Contest Schmontest...Create A Movement

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Organizations are always offering contests.  When I was a manager, whenever we needed to pick up sales or revenue, we would create a contest to get the ball rolling.  There is nothing like a good contest to get people involved, excite employees, and offer great prizes as a result.  Right? I say contest schmontest, you need to create a movement.  A contest is something you run for a month, but a movement can cover a whole year!  Contests come and go but movements may go on forever...depending on how committed the company is to the movement.

To start a contest you must contact the sales team, or service sales team, but to establish a movement you need EVERYONE in the organization to change their way of thinking about contests, and you need to get EVERYONE involved.  Not just the service or sales teams. Sure a contest can help your sales increase for a quarter, but what if revenues increased the whole fiscal year.  Now that would be an accomplishment.  

Right now you are asking yourself, "how the heck do I get the whole organization involved in a movement? That's impossible!"

Wrong.  It's not as difficult as you might think. You simply have to get all of the factions of your business working together.  Success in business is about people, and getting them to work together towards a common goal. If you can do that, your company is bound to be successful  However, in order to create a movement you have to do a lot more planning. Below I've listed a few key components that you need if you want to create a successful movement in your organization.

1. Omnipresent Awareness - When you have a contest, the people who stand to benefit the most are usually the only ones focused on the results.  Subsequently, all the people supporting those sales or service people are alienated.  In fact, they might even be a bit resentful that they aren't being included.  In order to effectively infuse your whole organization with a movement, ALL YOUR EMPLOYEES, need to be aware of your goal and how they can help the organization over achieve.  Do you think Zappos got to be so big because Tony Hsieh created a contest?  Heck no.  He changed the entire dynamic of the company.  Make sure that there are visible markers everywhere your employees can see them, and that your progress towards a goal(s) is visible.  If you're going to create a movement, it should be shared in the hallway, in the bathroom, in the cubicle, even in the break room refrigerator.  If you walk through your business, everyone should feel it hanging in the air.

2. Monetize Efforts - One year while I was still working at Cintas, we decided to have another sales contest.  Whoop de doo! Another time for service and sales partners to ostracize production people. I was a bit frustrated because if production didn't help support our efforts, then we would all fail miserably.  Our solution was to monetize the efforts of our production people.  They were included in the contest(s) all year and they loved it!  We didn't pay them commissions, but if the sales or service team they were supporting did well, then all of them received a little bonus.  Believe me, we didn't break the bank with payouts, but they felt included which was much more important.  They felt like they were part of something special and that is the whole point of a movement.  Inclusion.

3. Recognize and Reward - Role plays are a normal part of sales training.  Actually, let me rephrase that... they are an annoying part of sales training.  I can remember having to do a role play in front of 300 people, and doing very well, but hating every moment I was in the spotlight.  However, after I finished, the training coordinator came over and said I was too funny and needed to be more focused on the new selling technique. Seriously?  No pat on the back for a good effort, just criticism. I can tell you that I was so demotivated, I didn't even want to participate in the training sessions.  I was done with the "new selling technique". If you want to create a movement, you need to reward and recognize people for making a great effort, even if they aren't perfect.  It's not a participation trophy, it's motivation for the future.  You can't create a movement without participants and the best way to include people is to recognize and reward them.
  
4. Visualize The Goal - People learn in many different ways.  In fact, there are 7 different ways to learn and process information.  However, I have found that with the advancement in technology that people are extremely visual nowadays. Therefore if you want to create a movement, you have to visualize your goal(s).  For example, have you ever walked into a work place and saw that board which reads "___ days without a lost time accident".  This is an example of visually making people aware of a goal.  Why not create a sign that reads, "___ days of continual process improvement", or "___ days of increased sales revenue".  Why do we focus on accidents in order to visualize our goals?  Why don't we visualize all of our goals? If people see, then they can start to believe.

