leadership

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I Hate Fridays!

January 9, 2013 in Business, HR Advice, hr fundamentals, HR principles, Leadership, Performance, Talent Management by newresource | No comments

Ever have someone say something early on in your life and it kind of sticks with you forever?  Well that’s exactly what happened here. Back in the day,  the best leader I’ve ever worked for, Mableline Johnson (real name), taught me a lot about employee relations, leadership and compassion.

The company was Boatmen’s Bank; it was a small mortgage and personal loan banking company. Mableline was our manager. We were “Mortgage Analyst” but really it was customer service. I was a young hot-shot looking to become a manager because I thought that was cool. Anyway, Mableline knew I was aggressive and eager or learn and so she would talk to me about being a good employee – supervisor and leader.  But more than just talking about it, she lived it.

I don’t know this for a fact but I’m pretty sure Mableline did not have a college degree but still the way she managed us was pretty incredible. She’d come in the office and speak to everyone. She made time throughout the week to visit with each of us at some point in the day and ask how we were doing. She built relationships with us by getting to know us – on a personal level.

One Friday, I was on a break and I stopped by her office to speak and as we were conversing, she looked beyond me and noticed many of the analysts were also standing around talking to each other – but they weren’t on break – or wasn’t supposed to be. Mableline said to me “Excuse me Chris, but you know what? I hate Friday’s. It’s my least favorite day of week.” I asked why? And she said “Pay attention to Friday’s and how I have to stay on you all to do your jobs. It’s the only day of week that I have to come out of my office and remind everyone that we have calls waiting –  these members need our help.”

She then stepped out of the office and gently reminded everyone that there were callers waiting.

From that day forward, I noticed that Friday’s was in fact the only day she had to step out of office and talk to us about work. Coincidently, I noticed this same loss of productivity on Friday’s at every other office I’ve worked. There are various reports and studies which correlate causal dress Friday’s with a decrease in production.

Here’s my fondest memory of Mableline. We had heard rumblings-rumors-word of mouth that Boatmen’s was going to be purchased by another bank. Ultimately those rumors were confirmed, it was official and the news hit the staff pretty hard.  After the announcement was made public, the next morning, Mableline came out of her office – there were a bunch of calls in the queue -clearly emotional she stood at the front of the room and asked everyone to place their callers on hold. I knew it was very important because it seemed like all of our customers were calling in to find out the status of their loans since we were being bought out.

Mableline waited until every analyst had their caller on hold, and holding back tears she said, “Listen, I know this is tough news. It’s hard for me too. I’ve known many of you for years and you are my friends as well as my employees. I want you to know that I appreciate your hard work and professionalism. And as hard as this is for us all, we have a job to do and we are going to do it till the end. We are going to be professionals.”

And in the following months, until they closed the doors I think only 2 people left early; the rest remained until the end. No one half-assed their job duties. No one complained. We worked hard because we respected Mableline – her character – her leadership – the way she treated us with respect and compassion. We wanted to make her proud; even if she hated Friday’s.

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Female Domination

August 15, 2012 in Business, Diversity, HR Advice, hr fundamentals, HR principles, Performance, SHRM by newresource | No comments

You can’t help but to be inspired while watching the Olympics. The stories are compelling, the will power, the training and sacrifices are unbelievable. But is it me or did we also witness the feminization of sports, leadership and well the Olympics? Other than the men’s swim team and the men’s basketball team can you name 5 other men who won gold? I’ll wait….Actually I won’t.

Were the female sports highlighted and broadcasted more than the men or did the men not bring in the gold like the ladies? Some of the competitions were Olympic firsts, like female boxing. The ladies just seem to be everywhere. There aren’t official stats on this but it seemed like NBC aired more of the women’s sports like badminton, volleyball, floor exercises, ping pong, swimming, and synchronized swimming and on and on.

Hey no complaints here, because those ladies earned it and frankly, there are worst things to look at than athletic females competing and getting all sweaty. Let’s move on. In the midst of all this competition, sandwiched between Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt’s historical efforts, the girls killed it. In fact of the 46 US gold medals, 29 were won by female athletes.

Check these sisters out.

