A Consultant's Chronicles

Line of the Week 10-25-09

This week's line of the week belongs to Rebecca Mead of the New Yorker. She's written a brief article that explores the age old question "what do women want" except this time it's from a business perspective.  Apparently companies are so perplexed by this issue that they have engaged the services of a consulting group that examines retail behavior. They assigned consultant & author Micheal Silverstein to the task [am I the only one who thinks this is just a wee bit ironic?]. Clearly, understanding this demographic is essential in an era when it is smart business to cater to women. Silverstein noted that according to his findings, women want to be Swedish. Why? Apparently the Swedes not only have an egalitarian workforce in terms of money & treatment but they also value having ample vacation time in addition to truly sharing childrearing duties & household chores. There is of course a glitch. Quoting Silverstein, Mead writes:

" Swedish social policy might be a hard sell in America- much of the Midwest barely has IKEA..."

On its face, the line seems a tad flippant but I'd have to agree with its underlying meaning. However, you'd think these companies might consider looking for their solutions a little closer to home. Hiring a woman to help them discern what women want might be a good place to start. Just thinkin'  

Layoffs & An Employer's Moral Imperative

A couple of years ago a client of mine was brought here to the bay area to work for a fine establishment that while still young had an excellent reputation. He was there 2 months before he lost his job; then again so did everyone else! The business closed rather unceremoniously. Why? The owner's accountant sat down with him & said, "you lost $1,000,000 last year; your other business is feeding your kids, so you have to shut this place down!" He did & my client & his staff were out "pounding pavement."

Trying To Stay Afloat

This is a rather drastic scenario but more commonly today we are seeing companies who are a little more aware of their financial situation trying to stay afloat through the use of workforce reduction [commonly known as layoffs]. Sometimes companies pull this particular trigger too quickly without examining alternatives. Recently I attended an HR training sponsored by Fitzgerald, Abbott, & Beardsley that highlighted some options for companies.

Alternatives To "RIFS"

What are some alternatives to reductions in force [RIFS]? There are three general categories which I am going to put under three subsections: money, tasks,& lifecycle.

The "money" alternatives include:

• Salary & bonus freezes
• Bonus reductions 
• Deferring salary increases
• Altering benefits [ex. greater cost sharing & higher deductibles] 
• Of course, hiring freezes

"Task" related alternatives include:

• Declare a moratorium on temporary & part-time workers
• Job-sharing
• Transfers
• Work furloughs
• Reduction of work hours [& pay]
• Execute terminations based on legitimate & documented poor performance 

And finally, "employee lifecycle" alternatives, which include:

• Informal "severance packages"
• Formal [& therefore covered by ERISA] voluntary attrition programs [using early retirement incentives & voluntary resignation incentives]

An Employer's Moral imperative

Without a doubt, an employer's first obligation is to its board & to its stockholders. However, while recognizing that the primary goal must be to stay alive, in my view, trying the more atomistic measures first is an employer's moral imperative before putting large numbers of people out of work. Why, because an employer's human capital is its most valuable asset.

Time To Re-design That Website?

If you are reading blogs than you are probably not one of those people who needs to be brought up to speed on the ways that business and the net are inter-related. However, if you already have a website and think it's time for an update or just have a blog and now need a website but you are looking for some pointers, I would encourage you to check out www.hubspot.com. Originally, I  "tripped over" the company doing some work for a client but now because it's high time I updated my own site, I've decided to use them as a resource.

I was surprised by the wealth of information obtainable for free which as any good marketer knows, has also generated more interest in their products for sale. However, if you are a small business trying to stretch your marketing budget, check out the site. They have some really cool free webinars with lots of extremely helpful information and a useful blog.

Line of the Week 07-20-08

In his editorial column today MSNBC pundit and Washington Post associate editor/columnist Eugene Robinson cited a quote by Roman philosopher Seneca that I have heard countless times, in countless ways that applies to any endeavor and is simply timeless. There is an almost inevitable follow-up quote and it's one I have heard said by business tycoons and athletes alike.  The original Senaca quote defines luck in the following way:

"..."Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity..."

The near inevitable follow-up is:

"...The harder I work, the luckier I get..."

Funny how this happens....

