Defining Diversity

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

If your employees aren’t all John or Jennifer (or the classic “Jane”), then you can call yourself a diverse company, right?  Having employees who don’t all look the same, talk the same, and possess the same backgrounds is good enough, I presume. But it shouldn’t be.

It’s great if your workforce doesn’t include hundreds or thousands of walking, talking, interchangeable cogs, but it isn’t enough if you want real diversity. Along with varying races, genders, and ethnic groups, think about varying opinion and professional perspective. Sometimes “minority” can be used to refer to those sad individuals in a Six Sigma organization who prefer a more free-form approach to management, or those who believe another strategy, in addition to the all-virtual one you may have launched, needs to be augmented to include just as much in-person time. Whatever the majority opinion at your organization, there’s a good chance dissenting voices—another form of diversity—have either been silenced or let go.

One view of management is to tell the workforce what the future approach of the organization will be while telling employees in advance that any disagreement will not be tolerated. It’s the “if you don’t like it, then leave” approach. I’ve heard of that one, and don’t think it’s the smartest way to go. Frightening dissenters into silence or departure is good because it keeps management comfortable, but not so good because it blinds those same managers to potential weaknesses of the plan. As ingenious and all-knowing as your company likes to consider its managers and executives, there’s always a (good) chance they’ve failed to consider at least a few angles of any strategy they’re about to implement. Before you roll out said strategy, wouldn’t it be nice to get a heads-up about potential problems from your employees before your customers or competitors have a chance to point it out to you?

Don’t worry, introducing diversity of opinion isn’t one of those feel good-humanistic approaches traditional business management loathes. On the contrary, it’s an intelligent way to formulate a company’s future direction.

There’s a thin line between constructively pointing out potential flaws of a new business strategy and complaining, and I wouldn’t be afraid to cross it. Complaining, even when it crosses the threshold into whining, isn’t a bad thing in business. It’s horrible to listen to (most of us have enough of it at home and from our inner selves), but when it comes from employees, take notice. As I’ve noted in the past on this blog, that cumbersome new work routine you think will reap big rewards for customers and your bottom line won’t go far if it isn’t livable. It may be a terrific idea in theory, but if the human beings you employ aren’t able to tolerate it, they won’t remain a part of your company, and you’ll have that same retention problem with whomever you hire in the future—unless you opt for the half robot/half monkey approach to staffing (half your employees in that “human” resources stratagem would be robotic, the other half, well-trained simians).

Set aside ample time and venues for complaining at your company, and be sure to aid cowardly complaining. Many insightful complaints—also known as diversity of opinion—are held back out of fear. Who says you have to own your complaint?  If management is frighteningly gung-ho about a new system of operations, and you think it’s the closest thing you’ve heard of to purgatory since your mother tried to scare you into doing your homework as a child, why would you want to have a complaint about it attached to you?   The employees you hired are hopefully smart enough to have a sense of self-preservation, so don’t force them to choose between the corporate executioner’s chair and the horror of watching their company face a slow dwindling of profits—or even marketplace death—from a strategy they were savvy enough to notice at the outset wouldn’t work.

The best thing to do is coach your managers and new executives in leadership development programs to encourage dissent, and even whining and complaining, if it means the creation of better business plans. When you think about it, the fear of diverging opinion in the corporate world is a form of paranoia. Watching your back in business makes sense—to a degree—but not when it makes company leaders suffer from the business world parallel of agoraphobia (as afraid to leave their tiny constructs of perspective as agoraphobic people are to leave their homes). 

If you think of dissent at your company as something similar to the bogeyman, look at it this way: Nobody says you have to follow the corporate dissenter/bogeyman back to his or her lair, but it wouldn’t hurt to listen to what this frightening specter has to say, would it?

How do you handle dissenting opinion at your company?  Do you welcome challenges to the prevailing wisdom, or do you shy away from it?  Do you go so far as to punish those of a different mind?

Overseas and Over Your Head?

