I was watching a news story the other night about Texas DPS.  Seems that 21% of their trainees are leaving DPS, and one of the reasons cited was that the pay isn’t competitive.

I’m not buying it.

First, I don’t know about your local municipality or county, but mine’s in a deficit.  Every one within 200 miles is in a deficit, I think, and under a hiring freeze.   It defies credibility that they are leaving Texas DPS to work for other, better paying police departments.

Second, people don’t become peace officers for the money.   They like the power or want to be of service.  That 21% knew what the pay was going in.  Our state troopers are well-respected, and I’d bet that most of their new hires joined because they wanted to be a member of that well-respected department.  Police departments tend to be one of those organizations that foster loyalty.   When 1/5 of the new hires leave in the first year, that’s an indicator that something’s missing.  I doubt that it’s money, don’t you?

I bet if I asked my standard secret question, “Do you think you’re being paid what you’re worth?” the answer I’d get most often would be some form of H-double-hockey-sticks no.  Guys, when the vast majority of people are disgruntled about pay, it’s rarely about the money.  It’s about job satisfaction.

So, for you executives and managewhich’s out there who have unhappy people complaining about money,  don’t be fooled.  Chances are, you can’t pay them enough to put up with what they are putting up with.  And, what they are putting up with is what you have to find out.

According to the Society of Resource Management, it costs $80K to replace the average IT worker and $3250 to replace the average $8/hr employee.   Hiring someone like me to help you retain your employees not only saves you time, it saves you money.

I sent an email to Col Steve McCraw, the Director of Texas DPS, because this is something that I can assess and fix.   If you have any connections with the Texas Department of Public Safety, I’d appreciate your putting in the good word for me.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Here’s why – it provides the means and mechanism for dumping (some might call it vomiting) lists of facts (bullet points) all over the audience.  This is not an effective way of disseminating information or learning.   First and foremost, it’s boring.  Boredom shuts down the brain.   And, real learning requires involvement in the experience.  Which means that it requires an experience.

I’ve also noted the Powerpoint culture, in which the information and content is key.  ”We have to make sure we cover all the points” as opposed to “We need to make sure we’re all fully engaged, committed and understand the message.”   In some organizations, if you don’t have a Powerpoint, the unconscious belief is that it isn’t a “real” meeting.  These are usually the same organizations who complain having too many meetings and ineffective meeting, and will, in the same breath, defend their beloved Powerpoint slides to the bitter end.

There are some brain studies that many corporate-types are so habituated to Powerpoint that their brains automatically shut off as soon as it is turned on.  If you want to read a great article on this, check out Edward Tufte’s “Powerpoint is Evil.”

We know that interactive engagement, whether it’s games, Q&A, or the act of conversation improves cognitive abilities.  Unless your bullet pointed list promotes that, you’re wasting valuable brain cycles.

How would you use Powerpoint to make your Organization Smart?  Here are some tips:

1. People who are relaxed learn and participate better.  Start with a breathing moment.
2. People who have some happy hormones circulating about learn better.  Start with a laugh.
3. Change your data-driven presentations in to interactive presentations.  Add mind maps, quizzes, and games.   Perhaps you turn the tables and have your participants, in effect, complete the presentation for you.  (If you need help doing that, email me.
4. If you MUST have a data-driven presentation, keep it snappy.  Most people can force themselves to pay attention for 10-20 minutes.  After that, their attention ebbs and flows.  And, presenters, that’s on you.
5. Accept the accountability for the outcome.  Allowing either of these two phrases into a conversation, “But, we covered all the points…”  and “But we went to the training,” must be punishable by a 92 slide presentation on the finer merits of a centralized banking system.

And, bonus tip #6.  Get people up and moving.  The brain requires oxygen, glucose and adrenaline among other things to perform well.   The seated position works counter to that.

Or, you could just get rid of the Powerpoint and rely on an agenda and interactive conversation to save the day!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

I attended that Dallas Drucker Society meeting last night, and one of the participants was talking about hiring a CFO.  She mentioned that she wouldn’t even consider a candidate if money were an issue.  She wants people who believe that if they do a good job the money will follow.  In uninspired workplaces, that’s simply not true.  They think they got a bargain.

Dan Pink (literally) illustrates why quality candidates will not participate in this model.  If an new CFO spends his day worrying about money, then he isn’t using the full power of his brain to do better work.  That’s what happens when people aren’t being paid market value for their work.  Satisfy the money need, and free up the brain to do better.