5. Little People Need Love - I listed this last, because it seems that the little people who help support company efforts are always the ones who are last to benefit, if they benefit at all.  Despite the fact that they make the products, or provide the service, they seem to be lost whenever it comes to recognition.  Often they receive no love from the "C suite", which is a travesty.  In many of the companies I've worked with, once they understand the importance of their "little people", they are able to include those employees in their movements and garner even more success.  The thousands of employees who help support organizations are a powerful force and united they can help build pyramids, but if ignored they can help tear them down as well.  You have to include even the little people if you want a successful movement.


The next time someone suggests you have a contest, tell them that's "old school".  You want to make an impact on your top and bottom lines...create a movement.  You'll be glad you did.

SFTD

Are You Neglecting Your Best People?

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Yesterday, I rode with a sales rep who had finished in the top 1% or her company the last 3 years.  I'd say that's a pretty good rep, wouldn't you? I thought I'd pick her brain about what she was doing in the field to facilitate her sales, or what she liked about the company culture, or could she offer me any advice to help other reps.  Do you want to know what we talked about for the first 2 hours? We talked about another rep, who is in the same region, who gets much more attention because she's a "problem child".

Guess what?  I wasn't shocked.  I see this all that time, and with every company I've worked with.  It's a big issue, especially for management.  Companies are neglecting their best people...in every industry.  Why?

Reactive Management - The truth is that managers pay more attention to their problem children than their best employees.  It's a natural tendency. I remember as a kid, my parents would pay much more attention to my brother, who was always in trouble.  The other 4 kids, including myself, resented the preferential treatment.  He was sent to a psychologist, and different specialists because he was "yearning for attention as a middle child".  Which was exactly what he got, and lots of it, which in turn reinforced his behavior! I was just six years old, and even I could see what he was doing...he even admitted when we were older he knew exactly what he was doing and why.  He felt special.

The same scenario applies to employees.  Managers must not be reactive, but instead proactive. If you are a manager and you have an employee who is taking up most of your time, you should let that employee know right away, that you have other people working with you who are in need of help as well.  Don't let a troublemaker monopolize all of your time, because if you do,  I guarantee the other employees will feel neglected and harbor resentment towards both you and the employee. Nip it in the bud.

Survey Junkies - If I hear about one more stupid company survey result I'm going to vomit.  They're not accurate!  Why?  Because people are afraid to be honest in those surveys.  When I was in an Advisory Board meeting at one such company, they asked me what I thought of the surveys and my answer was simply, "They're bullshit.".  Which elicited quite a response, with lots of murmuring and comments.

The reasons many surveys don't work is because despite the good intentions, the beginning questions are sometimes too specific to a person's role in the company and the employees feel like there will be repercussions if they answer honestly.  You may ask, "well why would they feel that way?" Listed below is a series of questions from a survey I reviewed a month ago, and I paraphrased the questions, so I don't reveal the company or the survey.

1. Which division of the company do you work for?
2. What region of the USA do you work in?
3. Are you a regional manager, district manager, or sales rep?
4. What are your focus products in your region?

Those 4 questions alone might narrow the person taking the survey down to a select few individuals within the company, and therefore the expose employee's identity. If I was taking that survey there is no way in hell I would answer honestly, especially if I had negative things to say about my immediate supervisor.  Many people taking surveys feel like they are a form of intrusion rather than the means to a solution.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind - If you're in management, unless someone is either performing wonderfully or performing horribly you really don't notice them.  As a matter of fact, you're probably not even thinking about them at all.  The sales rep I rode with for a day, said that her boss never calls her except to complain about what a pain in the ass the other reps are in her region.  First of all, a manager should NEVER SHARE ISSUES with employees.  In addition, relating personnel issues to an employee is just plain stupid.  People talk...a lot. She told me he was looking for advice on the best way to manage his reps, but if he needs her advice then why isn't she the manager and not him!

If the only time you contact an employee is to let them know they suck or they're great, than as a boss you're simply an absentee manager.  You might as well be like ET and just phone home because that's where you'll be once your employees start leaving...at home without a job.

