Author: Carrie Maldonado

Carrie Maldonado, is an organizational development consultant, author, and speaker. Carrie's eclectic mix of professional interests include writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting on topics ranging from organizational behavior management to spiritual transformation in and out of the workplace. Carrie lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her patient and long-suffering husband and their three children.

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Managers: Are you killing your pigeons?

When I was fresh out of university, I had the incredible privilege of being mentored by a pioneer in behavioral psychology, Dr. D. Chris Anderson. Dr. Anderson was a professor emeritus at Notre Dame University and by the time I met him, he was working with organizations across the United States and Canada applying the principles of behavioral psychology in the workplace. Behavioral Psychology (think Skinner’s rats pressing levers for food) has gone somewhat out of vogue in the advent of Cognitive and Positive Psychology in terms of leadership tools but in my opinion you just can’t beat it for developing solid management systems that work. Chris was very passionate about different ways his technology could be relevant in the marketplace and he definitely infused me with the same passion. As I began to develop myself as a coach, I was happy to augment more of the ‘touchy-feely’ transformation leadership and positive psychology research into my work, but still use organizational behavior management as the cornerstone of my work with managers and company owners.

One of the stories Chris used to tell was how, back in the sixties, it was popular to train pigeons to do un-pigeonlike activities, such as walking in a figure eight (rarely if ever necessary in a pigeon’s natural environment, as you might expect). You could train them to do anything, Chris used to say, as long as you were consistent in your reinforcement schedule.  In the case of walking in a figure eight, you can wait around for years, and will never ‘catch’ it just doing it spontaneously for you to reward it. So, when you are training a pigeon to do something totally unfamiliar, you need to give small and frequent rewards for every new behavior getting. You might tape the eight on the floor and put pellets along the path the pigeon is to walk. Then remove the tape after several sessions. Then remove more and more pellets…you get the idea. Basically, you reinforce progressive movements towards the goal with frequent and contingent reinforcement. Simple, right? However, once in a while a tired or drugged out (this was the sixties, remember) lab assistant would drop a pellet outside the proscribed figure eight and the pigeon would get derailed. When that happened, the pigeon was never, ever able to forget about the time he/she wandered off track and got an unexpected reward. Because times were hard in those days for lab pigeons, the fate of a mis-programmed pigeon was, sadly, death.

Now, please note, employees are different from pigeons and I am a huge Daniel Pink fan and completely agree that the types and schedules of reinforces vary to a tremendous extent and that you would never, ever use delicious food pellets to elicit spontaneous creative behavior (free snacks nonwithstanding). However, I WILL pretty much go to the wall and state that managers can metaphorically kill their employees with inconsistent rewards or punishments.

Most managers or company owners I work with consistently bemoan the fact that their employees don’t care about the company as much as they do. By this they are usually talking about stewardship of company resources or customer goodwill. They want employees to bring up solutions, carry a high sense of urgency and problem solve.

Unfortunately, in nine times out of ten, the owner has killed that pigeon. How? By accidentally punishing desired behavior or rewarding undesired behavior. The most common things I see is making it painful for someone to tell you bad news, or, conversely, ‘rewarding’ substandard performance with less work and a raise.

To illustrate: What happens when an employee brings you news about a major equipment malfunction? I’m assuming TELLING you about the malfunction is a good thing. It allows you to engage in damage control. If the employee who communicates this to you gets sworn or yelled at or denigrated – guess what? It won’t happen again. Trust me, this is not a good thing and if your employees can’t get past this, it is metaphorically fatal for them (and eventually you). Similarly, if someone brings you an innovative idea or plan, and you scoff at them because it’s a bad idea (and we’re not in grade school so of course there ARE bad ideas from time to time) or worse, remonstrate them for wasting company time daydreaming, you will have very effectively eliminated any more creative thinking. 

The second most common example of improper reinforcement is when a poorly performing employee is relieved of responsibilities (which are usually given to a highly competent employee, without the requisite pay increase). Poor performer is 8/10 not written up and often still receives a raise on his/her annual review. Maybe not a big one, but they’ll probably get something. It is almost impossible to redeem this situation.

