As you may know (we hope you know!), we have, over the last few weeks, been migrating The Contented Cow Blog to our full-service website, ContentedCows.com.

For a variety of reasons, all of which would bore you to tears, we have been unable to automatically move your blog feed subscription to the new blog site. That’s why you haven’t received our feed for the last several weeks. Although we’ve been blogging regularly (and with some really good stuff, in our humble opinions!)

If you’d like to continue receiving the feed from our blog, and we really hope you will, we’re asking you to go to the new blog (ContentedCows.com), and simply enter your email address in the handy form below the words GET BLOG FEED BY E-MAIL.

And you know us…we blog only a couple of times a week – not every day – so your inbox won’t get overloaded with cow stuff. But you’ll have our commitment that what you do get will be worth reading. Timely, thought-provoking, practical information, insights, and observations, about leadership, the workplace, and the bottom-line benefit of having a focused, fired-up, and capably-led workforce.

We’re really glad you’ve been a subscriber, and hope you’ll take this quick and easy step to remain one.

So, here we are signing off the old Contented Cow Blog, once and for all. See you at the new blog/website – ContentedCows.com.

Bill and Richard

Please visit ContentedCows.com for our latest blog post.

Thanks!

Don’t worry. This is not (repeat, NOT) a post about politics. Nor is it a post about religion. But, have you noticed the degree to which people are disassociating from the major organizations in their lives – political parties, and yes, traditional churches? At the same time that fewer and fewer of us choose to associate with either donkeys or elephants, the same is happening with traditional, dogma-dominated churches, much to the delight of the Rick Warrens and Joel Osteens of the world.

But it doesn’t stop there. The third leg of the institutional stool in our lives, our employers, is likewise being swept into the corner of disregard. Not long ago, when you asked someone what they did for a living, they proudly replied that they were a nurse at Baptist Hospital, a welder at GM, or a pilot at American Airlines. Today, not so much. With almost no tip of the cap to the organization, we hear that they are a systems engineer, physical therapist, bartender, or SEO consultant, whatever that is. In a growing number of cases, the disengagement is more active and out in the open. Think late night comedy.

More so than any other factor, this institutional disengagement owes to a crisis of trust. Simply put, whether a government, political party, church, or corporation, we no longer trust the entity to behave in a manner consistent with its espoused purpose and principles.

I can’t speak for the politicians or preachers, but for those of us in the business world, the path is pretty clear. In the post-AIG world, it is pointless for us to ask or expect people to regain trust any time soon in our institutions. If and when it comes, it will be on the back of individual leaders who, one at a time, are doing the things necessary to regain the benefit of the doubt of their followers. More than just waiting and wishing them (us) luck, there are things we can do to support this effort:

1. For going on three years, our training budgets have been slashed to the bone as we’ve operated on the premise that we can work our way out of a bad economy by dumbing down the organization. It’s high time we resume funding development activity, most particularly for our young leaders who need it the most. If you can’t yet fund system wide training, invest in some coaching for your more promising folks.
2. On the premise that people would rather watch than hear a sermon, each of us must redouble our commitment to keeping our promises. If we would spend half as much time making our word our bond as we do wordsmithing and putting the right spin on our words, we would be miles ahead.
3. We need to do a much better job of recognizing and rewarding those leaders who consistently earn the benefit of the doubt, and, dealing with those who don’t.

The path is long and mostly uphill, but it’s not going to get any easier over time. Let’s get going.

Godspeed!

*****

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

SAS is the real thing. It’s relatively easy to splash onto this list once or twice. But showing up for 13 years in a row takes more than luck.

Why They Keep Making It
Fortune’s annual article about the list always seems to focus on the perks and creature comforts of the best places to work. We think that misses the mark. Most of the companies that rise to the top echelons of the ranking deserve to be there – but more for their culture of leadership, trust, and excellence than for their gyms, childcare, and free food.

