You can't make all employees happy -- and shouldn't try

I’m often asked to help leaders motivate employees because productivity, quality, attitudes and morale are low.  Leaders typically assume that unhappy employees are the problem, and making them happier – with team-building, money, perks or more involvement in decision-making - is the solution. That might seem like good sense but the answer doesn’t lie in accommodation, appeasement or consensus involving the most demanding employees.

To read the rest of this article from the East Bay Business Times, see: You can't make all employees happy -- and shouldn't try http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2004/08/16/smallb6.html

The key isn’t being nicer; the key is leaders leading and followers following.

It’s true that many employees and managers will be more productive when they are treated the way they want.  But it’s equally true that many will enjoy their jobs only if they don’t have to be productive or evaluated honestly.  These people want to control every decision, put their feelings before work, be catered to and applauded for throwing temper tantrums.

Some examples of different leaders who got into trouble trying to be too nice.  For details, see the original article.

• The staff in one division of a company was unable to form three-person customer service teams because only 15 of 17 people wanted them.
• At another company, workers were allowed to interrupt senior leader meetings, rudely challenge any decision and make personal attacks on leaders.
• In an under-performing unit of a third company, a new supervisor evaluating a resistant and mediocre employee saw a five-year history of excellent reviews.

Lack of appropriate leadership at these companies created power vacuums that attracted negative, critical, unhappy and abusive people who wanted control.  Well-meaning leaders had perpetuated the lie that the best way to encourage employee productivity and professional growth was to placate them through sympathy, begging, bribery and allowing them to act out.  These cultures were self-described as “employee centered, caring, consensus and win-win.”

A key initial step in solving the problems was seeing them as cultures of entitlement, appeasement and rule by petulant, demanding “children.”

The workplace is not a therapeutic environment.  Companies do not exist to make us comfortable and happy, or give unconditional approval.  If your feelings are hurt by honest, professional evaluations, prepare for disappointment.  If they’re hurt by differences in responsibility and authority between leaders and followers, become a leader.

We don’t get to vote on everything.  We can’t force everyone to treat us the way we want.  We get rewarded for productivity and success.  We often have to suck it up and be productive when we’d rather not.

Ultimately, companies are in business to make a profit.  Well-meaning leaders who work too hard at being nice, caring people can find themselves carrying 100 percent of the burden to please the most hostile, demanding employees who aren’t contributing to the success of the organization.

Consensus leadership and flat hierarchies are fads that are finally beginning to pass.  They are simply not efficient or effective enough to succeed.

Leaders lead by determining direction, establishing goals and expectations, and judging employees by performance.  Leaders don’t have to be bullies or ogres.  Of course, listening to employees can be a great asset.  But, in the end, leaders are responsible for leading the way so employees can follow.

Often, individuals need coaching and organizations need consulting to help them design and implement a plan that fits the situation.  To get the help you need, call Ben at 1-877-828-5543.

Don't tolerate or appease mutineers in the workplace

Do you have mutineers aboard your Ship of Business?  Can you distinguish mutiny from discussion and disagreement you encourage and can you skillfully quell it? To read the rest of this article from the Washington Business Journal, see: Don’t tolerate or appease mutineers in the workplace http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2004/10/25/smallb5.html

Mutiny is resisting, rebelling and revolting against duly constituted authority.

The way Captain Bligh dealt with resistance on the Bounty – constant flogging – isn’t a good approach.  It ultimately leads to rebellion: They jump ship or put you over the side.

The opposite approach gives equally poor results: Nice managers tolerate resistance, sabotage, and poor performance while they beg, bribe and appease mutineers to buy in and produce.

For example: Sam was mystified because he couldn’t figure out how to convince his supervisee, Jack, to perform necessary and agreed-upon tasks.  For more details, read the complete article.

Sam was wracked with self-doubt.  Had he failed to communicate clearly; been too harsh with Jack; not been sensitive enough to Jack’s possible reasons for not wanting to train Amy?

No.  It was simply that Jack was trying to make his rules, rule.  Sam had encouraged mutiny to grow like a cancer in the months when he accepted Jack’s assumptions that, until he was interested in acting differently, Jack was entitled to:

• Refuse to train Amy.
• Act rude, disrespectful and insubordinate to Sam.
• Harass, bullying and abuse Sam.