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

As an ardent traveler, nothing could be more exciting to me than the news I'm headed on an African safari to chronicle the movements of the elephant so my company can sell more widgets (in my fantasy, elephants produce the timeless "widgets," and therefore the company needs to spend thousands of dollars to send me on a luxury safari "sourcing" trip).

Most overseas assignments don't have anything to do with sourcing widgets from elephants while boarding in luxury accommodations and shopping for local crafts as another official part of the "sourcing" assignment, but, nevertheless, they're great developmental opportunities. The sad part is many of your employees don’t see it that way.

Some of us assume everyone feels as we do on the topic of travel and temporary living arrangements oceans away from their home, but that’s not so. While living in Africa or Australia for a couple of years sounds like heaven to me, I’m in the minority. Never mind relocating to another hemisphere; many of your employees aren’t even open to relocating across the country or to Europe.

Luckily, advances in technology make it a little easier to convince the weary and anxious that a developmental relocation will work in their favor. Internal corporate social networks in which those on assignment overseas can keep up with their colleagues back home, and vice versa, give nervous potential overseas workers a glimpse of the possibilities. “Oh,” they’ll say to themselves, as they prepare to hyperventilate for the fifth time since you first brought up the topic of overseas assignments, “it’s possible to have fun living in another country. Imagine that!” 

It’s funny, but the truth is those who haven’t traveled much—some of whom have lived in the same metropolitan area their whole lives—need evidence their temporarily relocated work friends are thriving.  International assignment social networks also give the newly assigned access to colleagues who already mastered the overseas work routine and can pass along their wisdom.

Along with interactive connections to peers who are in the field overseas, companies can convince workers to give it try by promising and delivering on-demand technology to help them along in their new location. Since these workers will need help both in the office and at home, it’s worth making the investment of loaning them company laptops for the duration of the assignment. Armed with 24-hour access to technology, on-demand tools such as wikis and online, searchable libraries for work can be complemented with on-demand language and cultural aids for the worker’s home and social life. Be sure to load onto the computer, or make available via the Web, a language tool that includes a semantic decoder, so the employee can familiarize herself with the local vernacular. Also include a searchable repository of information about the foreign city’s culture, such as popular night spots, restaurants, and grocery stores, and parts of the city to avoid.

In these economically-stressed times it also is wise to show the employee how the company will help him manage his finances overseas, maybe by providing a cost-of-living adjustment that suits the place you’ve moved him to. After all, the salary that pays for all the worker’s top indulgences in Missouri probably won’t go as far in Paris. It also goes without saying that you need to help, or even provide, a place to live in the person’s new (albeit temporary) home, and direct him to the services he, as an individual, has a need for. If he has a medical condition (a minor one that wouldn’t interfere with his work abroad) that requires periodic check-ups, provide him with a list of doctors in his new home who can help. On a less minor, though very critical note for animal lovers, find out what the country’s policy is on relocating pets from overseas. As much as I adore travel, I can tell you without hesitation I wouldn’t move anywhere I couldn’t take my Miss Minnie, and a lot of your high-potentials probably feel the same way about their Simba or Tinkerbell.

In addition to technology and information, the most important tool to provide newly-arrived-overseas employees with is a buddy. Most likely your employee is headed to one of your global offices. Be sure to recruit a mentor who’s of local origin—someone born to the culture and language (and yet proficient in the employee’s native tongue)—who can show him the way before he cries into his computer keyboard.

Overseas assignments are enticing and make for a well-rounded, globally-savvy workforce. But if the first word your workers think of when you say “overseas” is drowning, you’ll need a company-built life raft to convince them to give it a try.

How do you prepare your workers for overseas assignments?  Any wisdom—or horrible mistakes you hope no other company suffers—that you could pass along?

Canning Cooperation

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

In a recession, the vast wisdom of too many corporate executives is to foster competition rather than cooperation, whether it be between co-workers or between high-level management and employees. Workforces are being asked to do without even cost of living adjustments, so you would think corporate management would feel the urge to be as generous as possible in other ways—such as by creating as pleasant a work environment as is possible under the circumstances.

