The curious case of the fired (and rehired) mascot

What's worse?

Getting a slew of negative publicity for firing an employee who made disparaging comments your organization on Facebook or having to hire him back after his manager doesn't follow proper procedures for employee terminations?

Baseball fans have already heard this story since it was widely reported last week that the Pittsburgh Pirates had hired back Andew Kurtz, after firing him the previous week. Kurtz performs in mascot races between innings at Pirates home games, running while dressed as a giant pierogi. Here's a link to a good overview in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette if you want to read more.

This story captured a lot of a media attention but there are many instances when managers create additional liability for their organizations by failing to follow procedures. It's a particular challenge with human resources issues because managers are paid to make decisions, but you don't want them acting unilaterally without careful consideration or help from an HR professional.

A few of our clients have asked us to help them educate their managers on when to contact HR, so we've put together an interactive workshop called Managing Within the Law. It uses a lot of scenario-based learning and the line managers who participate are often surprised that the common sense response is often the wrong move.

Have a good story to share? Drop a comment on my blog -- I always enjoy an interesting HR adventure!

Baseball stats we should use in business

One of the things I love about baseball is there is a statistic for almost everything. Some of them are actually useful. A few would even be good for the business world.

Many organizations are still using the same boring categories on performance evaluations. Does a subjective evaluation of an employee's job knowledge, teamwork, or dependability really tell us what someone is adding to the bottom line?

I'd like to see us evolve a bit and borrow a few stats from baseball. The following comparisons make a pretty good argument, I think. Some of you may accuse me of being biased towards my favorite players and teams. Fortunately, I have stats to back me up!

Experience (Job Knowledge)

A lot of long-term employees get a free pass when we evaluate their talent because they've been with the organization so long. If baseball players were evaluated solely on experience, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer would be the best. He has 23 years of Major League experience and is still pitching competitively at age 47.

But what if we used a more objective criteria, such as Earned Run Average or ERA? ERA is a measure of how many runs a pitcher allows per game, based on factors he can control. Giving up home runs, doubles, and walks will hurt a pitcher's ERA. A run that scores because someone else on the team made an error doesn't count against the pitcher's ERA. The better the ERA, the more likely it is the team will win. In the business world, we might translate that into productivity.

This season, Jamie Moyer a 4.43 ERA. That's pretty good, but San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum has an ERA of only 2.86. Despite having only 4 years of experience to Moyer's 23, Lincecum has won the last two National League Cy Young Awards, given annually to the best pitcher in the league. That's two more Cy Young Awards than Jamie Moyer has won in his career. Lincecum's $9,000,000 salary in 2010 is also similar to Moyer's $8,000,000 salary. Moyer is a good pitcher, but Lincecum is clearly better.

Teamwork

We want our employees to be likeable and supportive of other members of the team, but this isn't the best gauge of what someone adds to the organization. If we evaluated baseball players solely on teamwork, we might pick New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter as the best player. He is universally regarded as the consumate teammate. Jeter even won the 2009 Roberto Clemente Award, which is given to the player who best demonstrates commitment to their community and performance on the field.

What if we evaluated an employee's contributions to the team based on more objective criteria? In baseball, a new stat has emerged called "Ultimate Zone Rating". This judges the number of runs a defensive player prevents from scoring compared to the typical person at his position. Shortstop is primarily a defensive position, so you'd naturally want a shortstop who helped his team by being really good at preventing runs from scoring. In the business world, we might translate this into a measure of quality.

Derek Jeter's current Ultimate Zone Rating is -.2, which means he is allowing .2 more runs to score than the average shortstop. Jeter's 2010 salary of $22,600,000 might be okay for the consumate team player, but it's hard to justify for someone whose work is of such poor quality. Especially compared to Boston Red Sox shortstop Marco Scutaro. Scutaro's 3.8 Ultimate Zone Rating means that he prevents 4 more runs over a season than Derek Jeter. And, Scutaro's practically a bargain at only $5,500,000 in annual salary.

Dependability

Showing up on a regular basis and getting your work done on time should be a minimum standard, not a criteria for evaluating outstanding employees. Milwaukee Brewer's firstbaseman Prince Fielder is currently the most dependable player in baseball. He has played in more than 250 consecutive games. That's the business world equivalent of coming to work every day for two years without calling in sick or taking a vacation day.

