Friendly, But Not Friends

At a meeting of our Masterminds Breakfast Club for business consultants, we were talking about how to develop repeat business with clients, something of interest to all businesses, not just blood-sucking parasites (er, I mean, consultants). In addition to the somewhat obvious need to provide true value and keep in regular contact, the notion of relationship came up. And, the idea of being "likeable" or "well-liked" arose. A lively debate ensued.

Is it important for your customers to like you? Personally? Should you strive to be buddies with your customers? Should you hang out, go to the bar, go for dinner, and go to hockey games? How important is the personal relationship, the friendship, to the business relationship?

Everyone agreed that if customers don't like you, they will be less likely to want you around. But there were a lot of opinions on how close you should get. At some point, you will need to collect money from them. Or charge them for something they'd like for free. Or tell them something they don't want to hear. Or fire them as a customer. Or be told that your services are no longer required.

And, the question again came up: Do you need to be liked? Or, instead of being liked, is it more imporant to be respected? And, though we certainly don't want to be dis-liked, perhaps we don't really want to be friends?

Scott, from Abonar Business Consultants suggested that maybe "You want to be friendly, but not friends". In other words, behave courteously. Be polite. Be positive, supportive, and friendly. But maintain enough separation so that you can effectively manage the business relationship.

It's the same in an employer/employee relationship; be friendly towards employees, but maintain enough separation so that you can do what needs to be done to effectively manage the company. If you are always socializin' with the staff because you want to be liked and be their friend, how do you let one of your friends go when their performance just isn't adequate?

The lively debate continued, and no one imagined that there is one right answer that applies to every situation and every personality. But, if what you're doing hasn't been too effective, think about what you might change so that you can be friendly, without being friends.

How's Your Work-Life Balance?

With a fabulous Canada Day come and gone, the real start of summer is finally here. And, the short Saskatchewan season of Non-Winter poses a simple question that tests work life balance - "How much time are you spending with your family this summer? At the beach? On the lake? In the back yard?"

If the answer is "not enough," then you might need to rethink your approach to management.

Do you need to create sustainable systems that can function without your daily attention? Do you need to engage and trust your employees? Do you need to invite initiative and allow your employees to truly take on responsibility, which is what they want anyway?

If your family is truly precious to you, this is really the time to show it - with focused together time, relaxed recreation, and without constant interruptions from your work. Turn off your phone, don't answer emails, and really spend time with your family.

Enjoy the summer. See you in September.

The Commitment Problem

Do you eat the chocolate, or do you stay on your diet?

Do you take a drink, or do you stay sober?

Do you have an affair, or do you stay faithful to your spouse?

Do you choose immediate, pleasure-seeking self-interest, or do you stay commited to your ideals and relationships?

That's the Commitment Problem. It's a big part of life. It's a big part of business as well.

• When you hire a new employee, will they be committed to the success of your company? Or will they dip into the till, steal office supplies, and embezzle millions at the first opportunity?
• When you promote someone into management, will they work for the betterment of the group or get seduced by their position, abuse their underlings, and embezzle millions at the first opportunity?
• When you try to collaborate with someone, will they share with you in good faith, or abuse your trust, steal your ideas, and make millions in the marketplace that should have been yours?!

Thomas Schelling identified the Commitment Problem in the The Strategy of Conflict back in 1963. Dacher Keltner revisited it in his recent book, Born to be Good. Now, these books are not easy reads, and they don't result in simple three-step formulas for business success, but they do get one thinking.

How do we figure out who is committed to us, who is inclined to value long-term bonds with us, who is likely to be faithful and caring towards us, towards our cause? How do we figure out who is likely to lie, cheat, or sacrifice us for their own benefit? How do we avoid being exploited, to avoid being fooled?

No easy answers, to be sure, but important enough to try to figure it out.

Do You Feel The Spirit?

All work is spiritual, often deeply so.

All things that people do involve and affect their spirit, and all things that people do for others involve and affect their spirit as well. We're not talking religion here, we're talking spirituality. Spirituality deals with the parts of life, the parts or work, that are related to the human spirit or soul, not just to tangible or material things.

