Sanera » Leadership

Corporate Culture and Consistency

Alicia Arenas — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:15:52 +0000

My husband, the love of my life, had brain surgery earlier this year.

The anticipation, wondering if it was benign or cancerous (it was benign and he is almost fully recovered), praying that the neurosurgeon would not suddenly get the shakes, being in a hospital away from home and having no family nearby all added up to make this one of the most stressful experiences we’ve gone through in a long time.

And while we were in the hospital, waiting for Marco to be admitted, something occurred to me. This was a great opportunity to observe corporate culture. First, I would experience it from the perspective of a customer (instead of as an corporate leader or HR pro or business coach). Second, we would be exposed to all levels of employees: janitors, nurse’s assistants, charge nurses (responsible for all the activities in their unit during their shift), staff supervisors and doctors. Third, we were going to be there for three nights and four days, 24/7. It was the perfect incubator for observation. Would the corporate culture the hospital spent thousands of dollars and many man hours to create, translate into a consistent experience?

Meet Megan. In the ICU unit, we had a nurse named Megan. Megan was a gift and the epitome of the hospital’s mission: “Serving Humanity to Honor God.”

When Megan met us, she wrote her name and hospital cell phone number on the wipe-board so we would know who she was and how to get in touch with her.

She explained everything to us. I’m not overstating this. From how each medication was going to help Marco heal, to showing me how to set the locks on the sleeper chair so it wouldn’t roll away and everything in between. She made sure we were as knowledgeable about Marco’s situation as she was.

She apologized for having to wake Marco up every hour.

When I asked her where the soda machine was, she asked me what I wanted, left the room and brought a Diet Coke back to me so I wouldn’t have to pay.

When my husband was in pain and he couldn’t have more pain killers, Megan lovingly patted my husband’s head.

She brought extra blankets and pillows before we asked for them.

Watching Megan attend to my husband left me feeling comforted, safe and reassured. That was because of two things: She knew what she was doing and she genuinely cared about my soul mate.

Toni & Company:

Toni was our nurse when we transferred from ICU to a regular floor.

In her first introduction to us, she wrote her name on the wipe board while explaining this was not her regular floor and that she was on loan from another floor. She didn’t write down her phone number.

We were transferred right around lunch time and my husband was ravenous. I asked Toni when we could expect lunch and her answer was “soon.” Two hours and two reminders later, Toni finally said, “I suppose I’ll have to go to ICU to get his lunch.” More time passed before we finally got his cold lunch.

Megan from ICU told us that if Marco got thirsty, extremely thirsty, we needed to call the neurosurgeon right away; it meant danger. The thirst happened during Toni’s shift. We told her five times over three hours what was happening, we told her the neurosurgeon wanted to be paged immediately if it happened. Each time I went to look for her (she didn’t come to us) she said, “Oh. Okay. I’ll call the doctor.” Finally, after 3.5 hours I went to the ICU floor, looked for Megan and told her what was happening. She immediately broke all protocol by leaving her floor to see Marco. She asked him several questions and I watched the color in her face progress from pink to bright red. She told us she was going to page the neurosurgeon right then. Five minutes later a sheepish Toni walked into the room ready to take care of my husband. She also told us that the neurosurgeon yelled at her on the phone.

It wasn’t just Toni either. None of the nurses on that floor wrote down their hospital cell phone numbers. When Marco got extremely thirsty he asked for Gatorade and the response was, “I’m sorry we don’t have any on this floor” and she left the room. I asked several people if I could have a sleeper chair and the consistent answer was an non-committed, “I’ll try.” The apathy on that floor was palpable.

Organizational Consistency:

Being on the ICU floor was like being at a Ritz Carlton. I imagine that the last three days of his stay was like being at a charge-by-the-hour motel.

What happened? It was the same hospital system. It was the same building. Each floor had the same motivational employee bulletin boards which reinforced the “competency of the month.” The protocols for responding to patient’s needs were the same on each floor. And I’m sure they were operating from the same employee handbook.

Shouldn’t every employee take patient care seriously?

Obviously, the answer is yes. Yet I think one of the hardest things for organizations to nail down is consistency across their enterprise. What happened last week reinforced three things every leader needs to understand and do something about:

What Leaders Should Remember:

An organization can have all the technical tools in place to create an incredible customer experience, but that is no guarantee that employees will use them. Leaders must follow up.

Leaders, Recruiters and HR pros need to continue to focus their recruiting efforts on the technical and behavioral skills candidates present. One without the other is disastrous.

Great tools and skilled employees mean nothing without front line supervisors who know how and have the courage to hold their employees accountable to do their jobs.

It’s a three legged stool. Or is it? What other factors should be considered in creating a consistent experience and corporate brand?

