Leadership Articles

EVERY COMPANY WANTS TO RUN A TIGHT SHIP BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT TO MAKE EFFICIENT USE OF RESOURCES AND TO SCHEDULE EMPLOYEES WORK HOURS TO MAKE SURE THAT CUSTOMERS GET THE VERY BEST EXPERIENCE.

Far too many organizations are pursuing this goal at the expense of their employees by employing a tactic called “resource optimization” or “just-in time scheduling.”

JUST-IN-TIME, OUT-OF-TOUCH

Just in Time Scheduling , widely used in the service industry, results in last-minute schedule changes with employers even sending workers home after they arrive for work or asking them to stay beyond the end of their shift.

This practice is ridiculous, really.

Time and time again, managers and corporate planners put policies in place that are meant to boost numbers or cut down on overhead, but actually work much better to anger and alienate their employees.

Retail companies (Whole Foods and Container Store, among others) are notorious for this, rotating their employees’ schedules to meet customer demand, and inadvertently disrupting their personal lives in the process.

The flexing schedule is meant to keep costs down and provide improved service for customers, but instead creates resentment among workers who can’t plan other responsibilities around an unpredictable schedule.

BAD FOR BUSINESS

It sounds great in a corporate board to utilize employees or resources only when they are needed. That is not to say employee scheduling should not be managed or maybe even automated – that would be naive.

But scheduling employees to open the store one day and close the store the very next day is not only bad for them,but also bad for business.  Employees who don’t feel like they have some control over their time can leave work feeling left out, in the dark, and like they have no control of their lives outside of work.

If employees feel like they are getting the runaround from management, or that their interests are secondary to profit, the only outcome is reduced job satisfaction and plummeting morale.

RIGHTING THE SHIP

Little by little, managers and corporate policy-makers are starting to understand the importance of happy, engaged employees – according to Vineet Nair in his recent book Employees Come First, Customer Come Second:

Plenty of companies are still out there making decisions based on dollar signs instead of their employees’ best interests.

If only they understood that if they put their staff members first, necessities like efficiency, teamwork, and great customer service improve naturally!

Until companies realize that personally invested, contented employees are their greatest asset, there will continue to be this kind of poor decision making that keeps workers and managers at odds, hurting the productivity of the business at every level and sowing the seeds of mutiny.

So, how are you managing the scheduling for your employees that works best for everyone involved? How can you work to keep the right balance of employee engagement with profitably and productivity and avoid a mutiny? How close are YOU to irritating your people to where they make YOU “walk the plank?” I would love to hear your thoughts!
 
This post originally found on Linked2Leadership.  Make sure to check them out!

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

We all know that diversity is a good thing.  Every major city on the planet is a giant melting pot of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, not to mention the plethora of subcultures that don’t necessarily fall along the lines of ethnicity or gender. Technology makes the world a little smaller. All of us are exposed to those in almost every aspect of our lives.
 
This diversity is, of course, also present in the business world. Companies have increasingly diverse staff members. But is diversity really good for creating high performance cultures?  Absolutely.
 
Here are five reasons why having a diverse workforce increases productivity and profit:
 
1.    It Strengthens Employees
 
At the most basic level, a diverse staff makes each individual employee a stronger asset to the team. Diversity breeds cultural awareness, tolerance, and compassion – all of which are admirable qualities in and out of the workplace.
On the job, these attitudes help navigate stressful situations, keep a level head, and make employees all the more likely to go the extra mile to meet the needs of customers or clients. Exposure to different backgrounds and lifestyles can help employees step outside themselves – which in turn means better identifying with customers and clients, as well as fellow employees.
 
2.    Globalization
 
As the world marketplace gets smaller (and more companies are doing business internationally, hiring virtual employees, or expanding into new markets), representatives of these businesses will undoubtedly be met with language and cultural barriers. Having a diverse population of employees helps overcome these difficulties in two distinct ways.
 
First, much as diversity strengthens employee resolve and builds compassion, having experience learning a new culture or navigating a language barrier with a coworker is excellent training for conquering these obstacles in the field.
Similarly, a diverse group of employees may even contain an individual who speaks a particular language, or who has visited a particular region. This could be an invaluable advantage when competing against other globally active companies.
 

Because diversity is more than ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc., and can encompass a whole host of other preferential and/or inherited traits, employee diversity is a great way to connect with the broad spectrum of your customers.
 
If a customer communicates with someone they can relate to, it will help put them at ease.  This in turn fosters trust. Because diversity has become such an important part of many companies, many customers will recognize and appreciate efforts to build and maintain a diverse team of employees.
 

Employees will naturally share their experiences with one another, learning about different backgrounds and lifestyles and building their personal understanding. This offers an engaging and educational setting for doing business.  When you can offer that type of environment word travels fast.
 
5.    Combined Insight

This is quite possibly the single most important reason for having as diverse a staff as possible: the more minds you have working on a problem, the more different solutions you can come up with. With diversity comes different ways of viewing the world, different upbringings, skills, communication styles, etc.
 