Many companies and many jobs feel like bleak, soul-sucking cesspools of drudgery and despair. Well, maybe not that bad, but most people you ask (and I've asked quite a few) certainly don't get a deep sense of positive satisfaction from their work. Does work drain your spirit? Is spirituality something you get on Sunday, or from volunteering, or from communing with nature, but not something you ever get from your work?

There's a classic story, with a hundred variations, of asking three tradesmen what they're doing - the first says "I'm carrying sand", the second says "I'm building a foundation", and the third says "I'm building a cathedral". Cute, and inspiring, but it doesn't quite go far enough.

When you really embrace the spiritual nature of work, a fourth tradesman might say something like "I'm bringing comfort to people in their times of joy and sorrow." That's the spirit, the true purpose, of what their work is all about.

It's easy for most people to get the idea of spirituality when talking about a church organization, or anything to do with religion, but this applies to all organizations.

A mid-size engineering company was working on the design of a large plant to produce a zero-calorie sweetener for foods. The piping and structural designers and engineers had embraced the idea that they were helping people lose weight while still enjoying their food. They talked about this in their daily work.

Note that these people weren't selling the sugar. They weren't putting the sugar into food products. They weren't producing the sugar. They weren't even building the plant that was producing the sugar. They were five steps removed, designing the plant that would produce the sugar. But, they really understood how their work would ultimately help others. They had a noble purpose.

When you understand the spiritual purpose of your company, and it's almost always some form of helping others, it makes a difference throughout the organization. It helps you choose which people to hire. It helps you make decisions. It gives people something to get excited about, a noble purpose in which to get engaged, a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to work together.

For a kitchen cabinet company, are you just shipping boxes or are you creating a new heart for a family's home? In a machine shop, are you building roll-over protection or helping mine workers get home to their families every night? Are you making an in-vehicle video player or are you helping young families enjoy the long drive to the mountains?

What's the spritual purpose of your organization? What are you doing to truly help people? Do you know? Do your people know? Is it noble and inspiring?

If the answers are no, either you're not looking deep enough, or you're in the wrong business.

Thanks, Now Get Out!

What would you expect from your manager when you're leaving a position after twenty good years on the job? Maybe a little gift? Maybe a going away party? Maybe a thank you?

Two long-time nurses recently left positions in the Saskatoon Health Region after twenty and twenty-eight years respectively. What did they get?

Upon giving notice, the first nurse heard, "That's OK, we've got people lined up to take your job." For the second nurse, the message was, "You know you aren't allowed to contract back anymore?"

Neither heard a "Thank You."
Neither heard a "We'll miss you."

Neither heard anything remotely like the public promise of the health region: "...to create a positive experience in the way we treat and care for people, in how we work and interact with each other, and in how we deliver quality service. We promise to seize every opportunity."

Values, mission statements and promises are great; they help to align and inspire people. But often they're just attempts to "fix" the workers, to get them to do something different. When the first two stated values of an organization are Respect and Compassion and you have managers treating long-term employees like this, it's just sad.

Sure, you can clarify your vision and values. Sure, you can write out a promise statement. But, sure as s$%*t, managers and leaders need to actually embrace the values, live the values, and VALUE the values, or they're not worth the webpages they're written on.

Does Fear Really Work?

The owner of a small print shop had six pretty happy employees and a thriving little business. As things got busier, the owner brought his wife in to help run things. She was a bit of a tyrant, and was a fan of the good cop, bad cop approach to management. She was the bad cop.

As the work environment deteriorated, several of the employees quit. The remaining employees were unhappy, and one expressed concern to the bad cop, saying that everyone was afraid to make a mistake, afraid to try anything new, afraid for their jobs. Her response was that "fear works for me," she was OK with having fearful employees; that was part of her strategy, her management philosophy.

Within months, all of the previous employees had left. Within a year, the company had folded. The bad cop manager, to this day, still laments the difficulty of "finding and keeping good employees."

Does management by fear really work for you?

A Real Live Dinosaur

I just saw a real live dinosaur. President of a successful industrial company, this fearsome creature roared his mighty roar, in a throwback to prehistoric management practices:

"If somebody makes a mistake, I fire them! Nobody makes a mistake twice here."

