The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

As I am already blessed beyond anything I deserve, with a wonderful wife and family, good health, dear friends, work that I love,  all the material things I need, and most of the material things I want, I find that my list of Christmas wishes digs, in some cases, deeply into the realm of the trivial, and in other cases, the seemingly unattainable. I, like many others, wish for peace in the world, the elimination of poverty, and that my Jacksonville Jaguars would have a winning season. But if I could sit down and make a list of wishes this Christmas, it might look like this:

I wish that people would:

• forever ban the use of the following phrases from their language:

1. the fact of the matter is
2. to a person
3. I’m reaching out to you
4. “I was like,” when they mean “I said”
5. “No problem,” when they mean “You’re welcome.”
6. At the end of the day
7. Does that make sense?

• stop referring to the “Queen of England”. She’s the “Queen of the United Kingdom”, or the “Queen of Britain”, which probably sounds better and is easier to comply with. What about Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland? We don’t say Barack Obama is the president of Hawaii, do we? I told you this was trivial.
• use their turn signals.
• speak more quietly on their mobile phones in public.
• learn when to use “Reply All” on emails, which is almost never.
• know what they want when they’re in front of me at Starbucks.

I wish the graphics operators at my local TV station would learn to spell, and to proofread what they put on the screen.

…that the socks I put into the laundry in pairs would come out as such.

…that my stapler had a gauge on it so that my first indication of its being empty would be something other than clamping down with a staple-less stapler.

…that Microsoft Windows was better than it is. Please don’t tell me to switch to a Mac to solve the problem. I know, I know…

…that I could figure out how using Twitter would help my business.

…that I could make better naan bread.

…that fast food restaurants were.

…that people were less uptight about the phrase “Merry Christmas”.

…that I could consistently remember where I put my sunglasses.

…that there weren’t so many things in my life that rely on batteries.

And I wish that our elected representatives would do a better job of representing us, and would behave with greater civility toward each other and people who disagree with them. I told you some of these were probably unattainable.

That’s really about it. Like I said, I’m lucky…very lucky. But as long as we’re wishing, those are my wishes.

And finally, I wish that everyone reading this has a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, and that everyone has a blessed and prosperous 2010. That’s something we can all celebrate.

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/rehadden) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

For the moment, pretend that you are Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, with leadership responsibility for all U.S. military personnel, and directing U.S. engagement in two wars, with Muslims on both sides of each war. You’ve just encountered  a highly visible incident of extreme fratricide reportedly carried out by a U.S. Army medical officer, a Muslim, no less, against large numbers of U.S. troops preparing to deploy to a war zone.

In 800 words or less:

1. What is your 1st move?
2. How do you restore  the involved unit to peak operating condition? Do you continue with their planned deployment to a war zone?
3. What systemic (service-wide) moves do you make, if any?
4. How do you deter this from happening again?

Difficult, isn’t it? Send your answers to Bill@ContentedCows.com. The author of the most thoughtful answer will win a copy of our next book, Rebooting Leadership (due out, Spring ’10).

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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 Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that my good friend and business partner, Bill Catlette, and I don’t agree on everything. That’s part of what’s allowed our partnership to endure for going on 14 years.

As relates to yesterday’s post, One Button, Under Scrutiny at Home Depot, Bill, whose pedigree in HR goes back 35 years, pointed out, constructively, that in this case, HD really had no choice but to tell Trevor he couldn’t wear his button (although there’s still the problem with the tacit approval of it for more than a year before that, but that only support’s Bill’s point.)

Quoting Bill, “HD’s position is likely based on a ‘no solicitation policy’ that was enacted specifically to keep employees from wearing pro-union buttons/pins during a representation election campaign. The sad reality from a legal perspective is that, if you let people wear a ‘1 Nation Under God’ button, you lose the ability to prevent them from wearing a ‘Vote Teamsters’ button.”