Thirteen years ago, the year SAS showed up on Fortune’s first “100 Best” list, I toured the SAS campus outside Raleigh, while researching Bill’s and my first book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Here’s an excerpt from the passage we wrote about SAS:

“Every floor of each of the eighteen buildings on its sprawling Cary, North Carolina, campus has a well-stocked break room with a veritable cornucopia of stuff to eat and drink, everything from crackers to M&M’s, all paid for by the company. Everyone is trusted to consume only what they want. There’s nothing to stop someone from shoving three boxes of Cracker Jacks in their bag and schlepping them home for those nights when they’ve got the munchies. Well, maybe there is. Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re trusted not to.”

Fortune’s online article about SAS and the list features a string of comments from readers, many of whom appear to be current and former employees. Almost all are in agreement with Fortune’s #1 assessment of the company. (One guy allowed, “dont like them [sic]“.

But another, styling himself Viktor Kunovski, put it best:

“The best companies in the 21 century will be the ones who understand that:

• Fact 1: Employee fulfilment drives customer satisfaction.
• Fact 2: Customer satisfaction drives shareholder value.
• Fact 3: Leadership development drives employee fulfilment. [sic]

Congratulations SAS, just show the way.”

Did someone say Contented Cows Give Better Milk?

Again, SAS’s remarkable perks are but a manifestation of the trust between the company and the people who work there. The fact that employees have unlimited sick days is great, but even greater is the fact that the company trusts people not to abuse the trust indicated by the policy. Those who do – get to look for other jobs…so that those who don’t – get to keep the privilege.

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) 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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and the followup Contented Cows MOOve Faster. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

USA Today quotes US Census Bureau Director Robert Groves (not to be confused with Defense Secy Robert Gates or Press Secy Robert Gibbs), as saying “The horrible recession has benefited us in an indirect way — our applicant pool contains a set of people with experience and background and training that is unprecedentedly rich”.

And so does yours… if you’re recruiting. And smart employers are ALWAYS recruiting, whether they’re hiring or not.

Here’s what those same smart employers know, are learning, or will learn from this:

• Just because there are more people in the pool doesn’t mean it’s easier to spot the best swimmers. In fact, in many cases, an oversupply of labor makes the job of hiring – and hiring well – even harder. Whenever you hear the words “inundated” and “applications” in the same sentence, you can be pretty sure of hearing the words “it was just a bad fit” being uttered not too far down the road.
• This is a case where hi-tech has to be paired with hi-touch. If you over-delegate this core leadership function to so-called smart selection systems, or to HR (whose job it is to help, not do it for you) – or if you don’t – you’ll get what you deserve.
• These days, making the right choice is as important as ever, because making the wrong choice shows up more than when the economy is on a firmer footing. Prosperity insulates against lots of bad decisions, including bad hires.
• Relying on (hoping for?) an “any port in a storm” mentality on the part of the unemployed workforce is a great way to miss the recovery. Pre-recovery is precisely the time you don’t want to foul the gene pool with “just anyone”. The best applicants will still discriminate with respect to employer reputation. Don’t let your competitors get the good ones – and they’re out there.

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) 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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and the followup Contented Cows MOOve Faster. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Not unlike my son, Will, who tends bar at the Savannah airport and has a following of regular customers (at an airport bar!), Ben has learned that it’s the little things, like remembering a guest’s name and their preferences that lead to  good outcomes. The very same thing holds true for those of us whose job is to lead others. Before we can expect people to follow us with any degree of fervor, we must first take an interest in them… their likes, dislikes, ambitions, apprehensions, etc.

In the age of the disposable worker, this type of care and attention seems counter-intuitive. Speaking of his new sales reps, one office products sales manager admitted to me that, “we don’t really even get to know their names, as most of them won’t be here very long.” I’m willing to bet that a lot of the good performers leave for precisely that reason. Not bothering to know someone’s name, or things that are important to them doesn’t make them feel very special.

Thankfully, this is something that is not constrained by economic forces. We don’t need a positive GDP growth rate to make people feel special. Nor does it require any particular talent. Every one of us can do it. We’ve just got to care enough to take an interest, listen, observe, and then act on what we’ve learned.

I think you’ll find that if you take that extra step, you’ll soon notice that you’ve got more people around you who are willing to go the extra mile.

Godspeed!