"Discipline is everything. If the union ever gives me trouble, I wait a bit and then fire a couple of them."

"I've never lost a union dispute. I just send my accountant with a checkbook to settle it. Way cheaper than a severance package!"

"The only thing workers care about is money. They don't understand anything else."

This superb example of  Tyrannosaurus Wrecks was terrifying; the blood-red wine flowed, chicken bones crunched, and it took every ounce of courage not to run screaming from the darkened restaurant. Well, it wasn't that bad, but lordy it wasn't that good.

We've all had tyrannical bosses at some point in our lives, but few match the ferocity of this specimen. His proud reliance on fear, intimidation and discipline bring to mind the horrors of slavery and serfdom. Yet despite the offensiveness of his managerial approach, his company, his empire, is financially successful and has a good reputation in the industry.

There are many management styles, both in terms of personal approach and in terms of policy, and all work to some degree. Indeed, in a well-controlled study of CEO management style, Bertrand and Schoar found that the financial and investment policies of the leader accounts for only about 4% of the variance in a company's results. In terms of personal style, the research is scarce, but it's clear that some bully managers succeed, and some bully managers fail. Some respectful managers succeed, and some respectful managers fail.

In my own experience, aggressive bullying management seems to make all the good people leave. And those that stay behind tend to keep their heads down to avoid the teeth, and constantly look for increasing compensation, either within the company, or in greener pastures. Aggressive bullying can work as a management style, but there are good reasons that dinosaur managers have been going extinct. Hopefully, the remaining few will soon follow.

Twelve Leadership Tips That Really Work

Are your people taking too much initiative? Do they solve problems spontaneously, and apply their creativity to problems that arise? Are they functioning effectively as a team, with great communication and conflict resolution skills?

If so, there is no time to lose. Here are twelve proven techniques that are guaranteed to reduce motivation, and inhibit those pesky spontaneous problem-solving activities that sometimes arise amongst your staff.

1. Give Orders - When someone presents you with a situation, make sure to tell then what to do and what not to do. Direct them and give them commands to make sure they know who is supposed to do the thinking.
2. Warn and Threaten - A little fear goes a long way. In no uncertain terms, lay down the law. Something like "If you don't shape up, then ... blah, blah, blah ... dumpster diving and food stamps ... blah, blah, blah ... cattle prod."
3. Preach the Gospel - Where fear falls short, guilt can save the day. Talk about responsibility, and duty, and should's. Make it a moral issue. If necessary, beg, and appeal to their conscience.
4. Advise and Solve - Suggest a different approach; tell them what would be best. Whatever you do, don't let them come up with ideas on their own. That's just asking for further creativity in the future.
5. Persuade and Argue - Especially when there's conflict, make sure to present facts and arguments explaining why they're in the wrong. If they stubbornly try to have their issues heard, try speaking louder or covering your ears.
6. Criticize - Point out how they are being foolish, or overly sensitive. Identify how their thinking is skewed, how they're wrong, and why what they're saying is, at best, wrong, and at worst, stupid.
7. Praise Them - Butter them up with compliments, and try to put a positive spin on their complaints. Let them know how intelligent they are, how they've always managed to succeed in the past. Just make sure you don't let them talk about how this challenge might be different.
8. Ridicule and Shame - Call them a whiner, or a sloppy worker. Or dismiss what they're saying because they're a typical engineer, or accountant, or a woman, or Ukrainian, or whatever. Labelling is an effective tool, because it quickly addresses their delusion of being an individual by lumping them into some arbitrary group.
9. Interpret and Analyze - Let them know that you completely understand them (even though you really don't have a clue and honestly don't care - you just want them to do their job). Imply that you fully understand their inner motivations - they're just jealous, or have a problem with authority, or they're angry. Just make something up - it still works.
10. Reassure and Console - Especially with interpersonal problems, a kindly "you'll feel different tomorrow" goes a long way towards dismissing the importance of the issue. Platitudes like "every cloud has a silver lining" are also useful for avoiding their snivelling.
11. Interrogate - Challenge everything they've told you with lots of questions. Why did you do that? Why didn't you come to me earlier? How long has this been going on? What have you tried? Anything to imply that they were wrong and should change their behavoiur. If you have a bright light you can shine in their eyes, all the better.
12. Distract and Divert - Tell a funny story, or, better yet, tell them about your own problems. Sometimes a cup of coffee or a shiny trinket can take their mind off the situation, and save you from having to hear about it. Whatever you do, don't let them focus obsessively on the problem at hand - that's unhealthy.

