The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

No sooner had Barack Obama announced the selection of Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as his running mate than many in the media, with the smiling support of Republican operatives, were chirping about Senator Hillary Clinton having been dissed by the lack of consideration for the job. The question on the minds of many was/is, “why didn’t Obama at least show her some respect by vetting her, even if he wasn’t going to consider her for the position?”

While I don’t know and really don’t care what was on Senator Obama’s mind, I do know that there is a larger lesson here for those of us who daily interview people (or not) for positions on our team. The lesson is this: Gratuitously inflating a person’s hopes by putting them through a sham interview process, or otherwise wasting their time is one of the most disrespectful things you can do to them. Moreover, very few of us have the acting talent to pull off such a charade, hence doing so also imperils your reputation for authenticity.

In the early days of FedEx, company founder Fred Smith called me one afternoon to tell me that, though I had been recommended for a vacant VP position, he already had his mind pretty well made up, and I wasn’t on the “short list” this time around. He added that he had, however, noticed my work and felt sure that my time would come. I thanked him for his candor and kind words about my work, and went about my business, feeling good about what had just happened.

Over the years, I have tried to show similar respect to people who have expressed interest in a position on my team. In many cases, after telling a person that I’m not going to create false hope or disrespect them by putting them through a phony interview, I have asked if we could instead spend some time talking about their interests so that I might get to know them better. Most of them seemed to appreciate it. To me, that type of “courtesy interview” is more productive, and a lot more courteous.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

For better than a decade, business partner Richard Hadden and I have written about leadership and employment issues, offering what we hope is helpful advice to those who are known by others as “the boss.”

Last night, my wife and I celebrated her birthday at Nashville’s Sommet Center, enjoying a rocking performance by another guy known as, “The Boss.” Together with his E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen performed all the oldies and goodies for an enthusiastic audience that included Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, Amy Grant, Martina McBride, and Kim Carnes. Totally aware of his surroundings, the Boss nearly brought the house down with an Elvis-inspired version of “Good Rocking Tonight,” followed by a soulful rendition of Johny Cash’s, “I Walk the Line.”

Notwithstanding the fact that Springsteen’s music is about as good as it ever was, I came away dutifully impressed by his and the band’s willingness to  give it up for an appreciative mid-week audience. After starting the customary 45 minutes late (I still don’t get that part), they performed nonstop for three hours, doing at least twenty minutes of encore to a standing ovation. Those in the vicinity of St. Louis, Kansas City, and Milwaukee would do well to go see them before the “Magic Tour” calls it quits.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (electronic version) posted a very good article this week by Atlanta labor attorneys, James Walter and Matthew Simpson about a piece of legislation, the “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA) now working its way thru Congress. If passed by the 111th Congress, it is expected that the bill would be signed into law by Sen. Barack Obama, should he be elected President.

The proposed legislation would overturn a 43 year old system in which union representation elections are conducted via a federally overseen secret ballot process, and replace it with a less formal “card check” procedure where the rules are enforced not by an unbiased federal representative, but a decidedly partisan union organizer. In essence, it is designed to do one thing and one thing only - to make it easier for labor unions to shore up their shrinking membership rolls, ‘er bank accounts.

The bill has recently drawn considerable attention as the result of union-backed furor over efforts by Wal-Mart, a fervently union-free employer, to alert its management staff to the downside potential of this act, if signed into law, on their business.

As one who for thirty years has been more than a casual student of employee relations, I can attest with some certainty that there is nothing about this bill that is good for American business or its employees. Moreover, as with many of the other labels (e.g., conservative, liberal, values voter) that seem to float unchallenged through our conversation these days, I am totally and completely perplexed by the name of this bill. How in the world can something that actually reduces freedom and eviscerates a scrupulously fair process be known as “employee free choice?”

A thought leader in the areas of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

One would have to have been in a cave not to have noticed the blizzard of TV commercials over the past month touting the “Pickens Plan” for creating American energy independence.

While our elected representatives are taking a wholly undeserved five (5) week vacation amidst an energy crisis, two shooting wars, and an imploding health care system, T. Boone Pickens has decided to do something about the domestic energy situation. Intrigued by the commercials, I decided to look into what this guy is up to.

According to Wikipedia, Pikckens is an 80 year old “business man who chairs the hedge fund, BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator during the 1980s. With an estimated net worth of about $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 117th richest person in America and ranked 369th in the world. Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity.”

The nut of his plan is to capitalize on a natural “wind corridor” that bisects the country from Texas to Canada by building a series of  wind farms sufficient to offset that portion of the domestic power grid now supplied by natural gas (about 22% of total demand). The natural gas, a fairly plentiful domestic commodity would be diverted to use as motor fuel, supplanting about $300 billion annually of imported oil. Other fuel sources (geothermal, nuclear, biofuels, etc.) would then be used to further reduce foreign dependence.