Alicia Arenas is a business consultant and corporate trainer. She learned the business ropes working as an accomplished HR leader in Fortune 100 and 500 companies for 15 years. She decided to leave the corporate world and opened her highly acclaimed consulting firm, Sanera, The People Development Company. Alicia’s mission is to equip leaders to make sound, game-changing, revenue-bursting business decisions and focus employees on being more productive. She also runs a business boot camp. Alicia is based in San Antonio, Texas and consults with companies nationwide.

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Photo courtesy of Fotos Gov/Ba via Flicker.

Why Men Ask More Questions Than Women

Alicia Arenas — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:51:12 +0000

I picked up one of my favorite books to re-read last week: Talking from 9 to 5, by Dr. Deborah Tannen. Tannen is a linguistics expert, and has written several books to help us understand the differences in how men and women communicate in the workplace.

There was a section of the book that fascinated me – the gender differences around questions. Turns out that the stereotypes are true: women ask more questions than men. Tannen explains this is because men understand, more than women, that asking a question (whether for help or directions) puts a person in an inferior position. Therefore, most men will avoid asking a question publicly where asking might highlight a lack of knowledge. Instead, they will do almost everything else they can to find the answer on the their own.

As a woman and a coach, I don’t agree that asking questions makes one inferior. From my perspective, someone who asks questions demonstrates humility, they acknowledge they don’t know everything and show a willingness to learn (all essential to being coached). But according to Tannen, mine is a typically female and naive perspective.

The reality, according to Tannen, is that there is a very real, negative bias towards people who ask questions. In the corporate world, people who appear to know things or have the capability of figuring things out on their own are highly valued. And therein lies the problem.

Leadership experts tell us the ability to ask good questions leads to great answers which then leads to intense personal/professional development. (Pick up a copy of John Maxwell’s Thinking for a Change or John G Miller’s QBQ: The Question Behind the Question.) If this is true, your responsibility as a leader is to make your department a safe place for people to ask good questions, regardless of their gender.

Encourage Questions

I’m not suggesting you put Successories posters on your walls that say “There is No Such Thing as a Stupid Question.” More precisely, you need to be cognizant of how you perceive and treat employees who ask questions.

- Do you favor people who ask or don’t ask questions?

- How do you reward employees who ask questions vs employees who don’t?

- How do you respond when an employee asks you a question?

What do you think? Should we ask more questions? Do questions make us look inferior?

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Photo courtesy of Stefan Baudy via Flickr.

More Money Leads to Poor Performance

Alicia Arenas — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:17:42 +0000

Yes, you read the headline correctly. And it flies in the face of everything most of us have been taught about motivating employees.

By the way, I don’t believe motivating employees means you need to hold their hands all day and fix their problems – especially when one of their problems is that they don’t like to work. That said, motivating employees is an important skill to master because motivated employees tend to bring their best to the workplace. And that typically leads to increased revenue and profitability.

Where does money fit into the picture?

Daniel Pink

Let’s look to Daniel Pink. In addition to being the former chief speech writer for Al Gore and an aide to US Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Pink wrote a ground breaking book called “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” Get the book.

In Drive, Pink says the idea of using money to reward performance is antiquated and most importantly, doesn’t work. This means most of what you’ve learned about compensation plans, annual reviews and motivation can now be tossed into the garbage bin. According to Pink’s findings, employees who do complicated tasks that require cognitive skills (versus simple tasks which require little thought) perform worse when presented with monetary rewards for their efforts. Their performance does not improve. It gets worse.

“But why do employees complain that they are not getting paid enough money?”

In my experience, it’s because they aren’t getting the rest of what they really want. Complaints about money are symptoms of a bigger issue, not the root. But let me be clear: you need to pay your employees fairly and commensurately with the market. If you aren’t doing that, the rest doesn’t matter.

What Employees Really Want

Pink says there are three main drivers of performance that have nothing to do with money. Those drivers are:

1 – Autonomy. Autonomy is the desire to be self-directed. It is the opposite of micro-managing. If you made a good hiring decision, trust your employees to do their job. Set expectations, give them feedback, check in and let them go.

2 – Mastery. Mastery is our desire to get better at what we do. This is why ongoing training is important, but training isn’t everything. Employees become masterful when they have hands on experience. Look for opportunities that will help your employees learn and practice their skills.

3 – Purpose. Purpose is our desire to contribute to the greater good. Employees who are in positions which require cognitive skills are not fulfilled from collecting a paycheck. They want to know that their work has meaning. Your job is to help them understand how their work impacts the company and its customers.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose. When basic needs are met, these are the drivers of outstanding performance. This is what motivates employees. If you would like to hear more about Pink’s research, watch this engaging presentation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

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Alicia Arenas is a business coach and corporate trainer. When she’s not singing or song-writing, she helps her entrepreneurs increase their sales through coaching and her business boot camp. Alicia is based in San Antonio, Texas, and coaches people nationwide.