Now, I’m not convinced that one incident can destroy the employee’s desire to contribute forever…but I’m not saying it never does, either.  The ability of our reactions as leaders to impact others are astoundingly more powerful than we tend to believe. I encourage the folks I coach to be very intentional about the behaviors they are hoping to see from their people and extremely cognizant of their own reactive tendencies to try to reduce the chances of inadvertently creating the exactly opposite effect they are hoping to create.

So think before you react, and save the pigeons!

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How can you make everyone happy with your workplace culture? (Hint: you can’t)

Working with leaders to create high performing cultures of engagement while maintaining true to the owner’s vision for her company AND staying on the right side of ever-restrictive employment law is not without the occasional, small challenge.  If I wrote a book about my real life stories and experiences, no one would believe me. In one day alone, for example, I was coaching an HR Director about some challenges she’s having with her employer – a company owner who insists upon interjecting in every employee relations issues and in using workplace gossip as his primary source of information – and wanting to act on it (for example…John J, who I really like, told me that Edgar E is a bad employee. So let’s fire Edgar E!) That same day, I stepped into a mini-minefield after participating in an online discussion forum about bible study at work. It brought home for me just how very complex the ‘culture’ question is when it comes to employment. Besides just HR legalities, discrimination and all that there are also a host of factors inherent in a positive or less positive company culture that make it a very difficult field to navigate.

A lot of times, company owners feel frustrated and resentful that they can’t just run their company the way they want and the way that makes sense for them. Some comments I’ve heard along these lines are:

·       I’m a private company, why can’t I have bible study if I want to?

·       I need someone to work a very physical job. If they come in limping, or appear to be too old to do the job, why can’t I ask them about it?

·       I would much rather hire friends and family than strangers. I know I can trust them.

·       I don’t want to create job descriptions, because things change too fast and I don’t want people telling me that’s not their job description.

·       Why don’t my managers care about all the wasted time and money these mistakes are costing me?

·       I think a dog friendly environment is awesome and I want everyone to bring their pet to work.

These may seem like different concerns but at the heart of it is the same issue. The business owner has a vision and a dream for their company. Not everyone’s vision and dream is the same, but everyone who starts a business has a picture in their head of what it’s going to be like. I have never met a company owner or leader who consciously had malicious intent (well, maybe one but that’s another story). Everything they do is either for a good reason, or is the result of an oversight. Unfortunately, a lot of times what starts out as a great idea can go awry. Some organizations that had the very best of intentions have elicited employee comments like these:

·       After I told the COO that my religion was (insert different religion than COO’s) I noticed I stopped getting invited to events with all the other managers, and soon after that I was laid off.

·       I don’t go to the company bible study, and one time someone left a note on my desk telling me I should start attending. I feel like I’m getting singled out.

·       My supervisor is my boss’s cousin. He’s very rude to me, but there’s no point complaining because he’s already told everyone he’s got a ‘job for life’.

·       I have no idea what my job here is. My duties have nothing to do with my title, and I haven’t had a review in 2 years. I just do what I’m told every day and figure that no news is good news.

·       I’m allergic to dogs and I think it’s disgusting to go into the break room and find animal hair on the floor.

Hearing the disparate comments from managers and employees is far more the norm than the exception!  In response to what is sometimes horrific discrimination and unfair treatment, legislators have enacted workplace laws that sometimes feel chafing or even devoid of common sense at times. It sometimes seems impossible that workplaces can have personalities anymore. So what can be done?

Obviously, the fix is more complicated than a paragraph in an article. If you own a company, a great starting point is to make sure you are completed connected with your vision. Sometimes we can get hung up on the how’s and forget the why’s. Do you really want a dog-friendly environment to be the hill to die on, for example? Or is allowing pets at work HOW you get to something bigger? By thinking of the WHY, you are more likely to come up with a solution for the talented, creative, non-dog-lovers on your team. Remember that no matter how passionate they are about something, a good leader will take care not to create an environment that excludes people for anything other than lack of performance (because the management consultant in me is happy to inform you that as of today, you can still fire people for doing a terrible job). And not to enflame an already touchy situation, but if the result of your bible study is that people feel judged and hurt you just may be missing the why. Just maybe.

Company owners may argue that in this day and age, everyone is always getting their feelings hurt, and it’s impossible to please everyone. I suppose, but I have found that most people, on an individual basis, are pretty reasonable and just want to feel included, accepted and that they are able to contribute to the best of their ability and be recognized for that. Surely there is room in your vision for that! And, as an extra bonus, you will reap unbelievable benefits in performance and loyalty once you’ve made that intentional.

