell-curved system? How ready is your compensation system to absorb this if it comes as a shock?

Information that can help your decision-making to be systematic rather than random includes:

1. Current as well as past performance ratings for all employees.
2. Ranking (1…N) for all the employees. This will be useful for employees sharing the same performance ratings as well as should you take out one of them out of the compensation round.

People should not confuse ranking with rating. Ranking should be used along with performance rating to meet the assigned x% penetration target for compensation distribution.

Your compensation system should allow managers to rank all employees in their hierarchy along with the capability to use rankings given by managers reporting to them. It will result in a system for higher management where all population is ranked from 1 to N and each ranked employee has associated performance rating information. It will allow applying any formula for compensation distribution as rating and ranking together will best indicate the importance of any selected employee.

Having your compensation system ready with the above-mentioned information will also avoid having to involve all managers when the target % of penetration changes during the compensation distribution cycle for any reason.

To conclude, let me ask you “If only 60% of your workforce could get performance bonus and 80% of your workforce could get salary increase as per published guidelines, how would you handle this?” Would you prefer to use ranking along with performance rating or are you already equipped with something better? Please share your opinion and suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

Photo by c r i s

iPad != Mobile

This is possibly a pedantic point of view, but to me, the iPad is not a mobile device.

In fact, the whole topic of mobility is missing the point.  I think the iPad is bigger than mobile, and it warrants an entirely different discussion.

I also think that the topic of mobile became a lot less (not more) interesting with the iPhone, we just forgot to notice.  We were all too busy trying to find a reason to get and/or use one.

OK, to start at the beginning.

I believe mobility as a [technical] topic, is about being able to access networked technology without a hard wired connection.  Mobility, as a concept, has seen huge leaps forward in both cellular and wireless technologies.  So much so, the lists of places you can go to be disconnected, are more practical to collect, than the reverse.  Mobility is possible with laptops as well as tablets and smart phones.  As far as enterprise applications are concerned, mobility, as a topic, is passe.   The internet did [sort of] change everything.

So if we should not be thinking of the iPad as mobile, how should we think about it?

My point of view is that iProducts create a very different story than a mobile one.  They introduce entirely new form functions for user experience.  They expand the types and kinds of personas we should be using to design applications.   They introduce the vision of user-centricity.

Once I can imagine the idea of a user centric device, I can begin to have a different relationship with technology as a whole.  I can imagine a world where enterprise applications are useful to me and not just to my company.

The personal connection between the device and how I do work is a very big thing.  The concept is not about where I do work, but how I do work.

In this I see a big difference, and I look forward to more people talking about technology and work as a result of this beautiful new device (and all the excellent devices that will come along after).  We need to be talking about how we can use technology to make work better.  We need to be talking about how we begin to make business better.

iPad, I am expecting a lot, I hope you are ready to see this through.