  • Gabby Douglass- 1st African American to win the women’s all-around gymnastics gold
  • USA Women’s Basketball Team – Won gold for the 5th straight Olympics and a 40 game win streak
  • Allyson Flex – Won 3 Olympic gold medals in track and field, first time since Florence Griffith-Joyner
  • USA Women’s 4 x 100 Relay Team – Won gold while breaking Olympic and World Records
  • Melissa Missy Franklin – 17 year old winner of 4 gold medals in women’s swimming
  • Claressa Shields – Won gold in the Olympic debut of women’s boxing

Thank you Title IX and VII. From a (HR) business, real world standpoint you can add Yahoo’s! new CEO, Marissa Mayer and the 1st female referee in NFL history, Shannon Eastin, to the list of recent women history makers (ballers). We’ve got ourselves a full-fledge female revolution people.

Go ahead ladies, get it done. Historically when women break barriers they break barriers for all of us, especially minorities. Generations of kids (boys and girls) will be inspired by what they have accomplished.

Don’t worry guys you still make more money, for now.

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What’s Your Legacy?

June 4, 2012 in Business, HR Advice, hr fundamentals, HR principles, Leadership, Performance, SHRM by newresource | No comments

I often write about the terrible treatment some employees have to endure every day at work. I rage against it to be honest. Sorry, but if you can’t relate you should thank your lucky stars, you’re in the 30%. That’s the percentage of people that love their career and are totally engaged. Good for you but I have to keep it real and unfortunately it’s not all peaches and cream out there. We can’t lose sight of the fact that although the unemployment rate is down to 8.2% that does not take into account those that have given up on finding work.  Or those that are desperately looking for a better opportunity because of the slave driver in charge at the office.

You know the people that I’m talking about, the ones that change the rules and don’t tell you about it. The ones that hold you accountable for their thoughts, and never have a conversation to clarify their expectations or position. The folks that want to beat you into their idea of a model employee with Performance improvement Plan or progress disciplinary action. The ones that do not lead by example but hold you to a standard that they themselves do not model.

It’s about more than policy

There are a couple of employers here in Memphis that I have been hearing a lot about regarding their downright abusive treatment of their human capital. Things like denying them the right to go to college.  Refusing FMLA rights to an employee with a sick child, the child has cancer.  And when an employee goes to HR to voice a concern, they are often met with “This is an at-will state.”

I’m encouraging these victims to pursue their cases with the EEOC. Oh yes, I can write up one hell of an EEOC complaint, they kinda taught us that (shout out to THE Ohio State University) we’ll see how that turns out.

I was talking to another HR professional about this situation and we both agreed that this is ridiculous and not the way an organization should behave. She pointed out something more, something so very simple and poignant. She said you should put aside the law; put aside the rules and policies and just think about the legacy you want to leave behind. At the end of the day, can you look yourself in the mirror and feel good about not allowing someone to go to college or would you feel better knowing to help someone to improve their life. Do you want to be known as the manager that fired someone for seeing a sick child?

Can you go home at night look at your children, your spouse or family members and be proud of what you’ve done? Would you want someone to treat them the way you treat your employees? I ask you, what is your legacy?

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The Terminator: Hasta la Vista, Baby!

October 12, 2011 in Business, HR Advice, hr fundamentals, HR principles, Leadership, unemployment by newresource | 1 comment

Recently I had 3 conversations with individuals regarding terminating employees. Two managers and 1 human resource professional; 3 separate conversations but similar in nature. Each of them had an employee that was very worthy of termination. Yet none of them really wanted to pull the trigger. In fact they were leaning toward not firing them, giving them one more chance.

One employee had attendance issues which were addressed in the past, another one had behavior and performance issues that was weighing on the team dynamic. The employee in the last conversation was consistently bickering and fighting (verbally; cursing and shouting) with teammates; causing a major strain on morale and production. Throughout each talk, I learned the human resource departments supported the terminations. (the hr pro talked it over with her co-workers)

One of the managers was concerned that the employee may try to sue the company in either an age discrimination or race discrimination case. He also felt the company had set a precedence of leniency with other employees and didn’t understand why that same leniency wasn’t being afforded to this employee. The 2nd manager was more concerned about productivity. He felt that it would cause too much of strain on the team if they let her go. And the HR person simply felt that the progressive disciplinary actions weren’t taken.

