One of my earliest posts talked about how a previous employer seemed to have a disproportionate ratio of reprimands to commendations. Here’s a snippet:

“In my time working here, I’ve seen hundreds (thousands?) of reprimands. I’ve seen a single commendation. That leads me to two possibilities. One, there really aren’t any other staff members who deserve being commended for performing well (not likely). Or two, there aren’t any supervisors willing to commend someone for doing well (quite likely).

Or maybe it’s more benign, and the supervisors really don’t know the power of a short note letting someone know that he/she knocked it out of the park.

Whatever the cause, it’s a problem that needs to be addressed. Check out your own ratio. I don’t think you should be praising your employees daily for every little action, but when someone really takes up the slack and goes above and beyond, then it really wouldn’t hurt to show some appreciation.”

A world apart

Fast forward to today, and things couldn’t be more different. The problem I’m running into lately is the paradox of choice–too many reward options means that fewer rewards are made overall. I’m working hard on not adding more layers of tools for commending employees in case too much choice ends up slowing down the process.

We’ve had one person that I can think of in recent months that received a reprimand. In that same period, we’ve given dozens of awards for exemplary performance to people who absolutely deserved every bit of the reward (both monetary and verbal/written).

The bottom line

When I look at overall company performance for the long-term, I see a trend there as well.

• The company that focused on telling people how they were doing things wrong? They went belly up. Bankrupt. Out of business.
• The company that focused on telling people how they were doing things right? Morale is high. This year is slated to be the best yet.

Some people will tell you the “little” things like that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I would counter that those “little” things are what great companies are made of.

Which of the two workplace examples do you identify with? Why?

Image Credit: PetitPlat – Stephanie Kilgast

I spent three days last fall locked in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with some of the brightest cats in the Talent Management, Marketing, Social Media, and Leadership space. We didn’t have any rules and we didn’t have no stinking boundaries. We didn’t really even have an agenda. But we shared the common belief that “work” needed a big old nasty refresh. And we set off to hash that out a bit more. The following Manifesto reflects a lot of what we cooked up during our time together. Yes, it’s long. Manifestos are supposed to be. But it’s only in its infancy and we’ve purposely kept the clay wet so we could further mold it as we gathered feedback from people like you. It reflects the collective thinking of  Joe Gerstandt, Jason Lauritsen, Jamie Notter, Janyne Peek Emsick, Jen Benz, Eric Winegardner, James Papiano, Stuart Chittenden, Mike Wagner, David Ballard, and Maddie Grant, who penned this beauty as only she could.

Read it. Reflect on it. Let it marinate. And then let loose. Share it. Tear it apart. Pile on. Help us fire up this discussion. Join us. Mold the future of work…

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The future of work starts right here, right now.

This manifesto is about the future of work in a post-­Cluetrain world. This manifesto is also about an emerging ideology of business, where people are at the center of a human ecosystem instead of boxed into a mecha­nical system.

If markets are conve­rsations, then the people who are doing the talking and the listening and the sharing are the most important asset we have. The groun­dswell exists and is power­ful—we’re part of the groun­dswell and we can make the future of work happen right now, in lots of little ways.

Heard the phrase, “the future is already here – it’s just unevenly distr­ibuted”? We all have the social capital to help fix that.

Let’s talk about the things that human beings bring to the table in a work environment. Let’s leverage our human attri­butes and make people and all of their whole selves the fuel that makes organizations and busin­esses grow and flourish. Let’s unleash our power as networked indiv­iduals. Let’s make Dilbert cartoons and The Office something we can enjoy as the relics of a past indus­trial, mecha­nical age. Let’s stop work from sucking. Let’s empower ourselves and each other to make our lives better, and thereby make our societies better.

*****­*************

Some truths we hold to be self-­evident:

• Work matters. We want work to suck less – for everyone, not just the few lucky ones.
• The disti­nction between “work” and “life” is artif­icial and a barrier to lever­aging both the power of the indiv­idual and that of the organ­ization.
• Work is the expending of effort for the creation of value. If there’s no effort, but it’s still consi­dered work, it should be autom­ated; if there’s no value, the work is pointless and wasteful.
• Work is the process of creating something for the purpose of human flour­ishing. Let’s get rid of what doesn’t do that. Work has meaning for every indiv­idual. Work involves identity.
• Work involves a sense of belon­ging. Work has meaning for the networks each indiv­idual is connected to.  Work has meaning for the local community and for the global commu­nity. Work involves social respo­nsibility.