Bill’s right, especially the “sad reality” part. It’s kind of like the story of Zachary Christie, the 6-year-old Newark, Delaware student who was nearly suspended for 45 days for innocently bringing a Boy Scout camping implement to school. Only after a public hue and cry about the absurdity of the district’s zero-tolerance policy did administrators decide that a more reasoned approach was probably more helpful.

You and I can’t do much to change big corporate or government policies, and in some cases, these policies are the unfortunately necessary by-product of the times we’re living in. But – we can sure do something about our own policies, rules, judgments, and decisions. My November resolution is to put a little more thought into the application of some of my own rules – at home and at work – in other words, to do a better job of exercising judgment and discretion, rather than just blindly applying the rules. Want to join me?

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Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/rehadden) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Trevor Keezer was fired from his job at Home Depot in Okeechobee, Florida, so says the company’s management, for failure to comply with the store’s dress code; he wore a button with the words “One nation under God…indivisible” on his clothing while at work.

There is a veritable minefield of issues here. Everyone from HR types to the ACLU to advocates of religious freedom have weighed in on it. HR points out that Trevor’s button is a clear violation of a clearly documented and reasonable policy; the ACLU says Home Depot’s right to specify employee attire standards have been trampled on (isn’t it refreshing to hear the ACLU stand up for the big guy?); and religious advocates claim religious discrimination.

Home Depot (along with every other employer) certainly has the right to ban non-company-issue buttons from employee clothing. Perfectly reasonable. Apparently his managers gave him a couple of options, including that of wearing another patriotic, but non-religious button blessed by the big orange HQ in Atlanta. They gave him ample opportunity to keep his job. Trevor was warned. He chose not to comply. Sounds like insubordination to me.

So, this HR author and speaker says Home Depot was completely within its rights to terminate Trevor.

And utterly, totally stupid.

Just like the company Bill wrote about in this blog last week, Home Depot has a LOT bigger fish to fry than what its few remaining customer service employees are wearing on their ragged orange aprons. Like making their few remaining customers feel valued, like they did once upon a time, along with a host of other issues more strategic in nature than employees’ uniform accessories.

Nevermind the questionable HR practices – supposedly Trevor had worn the button for more than a year before management raised an objection – and that’ll make the company’s position harder to defend – let’s look at the impact of this decision on HD’s business:

What if nobody had said anything and Trevor went on wearing his button and working at Home Depot?  Some customers would have been warmed by the button’s message; some would have been offended; many wouldn’t have noticed, or had any reaction if they had.  It almost certainly had more of a positive effect than a negative one. Does anyone really think that even one person would have stopped shopping at Home Depot because they saw Trevor wearing his button? Had management exercised a little wisdom, a little leadership, and kept “the main thing the main thing”, no one outside the store would have known about it, I wouldn’t be blogging about it, and it wouldn’t have been all over the news.

But in fact, they did ban the button. Trevor hired a lawyer, who alerted the press, and Trevor got on local and national TV. Lots (certainly thousands, maybe more than that) of people will feel that Home Depot is anti-God (it probably isn’t), and many will stop shopping there, some until they get over it, and others indefinitely. Meanwhile, no one’s going to start shopping at Home Depot, or buy more stuff there just because of the ban.

And as Jay Leno pointed out, the name of God is invoked all the time in Home Depot. “For God’s sake, isn’t there anybody working here who can help me find something?!?!”

There’s no evidence that anyone was complaining about Trevor’s button. It’s not likely the company would have had to spend a lot of money in legal fees had Trevor carried on wearing the button and working at Home Depot. But it will now.

So, the net effect on Home Depot’s business (such as it is) is negative. Trevor got his 15 minutes of fame, and will probably get more job offers than he can shake a broomstick at.

Way to go, Home Depot. I’m glad I sold my stock when I did.

We’ve recently witnessed a rash of boorish public behavior by people who should know better. Without naming names, let’s just say that athletes, actors, and politicians of every stripe have been well represented. Time will tell whether society is willing to accept this latest ratcheting up of coarse behavior as the new norm.

