Bring spring fever to your workplace

I read a thing in the paper about how spring can make people go a bit loopy. People start to exercise more, decide to quit smoking or similar. Definitely works on me! I llllove this change of seasons, in spring I start to bounce off the walls – longer days, flowers that smell awesome and the promise of summer to come. How can this spring fever be transferred into workplaces? Well, as a boss you could spring clean yourself. Change behaviours/policys that aren’t working or are negative and freshen up the workplace in any way you can. Change the day core, bring in some flowers, do something to excite the team. Life has seasons and so too should workplaces if you want to keep the energy of the team up. Time to lose the ‘recession’ mindset and ‘sort your sh*t out’ for want of a more polite term! If there is stuff lying around everywhere in your workplace (tut tut) clear that out too (yes a spring clean – does wonders for the soul). ‘Stuff’ you don’t need drains the energy of the place and the people. Be ruthless and sell/throw/donate what you don’t need.

How are you bringing spring to yourself and to your workplace?

What life is like for the workplace ‘junior’

I was a 'junior' once. It was in a hair salon (back in the days when I thought I wanted to work in the beauty industry) and I was 16. I have terrible memories of being treated like absolute crap just because I was the ‘junior’. For some reason that title magically took away any human right I had to respect. It mean I had to put myself ‘below’ everyone else and know I was ‘less than’ them. It meant I was unimportant, available to be walked over and any needs I had were disregarded.

Some of the real workplace stories in my book The Boss Benchmark are mine from this period:
*I was not welcome to attend the team meeting. I had to stay away from the staff room during this time as I was of such little importance, my attendance was of no consequence. I was also unwelcome because the meeting gave the staff a chance to talk about me. One time the boss came out afterwards and gave me a big telling off about something that was absolutely untrue which had been brought up in the meeting. I of course (head bowed low) was not allowed to talk, correct my boss or state my case.
*Another staff member gave me the silent treatment for a full 6 days. At the time she was 33 and I was 16, hindsight now shows me how silly this woman is – but at the time I thought it must have been due to me/my fault/how the workforce is. I was so new to the working world and it was quite upsetting that someone that much older was treating me that way.
*The business was in a real slump so 80% of the day the hair stylists just sat around (3 full timers). Though I was never ever allowed to sit – that privilege was only for them. One day I got the job of dusting a million products on these huge metal shelves (sounds reasonable). I did a magnificent job. Though the next day when there was nothing to do again, a hair stylist assigned me the same task to redo. It was ‘busy work’ not required work, just so I never became equal and received the privilege of 'sitting'.

I am very keen to hear any other stories people have about ‘being the junior’. I’d love to know if and in what ways this kind of treatment still goes on. I know some industries are worse than others are in this regard. I don’t see why being the apprentice is a license to be disrespectful and treat people as though they don’t matter as much. I had nothing against the cruddy, boring and grubby jobs I had to do – I wasn’t scared of the work, I just hated being treated as if I was worthless. It was my age and inexperience in the workforce that meant I knew no better way to deal with it or get myself heard. Being young is also not an excuse for bosses or co-workers to treat you as less. Entering the workforce can be a scary time (especially when the workplace you are in is absolutely dysfunctional). What is your two cents on this subject?

What does an ideal organisation look like?

A blog post I read recently that asked “what does your ideal organisation look like?” got me thinking. If we don’t know what our answer to that question is we will never reach it! Not surprisingly, most of the answers in the comments of the above blog post were people focused. None said “one that makes X billion dollars a year” or “delivers maximum shareholder value” they said things about:
*No lies or BS
*Commitment to fun
*Acknowledging staff as humans
*Constantly seeking input from staff and customers
*Positively impacting the world
*Leaving egos at the door

I’m sure the ladies that wrote “Why Work Sucks And How To Fix It” would say their ideal organisation is one where “they accept the radical idea that staff should be treated like adults”. Taking every opportunity to plug my book I would of course say that my ideal organisation is one where “every boss reaches The Boss Benchmark”. If I had to delve deeper though I’d say a combination of all of the above things: no egos, listening to staff and customers relentlessly, having fun and treating staff as humans and as adults. Blah blah blah I’ve said it all before.

It pays for organisations to answer this question, bosses to answer this question and for individual staff members to answer this question. Everybody needs to meet somewhere in the middle and be aiming at the same goalpost. Maybe this is the ‘new vision statement’. Perhaps instead of stating where the organisation would like to go it will become “who we want to be”. Once defined, any decisions are easily made – if it fits within your definition of the ideal organisation go for it, if it doesn’t – flush it.

So… what’s your answer to that question?

Why you should audit the secrets you keep from your staff

In the 'old days' there were plenty of things that management kept secret from staff. These days, any business that wants to really excel cannot afford to have that still be the case in their workplaces. In my book The Boss Benchmark I talk about doing a 'secrets audit'. I decided to write an article about how exactly one should go about doing just that. Check it out here.

Is your 'A team' truly the best?