Also, Sam had had accepted 100 percent of the responsibility to help Jack change his opinion.

The interactions that developed between Sam and Jack are similar to interactions between many parents and their children – parents who try to be their children’s “friends” and who assume that the best way to raise civil, strong, productive, responsible, mature adults is not to make them do anything until reason and persuasion have gained their understanding and acceptance.

Nonsense.  Parents provide encouragement, guidance and enforcement of clear boundaries of acceptable behavior – with immediate and predictable consequences for transgressions.  Children allowed to be the sole judges of the efforts they can make, usually become spoiled, weak, self-indulgent and irresponsible adults.

Ditto for adults in the workplace.  Sam was the duly constituted authority.  His primary task was not to be sweet, understanding and therapeutic; not to win Jack’s agreement and affection; and not to wait until Jack was willing to perform.  Sam’s task was to produce quality results, on time and within budget, and to hold Jack accountable for his part of that effort.

When Sam saw Jack’s resistance as mutiny, he finally told Jack that the responsibility for continued employment was Jack’s.  Jack’s primary loyalty must be to their mission and the performance and deadlines required.

One problem with the approach of reasoning, tolerating, appeasing, begging and bribing forever is that children won’t believe you when you begin to apply consequences.  That’s your fault.   You’ve already trained them to think that if they resist persistently, eventually you’ll give in.   When you finally try to suppress the mutiny they’ll either sabotage or react with shock, outrage and, sometimes, legal action,

Jack chose not to continue working in a company in which his rules no longer ruled.  In his exit interview, Jack admitted he never thought Sam would face his anger and carry through.  His parents had allowed him to act any way he wanted while they re-negotiated their requests.  He thought Jack would also.  Would your opinion of Jack change if you knew he wasn’t 22; he was 35?

If you don’t recognize and squash mutiny, it’ll grow unchecked until it sinks your ship.  Ask for what you want, you’ll get what you’re willing to tolerate.

Often, individuals need coaching and organizations need consulting to help them design and implement a plan that fits the situation.  To get the help you need, call Ben at 1-877-828-5543.

Stop Workplace Moaning, Groaning, Whining and Negativity

In this recession, lots of specific problems crop up that we moan and groan about.  But habitual whiners and complainers want us to wallow in their negativity even in the best of times.  In her article in the Financial Times, “Office moaners are something to groan about,” Emma Jacobs points out that habitual complainers can demoralize and depress any office. The skill to critically foresee potential problems and try to solve them is totally different from an endless stream of hostility, negativity and victim-talk.  Of course, good managers pay attention to comments from productive staff.

While occasional griping is a natural part of our lives, a Grump’s steady stream of bad attitudes coupled with attempts to prove that we should all feel as bad as he does, rapidly convert our sympathy into anger.

Negativity also promotes workplace divisiveness.  Moaners ostracize anyone who won’t join in and their continued focus on what’s unfair or wrong leads co-workers to focus also on what’s wrong at work instead of finding solutions or staying productive.

Although most people moan and groan for a while in response to specific situations, typically, you’ll encounter three types of habitual moaners:

1. People who routinely feel discouraged, depressed and victimized, and just want to whine endlessly about how hard life is.
2. Co-workers who batter you with their views about how bad the world or the company is.  You have to agree or you just don’t understand (“you fool”) or you’re one of the “oppressors.”
3. Bullies who use moaning to take control and power.

The last category is sometimes surprising.  How can someone so victimized, negative and wimpy be a successful bully?

Moaning, complaining stealth bullies gain power and control when:

• Well meaning people sympathize, agree and join their crusades.
• Co-workers spend hours giving them sympathy instead of working.
• Managers and co-workers start walking on egg shells around complaining bullies in order to make them feel good or from fear that their supporters will gang up on you because you hurt their feelings.

Behind this stealth bullying is the moaning bullies’ desire to control what correct behavior should be (“Those rotten people should do …) and their rules for how we should respond to what they see as major injustices.

So what can you do?

