Yesterday we looked at why a respectful culture is more creative and productive than one where the prime concern is being nice and not offending.

Granted, some things just go together, like peanut butter and jelly, but ‘like’ and ‘respect’ aren’t two of them.

If there is one thing I’ve learned (there are more) over a long life is that you can like a person, but not respect them, and you can respect someone whom you don’t like.

The two attitudes are totally separate and easily stand alone.

For example, recently I came upon new information about a couple I’ve liked and respected for more than two decades. The info made me lose my respect for them, although it did nothing to change the enjoyment I get from their company.

It’s not hypocritical, they are still the same interesting, fun and caring friends, but what I learned made me lose the respect I had for them.

Many people confronted the same situation in the aftermath of the 2017 election.

By the same token, I had a boss for whom I had enormous respect, but avoided spending unnecessary time with — no harassment or inappropriate behavior — I just didn’t like him.

But that didn’t stop me from respecting him and learning all I could, nor did it stop him from promoting me.

Looking back, I think our feelings were probably mutual; I doubt he liked me any more than I liked him, but he listened, recognized my contributions and provided opportunities for me to grow.

I’ve also had bosses, both male and female, who were good folks, great to be around, but I didn’t have much respect for some of the stuff they did.

It’s best when you can both respect and like your boss, teammate, whomever, and vice versa, but if  you have to choose always opt for respect.

It’s worth a lot more in the long run.

Image credit: Matias Garabedian

Yesterday I said we would “consider the difference between respect and nice on culture, creativity, innovation, and success.”

According to the Oxford Dictionary there is a substantial difference between nice and respect:

• Respect: A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
• Nice: good-natured; kind.

If one of these was going to be the basis of the culture created, which would you choose?

If you worked in that culture, which would do more to motivate you?

If you chose respect, you hit a home run.

Nice? A grounder to first, with little chance of getting home.

What’s the problem with ‘nice’?

…a powerful quirk in group psychology called shared information bias.

Here’s what happens: in nice organizations, team members become highly attuned to each other’s feelings and short-term well-being. Individuals rightly assume that their survival and advancement is based as much on how nice they can be and how good they make others feel as on the results they produce.

Obviously, if the strongest motivator in your team is not to offend or upset anyone, then creativity will be stifled and innovation crushed.

Recent research and discussions have focused on various forms of bias, both conscious and unconscious. However, it seems to me that information bias often reflects more pernicious biases.

That said, it may also be one of the easier to fight.

Easier, because respect is the antidote and respect is well understood and can be cultivated, since all people crave respect.

Bosses at any level can set the tone simply by respecting everyone on their team equally and not giving a pass to any form of disrespect — no matter who it comes from.

It’s also easier to recognize disrespect and censure it, since it is relatively obvious if you are looking for it.

One of the most common forms of information bias can be found in meetings when the person trying to speak is belittled, cut off or ignored.

It’s up to the boss to stop it, just as it’s up to the boss to model respectful behavior, since most people follow the lead of their bosses — similar to monkey see, monkey do.

Image credit: David Kivlin

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.

Today’s Oldie is a lead-in to tomorrow’s post, which will consider the difference between respect and nice on culture, creativity, innovation, and success.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Why is common sense often treated like rocket science?

If you want to increase your overall retention rate start by respecting your people.

There are too many managers who only respect their ‘stars’ and then wonder why turnover is rampant in the rest of the organization.

Then there are the legions of managers who believe that if they can’t demonstrate their respect with perks because their budget was cut there is no way to prove they value their people.

Ahem! Respect isn’t a matter of perks.

You’re people aren’t stupid, they know the score, so tell them the truth and build trust.

Provide what tangible proof you can to show that you value your workers, from health care to chocolate, but don’t insult them by saying the company can’t afford something when it obviously can.

Respect isn’t about benefits and benefits, no matter how exotic, don’t give you the right to disrespect them.

Nor will benefits underwrite bad management—you don’t get to micromanage, insult, play favorites, or bully your people just because the company offers health insurance.

The bottom line is simple—if you treat your people as replaceable don’t be surprised when you have the opportunity to do so.

Flickr image credit: Martin Abegglen

Note: It’s imperative to recognize that culture has nothing to do with perks, such as free food, fancy offices, free services, etc.

Culture is about values and how they play out in both the internal and external functioning of the company.

But company culture isn’t the end game — micro cultures are.

Micro cultures are based on individual bosses’ values.

Both cultures are fundamental to that perennially popular subject, employee engagement.

HBS’ Jim Heskett recently asked his audience what’s needed to engender employee engagement given that engaged employees are 2.7% more productive.

Most of the responses talked about the need for managers to respect their people, listen to ideas from everyone, have better people skills, etc., and several mentioned the skills acquired with an MBA.