The Rules of Engagement - I like that the word engagement is the new catch phrase for getting employees involved.  It has a lot of different meanings:

en·gage·ment

inˈɡājmənt,enˈɡājmənt/

noun

noun: engagement; plural noun: engagements

1. 1.

   a formal agreement to get married.

   synonyms:

   marriage contract; More datedbetrothal; archaicespousal "they broke off their engagement"

   • the duration of an agreement to get married.

     "a good long engagement to give you time to be sure"

     
     
2. 2.

   an arrangement to do something or go somewhere at a fixed time.

   "a dinner engagement"

   
   

   synonyms:

   appointment, meeting, arrangement, commitment; More date, assignation, rendezvous; literarytryst "a social engagement"

3. 3.

   the action of engaging or being engaged.

   "Britain's continued engagement in open trading"

   
   
4. 4.

   a fight or battle between armed forces.

   synonyms:

   battle, fight, clash, confrontation, encounter, conflict, skirmish;

An engagement could be a fight or battle or a formal agreement to get married.  Two seemingly opposite ends of the relationship spectrum.  However when engaging employees it is important to know that it's not always about the job.  It is about forming business relationships.  It doesn't mean you have to be married to your job or the people you work with, but it does mean you must foster relationships with people in order for everyone to be successful.  Listed below are a few tips for managers on engagement:

• Be engaged yourself - I remember a long time ago in a business far, far, away, my boss called me in because he wanted to "get to know me".  I sat down in front of his desk and he asked me a series of questions, but not in the normal course of conversation. More like a list that he had to check off.  I felt like I just arrived at Customs in an airport.  He wrote down my wife's name, my families names, where I lived, what I liked to do outside work, but he rarely looked up from his desk.  It offended me rather than made me like him more.  A good manager is engaged themselves.
• Share - The best people I have ever worked with shared their lives with me.  I don't mean I went to their homes, or played with their dogs, but they shared a piece of themselves.  It made the relationship that much stronger, and I'm still friends with many of them to this day.  Don't just view your employees as numbers, but rather as people and if you share with them, they won't see you as just a manager or supervisor.  However if you have some weird and creepy hobby or fetish, please keep that to yourself.
•  Care - 15 years ago, I had been a manager for a few years, and a new management trainee came into my office and shared that he had an aging grandmother with a slew of medical bills. He asked if he could get an advance on his check for $1500.  Well, the company I worked for never gave advances, especially ones for $1500, so I loaned him the money myself.  Everyone thought I was crazy, but I knew he was good for it and it went to a good cause.  He paid me back in 6 month, and he was one of the hardest working and loyal people I had the pleasure to work with.  Just a great person.

I knew that he cared about his grandmother and they made me care even more about him.  People like that aren't a dime a dozen, so you have to do your best to keep them.


I can't guarantee that this post will help you keep all your best people, but I can guarantee that it will make you think twice about neglecting them.  And if you follow some of the tips, it will make them think twice about leaving. 

Have a good day!

SFTD 

You Don't Own Me...

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It's a Friday night and I just received an urgent email from a customer saying they needed to change the outline of our training schedule for the company's team and he needed it done immediately. Please keep in mind the training was to take place next week and the schedule was already set.  I sent an email reply stating it was Friday at 7 pm and I would forward it to him tomorrow morning. What was his response? He sent me a text and then called me...while I was out to dinner with family and friends.  I didn't answer the phone. Instead I sent a text stating I would call him tomorrow.  He sent one back demanding I call him. Are you friggin kidding me? We have a contract but that doesn't mean you own me dude! The reason I ventured out on my own was so I didn't have to deal with assholes like you in the corporate environment.  I am a contractor not an employee! FU!