What if we instead evaluated employees based on their contributions compared to what the average employee on the job market could do? In baseball, this is called Value Over Replacement Player, or VORP. This statistic measures how many wins a player contributes to his team per season compared to the average player at his position. The business equivalent would be asking, "Is this employee the best we can get at this rate of pay?" Or, "Could we get a much better employee for less money?"

Prince Fielder's current VORP is 1.7. Not bad, but not nearly as good as San Diego Padres firstbaseman Adrian Gonzalez, whose VORP of 3.5 is among the best in the league. This means that the Milwaukee Brewers would win two more games this year if Gonzalez was their firstbaseman, not Prince Fielder. That could mean the difference between making the playoffs or an early end to the season. Gonzalez is also a bargain at a 2010 salary of $4,875,000 compared to Fielder's salary of $11,000,000.

Conclusions

Experience, teamwork, and dependability didn't yield terrible players in my baseball example. They were all good, albeit a bit expensive. My argument is productivity, quality, and value over replacement employee will generally give you a better idea of what employees are contributing.  Over the long run, this means a better team at a more reasonable rate of pay.

What baseball stats would you like to see in the business world? How about from other sports?

Less whining, more doing

Is it my imagination, or is the excuse-o-meter registering all-time highs? The headlines are full of easy targets, such as Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers whining about player injuries as he tried to explain his team's failure to close out the NBA championship after taking a 3-2 lead over the Los Angeles Lakers. Could it be that the Lakers are just the better team, Doc?

No, I'll leave that alone and focus on the excuses I've been hearing for not getting essential things done at work.

Excuses, excuses, excuses

I worked with someone a few weeks ago who was interviewing me for a podcast to promote one of my speaking engagements. She was ill-prepared for the interview and didn't get the podcast created in time. Here were just a few of the many excuses she gave:

Tired. Sick. Family member was sick. Flight delay. Equipment failure. Bad cell phone reception. Had to be in New York City. (??) Paid for wi-fi access, but it was spotty. Distracted by noise at the convention center. Distracted by noise at the airport. Sick again. Different family member sick. Unexpected family gathering. Got busy on another project.

Really?!!! I wish I was making all this up, but that was an actual list of excuses I heard from this person. I might add one more: too busy making up new excuses!

If I could re-write her story, here's how it would go:

"I knew I had six weeks to complete a two hour task, but I immediatly scheduled the interview to get it on the calendar. After the interview, I gave myself plenty of time to produce a podcast and submit it well before the deadline."

Nobody wants to volunteer

I was recently asked to chair a committee for a local professional organization I work with. The committee reports to a Board member who was very relieved to have me help out. "I just haven't been able to get any volunteers," she told me.

A week later I had filled all of the positions on the committee with a group of talented and passionate volunteers. So much for nobody's interested!

My big secret?

I spent more time on action than excuse concocting or hand-wringing. First, I outlined a simple recruiting plan that identified the types of volunteers that would do well on the committee. Next, I created a list of benefits volunteers could gain in return for their participation. Finally, I called and emailed a handful of colleagues I thought would be great members of the team and made my pitch. My success rate was 75% and the people that declined did so only because of scheduling conflicts.

I didn't do the pre-work. You shoulda given us pre-work!

I like to give pre-work whenever I facilitate employee training. It helps participants come to class better prepared and it also allows me to tailor the program to their specific needs.

This week, I had a few participants that didn't complete the pre-work for classes they attended. In each case, they came to the workshop unprepared to exercise their brains. One person actually said she didn't bother to do the pre-work. A few minutes later, the same person complained that the exercises we were doing would be easier if there had been some pre-work. Huh? Was that the pre-work you said you couldn't be bothered doing? If you didn't get a chance to do it, fine, but accept responsibility and make the most of it.

Am I whining?

I didn't write this blog post to suggest that none of us should ever whine. Just don't let it get in the way of accomplishing what needs to be done. My email inbox is empty (thanks to David Allen's Getting Things Done) and I've accomplished all my priority items for the day.

