Radio and Mandela Leadership

If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you read the 8 Lessons of Leadership from Nelson Mandela in the July 21st issue of Time Magazine (page 43). Mandela communicates in reasonable simplicity some great lessons for leaders to remember as you attempt to fully engage and motivate your people moment by moment each day.

His first lesson is, Courage is not the absence of fear - it’s inspiring others to move beyond it.

What a great lesson for how to achieve Success With People in business… and for our American presidential candidates. I was on KMAJ-AM with Deb Goodrich in Topeka, Kansas this morning and then Stew Peter’s We The People show on KCUE-AM 1250 in Bluff County Minnesota to discuss the rising concern in America of whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be good leaders.

Let’s keep it simple. Here are two key indicators of how they will perform if elected:

1. Look at their past performance record to predict their future performance. McCain has worked for smaller government, against earmarks, balanced budgets and worked with Democrats / anyone else to resolve problems. Obama has the highest liberal voting record in the Senate - he supports bigger government, higher taxes and expanding the government to solve all our problems.
2. Watch for who they pick as their vice presidential candidates AND THEN, this is very important, decide whether the vice president will be a poser - looks good, does nothing of significance - or a real team member who will accept part of the responsibility for our nation’s success during the next 4 years.

Get involved in our political process. Study the issues and the candidates. Write letters/emails. Attend events. Be heard.

Jibjab and Political Leadership - listen today!

Leadership in this presidential election is a hot topic now. I’m getting invited to talk on radio shows about it. Last week I was on the Doug Noll show - listen to the show here.

Today I’ll be on the radio with Harry Douglas of Car Concerns, at 1:00 p.m. PST (4:00 p.m. EST). We are going to talk about presidential leadership in this election, how it relates to high gas prices and Harry’s AMERICAN MOTORIST VOTER CAMPAIGN. He does not want voters to be fooled again. Success With People applies to government leaders as well as business leaders because government is supposed to be about serving people!

Catch the show on AM WKLV 850, WLOD 1140, WATO 1290 and WGAP 1400 or on the Internet at his website just below his list of regular guests.

Also check out the latest JibJab video - Time For Some Campaigning. You can even put yourself in the video!

Moral Strength and Character

You need to read this blog post by Steve Kayser. You’ll probably want to read the book he discusses also. You cannot have lasting Success With People without moral strength and character.

http://writingriffs.blogspot.com/2008/07/great-leaders-with-character-chivalry.html

My response to this post: Thank you and Steven Pressfield for challenging common people to display moral strength and character as we fight for the very survival of our nations. We must look beyond 2008 because those in power and the candidates will not significantly change anything. The frustration of people with limited or no influence is rising to the breaking point in a growing number of nations worldwide. Therefore the time is coming when the weak overcome the powerful; the poor outlast the rich; and leaders who demonstrate moral strength and character are desperately needed.

More 4-Day Workweeks

TIME Magazine (July 14, 2008) has an article titled, 10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas. As a leader you may want to consider all of them, but #3 is a MUST READ:

Companies, colleges and governments are moving to four-day workweeks. Here are the benefits Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida has experienced when they tested four work days during the 2007 summer session:

• Saved $268,000 in energy costs
• Sick leave fell 50%
• Employee turnover among the 1,500-person staff dropped 44%.

“We thought the energy savings would be a plus. But the reaction was about what it meant to people’s family lives and their ability to take care of themselves,” says college president Jim Drake. Brevard is doing four-day weeks again this summer and may make the change year-round.

It’s clear a 4-day workweek results in Success With People. Employees are more engaged, healthy and loyal. Look at how it is positively affecting employees’ lives!!

I think we all better shift to a 4-day workweek ASAP. How about you?

Cool way to speed-up email (NRR)

Bnet sent out tips from Get Predictable Success on how to use email more effectively. Here’s a brief summary. For the complete info, go here.