I excused myself, called him, and asked him why it was so urgent that we resolve the issue tonight.  He explained he was leaving for the weekend and wanted to make the changes now.  He demanded that I drop whatever I was doing and go home to make the changes immediately.  I politely told him no, that he could email the changes he wanted made, and I would do it tomorrow and send the changes to him for approval.  When he threatened to cancel our agreement, I told him that despite his insistence, my personal life and that of my family was more important than any agreement, and if after all the work we had done, he wanted to stop working together over this particular incident then that was fine with me.  I could tell that he was trying to bully me into changing my position but I refused to give in to his demand. 

He yelled into the phone, "This is total bullshit, why are we paying you if you're not available at all times."

I responded, "I never said I was available at all times, but I am available to help if the demand for time is reasonable.  This situation is not reasonable. I am already out with family and friends and I will take care of this tomorrow morning first thing."

"I told you I need this now. What are you going to do about it."

"Well, I'm going to hang up the phone, go back and finish the dinner I was having with my friends and family and work on it when I get home."

"That's not good enough for me."

"Well I'm sorry but it's good enough for me. I don't believe it's unreasonable to wait 12 hours for the changes when it's 8 o'clock on Friday night and the training isn't until next week."

"I told you I need it done now because I'm leaving for the weekend. Are you going to do it?"

"No I'm not."

"Then I'll have to inform the CEO that we are not going to continue with the training."

"That's fine with me.  I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll be sure to call him first thing tomorrow and let him know your decision. Have a good night."

"Wait.  What?  That's it.  You're just go to give up?"

"No. I'm not giving up. You made the decision to stop the training not me.  I'll be sure to let him know."

"It's because you're being unreasonable!", and he shouted this into the phone.

"I'm the one being unreasonable? Think about that?  I'll make the changes you requested first thing and after you've calmed down you can decide if you want to continue with the training."

"Oh no, we're not going to continue.  No way."

"Fine. I'll email the CEO of your decision.  Thanks and have a good weekend.", I said and hung up the phone.  He called me back straight away...9 times.   But I didn't answer. He sent me texts while I sat, ignored them, and enjoyed a nice dinner.  I finally turned the vibration off on my phone because it was getting annoying.  When I finally got home, I checked my voicemail and there were a slew of messages ranging from angry to apologetic.  All recorded for me to pass on to the CEO, if my professional conduct ever came in to question. 

I sat there and thought about what prompted this guy to become so enraged over something so minor, and then I thought about this person's poor employees. They must feel harassed, brow beaten, and down trodden.  No wonder the company needed my help!  I want all of you reading this post to remember one thing, "No one owns you!"  Despite all the work hours you may be putting in, or the attitude of your boss, who calls you every night, you do have the power to make your own decisions and either tell them to stop harassing you, or quit.  However, don't ever feel like you must do everything they ask, or you'll be headed down a slippery slope. 

Once you give in to a business bully, they will run over you time and time again.  Never let people think they own your life from dusk til dawn, because then you won't have any life.  No job or business relationship is worth that type of degradation or humiliation. 

The next day, I received a phone call from the CEO.

"Good morning M.  I got a call from Roger last night saying you were unwilling to make some changes to the schedule for him?  Is that true?"

"That is true.  I was unwilling to make the changes immediately because I was out to dinner with friends who flew into town and my family.  I told him I would make the changes when I got home."

"That's not what he said.  He said you were upset, unprofessional, and you yelled at him about being bothered on a Friday night. "

"Listen, I understand he was frustrated but I never said anything about being bothered, I simply asked him to wait til morning for me to make the changes. I explained that I was out with family and friends and I would address it right after dinner.  If you want to talk about professional conduct I have 6 voicemails from Roger that you might want to hear."

"Really?  Well again that's not what he told me.  He felt you were unprofessional."

"That's fine. Perhaps is was just a miscommunication on my part. But if you want, I can email you the voicemails and you tell me what you think?  I understand that you have to support your employees and that's important.  But I can assure you that I would never conduct myself in any manner as to be offensive.  And again, I apologize for the miscommunication between Roger and me."

" Well.  Yeah, until I hear these emails, let's hold off on our agreement."

