Thank you.

“Why do people talk on their cell phones in the bathroom?”

Go ahead and laugh but I can validate that I’m not the only one curious about this activity.  I work in 2 offices with contrasting environments and after casually asking around, I found that it’s not gender specific and everyone I spoke with found it odd too.  Personally, the thought of bringing my phone into the restroom has never crossed my mind.  So I put on my empathy hat and thought I would take a crack at coming up with a few reasons of my own.  I admit, my reasons are weak so if you do this or know anyone who does, please give us the facts!

My thoughts on cells in the potty:

• Cell phone usage is not permitted in your office
• There is a restriction of personal phone calls in your office
• You would rather not address personal issues for your office mates to hear (not that your potty mates are necessarily interested either!)
• You work on the 300th floor of a high-rise building and would rather not take the elevator all the way to the street for a quick chat

That’s all I could muster!  Oh and if either of the above 2 reasons do apply, I do hope that you work in a high-security environment rather than an autocratic one.  If it’s the latter, let’s get that resume spruced up, shall we?

Now it’s your turn.  Turn to your office mates right now and ask them what they think!  Respond and leave your comment so that we can finally put this issue to bed once and for all.

Thank you and I look forward to reading your responses — I really do!

The below points are based on personal observations and unsolicited feedback from colleagues throughout my career.  My goal was to take a realistic and common sense approach without exaggerated jargon.  Translation:  Almost anyone can condition themselves to be an efficient leader.

1. Don’t do surveys to measure employee engagement.  Employees won’t believe that they’re confidential (even if they are) nor will they give you honest feedback.

2. Don’t create new policies just because of one negative employee experience.  Deal with the (negative) employee individually but creating policies based on “what if” scenarios quickly contributes toward a discontented workforce.

3. Real employee engagement requires action from you, all managers and HR.  Engagement is not a project that you work on and then put to bed.  Engagement should be treated as a verb — a conditioned action that is continual and ongoing throughout the entire organization.

4. When you hire talented people, trust and empower them to do their jobs.  You don’t have to be involved in every project nor do you need periodic updates, unless they need your support.  This type of micro managing sends a message that you don’t trust your employees’ abilities.

5.  Encourage new ideas from the entire company — even if the ideas never come to fruition.  Employees who know their opinion is valued will be engaged.  You want employees to challenge themselves, think and take risks.  If an idea doesn’t work, explain why.  By ignoring people and discounting ideas without an explanation, you will single-handedly lock them in a silo of fear.  They’ll never speak up again for fear of being shot down and being looked upon negatively.  Trust me.

6.  Follow up skills.  They’re easy — learn them.  Don’t ignore the human beings who we call employees.

7.  Communicate — with everyone!  Employees want to be informed on company news and happenings.  Whether it’s an intranet bulletin, e-mail, newsletter, company meeting — just do it.  It’s painless and an informed employee is a positive step toward a happy employee.

8. Don’t be stingy with the “atta boys/girls” when warranted.  Salary increases and bonuses  are great, but it takes 2 minutes to tell someone they’ve done a great job and costs you nothing.

9. Don’t crush someone if they make a mistake by “blacklisting” them.  Talk to them and coach them.  They’re not going to destroy the business and they’ll gain priceless experience from a productive discussion.

This last one is the most important and will rarely, if ever, be confronted in the workplace.  I’m beginning to believe that this little point is impossible to achieve simply due to human nature.

10. Leave your ego at the door.  Do what’s best for the organization instead of your reputation or paycheck.  When someone resigns from the company, don’t take it personally or hold a grudge.

Get over yourself because no matter how good you think you are, there is always someone better.

I welcome your comments!

Please read my post on the MonsterThinking page and share your opinion as well.

Steve has been in a family business for over 20 years.  A few things that make him successful is his sharp intellect of his industry coupled with a deliberate focus on his priorities and goals.  Equally important is that his loyalty and commitment to both his clients and employees is unwavering.

On to the story…

One of Steve’s employees named Denise was working at the organization for 10 years and Steve “inherited” her when he joined the company.  Shortly afterwards, Denise developed narcolepsy and everything changed.

“Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder that causes a person to fall asleep at inappropriate times, like work, school, driving, etc.”

You get the idea.  Scary stuff for both the employee and the employer.  Steve’s department was on the third floor but he set up a cot in the conference room on the first floor so Denise could sleep at lunch time or any time she needed rest.  Steve would wake her every day and walk up to her desk after lunch.  Throughout each day, Denise would randomly fall asleep — while at her desk, on the phone, in a meeting, riding in the car, walking or eating.  She would be escorted by someone when she left her desk due to the danger of falling down the stairs or simply falling.  She was fortunate enough to have a co-worker live near her and offered to drive her to and from work each day.  This continued for two and a half years.

As a human being, you want to do all that you can to support someone who wants to work.  As a business owner, you have to consider the cost of a full-time employee, the expected productivity and the actual productivity.  Obviously, you also need to be compliant with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).  Steve went above and beyond the requirements for reasonable accommodation as required by the ADA and may even have been able to claim an undue hardship since many of the accommodations were disruptive to other employees’ ability to perform their jobs.  In this case, the productivity was not there for this small business yet Steve persevered and worked with Denise until she was ready to stop working.

This story intrigued me because of the conflict between what’s right for the business and what’s right for the human.  We can all quickly answer that you do what’s right for the business, but then maybe you’ve never worked in a small company before.  Think about being a business owner in this situation.  What would you have done differently?  How would you have handled this employee?  Being a small company, it isn’t possible to get creative with job sharing and flexible work schedules.

I am very interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions.

Every position cannot be all-inclusive to every company and recruiters and hiring managers should understand that an intelligent person can learn new areas of their jobs if it’s a requirement.   If recruiters have a strong candidate, they should make an effort to build a relationship with the candidate so they can make a professional assessment about their current competencies as well as the candidate’s innate abilities to take initiative and want to learn more.  There are, what I like to call, “Steady Eddies” who are great employees; however, they’re not superstars.  Not everyone is a superstar and that’s okay too, but that’s a topic for another day.  In addition, hiring managers and companies need to stop expecting recruiters to wave a magic wand and find their perfect candidate.  The perfect candidate is non-existent!

In closing, it would be peachy if recruiters and hiring managers would understand that people aren’t perfect and companies aren’t perfect.  There will always be a hole or a void  somewhere on the resume and it’s a matter of determining the priority of that skills void.  Talk to the candidate and let them share their work and personal experiences with you.  Stop using the recruiting process to rule out candidates and start using it to court them.  When a candidate knows you want to learn more about them, they’ll be less nervous when they speak to you and inclined to share their experiences candidly. Maybe then candidates will stop being on the defensive with recruiters and recruiters will stop accusing candidates of lying.

This is human nature folks, don’t overcomplicate it.  Thoughts?

Although I understand the objective of a salesperson and their role, I find the pitch process to be painful. I dread the process so much that I do my best to make it easier for the salesperson by being clear about my needs, priorities and expectations.

I do this to avoid  the dance of buzz words and having to try to figure out how they actually translate into my needs. If I start hearing words like “synergy” or “collaboration,” my eyes glaze over and I daydream about weekend plans or my next vacation.

I’m not callous or unkind but if I’m putting forth the effort to have a mutually beneficial working relationship, the least a salesperson could do is meet me halfway and pay attention.

I’d like to share a few interesting and surprising observations this week from a social recruiting and networking  event that I attended.  Perhaps you’ll be able to relate to them from your own experiences.

Be prepared and check your facts

The event was basically a trumped-up sales pitch to a large group of recruiting professionals. I didn’t initially doubt the credibility of the product but when the salesperson used statistics and metrics that were not able to be quantified upon request,  credibility declined.  Any salesperson who will stand in front of 200 people and casually throw out a statistic without being prepared to defend it is risking their own professional reputation as well as that of the organization.