I don’t know whether Mr. Pickens’ plan cuts the mustard or not, but I do know this - it stands in stark contrast as a voice of reason and leadership against the din and prattle of the Beltway bozos. Check it out.

A thought leader in the areas of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

The July 28 issue of Nation’s Restaurant News featured a piece by staff HR writer, Dina Berta, on efforts by Claim Jumper Restaurants to nourish their employment brand. That’s right, employment brand. According to Avery Block, a member of Claim Jumper’s HR team, who is quoted in the article, “the CJ brand is commitment to the journey. It represents and reflects the journey the company has been on the last 30 years… We’re committed to our community, one another, and to ourselves for individual growth and development. We want people to feel that when they come to Claim Jumper, they are on a journey.”

Two things are axiomatic in this respect:

1.Like it or not, every organization that has employees (including yours and ours) has an employment brand. At it’s root, that brand reflects your reputation within the community of those who would, do, and have worked for your organization. Not unlike other types of reputations, your employment rep is hard to enhance and easy to ruin.

2. Our employment brand extends well beyond the usual raft of trite, worn out slogans (e.g. people are our most important asset) to the very tangible qualities that define the employment relationship, things like trust, mutual respect, standards, and discipline.

If you’re at all uncertain as to the value of this reputation, chat up any recruiter in the hospitality or high tech industries.

A thought leader in the areas of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

I have no way of knowing this, but I would bet a tidy sum that the majority of readers of this blog are, like its authors, members of the baby-boom generation. If so, then I’ve also got to believe that more than one or two occasionally worry, as I’ve been known to do, about the danger of personal irrelevance that seems to want to accompany graying hair.

Though perfectly willing to suffer some of the downsides of aging (it beats the hell out of the alternative), irrelevance isn’t one of them. Hence, borrowing a lesson from my 86 year-old father, who daily reads two printed newspapers, in addition to web surfing for e-news, (sandwiched around lots of old shoot ‘em up TV westerns),  I remain on the lookout for ways to stay vibrant, informed, and connected to the real world. In so doing, I’ve become convinced that there are at least three keys to this quest:

Listening – One of the real dangers to having been there and done that is the risk of forgetting why each of us was issued two ears and only one mouth. I can assure you that risk is amplified when one earns a good portion of his living via paid speaking and training engagements. On the premise that “waiting to talk” is the opposite of listening, and that having your mouth fly open the very instant someone else’s closes is pretty good evidence that you haven’t been listening, I’m trying mightily to force myself to become a better listener. I’m finding some (emphasis on ‘some’) success with two methods:

1.)    By being sure to notice the color of a person’s eyes when we’re having a face to face conversation, and
2.)    Deliberately inserting a 3 to 4 second pause before responding. Much more important than merely giving the appearance of listening, it actually forces me to think about what the other person is saying, rather than responding reflexively. For those who might be put off by the pause, I’d a lot rather have people label me a “slow processor” than an arrogant non-listener.

Learning – Though this one goes hand in glove with listening, I’ve finally figured out that if you’re not learning daily, you are becoming less relevant. Though it’s fun (and easier) to hang out with one’s “buds” who are of like mind and vintage, I learn a hell of a lot more from people about half my age. One great example is a 20 year-old Claremont McKenna College student by the name of Ben Casnocha. Were it not for the Internet, we wouldn’t be in the same sphere (thank you, Al Gore ☺) I stumbled on his blog about a month ago and have found it interesting as well as informative.

Laughing – Many days a plain rubber band adorns my wrist as a personal reminder of e.e. cummings’ quote, “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” I’ve concluded that it’s virtually impossible to be relevant when one is self-absorbed, and that laughter is a great way to escape the grip of one’s own tribulations and remain more outwardly focused.

Godspeed!

Earlier this week, a Qantas Airlines 747-400 jet with 350+ souls aboard, en route from Hong Kong to Melbourne experienced sudden decompression at cruise altitude, resultant from a mysterious rupture in the underbelly of the aircraft. See the BBC for an account of this episode.

Owing to the skillful reaction of a well-trained crew, the plane made an emergency landing in Manila, resulting in no injuries.

We’re thankful that this episode ended as well as it did. One of the chief reasons that flying is as safe as it is relates to rigorous training and testing of flight crews. Contrary to what a lot of other businesses are doing right now, commercial airlines are not trying to work their way out of a tough economy by suspending training and “dumbing down” the organization. Our bet is that if you think about it for a minute or two, you’ll conclude that your business is no less dependent on having a trained, competent workforce than Qantas.

A thought leader in the areas of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Yesterday, the US Airline Pilots Association, on behalf of member pilots at US Airways, placed a full-page ad, “A Message to Our Valued Passengers…” in USA Today (p. 5A).  The ad lambasted US Airways management for “pressuring your Captain to reduce fuel levels for your flight in order to save money.” The ad goes on to assert the aircraft captain’s prerogative to, “ensure a fuel load that will safely fly you to your destination with all the reserves necessary…” Translation: We’re in a power struggle with management, so we’re going to whip up sympathy and support by giving you something extra to worry about when you’re traveling. They might be willing to let planes fall out of the sky, but we won’t. Yeah, right.

