In light of the recent resignation of Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd over
allegations of sexual harassment, it’s a good time to look at sexual harassment
material to understand what it is and isn’t, how to address it, and how to
handle the process. Below are some good links that provide a wealth of
information on the subject for both organizations and individuals.
SH is a
difficult subject for most. Both the victim and harasser can realize tremendous
impacts to their personal and professionals lives. In most cases, we don’t hear
about cases that have been settled or where no evidence was found of wrongdoing.
That’s why it’s important for everyone to observe proper code of conduct at all
times and evaluate personal situations and behavior with the right level of
professional judgment.
Author of Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team,
Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence -- One Person at a Time
Are
you having a bad week at work, or maybe a series of bad weeks? Do you
hopelessly suspect that things will never get better? Have you sadly
concluded that the pay you receive is not in exchange for your output,
but rather for your willingness to tolerate misery?
If so, I
know you don't want to hear about how the emotional state of a single
person can influence a whole group. If I tell you to buck up, think
positively, and set a better example for those around you, you'll stop
reading immediately. You'll probably also come up with a few choice
nicknames for me that I wouldn't want my mother to hear.
So I'm
not going there. Forget it. You don't have to buck up, think positively,
or set a better example. Instead, I just want you to have three simple
conversations next week. I don't even care who you talk to, as long as
you discuss these three topics. 1. "What I am trying to
accomplish is . . . "
A huge amount of workplace
dissatisfaction -- not to mention lost productivity -- comes from a lack
of clear purpose. If you don't know what you're supposed to be doing,
you are destined to be frustrated by feelings of uselessness.
Pick
a purpose! If you're not sure, take your best guess, and then tell
someone what you think you're trying to produce. Don't discuss the steps
you're taking, like email or meetings, just talk about the output
itself. Summarize all of your most important output in about 90 seconds.
Much more, and you risk losing your listener's interest. Much less, and
you risk sounding cliché.
Depending upon your listener, you
might choose to state it with all the certainty of your most important
mission in life, or you might choose to state it tentatively, as if
you'd be happy for someone to correct you (I suggest the latter approach
when speaking with your manager). Either way, you'll be reminding
yourself, and your listener, about why you're bothering to show up.
2.
"What I'm doing matters because . . . "
If you don't want to
feel like a hamster on an exercise wheel, you need to attach the work
you do to a real benefit. This can be a benefit to the company, a
benefit to society, or a benefit to you personally. All three would be
ideal, but you should find at least one.
Tell someone the why
behind your work. Maybe your tireless processing of expense forms allows
other salespeople to travel overseas, find buyers for company products,
and enhance the bottom line. Maybe your quality inspections or document
audits lead to babies being safely strapped in their car seats as per
manufacturer recommendations. Or, maybe your work as a nurse gets you
the experience you need to finally become an ultrasound technician.
Reach
if necessary. Take pains to find at least one reason your work is worth
doing, even if you're not particularly enjoying it at the moment. On
the other hand, don't brag. You're not trying to show off, or show
anybody up. You're simply discussing the ways in which your work matters
to you, your company, and your society at large. 3. "I can
tell I'm making progress when . . . "
What you're doing, and
why, are not quite enough. You also need to experience yourself making
headway toward your goals. Otherwise, your days will blend together in
an endless wave of to-do lists worries, and discussions, and you'll
cease to have the experience that your presence in the workplace
matters.
Seeing your own progress is not the same as
demonstrating progress to others. Your manager may require a status
update at the end of the month, but you need to experience your progress
every day, even every hour. Otherwise you will vacillate between a
detached disinterest in your goal, when it is far off in the future, and
full-scale panic about that goal when the future arrives faster than
anticipated.
Seek simple cues, like the accumulation of completed
forms in your out box, a column of check marks on your to-do list, or
the number of telephone calls you processed this hour. Celebrate when
you're ahead, but don't be afraid to learn that you're behind. When you
have this kind of insight, you will be the first one to see problems
coming. So, you can get to work fixing roadblocks -- looking for more
resources, perhaps, or finding the training you need -- long before you
ever miss a commitment to anyone else. Better Working through
Conversation
These three topics are the practical, positive,
systemic aspects of your work: what you're doing, why it matters, and
how you know you are progressing. They reinforce the fact that you bring
value to, and find value in, your workplace. They focus your creative
energy on value, output, and mutual benefit.
