The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

Both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are being considered for important jobs. Their respective supporters have already spent much time bloviating about how little experience the other candidate has, when ultimately, American voters tend to vote not on skills and experience, but on character, values, and attitudes.

Which is exactly what Bill Catlette and I have long advocated is the way employers should hire, but far too often don’t. It’s what we call “hiring for fit”. The best hires seem to happen when we narrow the field of candidates first on character, values, and attitudes - the potential to be happy, productive, and successful in a given job in a given organization - and then refine our selection on other factors, including experience.

Neither Palin nor Obama have the years of government experience that Biden and McCain have. Governor Palin has held elective office for 13 years; Senator Obama for 10. Arguably, Palin has more experience running a government than the other 3 combined.

But when it comes down to making the choice in November, the vast majority of voters will make their selection based on who they feel the candidates are, what they stand for, and what they believe, rather than what they’ve done.

I wouldn’t know much about Sarah Palin, except that I’ve been to Alaska three times in the last 16 months. Alaska’s the only state I’ve been to (and I’ve been to all 50) where ordinary citizens, from across the political spectrum, spontaneously talk about their governor, and only in positive terms. She beat a guy with lots of experience. Because she wasn’t elected on experience, but on values and attitudes. Palin has the highest approval ratings of any governor in America. On my most recent trip, someone gave me a copy of the governor’s biography, Sarah, by Kaylene Johnson. As of this morning, it was ranked #14 by amazon.com, and is out of stock until September 13.

Obama packed Invesco Field this week with 80,000 fans and has energized and enthused more voters and potential voters than any candidate since I’ve been old enough to vote. Millions of Americans are excited about and committed to him, but it has nothing to do with his experience. Again, it’s his character, values, and attitudes.

Americans are values voters. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. John McCain and Sarah Palin. May the better team win.

This is a house down the street from us, thanks to Tropical Storm Fay. We were lucky at our house. Nothing big fell on us, and because we live on one of the few hills in Jacksonville, Florida, we escaped flooding. Although we’ve been without power for going on 36 hours now, at least we’re safe, which is more than I can say for the mushy food in our freezer. We’re fortunate. We have friends, family, a Starbucks with electricity, and Marriott Rewards points.

It seems that those of us in Jacksonville anticipated Fay’s arrival longer than we did the announcement of Obama’s veep selection. She taunted us for most of the week, closing schools and businesses prematurely, days before the first breeze was felt. Then she finally got here…with a vengeance, dumping more than 12 inches of rain (after dropping twice that amount on Florida’s Space Coast, just south of here), and blowing winds up to about 60 mph.

Fay was no Katrina, and she’s done less total damage than the trifecta of Florida hurricanes in 2004. Still, we we’ll all be happy to see her fall apart and disappear. And for our electricity to come back.

One of my best friends is the managing partner of a good-sized local accounting firm. One of the firm’s employees, who recently moved here from Maine, expressed great anxiety about her first tropical storm, and asked her boss, “What are we going to do?!” My friend confided in me that at first he wanted to say, “What we’re going to do is turn on our windshield wipers and come to work.” But on further consideration, wisdom prevailed. He told everyone to use their own judgment about coming to work the next day (Thursday). In reality, conditions were fine on Thursday, and it could have been business as usual. But, as my friend reasoned, it was one day, and in the grand scheme of things, one day won’t mean very much.

Natural disasters, or in our case, natural inconveniences, are costly and disruptive. No question about it. Our small business has lost productivity, and the storm has put me behind on upcoming client obligations. But I’ll catch up. And so will my CPA friend. As he said to me on Thursday, when the rain was just starting to fall, “I really think everyone could have come in today. Several of us did. But I’m not going to make a big deal of it. I’ve got a really good group here, and it’s only one day. Besides,” he said with a wink, “I read a book that said something about - if you take care of people when they’re having a rough time of it, they’ll remember that, and take care of your customers. I’m gonna give that a try.”

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and his co-author and business partner Bill Catlette, 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.

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

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!

About a month ago, my 20-year-old daughter, who had been studying in Scotland, stepped gracelessly off a curb in London, and broke her left foot. She received excellent emergency care in London, and then even better care at Crosshouse Hospital in her adopted home in Scotland. After her visit there, she called and told me “This was the best medical experience I’ve ever had.”

A week later, the semester finished, she flew back home to Florida, and went to an orthopedist here in Jacksonville. This twirp turned out to be arrogant, rude, and condescending. He may have been clinically adequate, but his people skills were a zero on a scale of one to ten. He had apparently forgotten that he had been appointed, not annointed, to his position in the practice, and my daughter vowed that henceforth, she wouldn’t let him touch her with a ten-foot pole. We later learned that this guy (we’ll call him “Dr. A”, for [well, you know…])  had earned himself a widespread reputation as an A-number-one jerk, but that his colleague, “Dr. C” was kind, empathetic, highly skilled, and the sort of doctor who took his professional oath seriously.

When we called the practice (of more than 30 physicians) to ask that her follow-up be handled by Dr. C, we were told that, because of our insurance company’s rules, she would have to remain in the care of Dr. A. Smelling a rat, I checked with the insurer, who reported that they had NO such rule, and that if Dr. A. was found not to be satisfactory, then we had every right to seek the care of Dr. C, or any other doctor on their provider list.

Five days and 12 phone calls later, after I confronted the practice manager with the lie she had been caught in, the transfer from Dr. A. to Dr. C. was finally approved. The problem had nothing to do with insurance company rules, but rather the protocol in the practice. “The doctors don’t usually transfer patients among each other,” we were told. “It reflects poorly on their monthly reports.”

In other words, this was all about the doctor’s ego, and his paycheck. Lost in all of this was ANY consideration of the patient’s health and wellbeing. This pompous excuse for a doctor put his own interests ahead of those of the patient whom he had charged nearly $1000 for 15 minutes of his time. Professional? Hardly.

Lots of lessons here, but I’ll focus on 2: 1) The next time you hire someone for a position, consider not only their technical skills, but also the all-important attitudes and values.

2) Professionals, especially those in a service business, would do well to remember that their primary obligation is to those who “favor them with their custom”.  Everything else is secondary at best. Feeding the ego should come well down the list.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and his co-author and business partner Bill Catlette, 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.

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.

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.

You know, I just have to comment on this. Right now, I’m sitting on a Delta plane, watching CNN on the seatback satellite TV screen. About a half-hour ago, the network showed the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapshot reading on the big board at the New York Stock Exchange. The DJIA was, at that moment, up by 38.43 points. The caption on the screen was STOCKS LITTLE CHANGED.

Just now, they showed the same board, this time showing the Dow was down by 36.05 points. The caption: STOCKS TUMBLING DOWN.

Now, who wants to try to tell me that the media, especially the Ted Turner network, isn’t biased, with a preference for spinning to the negative?

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and his co-author and business partner Bill Catlette, 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.