Alas, my logic must seem awfully illogical to many executive bigwigs.  Instead of extending a hand of cooperation from on high, executive management at many companies appear to view the recession as a time to ask for more than they've ever asked before. The doubled workload is understandable since they couldn't afford to pay the staff that used to share the burdensome tasks, but what about mandates for remaining employees to be judged on harsher terms than they were judged before the recession set in?  On one level, it makes sense. Management doesn't have the resources it previously enjoyed, so it has to be much more selective in which employees to keep and which to discard. But on another level, it doesn't make much sense. They're already asking employees to provide them with free services (that's what it amounts to when you ask people to provide additional services without compensating them for those additional services), and instead of expressing gratitude for the pro bono work, the executives decide to crack the whip ever harder. It's like asking a friend who's done you a favor to scrub your tub instead of buying him or her a gift basket. It's not a perfect metaphor, but you catch the drift of what I'm saying, right?

In addition to it not being a humane way to act towards employees, this approach to workforce management inspires a desire to dissent rather than cooperate, or collaborate, with management. This isn't such a smart strategy for the "strategizers" to adopt. The strategizers, after all, need people to carry out their strategies. If they've only ingratiated themselves to their fellow strategizers (where the promotions and raises often mysteriously continue even in the midst of hiring and salary freezes), who's going to do the work to make the "strategies" a reality? 

You can argue that employees will work no matter what in a recession because if they don't, they'll simply be fired and replaced with another, more eager worker (the Grapes of Wrath principle that in desperate financial times, no matter how little you pay people, and how hard they work, there's someone ready to take their place at lower pay and with more strenuous labor). What's true is they'll do the minimum they need to do to not get fired. They'll do a job that's good enough not to raise eyebrows, and maybe even to make a marginal profit. But for the level of engagement you need to see outstanding results, you'll have to treat them a little better. When you're treated in such a shoddy manner, you don't feel you're working with a partner in good faith. If management isn't seen as a partner in good faith, employees won't provide the level of cooperation and engagement necessary for the kind of mind-bending innovation you need to get you out of your recessionary slump.

Another unfortunate phenomenon that occurs when the whip is tightened in the face of hardship is co-workers begin eying each other suspiciously, eager to catch one another in the act of slipping up. So little is dribbled out that workforce members become one another's enemies. Corporations that create the kind of recessionary culture I've described also succeed in creating a scarcity of resources model in which workers don't cooperate or collaborate—they prey on and fight each other for what little is left. 

To move your business forward, encourage executives to find ways of creating a culture that's generous rather than stingy. Everyone understands the corporate wallet isn't as fat as it once was (it's a little emaciated at the moment, maybe), but there's no reason to encourage added suffering just because you know you can get away with it. Why not offer one Friday a month when employees can take turns working from home?  Or why not stop counting vacation days?  It sounds like a wild idea, but it isn't. Those who are left are your dependable ones. They'll get the work done regardless of whether they take an extra five days for themselves. The important thing to focus on is whether the work is getting done and getting done well; not how late workers stay, whether they prefer working from home, and whether they've already used up their two weeks worth of liberation.

Improving your treatment of workers during the recession makes good financial sense. Who are you more likely to do a favor for (i.e. delivering the products and services you need to survive)?  The friend who took you out to dinner after the last favor you provided?  Or the one who left you at the curb?

What are you doing to encourage cooperation and collaboration during the recession?  Have you created a desperate environment in which good fights have taken the place of good ideas?

The Young and The Resistant

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

True, Millennials are better at technology than your Boomer and Veteran employees, but they're something else besides—potentially much less amenable to getting knuckled under. So far, corporate executives have gotten their way enforcing hiring and salary freezes, including those that are selective in nature (if you're in the right internal network, your promotion and raise is labeled "strategic," and worthy of execution), but that may be changing.