Photo courtesy of Zach Klein via Flickr.

The Simplest And Best Advice About Delegating I’ve Ever Heard (PG-13)

Alicia Arenas — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 06:08:56 +0000

If you struggle with delegating work to your employees, you’re not alone. Entrusting parts of your business, your blood, sweat, money and reputation is scary and you wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t have a fair amount of trepidation about it. However, if you are an entrepreneur, you simply can’t afford not to delegate.

What I hear frequently is, “I want to delegate, but how can I guarantee he/she won’t screw things up?”

Here is a 3 step plan to guarantee against employee screw ups:

Accept the fact that your employees are going to screw up. There are no such guarantees and there is no 3 step plan. Sorry.

Instead of focusing on preventing the inevitable, focus on mitigating the inevitable.

You can mitigate the impact of screw ups by knowing your employees’ skills, giving them clear directions and carefully choosing what responsibilities you give them.

The Best Delegation Advice I’ve Ever Heard

I should be a delegation expert. After all, before I started my own company, I worked in Corporate HR for 15 years. I am certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources. I’ve attended expensive conferences, I’ve heard international keynotes speakers, received training, read countless books and consumed gobs of white papers. Yet the best advice I ever heard about delegation came from Will Hayden, founder of Red Jacket Firearms and “star” of the Discovery Channel’s newest hit reality show “Sons of Guns.” The show follows the team at Red Jacket as they repair, rebuild, convert, suppress and modify weapons such as AK47s and even a Civil War era cannon.

Will is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, served our country in the Marine Corps and now leads a small team of employees in what the firearms community considers to be one of the most creative, leading edge weapons builders in the country. And if you watch the show, you know that Will is an easy going, salt of the earth entrepreneur who is fiercely protective of his brand. I love Sons of Guns because I love watching him in action – leading his people.

In the episode “The Bazooka; Kris’ Birthday,” (which aired last night, Wednesday, February 16th) Will gave his employee Kris a project – which Kris screwed up big time. When Kris, fearfully told his boss about it, Will literally gave him a butt tap with his foot. Then he said:

“Son, I don’t put you on nothing that you could f#*% up to the point that I couldn’t fix it.”

Get past the grammar and swearing and really look at what he said. In case you don’t speak Southern, it sounds a little bit like:

“Son, I give you things to do that I can fix if you screw them up.”

How’s that for some down-home, Louisiana, bread and butter delegation advice?

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Photo courtesy of sgetliffe via Flickr.

Do You Should On People

Pattie Porter — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:47:45 +0000

Great Expectations…we learn early in life that expectations can bring great joy, satisfaction and reward; and unfilled expectations can be equally disheartening and damaging to perceptions and relationships. When we live a life of expectation and build a business around expectations, we look to others to fulfill those needs. We expect our children to love us, our employees to be dedicated and hard-working, our bosses to treat us with respect, and businesses to provide great customer service. We even pressure ourselves to achieve it all or to be the best we can be. We live a life of expectations founded in our values and beliefs of what is right and wrong, and what is good and bad. Then, when the things we anticipate don’t come true, they come crashing down around us. We have put too much of our success, happiness and our needs on the shoulders of others. When they don’t meet our expectations, they have failed us. It is their fault and we begin the blame game.

Take for example the recent dispute over NBC’s Tonight Show debacle with hosts Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. Everyone has an opinion about what should or should not have happened. The great expectations for Jay Leno’s prime time show failed miserably and then the “shoulding” and blaming began. In the Huffington Post, entertainment reporter and critic, James Sims talks about what NBC should and should not expect to happen, now that Leno will return to host the show on March 1^st. Millions of dollars later, reputations damaged, and people’s lives changed forever, the water cooler conversations across America will continue the shoulding debate over what NBC, Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno should have done and what they should do now

When is the last time you contributed to “shoulding” on people? Just hearing the word, should, places most people in a position to justify, defend or retaliate. “You should have been straight with us” or “You should have known better” or “I should have told the truth.” You can almost hear the tone and attitude of judgment. When we use blaming language, we convey not only our disappointment but our disapproval. We impose our values and beliefs on the person, the situation or the institution for not meeting our expectations. We hold someone else accountable. Then, we attack.

Stop! If you want others to not react in a defensive way, then use language that communicates your needs and feelings in a way that it will be heard. Instead of “You should have been straight with us” say “I’m really angry and need to trust that we will get straightforward information.” Essentially, state your disappointment by beginning the sentence with “I” versus “YOU” and clearly state your need or your feeling. If you change the blaming language, you change how others will hear your complaint or concern. They will be less defensive and more responsive.