 

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Adding to your team: 5 bad hiring practices to avoid

When you own or lead a business, you will eventually go through the process of adding to your team. Depending on your business, this may happen often or it may be rare. Regardless of the position, who you bring on board is one of the most important things you will do to your company. If you have entrusted this to your managers, or other leaders on your team, it can be a big mistake to assume that they have the ability, training or experience to do a good job on your behalf. Regardless of a manager’s background, they may very well be falling prey to common bad hiring practices that can prevent making a good hire or can increase the chances of making a bad hire. 

1)      Weeding vs Prospecting

If you are taking a weeding out stance to hiring versus a prospecting for gold stance, you will be screening interviews and asking questions with the goal to trip someone up or find their flaws. The good news with this approach is that you will always be successful. The bad news is you will possibly turn away the best candidate in your life because they had a flaw. In case this is news to you, I’ll say it slowly. Everyone has flaws (even you). Look at the bigger picture and determine if your organization has the systems, training or mentors to mitigate the flaws while capitalizing on the gold. This approach allows you to experience the truly transformational possibilities of leadership.

2)      Talking too much

If you or your managers are really excited about the company or the role, you may easily find yourself talking too much in the interview. This also happens when you just ‘fall in love’ with a candidate and want to convince them why they should work for you. Ironically, I’ve noticed that the managers who tend to talk the most during the interview, also tend to rate the candidates most highly, so really watch out for this tendency as it can waste a lot of time. An easy fix is to write out your questions ahead of time and make sure you get through them all.

3)      Lack of passion for the company and /or job

This is the opposite of the previous point. In my role as recruiter, I have encountered managers who are seriously unhappy in their jobs or with the company and it makes it really difficult for them to add to the company.  Sometimes it’s so bad they actually feel guilty bringing someone else into such a miserable environment, and other times they just project a negativity into the interview that is only attractive to other, equally negative people. If there is a lack of enthusiasm or passion for the role, as a leader you need to deal with it promptly, whether it’s your own or your manager’s.

4)      Interviewing questions without predictive validity

Predictive validity refers to how well the answer to the question indicates how well the person would do in the role. “What kind of animal would you be on a carousel?”, “What’s your favorite color?” are obvious examples of questions with no predictive validity. There are others that are not so obvious. “How would you go about ensuring you resolved a customer complaint” is similarly unhelpful, but a surprising number of interviewers ask situational questions. Although these can tell you some useful information and an argument can be made (although probably not by me) that they serve a purpose, it is important to include at least some questions that will give you an idea of how well a person will perform the role. Since the best predictor of future behavior is previous behavior, this means you will need to find out if they have successfully performed similar or transferrable roles in the past.

5)      Lack of clarity on role expectations

It is incredibly difficult for both interviewer and interviewee if there is lack of clarity in role expectations. This can happen if someone has delegated the interviewing, if it is a new role, if there is lack of agreement in the role or other transitional type circumstances. Not only will it be difficult to determine if someone is the right fit, it will equally impossible for them to succeed without clear expectations. Take the time to vet out the need for the role, the 30,60,90 day accomplishments, how the position fits into the overall structure and vision of the company. Make sure you know who they will report to, hours, compensation, travel, and the knowledge, skills and abilities they need to succeed. In addition, you should have a thorough description of the work environment and what it takes to thrive there. Without this, everyone is operating blind and your chances of making a good hire are very slim.

So if your managers are new to hiring, or if your new hire success rate is about 50/50, consider investing some time into fleshing out the roles and cultural expectations and training interviewers on how to identify the golden candidates who will make your company a more profitable and better place to work. 

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Challenging the ‘net-casting’ theory of recruiting!

By this stage of my career, I have been on every side of the recruiting perspective (other than that of being a national head hunting firm, which I am not). I’ve been an HR Director in charge of recruiting, I’ve been a resume writer, I’ve been an actual recruiter, I’ve been a hiring manager and I’ve been a job searcher and I think I represent the majority of folks when I say that this process is NOT fun, enjoyable, cost effective or particularly efficient.  For the purposes of this article, I’ll be speaking primarily to hiring managers and I think most will agree that reviewing resumes and interviewing candidate after candidate rates right up there with budget cuts, inventory weekend or possibly documenting performance problems.

