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.
This post is from 2014, but layoffs are again in the news. Almost every day another company talks about cost-cutting and rumors start to fly. Contrary to what you might think, there is a right way and a wrong way to handle a layoff.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
The need for a layoff can happen to any company of any age or size, but most companies and managers bumble the task and end up doing far more damage than necessary.
The damage is not just to those laid off, but also to those left behind, themselves and the company.
As most of you have read, Cheezburger Networker just laid off a third of its staff, but great credit goes to CEO Ben Huh for bending over backwards to do it with the least damage possible.
He cut his vacation short when he realized what had to be done, as opposed to delegating it and staying away until it was over.
He was honest, open and candid with his entire staff, thus avoiding the kind of rumors that typically circulate.
He did everything possible to ensure those laid off found new positions, including personally reaching out to other companies and setting up his own job fair.
I only know of one manager who got his jollies laying people off (he always tried to do it just before Thanksgiving or Christmas) and he was, without doubt, a sadist.
Most managers, like Huh, find them to be tremendously emotional and not at all fun.
“Often, when faced with a problem, you want to run in the other direction. It’s like seeing a lion in the jungle. But I have to do what is best for the company, even if it sucks emotionally.”
There’s one more required action after a layoff and that’s dealing with the empty space, which can’t be ignored, but can be done positively without spending big bucks.
Monday was about dealing with jerks in your workplace and yesterday about managing lazy co-workers.
What about bosses? Where are they? Why is it being left to workers to deal with problem co-workers?
Over the years (decades, actually), I’ve heard all the excuses — ‘I can’t be everywhere’, ‘I’m working on it’, or the ubiquitous ‘I’m busy’.
Those are the “good” excuses; here are the bad ones — ‘they’re really good at [whatever]’, ‘they’re a friend/relative of X’, ‘they’ve been here since the beginning’, and, in some ways, the worst ‘deal with it’.
Being self-motivated and self-managing should not include having to manage your colleagues.
That’s the boss’ job and why they make the bigger bucks.
I’ve never forgotten what Terry Dial, who eventually became vice chairman of Business Banking at Wells Fargo, told me decades ago when I was a recruiter, “People are 90% of our costs as well as the key to customer service and satisfaction. The only thing that should take priority over hiring a new employee is keeping a current one.”
That hasn’t changed in all these years.
Which begs the question, what are the bosses doing?
Avoiding direct interactions by hiding behind social media and chat apps, just as they hid behind email and, before that, memos.
Sometimes it’s because they are promoted in spite of not being a “people person,” which has nothing to do with whether they are extroverts or introverts.
Good bosses know that when someone is messing up, hurting or one of the other myriad causes of less than optimum behavior, it’s their responsibility.
Poking through 13+ 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.
People. Whether at work or in your personal life, how you choose to respond to people is usually the make or break of any situation. That is especially true when dealing with someone’s negative actions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ryan’s post a couple of weeks ago reminded me of something I’ve wrote a long time ago.
The sum of it was not that great but in the moment it was contentious. Emails and gnashing of teeth on both sides. In that moment I was angry, but I chose to wait to respond.
My solution? Sleep.
Good solution, but when you’re a boss and something happens that makes you angry you usually can’t wait until the next day to deal with it.
So what do you do? Here’s a solution from the 1970s (and before). It worked then, it works now and it will work in the future.
How angry do you become when you ask your team or colleague for X and get X — 4, or X + 1. or even Y? How often have you lost, or almost lost it, because of the response you received during a meeting?
What is the only perfect response you can make when something happens and you’re ready to blow your top?
You’ve heard the answer all your life—when you’re angry, shut up/stay quiet/ don’t say anything; don’t “look” anything, either, until you’ve calmed down. Smart advice, but hard to follow.
Many managers don’t even realize when they go into “screaming mode,” because they don’t actually scream—they drip sarcasm, leak contempt, stream scorn or fire off zingers; they belittle and role their eyes. Most don’t realize the long-term damage that they do to their people; others just don’t care—their attitude is that stuff happens, get over it!
What neither type seems to realize is that, over time, one of three things happen,
people grow inured to their tantrums,
are damaged by them (people do stay in abusive relationships),
or leave the company.
To change this,
you must first acknowledge to yourself that you do it and that you want to change it; then
whenever you feel yourself getting angry smile, nod and leave by saying that you have to make a call, use the bathroom, whatever innocuous excuse best fits the situation;
go somewhere private, blow off steam if necessary, but calm down;
schedule a time to resume the discussion; then
simulate the least amount of anger (if any) needed to get your point across.
It’ll take people time to trust the “new” you, but it’s worth it. In the office, it will pay off in higher productivity and less turnover. You and your people will suffer less from stress, and you, personally, will have more energy, enjoy higher quality sleep, and see improvement in all your relationships
I had something else planned for today, but two things, took precedence.
First, I had coffee with some guys and they started in about how overblown the whole “he touched me” thing had gotten. There were five of them, two said it had been blown up by the media, two thought the women had a point and the fifth said it was all feminist crap from a bunch of man-haters.
I accidentally spilled my coffee on him (it really was an accident; I choked on the sip I was taking when he said that and spilled it), which broke up the party.
