Culture

Ten Dangerous Employee Mindsets

May 15, 2012
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Inspired by Jessica Hagey’s excellent post on Forbes.com, Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School (but without the great graphics),  I present to you, Ten Dangerous Employee Mindsets (These are dangerous not only for the employee, but for the company as well.) 1. I can’t do anything that will jeopardize my job. Yes you can.  In fact you should.  Not that you should try to get fired by any means, but you need to get out of your confort zone.  In fact, according to Richard Collin (with whom I agree) you should, “Come to work each day willing to be fired.” (slide 26)   2. My managers are right and I shouldn’t question their decisions. View your boss as your partner.  You work as a team.  Always be willing to come up with solutions you think are better.   3. Work and play are totally different activities. In an internal blog post I once [...]

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Eliminate Vacation & Sick Days – Adopt “Need it, Take it.”

May 7, 2012
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How To Avoid Becoming Irrelevant – Change is a’Come’n

May 3, 2012
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Face it: it is very likely the way you work is outdated and much less effective than your competitors – um, I mean your peers’.  Why? We watch the rise and fall of businesses.  Each week it seems an “established” company is going under, is filing for bankruptcy or is being purchased for a fraction of what it once was worth. In the book The Innovator’s Dilemma Clay Christiansen took a look at why businesses rise to glory and then fail.  (Fascinating book – it needs to be on your MUST read list.)  He points out that as the consumer’s values change a new business is there to take them on.  They fill the niche and in time they have a successful company.  But soon the customer redefines value – again – and the company doesn’t change with it.  They keep filling the original value (because some people stay there). A great Forbes piece [...]

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Increase Trust: Don’t Give Your Employees Vacation Time

April 10, 2012
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No joke: I firmly believe many employers should not give their employees vacation time.  They should completely pull it out of their HR benefits packet. While they are at it, they should also take out sick days as well.  Why? – It will be two less pieces of information the employer and employee have to keep track of (which could save the company a ton of money). – They won’t have to play the ‘bad guy’ and enforce it. – Employees won’t stress about whether or not they can take a day off anymore. – It will be a draw for prospective employees. – Your employees will trust you more and they will be more productive. What?!  A draw for prospective employees? Employees will trust you more?! Absolutely. Take out vacation and sick time completely and replace it with a new policy I call, “Need it, Take it” which is [...]

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Why Email Still Dominates the Workplace and Your Life

April 3, 2012
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Careful.  This one will make you nervously laugh because chances are (unless your Luis Suarez) you feel the same way, too. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) surveyed their employees & contractors over a year ago.  The results came in, but I don’t know if many people noticed the comedy. A question near the beginning asked how they feel about email.  The answer was a resounding, “We can’t stand it.  It is a time waster.”  Then, another question at the end asked (paraphrased), “What is the best way to communicate information to you?” The answer? Overwhelmingly EMAIL. Ask yourself the same questions and, if you are like most people, you will probably have to admit that you would have answered the same way. (You may nervously laugh now.) So why do we do what we hate doing?   In an earlier post I said it was because of emotion and [...]

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Why You Need To Allow Some Conflict – Confidence in Dissonance

March 28, 2012
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This last Christmas season I was part of a choir and orchestra who performed a 30 minute selection of music.  It is always a highlight that time of year! As we were practicing, we came upon a part of a song that does not make sense when each part is sung separately - there seemed to be too much conflict.  My section’s part, sung alone, does not sound like it would blend well with any other part.  In fact, it does not even sound good by itself.  It sounds disjointed and as if random notes where thrown in. And that is the same when each of the other parts are sung alone.  Yet, when they are all put together, it sounds incredible. Because of the conflict, this song is difficult, yet musically it is incredible. (The whole song is great, the part I mention is just after 2:25)   Our wonderful choir [...]

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The Two Forces That Make Most People Liars

March 20, 2012

When people walk in to my social business workshops they usually are not sure why they are there.  In fact, I have had many attendees comment that their peers are asking why they are wasting their time.  They defend it, but are not totally sure themselves. At the end of the training their minds are swimming with possibilities and many are blown away by what can be done.  They are gung-ho when they leave the class.  But that is where the separation occurs… At the beginning of these trainings I often ask, “Are you willing to change the way you work?”  The answer is almost always, “Yes, if it will help me be more productive.” After everyone pretty much says the same thing I tell them that they are all lying (in a fun, humorous way of course). Why? Changing our behavior is NOT based on fact.  It is based on [...]

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Predict the Adoption of Your Social Business Initiative – Part 2

March 1, 2012
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Now that you know the five factors to predict the rate of adoption of your initiative (whether it be social technologies, cultural change, etc.), let’s put this into something that will give us a measurement. First, you have to pick your target audience.  Know who you want to evaluate a tool.  Then, take each one of the five and evaluate your initiative against it.  Next, rate it – 0 through 5, with 0 signifying that it does not satisfy the factor at all, and 5 signifying that it is very strong in fulfilling this need. Then mutilply the first two factors, Relative Advantage and Compatability, by 1.5 and the others by 1.  Why?  The first two hold more weight and are particularly telling (according to Rogers).  If they all scored 5 then the total score would be 30.   I thought about ranking the results (1-30 = Weak …. 85-100=Strong), but I [...]

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Predict the Adoption of Your Business Initiative – Part 1

February 17, 2012
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If only we could predict how quickly our initiatives will be adopted!  Then we could focus on those that will yield high returns and we could reduce the risk of failure.  But… those people!  They always mess things up!  Even when we think we have the perfect product / technology / purpose / program, people mess it up! While I can’t give you a crystal ball, I have found a useful way to evaluate initiatives and determine a rough prediction of the rate of adoption.  To be honest, this could be for anything – any product, process, technology, social initiative, chore chart program for your kids…  But let’s focus on making major changes within your company. The Adoption Index One of my favorite books is Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers.  Although this largely academic book was originally written in 1962, it hasn’t lost any of its usefulness.  It [...]

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Apathetic Failure – The Zero-Sum Danger

February 14, 2012
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So far I have outlined three kinds of failure: Intrinsic, Catastrophic, and Pandemic.  (A great podcast discussion centered around these three types.) The fourth type is Apathetic Failure. This type of failure can often be seen behind the statements, “I only neet to hang on a few more years until I retire,” or “Whatever they want, I will do.  I’m tired of fighting.”  They come from those who are unempowered, unmotivated, and lack care –  and they are often a product of their culture. It’s not Pandemic where there is a lot of complaining but no action.  In Apathetic Failure, the evaluation to find something to complain about rarely happens.  Their unofficial motto is, “Whatever happens, happens.”  A “Hakuna Matata” attitude.  As was sung in the Lion King, “It’s our problem free philosophy.”  It is problem free because of the lack of evaluation.  And that happens because of a lack of [...]

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