I'm not a Millennial, missing that distinction by four years, but I sympathize with and admire their worldview, especially the part that emphasizes the importance of speaking one's mind to power. The research I came across this past week, and published in Training magazine's Inside Training e-newsletter (you can sign up for it on our Website, ManageSmarter.com), reports that Millennials, or Generation Y'ers, are comfortable strolling into the CEO's office to tell him or her exactly what the Generation Y'er in question thinks of the company policy on...just about anything. Don't like the new reporting structure that has you reporting to a man with half of your IQ, speak up. Don't like the company's environmentally destructive practices, and would much rather save the white tiger than make shareholders happy, speak up. Don't like the layoffs and recessionary culture that's given executives the idea it's OK to take advantage of all but their friends at the company, speak up.

Well, you get the gist. So, when you're preparing your future leaders, you've got a new problem. In addition to teaching financial acumen and generic communication skills (like hoping Sally listens to you at least after the third time you ask her where her marketing report is), they'll need to understand how to cope with this new confrontational culture. Granted, it helps that the next rung of leaders will be drawn from the X'ers and the Y'ers themselves, but it's one thing to be a big mouth when you're on the delivering end; and quite another when you're the decision-maker receiving the criticism. After all, haven't we all heard how much Gen Y'ers/Millennials loathe negative feedback? The research I summarized in Inside Training contradicts that somewhat, revealing your youngest workers to be a little hardier than you expected, but, nonetheless, I'm not convinced they're as  ready to be weather-beaten as your workhorse Boomers.

The worst part is there's no way to prepare a person for that big moment when an outspoken underling knocks on their door to tell them how awful they are and exactly how long they've been this awful. You can try role-play exercises (apparently everyone's last-resort training regimen), but that probably won't cut it. The first (and worst) impulse will be to fire the person delivering the critique or put him on your enemy's list (Millennials are enlightened and open-minded, but, as is true of all humans, you never know what will happen when they get into power).

Maybe the trick is to establish a corporate culture in which there is a structured system that provides for Millennial madness, otherwise known as that strange urge to be sincere. With social networking, and collaborative technology hopefully at their fingertips (or soon-to-be at their fingertips), your workers can have access to a platform for constant expression of their corporate likes and dislikes. Instead of conducting your annual employee "climate" survey (or whatever you're calling it these days), workforce managers can have access to a constant stream of feedback, which, if you're efficient, you'll work with executives to use towards the enhancement of the company, propelling it into Great Place to Work status.

The key is providing reciprocal feedback. One thing the research about Gen Y'ers has gotten right, based on my own observation, is the need these young people feel for feedback. They're happy to tell you what they think, whether or not you like it and no matter how badly it affects their future career path, but they expect the same from you. When your forward-thinking, constant feedback platform or portal is up and running inside your company, designate a workforce manager (or take turns) responding to comments that come up time and again. If you're a small company, maybe you could even answer each individual commenter. It's essential that in doing so, you provide honest answers, admitting when you don't know the answer to their question, or—gasp—admitting when a corporate policy isn't as fair as it could be. You could say something like, "Sorry about your disgust with the recent executive promotions we've communicated to the company. In light of the announced "company-wide" salary freeze we enacted last fall, I can see how this news would be very frustrating to you. But our management did what it felt was best awarding this new position and opportunity to Kirk Hamstrung. It's still a competitive job market in his field and this is what we needed to do to keep him a part of our corporate family. We think the investment in his promotion and added salary will pay off for us all, with the million dollar ideas and strategy we expect him to come up with paying dividends to us all."

OK, that was most likely way too candid than you'd have the authority to be, but putting that same sentiment in more conservative words, would be better than repeatedly delivering canned public relations, legal department-approved spiel. The candor will be appreciated, and you'll be rewarded with a loyal Generation Y workforce, just as happy to tell you when you've made their day as they were to inform you your CEO was nominated for new arch villain of the world.

Can you think of any other ways to help your company better communicate with Generation Yer's?  Do you think this youngest workforce generation is the same as all that proceeded it, and all this talk about their unique needs is nonsense?  Make your case.

Are You Twittering—Again—About How Awful I Am?