Usually, when company owners or managers need to hire someone, they pull out the job description and figure out if it’s reasonably accurate.  A good job description will contain the duties and responsibilities as well as the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to do the job. This is posted pretty much ‘as is’ on a job board, and then the hiring manager sits back and waits while sometimes HUNDREDS of people respond to the ad with equally bland resumes. They sift through who looks promising (and after about 20 resumes, it can be very difficult to stay focused and/or tell one from another), make some calls and begin the ‘weeding out’ process.

Now, my professional opinion is that going through this sucks. However, this does NOT mean that finding amazing people for your amazing business sucks. It’s just that it’s a sucky, broken system that we only keep using because we’ve always used it. We are ‘casting our nets’ wide. Now, I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t have time to weed through thousands of sardines looking for the perfect kipper.

Consider instead approaching this process with professional confidence and pride in your company. No, you may not be BIGNAME CORPORATE GIANT, but not everyone wants to work for them. As I mentioned in another article, maybe you’re not paying off the charts in compensation but the reality is you DON’T want to attract 100 candidates for your job. You want to attract one (maybe two if you’re booming). Maybe, just maybe, you should change your hunting analogy to more of a snare trap than a net (and maybe not use a hunting or otherwise violent analogy for bringing aboard new employees, now that I think about it).

With just a little bit of effort on the front end, you can drastically reduce your recruiting time and probably actually enjoy the process. Instead of a typical, bland, corporate-y job description, approach this as a marketing campaign, only it’s a two way marketing campaign. Most job descriptions focus on the features you are looking for from the candidates and the features you are offering. “You will process payroll, unemployment claims, benefits….blah, blah, yawn, yawn…” “We are a great company….our people are our greatest resource…we have snacks…blah, blah, yawn, yawn…”

Any great marketing coach will tell you it’s the benefits that sell, not the features. Every company (with one big fat glaring exception that I can think of) says their people are their greatest resource. Every. One. Every Payroll Processing job is more or less similar. So what is the unique contribution you really want from your next hire? Will they love creating order and structure where there is none and not go completely bonkers when you re-invent their world every six months? Then SAY THAT!!  There is someone out there who is awesome at that and knows it, and you kind of want to warn off the ones who will run screaming into the night the third time you do that to them!

There are benefits to EVERY feature – especially your company and your target employee. Even features that aren’t conventionally sought-after are benefits to someone. The old ‘lid for every pot’ phenomenon. Employment is much more like a marriage than like a fishing expedition in that we are seeking quality and a symbiotic blending of uniqueness rather than 100 cut cookies falling into 100 perfect cookie shapes.

So…if you’re feeling frustrated with your current process consider the following.

  • Write a compelling, refreshing description of the benefits of the role and of the perfect person.
  • Describe the role and person so specifically that 98% of the wrong people will realize it’s not them, and the right person will recognize themselves immediately.
  • Don’t be afraid to use humor if that reflects your culture.
  • Don’t ask for more than you need in terms of experience or education. Talk instead about where the role is now, and where you want the person to take it, if different.
  • Don’t play the pay guessing game. You have a budget for the role. Unless it puts you at competitive risk, just tell the candidates what your range is. People will assume it’s somewhat negotiable (and it probably is) but if you’re in two different stratospheres it’s probably good to know right off the bat.
  • Let the candidate know the 30, 60 and 90 day deliverables in the role. If you don’t know this, figure it out. How else were you going to know if they were doing a good job? I am recruiting for a very savvy CFO who did most of the above for his positions and the comments from virtually every (very well-suited) candidate was that it was rare and attractive knowing the expectations and working for a company that a) had the expectations and b) communicated them.
  • Ask the candidate for a cover letter addressing how they fit in to all of the above. I personally wouldn’t consider a candidate who ignored this request, but you may feel differently.

Some food for thought that will hopefully make finding your next employee of the year a little easier. Happy hunting…or prospecting, if you will!

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What if you can’t afford to be the highest paying employer?

