Way back, when I was a recruiter, I coined a term for an attitude that impacted people from senior ranks down through support staff and production workers.

I called it ego-merge and it happened when people so entwined their identity with their company’s that they took personal responsibility for its successes and failures.

Last week we looked at companies with perks designed to keep people on site, so that the company becomes their life.

Both situations are highly addictive.

Even companies with benefits designed to foster better work-life integration/balance can be considered addictive, since they are difficult to leave.

Most addictive of all are great managers, even when special perks and over-the-top benefits are missing.

Sadly, abusive companies/managers are also addictive, just as abusive homes/partners/relatives are.

So what do you do if both good and bad can be addictive?

Know yourself.

Know what’s really important to you, not to your friends or what looks cool on social media.

Make a list.

Know what holds your company has on you.

Make a list.

Compare the lists.

Revisit each list at least once a year, more often if something major happens in your life or company.

Edit them based on who you/company are, not who you/company were.

Image credit: David Prasad

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.

Last Monday we considered whether your goals were your own or dictated by outside pressure. Today, we’ll look at something I wrote way back in2006 when I started this blog — my approach to making goals and to-do lists  a positive experience, i.e., work.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A client sent me a list of what he plans to accomplish in Q4—it was a very long list. I find most people have similar lists and, although all the items are necessary, the list can be daunting.

As opposed to listing just goals, most people’s lists include everything they need/want to accomplish in that time frame, both goals and to-do’s, hence the long list.

You’ll still need to do the work, but here’s a simple trick to help tame your list, raise your productivity, and give yourself more feelings of accomplishment and fewer of frustration.

I’ve found that the items on these lists fall into three categories:

• Normal work: includes all the things that you need to do that quarter that are part of your job description. (executing marketing plans, making sales calls, hiring staff; doing reviews, etc.)
• Goals: in addition to normal, daily tasks (increase manufacturing output 8% in Q4; write operating plan for 2007; reduce attrition 10%, etc.)
• Behavioral changes: refers to MAP changes (improve attitude; give and accept constructive criticism)

Goals usually require a great deal more planning and take longer to come to fruition, hence the longer deadlines. They are often more strategic and can involve other people’s activities. One major and two minor goals are the most that can be handled efficiently and be accomplished.

Normal work doesn’t need to list every single thing you do. It’s more a matter of personal taste whether you list each thing or just the major tasks that aren’t ongoing on a daily basis. When listing major tasks, e.g., hiring, be sure to set a deadline, be reasonable, but a deadline will keep you on track and keep the item from getting pushed to the back burner. It’s easy to mix up goals and work. For example, you may think of filling a req as a goal, but it’s really part of your normal work as a manager.

Behavioral changes need to be specific, so, rather than “improve attitude,” specify three things that will accomplish that (stay positive, smile, be friendly). MAP changes require staying aware until the desired change becomes a habit and three is about the max most people can monitor at once and, even that, can be a stretch. However, if you made even one MAP change each quarter the over all change in that year would be phenomenal.

Now for the trick. Using three columns with these headings,

• drag and drop your list into the appropriate column;
• keep shuffling them until you’re sure each is in the right place;
• prioritize them; and
• move any extra items (more than three each) from Behaviors or Goals to a separate holding doc—that’s why prioritizing them is so important.

Print Behavioral changes and stick them on your monitor, tape them to the dashboard, up them on a wall—somewhere you will always see it because out of site is out of mind and you need to stay constantly aware to build the habit.

Using the deadlines, incorporate the others into your normal planning process.

Be sure to do a reality check using normal and worst case analysis. You aren’t Super(wo)man, so be sure that what you want to accomplish can be done. If not, adjust your lists accordingly, keeping it firmly in mind that your object is to increase your productivity, not your frustration.

Finally, once you’re clear on the process, share it with your organization, not just the managers, but with everyone

Image credit: Aaron Davis

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

From the start of my career, especially as a headhunter, AKA, recruiter, I have  done my best to drum the following mantra into the heads of both hiring managers and candidates.

Life is LARGE; career is but a small part of the whole.  A major problem is created when the adjectives (and, therefore, the attitudes) are reversed.

Most agreed, but that was then…

These days, too many companies intentionally design their perks and campus to encourage people to stay — like Facebook.

My greeter walked me to one of the complex’s main arteries from Hacker Way toward Main Street. “The campus was designed to be a cross between Disneyland and downtown Palo Alto.”

If everything is at work why leave?

Maybe to have a life?

Of course, before you can leave you need to get your work done and it’s hard to be productive with all the distractions.

“It’s no wonder people are working longer, earlier, later, on weekends, and whenever they have a spare moment,” Jason Fried writes in the new book It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, which hits the shelves in the US today (Oct. 2). “People can’t get work done at work anymore.”

Forbes recently published a Quora response to the question What People Won’t Tell You About Working At A Top Tech Company that presents both the pros and cons of working  for a company with the main goal of arranging its perks and compensation so people won’t leave.

Not just won’t leave, but can’t leave.

It’s not just the perks, but the compensation. Even those willing to take a reduced package will find other companies hesitant to hire them. And when the downturn comes, as it always does, they will be in an even worse position.