1. Don’t hang out with negative people.  Leave the break room or sweetly remove them from your cubicle or office while saying, “I have too much to do right now” and turn to do it, or “I have so many deadlines, would you do this for me” and give them a simple task.
2. Don’t debate with them.  They don’t want to change their minds.  Notice that if you win one debate, they rapidly come up with something else to moan about.  Their goal is to moan, not solve problems.
3. Individually stand on your own ground.  You might say, “You’re right but that’s not important enough to waste much time on,” or “you’re right but that’s part of life so I don’t get upset about it,” or “you’re right but that’s too big for me to do anything about at this moment so I’d rather focus on the things that lift my spirit and energy.”
4. At a workshop someone suggested what’s become my favorite.  With a straight face say, “My therapist says I can’t have any discouraging talk for seven days straight, so do you have any happy or uplifting things to tell me?”  This has worked every time.
5. On your team, make team agreements or “Behavioral Ground Rules” against moaning, groaning, negativity or gossip.  Call it like it is.  Some teams even have “No Moaning” signs at their meetings.

Of course, we sympathize and support someone who is in a painful situation and needs a pick-me-up.  But don’t throw your sympathy into a bottomless bucket.  You’re not being paid to be anyone’s therapist and your organization is probably not a therapeutic environment for employees.

Of course the same could be said about whiners, moaners and complainers at home.  They’ll drag your energy down if you let them.  As Henry Adams said, “Even the gayest of tempers succumbs at last to constant friction.”  In your personal life, give whining complainers a chance to change or vote them off your island.

Stop the bully in the next cubicle

What do you do if the person in the next cubicle constantly gives you the silent treatment, glares, ignores your requests for information, makes belittling comments in meetings, puts you down in public, spreads false gossip about you, takes credit for what you did, accuses you falsely of making mistakes, tries to rally other people to be nasty to you and cuts you down to your manager? Even worse, what do you do if that’s your boss, and he also yells at you, makes personal and derogatory comments in front of the rest of the team, gives you unreasonable projects or deadlines so you’ll fail, evaluates you dishonestly and harshly, and is relentlessly critical?

Women, just as much as men, create hostile workplaces by verbal abuse and emotional intimidation.  They may even be more sneaky and manipulative.

What’s happened to you?  And what can you do?

In her column in the New York Times, “When the Bully Sits in the Next Cubicle,” and her blog post, “Have You Been Bullied at Work,” Tara Parker-Pope gives statistics for how prevalent these behaviors are.  Statistics are cold, but the individual pain of being treated this way is very hot.

I use the term “stealth bullies” for the subtle, sneaky, manipulative, critical, controlling workplace bullies who don’t use physical violence.  Most people at work let this behavior fly below their radar.  If we recognized and labeled these people as bullies, we’d be energized to resist.

Instead, many people take part of the blame and suffer in isolation.  They feel helpless and hopeless.

On an individual level, I think the first key to resisting is to recognize and label the actions as bullying so you’re galvanized to resist.  Then find allies and shine a light on it.  Think tactically and understand you’re in a war.  Because laws won’t help much, you’ll have to find other levers to exert pressure.

I don’t spend much time analyzing why bullies do it.  We know the major categories: personal dislikes, using brutality or someone’s back as a stepping stone, and ego stroking (“If I put you down, I’m one up).  You could probably reel off a few more.  In general, the approach of understanding doesn’t help.

I see hostile workplaces, verbal abuse and emotional intimidation not only in medical, legal and academic environments, but especially in government offices, non-profits and public service.  In those areas, people are often afraid of “confrontation” or of making “judgments” (someone is a bully).  In those areas, the typical culture thinks that the best way to stop bullying is to educate and rehabilitate bullies instead of simply stopping them first.  That’s like telling a battered wife (or husband) to endure the brutality while her husband gets therapy.

The purpose of most workplaces is not to be a therapeutic community for their workers.  Set high standards and enforce them at all levels.  But if the people at the top won’t dedicate themselves to stopping harassment and bullying, you won’t be able to stop it.  That’s like schools in which principals and teachers won’t stop bullying.

As a coach, consultant and speaker, I encourage people to fight to win.  The book, “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and the CD set, “Eliminate the High Cost of Low Attitudes,” can help but it’s crucial to design tactics for your specific needs and the situation.

But if you can’t win, don’t stay in a place where the powers are out to crush you mentally and emotionally, or where your spirit will be destroyed.