Finding and keeping the best employees for your company is probably THE most challenging aspect of leadership. Well, that and Department of Labor audits, but that’s another story. Almost every company says that its people are its most important resources and many of them believe it, but when it comes to developing a compensation strategy, how do you translate this value into action? Believe it or not, there are quite a few companies out there who do not have a compensation strategy at all! If their company has grown slowly, wages are probably a direct reflection of the current employees’ previous salaries with perhaps an adjustment for how the company was functioning financially at the time ofhire. This works to an extent…until it doesn’t. Unless you have stumbled upon a wildly profitable service or product with no competition, at some point or other you WILL be challenged to create a winning compensation strategy. Here are some things to consider when building yours.

What does it take to be successful at your company?

As the leader, you HAVE to know this! What are the skills, abilities and knowledge required for each position in order to carry it out effectively? Is prior education important?

What is the training curve?

If you need someone to come in and hit the ground running, this usually means they have got to have prior experience doing something very similar. The more difficult the duty, and the less training you are able to provide, the more you are going to have to pay.

Can you offer career growth?

When I recruit talent, the best and brightest are almost always seeking growth. Contrary to some stereotypes, I do NOT find that all emerging professionals want to be managers immediately, but they DO want a career path. Workers today don’t blindly trust that they will get to stay at a company for their entire career and be taken care of, nor should they. They ask the hard questions about mentoring, training and development opportunities. And they are not unreasonable – most of them understand the value of this investment and don’t demand top dollar if the company is investing in them in other ways.

Is your culture ‘that’ great?

Most companies I recruit for describe themselves as great places to work with awesome people. That alone will probably not entice someone to take a job for less than they’re making now, or less they could get down the street. There ARE some workplace cultures that do just that. Typically this might be a far above-average dedication to a greater purpose, or perhaps unusual flexibility, time off or other perk not usually seen.

What about benefits?

The landscape here is changing faster than I can keep track of. As employers struggle to come to terms with the Affordable Care Act, many employees are accustomed to more and more expensive premiums with less and less service attached to them. Some companies have opted out completely. I’ve seen candidates not bat an eye at not having benefits and for others it is a deal-breaker. Assess your demographic and do what makes sense for your talent pool.

While it would certainly be easiest to just be able to pay at the top of the scale. When you can’t, you can still attract great people if you have LEGITIMATE training, growth or a unique or attractive culture. If you don’t, then it is absolutely imperative to have systems and processes that can withstand higher turnover or less talented workers.  

So I strongly encourage you to review what you really need people to do, figure out what those people really want and develop a strategy to attract them and/or mitigate turn if you’re just not there yet. Being intentional about your compensation strategy WILL make recruiting far easier and will put you far ahead of your competition!

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Building your team: When talent isn’t enough

When you are building your own business, or experiencing rapid growth, just getting through the day can be a challenge. You are putting out fires, sometimes setting them, and of course responding to a thousand ‘gottaminutes’ throughout the day. In the midst of solving customer crises, ensuring the cash is flowing in the right direction and just getting staff hired, something like culture, while not unimportant to you, can get relegated to something you’ll get to at just about the same time you actually take that week off you’ve been promising yourself.

Unfortunately, failing to be intentional about your culture is as damaging as failing to take your vacation. The results of personal burnout include fatigue, irritation, and lack of productivity…much the same as an unproductive culture. A lot of times, leaders don’t address this not because they don’t want to, but because it seems too vague to wrap their minds around.

Usually leaders are primarily focused on the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform whatever tasks need to be performed. Don’t get me wrong, technical competence is necessary – so necessary that I spend a large portion of my time with my clients defining duties, building training programs and selecting people with the right composition of skill, and then developing valid and accurate performance metrics for the key functions. However, it is far from sufficient.  Recently, Inc.com published an article about media giant Netflix, and their policy not to tolerate ‘cultural terrorists’  based on the extensive damage caused by an improper cultural fit.

So what is a good cultural fit? For that matter, what is your culture? I think the easiest way to answer this is to answer succinctly and clearly: How do you want your employees to represent your company to each other and to your customers?  After you answer it, then find out what your employees (and customers) say.

The heart of your culture reveals:

·       What are the true values? (Profit at any cost? Integrity at any cost? Honesty? Winning?

 

Clues to your actual (versus stated) culture can be seen in:

·       How do people talk to each other?

·       How important is your employees’ and/or customers’ personal well-being?

·       How important is mutual respect and integrity?

·       How easy is it to tell each other bad news?

·       What happens when people make mistakes?