The key is to limit your subject line to 60 characters or less and then give instruction via 3 letters. The objective is to enable people to avoid opening brief emails. For instance:

(EOM) = End of Message – i.e. New employee party in the lunch room at 3pm (EOM)

(NRR) = No Reply Required – i.e. Copy of the article you requested is attached (NRR)

(Y/N) = Yes / No – i.e. Are you joining us for lunch today? (Y/N)

(RB+) = Reply By (date) – i.e. When will you get me your sales report? (RB 2 days)

(AB+) = Action By (date) – i.e. Send employee turnover report (AB 1 day)

(PYR) = Per Your Request – i.e. Russell’s job description (PYR)

Certainly if everyone used better written subject lines it would help us all work through out Inbox faster and achieve greater Success With People. Have an awesome day!

Eliminate time wasters

Bnet has an article this week titled, The Top 5 Time-Management Mistakes. Avoiding these 5 mistakes is consistent with my Success With People system because I teach how to take Sanctuary to clear your mind and use Success Plans to achieve key objectives.

Go ahead and do a quick check of how you manage your time against Bnet’s list:

1. Starting the day without a plan.
2. Getting busy without getting anything done.
3. Not delegating.
4. Working in a mess.
5. Trying to multitask.

I’m back for dress-up

According to CCH, 41% of employers participating in a new survey state that people who dress better or more professionally tend to be promoted more often than others in their organization. Of course, 55% of financial services folks tend to be more snobby or “professional” in the area of appearance. On the other hand, most of my clients will be pleased to learn that only 37% of IT employers think the best dressed folks tend to be promoted more often than others.

My recommendation is to require people to wear clean clothes, no rips/tears, no underwear showing, they should not smell, and judge them based on performance rather than taste in clothing. That’s the road to Success With People.

Talent management ideas from the top 100 companies of 2008

Fortune magazine has an article in their February 4 issue titled, The 100 Best Companies To Work For. Our teaching is designed to provide you with a foundation for talent management. One of the benefits of being systematic in talent management is that leaders can incorporate good ideas into our system.

Here are some ideas to more fully engage your people based on this article:

#5 Genentech: You get doggie day care, and onsite farmers market, and 100% matching up to 5% of your pay into your 401(k).

#6 Cisco Systems: CEO John Chambers won praise for his leadership and new blog, On My Mind, which solicits employee ideas.

#12 Nugget Markets: Last year they took the entire company whitewater rafting = throw a year and bash.

#13 Umpqua Bank: Pay employees to give 40 hours of volunteer time annually.

#17 David Weekley Homes: Because the home building industry slowed they canceled their annual reward trip and tripled severance pay for laid-off employees.

#22 American Century Investments: New hires get a copy of the founders book, and many teams put up deskside banners or buying new recruits for lunch.

#32 Rackspace Managed Hosting: Every other month they hold a Open Book meeting were all financial issues are shared.

#35 TDIndustries: One way they demonstrate their “Servant Leadership” philosophy is to not pay anyone more than 10 times anyone else’s compensation.

#37 Johnson Financial Group: Six weeks paid paternity leave, graduate tuition reimbursement up to $10,000 a year, and child care reimbursement when you travel.

#45 Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta: Employee referrals account for 46% of new hires.

#51 Paychex: Average amount of training per employee is 107 hours.

#57 Ernst & Young: In just three months during 2007 E&Y built the fastest growing recruitment group on Facebook and now has more than 12,200 members.

#60 Alcon Laboratories: They match employee retirement contributions 2.2 to 1.

#64 EOG Resources: They match charity contributions up to $60,000 per employee per year.

#66 Nixon Peabody: It targets 3% of billable hours annually for pro bono work.

#68 eBay: Maybe this is too much - golf lessons, bike repair and on-site dentist, prayer and meditation rooms, plus a four week paid sabbatical after only five years.

#83 AstraZeneca: If you like eBay then you’ll like this company’s on-site haircuts, video rentals, massages, tennis and basketball courts, plus a Bright Horizons childcare center.

#86 Microsoft: In just 3% of their budget in employee training.

King’s Legacy For Leaders

Yesterday it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. If you have never read a biography on Dr. King, I recommend that you do. Particularly if you’re Caucasian like me. It’s quite an eye opener.

He was an extraordinary man with incredible intelligence. He inspired our nation to accept something that is logically simple yet emotionally complex - respect and equal opportunity for all people no matter what their heritage.

Tim Hebert, CEO of Atrion Networking Corporation in Warwick, Rhode Island gave a talk last week at Cisco’s HR Forum on the importance of a company vision. As part of his presentation he showed a clip from Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington, DC. It is interesting to note that in this six minute clip Dr. King repeated the words “I have a dream” many times and reinforced those words with strong verbal illustrations.

Just as when Jesus said to his disciples, “A new command I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, love one another. By this man will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” He was talking to his top students and he still had to repeat himself three times! Dr. King, Jesus Christ, and many great leaders throughout history have realized that even when you have a great vision it still must be communicated over and over again for people to grasp it.

As you continue to move forward this week I encourage you to look at your company’s vision statement. Is it a common vision that appeals to the shared aspirations of your employees? Is it simple in its message, like Dr. King’s “I have a dream” vision? Is it something that inspires passion so your employees become fully engaged in what they do in your business?

How is your vision? That’s my thought for today. If your company has a great vision statement then proclaim it everywhere you go and reinforce it with powerful, passionate stories of how your company is positively impacting lives of others. If your vision statement needs to be more clear, then there is no better time than this week - NOW - to improve it.

Remember, our goal is to make 2008 our best year ever. Without great vision, how can you see your way to success? Have an awesome day!

Are You Ready?

Are you ready for the talent challenges of 2008? Last week I participated in a fantastic event, the Cisco HR Forum in Vail, Colorado. The focus was retention. Everything I heard reinforces that effective leaders are practicing Success With People system - including my closing comments!

You may ask, “Why focus on retention and it looks like we’re going into a recession?” The reason is because whether economic uncertainty is on the horizon or not, every one of Success With People’s active Clients is still very busy serving other successful businesses. Retaining your key employees during possible down times enables you to have the strongest possibility of profitable growth and quickly respond to client needs as their business firms up and accelerates once again.

I was inspired by a friend of mine recently, Joe Everly. I’d like to leverage his perspective to give you three quick areas to focus on to improve your retention rates and fully engage your people.

1. Belong: Whether you are hiring or just working to fully engage your people make certain they feel like they are incredibly valuable assets to your organization.
2. Believe: Never assume your people fully believe in your company. Take the time every week one-on-one and in groups of employees and/or clients to passionately share real-life stories of how your company is changing people’s lives for the better. The only way to fully engage your employees is to make certain they believe they are doing meaningful work.
3. Become: Every one of your employees wants to become someone better. It’s not about doing something. It’s about being someone. Their identity should not be totally wrapped-up in what they do for your company, however, how you reinforce their value as an individual and how meaningful they find their work greatly contributes to their fulfillment in life.

Let’s make 2008 our best year ever. Have an awesome day!

Cisco HR Forum

Yesterday I was the final speaker at the Cisco HR Forum in Vail, Colorado. The event was very professional and first-class. There were about 50 Cisco partners in attendance representing companies of various sizes. The event opened Tuesday night with dinner and a great presentation. Yesterday was nonstop action. It was like trying to drink water from a fire hose.

I bring this event up to encourage you to be innovative in the way you engage your clients. Cisco understands that when they make their partners better managers of top talent then they can really grow their business. Many of our clients are experts in business processes involving technology. Is there a way you can reach out to your best clients and serve them through producing an event that gives them a broader perspective of how other people in similar companies are using technology to improve their business processes? Or maybe you can produce an event that is focused on another topic that has value to your clients.

Yes, the event will cost you money. It will have no guarantee of higher revenues in return. Nevertheless my experience has been that when you help your clients understand how to become more successful then they will share that success with you.

An event like this reinforces your unique brand. Effective leaders find ways to make their companies stand out in a crowd. I suggest you give it some thought today and over the weekend. Maybe you’re missing out opportunity that can fuel your company’s growth to the next level.

Obese Follow-up

Last week I wrote about how standards had changed for obesity. I mentioned there is plenty of data demonstrating obese workers are not as productive as other employees. CCH reported on one of those surveys this week.

Employees who are moderately to extremely obese are less productive on the job. This is the conclusion of a study in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. This occurs even when you compare these folks compared to overweight or mildly obese workers. (I never realized you could have so many classifications of obese. It sounds like an overweight government standard.)

PLEASE NOTE: In this study researchers measured various aspects of productivity in a random sample of 341 manufacturing employees. Maybe the productivity loss is less for desk jockeys…

The quick facts:

• Most of the workers were overweight or obese, including a 23 percent rate of mild obesity and a 13 percent rate of moderate to extreme obesity.
• Another 43 percent of workers were classified as overweight but not obese.
• Workers with moderate to extreme obesity had the greatest health-related limitations at work. Specifically, moderately to extremely obese workers had limitations in time needed to complete work tasks and ability to meet physical work demands. These limitations were significantly greater than in the overweight or mildly obese groups.
• Health-related losses in productivity averaged 4.2 percent for workers with moderate to severe obesity, 1.8 percent higher than for all other employees.
• Employees with moderate to extreme obesity also had increased health-related absenteeism compared with other workers.

It's up to you. Workplace programs targeting obesity, especially among the most obese workers, can help to reduce costs due to lost productivity; even modest weight loss could result in hundreds of dollars of improved productivity costs per worker each year, the study’s authors conclude.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough on the topic of obesity for 2008. At least now you have the facts. I’m gonna go exercise…

Time Saving Tips

Readers Digest has an article in their January 2008 issue titled, How to keep from being overwhelmed - Get A Grip by Ron Geraci. I like the article because it not only reinforces several of the time-saving tips that I teach it provided a couple of new ones.

The time-saving tips that I regularly recommend that Readers Digest reinforced:

1. Seek Sanctuary time each day or at a minimum each week where you turn off all forms of communication - email, phone, PDA, instant messaging… and close your door to totally focus on an important piece of work. I thought it was interesting that one college freshman mentioned in the article goes gadget free every Sunday.
2. Set more realistic expectations of your availability. You do not have to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Not even for customers.
3. Stick to a schedule. Set times when you will do personal web surfing as well as when you will get key work done. Trying to look at every email that pops up is a productivity draining distraction.

Here are some tips from Readers Digest that possibly we all should consider. My favorite is by far #1:

1. Add a statement below your email signature that says: “I answer email at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. If you need a quicker response, please call.”
2. If you catch yourself doing some unscheduled web surfing, ask yourself, “should I really be doing this now?”
3. If you feel alone even though you are communicating with people all day, could it be a signal that technology is dominating your life? Talking to someone face-to-face is often much more of a boost than sending a text message, email

Effective executives are experts at managing their time so key priorities get done. In a great week!

Class of ‘08 in High Demand

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the college Class of 2008 will have a great opportunity to find a job of their dreams as employers have indicated they plan to hire 16% more new college graduates than they hired last year.

“The job market for new college graduates has been gathering strength over the last several years, and this year we’re seeing that trend continue,” commented Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. The fact is this is the fifth year in a row that college hiring has projected double-digit increases.

Apparently almost 58% of employers responding to the NACE survey say they plan to increase their college hiring while 36% say they will maintain college hiring at 2006-07 levels.

The challenge for small companies is how to train these college hires. In 2008 watch for a new book and services from Success With People so you can learn how to systematically transform recent college graduates into your next star performers and/or hire us to help.

Obesity Concerns

The Pacific Research Institute reports that 17% of children today are obese and that number climbs to 66% by the time they reach adulthood. For employers the question is does obesity affect productivity?

The answer is yes. I can give you lots of quotes from studies that indicate when people are overweight they miss more workdays due to sickness and struggle with other ailments. Excessive weight due to poor diet and lack of exercise can affect productivity in other ways too. However what I want to touch on today is a warning: Be careful what you conclude based on the headlines you read. Do not be quick to categorize any employee as obese.

Not everyone will agree with the Pacific Research Institute. I certainly do not all of the time. They are very conservative group that believes government should be a fraction of its current size (that much I like!). However their perspective is worthy of consideration. Sally C. Pipes, the president and chief executive of the Pacific Research Institute and the author of “Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer,” wrote an article for Washington Post titled, Brave New Diet, which appeared on December 26, 2007.

According to PRI the standard government metric for ”…a person’s body-mass index, or BMI – the ratio of one’s height to one’s weight. But at best, BMI is a rough tool that does not take into account an individual’s body type. A six-foot-two athlete who weighs 210 pounds would be classified as ‘obese’ according to BMI charts – despite his 32-inch waistline, 17-inch biceps and his less than 6 percent actual body fat.

“If you believe the BMI tables, most of the best players in the NBA and NFL are “overweight,” including superstar athletes Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady. Many Hollywood heartthrobs also qualify as fatties – Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise and George Clooney, to name a few.” To read the entire article, click Brave New Diet.

My point is there is a benefit to your company and employees to encourage everyone to eat healthy foods and exercise on a daily or at least 3x a week basis. The best place to start is with you as an effective leader. You set the example and then encourage others. If you cannot find the time to exercise, then do not be a hypocrite telling others they should do what you refuse to make a priority in your own life.

One great example of making a significant life change in this area is presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. He has lost over 100 pounds through improving his diet and exercising.

Let’s all improve our diet and be more consistent in our exercise so we have more energy than the competition to do the best job possible.

Employers Own Email

It may be time to review your policy regarding email.

Recently the National Labor Relations Board ruled employers may lawfully maintain a company policy that prohibits employees from using the employer’s email system for any “non-job-related solicitations.” Even if an employer has allowed a number of nonwork-related employee emails it may ban emails urging support for groups or organizations such as unions.

The key issue is the employer owns and maintains the equipment. This ruling does not stop employees from soliciting one another in-person, however, the Board held that, absent discrimination, employees have no statutory right to use an employer’s equipment or media for union communications.

The Board also significantly changed its standard regarding email usage. Personal nonwork-related postings such as for-sale notices and wedding announcements can be allowed while simultaneously ”group” or “organizational” postings such as union materials are not acceptable. For a complete view of the NLRB Amicus brief, click here.

This topic may sound rather mundane, but if your organization is growing is better to take a moment and update your policy regarding email than to have a problem in the future they could have been avoided by simple policy change. If you want to enjoy Success With People yet don’t have the time to deal with this right now, and possibly you can delegate this to someone else.

Jack Welch on Celebrating

Jack Welch recently spoke at a major ScanSource Impact Now event in Orlando, Florida late last year. VARBusiness magazine and their web counterpart, ChannelWeb, reported on his comments.

As we enter 2008 with the intention to fully engaging our employees in achieving our objectives, I thought one area of Welch’s comments were a particularly important strong reminder.

He asked the audience to raise their hands if they felt they celebrated their success is enough. Few hands were raised and many of them tentatively. “You better be thinking hard about why you’re not celebrating more,” he responded. “The whole game is to excite that talent out of the people around you and see them be rewarded — that’s the joy of managing.”

The 2008 economy looks like it’s going to be a roller coaster, yet most of our clients are anticipating strong growth after coming off a strong 2007. We are too. I encourage you to recognize people for results and celebrate success throughout the year. Do this monthly if not weekly and or spontaneously. Have fun with it!

Employee recognition and celebration are two of the most important things to do as an effective leader. It is a key to success. Enjoy the week!

7 Annoying Office Habits

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last October 31 titled, “Did you hear? The office gossip is disliked by most of the staff.” The article was written by Ilana DeBare to report on a survey by the staffing firm Randstad USA where they asked people to identify which of seven workplace behaviors they found most annoying.

Guess what won?

The big winner was office gossip, which bothers 60% of the people surveyed. Close behind came poor time-management skills, cited by 54 percent.

In third place but trying harder, was the issue of being a pig in the office. Messiness in common areas was mentioned by 45 percent.

And then closing up the list were the following:

42% - Strong odors from a co-worker’s overpowering perfume, cigarettes, or food.
41% - Loud noises from those around you from speaker phones, music and cell phones.
28% - Overuse of personal communication devices during meetings, such as cell phones and BlackBerries.
22% - Misuse of email, such as hitting “reply to all” and sending what should have been a private comment to an entire company.

This month is a good time as a leader to remind your people of your company standards and proper behaviors for optimum productivity in your office. Possibly sharing this list gives you a nice entrée into this type of discussion.

Recommendation: Kuleto’s

On Friday, December 21, 2007 my family (7 of us) participated in the Chef for a Day program at Kuleto’s Italian Restaurant at 221 Powell St. in San Francisco. The restaurant has been doing this program for over 10 years and as a result has donated over $30,000 to the San Francisco Food Bank.

Head Chef Robert Helstrohm was our gracious host as we got a full tour of the facilities and then participated in and closely observed his star professionals deliver some of the best food on the West Coast. Thanks to Bob, Kuleto’s clearly practices Success With People. We got to choose where we wanted to work in the restaurant based on our interests. Some of us carved meet, others decorated cookies, I made breadsticks - you can see I have limited capabilities in the kitchen - some made salads, and my daughter Jenny stood with the cooks as they skillfully made many meals simultaneously without error. She had a blast!

We did this for about 3 1/2 hours and then got to eat an incredible meal and receive copies of the Kuleto’s cookbook. Our objective was to not spend a lot of money on presents for our kids this year, who are older (16-24 years old), but find something we could do together as a family to create a memory and support a good cause. It’s estimated they served about 300 lunches while we were there and the excitement of the activityhelped us achieve both of our objectives.

I highly recommend if you are ever in San Francisco that you make a reservation to eat at Kuleto’s. They have something for everyone and all of it is superb. It’s one half block off of Union Square so you are at the heart of the City shopping experience and a short distance from many other popular San Francisco attractions.

If you are staying in the City and want a place that is reasonably priced and near downtown, then stay at the Villa Florence Hotel which is connected to Kuleto’s. It’s a fantastic value and a beautiful place to stay. If you come to San Francisco to attend a trade show at the Moscone Convention Center, this hotel and restaurant are about 5-6 blocks away.

Effective leaders need great food and accommodations. We had a great time. Hope you do too!

Job Killing You?

Readers Digest in their January 2008 issue has an article titled "Is Your Job Killing You?"  The article focuses on how high stress can bring about a heart attack.  People who are returning from the holidays to super-stressful jobs are at serious risk, particularly if they have already had one heart attack.  Canadian researchers tracked 972 people for six years after their first attack.  When those people returned to a high-stress job they experienced a second heart attack twice as often during the following two years as less-stressed workers.

Their advice is to try to avoid or prevent stress before it intensifies.  As I recommend in Sanctuary, they suggest some exercise or even seriously considering entering a cardiac rehab program.

Some of the quick tips Dr. Mehmet C. Oz in the article recommends include taking your stress out on a small ball such as a squeeze ball.  Throw it, bounce it, squeeze it and play with it until you feel better.  Give yourself a mini massage by taking your shoes off and rubbing your feet, bending your toes, ankles and arches to ease tension.  Or you can massage her hands.  Leave the office for some time or reflection.  And lastly, maybe get some flowers for your desk.

I won’t be writing another blog entry until January 2.  Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!