You can see the full 10 minutes of video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=player_embedded+:)

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

The challenge with engagement is that it requires trust and inspiration.  It requires that people’s brains be “on.”  That’s impossible in a low-trust environment, because the majority of the energy is spent protecting oneself as opposed to innovating.   When leaders try to improve their engagement, it requires changing the corporate culture, which scares people.  It scares the jerks, because they can’t thrive in an environment that doesn’t reward their jerkiness.  It scares the underlings because if they come out of the woodwork, who’s to say that this change effort won’t fail like the other 75% of change efforts and then they’ll be exposed?

Changing corporate culture is a long term process, and Wallstreet doesn’t like to wait and see.  Conent’s success was staying in it long enough to change their minds.  And so, when the recession hit in 2008, Campbell’s had the right people in place and the right culture to adapt and innovate.

As it turns out, great leadership did save the day.  Nine years ago, Campbell’s Soup was uncompetitive every day.  Today, in a recession, they compete… well.

How they did it was to follow the Jim Collins model described in Good to Great.  Conent spent his first two and a half years getting the right people on the right seats on the bus.  (How’s that for commitment?)

Conents credits the engagement of everyone, top to bottom, as one of the main reasons why they’re doing well today and why engagement is even more important in a downturn:

“That’s why you need to be more engaged now. Now is the time to lift yourself up and take advantage of the strength you’ve created. Then get out there and do better than all these people who are saying, “Woe is me. It’s a tough world. What am I going to do?”

This recession provides a unique opportunity to seize the day, leverage the momentum we’re building both in the marketplace and the workplace, and do something really special. My mindset, and I would argue it’s the mindset of most of the people in this company, is that we devote more of our waking hours to our work than anything we do, oftentimes more than to our families. If we can’t make that work special — meaningful in some compelling way so that we get excited about doing something special — shame on us. Why are we devoting so much time to it? Just to earn a paycheck? That’s just not enough. For me and many others at Campbell, it’s about leaving a legacy.”

These are the kinds of workplaces I want to be a part of creating.  How about you?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

Turns out, new research has shown that the brain hears things differently based on whether the person saying them is in the “in” group” or the  “out” group.

Like it or not, the unconscious brain makes many judgments because it has to distill millions of inputs into what’s relevant in a way that makes sense to it.   In groups, we have higher trust and lower trust relationships, whether we’re conscious of it or not, and when the unconscious has decided that someone is in the “out” group much more of what gets said gets filtered.

This affects the social pecking order in your group.  If you have a customer in the “out” group, it may impact the service you provide to them.  Having members of your team in the “out” group will eventually lead to those members feeling less valued (trust me, they know something’s off), and that can lead to all sorts of less than productive behaviors in response, such as disengagement, mediocre work or active sabotage.

Many times, we know who’s in the “out” group and the “in” group because it’s as simple as dislike and like.  (Back to my premise that respect isn’t enough… it is better to like your colleagues.)  Other times, we have to pay a more attention to our intuition to clearly see who’s “in” and who’s “out.”

The beauty of being a human is that we have pre-frontal cortexes that handle logical thought and are connected to every system of the brain.  So, we can consciously override that system when we decide that we want to be more inclusive.  This take more energy and effort, and sometimes our intuition is on to something.  There are some people who don’t belong in our “in” group, and that is a different issue to be addressed.

The better approach for when we don’t have a decent reason for banishing a colleague or customer for the out group is to build relationship.  We work better with people we know, like and trust.

Today, be the objective observer.  Who’s in your “in” group and who’s in the “out” group?  What changes to you want to make?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

Photo by Klaus

One of the more obvious clues that your group is on the chopping block is when you can’t figure out what real value your group adds.  That’s even more true when the company is reorganizing people into that group in ways that don’t make sense.  It’s a good thing for the managewhich to recognize this trend, and start managing up immediately, even if it seems like it is too late.

For those of you who aren’t in that dire of a position, what are you doing to ensure that your staff has the opportunities they need to grow?

That’s a tough question nowadays when training budgets are all but gone and there’s more work than people to do it.  Still doing more with less provides it’s opportunities.  Where are you capitalizing on those?  How can you do more?

One way to do more is to offer the opportunity.  Let your directs do the thinking for you!

To set the stage, you need a clear and compelling vision for your group.  One you have that and you’ve been clear about the results and outcomes you’d like to see, the them tell you what they can do to make it happen.