These and further questions identify your culture. For every person, and every organization, there will be times when the apparent means to success are at odds with one’s code of ethics and the true value of one’s culture is how those situations are dealt with. Is cutting corners okay when the stakes are great? Is abusive or bullying behavior admissible when the perpetrator has a unique skill set or the ability to garner high revenue? Every person, and every organization, has stated and actual values and the best way to truly know the actual values is to look at the decisions that are made in tough times, and the behavior that is tolerated.

For leaders, the first step is usually to identify the desired behaviors and articulate them. Then, we can look at the actual landscape and whether there are disconnects. If there are, the next step is to determine how important it is to you to conform to your ideals or if the rewards justify the disconnects. In the event that the ideals win out, the final step is to develop an action plan to get back to your preferred roles of conduct; including coaching and even termination for those that cannot or will not honor them.

If you have started a company, or lead one, chances are high that you had a strong set of values and a vision for your organization well before you hired your first employee. In the midst of the battle that is running a successful organization, it is easy to lose sight of this. Unfortunately, one or two oversights or compromises can have an avalanche effect, and you may find yourself staring at a mass exodus or even a lawsuit if bad behavior becomes tolerated or even rewarded in your company. Ask yourself today: Are my employees representing my values to each other and my customers? If yes, good job! If no, you now have awareness, and the truth can set you free!

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How to ensure the people on your team act like they’re on YOUR team

If you are the leader or manager of a business, you are not alone if you’ve ever thought “I’d love my job if not for the people!” Leadership is NOT for the faint of heart and I’d hazard a bet that even as you’ve thought those words, you still know in your heart of hearts that you only want what’s best for your team.  Most entrepreneurs and business owners that I’ve worked with have all had a vision for their company and part of that vision included being the best at what they do and being a great place to work. I know many very successful executives and business owners who have learned everything on their own and by doing the opposite of what they experienced and hated as employees.

Yet as strong as the vision might have once been, many people find themselves at that turning point wondering, is it even worth it?  Big deals dry up, small problems don’t and people who said they were eager to turn your dream into a reality when you interviewed them have suddenly become complain-y and entitled and you often think to yourself, this is NOT what I signed on for. Sometimes, the temptation of going back to your old nine to fiver when you at least had a steady reliable paycheck is almost irresistible.

If that sounds familiar, rest assured that it is extremely common! Just because you had the courage and initiative to start a business doesn’t suddenly make you immune to self-doubt or fear like the rest of the world. The difference for great leaders and entrepreneurs is that you have the ability to work past the fear and hold on to your vision.  If you have identified that the people on your team aren’t acting like they are on YOUR team, then you need to take action!  Here are some tips to address  pitfalls common to leaders and entrepreneurs to prevent them from becoming huge headaches.

1) Maintaining communication

This is particularly true if you have a small team. A lot of times, business owners and leaders just assume that the team has the same passion for success and are as excited about the business as you are. This is not a safe assumption. Most of your employees are probably not as informed as you think. They’re not mind readers and if you want them to be as enthusiastic as you are, you have to plant the seeds and water them daily. Share your hopes, share your excitement and…

2) Solicit Input

Hopefully you have people working for you whose input you value. If you don’t, it might be worth a look at why that is and whether you have the right people working for you OR whether you might be better off as an Individual contributor rather than a leader with employees reporting to you. If you want your people to care about the organization, the more you ask what they think and implement the more invested they will be.

3) Rigorously address issues

Understatement of the year: Avoidance and denial are not good business tools. Whether you are overlooking sloppy workmanship, trying to see the best in an employee who unenthusiastic in her role or just hoping things get better, failing to address issues can quickly lead to an unbelievable amount of stress on your part. Think of the absolute worst case scenario if you were to have a tough conversation with your employee and NOT having that conversation is guaranteed at least five times worse than that. 

4)  Keep the big picture in mind

Work ON the business! Yes, there are fires, yes there is the tyranny of the urgent but if you want your business to grow, you need to have a vision and destination. Growth and success are not just they happy by-products of doing all the little things right; instead, you need to be intentional every day about where you are going so you know what little things you should even be doing!

5) Develop your leadership skills

A recent article in Forbes illuminates how extremely important leadership skills by showing that in almost all cases, the skills of the subordinate are always slightly less than their immediate supervisor. That means that if you are at the top, it’s critical that your leadership abilities be top notch! If you don’t feel this is your strong suit, fear not…many of the skills are teachable AND learn-able. 