Just for the record, they all should have been fired like a scud missile. But there was something else I detected; an undercurrent of sympathy for these folks based on the tough economic times.  I recall hearing, “And I know she won’t be able to find another job paying the same thing she makes here…” , “I hate to do this, in this economy but…” and “I want to give them a chance cause it’s tough out here.”

That’s the part that makes it hard. Human Resource professionals are not heartless; we really try to be fair and understanding. We take a lot of this stuff home with us. We are like detectives, counselors, CSI agents, lawyers, and punching bags. I don’t want to put someone in the streets, but when you don’t come to work, don’t work when you do come to work or you call your co-workers “B!tch”  & “Mother#@*!$” what choice do we have.  We should call Mike Rowe, because it’s a dirty job, yet when people do dumb things they gotta ask themselves…“do you feel lucky? huh? do ya punk?”

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An October to Remember: Al, Derrick, Fred & Steve

October 10, 2011 in Business, discrimination, Diversity, HR Advice, hr fundamentals, HR principles, Leadership by newresource | 2 comments

Undoubtedly you’ve heard about the untimely passing of the former Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. In addition, we lost 3 other men that were just as important. It’s understandable why Steve’s death made the biggest media splash. He has changed the way we communicate and work. And I’m going to illustrate that all 4 of these men made very important contributions to American history. Normally, I try to keep these blog posts to 400 words or so, this one is long but it’s worth it. Keep reading.

Within 72 hours death claimed the lives of 4 men that we owe a huge debt of gratitude.  I’m not ranking them in order importance because it’s unfair, subjective and disrespectful.

October 2011, will be a month to remember.  On the 5th, we learned that Steve Jobs has died, but also on that same day we lost Fred Shuttlesworth, and Derrick Bell. As if that wasn’t enough, on the 8th Al Davis passed away. In my research, I noticed that beyond them all passing so closely together, they had similar leadership qualities. Here’s some information on all 4 men.

Al Davis – NFL Legend, he was a scout, an assistant, head coach, general manager and became owner of the Oakland Raiders. Known for his passion to win, he coined the phrase “Just Win Baby” and he did. He brought 3 Super Bowl Championships to the franchise. John Madden was a coach under Davis, you know of Madden, E.A. Sports video game fame. Al hired the 1st black coach (Art Shell), the 1st Latino coach (Tom Flores), and the 1st female CEO (Amy Trask) in the NFL. I don’t even need to explain why that’s important.

Derrick Bell – 1st Black tenured Harvard University School of Law Professor, 1st Black dean of the University Of Oregon School Of Law. He worked with Thurgood Marshall. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice and when they learned he was a member of the NAACP, they asked him to withdraw his membership, but instead he left the Department of Justice. That would not be the only time he quit a prestigious job for what he believed in. He also left Harvard because they didn’t hire an African American female; he left Oregon because a lack of diversity on their faculty staff. He risked his career for equality.

Fred Shuttlesworth – Civil Rights pioneer, Co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference & Reverend. Shuttlesworth urged Dr. King and Andrew Young to come to Birmingham to help with what he called “One of the most segregated cities in America.” As a Civil Rights leader in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s he has been through a lot; including some attempts on his life.  The Klu Klux Khan put 16 sticks of dynamite by his bedroom window (you read correctly SIXTEEN) the house was destroyed but somehow he survived unharmed.

Steve Jobs – Innovative technological genius, Inventor, CEO of Apple Inc. Steve dropped out of College and worked with a partner to create Apple Computers. He turned that into a business relationship Lucas Films LTD, and bought the computer graphic division now known as Pixar Studios. That’s the animated film studio responsible for the “Toy Story” and “Cars” franchises. He returned to Apple where he developed new products like the IPod, IPhone and IPad. Steve changed the world with his philosophy of “Make a dent in the universe.”

I hope the relationship to work is apparent here. These men were all leaders. They were pioneers of their time. They were innovators. They had power and know how to use it. They made sacrifices. They had passion. They were fighters. They changed the world around them and because of their efforts we are all beneficiaries. They’re the kind of leaders that you are proud to say you have worked with. They are truly immortal. Rest in Peace.

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