Bringing a Program to a Close

By Bob Nelson

Recognition programs cannot usually live on forever. There comes a point when it’s time to retire a program—or at least put it aside until some later date when it can be reintroduced. (read more...)

Offer Dignity & Respect
Could your leanings be affecting your employees?

By Bev Kaye

If we interviewed your employees and asked them what kind of boss you are, what would they say? Would they say that you are smart, dedicated, motivating, hard-charging? How about results-oriented, demanding or fun to work with? (read more...)

Give Yourself a Chance
The stories that we tell about ourselves can turn into traps

By Marshall Goldsmith

"I am a terrible listener. I've been told that for years. People at work tell me I'm a bad listener. So does my wife. I guess that's just the way I am." (read more...)

Bringing a Program to a Close (^ top)

By Bob Nelson

Recognition programs cannot usually live on forever. There comes a point when it’s time to retire a program—or at least put it aside until some later date when it can be reintroduced.

• The program was time-limited at the outset, and has reached the end of its planned duration.

• The program is generally ignored, no matter how much you publicize it and encourage its use.

• Employees do not value the rewards given, no matter what items you use.

• Changing market conditions force you to make major changes in your approach.

Timing is a crucial factor in recognition. Sometimes programs are initiated when business conditions are favorable, only to decline when business conditions worsen. If your program is suffering from poor timing, you might want to consider terminating or discontinuing it until conditions improve. Caution should be taken about changing a program too dramatically. If you want to radically change a recognition program, it might be more desirable to end the program and begin a new one.

Be sensitive to these and other signs that it’s time to bring your recognition program to a close. It’s better to shut down a successful but declining program a bit earlier than necessary than it is to allow a marginal or counterproductive program to remain in place long after it should have been retired. There is nothing wrong with terminating a recognition program when it has run its course, especially if you have some new recognition ideas or activities that are likely to be more motivating to employees.

Offer Dignity & Respect (^ top)
Could your leanings be affecting your employees?

By Bev Kaye

If we interviewed your employees and asked them what kind of boss you are, what would they say? Would they say that you are smart, dedicated, motivating, hard-charging? How about results-oriented, demanding or fun to work with?

Just as you tolerate a range of behaviors from your employees, they too will accept you as you are, no doubt less than perfect but doing your best. The one behavior that talented people will seldom tolerate for long is disrespect. If you wish to keep your good people, it is critical that you respect your employees, recognize each one of them for their unique qualities and then demonstrate that in consistent ways. One key aspect of showing respect is to celebrate differences.

Different Strokes
You cannot respect and honor others unless you respect and even celebrate individual differences. Can you imagine how ineffective and potentially boring your team would be if everyone looked the same, thought the same, believed the same, did the same? Most of us readily accept the notion that diversity of talent and perspective strengthens a work group and contributes to excellent results. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that the differences also get in the way. The hard truth is that many of us more often tolerate than celebrate differences.

It is important for all of us to take a long, hard look at our preferences and prejudices. We all have them and are confronted with them when we mentor and coach, promote, reward, punish, and hire. Research shows we are most apt to hire someone like us. Once you take note of your prejudices, you can begin to see how they might impact your employees.

The first step in leveraging differences is to take a good look at your own beliefs. How much do you respect people who are different from yourself? Do you value what they bring to your team? How badly do you want them to stay?

TO DO

• Notice how your prejudices play out at work. Whom did you last promote? Whom do you tend to ignore, praise less often, be friendly with or not?
  
• Decide to change. Practice fairness and consciously avoid discriminating in the old familiar ways. Your employees will notice.
  
• Leverage the differences among your employees. Roosevelt Thomas, diversity consultant and author, defines diversity as the maximum utilization of talent in the workforce. Appreciate and utilize individual strengths, styles and talents.

“I do not like this person. I must get to know him better.” — Abe Lincoln

Honoring others may seem like an easy enough task. After all, it’s simply an attitude, isn’t it? It is true that attitudes and beliefs are at the core of showing respect and honoring others. But there are behaviors and actions involved too. Check out your beliefs about differences and audit your actions. Listen to your employees, respond to them and treat them as you would like to be treated.