Clearly these are just five points, but if you are diligent about improving you will soon find yourself with much fewer ‘people problems’ and moving much closer to your vision.

 

 

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career coaching Uncategorized

Is the job you ‘hate’ keeping you from soaring?

Lately, I seem to have run into a higher than usual proportion of people who claim to hate their jobs.  Some of them seem very convinced of this and some maybe just love to hate.     Now, often people are just expressing a momentary frustration (a dangerous thing to do in the presence of a literal thinker like yours truly – just sayin’).   These momentarily frustrated people are primarily satisfied in their job 80% of the time or even more and just have occasional flare ups of dissatisfaction. But there are, on the other hand, people who are genuinely, chronically and terminally out of love with their job, occupation or industry. 
If you have thought or said that you hate your job on a more or less consistent basis for, say, more than six months, then you just may actually hate it.  The coach in me just can’t leave a statement like that alone, so when this is the case I think it’s good to ask yourself:

Part 1.  What is it about this job in particular you hate?  Is it the commute, your peers, your boss, your customers, the mission of the company, the industry, the tasks you are required to perform, is it monotonous (or conversely, too chaotic), unethical, boring, too difficult?
I recommend a very thorough analysis of the above points.  Be as detailed as you can.  This is the time to whine, people…get it all out and figure out what is it about this particular job that is pressing your buttons.

Part 2.  This is the kicker, take a very good and honest look at your employment history.  Is this particular job the only one where you’ve felt this way or is there a pattern?  This is going to be the key to your happiness, so do not skimp on thoroughness and honesty here.  If you have a pattern of chronic dissatisfaction, your solution will be much different than if you’re a generally satisfied employee except for now.

Part 3.  If you have done your homework you will now have realized one of two things:
A)    I love my career but I hate this particular job or
B)    I hate my career

If you hate your particular job you will probably have a good idea of why.   Now look at the why and determine whether it is changeable.  For example, if it’s your boss, and he owns the company, that is probably not changeable.  Some things will be.  It might be worthwhile to have a discussion with your supervisor about what you’d like to change.  Come prepared with solutions.  If things can be changed, great! If they can’t, you will need to ask yourself if you can accept the status quo and learn to be happy or if you need to find a new job (I know a great resume writer if that’s the case).

On the other hand, what if you hate your career?  Going through the discovery process may lead you to realize that you are not pursuing your dream, and have ‘settled’ for something that is now making you miserable.  Pursuing dreams is not for the faint of heart.  Sometimes it is accompanied by financial insecurity or other potential negative outcomes.  You could fail.  It might not be as good as you thought it would be and you would have a  -gasp- crushed hope.   Everyone has a different threshold of financial need, faith, risk tolerance and fear factor.  The pain of hating your career may drive you over that threshold, or it may drive you into acceptance of existing circumstances (made easier by practicing gratitude for the things in your life you don’t hate).  
There is clearly no right or wrong answer, but if you do feel regularly like you hate your job, there are things you can do to ease the discomfort.  If you have hated a job, or currently hate your job, I’d love to hear your story!

Carrie Maldonado is owner of Limitless HR Solutions, a Seattle-based management consulting firm.   As a certified HR Professional, executive coach and resume writer, Carrie divides her time between consulting with small to mid-size businesses and career coaching with executives in transition.  Carrie and her husband Tony (owner of Limitless Fitness) partner together in delivering corporate wellness solutions.  When not coaching or consulting, Carrie is a novelist and mother to a daughter and twin sons.  Carrie can be reached at carrie@limitlesshrsolutions.com or by phone at 949.354.1588.

 

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People-Pleasing – The icky underbelly of “Just Being Nice”

Last week I wrote an article about the advantages of just being nice in the workplace, especially for business owners and senior leaders.  Treating people well, being courteous and generally believing that doing the right thing is its own reward (and usually ends up being rewarded in the long run as well) all lead to peace of mind and better relationships – at least in my experience.   Unfortunately, all good things taken to an extreme, misused or twisted for personal gain have a shadow side.  I see ‘people-pleasing’ as one particularly pernicious shadow side of ‘just being nice’.