The Revolving Door: What Gets You Hired, What Gets You Fired

In a weekly opinion column, Jack & Suzie Welch address a question about feelings in business. On its face their answer may seem a bit flip because they say, "manage them." However, they go on to detail why and how managers need to harness the emotions in their workgroup including itemizing some of the problems that can occur if they don't such as gossip and jealousy.

In his book, Emotional Intelligence [EI], psychologist and author Daniel Goleman speaks to the fact that in business [and in life], a leader needs strong emotional intelligence every bit as much [if not more] as a strong IQ. He cites a quote from the head of research at an international executive search company, who sums up the value of emotional intelligence [and by extension its use as a leadership tool] this way:

"...CEO's are hired for their intellect and business expertise-and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence..."

A more succinct way to look at this is IQ gets you in the door but without EI you are shown the door! 

Line of the Week 6-29-08

A couple of weeks ago was "bring your dog to work day" but for me that's almost every day since I own the business. When I do mediation, my dog is more than a friend, he's my "secret weapon" Why? He is so irresistible that the parties can never manage to keep their "game faces" on so after hearts melt, progress can be made.  A byproduct of doing this work is a certain belief in the necessity of "give & take" in relationships. Now the pluses [and minuses] of having a dog are already well documented, but this week's Line of the Week "explains" what we do for them:

" ...I think we are drawn to dogs because they are uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better. They fight for honor at the first challenge, make love with no moral restraint, and they do not for all their marvelous instincts appear to know about death. Being such wonderfully uncomplicated beings, they need us to do their worrying..."   

-George Bird Evans

So on this holiday weekend, here's to my little "firecracker" and yours too.... Happy Independence Day!

 

Is Your Business In the Corner of the Ring Or Outside the Box

Every morning before work I have coffee with an interesting mix of people at my local Peets. One of my friends was sharing information he had gleaned from a talk given by former HP CEO Carly Fiorina who is now a major player in the McCain campaign. The point she made about today's business climate was so "spot on," I just had to share it.

Using the analogy of a bullfight, Fiorina said that every bull has a corner of the ring that they feel is their comfort zone or safe place so whenever they get into trouble, that's where they go. There's only one small problem with this strategy. The matador already knows his bull's favorite corner making it even more vulnerable. Therefore heading to what feels like a safe place to the bull may actually be the beginning of his demise.

Businesses in tough economic times according to Fiorina, are not much different. Their instinct is to go to ground or their "safe place."  When faced with a difficult climate, they tend to stand still and take no risks. Not surprisingly like the bull, doing that may make them more vulnerable as well. In a downward environment, companies really need to be moving, changing, and thinking "outside the box" in order to generate new revenue streams [before the competition beats them to it] otherwise "they may go the way of the bull!!"

Business Training: Better Live Or In Cyberspace, Part II

Six hours of ADA refresher training completed [ADA in this instance stands for American with Disabilities Act]! Yes! In a previous post, I began to examine which mode of training is more effective-when [it's] live or in cyberspace. I've been letting the full experience "marinate" for a while so now it's time for the final review.

As I noted earlier, I have no doubt that training in cyberspace especially for a national group, is more cost-effective but do companies really get their return on investment? I don't think so. So what's wrong? First let me say that in this case we are talking about fairly dry material so the presenters probably could not have done a better job themselves if they were live. However, part of the process of learning during professional training involves the interaction that occurs between attendees something that doesn't happen in cyberspace. There are some similarities but as you might expect, there are clear differences.

Both employ a manual and PowerPoint presentations. However, in order to be sure everyone is really present for the entire three hours, they periodically quiz you on the information presented [they call it polling, trust me, it's a quiz!]. Polling may be one attempt to make the information more "sticky" but that's simply not my experience.

 While the webinar has a limited capacity to be interactive, it's the interaction with my colleagues that I miss. Yes, we can all type in our questions but then they are edited, distilled & sometimes distorted by the presenters. It's a far more tightly controlled flow of information. I also miss the learning that occurs through role plays and personal dialogue both staples in mediation training. While it's true that we are an experienced group, there are always new things to be learned from each other, which simply can't happen in cyberspace.