Give Yourself a Chance (^ top)
The stories that we tell about ourselves can turn into traps

By Marshall Goldsmith

From FastCompany: Issue 76, Page 133

"I am a terrible listener. I've been told that for years. People at work tell me I'm a bad listener. So does my wife. I guess that's just the way I am."

It's amazing how often I hear otherwise brilliant leaders make counterproductive, stereotypical comments about themselves.

The good news is that almost all the leaders I meet have quit making stereotypical comments about race, sex, or ethnic origin. The bad news is that we still make these self-limiting comments about ourselves.

You've surely heard them. Maybe you've used them to describe yourself:

• "I'm impatient!"
• "I'm always behind."
• "I always put things off!"

We often talk about ourselves as if we have permanent genetic flaws that can never be altered.

Our personal stereotyping may originate from stories about us that have been repeated for years—often from as far back as childhood. These stories may have no basis in fact. But they can set low expectations that produce self-fulfilling prophecies, which seem to prove that our negative expectations were correct.

I'm a good example of this. I was brought up in a small town. Growing up in Valley Station, Kentucky, I might naturally have become involved in cars, tools, and mechanical things. My dad had a two-pump gas station. Many of my friends liked to work on cars and race them on weekends at the local drag strip.

As a child, however, I gained a different set of expectations from my mom. Almost from birth, I was told, " Marshall, you are extremely smart. In fact, you are the smartest little boy in Valley Station." She told me that I wasn't just going to go to college—I could go to graduate school! She also said, " Marshall, you have no mechanical skills, and you will never have any mechanical skills for the rest of your life!" (I don't think she wanted me to pump gas, change tires and work on cars at the service station.)

How did these expectations affect my development? I was never encouraged to work on cars or be around tools. (As a teenager in the 1960s, I thought a universal joint was something that hippies smoked.) Not only did my parents know that I had no mechanical skills, my friends knew it. When I was 18 years old, I took the U.S. Army's Mechanical Aptitude Test. My scores were in the bottom two percentile for the entire nation! In other words, I was soundly defeated by random chance.

Six years later, however, I was at UCLA, working on my PhD. One of my professors, Dr. Bob Tannenbaum, asked me to write down things I did well and things I couldn't do. On the positive side, I jotted down, "research," "writing," "analysis," and "speaking." (In other words, I wrote, "I am smart.") On the negative side, I wrote, "I have no mechanical skills. I will never have any mechanical skills."

Bob asked me how I knew I had no mechanical skills. I explained my life history and told him about my dismal showing on the Army test. "How are your mathematical skills?" he asked. I proudly replied that I had scored a perfect 800 on the SAT math 1 achievement test. Bob then asked, "Why is it that you can solve complex mathematical problems, but you can't solve simple mechanical problems?" Then he asked, "How is your hand-eye coordination?" I said that I was good at pinball and had helped pay for my college expenses by shooting pool, so I guessed that it was fine. Bob asked, "Why is it that you can shoot pool, but you can't hammer nails?"

Suddenly, I realized that I did not suffer from some sort of genetic defect. I was just living out expectations that I had chosen to believe. At that point, it wasn't just my family and friends who had been reinforcing my belief that I was mechanically hopeless. And it wasn't just the Army test, either. I was the one who kept telling myself, "You can't do this!" I realized that as long as I kept saying that, it was going to remain true.

The next time you hear yourself say, "I'm just no good at . . ." ask yourself why not. The next time you're coaching someone, and he or she says, "I'm just no good at . . ." ask them why not.

If we don't treat ourselves—and the people around us--as if we have incurable genetic defects, we can get better at almost anything we choose. Why not?

Marshall Goldsmith (Marshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com) is corporate America's preeminent executive coach and a founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners.

Copyright © 2004 Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing. All rights reserved.
Fast Company, 375 Lexington Avenue., New York , NY 10017

*********************************************
JobDig provides eTreat every week as a free service to you.
Click here if you wish to unsubscribe. If you have comments or suggestions, please email: editor@jobdig.com