When I say people pleasing, I don’t mean people who are being deliberately manipulative or phony, that’s a whole different kettle of nasty.  People-pleasers, in this context, are people who are usually highly intelligent, caring people who are chronically afraid of hurting other people’s feelings and – especially – of not being liked.  Usually the ones most hurt by the people pleasing behaviors are the pleasers themselves but believe me, there is other fallout.  
Now, wanting to be liked and not wanting to hurt people’s feelings are NOT bad things at all, don’t get me wrong.  Where it can become destructive is the point where you do not tell the truth, share useful information, make a meaningful contribution or preserve an important boundary because of fear of not being liked.

I have seen this in the workplace from an HR perspective countless times.  It takes various forms.  Sometimes it’s the extremely bright employee with great ideas who doesn’t share them for fear of being wrong.  Sometimes it’s the person in my office who just wants to ‘vent’ that her boss has been saying sexually inappropriate things for six months but she doesn’t want to offend him by telling him to stop.  One time it was the Project Manager who knew the project was going down the tubes and what it would take to fix it, but was afraid to tell his Director (who was part of the problem)

Sometimes there is good reason to fear the wrath of one’s boss, but sometimes, a desire to be liked become pathological.  The downside to pleasing is not only a continual erosion of self-confidence and identity, it can also lead to exactly the outcome the pleaser is trying to avoid!  By never saying ‘no’ to colleagues, the pleaser inevitably overcommits him or herself and does indeed let people down.  After continually going above and beyond for friends and family, many pleasers develop expectations of reciprocation that, when not forthcoming, gives birth to serious and long-lasting resentments.

When I have coached chronic people pleasers it can sometimes be so bad that the pleasers don’t even know their own opinions or boundaries, so there needs to be some exploration.  There can be so much guilt and fear associated with being true to oneself that it can take a very long time.   I have not yet encountered a reformed pleaser who went so far the other way as to become a jerk, although I am sure it happens.  Usually, learning to be authentic and speak one’s truth adds depth and character to genuinely nice people and makes them even more lovable.   

 

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Do nice guys (and gals) finish first or last? Who cares…just be nice. Please.

There have been studies, articles and social media blitzes on the subject of the effectiveness of either being nice or being a jerk.  The labels are narcissist, selfish a$$hole, altruist, transformative leader etc etc etc.   Then the offshoot questions start; which gender exhibits which trait more often and why, or is it a cultural thing?  Learned or innate?    And what is success anyway?  There has been more money and brainpower thrown at this than I can claim to have.  The prevailing question seems to be, is it better to be nice or a jerk in terms of your career success? There is almost as much evidence for one as for the other so I thought I’d weigh in as a bystander, HR Practitioner and Coach.  

My opinion is…please just be nice.  Even if you don’t get selected for promotion as quickly, or your obnoxious peer/rival gets the kudos you deserve or you end up doing more than your share of the work for not as much credit.  Please be nice.  Why?  Well, I’ll skip the moral argument that it’s just the right thing to do because I know many people can/will argue that.  Here are some practical HR reasons to Just. Be. Nice (Especially if you’re the boss):

1)    Your office will be more efficient
If you are rude, abrasive or inconsistent, your staff will spend an inordinate amount of time talking about you, trying to figure you out or trying to placate you.  This is not what you are paying them to do, presumably.  Their job is to produce a product, serve a customer or design something.  Your bad or mean behavior is a distraction to the purpose of your organization.
2)    You will spend less on recruiting and training
Yes, this is self-evident but bears repeating.  If you are mean to people they will leave and then you have to replace them (unless you are mean to your customers, too, and then you really won’t need to replace the employees who are leaving).  
3)    You will retain better and more confident employees for less money
If you are rude and abrasive, only people who feel they deserve that kind of treatment will stay, or else you will have to pay far above market value to keep the confident and productive ones.  There are people out there who are wonderfully talented AND insecure but statistically speaking, you won’t be able to hire enough of them.
4)    You will achieve commitment instead of just compliance
If you are a jerk, people will probably give you what you ask for because they will be afraid of you.  But they won’t give you an ounce more.  You won’t get innovation or creativity because people who are resentful and fearful don’t take the risk or effort required to be innovative.
5)    You will not have to worry about bloodless (or bloody) coups all the time
Even the most ruthless tyrants can get deposed.  If you are a big enough jerk, even if you own the company people will be plotting your demise.  A distraction at best.