I wonder if perhaps we should adopt a color-coded “national civility index” to match the TSA’s threat meter. Think of the fun we could have with that. It would give tennis players and politicians alike something to shoot for. In the meantime, something more important is at stake, the afterwords from these outbursts – the eh hmm ‘apologies’.

Sadly, the ‘apologies’ that accompany these episodes seldom pass the smell test for authenticity. “Party leaders told me to call and say I was sorry” said one apologist. “I apologize to anyone who may have been offended” said another, whose offense involved getting off two f-bombs while describing what she would like to do with a tennis ball. Another issued an apology only after having twice denied the misbehavior. One had his agent issue an apology to his offended peeps. If anything is more offensive than the bad behavior, it just might be the apologies themselves.

This trend is bothersome not just because of its unpleasantness, but because in a lot of cases, impressionable children and young adults are viewing this as a template for acceptable behavior. The payoff isn’t pretty. In a recent survey of teens by the Josephson Institute, 64% admitted cheating on tests, 30% admitted stealing something from a store, 83% copped to lying about something significant to their parents, and, drumroll please… 93% said that they were okay with their own values. The notion that you can get away with pretty much anything as long as you mumble something loosely construed to be an apology puts us way down a slippery slope.

I have gained some experience at making apologies. It’s nothing to brag about, just a by-product of screwing up on a pretty regular basis, and getting more practice. And more importantly, because I had parents who took the hard road and made certain that I got this lesson right. One summer when I was a kid, I subbed for a friend on his paper route. Everything was fine until early one Sunday morning when I launched a tightly rolled Charleston Daily Mail through two layers of glass in a customer’s front door. I quickly learned from my parents that “service recovery” consisted of more than a simple apology. At a reasonable hour when the homeowner was likely to be up and wanting his newspaper, my dad made sure that I returned to the scene to sweep up the broken glass, replace the original paper, and make a sincere apology. Then, I got the chance to “make it right” by paying for the installation of replacement glass in the storm door. As I recall, that wiped out my profits for the month, but left me with a valuable life lesson. Thanks, Dad.

Recovering from one’s mistakes isn’t just the right thing to do. On both a personal and institutional level, it’s also good for business. I was reminded of this recently by a client whose company had shipped some off-spec product to their customers. He remarked that several customers had actually called to commend them for their prompt and thorough handling of the matter. In each case, the customers expressed appreciation that his team had reacted quickly, apologized in person, and then taken action guided not by what was legally required, but what was right. Hmm.

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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 Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

This post  comes courtesy of fellow speaker and executive coach, Lolly Daskal:

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Recognize that people matter.

We can often trace our greatest achievements and disappointments back to an individual who influenced our lives in some way.  Our parents, spouses, partners, friends, colleagues, business associates, co-workers and neighbors all impact our lives.

The skills we develop and the people we choose to be part of our lives will have a profound significance. Choosing the right relationships and partnerships is a pivotal part of you being successful.

It would be very difficult to find anyone you would consider “successful” who didn’t benefit considerably from the relationships he or she formed. Your life isn’t a solo act. It is a series of collaborations and partnerships.

Thinking and interacting with others can provide you with new and powerful ideas. We need to be grateful to those who help us. If you want to reach your potential, you must choose the right people to bring into your life. Take time to reward the people around you who believe in you.

Who are the people in your life?  What roles do they play?  Are they empowering or dis-empowering you?

People matter, they are the destined part of every success story.

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Would you like to learn more about Lolly and what she can do for you?
Would you like to collaborate with Lolly on a project?
Are you interested in finding your own passion and purpose—and how to succeed on meaningful terms?
Would you like to discuss a speaking or presentation opportunity with Lolly?

It’s easy. You can contact her via email at Lolly.Daskal@gmail.com.