*****­**********

There­fore:

I.  Human beings are the most important asset we have. 

1. We need to bring our whole true selves to work. Human­-ness has value for the organ­ization.
2. Our best work is at the inter­section of what we like doing, what we are good at doing, and what we get paid for. Our goal is for those three things to blend more. Flow has value for the organization.
3. Work is about learning. Learning is never complete and we have a respo­nsibility as indiv­iduals to makes sure we’re always learning. We also have a respo­nsibility as organ­izations to provide resources and envir­onments for learning. This is not a choice, it’s an imper­ative. Learning has value for the organization.
4. Work involves colla­boration with others. Work doesn’t happen in a vaccuum.  Collaboration - both internal and external – has value for the organization.
5. We have a need to commu­nicate and share what we do and how we each do it diffe­rently. We work better in the open. Transparency has value for the organ­ization.
6. We are able to do more than one thing. Our indiv­idual skills, whatever they are, have value and that value is marke­table.
7. The formula for marke­tability is the same for everyone but the weight of each component is different and may change over time. Agility, defined as the capability to evolve with our networks, has value for the organ­ization.
8. We are connected and we bring networks with us to work. Our conne­ctedness has value for the organ­ization.
9. We will feel a sense of belonging and purpose if we’re involved in the direction and purpose of the system. Ownership has value for the organ­ization.
10. We build relat­ionships. Relat­ionships - and the human emotions involved in nurturing them – have value for the organ­ization.
11. We need to give as well as receive const­ructive feedback. Truth has value for the organ­ization.
12. We will trust our employers if our employers trust us. Trust has value for the organ­ization.
13. We have intuition as well as intel­lect. Intuition has value for the organ­ization.
14. We all aspire to love what we do. To love where we work and who we work with. Love has value for the organ­ization.

*****­**********

II. Organ­izations that flourish are systems that maximize the value of their human assets.  The blurring of bound­aries between the “I” (indi­vidual human beings) and the “we” (orga­nizations and systems) creates value that is both shallow and deep.

1. Markets are conve­rsations and organ­izations can harness conve­rsations in order to create value.
2. The pace of change is accel­erating. The only way an organ­ization will keep up is through its people, who have a natural ability to pay atten­tion.
3. Indiv­iduals represent nodes and networks. Organizations need to recognize the value of building relationships with networks.
4. Proximity is no longer a prere­quisite for relat­ionships and networks. Let’s make the techn­ologies that enable virtual commu­nication invisible and ubiqu­itous, so we can just get on with it.
5. Organ­izations need to better under­stand indiv­idual talent, and they need to better under­stand how to commu­nicate the requi­rements for needs­-based work.
6. Indiv­idual talent means indiv­idual custo­mization; which means an expon­entially longer tail of marke­table and monet­izable skills.
7. Indiv­idual talent means hyper­local talent; invisible techn­ology means that hyper­local talent has global reach.
8. Indiv­iduals have a wealth of so-called “soft” attri­butes that provide organ­izational value and are therefore marke­table and monet­izable.  Let’s start paying for skills like the ability to:
   • build relat­ionships
   • act as a bridge
   • distill infor­mation
   • focus deeply
   • debate
   • influence
   • facil­itate
   • see the bigger picture
   • tell a story
   • manage compl­exity
   • draw meaning
   • write persuasively
   • manage group dynamics
   • solve open-ended problems
9. Strategic trans­parency is the only way to achieve trust; trust is the only way to maximize the value of the people in a system.
10. Trust provides structure and predi­ctability in a much more powerful way than hiera­rchies and organ­izational charts do.
11. Strategic trans­parency enables clarity over control, also known as scalable simpl­icity – the capacity for all parts of the system to work towards the common goal of the system.
12. Decen­tralized leade­rship requires less middle manag­ement, but more middle level thinking.

• The role of manag­ement is to be the “keeper of the story”. To make sure there is trans­parency flowing from top echelon to front line.
• The role of manag­ement is to facil­itate difficult conve­rsations and manage conflict.
• The role of manag­ement is to facil­itate the finding of solut­ions; not to dictate them.
• The role of manag­ement is to be the “conn­ector”, to match people with the right skills and abilities to projects where those skills are most needed.
• The role of manag­ement is to be the “brid­ger”, to protect and ensure inclusion – to ensure that different voices and persp­ectives are heard and involved in the work of the organ­ization at all levels.
• The role of manag­ement is to eradicate the fallacy of “best pract­ices” – to ensure there is constant learning and agility in business proce­sses.
• The role of manag­ement is to be the “spac­e-maker”, to ensure learning can happen on a conti­nuous basis by providing conta­iners where exper­imentation is encou­raged.
• The role of manag­ement is to remove hurdles to engag­ement.
• The role of manag­ement is to release the flow of infor­mation and data and to get it to the right people at the right time. The new workplace is data-­driven; but infor­mation is not wisdom. It’s the human analysis of the data that drives value.
• Data is the start of exper­imentation and learning, not the end.
• The role of manag­ement is to hire talent that is agile enough to shift and flow based on market need.
• The role of manag­ement is to get out of the way.