Speaking strictly for myself, when training comes via webinar, there are too many other distractions. It's hard to give the training 100% of my attention when the phone is ringing and there's a constant stream of incoming emails, not to mention the fact that as far as my dog is concerned, I'm just working at the computer so if he has "other priorities," there's no apparent reason to him for me to ignore him [I still consider myself fortunate that for me, everyday is "take your dog to work day"].. None of these things are an issue for me when I attend a training onsite. Finally I have to say that after discussing this question with others, I agree with the growing consensus that when you are learning something  requiring "action" on your part [as in mediation], it's best for training to be live. However, when taking in passive information [as in a work or school orientation], then training in cyberspace may make a biut more sense.

Since I do HR training, this has been an important experience. It tells me that there are some trainings that I will be reluctant to convert to an online format unless of course it's ultimately what the client wants. Nonetheless, now I am armed with the experience to assist clients in making the best choice to achieve their goals and that's what it's all about.

Business Training: Better Live Or In Cyberspace?

As an HR consultant & mediator and founding owner of the company, I provide a lot of HR oriented training. As a result, I am always interested in finding ways to both stay current and improve our services. However since some of the mediation I do concerns working as a panelist handling ADA civil rights cases [ADA in this instance stands for American with Disabilities Act], all the national mediators involved have to participate in ongoing training as well. There are many panelists in most states in the country so getting us all together is both a difficult and expensive proposition. It used to be done over a period of time according to region but now like many other companies, the government and its partners use the interactive webinar.

While I have been an attendee/participant in many webinars before, this is the first time I could actually experience something akin to a "side by side" comparison of the webinar versus a live training [especially one providing a large chunk of information I already know]. Given the sheer effort of gathering us together combined with the time expenditure involved, on its face, certainly provides a strong argument for using the webinar since it's more cost effective.  However, borrowing a term from best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell's book the "Tipping Point", does this form of training have the same "stickiness?" By "stickiness" in this context, I mean very simply is the information learned as well or better?  While it may be too soon to tell, at first blush, I'd have to say no but the next and last part of this training is this week, so stay tuned.

Ellen Gunty,MA is the founding owner of means to an end, a firm providing HR consulting, mediation, training, & organizational development to companies large and small.  Based in Oakland, CA,  we are just a few short minutes from San Francisco.

Football & Business:Something To Talk About

Imagine the following scenario: there are 11 men standing on the 50 yard line of a football field and one man says, "ok according to the coach, we have to take this ball 50 yards." What do we as onlookers expect to happen? The fact is, we don't know. Are these just a bunch of guys or a real football team? Who's the quarterback? Does anyone even know "how" to hold a football let alone throw it 10 yards [forget 50 yards]? Who is going to run, block, and catch? What play are they actually supposed to use? Worse, which direction are they supposed to go? In other words, on its face, the group has been given a fairly straightforward task but suddenly it looks awfully complicated.

Unfortunately in the business world far too frequently employers also [incorrectly] assume that their "team" is clear about their job when it comes to carrying out the corporate or team mission [in addition to having a clear sense of the company's priorities]. More frequently than not, they assume there is knowledge of the short term and long term goals along with the best way to get from point A to point B. The only problem is no one has bothered to inform their people. What happens as a result is not exactly chaos but "when the right hand has no clue about what the left hand is doing or why," problems like angry managers, redundant tasks, mismatched jobs, or problems tackled in the wrong sequence are likely to occur [& these are just a few of the possible pitfalls organizations could face].

One of the solutions of course seems so simple-communication! Workgroups must have clear direction from above, Additionally, it's important to bear in mind that teams aren't built in a day and they require other things like time, preparation, trust, commitment, and of course leadership. There's a huge difference between a collection of individuals and a team. For one thing, teams are about relationships, which need to be nurtured [and therefore demand ongoing dialogue].  If there is no [or poor] communication, none of these other elements can be actualized and no task can be accomplished successfully. 

Back to our original football example, any sports enthusiast will tell you that football or most any other team sport requires the same group dynamics in order for them to even hope for success  Without all of those things and more, they are just 11 confused guys, in plastic pads, & colored cropped pants. Without good communication and clear vision, your workgroup won't look much different...well, maybe minus the plastic pads and the colored cropped pants.