In our book, Contented Cows MOOve Faster, we wrote about the extra effort and ensuing productivity that arise from treating employees as professionals. The model we used was that of commercial airline pilots. Though I’m sticking with the larger argument, the behavior of this particular pilot group, their union, and ultimately US Airways management bring into serious question the use of the term, “professional” for two reasons:

1. Professionals don’t take their grievances with one another into the public square, and
2. Professionals certainly don’t insinuate that safety is being compromised when it is not.

One of the reasons that our domestic airlines are in trouble is because there are still too many seats chasing paying fannies. Approximately 50,000 of those seats are controlled by US Airways.  For the benefit of those carriers (e.g., Delta, Southwest, Continental, Jet Blue) who do generally behave responsibly, I’ve resolved to do my part to equitably correct this market imbalance by making sure that my fanny never finds itself in a US Airways seat. On the premise that I’m not going to trust that fanny to anyone but a professional, our travel agent has been given explicit instructions that Greyhound comes before US Airways. Those clowns deserve one another, but not paying customers.

In the May 12 issue of Fortune Magazine (OK, I’m a little behind on my reading), PepsiCo Chairman and CEO, Indra Nooyi credited her father with the best piece of advice she ever got. “From him, I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different.” The rest of what Ms. Nooyi had to say also makes a lot of sense, as do the ‘advice nuggets’ of other business leaders. Check it out.

In short, what I hear Ms. Nooyi saying is, be an optimist. You will get further in life, and far greater measure of a person’s best effort when you expect the best, rather than the worst.

I was reminded of the whole optimism thing this past weekend, while watching tributes to former Fox News editor and White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow. In a video clip now permanently seared into my memory, while at the White House lectern, Snow, knowing that he had colon cancer remarked, “Not everybody will survive cancer, but you’ve got the gift of life - make the most of it.”

We do a fair amount of work with the hospitality industry, and to be sure, they are feeling the pinch right now. Operating on the leading (bleeding?) edge of the economy, restaurants and other food service operators tend to suffer a lot of the early pain in an economic downturn. Just ask some of the folks at Starbucks.

The current climate is especially pernicious because the very factors that are reducing discretionary spending are also causing food costs (especially dairy products and seafood) to skyrocket. As a result, restaurant operators are scrambling to take costs out of the system, and yet do it in a way that doesn’t totally alienate the guest.

Inevitably some turn to their employees, as they well should, to find ways to do more with less. But, unfortunately, the industry’s “just get it done” culture that operates fairly well most of the time can put the entire enterprise way out on a legal limb when little things like time clocks come into play. In the past month, I’ve overheard food service managers in two different chains tell employees to “get it done” while in the same breath admonishing them that, “there is (wink) no (wink) overtime.” Translation - I expect you to do it off the clock.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the person complies. I say “unfortunately” because in so doing, the fuse on this little liability, which can be a very long fuse indeed has just been lit. In some cases the person, a gung-ho employee goes along with the program, and for so long as they remain gung-ho, nothing comes of it. Many others aren’t as gung-ho or benevolent, however. Some will be receptive to advances by labor unions, employee “advocacy groups” (fronts for unions), or attorneys who prefer to do their ambulance chasing with a fork. Others prefer to impose their own remedies and take advantage of a target-rich environment by beginning to confuse their money with the company’s (or guest’s) money. Either way, the business loses, and the losses are bigger than you might imagine.

Despite having a largely pro-business judiciary for some time, employers are getting whacked with stiff fines and settlements as the result of federal wage and hour law violations. The July 14-21 issue of Business Week (p. 7) reported an adverse ruling against Wal-Mart by a Minnesota judge in a case involving 2 million alleged separate instances of employees being forced to work off the clock or cut short their breaks. According to the article, in addition to the $6.5 million back pay award, the company could potentially be liable for punitive damages up to $2 billion (based on a $1,000 per event maximum penalty).

Similarly, the June 20 issue of Nation’s Restaurant News (p. 6) chronicled an expected $3.9 million settlement of two wage and hour related lawsuits against Fireman Hospitality Group, the New York operator of upscale restaurants such as Redeye Grill, Cafe Fiorello, Brooklyn Diner, and Shelly’s.

Any way you cut it, working people off the clock, or funding operations through some of the nefarious tip sharing arrangements that pop up from time to time is simply not worth the risk. Whether you’re serving tacos or t-bones, it takes a hell of a lot of covers to pay one of these supersized fines.

For the rest of us, who spend our time on the other side of the plate, we would do well to remember that when we do dine out, we’re really not going to balance the household budget by stiffing a deserving server out of a tip. Do the right thing, even though no one is looking.