When faced with a challenge in your business, a team of employees with the exact same background may all propose a similar solution.  But a group with a wider range of experiences and opinions may be able to come up with dozens of answers to a single question. Simply put, diversity in the workplace is a way to harness the lessons learned across age groups, country lines, or gender roles. It grants access to multiple perspectives on any given issue, and requires that each and every one of these perspectives be tempered by the others.
 
As we become more connected as a global society, diversity is not a choice. It is both the reality of the world around us, and an absolute necessity for companies that want to remain competitive in the modern world.

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Failing or faltering organizations are quick to point out the unfairness of a system, the weakness in the economy and problems with unions.  Seldom do they admit their part in their own failure and/or eventual demise.  
 
What’s worse is when their own accountability in the situation is pointed out, they attack…the person that pointed it out.
 
Examples

• A recent client became enraged when the results of a survey showed they were not trusted as a leader/manager. They lashed out at the consultant for presenting the data.  Accusing the consultant of trying to undermine them.  Even though the same survey showed that people respected their knowledge, he said the survey was invalid.  When the meeting was over, he tried to cancel the rest of a three-year contract.
• Recommendations delivered by an internal group of high potential employees indicated that leaders needed training in building relationship and encouraging creativity.  The senior team took offense to the notion that they were not providing training and told the team to go back and revise their recommendations.  Three of the members of the team were taken off the high potential list and the team was disbanded prior to completing the second round of recommendations
• A senior leader at a large financial institution was reported to have attempted to fire three members of an employee focus group that gave feedback criticizing his leadership style and “being intimidating”.  When he couldn’t fire all of them, he made sure to let their managers know how upset he was and they should be “watched”.  The employees were responding to the question “What are areas about my leadership that could be improved?”
 
SIGNS THE MESSENGER BETTER BE WARY

1. There is a history of messengers getting “whacked”.

No, this is not a bad mob movie reference.   There are organizations that have a history of dealing with people that give messages that don’t paint a great picture by getting rid of them.  Those “messengers” can be fired, have contracts cancelled, demoted, or given assignments that force them to quit.  There are many organizations with this reputation.  Two that may be familiar are Kodak and the now defunct Eastern Airlines.
 
2. The initial reaction to bad news is to change it to something more positive sounding

When the first reaction is to change anything that may be construed as “not good news” to something positive sounding, be ware.  This means that leaders don’t appreciate news that doesn’t paint a positive picture (or the people delivering it don’t know how).
 
3. When bad or unflattering news is shared, the initial reaction is defense…or attack

Messengers should be very worried when the reactions to news or recommendations are

• Undermining the vehicle delivering the message
• Immediately providing rationale for why the issues occurred in the first place.
• No acceptance of fault or even glimmer of accountability for the situation causing the news/recommendations.
 
FIGHTING FIRE WITH WATER – OVERCOMING THE KILL THE MESSENGER MENTALITY

1. Don’t tell me it’s raining, tell me how to build the ark
Always follow bad news or a tough recommendation with a solution or idea to turn the situation around.  No one really likes to hear bad news, but a solution or remedy to the issue(s) will go a long way.  This is not license to sugar coat anything.  
It can allow for a little more latitude with delivering bad news because there is a solution or method to impact it right away.
 
2. Rip the Band-Aid off quickly
There is no reason, when giving feedback or relating bad news, to do a lot of build up. It is much more effective to just get to the point so that a discussion about remedy can immediately follow.  Unfortunately, there is a tendency to drone on and on prior to delivering news.  Everyone knows that the news is coming.  Deliver the news professionally and rapidly.
 
3. Be ruthlessly compassionate
My British colleagues were masters at delivering bad news well.  They did so by being professional, polite and unflinching in their delivery.  No matter the news, they would make sure the message was delivered in a kind, straightforward manner.  They responded to anger with politeness. They responded to cynicism with matter of fact answers.  There was no doubt the news was not good, but no one felt beat up when it was delivered.
 
4. Know the reaction is not about the messenger
The initial reaction to any bad news is never about the person delivering it (unless you insult or do bodily injury while speaking).  The reaction is really about the person who has it. A leader who yells or throws a tantrum (yes they do that) when bad news or feedback is shared is showing his or her insecurities.  The objective is to get past the initial reaction with tact and politeness so that a real conversation can ensue.
 
No organization can survive without knowing the good, the bad and the ugly of their operations, sales, employee issues, customer service, etc.  The only way to correct issues is to discuss them out in the open and come up with methods to combat them directly.  People can’t be afraid to tell the truth. They must understand how to bring it up so that it can dealt with rather than them being attacked.
 
What successful tactics have you seen in delivering bad news?  What is the worst bad news reaction you’ve seen?

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Are we actively causing all of the fear and uncertainty in the market by constantly focusing on short term success and failures? How can we build things to last if we focus only on what happens in the next days or weeks or quarter?
 