Conversing about
them encourages both you and your listener to think more clearly in
these terms, and distracts you from less productive avenues of
discussion. It's difficult to complain about an uncaring manager when
you're defining the output you need to produce; it's hard to grouse
about impossible customers while recounting the broader good generated
by your work.
To be sure, in having these conversations you're
likely to uncover some real issues: the fact that you don't exactly
know your purpose, for example, or the fact that you're not sure whether
you're making progress. They may seem frightening on the surface, but
once defined, such questions can be investigated. And the answers you
find will invariably lead to feelings of regained control rather than
hopelessness. All you have to do is to start the process, to be the one
to start the conversation.
Remember how I said I wasn't going to
tell you to set a better example for those around you? I lied.
More
to Talk About
Looking for more topics of conversation? Purpose, impact and progress
are only the beginning. Learn all six of the elements you need to
manage an employee, influence a coworker, or reenergize yourself at
work -- in just three and a half minutes.
Author
Bio Edward G. Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics, is the author of
the award winning books Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team,
Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence One Person at a Time and Four
Secrets to Liking Your Work: You May Not Need to Quit to Get the Job
You Want. An expert in workplace improvement and its relationship to
individual enjoyment, Muzio has been featured on Fox Business Network,
CBS, and other national media, and he has been cited in many
publications including the New York Post, the Austin American
Statesman, and Spirit magazine. He lives in Albuquerque, NM.
I am very excited to get more into the topic of Ed Muzio’s latest book: Make
Work Great: Super Charge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence
One Person at a Time. Ed previously wrote: Four Secrets to Liking Your Work.
Both titles available on Amazon.
Ed is no stranger to the dynamics of the work environment and what it takes to
succeed. Ahead of my review of his latest book, Ed was kind enough to answer
some questions for me about his background and inspiration for the book.
1. Can you tell us
more about your professional background?
I graduated from Cornell with an engineering degree, and I began
my technical career at Intel.As an
engineer I was always a little “different” though.While everyone else was analyzing data, I
always seemed to have my attention on things like group interaction or
appropriate levels of authority. Still, I loved working at Intel; I was
constantly learning new things and gaining responsibility, and that taught me
where I wanted to go.From very early
on, I realized that I wanted to help other people be productive, and also have
some fun and balance in their lives. Within my first 18 months, for example, I
had written an e-mail to Tom Peters asking about how to get into his line of
work.
By the time I left Intel, I had run a worldwide and industry wide
technology advancement initiative, helped with the redevelopment of the
company’s front line manager training, and run a group whose sole purpose was
to develop future technology leaders. Of course, the launch of my own firm
pushed me even further into investigating the pieces of social psychology and
human systems.I think it’s the
application of analytical, engineering thinking to the problem of human system
output that makes me uniquely qualified to do what I do.That’s why the tagline of my firm is
“Analytical Solutions Maximizing Human Potential™”
2. What is the main
premise of the book and what motivated you to write it?
A frequent side effect of my work – helping organizations and
their leaders to achieve more output with less stress – is that all kinds of
people tell me what they don’t like about their jobs. I’ve learned to welcome
these conversations, as they provide windows into important, often fixable
issues in the workplace.Using problems
to drive improvements is good practice.
But there is a difference between identifying needs and idle
complaining, or what I call “THEY syndrome.”When someone tells me that nothing can be improved until someone else
does something first, I get concerned.Usually “THEY” means management or leadership.For a long time, my standard response was,
“there is no ‘they,’ only you.You can
either quit, suffer, or make a change.”Dr. Deb Fisher, my friend and coauthor of my previous book, finally
convinced me of the inadequacy of that response.“Your solutions can fix the biggest problems
in today’s workplace,” she told me, “but only if people implement them.You can’t just tell people to do it
anyway.You have to explain how.”
Make Work Great explains how: How anyone, at any level, can take
actions that will improve their workplace experience and have a positive
influence on the culture around them. Certainly, if the reader is a manager,
it’s easy to see why system-wide changes may happen a little faster. But the
main premise is that anyone can start an improvement.Nothing in the book requires anyone else but
the reader to do anything.
3. What is the unique
value proposition of your book (i.e. how is it different)?