Another way to grow your staff is good, old-fashioned delegation.  I want to make a distinction here.  When I say delegation, I mean juicy assignments, not outsourcing all the crap you don’t want to do.  It allows them to expand, it gets work off of your plate, and you both get to shine when it is done well.

One of the roadblocks I hear a lot is in operations groups that are in more of a maintenance type role.   This may be a time that the managewhich develops people through the group as opposed to trapping the high-potentials in it.  There are some situations in which there aren’t many growth opportunities.  Someone has to keep the lights on.  The key is that it doesn’t have to be the same someone.

Your role as the Managewhich is to help others be their best selves, too.  So do it!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

Photo by elain

I had a great weekend.  As most of you know, Grow Your Business Grow Your Life LIVE! was in Dallas this past Friday and Saturday, and I was blessed with the opportunity to be a part of the behind the scenes planning and execution.  I say blessed because I got to spend time with bright, generous, kind people, and frankly it was uplifting.

It was a stark difference to some data gathering I was doing for a corporate client this week.  We’re early in the process, and one of the things I do is to look at the system and the relationships to see how the team is interacting.  This particular meeting devolved into a gripe session.  (Of course,  this was in the name of problem solving.)

It sounded like this:  This is wrong.  That is wrong.  This shouldn’t be this way.  They suck.  It’s their fault.

Did anything get fixed in this conversation?  Not really.

Did people leave the meeting energized and motivated?  No, just the opposite.

And, then, a subgroup got together afterward (within my earshot) to complain about what should happen and what that manager should be doing.

It reminded me a lot of my 15 years in the corporate system.  How about you?  Do you find that in your meetings?

Here’s the thing.  Negativity doesn’t work.  Complaining doesn’t work.  The same thinking that got you the problem isn’t going to get you to a solution.  Brains don’t work that way.  And, if people focus on the problem they get more problem.

Brains don’t like negativity, either.  It brings on frustration and stress, which triggers the fight or flight response to some degree.  This releases stress chemicals which both inhibit thinking and problem solving in the frontal lobe and stay in the system for a prolonged reaction.

What about the argument that “venting” is helpful?  Studies have shown that it isn’t.  What really happens is that venting gives the frustration and anger energy, and voicing it to others spreads that energy around to so that they get sucked into the negative aura, too.

Let me prove my point.  Think about a time that someone wronged you…. Imagine it.

You relive it, yes?  Reliving it reinforces that pathway in your brain, not the pathway to something different or better.

Two things you can do today to improve the situation:

1. Upgrade your friends.  Do you find yourself sitting around complaining about work with your friends playing the “Who has the worst job” game?  This contributes to a negative attitude at work, and doesn’t help you to rise above.
2. Institute a “No Complaints” policy.  Do not allow people to complain in meetings, or set a SMALL finite amount of time for griping.  Focus instead on what you want more of and how you want things to be.  Focus on solution gets more solution…. Yes?

Finally, make a commitment to be your best you, every day.

Carolann

p.s. – If you’re in the Boston area, Grow Your Business Grow Your Life LIVE! is coming your way.  It’s well worth your time if you’re a service-based solo entrepreneur such as a financial planner, massage therapist, coach, or chiropractor.

Engaging employees pays off more than fear.  Most of us know this because we desperately want to be engaged and fulfilled ourselves, and we know that when we’re connected with what we do, we go the extra mile gladly.  However, knowing it in our heart of hearts doesn’t work for some.

Study after study has shown that employee engagement has direct correlation to retention, productivity, profitability, safety, absenteeism, and customer satisfaction.  But, that’s someone else, not us, right?

For those who’d rather rip out our heart-hearts than engage them… and other naysayers… Gallup has just posted about how a Caterpillar dealership which services the construction industry reaped $3M last year off of a $500K investment, all while embarking on massive internal change.

What made the different for this Caterpillar dealership?

Communication.  And not the “do this, do that” kind.  Real connection.

Engaging with the customers.  It’s crazy how successful companies can be in a down economy by giving their customers what they want.

Note to those of you who work for internal customers:  What value does your group bring the table?  There may be some productivity and engagement gains to be made by eliminating stuff that doesn’t benefit the customer.

This is a good read if you want to make the case for improving engagement in your organization.  Stepping carefully off my soapbox…

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Photo by Joseph Shemuel

Every group of people in the workplace seems to be called a team, but every group that works together isn’t a team.  This is important because as managers, we’ve learned a few things about how to manager teams and about how teams form and die etc etc, and these things don’t apply to work groups, which may be one reason why some middle managers aren’t getting the results they want.