All of these techniques contain the powerful message that they need to change; they need to think, feel or act differently; they are not OK. All of these techniques are wonderful for showing people that we don't accept them as they are. And, as we all know, feeling unaccepted is the perfect environment for poor psychological health, personal stagnation, and poor communication.

Of course, if you're a bit of a wingnut, and actually want to encourage creative problem solving, team work, and good communication, you might want to avoid these behaviours. These are the Roadblocks to Communication outlined by Dr. Thomas Gordon in Leader Effectiveness Training. Surprisingly, he actually recommends NOT using these techniques, in favour of other, more effective leadership techniques. Go figure!

Home By Six

A manager in the Toronto office of a large insurance provider was having an odd problem with his staff. The overall corporate culture was one of long hours and competitive posturing between employees. If John started working until 6:15pm, Steve would one-up him and stay until 6:45pm. When Heather worked until 7:00pm, Janice would then stay even later. Soon, everyone was in the office until eight, nine at night.

In their daily work, none of their clients or insurance suppliers were working at these hours, and the manager was aware enough to realize that these long hours were not really about getting the work done. Gathering the staff together, the manager laid it on the line:

1. You need to get your work done in the regular work day. If you can't, you need help with time management. We'll provide training and support. If that doesn't help, we need to examine our work flows and our capacity.
2. If you don't want to go home at the end of the day, there's something wrong with your personal relationships and work-life balance. Our EAP provides free confidential counselling and coaching. Use it.
3. "Home by Six" is now policy, and we'll help you achieve that, as part of our daily work.

We often talk of work-life balance, of respect for people, of the importance of family, of the need for rest and recuperation, yet how many of us live it? How many of us really encourage this for our staff?

You can demand more from your people than they can sustainably provide, and over time you will deplete them and have to replace them. This is a valid business model.

Or you can create a culture where life balance is truly valued, and still get the work done. If you are having retention problems, with high levels of stress and anxiety, perhaps something like "Home by Six" would work for you.

One Thing Crucial to Success

A panel of successful business leaders was asked for the single thing that was crucial for success; some advice for young entrepreneurs looking to follow in their footsteps.

One said "Passion"
Another "Integrity"
A third "Tenacity"
A fourth said "Attitude"

The list went on, and in the ensuing discussion, they all made it clear that there is no silver bullet, no prescription for success. It takes all of these things plus hard work, luck, leadership, relationships, and vision. But a message that became clear, and that pulled it all together, was this:

You have to learn to give, before you try to take.

Of the lessons they'd learned, all the positive ones centered on using your gifts to truly serve the needs of your customers. All of the negative lessons centered on times that their companies forgot that.

Learn to give, to serve, to share your gifts with customers, to help solve their problems. The more you focus on giving, on serving, the more successful your business will be.

Fight, Flight or Make It Right

Whenever you're in conflict, whenever you're facing strong differences of opinion or dealing with a challenging office bully, you usually have an additional level of conflict layered on top. This second conflict is an internal one, a personal decision about how to handle the situation, as you're torn between fighting it out, or withdrawing, or continuing to invest energy in an attempt to resolve the conflict.