An open letter to Mozy

Dear Mozy,

I’m writing this letter to you on my blog because you haven’t made it easy for me to contact you directly.  You did respond to my Tweet on June 1 and said you’d get back to me, but you didn’t get back to me.  I guess that’s the state of service these days – we have to make it public to get a response.

Here’s my gripe:

Sometime around May 28 your automatic online computer backup service stopped working.  This is a real conflict with the positioning statement prominently featured on your website:

At Mozy, we believe: You shouldn’t have to think about backup.  Backup should be set once, and then work automatically.

I've now had to think about backup and it didn't work automatically (or manually, for that matter). I’d be willing to cut you some slack if you handled it responsively, but you didn’t.  You posted a few updates on your Community Support Forum, responded to a few Tweets, but that seems to be about it. I read some techno-babble about "load-balancing issues on your server", but I had to dig around your website just to get that. I tried to login to your support site so I could submit an trouble ticket (no email support, really?), but I couldn't because I got an error message there too.

My backups started running normally again on June 9 and I’m still a Mozy customer for now.  However, I don’t think I’ll refer anyone else to you for a long time.  And, this service failure has caused me to do what you said I shouldn’t have to: “think about backup”. 

Do I have any better ideas?  Yes.

1. Communicate proactively. Let us know there’s a problem and what you are doing about it. 
2. Cast a wide net.  Not everyone is going to troll through your support forum to find answers.  Give us more options!  Put updates on your home page.  Send us emails.  Give us the option to get automatic updates. Tweet timely updates. Make sure your support site login is working correctly. Give us email support.
3. Be contrite.  In my eyes, you’ve massively damaged your brand.  Not just because of the service outage, but because of the way you handled it like it was just another technical glitch. What will you do to earn back my loyalty?

I hope you get it right Mozy!!  I really do want to continue using your service but, like you said, I also don’t want to think much more about online backup. 

Your friend?

Jeff

Three tools to handle tough times at work

A recent study by Right Management found that 60% of workers intend to leave their jobs when the economy improves. Many of my friends and colleagues are in that boat too. Their jobs are demanding more work for less pay, the boss seems unsympathetic, and morale is at an all-time low.

Unfortunately, the job market doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get a lot better, so I am offering three simple tools that will help improve things now: a circle, a book, and four squares.

Circle

It's amazing how much we can accomplish if we stop worrying about what we can't control and focus more on what we can control. I like to use the Circle of Influence to help visualize this for any problem.

Let's say I'm dissatisfied with my job and I'm worried I might even get laid off. I can't control the economy and ultimately I don't decide whether the company keeps me or not. But what about the things I do control? I can make myself more indispensable than ever. I might realize that my boss is feeling the same pressures I am and try to be a better employee for my boss. I can enroll in some training classes after work or join a professional association to become more competitive in my field.

People can use the Circle of Influence to look at their own situation, stop feeling like a victim, and take control.

A Book

Books can sometimes fuel inspiration, provide great ideas, and kick-start us into action. Love it, Don't Leave it: 26 ways to get what you want at work is that kind of book. It's full of practical exercises to help you get what you want from your job.

Four Squares

Some of the worst companies I've worked for have provided me with the best job experience. Every job has its ups and downs, but it's important to continue to be productive and mentally present as long as you are physically present. I recommend a simple exercise using four squares to help maintain perspective on whether your job is really right for you.

First, clear your current job from your mind.

Second, get a blank piece of paper and draw the four squares shown below:

Third, brainstorm a list of criteria for each box. This forces you to separate what you must have in an employer and a job from what you would like to have.

Finally, compare the four squares to your current gig. If you are missing any 'must haves' it's time to plot your exit strategy. If all your 'must haves', it's time to put your nose to the grindstone, read that book I mentioned, and focus on your Circle of Influence.

Good luck!

The workplace is getting dumber with each new rule

Updated August 14, 2020

Workplace rules are generally instituted for one of two reasons.

The first reason is there was an incident where something went wrong and management wants to make sure it doesn't happen again. The second reason is management anticipates something will go wrong if they don't create a rule.

I saw this sign in the men's restroom at one of my client's offices, but couldn't bring myself to ask why this rule was deemed necessary. Was there an incident?!