" That's fine.  I'll send you the emails right away and we can talk after you've listened to them."

" Sounds good.  Thanks."

I transferred the voicemails to my email and forwarded them to him as soon as I hung up the phone.
I got a call 30 minutes later.

"Hello M.  I want to apologize for Roger.   I can't believe what was said over the phone, and especially about your family and friends.  It was completely unprofessional and I am grateful to you for bringing it to my attention.  It seems we have a real problem here. "

"Well, yes we do.  I'm sure he's a real go getter and all, but you have to consider his conduct. That's what our training is all about.  Engagement... not harassment. "

" I'm just shocked.  Really, really, shocked. "

" So was I.  Good thing I didn't put the voicemail on speaker. My wife would have fallen out of her chair."

He chuckled a bit, "Well Roger and I are going to have a little talk on Monday.  And I'll assign someone else to handle the training."

"Are you sure? "

"Yes I'm sure.  Stop by Monday and we can discuss how to move forward.  I have someone in mind."

" Sure thing.  Thanks for the phone call. "

"No. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

I hung up the phone, and rather than feeling elated because Roger was about to receive his comeuppance,  I felt sad because here was another yet another example of a manager acting like a jerk.  I've always felt it's been my mission in life, to instruct people on how to be better leaders and now I was not going to get the chance to help Roger.  Life can be cruel.

Every time some one tells you that you need to go the extra mile, and that you need to work weekends, holidays, and whenever they feel you need to work, then simply tell them...

"You don't own me."

Life is more about living, not serving.

-M

How Do You Measure Success?

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Simple Definition of success

• : the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame
• : the correct or desired result of an attempt
• : someone or something that is successful : a person or thing that succeeds

Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary

A week ago, I was sitting in a hotel bar, just watching a baseball game, when I overheard a conversation from a few drunken businessmen seated nearby. They were arguing about what were the standards by which someone was successful.  However they were defining success in dollars.  A few numbers came out like ten million, twenty million, and even one hundred million.  One particularly inebriated gentleman very loudly tried to make his point.

"Dude, I wanna be ______ that guy is loaded.  He's gotta be worth a billion dollars. Now that's someone who's made something of his life.  If you look in the dictionary under the word 'success' you'll see his picture. "

And as he said this, he made the notation for quotation marks with his hands.  I don't know about you, but I'm starting to find that annoying...air quotes.  Do we really need to know the grammatical underpinnings of the word you just uttered, or are you doing it for effect?  Either way, I don't like people gesticulating near me, it's dangerous.

 Yet alcohol has a strange way of making people think they're more amusing than they really are, or in some cases more intelligent, but in most instances, it just makes people loud and obnoxious.  I would say he fit into that category, but he was determined to clarify his definition of success.

"What do you make? Maybe 100K a year?  That ain't nothing. I make three times that.  Does that make me successful? " he said and his eyes had this glazed over look.  The others guys in suits were just watching and waiting, almost expectantly for him to fall. He teetered back and forth holding his glass, but he remained standing.

"Damn right it does!", he said and then burst out laughing, after which he immediately drained his drink, slammed the glass on the bar, and ordered another.

"So if you make 300K per year that means you're a success?", asked one of the other suits, a tall blond haired guy with freakishly large hands, and a weird angular head.

"Yep! 300K.  That's the cutoff.!" the drunk shouted.

"What about kids and family and all that stuff?", the guy with the odd shaped head asked.

"What about'em?  You can still have'em.  But you gotta make 300K.", said the inebriated one.

All the other business men were just watching the two of them, as if a fight was about to ensue.  They formed a small semi circle around them and patiently waited for a retort from the man with the big hands.

"So it's all about the money? Nothing else?", he said.

"Yep.  What are you an idiot?! That's ALL life is about is money! I can't help you if you don't realize that by now.", the drunk man responded and waved his hand in front of his face, like he was shooing away a fly.

"I don't agree with that.  You can't define success in terms of just dollars."