The decision isn't simple, and often the angst over which approach to take produces as much pain as the conflict itself. Some factors to consider include:

1. Prior relationship. Are there cooperative bonds between you, a feeling of kinship, a prior history of cooperation and trust? The stronger the personal bonds, the more likely that you'll be able to find a constructive path forward. With no prior relationship, or a history of failure and misunderstandings, a pattern of escalating conflict is more likely.
2. The nature of the conflict. Is the conflict about things that are happening here and now? About a specific concrete issue? A here-now-this conflict is much easier to solve constructively than one about principles, history, ideologies, personalities, groups - about things that transcend time or space. When a dispute starts to focus on personalities or group members rather than specific actions, it quickly becomes unproductive. It's easier to deal with "the coffee pot is being left empty" than with "Bob is lazy, sloppy and selfish."
3. The size of the conflict. This is about beliefs, about how much we hope to gain, and how much we fear we might lose. We may be on opposite sides of an issue, or, we may be quite closely aligned on what we want yet have different ideas on how to get there. Either way, if the perceived differences are very large, the chance of things taking a constructive path is small.

4. The characteristics of the people in the conflict. Are you dealing with a soldier or a diplomat? Is your arch nemesis one who displays aggression, and values competition and victory above all? Or do they continually seek to understand, and clarify, and build relationships in the pursuit of mutual satisfaction? And, realizing that it takes two to tango, consider your own nature - are you aggresive and defensive, or do you seek partnership and collaboration? Can you bring different skills to this conflict that might minimize the effects of the others' personality and style?

In all cases, the core of the decision comes down to a comparison of value and effort. Is the value to be gained from successfully resolving this conflict worth the effort? If it is, do you fight or do you try to make it right, do you act the soldier or act the diplomat? Alternately, if the effort seems bigger than the perceived value, it makes perfect sense to consider withdrawing from the situation and focus your energies elsewhere.

Sometimes you need to stay and fight, sometimes you can work cooperatively together to make it right, and sometimes you just need to get the hell out of there.

The Adventures of Rock 'n Roll Guy and Military Man

"The meeting starts at 2:00pm."

That's pretty clear isn't it? How could anybody possibly misunderstand such a simple message? Enough of this mumbo-jumbo about developing communication skills, people just need to start caring and do their jobs!

One of the heroes in today's story is Military Man, who used to be in the US Army, as was his father before him. When his family went on a camping trip, they'd get four or five families together and drive in convoy with cars and trucks pulling trailers. In the military, if you were going to leave at 8:00am, then with synchronized watches, you would all start your engines at precisely 8:00am, not a second later, not a second earlier, so as not to betray your position to the enemy. Military Man valued this precision, and applied this even in his family life. When Military Man said something would happen at 8:00am, then it bloody well was going to happen at 8:00am, sharp!

Our other hero, Rock 'n Roll Guy, used to play keyboards in a rock band with Mark, Mark and Mike. Before a gig, everyone would agree to meet at Mike's house at 7:00pm so they could get to the gig on time. Now everyone in the band knew that this was Rock 'n Roll time, which meant "show up some time between 7:00pm and 7:30pm and we'll load the van and get going sometime after that."

We join our heroes on the day of the big meeting, the one scheduled for 2:00pm. Military Man is there at 1:45pm, scouts out the terrain, picks a chair strategically one third of the way down the table, and has his materials out and ready, prepared to kick off the meeting at precisely 2:00pm. Rock 'n Roll Guy shows up twenty minutes late and he figures he's a bit early. When Rock 'n Roll Guy immediately zips out to "refill his coffee before the meeting starts", Military Man goes postal.

We all understand words differently, and bring different interpretations based on our experiences and values. Even something as simple as "when does the meeting start" is actually a pretty difficult thing to get agreement on. Operational definitions are useful here, specific criteria, tests and rules that everyone can use to determine if they're on time or not. Perhaps the operational definition for "on time" might be, "when the digital clock in the meeting room indicates 2:01, anyone in their seat, with materials on the table in front of them, cell phone already turned off, and prepared to start immediately, is on time." I'm not saying this is the right definition of on-time, or whether it's fair or reasonable, but it is a definition that all can work with. There's a test, a criteria and rules, that anyone can use to figure out if they are on time.

Communication of ideas isn't trivial, no matter how simple the idea might seem. Operational definitions can help.

Fudging the Numbers

If you want to encourage your people to cheat
Set them a goal, a challenging feat.
Make them report on their progress to you,
And watch them distort by a number or two.