It's a good idea to have a few good rules, but something weird happens when we get too many.

We suddenly lose the ability to think for ourselves.  We forget what we're supposed to be doing in the first place and spend our time trying to be compliant (or avoiding trouble for non-compliance). We get paralyzed with indecision when we encounter a situation that isn't covered by a rule.

In short, we get dumb.

Consider the sign above. Why would anyone drink from the toilet?! And let’s say someone really was tempted. Would the warning about reclaimed water be enough to dispel the notion?

Here’s a more realistic example.

A supervisor I work with recently told me that he wished his employees would stop passing the buck to him all the time and start making more decisions for themselves. When I observed this team I realized they had a rule, regulation, or policy for nearly everything they did. These employees were so used to being governed by rules that their only solution for something out of the ordinary was to pass it along to the boss. And what did the boss do? Make up a new rule!

Yes, we still need a few rules, but less is more.

Here’s an amazing story from The Service Culture Handbook. The phone systems went down at a company called Rackspace, a company that provides computer hosting for thousands of business customers.

A lone technical support agent sprang into action. He tweeted his personal phone number, letting customers know they could reach him directly if they needed help. Soon other tech support reps followed suit and tweeted their numbers, too. For the next four hours, they used Twitter and their cell phones to serve customers until Rackspace restored its phone service. The support team typically handles a thousand calls during a four-hour time frame, so their extraordinary service prevented a lot of unhappy customers.

The stakes were high, but nobody from management told these employees to tweet their personal phone numbers. It wasn't part of a carefully scripted procedure. No one even asked permission. They just did it.

My favorite part about the story is there wasn’t a rule that guided these employees’ actions. But they did have something else that influenced them. It was this customer service vision, called the Fanatical Support Promise:

We cannot promise that hardware won't break, that software won't fail, or that we will always be perfect. What we can promise is that if something goes wrong, we will rise to the occasion, take action, and help resolve the issue.

I’ve created this resource page to help you learn more about creating a customer service vision for your team. You can find more examples and get my step-by-step guide to writing your own.

What's new in learning and performance? ASTD ICE 2010

The American Society for Training and Development 2010 International Conference and Exposition is now complete and I'm happy to report on what's new in the world of learning and performance.

Nothing.

I realize if I stop here this would be a pretty short post so let me expound. There's nothing new, but the conference did reveal current trends and greater insight into what drives employee performance. The risk and the opportunity lie in whether we recognize that the fundamentals never change even when the technology does. Here are my three biggest take-aways from spending a week with 8,000 of my closest training friends.

Autonomy vs. Control: The debate

This old debate was raging throughout the conference. Autonomy proponents suggest we need to free our employees of restrictive policies, do away with rote learning in training classes, and give in to the inevitability that employees will find a way to use social media tools in the workplace whether or not our firewalls allow it. Control proponents worry about employees running amok on Facebook and Twitter, they desire more predictable outcomes, and they see a need for certain members of our workforce to toughen up, get in line, and embrace a little hard work for a change.

So what works? I met Arthur, a training and development leader with Motorola, who told me that they used informal communities to share knowledge and ideas that have generated huge (and quantifiable!) improvements in productivity and cost savings. The way to get these learning communities to work is to have a clear purpose (ex: all about product "x"), provide a moderator to stimulate discussion and participation, provide some guidelines for participants using the communities. In other words, a little autonomy and a little structure.

Boo or Hooray, Social Networking is Here to Stay

Twitter was on fire during the conference. If you'd like, check it out for yourself by searching #astd10. So what?

On one hand, social networking tools like Twitter represent a new way of learning, collaborating, and working. On the other hand, the best social networking you can do at a conference with 8,000 attendees is to meet people face to face and have a conversation. In this sense, social networking isn't a new concept at all. Our opportunity as people who lead, develop, and support others is to understand how social networking technology can potentially make traditional social networking happen faster and with a broader audience. Our risk is reallying on technology so much become anti-social. When you get an email, IM, text, Facebook post, or Tweet from someone sitting right next to you, you know things have gone too far.