"Yes you can!  That's the measure of success.  How much you make?"

The man with the big hands, waved them in front of his face, dismissing the drunkard, "My dad didn't make anything compared to me, but I consider him to be one of the most successful men I've ever known.

"You're an idiot!", the drunk guy responded.  "All people care about is money."

The tall blond guy stood up, "No that's all you care about.  You can't measure a man by his wallet. My dad raised 5 kids by holding down three jobs and all of us went to college, and two of us are in grad school, and my sister is a doctor.  Now that's a success."

All the other suits now looked at the tall man with the big hands with a sense of awe.  Who was this rebel, coming in and throwing water on the fire of the drunken man.  Who was this person throwing a cog in the wheels of their warped American Dream?

"That's impressive...but you're still an idiot. No matter how great you and your parents are, I guarantee that your dad thinks he's a failure."

"No.  You think he's a failure...and you're the idiot.", the tall man said and he just walked off.  The drunk guy called after him.

"F#$k you!", he shouted, but the man with the big hands didn't respond.

"Who was that?", one of the guys asked another.

"No idea.  Just some dude who was hanging out with us."

"I'd say his night was a success.", I said, and raised my glass.  They all laughed...except one.

SFTD

The #1 Thing A New Manager Should Avoid

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I just dropped off a conference call, and was I happy to hang up the phone.  First of all, in my opinion conference calls can be a big waste of time if not conducted correctly.  In addition, they are meant to provide direction and motivation for employees, not to criticize and deride their efforts.  Which is exactly what this manager for one of my clients was doing during his call.  He used almost 120 minutes to have each rep go through their numbers and explain why they weren't exceeding their quota by at least 10%.  I have to say it was painful for me to listen to, and even more painful for the reps, some of whom were well over their quota.

Moreover, he was a new manager, so he would talk down to the reps, as if they didn't know how to manager their territories.  Mind you, many of the reps had more experience than he did, but he felt oblige to offer his nuggets of wisdom on why they were "failing".  Which leads to my reason for this post.

The number one thing a new manager should avoid is criticizing employees in front of the rest of the staff. 

And yet, this new manager did exactly that to every rep on the team...even the top performing reps! You had better believe he is going to have a serious morale issue in about 15 minutes, Because those reps are going to start texting and calling each other and complaining about what a jerk they have for a new boss.  They're going to post memes of him on the internet, and make him the butt of jokes at Happy Hour.  They'll draw pictures of his face and throw darts at it. If he doesn't correct that pattern quickly, his team will start to flounder and not only will he have a morale issue, he might be out of a job.

I'm sorry, but business is not a team sport where you can scream at people and get away with it.  That type of environment is for high school and even college sports.  In professional sports, players will tolerate open criticism for a while, yet if you really piss them off, they'll get your ass fired.  Just ask any manager in the English Premiere League, or any NFL football coach.  You have to tread lightly when it comes to "dressing down" people.

It's okay to offer constructive criticism, but do it behind closed doors, and if you do it publicly, you had better be prepared for some repercussions.  Unless of course, you want the person to quit...but that's a story for a different post.

Good luck and good selling!

SFTD

Career Motivation: Treat Yourself Like A New Hire

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For years, whenever I was in a funk.  When I felt like I had exhausted all the leads in my territory, or when I thought my career was at a stalemate, I would search for ways to motivate myself. I didn't want to leave the company or the job I was in, but I was not motivated or excited every morning.  After a year of pounding your head against a wall to land accounts that just aren't buying, it becomes pretty depressing...and painful.

Recently, I felt like I was in a rut with a few older customers and the relationships were now stale.  I wasn't bringing anything new to help them, just reiterating the same old processes that I'd been preaching about for the last 5 years.  We were just going through the motions. They were bored. I was bored. We were like an older couple in need of a "date night" or something to help us rediscover each other. And then I thought to myself,

"I should have them fire me and then rehire me as their consultant.", which seemed exciting and then I thought,

"No that's pretty stupid because you have contracts and they might actually switch you idiot!"