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

It used to be that the ladies room was the prime stage for the office's gossip grapevine. And, if not the ladies room, then the kitchen or the office parking lot. These days, the ladies room is everywhere, not in terms of public sanitation (hopefully), but in terms of stages for gossip. Thanks to social networking, the places where your employees can speak ill of you have multiplied. Did you see that picture Sally posted of you on Facebook from last year's holiday party?  Or the intoxicated photos Fred snapped for his MySpace page of your CEO from that last leadership retreat?

From unflattering pictures of executives to detrimental blog entries about the evil that this employee interprets your company to be, social networking is the prime tool of public relations these days, so you should come up with a strategy for managing, or at least coping, with its company-related use by employees.

First, is it OK for your workers to use social networking tools while on the job as long as it doesn't affect their productivity, or the quality of what they produce for your customers?  If you've shied away from allowing this, think again. For Generation Y'ers, tools like Facebook represent an important way to find new information and connect with other people, including those who may be beneficial to your company. As most of you hopefully know by now, it's common for people to have more than just "friends" as Facebook contacts. Most employees have received "friend requests" from business acquaintances, and even among those who are personal friends the employee socializes with, there could be new recruits for your company, fonts of knowledge of other industries, and potential facilitators of new business partnerships. If the price of gaining these benefits is an hour spent taking quizzes on what kind of dog the employee was in a past life, no big deal, right? 

The best part is in exchange for this open-minded, dare I say, hip, attitude towards their preferred medium of communication you may find a greater chance they'll use the platforms for the benefit rather than the detriment of your company. You've shown good will towards them, and are treating them with respect and trust, so why wouldn't they use Facebook to look up helpful business contacts, and see if their friend Mary knows anyone at IBM, rather than post pictures of you and your managers in a seemingly disoriented state. Granted, the ease with which young people use these new tools to the benefit of their work (in addition to their Friday night agenda) may, indeed, leave you feeling disoriented, but nobody has to know that.

For employees who breach your trust by telling tales of exaggerated woe about your company on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, what's the proper course of action to take?  Do you have a zero-tolerance policy about such behaviors?  If you do, it might not be the best strategy.  After all, once you've fired the publically complaining employee, won't he be free to complain even more about your company? A smarter course of action is to train someone in your public relations department to search the world of social networking not just for the sake of finding unflattering stories about your company, but to answer those those stories with their own take on it. The beauty of Web 2.0 is it's editable by all. Anyone's free to comment. By calmly answering the criticism with your company's perspective, you counter the argument about the evil oozing from your corporate veins. Whereas if you fire the person, you've proven his point and given him fodder for a thousand more public, and possibly viral, rants.

How about encouraging managers to tell employees they're free to incorporate optimization of social networks as part of their research and follow-through on projects?  This already is commonly done in the marketing and advertising worlds, but even for an engineer or corporate administrative assistant, social networking platforms can come in handy. We all have friends and friends of friends who know more than we do, and some of whom are placed in the exact place you need these employees to go to get the job done for you.

Also feel free to create opportunities for employees to use social networking to help you find new hires, and sustain those new hires past the first year. Think about which work groups in your company might find the creation of a Facebook page for your company, or some division of it, related to their work, and then give them that task as an assignment. You might be amazed at the information, contacts, and business leads they're able to find via their new social networking page. Also see if it would be possible to create a Facebook buddy system for new hires in which veteran employees (those who have been there—happily— for at least a few years) become Facebook friends with new hires, and use the tool to keep in touch and mentor the person so they don't become dispirited and leave you before you're ready. To take it one step further, create a Facebook page especially for your new hire mentoring program. It's an easy, enoyable way to facilitate communication between workplace friends. Sure beats your boring-as-broken-nails intranet portal.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter,  the blogosphere, and the sundry other ways employees now have to make you look dumb and mean is staggering. But don't let that paralyze your executives into becoming technologically-backwards caracatures that—guess what?—are destined for their own reality series on YouTube.

What's happening on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube that doesn't reflect well on your company?  Can you do anything to stop it, and maybe even optimize the unplanned-for exposure?