New Mediums, Old Rules for Communication

The way we share information in companies is changing, but the rules of effective communication remain the same. For example, reading this blog may give you some interesting food for thought about trends in employee development. I must also acknowledge that visuals make communication much more effective and my blog, particularly this post, is pretty lacking in that department. It seems I also have some work to do!

A great gem on new mediums, old rules was a session I attended on webinars led by Becky Pike Pluth. Webinars have become our fast and cheap way of avoiding meetings, training, and travel, but they've also devolved into mindless info-dumping. I met a training professional named Bill who summed it up by saying, "Before I sign on to a webinar I make sure I've got all my other work lined up so I have something to do while I'm logged into this thing."

How can we apply old rules to webinars? A few tips from Pike-Pluth were to include interaction every 4 minutes, open and close with high-energy activities that get people engaged, and to provide a hand out just like you would in person. I can't wait to try these techniques in my next webinar.

If you attended the conference, I'd love to hear what you think. If you didn't attend, it would be great to get your thoughts too. Please drop your comments below.

The hidden power of hidden knowledge

I know a lot about markers from spending more than fifteen years as a trainer. That statement may not be too interesting to you until you realize the true value of inane knowledge that only comes from experience. Find a way to identify this knowledge in your own organization and you can save time and money while improving productivity.

Weird marker fact
Many a whiteboard has been ruined by someone accidentally writing on it with a permanent marker. The good news is you can generally fix this in a few minutes.  Just take a whiteboard marker and trace over the permanent marker so it is fully covered. Then, spray whiteboard cleaner on a cloth and wipe down the surface. Voila! The permanent marker is gone. 

Bored by marker facts? Maybe. But look closer and you'll see that over the years I've saved countless whiteboards from destruction and expensive replacement.

Put hidden knowledge to work
There's real value to finding and capturing hidden knowledge in organizations, but it requires you to go against the grain of top-down management. Here are three simple strategies to making the most of the weird knowledge your experienced employees have stuck in their brains.

#1 Capture It
I learned how to save a whiteboard from one of my experienced trainers when I was a young training supervisor. We captured this great technique for all future trainers by incorporating it into our train-the-trainer curriculum. This gave us a whole team of people who could save an expensive whiteboard from doom.

Find ways to document and capture the wisdom of your experienced employees so you can share it with others.

#2 Proceduralize It
I was once tasked with helping sales reps at a catalog company improve their ability to pitch the company's credit card. Our company-wide acceptance rate was 5%, but one employee consistently got more than 40% of her customers to sign up for the new card. What was her secret? She had some natural sales ability but she also congratulated her customers on being pre-approved when she presented the offer. It was a strange approach that turned out to be highly effective. Our average acceptance rate jumped to 20% when we made this technique part of the standard procedure for all our reps.

Experienced employees often find more efficient ways to get things done. Why not make their process the procedure for everyone?

#3 Use them as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
I once worked for a company that sold collectibles and novelties from the former Soviet Union. It served a niche to be sure, but it also made for an eclectic range of product issues and questions. Fortunately, I had several experienced employees who were all interested in different product lines. I put each one in charge of education for the products they liked most and suddenly found them challenging each other with fun quizzes, training new employees on our products, and developing relationships with collectors they could call and sell to when new shipments came in.

Your experienced employees have a lot to share. Give them responsibilities that allow them to use their knowledge and you might be surprised at how much they contribute!

Everyone is in charge of customer service

I spent last week helping two very different clients improve customer service. One was a boutique hotel that wanted to find ways to improve their already outstanding valet operations. The other was the receiving and mailroom department for a hospital and university that wanted to improve their reputation among university employees. The hotel was an obvious fit for my services, but you could argue that the work I did with the university was even more important. Serving their customers at a high level could literally mean delivering surgical supplies just in time to save a patient's life or tracking down some mis-delivered samples that a researcher ultimately uses to find a new cure for cancer.

High performing organizations make customer service a part of everyone's job. It's easy to imagine the importance of customer service in settings where someone has frequent, service-oriented contact with customers. The best companies realize that everyone has an impact on customer service, even when their connection to customers is less obvious.