Every year at high school we’d do netball grading. A handful of mothers involved in school netball would watch lots of us play and grade us – choosing the teams A, B and C and mixing the rest up. I found it odd, that every year the children of those women doing the grading made it, without fail into the A team. They filled the rest of the team with ‘popular’ kids and the ‘A team’ was miraculously formed. I’m not sure if the parents had their rose tinted glasses on or if they truly believed their kids were a cut above the rest. To us ‘average’ lot, their netball skills were just as fine as ours. They weren’t special, they didn’t have X factor, they just played the game like the rest of us. It seemed at our corrupt and biased netball trials it was all about ‘who you know’ or how blatantly obvious your mum was prepared to be about favouritism.

Favouritism took a serious turn in the NZ army. ‘Show ponies’ were sent on important missions only to crumble under pressure. The mission commander learnt a lesson about choosing for the right reasons the hard way. Their silly choices actually put lives in danger.

As a boss you need to get real about choices you make. Even when you believe you have chosen based 100% on skill, you could totally be kidding yourself. Your employees could be reeling about the corruptness and favouritism they are sure they are seeing. If you feel you should choose the ‘better qualified’ person for a task, but you choose the slightly less qualified one instead, you may be wonderfully surprised with the results. If you don’t give a variety of people a go, you’ll never know if they are up to it. Delegate authority but KEEP responsibility – if it all goes wrong YOU wear the blame.

Back to the netball team, I am glad I wasn’t one of the ‘chosen ones’. I wanted to achieve through talent, not through dodgy grading. The kids that made the A team, are still around, many now VERY used to things being delivered on a silver platter. If I ever do netball grading I think I’d be a parent who’d put their kid in the crap team – to teach them about hard work. If they want to make the A team they won’t do so because of me – they’ll have to get themselves there.

Is confidentiality negotiable?

A previous blog entry about when I started in the workforce reminded me of something I would rather have forgotten. But since it is not forgotten, I may as well share it! I was sixteen years old and working as a teller in a bank. I had been in the role only a few months but knew already it wasn’t what I was put on earth for. I liked the bank though. I wanted to know what else was available within it. I knew there had to be some cool department I had not heard of before in the big building in town. If not, perhaps I’d find my bliss amongst the even bigger offices in Auckland and Wellington. Unfortunately for me the only career advancement I was welcome to was the ‘normal’ progression from teller, to insurance/accounts/automatic payments to lending consultants. You had to follow the branch ‘steps’. I decided that if head office knew of my drive and passion they would surely want to utilise it. So I did what any sixteen year old thinking outside the box would do. I did a ‘project’. I call it that because that is how I embarrassingly remember it. I spent many a night at the family computer nutting up what was about a six page document. In it I introduced myself to the recruitment manager. I explained my ‘skills’, goals, ideas, and excitement about finding the right place for me within the bank. I explained that the branch network wasn’t for me and that I really wanted to know WHAT was out there, WHAT positions were available within this huge brand. Working in my own wee corner of the bank I had no knowledge of departments such as marketing, PR, credit control, sponsorship, learning and development etc. All I wanted was to be told what was out there – so I could ponder, see and dream about where I could head. I thought my special ‘project’ would knock their socks off. Especially the page that had “What I have to offer” written in a bubble in the middle and my personal qualities scattered around it looking all flash. I thought this was hugely innovative at the time…..give me a moment - I need to cringe in embarrassment! My cover letter to this had one clear request. Please don’t tell my manager I approached you. I was newish and I didn’t want them to know I was already looking for my out. Simple enough request I thought. People do it all the time when job seeking – confidentiality until the right moment. Anyway a week or so past and I was called to my supervisors office. In her hand she clutched at my special project. I was so embarrassed. I got the ‘career progression’ talk – load AP’s, sell insurance and then you lend. I felt a lot like a naughty school girl who had been told off by the principal. She wasn’t impressed with my project! She didn’t like that I’d approached recruitment instead of following the only, stiff, unappealing progression plan available to branch staff.

Needless to say the recruitment manager who I sent the project to didn’t adhere to my simple request of speaking to me only! She didn’t call, she didn’t email, she didn’t write. She just sent the whole thing to my boss and said ‘sort this out’. I was guttered. I was just as clueless as before the launch of my ‘innovative’ reaching out. No “well we have marketing, PR, IT….”. Not even a call to say “speak to your supervisor”. Just a readdressing of the project, which from that day on was kept in my HR file.

Anyway, my point and I do have one is this: how much weight do workers words have with you? If someone asks you to keep something quiet do you do it? Or do you (with complete disregard of their feelings and trust) do whatever you want? I didn’t know why she couldn’t have simply called to talk about it. I had clearly requested to keep my supervisor out of it. To this day it baffles me why she would SEND THE WHOLE DARN THING onto her. I felt so unimportant. Why was I so valueless that my simple (and common) request was ignored so blatantly? Can you identify with any of this waffle? Does it remind you of anything your staff want or need from you that you arent giving?