A couple of weeks ago Ryan accepted a new position and I wrote his new company, Spatial Networks, up as a role model.

It’s proof companies don’t have to turn themselves into a field of poppies to attract and retain great talent. We’ll look at more examples next week.

Image credit: HikingArtist

I wrote on this a bit last week.

When it comes to open floor plans you have the ability to break concentration pretty quickly.

Maybe you ask a work-related question, or you see someone walk by who catches your attention, or it could be the other meeting occurring five feet away that draws your attention.

All in all, it can add up to a loud and unproductive environment.

That said, there is another issue at hand: the collective focus of our country.

I have political leanings (most folks do), but I don’t address them in this forum.

However, I have found it is very difficult to focus with the hyper-political environment we are in right now.

The latest on Trump, Supreme Court nominees, and international trade dominate the conversations. Even at work, I have found it can be a minefield to even poke into certain topics. How do we overcome this?

One thing I have started doing is actually turning off the news and not keeping up with every little change to the topics of the day; it can be a bit freeing. At the same time, I am not in a position where I can be completely ignorant of what is happening.

I have also found that there is common ground among my co-workers on how divisive it has all become.

And it is a lot harder to push your politics on someone when they are standing right in front of you. The shield of anonymity is gone.

I have found that reading negative press also has the added effect of making me less productive.

I focus on the negative and it goes into my head. What good is all that?

So maybe next week we can focus on the positive and move forward?

Most of us get presidential alerts on our phone now, but we can also turn them off.

Image credit: VirtualWolf

Pardon this semi-rant, but humans are so arrogant.

Tech tech are some of the worst, but fintech, animal tech and food tech, may even be worse.

By word and/or action, the idea that they know best resonates through everything they do.

Banker arrogance, and the products it produced, gave us the 2008 financial meltdown.

Animal breeders gave us pets, with a host of enhanced medical problems, in return for a certain look.

And long before people freaked out over today’s GMO, humans have been doing selective breeding for more than 9000 years.

Boy, did they succeed.

On Sunday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that zookeepers at the Melbourne Zoo are weening some animals off of fruits because they were too sweet for the animals’ own good. Red pandas and primates had been gaining weight, and some had signs of tooth decay as well.

Whole fruits, not juice (aka liquid sugar) are supposed to be healthy for humans, because they are high in fiber, but when the sugar content is increased so drastically do the rules hold? Does the effort our bodies must make to process the fiber truly offset the higher sugar content?

I can’t really answer that, but I do know there aren’t a lot of people who choose veggies over fruit when offered a choice.

Image credit: Michael Tieso

I’ve made my own hiring errors, as have we all (anyone who claims otherwise is lying).

So when interviewing, we have a few company-wide mantras (for lack of a better term) to guide us.

I find this one goes a long way to ensuring we don’t get caught up in people’s past, rather, it helps us focus on attitude and potential.

“The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” — John Wooden, basketball player and coach

Look at all the people who were stars at places like Goldman Sachs or Google, such as Marissa Meyer, or GE’s Bob Nardelli (who nearly destroyed Home Depot), who were unable to maintain their level of performance outside the culture, systems and management of that specific company.

That’s why it’s always dangerous to hire stars — more than anything else they are a product of their environment.

Image credit: Lee Haywood

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.

Last Wednesday I noted with the year three quarters over people were likely to start obsessing and stressing about accomplishing the goals they set last January. I also said I would discuss goals further today.

Topping the list of choosing goals is the need to identify whose goals are — as explained in this post from 2009. Next Monday I’ll share one more bit of insight about goals from way back in 2006.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

This might come as a shock, but there is no Eleventh Commandment stating, “Thou shalt place thy career above all things in thy life and draw all sustenance, mental and spiritual, as well as economic, from it.”

For decades I’ve held (and preached) the career-as-part-of-life MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), as opposed to the reverse.

Life is LARGE; career is but a small part of the whole.  A major problem is created when the adjectives (and, therefore, the attitudes) are reversed.

Steve Roesler has a great post on a better way to look at your work and your life.

“The issue of work-life balance is about what kind of a life you want to have. Work plays a part in that. Decisions that you make about life determine how much work and what kind of work you do. Spending time getting clear about who you are and how you are talented is time well-spent. You may not even like the answer at first. It may conflict with expectations from you, your family, the community, and even society at large.

Maybe that’s the place to start. For those who work best with a label, perhaps Life Integration would offer a better target than Work-Life Balance.”

I like that—Life Integration.

Very few people choose how to die, but too many don’t choose how to live.

They allow the expectations of parents, educators, friends, colleagues, movies, society-in-general and the ever ubiquitous ‘they’ to choose for them.

Most will deny this publicly, but anyone who honestly remembers the power of peer pressure in school will privately admit that it doesn’t cease to exist upon graduation; in fact the pressures increase dramatically while becoming more covert.

Few successful people care to admit that the goals for which they are working and even how they spend their non-work time are more about fitting in than personal desire.

They chase the goals and do the things that ‘everybody’ is doing in the name of being ‘with it’. And that includes “work/life balance” and “having it all right now.”