The classic restaurant example
When we dine out we most frequently evaluate the restaurant's service based on our interactions with our server. Were they friendly? Did they get our order right? Was our drink refilled? Let's look at who else has an impact:

• The host or hostess seats you in a timely manner and makes sure there is someone covering that section who can serve you. There's a lot of logistics and teamwork required to make this happen!
• The dishwasher ensures your dishes and utensils are clean. You only notice this person's work if they don't do their job.
• The buser makes sure you have a clean table with the appropriate place-settings, keeps your water refilled, and quickly removes your dirty plates.
• The cook makes sure your food is correctly prepared and comes out as delicious as it sounds on the menu. You rarely see your cook, but you will definitely see their work!
• The manager makes sure everyone is working together in concert.

Good service will result if all of the above people do their job. All it takes is one person to drop the ball for a guest to have a poor experience.

Less obvious examples
I've provided customer service training for a lot of unusual groups over the years. One thing they all have in common is service makes their job easier and creates better results for the people they serve. Here are some examples of the types of people I've trained:

Accounts Receivable. This group used service techniques to speed up payments from clients while preserving client relationships when bills were past due.

Housing Assistant. A public agency that provided rental assistance to low-income families used customer service techniques to serve their clients more efficiently and improve productivity.

Loan Underwriting. An underwriting department improved their service to loan officers, which resulted in faster decisions and better client retention when loans were not approved.

Sales. Sales representatives leveraged customer service techniques to grow sales with existing clients and differentiate themselves with new prospects.

Plumbers. A plumbing company used customer service to stand out from competitors by making sure they did more than fix leaks. They ensured home owners could easily recommend their service.

Customer service training isn't the solution for every situation, but customer service should be everyone's priority. Feel free to contact us for a complimentary brain-storming session if you'd like to get some ideas on how to get everyone in your organization focused on service.

Five steps to attending a conference

Have you ever eaten too much pizza? At first, the pizza tastes so good. Every bite is delicious. And there's so much pizza it's exciting! You keep eating. Slowly, you start feeling all that pizza but it still tastes so good that you keep eating. By the end of it, your belly is so full you can't stand to look at another pizza for weeks. All you want to do is take a nap.

That's a lot like how most people attend a conference.

I'm heading off to the American Society for Training and Development's annual conference next week. A number of of colleagues are attending the Society or Human Resources conference in June and there are many other outstanding conferences at this time of year. Here's how you can make attending pay off.

Step 1: Set goals
Why are you planning on attending this conference. What knowledge, ideas, or products do you expect to bring back to the workplace after the conference? Set clear goals and the conference will suddenly become less overwhelming. It will also become easier to sell to your boss.

Step 2: Plan ahead
A conference can sometimes feel like Disneyland - there's just too much to do! Scan the conference program ahead of time to identify your 'must-see' opportunities. Is there a key speaker you want to meet? Is there a hot new product you want to check out in the exhibit hall? Is a famous author delivering a keynote that you absolutely must be in the front row for? You'll have a better chance of doing all you really want to do if you make a plan before arriving at the conference.

For many of us, planning ahead also means setting up meetings with key clients, vendors, and colleagues. Don't expect to just 'run into' important people. Remember, your contacts are likely to be overwhelmed too. Plan out your important lunches, coffees, meetings, and dinners before you arrive so it is all locked in on your calendar.

Step 3: You can't do it all
Keep this in mind: Too Much Information! There's too much to do and see at a conference and the reality is you will only benefit from a small portion. Don't try to go to every session you planned to attend, especially if something better comes up. In step one, you set goals then you created a plan in step two. Your goals are more important than your plan so follow them!

Step 4: Keep your eyes open
Every conference has a few unpredictable moments. You can capitalize on those moments if you follow your goals and allow your plan to be a guide and not a mandate. A chance meeting with a key client, an unexpected learning opportunity, or a private chat with a big name in your industry are all worth more than making sure you check off that next session on your list.

Step 5: Have an implementation process
I make a list of all my take-aways immediately after attending a conference. Even if I'm very tired, I find this is an essential activity. Then I give myself 30 days to do something with each item on the list or I toss it.

Make sure you have some sort of plan to put what you gained into action. Otherwise, you'll be like the kid who ate too much pizza. You'll be so conferenced out you won't want to touch any of it. All you'll have to show for your attendance will be a stack of business cards, pages of notes, and some well-worn shoes.