But, as I pointed out, and Heskett cited in his summary, “Respect and valuing employee input have little to do with education and much to do with personal values.”

Unfortunately, education is no guarantee of values.

Colleges are no different, with MBA students leading the pack. “56 percent of MBA students admitted to cheating…  In 1997, McCabe did a survey in which 84 percent of undergraduate business students admitted cheating versus 72 percent of engineering students and 66 percent of all students. In a 1964 survey by Columbia University, 66 percent of business students surveyed at 99 campuses said they cheated at least once.”

If scholastic success was based on cheating it’s likely that that lack of respect/get-ahead-at-all-costs mentality would carry over to their management style.

Yesterday’s post ended with this comment,

That [provide an environment in which people can learn, grow and excel] is what a good boss is supposed to do.

But it’s the great ones who actually do it.

In fact, they go beyond that and shelter their people from any kind of toxic culture coming down from above.

Image credit: thinkpublic

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

The last thing you need today is yet another autopsy of Travis Kalanick. If you indulge in any form of media you know TK isn’t the first to founder to go down in flames (and he won’t be the last)for creating a rotten culture.

A larger question is where was the adult oversight that kept other young founders from similar shenanigans?

Steve Jobs didn’t want to create a Windows-compatible version of the iPod or an app store for the iPhone; it was his lieutenants who pushed him to do it. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were guided by strong, experienced and extremely sober operators — Sheryl Sandberg and Eric Schmidt, respectively. Mr. Kalanick, meanwhile, was allowed to operate more or less solo, to micromanage a company that grew to enormous scale, and was left alone even when the firm’s problems became plain to see.

In its fifth year, Facebook had net income of $200 million in 2009 on revenue of $777 million; in its seventh year Uber lost $3 billion.

So instead, I thought I’d point you to a Glassdoor’s 2017 list of best CEOs as rated by their employees, so you could find positive role models.

In the large company category the top slot went to Benno Dorer, CEO of The Clorox Company.

“Excellent communication on vision, strategy, and where we are going. Constant access to leadership through round tables and other company events that allow all employees to feel like they are part of our decision making and strategy.”

In the small/medium category it’s Justyn Howard, CEO of Sprout Social.

There are many reasons why Sprout Social is an amazing place to work. Some of the pros include sensible managers that really care about you and your goals, and help you grow and advance your career. The company culture is inclusive, open and friendly. I have honestly not seen this many talented and hardworking people together prior to working here. Both individual and team initiatives are highlighted and praised often, communication is very transparent and you feel like your voice is heard.

Notice that the employee comments all focus on similar things.

They are what people of all ages want from their bosses.

Founders/bosses set the tone and values.

They shouldn’t be surprised when the people they hire have similar views.

Image credit: HikingArtist

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over 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 are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Since tomorrow’s post takes yet another look at Silicon Valley culture, sources of the blatant misogyny, and how that relates to brilliant jerks and so-called stars, I thought I’d share Rich Waidmann’s take on the subject.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I’m in love — with a man I never met, never spoke to, never followed or chatted with online.

His name is Rich Waidmann and he’s founder and CEO of Connectria Hosting.

I love him because when he started his company he consciously set out to make it a great place to work. (See the full Infographic at Business Insider)

That means it’s a job requirement at his company that every employee treat everyone else with courtesy and respect as well as “going the extra mile” to take care of people in the community who are less fortunate

Then his company did a survey and found that

More than half (55%) of 250 IT professionals in the US. surveyed said they had been bullied by a co-worker. And 65% have said they dreaded going to work because of bad behavior of a co-worker.

Waidmann believes it shouldn’t be that way so he’s starting a No Jerks Allowed movement in an effort to encourage better cultures.

Way back in 2007 Stanford’s Bob Sutton wrote The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, but looking at the stats I’m not sure how much good it actually did.

And considering the fact that companies are shoehorning more people into less space something needs to change.

The Talmud says, “We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.” Moreover, it’s often as we are that particular day, or even minute, and even as we change, minute to minute, so do others.

Jerks are known to lower productivity and kill innovation, so a lot of good information on identifying and dealing with jerks has been developed since Sutton’s book came out.

Contributing to that effort, here are my four favorite MAP attitudes for dealing with jerks.

• Life happens, people react and act out, but that doesn’t mean you have to let their act in.
• Consider the source of the comment before considering the comment, then let its effect on you be in direct proportion to your respect for that source.
• Use mental imagery to defuse someone’s effect on you. This is especially useful against bullying and intimidation. Do it by having your mental image of the person be one that strips power symbols and adds amusement. (Give me a call if you want my favorite, it’s a bit rude, but has worked well for many people.)

And, finally, the one I try to keep uppermost in my mind at all times

• At least some of “them” some of the time consider me a jerk—and some of the time they are probably correct.