Know your product and maintain composure

Being a natural people observer, I get a kick out of taking in the reactions and expressions of others.  A participant asked, “Why should I use your product instead of product X, which has a broader reach in social networking?”  The salesperson made a few sarcastic comments about product X in a bad attempt to be funny while looking for the next raised hand.  He never answered the question.  The same participant pressed the salesperson further, “But why your product?”  The expression on the salesperson changed, he became slightly defensive, started to waffle and quickly shifted to a broader topic while dismissing the participant.

Know your customers and be empathetic

As the event was drawing to a close and the salesperson welcomed additional questions, a participant voiced her concerns about not being able to reach a human being when she had questions on the product.  The salesperson apologized and mentioned that perhaps she was not an “upgraded” client which implied that she didn’t deserve to speak to a human.  She stated she was and to that he said, “I am so sorry for that, there is no excuse for that.  You should call your sales rep immediately.”  To which she replied, “YOU are my sales rep.”

What are your thoughts? Do these scenarios surprise you?  I’d love to hear your comments, opinions and stories!

I found this interesting because why would people do one thing at work and another at home?  Is it being politically correct or hypocritical?  Aside from Christmas being overly commercialized, it doesn’t change the fact that the meaning of the holiday is to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  How do you greet casual acquaintances during this time of year?  If you don’t celebrate Christmas, do you have expectations from others and have you been offended by a Christmas greeting?

When was the last time you heard someone say, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.”  There is a lot to be said for how we deliver our messages especially to people we don’t know on a personal level.  Do you try to anticipate how people will respond to your message and expect questions or comments?  Do you differentiate your communication style when you’re delivering bad news or are you a cookie-cutter communicator and stay consistent with your style?

Every single day we interact with human opinions, emotions, egos and personalities and there is no way we can predict how others will react to what we say.  Think about this: You can make the same statement to 10 people and receive 10 different responses or reactions.

The style we use when we communicate will distinguish us from being perceived as credible or artificially scripted.

There is a definite skill to communicating the right way.  Doing it right is being flexible with our style of communicating based on the message (good news, bad news, etc.) and the environment (who we’re speaking to) and being able to skillfully maneuver through follow-up questions and responses after our message is delivered.

What is your style?  I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts on communicating.

There are countless numbers of blog posts written about innovation. Companies need to be innovative, people need to be innovative, and technology needs to be innovative. You name it and someone has something to say about innovation.

I want to focus on encouraging people to be innovative in their thinking.

Take a look at W.L. Gore. W.L. Gore, the inventor of Gore-Tex®, is an amazingly innovative company that allows its employees to have free time to experiment on whatever they’d like during ”dabble time.”

Combining people, thinking and change always equals wonderful challenges, doesn’t it?

I don’t believe it does. I don’t believe that innovation can be taught or planned.  I believe innovative thinking and ideas from people just come. They come from being proactive, making mistakes or even just being sick and tired of doing the same process over and over and deciding there has to be a better way. Personally, random thoughts just come to me in the middle of the night or in the shower (where I never have a keyboard or a pen) and having “dabble time” for innovation wouldn’t work for me.

So, how can you encourage people to be innovative in their thinking?

I’m a firm believer that there is not a “one size fits all” innovation style for organizations. However, I do believe that companies can encourage innovative thinking with small steps and allow it to take off with little intervention from management.  Innovative thinking should come naturally because,  it’s thinking with the hopes of having a new idea and thinking  works best when it’s not forced.

By providing an environment that allows self-directed teams, flat hierarchies and self-accountability, innovative thinking can be born in any organization at any time.

Why?  Because the traditional corporate conditioning of manager-delegating-to-employee is gone, rank is gone and autonomy is distributed equally.  People are able to combine their diverse skills and be accountable to both themselves and their peers without management approval or interference.  Creativity and new ideas are bound to emerge because empowerment and engagement comes when people have freedom to contribute and know that the work they do really matters.

I have always believed that the more restrictions we place on “how” we work and the decisions we make, the less innovation and free thinking will result.

What do you think?

Does your company take an interest in encouraging innovative thinking? How? I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Also posted on the Women of HR site.  Visit me this week at the Women of HR Featured Contributor page.