What great expectations have you laid before yourself or at the feet of others? As said by American author, Joan Didion, “To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.”Next time you “should” on yourself or others, then stop, listen and shift.

Photos courtesy of a2gemma and andymangold.

Choices And Lessons

Alicia Arenas — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:19:57 +0000

As most of you know, there was a bit of drama yesterday regarding one of my blog posts.

To those of you who reached out to me via blog comments, on Twitter and in direct messages I thank you! As I write this, I’m feeling deeply appreciative of my friends and colleagues. And so, I’d like to give you an update.

Choices

The person to whom I referred in my post (let’s call her “Tanya” for convenience sake) contacted me and asked if we could talk. I must admit I was hesitant at first, but I agreed. I found her to be warm, intelligent, strong and sincere. Even so, we had a frank conversation about what happened. Tanya was disappointed that I had not reached out to her prior to my post. I explained that my intention was to vent, and obtain your (my readers’) insight and opinions.

We each had a choice in how to handle this situation. Either one of us could have escalated things at any point. I could have given you Tanya’s name, Twitter ID and website. I didn’t. She could have asked her thousands of followers to come to my blog and post nasty comments. She didn’t. We both could have formally involved attorneys; and although it came up, neither of us did. In fact, I give her kudos for even contacting me to talk – that took courage. (BTW, she did update her site with an acknowledgment before she called me.)

We had more choices. She could have chosen to believe that my intention was to slander and malign her. I could have chosen not to believe her when she explained how long she had been working on her post and that she did not pilfer from mine.

But I made a difference choice (as did she). As silly as it might sound, during our conversation last night, I choose to believe that she had no ill intent. In fact, during our call, we both expressed regret. She apologized to me and I apologized to her. Crazy? Maybe. But I felt it was the right thing to do. As we ended our call 45 minutes later, I don’t think either of us felt warm-fuzzies. But we did end our call wishing each other the best.

Lessons

Would I post another blog about something that upset me deeply? Probably. Would I give the person who offends me an opportunity to respond before I post anything, even if I don’t release a name? Probably.

Should you? Should you allow the emotion within you to make it’s way to the pages of your blog? Honestly, I’m a bit conflicted. I think one of the privileges of having a blog is that it is yours to do with as you want; you and I are blessed with the freedom to say whatever we’d like. At the same time, every word we write and everything we say has a consequence. And perhaps if two different people had been involved, this situation would have ended differently with more stress, credibility tainted and money lost.

So my dear readers, may I ask you again – what do you think?

Photo Courtesy of Laffy4k

Charlie Brown Business Sense

Alicia Arenas — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:54:10 +0000

Forget business for a moment. Let’s talk Christmas trees.

Have you ever been to a tree lot with a perfectionist? That one’s too big. That one’s scrawny. That one has a gap on the left side where a bird had a nest. Too small. Too short. Too green. Too pine-y. Too spruce-y. And after hours of debate, no one feels like caroling or cocoa. You just want to get the heck out of there.

Then of course, there is Charlie Brown’s tree.

Imperfect. Scrawny. That tree is not going on the cover of “Cartoon Christmas Monthly.”

But, by the end of the show, it’s got everyone gathered around, singing carols. Why? Because Charlie Brown was focused on being useful, not flawless. He wanted to get the holiday moving.

Charlie Brown Business Sense

As you head into 2010 with your business, may I encourage you to be a little more Charlie Brown and a little less Lucy? Focus on being effective, not perfect. I’m certainly not suggesting you abandon a quest for excellence. But insisting on perfection will bring your business growth to a screeching halt.

Perfect doesn’t exist. Accept that. Assimilate that into your psyche and your approach in business. You will be set free. And once you’re set free, you are going to find success. It’s there for you. But if you’re looking through the lens of “I have to be perfect,” you’re going to miss opportunities to be great.

How? You won’t try out for an audition because you’re comparing yourself to Michael Buble. You won’t go after a dream client because you didn’t go to Harvard. You won’t charge enough money because you think imperfect isn’t valuable.

Worse than what it does to your business is what perfectionism does to your soul. Perfectionism steals your joy.

This is an excellent post about the dangers of perfectionism by author and emotional health expert Elaine Sihera. Here is an excerpt:

“People in search of perfection experience disappointment and dissatisfaction more regularly than others because they are often unable to enjoy the simple pleasures of life unless they are ideal.”

Resolve in 2010 to embrace learning from your mistakes. Recognize that our imperfections make our personal and business relationships more authentic. Break out of perfectionism paralysis in favor of moving forward.

Then, get ready for a season of singing around your success.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiBD5Arq34

Forget business for a moment. Let’s talk Christmas trees.

And after hours of debate, no one feels like caroling or cocoa. We just want to get the heck out of there.

Then of course, there’s Charlie Brown’s tree.