It seems as if nothing could be more damaging to the sustainability of any organization than a myopic focus on the short-term. Yet, the stock market and our overall economy seems to be dependent upon what is coming up next versus how will we sustain success over time.
 
If we were to focus actions in our long-term relationships based on one day or one conversation, there’s no doubt that many of them would not last. The same holds true for organizations.  Organizations that don’t take the long view are doomed to be victims of the news versus creators of it.
 
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?

•  Make decisions based on long-term view.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owes much of his success to his ability to look beyond the short-term view of thinking

Amazon has often ruffled investors’ feathers by sacrificing short-term profits to make big bets on new technologies.  Taking the long-view, while managing daily issues can reap huge benefits.
 
Companies like Apple, Amazon and countries like China, have kept their eyes on the long-term view and are reaping its benefits. Focusing only on  the next step avoids preparing for the long road ahead.  When all the emphasis is only on the next quarter, opportunities for growth and innovation are sacrificed.
 
Is long term success and viability worth that short-term view?

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Looking for ways to ignite the creative juices of your team or organization? Here are three sure fire ways to get interesting and new ideas to drive sales, customer service and overall performance.
With all of the methods below – make sure that the objective/issue trying to be solved/addressed is clear.  Everyone should be working towards the same goal.

I WISH

Part 1 – Have the group brainstorm with no constraints regarding issues or concerns they have with the status quo.  Each person starts their idea with the statement “I wish”.  This method can be done in a group, but often is best to start out with some quiet individual time.  Participants write out statements for about two minutes, then in small groups they share them.  Its important that all of the “I wish” statements are captured.

Part 2 – The group will then pick the top three ideas to work on (prioritize them in what ever manner is most effective).  Each prioritized idea will be turned into something that CAN be implemented.  The objective here is to allow the group to be as creative as possible and turn a “wish” into reality.
 
WHAT’S THE OPPOSITE

Part 1-  Start with a traditional  brainstorm of ideas that would produce fairly common solutions

Part 2 –  Ask the group to think of “ what is the opposite of these traditional ideas?”.  They can be literal opposites and alternatives to different aspects of the traditional idea.

Part 3 – Identify two or three of the most common opposites.  Ask the group to think about:

• What would happen if we did this/used this opposite?
• How could we address our issue if the opposite was the only solution we could use?
 
LET’S BUILD THIS TOGETHER

Traditional brainstorming can sometimes reduce the number of great ideas and be less creative because of group dynamics. This technique removes the more challenging element of group interaction but retains the power of “using more than one head”. It prevents the most dominant people from taking over and still allows individuals to build on other’s ideas.

Each person starts out with a blank piece of paper

Part 1 – Everyone writes down the objective at the top of his or her sheets.

Part 2 – Each person writes down one or two creative ideas and then passes the sheet to his or her team mate on their right.

Part 3 – On receiving the sheet, the team mate reads the ideas written down, and sees if they spark off any new ideas of their own. They should then add two new ideas of their own, or develop the current ideas further, then pass it on to the right.

Part 4 – Repeat the process either until each person has the idea they started or for an allotted time.

Of course, the step after brainstorming/idea generation is evaluation.  It is critical though that throughout the idea generation there is NO evaluation or judgement!  Don’t kill the creativity, let the ideas flow!

(Hey leaders, don’t stifle the creativity of your team.  Learn how here)

What idea generation methods have you seen be successful? Please let us know! Send your ideas here!

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The success of organizational change initiatives ranges from 30 to 35 percent. That means that 65 to 70 percent of all change fails! Why would any organization take on a project like that if the odds are that it’ll fail?  Because they MUST.  Industries, customers, technology, and marketplaces are changing more rapidly than at any other time in history.
 
WHY OH WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

There are no sure-fire, guaranteed methods that will lead to a successful organizational change.  But there is one way that will almost certainly lead to its demise – leaving those impacted by the change out of creating the change itself.  This leads to natural resistance.

Resistance to change is about perceived lack of control: people feel like the change is “being done to them” and they don’t have a say in it.
 
WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Involve all of those impacted by the change.  A simple way to think about it is:

1. Make sure you find every constituency that might be impacted by the change – employees, customers, leaders, etc.

2. Involve all those constituencies in building the case for change.

3. Ensure that each constituency is a part of creating the solution.

4. Train key members of each constituency to implement and sustain the change.

Another key is to create wins and successes that people can see.  According to Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, it is beneficial to create short-term wins to build on the change. Then, anchor the changes into the corporate culture with continuous efforts – like talking about progress at every chance and publicly recognizing key constituencies involved in the change.
 
There are many different methods to implement change/transformation successfully (Kotter, Proci, etc.).  All of them are great.  However, no organization can transform successfully without involving those impacted by the change.  Trying to force change will result in the culture rising up and crushing it.
 
How have you seen those impacted by change involved in the change process?

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.