For one thing, it works for every level, from executives to new
employees.I was thrilled when one
reviewer called it a must read for CEO’s, and another called it a first-day
guide for new employees.Whoever you
are, you can pick up this book and find something you can do at work tomorrow
that will help.You can give it to your
boss, to your employees, to your CEO, or just read it and do it yourself,
without having to spend time on anything other than the work you’re already
doing.In that way, it’s very practical.
The other unique thing is that within the book are sidebar
references to my whiteboard videos, produced by CBS/BNET and posted on the
book’s website, www.makeworkgreat.com.The videos provide depth and refreshers for
readers, as well as an easy way to share the book with colleagues.If I tell you to buy a book, you may never
get around to it.But if I send you a
link to a 4 minute video, you’ll probably take a look and see what you
think.I’m hoping that the videos will
provide other avenues to spread out new patterns of behavior. That’s the whole
goal. (See one of the videos at the end of this post).
4. Did you have to do
any special research for the book?
There were a few areas in which I had to dig a little deeper to
make sure I had things right.In many
cases, my biggest challenge was to go back and find the references for things
I’d read, heard about, cited previously, and/or incorporated into my thinking.It was one of the more tedious aspects of the
writing process, but the compilation of the bibliography was worth doing even
as a standalone project.
5. What is the impact
of your book to individuals and/or organizations?
Every worker must constantly walk a balance beam between task, or getting
the work done, and relationship, or interacting positively with colleagues and
customers.Lean too far in either
direction and you fall! My book encourages individuals to begin to think
extremely specifically regarding that balance, overtly defining what they are
trying to accomplish, and clearly determining the approach they will use with
the people around them when they need answers or support.
At the individual level, this puts the employee or manager back in
the driver’s seat at work, and increases engagement, accountability, and even
enjoyment. At the organizational level, as members of the group become more
overt and clear about what they are doing, everyone’s attention gets focused on
having the right conversations, and ignoring distractions.That’s good for overall output.
One of my earliest reviewers read the book, began to follow it,
and within a few weeks told me he was seeing improvements in his own activity,
and in the workplace around him.That’s
the kind of impact I love to see.
6. What is the one key
message you want readers to take away?
As the band LinkinPark says, “It starts
with one.”Whoever you are, whatever
level you are at, YOU have the power to make your workplace better, to make
your own job better, and to increase output and reduce stress.You don’t have to wait for authorization from
anyone else to get started, and you don’t have to put your career in jeopardy
either.
7. What else would you
like to share with our readers?
My vision is a world in which professionals at all levels are
productive, engaged, and (I daresay) happy at work. One of my strategies for
achieving that vision is to give away a lot of useful tools!Please invite your readers to visit the video
page on the book’s website.The videos
are self contained, free, and (I’m told) extremely applicable and helpful.It’s an easy way to get a feel for the
purpose of the book, and at the same time to get some tools you can use in the
workplace immediately.
8. Where can people
get more information about you and the book?
Thank you Ed. Wow what a fantastic broad view you have. Your
passion comes through as well where you challenge both organizations and
individuals to achieve the best results possible. I can’t wait to read the
book!
As a workplace guy myself, I strongly encourage people to check out Ed’s work. He
understands how the work environment has changed over the years and his insight
is right on target. Check his company, Group Harmonics, for more information on organization
level solutions.
In a March
2010 BusinessWeek article on job re-shaping, Amy Wrzesniewski at the Yale
School of Management defined Job Crafting as a “naturally occurring phenomenon
in which employees treat their jobs as a collection of tasks that can be molded
and reorganized to fit their individual strengths, passions, and motives
better.” Wrzesniewski and others have studied this concept for years and now
may be the best time for more employers to get on board.
Given the
low
engagement numbers reported recently, as well as concerns over retention as
more jobs open up, exploring job crafting may be a great move by employers to reinvigorate
how key employees view their job and further differentiate and leverage their
skills.
At the
heart to job crafting likes the notion that the employer knows best what they
can do and how their competencies match business and personal needs. Within the
right context and guidance of business needs, managers can provide some freedom
in allowing job enrichment not just job enlargement to occur. This can yield
better performance while motivating employees to explore work options when pure
promotions may not be available due to budget or timing reasons.