*****

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 these numbers don’t grab business leaders by the throat and compel them to take action, we don’t know what will. On top of a still-anemic economy and a near universal crisis of trust,  the very last thing employers need today is a bunch of disgruntled workers operating at well less than full power. But that’s exactly what most organizations are faced with.

Only 45% of workers in the CB survey say they’re satisfied in their jobs, down from 61% in 1987, the first year the study was conducted. Unlike the economy, this downward trend has been constant, not cyclical. Just like gravity, job satisfaction has gone one way in both good times and bad… down.

So, what’s worker satisfaction at your outfit? And what difference does it make?

Second question first. If you’ve been following us for any part of the last 12 years, you know our research shows that it makes a HUGE difference – to the bottom line. Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Period.

First question: What’s worker satisfaction like  where you work? How do you know? Have you done a survey lately to find out where your company stands with respect to employee satisfaction? If not, why not? If so, what did you do with what you learned from the survey? If you want some help with this, click here.

So, if workers are less satisfied at work now than they once were, what are the reasons? What’s the remedy?

In keeping with the last-in-first-out nature of this article, we’ll start with a remedy:

Manage Yourself First: People aren’t going to follow, let alone be energized and engaged by a leader who is confused, conflicted, or depressed. If you can manage yourself on your own, go to it. If not, find a coach or counselor to help.

Now to the reasons. We’ll offer two in this article, and what to do about them; then a few more next month.

Reason #1:

Author Daniel Pink probably hit on the kernel of rising dissatisfaction when he tweeted last week, “Meager money + Zero meaning = Record low job satisfaction.”  Increase the value of either of the two variables on the left side of Pink’s equation, and satisfaction is likely to rebound.

What to do about it

If you put any more money into the equation, do it in a way that serves to better differentiate (and reward) better performers. If more money’s not in the cards, or even if it is, leaders could substantially improve employee satisfaction and engagement, and thereby organizational results, by investing more meaning in people’s work. That takes two forms:

Make less meaningful work more meaningful.

• Take all the senseless BS out of people’s jobs – unnecessary tasks, paperwork, and CYA-related nonsense.
• When you ask someone to do something, use what they’ve done, or quit asking them to do it.
• Ask people to develop their own best ways to accomplish results, hold them accountable, and reward them for hitting targets.
• On the premise that we all need to see the needle move once in a while, give them some opportunities for quick wins.

Shine a light on the meaning that’s already there. This is the more likely problem, and it’s easier to fix.

• Create a clear line of sight between their work and real paying customers. Bank tellers need to know how processing transactions makes money for the bank. Most don’t have a clue. Dishwashers and prep cooks – how does their work make diners want to come back and spend more money? And every assistant administrator in a state community college needs a firm grasp of how the decisions they make impact the quality of education in their state.
• Here’s an assignment for today. Yes, today. Ask each team member to describe how their work is felt, ultimately, by the people who pay for what you do – customers, clients, patients, taxpayers, students, whatever you call them – the people without whom the organization would not exist. If they can’t do it, see the above bullet point.

Reason #2:

While some leaders run around telling people they’re “empowered” (gag), sadly, most of us are actually micromanaging people into less and less satisfaction.

One way to start doing something about that:

Build in flexibility. If at all possible, let go of your concern with when people show up to do their work, and what they’re doing every minute they’re on the premises. Trust us. No one ever said “I hate my job. It gives me too much control over my life.” This one will get you MAJOR satisfaction points, if you manage it well.

If work times must, by the nature of your business, coincide with customers’ and/or co-workers’ patterns, then ask your workforce to figure out a way to meet the needs of the business while providing people with maximum flexibility.

In fields where customer coverage and colleague coordination matters less, incent people to accomplish results, not punch a clock, real or imaginary. If you employ adults, treat them as such. Hold them accountable – really accountable – for excellent results, and let them figure out the best way to manage their schedules while meeting business needs. If you’ve hired the right people, they’ll LOVE their jobs.

Next month, we’ll look at a few more reasons people aren’t feeling the job love as much these days, and some remedies for each.

Til then, Godspeed.