Now goals are quite useful as management tools

But if you impose them, you're acting the fool
Goals from within drive hard work and persistence
But goals from above demand nagging insistence

Also, from goals, do some problems arise

As the worker reports and, in ways, justifies.
He tries to do well, but when late or overdue
The ethics will suffer, and reports won't be true.

Research by Schweitzer, Ordonez and Douma
Suggests that goal setting causes us gloom. A
problem occurs when the task isn't complete,
unethical behaviour emerges, they cheat.

Especially when people are close, but not quite
Their target eludes them, try as they might
The closer they get, the more likely they are
To toss out their ethics, and report that they're stars.

What does the research suggest that we do,
To set goals but not bid our ethics adieu?
A prescription, it seems, that can be quite effective
Is to ask, please, that reports just not be defective.

For more information, read "Goal Setting as a Motivator of Unethical Behaviour", by Maurice Schweitzer, Lisa Ordonez and Bambi Douma, Academy of Management Journal 2004.

For even more information, read A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance by Locke and Latham.

You Don't Act the Way You Say You Do

Do you do what you say? Do you practice what you preach? If people watched your behaviour, would they say it was consistent with how you typically describe yourself? Probably not, especially if the situation is potentially challenging, threatening, stressful or embarassing. Like, oh let's say, almost all management and business activities.

Each of us has what Chris Argyris calls an espoused theory of action; what we believe we'd do when faced with a situation; it's how we describe ourselves to others; how we think we normally behave. Our espoused theory of action closely fits our values and beliefs, and supports our self image in a way that's comfortable and consistent with our ideas about right and wrong. Unfortunately, what we think we'd do is usually incorrect, and is quite different from our theory-in-use, the actual behaviours we resort to when the going gets tough.

This disconnect between what we say we do (our espoused theory of action) and what we actually do (our theory-in-use) is obvious to those around us. Yet very few of us are aware of how inconsistent we are; of how much contradication there is between the two.

We say that we value family over work, yet we routinely work late every night, go in on weekends and keep our BlackBerry's on when we're on holidays, neglecting our spouses and short-changing family time with our kids. We say that we treat people fairly, yet we regularly point the finger of blame at our employees whenever something goes wrong. We say that we value input and want engaged employees, yet we impose decisions and change on our people, and discount their comments as whining and complaining.

According to Argyis, when faced with challenge we tend to take actions that allow us to:

• stay in control,
• maximize winning and minimize losing,
• suppress negative feelings, and
• be as rational as possible.

If a problem happens on a customer order, it is so much easier on our ego to blame an employee than to accept that our system of production is out of control; it's so much easier on our self-image to have people think Joe was the culprit, rather than risk them thinking poorly of us; it's so much easier to bury our fears and doubts about our leadership ability and point a finger at someone else; it's so comforting to rationalize that "if only they'd do their job right, we wouldn't have these problems."

We're very inconsistent, and we're blind to our own inconsistencies. To protect our fragile self-image, we believe we act in ways that are good and right, however we define those terms. Yet, also to protect our fragile self-image, we actually act in quite different ways, with actions that are unconsciously designed to keep us in control and minimize our personal exposure to loss and negative emotions. Because of this, we fail to learn more effective behaviours, to actually behave consistently with our values. After all, why should we change if it wasn't our fault?

When crises happen, take the risk to examine your own behaviours, rather than the behaviours of others. Turn off your rationalization programs, and look for the disconnects between how you think you behave, and how you actually behave. Allow yourself to see that they are quite different, and take true responsibility for yourself, your management, your company.

What is a Performance Review?

Just had a fascinating discussion with an inspiring CEO in the hospitality industry and, even after a few hours of discussion, I'm not sure we understood each other's use of the words "performance review". We were exploring this topic because, from an earlier discussion, we seemed to be closely aligned in our philosophies about people, work and management, yet we expressed directly opposing views on the value of performance reviews. From my point of view, performance reviews are generally ineffective, damaging and counterproductive, contributing to low morale, poor teamwork and sub-optimal performance. From her vantage point, performance reviews are indispensible and useful, contributing to improved performance, good morale and effective communication.