Are you
ready for job crafting? Below are more resources to help you explore this
concept further:
An increasing amount of attention is being placed on how organizations perform
business and deliver results. Though
there are still plenty of uncertainties, as organizations transition from pure
survival mode to competitive growth, many have begun evaluating their current
state and how connected and engaged their people are to the organization. After
some time, organizations have begun re-evaluating their business structures and
strategies, and re-aligning their people to adapt to renewed growth in the economy.
As President of Tolero Solutions - Organizational Development & Change
Consulting, Scott Span, MSOD has plenty of experience navigating leaders and organizations
through change in turbulent times to a place of long term sustainability. The
term “tolero” means to endure and sustain, and this philosophy lies at the
heart of Tolero’s strategy. With all the change and buzz about the importance
of employee engagement in the air, Span points to several areas where companies
need to communicate what their doing to employees (and communicate it fast). Span
offers three ways organizations can re-connect and re-engage their workforce:
Communicate& Align Strategic Direction. According
to Span, companies’ have the wait-and-see mode of operation that has plagued
many businesses over the last year, and it’s time to snap out of it. Specifically
they have to become more competitive and prepared for new opportunities. The
trick is – you can’t do that until you’ve defined your strategic direction and reconnected
with your people. If your people have lost touch with what you’re trying to
accomplish, you won’t go very far toward remaining competitive. Span suggests leaders
and managers review what has happened, what’s changed and why, and connect their
people to any new changes, new visions and tactics which arise as a result.
This communication and involvement during any transition will help remind
people what the core needs of the organization are and where they fit in, putting
temporary setbacks in perspective.
Don’t Neglect Individuals: Tied
directly into communicating, a renewed strategic direction is how leaders and managers
reach out and drive a resurgence in team spirit and employee engagement. In particular,
Span notes that if people have kept their heads down just to get by, they may
have started to feel like a cog in the machine – not being noticed for say -
doing the job of the three people who were let go or couldn’t be hired because
budgets were tight. Public recognition for a job well done and non monetary
benefits or spot financial bonuses as revenues increase are useful ways to show
appreciation. Simple recognition is often a quick and easy way to increase
engagement and retention.
Training and Development: Often in
tough times training and education budgets are slashed. Span believes with increased
engagement comes a need to reinvigorate training and development opportunities
and up-level skills. Where possible, offering employees targeted and strategic
decisions on training and education opportunities is vital to sustainability. Providing
employees room to grow competencies either through classroom training or
attending industry leading trend seminars is key to successful realignment.
Span also sees a heightened interest in organizational assessments. As many
organizations are just beginning to reinvigorate and realign, organizational
assessments are a fairly quick and easy way to provide data on current and
future state. This is right in line with the concept of engagement and
realigning priorities and people. Determine where you are before you decide
where you want to be. Span also sees executive coaching increasing. Leaders and
managers are realizing that they may need to change style and approach to
attract, engage, and retain current and new talent. Span also sees an
interesting shift occurring now, as workface demographics are changing, is an
increased focus on generational diversity programs.
Companies realize that Gen Y employees have different
needs than Baby Boomer employees, and Gen Y represents a key part of their
recruitment strategy and future bench strength. Companies want to understand the
view points and communication styles of the various generations so that
employees can have a basis of understanding and flex to each other’s unique
point of view and approach.
Span sees slowed continued growth for the months to come. He believes that organizations
that realign and refocus on people now will remain competitive and sustainable;
and be able to survive the inevitable bumps in the road that will continue to
occur until relative long term stability returns.
For more information about Scott Span, MSOD, - President of Tolero Solutions, an Organizational
Development and Change Management consultancy. Tolero Solutions specializes in
developing people and organizations to be more responsive, focused and
effective to facilitate sustainable growth. Scott successfully delivers
organizational improvement solutions to staff teams, individuals and
organizations in multiple areas including change management, culture change,
leadership development, engagement, retention, performance and sustainability.
He is an author on various topics of organizational development including cross
generational communication, generational alignment, and Gen Y in the workplace
and the creator of the Gen Y
Recruitment and Retention Lifecycle ™. His results have not only helped
achieve desired goals, but have also increased personal growth and development,
leading to a more efficient and effective work environment. He may be
reached at scott.span@tolerosolutions.com.