And again I thought, "So I'll fire myself and then rehire myself but I won't share that with them."

Which is exactly what I did.  I treated them like they were a new customer, and I started asking them questions about their businesses, and their challenges.  I re-engaged them and starting building a new set of tools for them to use to improve their numbers.  It was exciting! Normally, I'm not a cheerleader who is out front trying to pump people up.  To be frank, a lot of that is all bullshit.  However, I do get excited when I can help people and we accomplish something.  That's what drives me in my business and in my life.  Consequently, my customers were excited as well.  My renewed enthusiasm became contagious and their team took a big jump forward in sales numbers.

If you're in a funk, and you don't know how to get out of it.  If you're numbers are suffering, and you're wondering what to do...consider what you would do if you were a new hire.  A person just placed in the position.  Without all the gestalts, that are currently preventing you from moving forward.  New hires have a lot of good qualities, and some bad ones, but for this post we'll focus on the positives.

1.) Enthusiasm - Recent hires are always excited about a new part of their career. They have unbridled enthusiasm because the job hasn't broken their spirits...yet.  If you start thinking what you would do if newly hired, the job can be exciting again, rather than boring.

2.) Fearless - People who are just hired, don't have fear because they don't know any better.  As we get familiar with our jobs we worry too much about what might not happen instead of focusing on what could happen.  If you think like a new hire you won't be as tentative. You'll be fearless.

3.) Open Minded - New hires aren't stuck in a job, in fact they just landed a new job, so they are open to any suggestions. They will try anything to improve a relationship or land a sale.

While recently training a person they told me, "I can't do that my customer will think I'm nuts."

My response was, "Well, what are you doing right now to change the dynamic? Absolutely nothing! You're doing nothing, and so this is at least something.  Who cares if you're nuts."

4.) Urgency - When you just start a new job, you are eager to make an impact.  When you are in a job for a while, you tend to get complacent.  Particularly, if you're good at it.  In medical sales, there were times when I knew that all I had to do was show up and I would land a sale.  That's how good I was at my job.  However, it made me complacent and I probably could have made a lot more money. Thinking like a new hire, with a sense of urgency might have brought me a lot more commissions.  

Don't let the job or the environment drag you down.  If you do, failure is inevitable.  If you like your job and you're just in rut, then dig yourself out.  I know this all seems like BS, but it can work if you just change you're mindset, and remember the days when you had just started on the job.  If you think like a new hire, you just might find each day a little more enjoyable and your job a little more exciting.

Good luck!

SFTD

Why The World Needs More Women In Management

Copyright: opolja / 123RF Stock Photo

Whenever I publish a post, invariably I  receive one or two comments from some guy who is just an angry old bastard.  Which is weird because at times I feel like an angry old bastard.  In addition, the comment is always centered around whining or complaining by employees, and how people need to "suck it up and work harder". 

My response, "go f#ck yourself". 

Working harder is not going to make problems go away which may be inherent in a system or culture.  Working harder is not going to make the employee feel better about their work environment.  Working harder at a job which is a dead end, will in fact destroy employee morale and undermine the goals of management. 

The old bastard's response to this post would be, "Oh boo hoo! So go get another job!"

Again my response is, "go f#ck yourself."

In my experience, the men in management that I work with and have worked with, have a tendency to react like the aforementioned angry old bastard, and push blame back on the employee.  Even I do that!  Initially, I think, "Wait...what? It's my fault? No it's your fault."  Moreover, we/men tend to suppress any empathy we might have because we feel it might cloud our judgment.  We want to be objective right?  Wrong, we want to be men and make the hard decisions, like firing someone during the holidays.  Yeah, that's right. I did that one year.  I fired a guy right before Christmas, because my boss wanted me to send a message that we weren't soft on poor performance, even during the most festive time of the year.

My response should have been, "boss, go f#ck yourself."