“It’s semantics!  Team…work group…. who cares” is the comment I get most often.

The answer is I care.  Language distinctions are important because language is not only the way we stay on the same page (or not) with one another, it’s how we program our brain.  Language shapes how we think.

What is the difference between a team and a work group?

A work group is a group of people who come together to work towards a similar goal.  The individuals work mostly independently, contributing their piece to the whole.  They may meet a lot, but in reality, there is very little collaboration or interoperability amongst the members.  In my technology background, most of the so-called teams I worked on were really work groups.  That included project “teams”.

A team is also a group that works together for a common goal, and the distinction is that there is group ownership of the outcome.  There’s collective accountability and a higher level of ownership.  Teams share and build on ideas.  Well performing teams are highly interoperable, which is why that together they truly are more than the sum of their parts.

Where we run into trouble is when we want the team behavior, and we have a work group.  Think about project “teams” don’t report to the project manager.  It can be hard for those individuals to take responsibility for the overall outcome of the project as opposed to their piece.  That’s the project manager’s job.  See where I’m going with this?

Another place we run into trouble is when we want to pool intellectual capital.  That’s requires a team because it requires the safety and trust for people to collaborate and to voice their disagreement.  Ever been in one of those brain storming meetings where no one or few participate?  Ever been on a team when something has gone horribly wrong and that guy in the corner saw it coming and never said anything?

When we call a work group a team, we have a set of implicit expectations.  All of that Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing stuff doesn’t really happen in a work group.  And, we expect our teams to have some collective accountability, and some of us get downright cynical when that’s not there.

So, what do you work on?  A team or a workgroup?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Photo by j. cliss

A long time ago, far, far away, I was sitting in my SVP’s office having a one on one.  I suppose his leadership coach told him that’s what he needed to do to connect with the up-and-coming leaders, or whatever they wanted to call those of us who were on the fast track.

My supposition was based on his body language – disinterested and distracted.  That also could have been that he was overbooked.  His administrative assistant had rescheduled our meeting four times, and this one seemed doomed to her constant interruption.

We talked in a vague sort of way about the opportunities for promotion and various career paths in between his admin calling or poking her head in for this and that.

For my part, I wasn’t all that interested in this conversation myself.  There was a part of me that was flattered to have this visibility, but what exactly was this man going to remember out of our conversation.  He was barely there…always something more important to do.

Now, I get a little irreverent when I’m bored.  And, I was not only bored, but SVP-or-not, I was getting a little tired of sitting directly in front of him at his request only to be the least important thing on his agenda.

So, I asked, “When you graduated from college and imagined what your career would look like, did you think that you’d be spending your day doing this?”

Ha!  Now that got his full attention.

He responded, “What do you mean?”

I said something along the lines of, “Look at your calendar.  You have back to back meetings, sometimes triple booked.  You can’t go five minutes without an interruption.  What is there to that needs to be discussed that much?  Look, from where I sit you all have all of these meetings.  We see you in the conference room.  But, at the end of the day, there’s no clear agenda, so the rest of us continue on doing what we’re doing… what we think is important.  Is this what you imagined?”

Silence.

And now, folks, here is what should have been my career-ending statement: “I wouldn’t want your job.  The meeting schedule alone would make me want to slit my wrists.”

What naive, not very political, Young Carolann didn’t understand at the time is there are ways to say things and ways to say things.

This could have been the beginning of a real honest dialog about leadership, about creating the kinds of opportunities that people would actually want (as opposed to the title and the power), about what value their leadership team was adding.  This could have been a study in how communications were perceived as they filtered through the organizations.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t think he envisioned his life as a string of meetings trying to endlessly get buy-in on every idea.  This conversation could have been anything.

It wasn’t.

On the email the SVP sent back to my manager was the phrase “Astounding lack of maturity.”

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

It was probably the only honest feedback he’d heard that week.

Today, it would be different.  One of the things I do and teach my clients to do is to give feedback in a way that the recipient can hear it and do something with it.

But it does beg the question – do subterfuge, couching your meaning, and doublespeak (my favorite being “i don’t disagree with you” because heaven forbid one goes out on a limb and actually agrees with someone else) equal leadership maturity?

What do you think?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – As leaders get busier, they have less opportunity or maybe miss opportunities to demonstrate great leadership skills.  Who do you want to be as a leader?  How do you want people to see you?  How do you think people see you?  Are you leaving the legacy that you want to leave.  If the answer to that last question is no, I invite you visit Improve Performance NOW! If not now, when?