13.  Leade­rship is the systems’ capacity to shape its future. Leade­rship comes out of the group and parti­cipates at every level of the system.
14.  The new human workplace has a respo­nsibility for the susta­inability of all the resources it uses, including human beings.  The new human workplace therefore has a respo­nsibility for social good…

The story doesn’t end here. Over to you. What say you about humanizing and the future of work?

Image Credit: Stuck in Customs

On Wednesday, Jack pissed off a bunch of powerful women because he made a poignant observation about how “results and performance”, not “programs promoting diversity, mentorships, and affinity groups” advance female leaders. He made this comment while speaking to a gathering of female executives at the Wall Street Journal Women in the Economy Conference and evidently a din of “angry murmers” materialized instantly. Come on, ladies. Can we just take a chill, please? Do you really think Jack Welch doesn’t understand the value of a diverse workplace? Do you really think he doesn’t see the important role diversity programs and affinity groups play in the advancement of women? Really? And even if he doesn’t, don’t you think his point is an interesting one…if not a valid one?

It is about results and performance. It should only be about results and performance. Jack’s point is that advancing employees – whether they be male, female, black, or white – on anything other than performance is fundamentally a slippery slope. In essence he’s saying that if a man is promoted because he’s a man and not because his results and performance warrant it, then it’s just wrong. It’s wrong and it’s ultimately detrimental to the organization.

Affinity groups and diversity programs are really important to heightening awareness to non-business related bias. No one is arguing that – and I certainly don’t think Jack was. But those programs do not – nor should they ever – eclipse the importance of performance and results.

Image Credit: luc.viatour

I got bad news for you. It’s pretty much legal for employers to fire you for pretty much any reason they want – as long it’s not in violation of any of the protections you’re granted by the United States Constitution, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Labor (DOL), or any other employment related statute, law, or regulation. And while there are plenty of them, neither are easy to substantiate nor are they worthy of your time, efforts, and headaches to do so.

Of course your employer can fire you for looking for another job. And I would too if you did it on company time. But if they simply came across your resume posted on a job board, then I’d say they were jackasses for doing so. Do you have a contract with them that guarantees your employ? Unless you’re an NBA or NFL star, I’m guessing not. How presumptuously one-sided of them. Oh they just think you’re beholden to them? What about them to you?

This actually happened to me once. My (former) employer came to me, locked me in a room, put a naked light bulb in my face, and interrogated, “what’s your resume doing on Monster? Are you looking for a job?” I casually sat back, laced my fingers behind my head, and responded, “Listen  up: I’m always looking for a job. I’m a free agent, yo. And I’m willing to take my talents to whomever gives me the best looking gig. Right now that happens to be you. But tomorrow, it could very easily be someone else. Loyal? About as much as you are to me. And that’s really as far as it goes. Now, if you’ll turn out that light and unlock the door, I’ll be moving on back to my office where you’re paying me to be.”

Not every employer would take kindly to this kind of swagger so I’m certainly not suggesting you lay it down. But the point is relevant none the less. You should always be looking for a job. Always. You don’t have to put your heart and soul into it. But you should have your ear to the ground. Announce your free-agency – entice those who may be looking for someone like you. It’s that kind of activity that keeps the talent market alive and well. And it’s knowing that you’re out there that hopefully causes your employer to do everything they can to keep you engaged, challenged, motivated, rewarded, and coming back for more day after day.

Image Credit:  Tobias Leeger

I came across a great infographic the other day on women and work. And with the gracious permission of the Online MBA Program at the University of North Carolina, I’m sharing it with you here. See what strikes you; this is what strikes me.

• Women are entrepreneurs! And they are starting more business than men by half. Look out.
• 40% of Large Companies had not a single woman on their Board of Directors. Really? Are you really that confused about how to run a successful business in this day and age? This is actually quite troubling to me.
• 95% of venture capital awarded in the Technology Space goes to men. Whatever happened to diversification as a sound investment strategy, yo? Or maybe it’s just that Women don’t need your stinking VC.
• Only 18% of patents granted in the US in 2010 went to Women; but that’s double the amount granted two decades ago. Innovation. Creativity. Ingenuity. Yep.
• Nearly 70% more Women earn bachelors degrees than man. This might very well be the most prophetic statement about the future of our world of work…

Via MBA@UNC MBA Online & Women 2.0