Image credit: Connectria

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over 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 are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Bosses are usually unrelenting when something goes wrong with a product/service. They, the team and often the entire company work to not only find the cause, so it won’t happen again, but also to placate their customers.

However, when the problem is an internal human one, they are more hesitant to root it out, since that often means first looking in the mirror and then actually changing (not just paying lip-service until the turmoil dies down).

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here

In the right frame of MAPping Company Success it says, “Have a quick question or just want to chat?” along with both email and phone number.

A few weeks ago a “John,” a founder, called me to see if I had any idea why his turnover was so high.  

In response to my questions he described his company’s culture, management style, product, etc.

I told him that assuming what he said was what was actually happening then something else was going on.

Since we are several thousand miles apart, we came up with the idea of using a stationary camcorder to tape the interactions; a “set it and forget it” approach to capture the norm and not performances.

A few days later he sent me a link to see the results.

I choked at the length, but it didn’t take that long to find what the likely problem was.

To see if my instinct was correct, I watched the entire nine hours on fast forward.

What I saw was that, almost without exception, during every interaction John had, whether with programmers or senior staff, he interrupted them to take calls or respond to texts.

We discussed the ramifications and effects of the constant interruptions and I asked him how he would feel if they had acted the same way.

He said it had happened to him and he usually felt annoyed, offended or both.

So I asked why they would feel any different.

John said that also explained why one senior developer said he preferred to work where he was shown some respect.

John had chalked it up to the developer’s age and that he couldn’t handle the casual atmosphere, but thinking back the guy had had a good relationship and no problems with the team.

I suggested that instead of saying anything he just change, i.e., pay attention and not interrupt, since actions speak louder than words.

I also sent him this image as a constant reminder.

John went further than changing; he called the most recent three who had left, apologized and said he would like them to come back.

One had already accepted a job, but the other two decided to give it another shot.

They both said that his candidness, honesty in recognizing the problem and sincere apology made it likely he would follow through.

Image credits: HikingArtist and via Imgfave

There is much talk about Megyn Kelly’s announced move from Fox News to NBC last week, but that’s not what this post is about.

It’s about Bill O’Reilly’s twisted thoughts on what constitutes loyalty.

“I’m not interested in making my network look bad.”

Later that day, he continued the thought in a commentary on his own show in which he appeared to question Ms. Kelly’s loyalty to Fox by saying, without naming her: “If somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance. If you don’t like what’s happening in the workplace, go to human resources or leave.”

Agreeing with O’Reily means that if your boss hits, grabs, gropes, insults, harasses, etc., your only recourse is to tell a person/department that too often has little-to-no power, and sometimes no interest, in fixing the problem or get out of Dodge — even if it means breaking your contract.

Read anything about professional loyalty and you’ll find that it is the company’s responsibility to give people a reason to be loyal.

Reasons include a workplace that don’t tolerate any type of harassment no matter who it is from — up to and including the CEO.

Additional reasons include fairness and respect, although there are many others.

We do owe loyalty (and protection) to ourselves, but I don’t believe anyone owes loyalty to a a person or company where they have to constantly look out, whether for a knife in the back or death by a thousand cuts.

Flickr image credit: DonkeyHotey

A response on Quora offers a key good insight for human interaction. It’s especially applicable when leading/managing a team, whether you’re a CEO or just-promoted supervisor.

A knight on his weary horse pulling up to house of a peasant. “Peasant, water for my horse and food and ale for me.”

Whilst eating and drinking, he says to the peasant “I am heading for the next town, what are the people like there?”
The peasant inquires “What we the people like in the last town you visited?”

The knight thinks and says, “The towns’ people were dishonest, unfriendly thieves, I was glad to leave the place.”

The peasant replied “Sadly, I think you will find the people in the next town the same.”

One week later another knight pulls up to the same peasant on his weary horse and says, “Excuse my look, but my horse and I have traveled far. If you have some food and water for my horse and also for myself, I would be grateful.”

The peasant feeds them both, with ale for the knight also, when the knight asks, “We are heading for the next town, what are the people like there?”

“What were they like in the last town you left?” asks the peasant.

“They were the most wonderful, generous people I have ever met. I was sad to leave them,” answered the knight.

“Do not worry,” said the peasant, “they are are the same in the next town.”

In other words, people rise to your level of expectations.

Not only do they rise, but they also sink when expectations are low. This is most obvious when considering the difference between schools and teachers.

Although more subtle, it applies just as accurately to the workplace.

If you want your people to trust you — trust them first.

If you want respect — offer it first.

While the list of wants is endless, the recipe for achieving them remains the same.

To get what you want, give it first.

Flickr image credit: Chuck Black

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over 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.

I always find it interesting when people who show a lack of respect for others complain about being treated the same way. And to truly understand this post be sure to click the Carl Sagan link at the end. Read other Golden Oldies here.