So I came home, looked at some news articles and found one that was so relevant I had to share it with you.
For the project, titled “The Dress for Respect,” researchers built a dress embedded with sensor technology that tracked touch and pressure. The information was then relayed to a visual system so that researchers could essentially track harassment in real time. (…) In just under four hours, the women are touched a combined 157 times.
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.
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 theirMAP 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.
Yesterday I had some feedback from a senior exec who said that while he agreed in principle, he wouldn’t try to apply it to his team. He went on to say that his team was so diverse, consisting of recognized experts from different disciplines, that they had only two things in common.
The first was the size of their egos; and the second the desire to solve the problem — their way.
I asked if he had even tried any of the idea in the linked articles.
He said no; he’d been down that road in the past and the cost in time and energy was too high.
I asked if he would reconsider if I could show him a team that made his look like easy, with egos that dwarfed theirs.
The team is made up of politicians from all parties, government officials, corporate CEOs, trade unionists, clergy, journalists, academics, and activists.
That got his attention, as did the task they were brought together to address, because it is not only larger, but far more intractable.
…top Mexican leaders who are working together on a project called Méxicos Posibles (Possible Mexicos) to develop solutions to their country’s daunting problems of illegality, insecurity, and inequity.
Since I knew he was listening I told him one more thing; maybe the hardest one for him to accept — that his ego was similarly sized and his own belief in his ability to make it work was no different than any member of his team.
I told him brute force wasn’t going to cut it and that he didn’t have to do it alone.
Méxicos Posibles used a consultancy led by Adam Kahane, author of Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust.
I suggested he start with that book and other resources linked in my post.
I reminded him he has the stature to reach out to people like Kahane and get a response.
Hopefully I got through; I’ll know in a few weeks what direction he chooses and will let you know.
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.
Coaches, pundits, etc., offer advice on how to handle disrespect, bullying and other negative behavior, some of which is very good. But the approach I like best is summed up in this story of Gandhi and his professor.
The difference between what Gandhi did and what most people do today is that it involved no anger or four letter words; Gandhi used his intelligence to turn the professors own belittling comments against him — and he did it with grace.
KG Charles-Harris recently provided a brilliant example of how to handle such comments, with class and amiable good will—although the recipient might not agree.
While I doubt that the following actually happened, that doesn’t change the intelligence and elegance behind the responses.
When Gandhi was studying law at the University College of London, there was a professor, whose last name was Peters, who felt animosity for Gandhi, and because Gandhi never lowered his head towards him, their “arguments” were very common.
One day, Mr. Peters was having lunch at the dining room of the University and Gandhi came along with his tray and sat next to the professor. The professor, in his arrogance, said, “Mr. Gandhi: you do not understand… a pig and a bird do not sit together to eat,” to which Gandhi replies, “You do not worry professor, I’ll fly away ,” and he went and sat at another table.
Mr. Peters, green of rage, decides to take revenge on the next test, but Gandhi responds brilliantly to all questions. Then, Mr. Peters asked him the following question: “Mr Gandhi, if you are walking down the street and find a package, and within it there is a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money; which one will you take?”
Without hesitating, Gandhi responded, “The one with the money, of course.”
Mr. Peters, smiling, said, “I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom, don’t you think?”
“Each one takes what one doesn’t have,” responded Gandhi indifferently.
Mr. Peters, already hysteric, writes on the exam sheet the word “idiot” and gives it to Gandhi. Gandhi takes the exam sheet and sits down.
A few minutes later, Gandhi goes to the professor and says, “Mr. Peters, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade.”
The ‘trick’ is responding to the actual content, rather than the intent or the person, and turning the put-downs back on the speaker.
The last few days we’ve been talking various aspects and effects of respect, but one of the most important to business is its effect on creativity and innovation (they’re not the same thing), although we touched on it when talking about the drawbacks of a “nice” culture.
The opposite of respect is disrespect and if it permeates a culture you can count on four things.
From this perspective, “misfits” are valuable to companies. They don’t quite fit into a specific team. They’re always challenging why the company does what it does. They’re rebellious. They’re independent. They can seem counterproductive to everything that a manager needs to achieve—to maintain order.
But those are the people that are going to change the game on how your company innovates.
As a boss, culture is your responsibility. You can’t afford to assume that your boss or their boss will make the right choices.
No matter the scope, within your organization it’s your choice.
They are arguing about whether they should have to agree to a community code of conduct (CCoC) that requires them to behave respectfully. (…) That code of conduct basically says that the group is open to people of all walks of life and expects its members to be courteous.
In this context courteous probably means you don’t act like a troll — screaming, cursing, intimidating, harassing, etc — online or real world.
There is nothing that says you have to agree.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to disagree without being a troll.
It’s also possible to have passionate arguments over a subject that include yelling and profanity directed at the subject/opinion, as opposed to the person.
It’s the difference between
That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard
and
You are really stupid to say that.
Further, online trolls don’t necessarily act the same in the real world — it’s easier to be a bully on a keyboard than face-to-face — although more and more do.
It’s actually amusing in a way, since every community of which one is a member has its own CCoC, whether written or inherent.
People abide by them, because, by and large, they agree with them.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written. 
A couple of months ago I wrote two posts, 