*****

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

Regardless of what may or may not be happening at the polar extremes, or on the planet as a whole, there’s little argument that much of the northern hemisphere is just flat-out cold right now. The air outside my Jacksonville, Florida office is about 26 degrees F this morning at 9:00, which is way cold by our standards. We’ll get no sympathy, though, from Des Moines, where it’s -8; or from Boone, NC, where it’s 7; or even from Warsaw, Poland, where it’s 21 at midday.

If it’s true that Contented Cows Give Better Milk, it’s equally true that shivering employees can’t get much work done, especially if they’re not used to it (workers on Alaska’s North Slope have this mastered, but most of the rest of us don’t.) So, at least until the thaw (not expected here in sunny North Florida until sometime late next week), here are some things to think about:

• Did budget woes kill the free coffee and other hot drinks? Bring ‘em back for a week. Buy a box of it from Starbucks, or Dunkin, or some other place. Pay for it out of your own pocket if you have to. Tell your team that if certain productivity or other goals are met by the time your city’s low temperature for the day is above freezing, the free perk will continue for a time.
• Having a team meeting this week? Serve hot mulled apple cider and hot green tea. You won’t make everyone happy, but you’ll come close.
• Of course, keep the inside temp as comfortable as you can afford. Suspend the usual dress code if you can. Let people wear hats inside. And gloves if it’s safe and doesn’t interfere with work.
• Give extra consideration to people who work near outside doors. Bank tellers, supermarket cashiers and restaurant hosts/hostesses get really cold from the constant blast of arctic air every time a customer enters, especially if your building doesn’t have a little foyer like so many buildings up north do. Yesterday I went into a restaurant where the hostess had abandoned her post, standing instead, near the warm kitchen, hoping to spy customers as they came in from the cold.  She wasn’t “allowed” to wear a coat over her uniform, and was freezing. Who can blame her? Her manager apparently did.
• Watch out for DIY workspace heating. People will resort to creative, and often hazardous tactics to stay warm, if they feel their employer isn’t looking after their best interests. Invest in some high-quality ceramic space heaters. Make sure the electrical system can handle the load. Put them away when things get back to normal.
• The south could see snow this week in places that don’t know how to deal with it. Workers in Buffalo and Anchorage generally get on with it.  Not the case in Atlanta, or Raleigh. Does everyone really need to drive into the office every day to do their work? Have you taken measures to provide for occasional telecommuting when schools are closed and road conditions are treacherous?
• To paraphrase one of our favorite legendary leaders of the past, General Melvin Zais, “get out of your warm office and wander down to the barracks.” Walk around and make sure your folks are comfortable enough to do their jobs well, serve your customers, and make money for your bottom line.

Stay warm!

Assignment: hit the comment button and let us know:

• what city you’re in
• how cold it was outside during the workday today
• what you did to make sure your workers were comfortable enough to do good work

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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and the followup Contented Cows MOOve Faster. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

One of the most effective exercises we use in our leadership training seminars is one in which we ask leaders to write down, right then, what they believe to be their organization’s Top 3 Business Priorities. Then we ask them to go out and ask a handful of followers the same question. It’s always amazing (and at the same time, completely predictable) that organizations (companies, departments, teams) and individuals pursuing a tight and consistent set of priorities seem to perform better than those with as many priorities as Tiger Woods has things he wishes he could undo.

For example, if President Obama were to focus his considerable intellectual and political skills on 3 – just 3 – main priorities, rather than the myriad of serious issues he has screaming loudly for his attention, I’d bet that lots of people would be happier by the time we’re arguing over whether it’s two thousand eleven or twenty eleven, and that his approval ratings would be back up where they once were.

He hasn’t asked me, but if he were to do so, I’d suggest that those priorities be:

• The economy
• Terrorism
• Health care

…in no particular order, in fact, concurrently.

My Top 3 Business Priorities for Contented Cow Partners, for 2010 will be:

• Keynote speaking at state and national conferences and conventions,
• Conducting employee and customer satisfaction surveys,
• Leadership training in companies and other organizations…

…in no particular order, in fact, concurrently.

Assignment: What will be your Top 3 Business Priorities for 2010? Leave us a comment and let us know.

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 acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and the followup Contented Cows MOOve Faster. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

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.