Yesterday I mentioned the Peter Principle, by Laurence J. Peter, a prominent Canadian education scholar. It prompted a call from a young (23) friend asking how accurate it is now, considering it was written nearly 50 years ago .

It wasn’t that “Ben” disagreed with the premise, especially considering his boss, he just thought that there should be more current information.

And there is. So for Ben and others who wonder, here are links to more current information and research in chronological order.

First is Bob Sutton’s marvelous foreword written for the Principle’s 40^th anniversary edition in 2009.

My father loved The Peter Principle because it explained why life could be so maddening—and why everyone around you seems, or is doomed to become, incompetent.

Second, in August, 2014, from Rob Asghar, a good, somewhat depressing, overview of the book, along with a few words of hope.

We’re human, in the end. The Tony Robbins types try to sell us the life-hacks, the superfood diets, the meditation techniques and the mantras to transfigure us from mortal to immortal. That only sets us up to fail in a different and delusional way.

Next, in December, an article in HBR looked at the Principle from the other side — and it only took ten years to happen.

This seems surprising since of course every manager is a subordinate as well. And indeed in The Subordinate’s Predicaments, Case Western Reserve management professor Eric Neilsen and then-doctoral candidate Jan Gypen make that point explicitly.

In April this year, Rodd Wagner described research that proved the Principal was indeed real and ways to circumvent it. Although the research focuses on sales, it is applicable to any career field.

Three professors – Alan Benson of the University of Minnesota, Danielle Li of MIT and Kelly Shue of Yale – analyzed the performance of 53,035 sales employees at 214 American companies from 2005 to 2011. During that time, 1,531 of those sales reps were promoted to become sales managers.

I hope this info (and I’m sure there is plenty more for the searching) is useful to Ben and all those like him, who are either struggling with a very real Peter Principle boss or working hard to avoid becoming one.

Image credit: Barnes and Noble

What do the companies with the best customer service have in common?

Engaged employees.

Engaging workers isn’t dependent on salary and perks, if it was, Chick-fil-A, Trader Joes and Aldi (TJ’s parent company) wouldn’t hold the top three spaces on  the Forbes Best Customer Service List.

While there are many things that can drive engagement, good management is probably at the top of the list.

And while the executive team impacts engagement, it’s the individual’s own manager who really makes the difference.

A bad manager will taint the best corporate culture, while a really good one will offset bad culture by acting sheltering their team from the impact.

Back in 2008 I listed four points needed to engage your team, and they are just as true, if not more so, a decade later.

• The guideline is the same thread that has run through every major philosophy and religion for thousands of years—treat your people as 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.

Truly great customer service requires engaged employees, because they are the only ones who can provide customers with the best experience possible.

Image credit: mikeg44311

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.

For centuries ‘customers’ were the people who bought a company’s products or services. A few decades ago that started to change and not just. Governments started recognizing that taxpayers were, in fact, customers, as did schools and universities, with regards to their students. Hospitals and doctors embraced, or were forced to, the idea of patients as customers.

Through most of that time customer service was mostly a function of caveat emptor. Even before the web and social media made both complaining and complimenting easy ‘ before that, gossip and message boards spread the word. The change is most easily seen in the medical world where Medicare/Medicaid and insurance companies, paying based on outcome, as opposed to fee-for-service, have forced radical change in patient care.

It was during this period that management academics and gurus put forth the idea that workers were customers and customer service was the responsibility of their direct boss—not HR.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Customer service is a major topic these days (more on that tomorrow); as is employee retention, but do they really have anything in common?

Absolutely.

Every manager, from team leader to CEO, is also a customer service manager, because your people are your customers.

That’s right, customers.

More accurately, that makes you an ESM—employee service manager.

Why do you service your people? To

• help them achieve their full potential;
• assure high productivity;
• lower turnover; and
• create an environment that’s a talent magnet.

How do you service your people? By

• cultivating the kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that truly values people and understands how important it is to manifest that;
• offering high-grade professional challenges to all your people and making sure that they have the resources and all the information necessary to achieve success;
• fostering fairness so that people know they are evaluated on their merits and favoritism plays no part; and
• always walking your talk and living up to your commitments.

What’s in it for you?

• Better reviews, promotions and raises;
• increased professional development;
• less turnover and easier staffing; and
• what goes around comes around—everything that you give your people will come back to you ten-fold!

Flickr image credit: Angela Archer

Poking through 12+ 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.

This post dates from 2013, but it could have been any time in the previous centuries. And not just bosses, but people in general usually look externally for the source and solution to whatever is happening. However, they are both more often found within our own MAP, our own words and our own actions.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Everything today is about innovation, creativity, productivity and how to increase them all.

Bosses at every level read books/blogs/social media, listen to management gurus and attend seminars looking for methods and approaches that will boost all three.

They look for solutions outside, but rarely look in the mirror.

Too few bosses, no matter what happens or what feedback they receive, recognize that it’s their MAP and their actions, not their people’s, at the bottom of their under-performing groups.

After all, if you

• • ask for input and ridicule those who offer it, why be surprised when you stop receiving it?
  • tell your people you want to solve problems while they’re still molehills and then kill the messengers who bring you molehill news you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself grappling with mountainous problems requiring substantially more resources.
  • tell people their ideas are stupid, whether directly or circumspectly, or, worse, that they are for thinking of them, why should they offer themselves up for another smack with a verbal two-by-four?

I could list many more examples, but you get the idea.

