Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

I wrote this back in 2014. Obviously, I didn’t mention harassment because the post focused on what was in the news, and it wasn’t talked about all that openly, unlike now.

Sadly, nothing has changed. It’s still news and people are surprised.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I get it. I get what’s going on in terms of women in the workplace is news.

I get it that it is important to remind people that for all the progress that’s been made some things haven’t changed.

It’s still assumed that it’s OK to ask professional women, such as lawyers and marketing execs, to do stuff that would never be asked of the men in the organization.

“…plan parties, order food, take notes in meetings and join thankless committees…bring cupcakes for a colleague’s birthday, order sandwiches for office lunches and answer phones”

By the same token, it’s news that board diversity is moving at glacial speed, primarily because boards only want people with experience and to have experience they need to serve on a board.

“Recruiting women and minorities to boards is being slowed because of boards’ unwillingness to look at candidates who have not yet served on boards,” said Ron Lumbra, co-leader of the CEO and board services practice for Russell Reynolds. “There’s a premium on experience.’’

So while I have no problem with these subjects being presented over and over in the news, there is one thing I don’t understand.

Why are so many people surprised by the information?

Is the general population so naïve that they actually believe women are no longer asked to do tasks that are closer to house work than business work?

Do they really believe that the lack of board diversity is a function of the lack of experience as opposed a desire to spend time with people like themselves who are well within their comfort zones?

The sad part is that while it’s still news, it’s certainly not a surprise.

Flickr image credit: Arya Ziai

It’s amazing to me, but looking back on more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

For decades, ‘culture’ didn’t get much respect. Many managers considered it ephemeral; smoke and mirrors served up by consultants focused more on their bottom line than their client’s. Today, the critical importance of company culture is a generally accepted management subject. However, creating a great culture isn’t enough; it needs a solid infrastructure to sustain it and keep it flexible as the company grows. That said, the most important action any boss takes is found in the final sentence of this post. Read other Golden Oldies here.

When you build an edifice that you want to withstand the stresses of everyday living as well as crisis and catastrophe it’s important to include structural supports in the design.

The same is true for corporate culture and I call them “infrastructure building blocks” or IBBs.

There are three categories of IBBs—philosophy, attitude/style, and policy. There are many things that can be included, but here is a list of the most basic ones, some are fairly self-explanatory, others include commentary and links where possible.

The philosophy category includes

• Fairness: pay parity, merit promotions, egalitarian policies,
• Open communications: not a technology function, but a part of MAP.
• Business 101: basic information to reduce/eliminate naiveté, fuzzy or rose-colored views of the company’s business.
• No surprises
• Pragmatism

The attitude/style category includes:

• Manager vigilance: a constant awareness of what is going on and a willingness to deal with the reality of it immediately.
• Management-by-walking-around

The policy category is the concrete expression of the Philosophy and Attitude/Style IBBs. Just as the Preamble to the Constitution delineates the doctrines underlying it, each Policy IBB supports one or more of the IBBs described above.

Policy IBBs should be reasonably broad—macro rather than micro—since they support a flexible process, not ossified bureaucracy. They are your most potent infrastructure—the most tangible and, therefore, the hardest to corrupt or ignore, but also the most dangerous, because they can turn into bureaucracy in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful.

• Business Mission Statement (BMS)
• Cultural Mission Statement (CMS)
• Dual Mission Statement (DMS)
• Open-door
• Management by Box: actually a way to set your people free
• Dual Ladder Career Path: a series of hands-on positions that equate straight across the board with management positions.
• Hiring process: transparent and painless and easy to use for both candidates and hiring managers.
• Stock bonus plan (or similar)
• Sales incentives
• Reviews: Done correctly, they encourage personal growth, make negative behavior much harder to conceal and can even act as a screening tool during interviews.
• Surveys: useful for discovering problems, attitudes, product directions, company standing, etc. as perceived by employees and selected outsiders.

One caveat when implementing these and other approaches: lead by example; both managers and workers will do as you do, not as you say.

Image credit: flickr

I get it. I get what’s going on in terms of women in the workplace is news.

I get it that it is important to remind people that for all the progress that’s been made some things haven’t changed.

It’s still assumed that it’s OK to ask professional women, such as lawyers and marketing execs, to do stuff that would never be asked of the men in the organization.

“…plan parties, order food, take notes in meetings and join thankless committees…bring cupcakes for a colleague’s birthday, order sandwiches for office lunches and answer phones”

By the same token, it’s news that board diversity is moving at glacial speed, primarily because boards only want people with experience and to have experience they need to serve on a board.

“Recruiting women and minorities to boards is being slowed because of boards’ unwillingness to look at candidates who have not yet served on boards,” said Ron Lumbra, co-leader of the CEO and board services practice for Russell Reynolds. “There’s a premium on experience.’’

So while I have no problem with these subjects being presented over and over in the news, there is one thing I don’t understand.

Why are so many people surprised by the information?

Is the general population so naïve that they actually believe women are no longer asked to do tasks that are closer to house work than business work?

Do they really believe that the lack of board diversity is a function of the lack of experience as opposed a desire to spend time with people like themselves who are well within their comfort zones?

The sad part is that while it’s still news, it’s certainly not a surprise.

Flickr image credit: Arya Ziai

Way back when I started this blog I wrote about the importance of creating a culture of no surprises, so it was with great interest that I read HBS’ Jim Heskett’s thoughts regarding the importance of a No Surprise Management (NSM), either. (Heskett’s previous discussion about servant leadership formed the basis of another recent post.)

Bosses don’t like surprises from their direct reports. But “no surprise management” works just as well when bosses don’t surprise those lower in the organization, says Jim Heskett.

Heskett is worth following, because he doesn’t lecture, let alone pontificate; rather posits a brief scenario, asks ‘what do you think, and draws his many readers into adding their thoughts creating a far richer level of information.

NSM should be a no-brainer for bosses at all levels, not just senior management.

As Larry Slate, Organ Preservation Supervisor, Gift of Life Michigan, so aptly puts it in comments,

Employees are expected to “dedicated, professional, accurate and ethical”. As employees we expect the same from management.

Or, as one manager recently said to me about his boss, “I give what I get.”

I think that pretty well sums up people’s feelings on NSM, as well as most other workplace topics.

Flickr image credit: Giorgos Michalogiorgakis