The discussion kept returning to what, exactly, did we mean by "performance review". We also spent a good deal of time exploring what we meant by other commonly-used words like feedback, judgement, process, system, target, and goals. Time after time, we expressed sentiments that triggered reactions in the other, yet on further discussion we found we were pretty closely aligned, despite our different use of language.

How often in business do we think we're all talking about the same thing because we're using the same words? I'm asked to do "strategic planning" by many different companies, yet on further investigation they all have different expectations of what that means and how to do it.

Conversely, how often do we end up in conflict because of the specific words that were used? Somebody uses "efficiency" to describe working with employees to eliminate their frustrations and make their jobs more satisfying, pleasant and effective, and another person reacts because they think of "efficiency" in terms of brutal cost cutting and layoffs.

Certainly people will always have differences of opinions, based on their values, their experiences, and their philosophies. We're not always on the same page. But, when you can really dig down into how people understand the words they use, and what stories, connotations and implications they attach to those words, you'll often find that there's common ground where you didn't think there was.

Relentless communication - don't leave home without it.

Legally Justified but Totally Wrong

A cellphone service contract stated in the fine print that if the customer passed away, the entire amount remaining in the contract would immediately become payable, plus a cancellation fee. This must have seemed sensible from the company's legal point of view; the phone cost is spread over the 3-year term and there are administrative costs to cancel the contract.

The reality, and the impact on real people, is a different story. A very good man I know died recently, and when his wife made one of the many necessary but difficult calls to cancel his cellphone contract, she was informed that it would cost over $600 to do so. He had been a customer for over ten years, she was also a customer, as were their two children, yet the company insisted on the payment.

The wife had the tenacity to persist, and after numerous calls and letters to increasingly senior managers, someone finally had the good sense to waive the fee.

When you create your policies and procedures, your legalities and disclaimers, realize that the people you'll be dealing with will be real people. Before aggresively pursuing profit and cost recovery, this company should have considered the impact on those real people, their customers.

Why? Firstly, because it is simply the right thing to do as moral and compassionate human beings. Secondly, from a purely commercial point of view, because your reputation in the market could be (and should be) seriously damaged by such a blatantly unfeeling policy. If you aren't willing to risk having something like this splashed over the front page, maybe you should worry less about the legalities of your position and think more about what's right and what's wrong.

Remembrance Day, Command and Control to Celebrate Freedom!

Remembrance Day. Two minutes of silence. Mandatory or personal choice? A recent Ipsos-Reid poll suggests that a majority of Canadians believe two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day should be mandatory, imposed by law, punishable with CONSEQUENCES!

Whenever an organization starts getting "out of control", the first tool we usually turn to is Command and Control. No matter how open or enlightened we profess to be, no matter how deeply we believe in engaging people's internal motivation, we often fall back to coercion by fear; we rein people in using new rules, threats of punishment, coercion, and layers of joy-killing, productivity-killing approvals.

Remembrance Day is about freedom, and remembering those who fought for the freedoms we enjoy. Rather than imposing more rules, a better focus would be to work on engaging peoples' minds and hearts - the respectful remembrance needs to come from within. Then it means something.

Does It Count If You Didn't Do Anything

As kids get older and the sports teams they're involved with get more "serious", some kids inevitably end up sitting on the bench - third or fourth line in hockey, occasional substitutions in volleyball, bench warming in basketball. Now, if these teams go on to win the city championships or some other title, what do the kids who sat out (and the parents of those kids) think about this? Yes, the team won the championships, but my kid didn't get to play much. Happy, sad or mad about this?

My first reaction to this kind of situation was a mad "No fair!" We'd paid just as much for our kid to be there, the kid had worked plenty hard all season and was about the same skill level as some of the other kids, and it's a TEAM sport after all - everyone should play. Another parent, in the same situation, was thrilled for their kid, and I couldn't really understand why, until I asked for their point of view. "My kid gets to say they were on the city championship team, the best of the best, and didn't have to work as hard or risk anything near what the other kids did. It looks just as good on the ole resume!". I was surprised, as this was essentially an opposite value system from mine, yet I can't say it's wrong. Behaviours you can't understand usually have their roots in values that are very different from your own. This happens a lot in the workplace.