Your team’s results are a direct reflection of you, so before you start ranting or whining about your group’s lack of initiative and innovation, try really listening to yourself, the feedback you receive and give, and then look in the mirror—chances are the real culprit will be looking straight back at you.

Image credit: Meeb Forman

I work for a channel partner within the software industry. One reason I chose to work at my current job is the fact that we align with the customers needs, find a product that fits and help implement it. I appreciate that we go to market not because of a marketing brochure, we go to market with the clients needs first.

I had an opportunity today to learn about a new vendor that is in the space I focus, workload automation.

A big word for an industry that runs everything from your bank transactions to the Starbucks app (true story). This vendor is new to me but fits a segment of the market that we are not currently meeting. It does most things that our customers need and the company seems ethical.

I say all of this to tell you it gave me some hope today. I am in a position now where I am helping to shape the direction of my company and leave a mark.

Is that enough to go to work? I find that having purpose helps a lot. It gives greater satisfaction and focus when you have purpose.

Of course, my family helps in this regard, but family doesn’t always help with burnout. Sometimes it contributes when you’re getting woken up several times a night by the baby! Money can help sometimes, too, but I find it ultimately empty. It leaves you wanting more and never satisfied.

For me, I have found what gives me the most purpose is when my input is desired, I  heard and I contributed.

What gives you purpose?

Image credit: leesean

Words are tossed around today with little consideration for their actual meaning, let alone accuracy of usage.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter, but misusing others can be the basis for serious errors, while treating words as interchangeable, as if they are synonyms, can have dire consequences.

This is especially true when the subject is emotionally charged or carries a lot of baggage — such as diversity, the great catch-all.

I can also say that I, too, have used the following incorrectly: privileged, underrepresented, marginalized, diversity, and inclusion.

Let’s take a look at what the words actually mean.

• Privilege is about access.
• Being underrepresented is about numbers.
• Being marginalized is about treatment.
• Diversity is about variety.
• Inclusion, which is about experience—the experience of a person, a group, or a community.

None of these words are interchangeable; each has a complete, stand-alone meaning in and of itself.

Companies are famous for signage promoting their values, mission, etc.

Perhaps the time has come for a new one based on the true definition of these five words.

The poster covers talk.

However, the talk is worthless unless it is partnered with the walk.

Exactly like diversity and inclusion — the first means nothing without the second.

Image credit: TEDx NJLibraries

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

As a founder I’m identified as a leader, but I don’t believe that any position makes one a leader.

Nor do visions, speeches, brilliant presentations or skilled fundraising.

I believe you recognize a leader by the quality of their team.

That doesn’t mean hiring someone else’s stars, it means hiring good people and providing all of them an environment that helps them become stars.

Over the years, I’ve collected short quotes that inspire me and help me become a leader in fact, not just in name.

Here is one of my favorites.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
John Buchan,
historian and political leader

I hope you find it as useful as I have.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Bosses spend inordinate amounts of time, and often money, working on improving their management skills, frequently turning to the latest “thought leader” for insightful new approaches.

But trendy isn’t always good and frequently it isn’t even new.

Rather than spending your time listening to a varying roster of pundits, why not get it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. i.e., your workers.

Ask anyone at any level what they love most about their boss and, in one form or another, they’ll say “they listen.”

Ask what they hate and some version of “they don’t listen” usually tops the list.

Listening isn’t rocket science, but it is one of the smartest, most formidable skills you can develop that will also serve you  in a myriad of situations well beyond your role as a boss.

Ironically, it’s not the actual listening that people find so daunting. Rather it’s the pre-listening step that trips so many up.

So, if your goal is to listen, then you must practice its anagram, which is to be silent.
The first is impossible without doing the second.

In other words, your ears turn off when your mouth is running.

As I said earlier, not rocket science.

Image credit: Steve Heath

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’ve always found all the talk about how to learn to be a leader amusing. That’s because all the book learnin’ doesn’t mean squat unless it accurately translates to actions. Even studying real life leaders only takes you so far, since  they approach situations based on who they are and their life experiences and you aren’t them and never will be.

That’s why no matter the expert or their success you still need to at least tweak their solutions to fit your situation and your MAP.

And be sure to read the comment’s at both Steve’s site and mine.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Today Steve Roesler wrote a terrific post briefly recapping a Peter Drucker article in the Harvard Business Review called “Managing Oneself” (Steve included a link to the full article).

A part of that article is The Act of Noticing and it really resonated with me.

“While everyone is blogging, Twittering or tweeting, linking in, booking their faces, and coming up with other digital ways to “connect”, it would be good to ask: “Am I too busy to notice?”

I bookmarked an article last week that included solid research about the bulk of the population preferring to buy goods and services through face-to-face contact. Now I can’t find it because I was so darned connected online I didn’t actually pay attention to the title or where I filed it.

This leads into the video below. I was reminded of Emotional Intelligence pioneer Daniel Goleman’s TED talk a couple of years ago. If you want to know the connectedness between emotions, business, and “noticing”, this will be time very well spent. Close your door. Now. Tell you’re boss you are doing professional development. You are.”

I recently wrote that “No one is expecting you to solve the problems, but you can reach out and touch just one life. If everyone over 21 did that we would be well on the way to change.”

All I can add is that we better start noticing before all the lights are turned off for good.

Now go see your friends and tell them; have a ‘noticing’ contest together with a ‘doing’ contest.

But you need to notice first.

Image credit: TED

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