Just about this time last year, then-candidate Barack Obama repopularized the phrase “lipstick on a pig” in a campaign speech in Virginia, in what some thought was a not-so-nice slap at Sarah Palin, who had just referred to lipstick in her VP nomination acceptance speech. I’ve never been an Obama fan, but I don’t think he was guilty of that one.

And while the idiom “putting lipstick on a pig” may or may not have been a good metaphor for whatever it was Obama was talking about at the moment, the expression was coined PRECISELY for the merger of perhaps the two most dissimilar airlines in the U.S.  – Delta and Northwest.

I’ve had the occasion to fly a lot of Northwest…er, Delta (I guess…who knows anymore?) flights over the last couple of months. Within 30 seconds of boarding on the “new” Delta, one can tell whether the flight is a “real” Delta flight, or a Northwest flight with lipstick rather haphazardly applied.

Only a small part of the noticeable difference is the equipment, the food (LOL), and the on-board amenities, such as they are.

The most glaring differentiator is the people. The people! At the ticket counter, baggage check-in, gate, and most certainly onboard. In general, those who were hired as Delta employees are more helpful, more friendly, and more professional than their Northwest counterparts. It was always that way before the shotgun wedding. Little has changed.

On a real Delta flight, the pilots usually keep passengers informed about delays. On real Northwest flights, I’m not sure what they’re doing up there while we sit on the tarmac, but they’re certainly not talking to passengers.

One interesting observation – one shared by many others with whom I’ve compared notes – is that Northwest employees, in Delta uniforms, spend about 85% of their onboard time griping to each other about their jobs! That leaves only about 15% of their time to grudgingly take care of whatever annoyance the customer might be foisting on them at any given moment. If Delta employees are griping about their jobs, they’re doing it outside the line of sight of paying customers.

The lesson for us manager type people: with all that we’re doing to try to make the best of a troubled set of business conditions, many of which are caused by factors beyond our control, one area where we CAN make a substantial difference is with the people we put…and keep…on the payroll. And how we treat them once they’re there. Delta has always done a better job in that department than Northwest. It’s time the two companies merged – really merged – and quit operating with two highly disparate sets of standards.

To paraphrase another guy who’s lived in the White House, “It’s your people, stupid!”

And don’t you forget it!

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Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/rehadden) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Anyone who has spent even fifteen minutes genuinely listening to the current “debate” about health care reform can’t help but conclude that, as with most things insurance related, there is a whole lotta ignorance goin’ on. Sadly, most of us couldn’t find our insurance card with both hands in a full moon. We don’t really understand our own health care coverage (assuming we have it), and haven’t the faintest idea how the present health care business model, payment system, and having 47 million uninsured using the local hospital ER as their primary care physician impacts each and every one of us.

You’d think that, given the amount of money spent in this nation on health care (roughly $7000 per capita) we would be much better informed than we are about how the “system” works, and what the issues are. Sadly, we aren’t, and it’s beginning to appear that most would prefer to sit on the sidelines like deer in the headlights of an onrushing train while some of our even less informed neighbors scream “tastes great or less filling” into every open microphone.

However this turns out, it has made obvious the fact that those of us who run businesses have a lot of work to do in seeing to it that our people better understand the benefits we’re already providing them. Some would say that it’s not management’s job to educate people on their benefits. Let’s get real steely eyed and put our bean counter’s green eyeshade on for a moment. If you’re not going to see to it that people truly understand (make that appreciate) the significant investment you’re making in them, and thus forego any motivational tailwind from that investment, then why are you making it?

Here’s a suggestion, and a place to start. Just as many organizations are now requiring insured employees to complete an annual health questionnaire (the results are kept from the employer) as a condition of getting the most favorable coverage and rates, do the same thing with a benefits “test.” After reviewing some well crafted, idiot-proof material on how your benefit plans work, how plan participants can reduce waste while gaining the best coverage for themselves and their families, give them a test, the results of which influence their premiums. Then perhaps we’ll start moving the needle, and you’ll start getting some better ROI on your benefit dollars.