So the net time you are ready to tear your hair out STOP; stop, take a step back and honestly determine whose goals you are trying to reach.

The answer may surprise you.

Image credit: arkitekt on sxc.hu

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

Most people don’t think of founders as being bosses, including themselves, but, of course, they are.

And as bosses they are responsible for the success of their team, as well as the company.

As well as being a boss, the vision that is the basis of the company originated with them, which frequently leads them to one or more of the behaviors that make them what Wally calls a “bossy boss.”

“Boss” has gotten a bad rap. Many people associate that term with a domineering, order-giving jerk. I think they’re confusing the term “boss” (a person responsible for the performance of a group) with “bossy.”

The Cambridge Dictionary says that: “A bossy person is always telling people what to do.” Great bosses lead productive teams with great morale. Great bosses aren’t bossy at all. They know three important things.

Being Bossy Is Crazy-Making

If you tell everybody what to do, all the time and everywhere, you’re going to wear yourself out. Great bosses know that caring for their people includes helping them develop their skills, abilities, and decision-making. They can’t do that if you’re always telling them what to do. But, if you can stand back and absorb the mistakes that go with learning, people on your team will take a lot of work right off your shoulders.

What’s the alternative? You make yourself crazy trying to do everything and know everything. Morale plummets, and so does productivity.

You Don’t Have Control Anyway

Nobody tells new managers this important truth. When you become responsible for the performance of a group, your power goes down, not up. Oh, sure, you can punish people who don’t do what you want with whatever means your organization will allow.

That’s more like revenge than like power. And, if a team member is willing to absorb the punishment, their behavior simply won’t change. Productivity and morale will plummet.

The only thing you can control is your behavior: what you say and what you do. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough. Use what you say to set clear expectations and to coach, counsel, and encourage. Use what you do to reinforce what you say and set the example.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan defined “autonomy” as one of the three key drivers of intrinsic motivation. David Burkus reviewed studies of how people respond to increased or decreased control of their life in his great book, Under New Management. He summarized them this way:

“The researchers found a significant correlation between employees’ perceptions of autonomy and their overall performance. In short, the more managers cede control over what to do and how to do it, the more employees do it well.”

People Work Better When They Have Control

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan defined “autonomy” as one of the three key drivers of intrinsic motivation. David Burkus reviewed studies of how people respond to increased or decreased control of their life in his great book, Under New Management. He summarized them this way:

“The researchers found a significant correlation between employees’ perceptions of autonomy and their overall performance. In short, the more managers cede control over what to do and how to do it, the more employees do it well.”

Bottom Line

The best bosses aren’t bossy. They know that being bossy makes them crazy, that they don’t really have control anyway, and that most people work better when they control their work.

Copyright © 2018 Wally Bock, All rights reserved.

Image credit: HikingArtist

If you have been following then you saw I took on a new role recently. So far the role has been great and very fulfilling. I have begun diving into what my role is, have started taking ownership and also learning the quirks of my co-workers.

Something that is quite new to me is the fact that I no longer have an office and am in a more open office floor plan setting. It has made me think about how do I like to work and interact with others?

A couple of positive points about working in a more open setting. You always have someone to talk to, it enables easy collaboration and quick huddles with your team to address a challenge.

I also like to hear my colleagues on the phone (we do inside sales), not to listen in, but to get a sense for what best practices look like when I hear them. I have also found that I tend to be a bit more focused on my work when others are around. I can pop on my headphones, listen to music and get into the flow.

There are some definite downsides to an open plan. No privacy. I don’t have a ton of personal calls during the day, but it does happen I have to go out to the elevator bank or a conference room to speak.

Instant collaboration…about fantasy football. Quick way to get out of the flow. And for every best practices call there are a ton where you want to smack your head for hearing something so dumb being said.

And if your headphones are missing then I hope you can grind through and block out the conversations around you.

I don’t have an answer on what is better for an office space, but I do appreciate that my company has break rooms, conference rooms and quiet areas to take calls or work if needed. I can go lounge on a couch if I want and do some work, no one is going to say anything.

So in the end I am satisfied. I get to enjoy my work, go to our onsite gym and drink unlimited amounts of La Croix.

Image credit: Mike_fleming

Unbelievable. Third quarter ends Sunday, which means the year is almost over.

After that there’s really only seven more weeks of fully productive work.

Then comes Thanksgiving and the run-up to all the holidays.

Usually, about a week before thanksgiving is when people start freaking out over all the stuff they haven’t done, especially the goals set last January.

Yeah, the goals that you were going to work on — tomorrow.

Oops.

Suddenly there are very few tomorrows in which to accomplish them.

Missing or just being short isn’t the real problem.

The real problem is that people start putting extraordinary pressure on themselves to achieve them

Not just some of them, but all of them — which is totally crazy.

Worse, on top of that pressure comes all the expectations, pressures and stress of the holidays.

And they wonder why people get so cranky.

I read the following somewhere and it’s stayed with me.

Unrealistic goals lead people to think less of themselves.

The good news is that, as always, it’s your choice.

Join me Monday for more on doing goals right. It may not help this year, but it will keep you from going through it next year.

Image credit: Michel Curi