Instead, I acted the part of the good soldier and fired a person when the really hard decision would have been to stand up to my boss who was being a jerk.

Which is why I think we need to stop promoting angry bastards and place more women into management roles...specifically senior management roles. Women comprise just 24% of senior management positions. Yes, I understand there is the campaign "Lean In" started by Sheryl Sandberg and her great book. The "Lean In" campaign has created circles all across the country to help women connect and to realize their full potential, while also getting spouses involved as well.  However, this isn't enough. The people who are actually making management decisions, mainly men, need to begin advocating for women as managers.  Senior executives around the world need to take some action and start actively promoting women into more prominent roles as leaders.   Listed below are five reasons why I think the business world needs more women in management:

Women Engage Teams - In a Gallup poll conducted in 2015, 41% of female managers were engaged with their teams, while just 35% of the male managers were engaged.  What does this even mean?  Well it means that women managers are listening more to their employees and getting their teams more engaged and therefore their teams might be more productive. Further conclusions from the Gallup study revealed that higher engaged employees may lead to higher performing work groups.  In the poll, 35% of women who reported to female managers were engaged, while just 25% of men who worked with male managers felt engaged.  This is a significant difference of 10%, and any advantage you can gain in productivity is welcomed in the corporate environment.

Too Much Testosterone - Many of the companies I've worked with have been dominated by men. In the past, this set up has worked and they've been successful.  However, moving forward, there needs to be less testosterone in the modern work place. Far too often, if you have a bunch of guys working together they start acting like silverback gorillas and trying to prove who is the most dominant, especially with regards to management.  In contrast, the few women managers I have worked with have just wanted people to strive together towards a common goal, and they didn't let their egos get in the way.  Which to me is how it should be really.  Some of the men who I've associated with, especially insecure General Managers, often felt threatened by me, as if I was going to take over their band or troop.  In each instance, I usually quit because the relationship was too strained, but what I should have done was cut off their balls. 

Women Listen Differently - According to a study conducted in 2000, by the Indiana University School of Medicine, women listen differently than men. The study analyzed the brain activity of 20 women and 20 men listening to a reading from "The Partner" by John Grisham.  The men in the study primarily listened with just one side of their brain, the left, which is notably associated with listening and speech.  While the women listened with both sides of their brain, processing not only with the left but also the right side of the brain which is associated with non auditory functions.  In other words, the women were listening and processing the information at the same time, using each lobe of their brains, both left and right. Whether this is better or not is subjective, but I'd prefer to have someone listening to me with their whole brain rather than half.

Women Promote Development - Affiliated with the Gallup poll of 2015, employees polled revealed that they believed women managers were more interested in their development than male managers.

"It does not mean that female managers are more likely to promote their associates, but it could signify that women are more apt than men to find stimulating tasks to challenge their employees, thus ensuring associates develop within their current roles and beyond." - Gallup Poll 2015

I'm not sure this is cognitive proof that women are better managers but it does offer a significant reason to place them in management positions,  particularly if you want to develop your people.

We Need Balance In Our Workplace- If you have too much of one gender in your workplace, there tends to be a general bias towards one sex.  A perfect example happened to me years ago.  I was hired by a company that was made up entirely of women, and so when I would make suggestions on how they could improved productivity many of them would shrug off my opinions, dismissing them as "a man's perspective." Similarly, I have worked in places where the personnel are entirely men, and there were more off color jokes and back slapping than was necessary.  And the women who were introduced into that environment acted more masculine than the men, just to feel accepted, and in turn get promoted. They were in fact, more off color than most of the men, acting almost over the top to garner some type of weird respect, and to feel that they were "one of the guys".  Women shouldn't feel like they need to act like and swear like a drunken sailor in order to be part of the group. Moreover, men shouldn't feel like they need to suppress their masculinity.  We should have balance and share in work place decisions.

These are just a few reasons why we need to promote female managers, but there are many more which are not listed, yet carry as much relevance to support the idea "we need women to lead."

SFTD