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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 Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Yesterday, at the conclusion of a routine office visit with my primary care physician, I asked for his opinion on the most important aspects of fixing our health care system. Actually, use of the word “system” is off the mark, because we really don’t have a health care system at all, just a bunch of component parts that don’t work together especially well. I digress.

The doctor’s eyes lit up when he realized that I was seriously interested in the topic, and what he had to say. Owing to the doctor’s kindness, love of his work, and a surprisingly slow Monday in his office, he talked and I listened for the next forty (that’s right) minutes. Here’s what he said…

Dr. J (that’s what the folks in his office call him) suggested that in order to sufficiently bend the cost curve while expanding coverage, we need to do at least three things:

1. Make patients accountable for questioning, being economically involved in, and then acting on the medical advice and treatment they are getting. He recounted a litany of instances where patients were needlessly tying up valuable health care resources (e.g., pharmaceuticals, breathing treatments for COPD, and recurring office/hospital visits) simply because they refused to quit smoking, lay down their fork, etc. He also suggested that there is a powerful link between a patient’s actually having paid something for a drug, as little as $1, and the likelihood of them taking that medicine as prescribed. He recommends a scenario whereby patients who don’t properly use the advice or treatment lose the ability to be reimbursed for it.
2. Institute tort reform as a means of reducing the tendency of medical service providers to over-test. Surprisingly, he was not in favor of capping liability awards. Rather, he suggested a pre-trial medical panel review in which a dispassionate group of docs would review the facts and issue a finding to the court as to whether or not malpractice occurred. He cited good results from a handful of states where such a policy already exists.
3. Finally, he suggested that we need to do something to prevent (as occurs presently) pharmaceutical R&D and marketing costs from being sequestered in this country due to price controls everywhere else around the globe.

I don’t know what the answers are, but I’m confident that if we all take the time and initiative to become better informed, to read and chat up our own “Dr. J’s”, make our voices heard, and demand that our elected representatives at least read any proposed legislation before voting, we’ll be miles ahead.

Godspeed!

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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 Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Recently, three bright, hard working guys got together (sorta) over a simple, residential police call and managed to turn it into a national incident. While the facts remain somewhat muddled, it seems likely that all of them contributed to the fiasco. One perhaps was a little too eager to be a “victim”, another would have done well to simply leave when it was clear that his job was done, and the third opened his mouth a bit too quickly and widely in front of a world-wide audience.

In fairness, the third guy is now proclaiming this to be a “teachable moment” and has invited the other two over to his house for a beer. Let’s hope he’s right and that it goes well. In fact, let’s hope that as they sort this little incident out they (and we, by extension) come away with reminders that:

1. We’re all self-absorbed and wrapped a little too tightly these days. Actually, we’ve been this way for some time, and the manifestations aren’t pretty when the slightest spark arises. Accordingly we would do well to “assume positive intent” as PepsiCo CEO, Indra Nooyi put it in a Fortune Magazine piece describing one of her best life lessons. Even though this is 2009  and everyone is moving at 90 mph, we’re well advised to pause and take a deep breath before initiating or escalating a conflict, any conflict. (After all, that’s how we got into one of our current wars.)

2. Maybe, just maybe after a couple rounds of Yuengling (America’s oldest brewery), these three fellas will each find it in themselves to mouth three little words that can go a long way to establishing personal accountability, not to mention civility. The words are, “I. Screwed. Up.” They need to learn, as do we, that uttering those words doesn’t make you less of a man (or woman), they don’t compromise your point of view, or even make you more susceptible to a lawsuit. Rather, they evidence your authenticity by being big enough to admit a mistake, and thus earn you the benefit of the doubt, both for the moment and in the future. It’s also a lesson that we manager types could stand to remember. Now, come on, guys… Say it!

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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 Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows