One reason I love the NY Times is that it runs great articles on new research about what makes us humans tick.

Most of us are aware that there are different forms of communications. Verbal, i.e., words, is the most common, but nonverbal, tone of voice and facial expressions, are often more potent.

And then there is touch.

For years, I’ve read about the importance of touch for infants.

In research with infants, it was shown that gently massaging premature infants three times per day for 15 minutes helped them gain weight, be more alert, and cry less. These infants were released from the hospital sooner than infants who were not massaged.

The latest research confirms the same positive response in adults.

Momentary touches, they say — whether an exuberant high five, a warm hand on the shoulder, or a creepy touch to the arm — can communicate an even wider range of emotion than gestures or expressions, and sometimes do so more quickly and accurately than words.

Two attitudes make this work.

1. Sincerity; people will know if your actions are manipulative as opposed to authentic.
2. Appropriateness; to avoid a negative reaction from anyone use your observational skills and common sense; high fives and similar expressions are the safest, while hugs are the most dangerous. An employee who avoids physical contact with her team is unlikely to appreciate being touched by her boss.

There are many ways to inspire and show you care just as there are many clubs in a golf bag; and just as it is a fallacy to play the whole course with just one club, using only one form of communication to motivate your people is to shortchange them—and you.

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Did you watch the new reality show Undercover Boss on CBS Sunday after the Super Bowl?

The opening episode starred Larry O’Donnell, President and C.O.O. of Waste Management.

O’Donnell plays ‘Randy’, a new worker being filmed for training purposes. At one location he jams the trash line by not removing large cardboard; he is fired, for the first time in his life, for not being able to efficiently collect blowing trash at a landfill—unlike the worker he is with who has done the job for 19 years while spending three days a week in dialysis; he cleans porta-potties with a guy who’s attitude is every manager’s best dream; and he rides with a female trash hauler where he learns that to stay on schedule women drivers use cans from the trash as pee-pots.

He meets a 29 year old single mother who overcame five kinds of cancer by age 25, has taken in her brother’s family and her dad, is about to lose her home in foreclosure and is doing three jobs post layoffs for the same money she was getting before, but is still upbeat and even invites the new guy to dinner.

O’Donnell is surprised by the physical and mental exhaustion he experiences his first day, amazed by the people he meets, outraged by what he learns and shocked at the implementation of a policy he personally conceived to raise productivity by which workers were docked 2 minutes for every 1 minute they were late.

At the start of the show when O’Donnell tells his executive team that he is going undercover the reactions vary from surprise to incredulity.

When he meets with them at the end and talks about what he learned and changes he believes are needed and how he plans to use his new knowledge the look on guy’s face said it all—he might as well have rolled his eyes.

Sadly, that is often the reaction from senior leadership regarding intel that comes from front-line, bottom-of-the-heap workers.

The smartest managers listen to their all their people—not just the ones in suits.

The final scene includes and overlay update on what happened to each of the people who worked with O’Donell and changes, both made and ongoing, as a result.

I don’t watch reality shows; I’ve read that many are scripted, but I do believe that there are bosses of large companies who don’t have egos the size of Texas and are capable of learning from unfiltered feedback from the lowest rank and file.

Plus, it seems that changes were actually made.

As big a believer as I am in bosses talking to the troops, there is no way O’Donnell would get this kind of feedback from this level of employee if they knew who he was.

Go ahead and call me naïve, but in spite of everything I’d rather be a chump than a cynic.

And in case you missed Undercover Boss you can watch it here.

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Sports has long been used as an analogy to various business practices—the best sales training film I ever saw was done by Vince Lombardi explaining how selling was akin to the plays in football.

But using good business practices to motivate a sports team isn’t heard of as much, except when it comes to ‘leadership’, a subject that, in its current ascendancy, annoys me no end.

A couple of years ago I read a post by Mike Kavis in which he focused on how Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin turned around his own career and his team using best practice leadership techniques.

“He listened to the constructive criticism of his bosses and players and decided to make some changes. What he found was that his vision was not fully understood by all of the players on the team. So he formed a leadership committee made up of various players on the team who could help him clearly communicate the vision. Better yet, he let the players select the leadership team. Since the players participated in forming the leadership team, it gave them a sense of ownership in the process…”

The creation of the leadership team accomplished the following:

• Clear understanding of team’s vision
• Participation in overall strategy
• Constant feedback
• Clear communication
• Accountability
• Buy-in
• Shared goals
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

And a Super Bowl trophy, I might add.

In his summary of what happened, Mike says, “If you want people to change, first change yourself.” which gave me a chuckle, not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s so true that it’s the tag line of my company—To change what they do, change how you think.

A winning team is the goal of every person ever put in charge of an endeavor.

“Coughlin had a very rigid methodology that he followed to a T. It wasn’t working but he kept following it because it worked when he was with the Jaguars several years ago. By listening to his players, he made some minor tweaks to his methodology and the team responded.”

Those who are truly successful understand the importance of putting their egos in their respective pockets in order to listen and change themselves as needed.

The rest will continue to go their merry way, listening to no one, issuing edicts, and complaining when their people don’t buy-in or perform.

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I probably shouldn’t say this, but I do get tired of having managers ask, how to get workers to think/do/work “outside-the-box.”

For decades they’ve been exploring a plethora of business books, articles, seminars, coaching, consulting, discussions, etc., on the subject—some good, some not so good—and are still searching for how to lead their workers out of that dreaded box.

I hear, “How do we get the team to think differently?” “What incentives work best?” “How do we engage our people?”

What I don’t hear is “What do I need to change in me [to make it happen]?”

What annoys is the assumption that the solutions all involve changing the staff, environment, compensation and any other external item that might plausibly make a difference—except self.

If you want your people to think/do/work outside-the-box then you need to lead/manage outside-the-box and that usually means changing your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) before you can expect your people to change theirs.

This is rarely what leaders/managers want to hear.

I keep saying it, as do others, but many still don’t get it or just ignore it.

Today I’m saying it again loudly and very publicly:

You (there are no exceptions, none) manage/lead based on the way you think, what you think, how you think, and what you believe—in other words your MAP. No matter what you read, hear or talk, you will always walk your own MAP—that is your authenticity and you can never get away from it.

It’s not enough for you to know, you need to accept this as truth along with the knowledge that any changes are your choice and in your control.

That said, why not adopt RampUp Solutions taglines as your own.

To change what they do, change how you think.

Leadership: outside-the-box/inside your head.

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What do you think about slogans? Do they resonate with you or do you just shrug them off?

The subject came up when a client asked me whether it was worth the effort of finding an effective slogan for a new program at his company; he said the idea surfaced because of the success of President Obama’s “Yes we can” during the last election.

Our conversation reminded me of an article last year about the futility of slogans in today’s world by Dan and Chip Heath, co-authors of Made to Stick.

Now, Made to Stick has some great stuff in it and they made some good points, but overall I don’t agree that snappy slogans have no value.

There’s a reason that slogans have been around since 1500’s and that’s because human beings respond to them. They started as battle cries that roused the troops and gave them something to scream when going into battle; something that in a few short words told the world who they were and what they believed.

The Heaths think that has changed.

“People don’t speak slogan-language today unless they’re trying to put one over on you. So when you hear one, you immediately become cynical.”

They say this in spite of the fact that the first thing all the groups they described did, corporate and non-profit alike, was to find a slogan that encapsulated their goals.

The problem comes if the slogan is all there is; the Heaths used this example to prove their point, whereas I think it proves mine.

“Recently, a task force of top execs at a large technology company was brainstorming about a new leadership initiative. It wanted the company’s managers to spend more time developing their people and less on giving orders. To make this happen, the firm would have to change the way those managers were groomed, paid, and evaluated. Yet, facing these epic changes, the task force felt the need to hammer out a slogan. It was a doozy (mildly disguised for confidentiality): “360-Degree Leadership: Because we all matter.” Just then, all the employees in the universe rolled their eyes.”

I’ve seen many similar slogans that deserved the eye rolls, but this one doesn’t.

If all the execs had done was to announce the slogan and tell the company’s managers that they needed to put more effort into developing their people, then the slogan would be cheap, feel-good talk and I would agree with the cynicism—but they didn’t.

The key to the difference lies in these words, “the firm would have to change the way those managers were groomed, paid, and evaluated.”

Assuming that the company followed through with the changes and educated its managers to their new responsibilities, then the slogan has teeth and it becomes a war cry that can rally the troops.

The stories the Heaths recommend are great; use them to explain; use real examples to show the words in action, but as good as they are for communication, you can’t scream them when going into battle.

Slogans can inspire and encourage; they can tell a story to the world in just a few words; the good ones can be a lifeline when there is nothing else to grab.

People like slogans, even Millennials; what they don’t like are feel-good words and empty promises wrapped up in a snappy package.

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What do you do when you are booted out of your business leadership position? Go into politics, of course.

Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard’s ex (to the great relief of people both internal and external) CEO is the latest to throw her hat in the ring, touting her corporate problem-solving skills; problem-making is more accurate.

So what do you do when you are booted out of your political position (or your term expires)? Go on the speaking circuit.

I realize that I may offend some of my readers, but to learn that George W. Bush is being paid $100K to speak for 40 minutes ($2500 per minute!) on “How to master the art of effective leadership” makes me ill. (Hat tip to Grant Lawrence at OEN for the heads up. I found his thoughts on the subject well worth reading.)

The next item is a great interview with Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University, who, unlike her predecessor, recognizes that communication is the most critical action when leading an organization “with enormously distributed authority and many different sorts of constituencies, all of whom have a stake in that institution” and have no tolerance for any top-down management.

Authenticity is cited by many leadership gurus as absolutely necessary, but Professor Jim Heskett, my favorite Harvard voice, solicited reader responses to this question earlier this month, “Can the “masks of command” coexist with authentic leadership?” Beyond his summation be sure to scan through the comments for significant insights both pro and con.

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You’ve heard of Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” but the item in the article that grabbed me was a quote from another article by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker article that “quoted scientists and dance experts analyzing how Mr. Millan’s bearing instills confidence. The conclusion: his fluid movement communicates authenticity better than words could.”

Sadly, the authenticity conveyed by the fluid movements of Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of recent “leaders” proves that authenticity isn’t always the best yardstick.

People are much like dogs, although the words used to describe their reactions are different.

We talk about dogs and other animals ’sensing’ things; we accept that children have a kind of built-in radar that makes them pull away from fakes and evil-doers.

Adults insist on giving benefit-of-doubt to either their thinking or their gut, which means they frequently get burned.

I’m not saying that we should ignore the rational thinking in favor or instincts or vice versa; rather we should tune in to both equally and include them in our evaluation.

If there is anything we should learn from the people who brought us to the current economic point, it is that our judgment needs to encompass all the data we can accumulate and that we should ruthlessly strip out any assumptions.

We’ve always been told that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck, but these days it may be a hunter with a great robotic decoy.

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When you’re the leader, the person out front, you need to motivate and to achieve a commitment from your people you need more than a vision—your people need to know that they matter and that you believe in them. And they need to know before the fact—you can’t wait until they prove themselves by their actions. You need to trust them before they will trust you; the ball always starts in your court.

The US Navel Academy prides itself on teaching leadership, but the students you’ll see in this video haven’t realized yet that what they learn in class needs to permeate their MAP, their entire life and every thing they do to be truly authentic.

Watch the video and think about what kind of reception Kings Firecracker should have received based on the first paragraph.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2WK44cH2J0]

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Every manager loves the folks who come to work champing at the bit, raring to go and bust their butt all day long. They love to talk about the high level of engagement their team has and brag about their productivity and innovative ideas.

If you want a group like this then make no mistake, It’s your responsibility to engender that attitude, i.e., engage them.

It’s not going to happen by accident and you can’t order your people be engaged.

Engagement happens because you, and hopefully your company are engaging.

This isn’t doubletalk or smoke, think about it. Think about what engages you.

• The guideline is the same thread that has run through every major philosophy and religion for thousands of years—treat your people s you want to be treated—whether your boss treats you that way or not.

• Authenticity is the current buzz word, but it translates simply to be honest, open and do what you say; never fudge, let alone lie, intentionally or otherwise.

• There are absolutely no circumstances that warrant or excuse the messenger being killed. None. Because if you do, there’s no going back—ever.

• If your company doesn’t have an engaging culture then you must be an umbrella for your people, because you can create one below you, even if you can’t change it above.

While managers may not be able to control overall corporate culture there are many things they can do within their own group’s culture to foster engagement.

The number one approach is to show your appreciation of your people. Study after study confirms employees’ desire to feel valued; to make a difference and be credited for it. But how, with budgets cut below bone level?

Here are four simple actions that you can implement at no financial cost and that don’t require approval from anyone.

• Ask everyone for input, ideas, suggestions and opinions—not just your so-called stars.

• Listen and really hear what is said, discuss it, think about it.

• Use what you get as often as possible, whether in whole or in part, or as the springboard that leads to something totally different.

• Credit the source(s), both up and down, publicly and privately, thank them, compliment them, congratulate them.

If you’re sincere, you can’t lay it on too thick; if you’re faking it, they’ll know.

And if you’re stupid enough to steal the credit for yourself in the mistaken name of job security you’ll have the fun of explaining to your boss the plummeting productivity and soaring turnover that accompanies the thefts.

Think ALUC; pin a note on your wall that says ALUC.

Ask!

Listen!

Use!

Credit!

ALUC will make you a winner.

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Terms come and terms go, but their meaning stays fairly constant.

Managers used to strive for employee buy-in, ownership, commitment, involvement; today it’s engagement.

Management has worked to develop that behavior for decades, whereas the way to achieve it is as old as humanity.

Disengagement is costly, “Gallup estimates it costs the US economy about $300bn a year and that 17 per cent of employees are “actively” disengaged. These employees each cost their employers $13,000 a year in lost productivity.” That was last year and I’d bet that 2009 will be worse.

Managers of organizations with a high level of engagement know that achieving that is as simple as 1, 2, 3—4.

The 4 acts of engagement are

1. respect;
2. encouragement;
3. support; and
4. rewards.

This isn’t exactly secret management knowledge. There are thousands of books, hundreds of classes, dozens of blogs and forums all teaching variations on this theme.

So if it’s that simple, why isn’t it put into practice more often?

MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is the reason. MAP shapes a person’s actions.

If you don’t really believe in the value or numbers 1 or 2, you can talk all day and your people will hear what you say as hollow, i.e., no authenticity.

Number 3, support, includes skills training and career development, but how do you provide these when money is tight or, even in good times, when your company doesn’t believe in it?

Ingenuity—not just yours, but your group’s.

Your people aren’t dumb, they know when the company can’t/won’t fund training, but there are tons of ways to work around that, such as building up a broad departmental learning library and sharing their own expertise with each other during organized brown bag lunch sessions.

Number 4 also usually involves money, as it should. But when there’s an authentic, provable lack of funds to provide significant rewards, every company can find enough, monetary and otherwise, to prove that they value their people’s contributions.

Again, people aren’t dumb. If the CEO, execs or their boss fly first class or receive a bonus after telling people that the company can’t afford raises or rewards, it shouldn’t be a surprise when they disengage and eventually leave.

That’s it; not rocket science, but you must do it consistently, sincerely and with great enthusiasm—no matter what else is going on.

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