Plain Talk - Straight-up insights on work and life leadership

The stock market gyrates with unpredictable and heartburning results. Icons of solid companies become straw figures before balance sheets. Children are abducted from their front yards and networks of terrorists spiral throughout the world. Religious institutions cast shadows of duplicity while El Nino brings strange fish to the California coasts and out-of-control fires head toward ancient Sequoias.

Tough times. It’s enough to cause all of us to stand like the proverbial “deer in headlights”, mutter “the sky is falling”, or else spring into action. The latter would be fine but it’s often a knee-jerk response based on what we’ve done in the past. Trouble is that the present doesn’t look like the immediate past.

Whether you’re leading a Fortune 100 company, a small department, or an enterprise of one, now is the time to hone your resiliency skills. But first, let’s update the definition of “resilient”. In 1824, Webster defined it as: “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.

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All this recession talk is starting to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Companies immediately start deciding whom they can layoff without considering the morale of the remaining employees. A disgruntled, waiting-to-be-laid-off, overworked employee is not only unproductive but can also potentially be dangerous. The more disgruntled employees get, the more customer service suffers and your clients start to defect.

Instead of using layoffs as the first option in a downturn, invite folks to generate creative strategies to survive economic turbulence without reducing staff. One of my most popular articles “Don’t Shrink—RETHINK!” offers some options to get you started on growing rather than shrinking during tough times.

So many times your open door policy has resulted in constant interruptions and last minute meetings that eat away at your day. You want your employees to be able to openly communicate with you but you also need to get your work done. What can you do?

Start by systemizing and documenting information that can be easily answered in written form. . Design an employee FAQ handbook or update the one you have to include the answers to questions that your employees routinely ask. Have an employee newsletter that goes out regularly and covers company news, changes in applicable human resources laws and new policy and procedures. Last, but not least, when an employee comes into your office to talk, welcome them and then schedule a convenient time in the future for the two of you to talk. This gives the message that you make their concern or questions a priority by setting aside uninterrupted time to talk.

You can also have fun with this. Stick a RED card on your door or cubicle when you do not want to be disturbed and a GREEN one when you are available. It is possible you might also need to retrain yourself and others so that you are not bombarded by Instant Messages (IM) or unwanted e-mail. It’s a brave new world that can swallow a time capsule unless corralled at the start.

As a leader your time is often tied up in knots and your work schedule takes up most of your day and sometimes your nights.  From time to time reconnect with your employees by visiting them in the trenches.  Make small talk, ask about their families and their work.  In return you get more motivated and connected employees because you have connected with them in a way that is personal and warm.  Author Rosa Say has written a very good post about small talk and warmly connecting that you can read at Let’s Talk Story: What’s new with you?

Several years ago Oprah produced an entire show on the topic of saying “No.”. Women are notoriously bad at saying no. Research done by Carol Gilligan from Harvard discovered that women make choices first for others and put themselves at the bottom of the list. We often don’t say “no” because we feel guilty, we’re afraid of offending, and sometimes, even afraid that it would reflect poorly on our work.

Consider that an alternative to “no” might be “not now”. Being polite and helpful doesn’t work if you’re overscheduled and exhausted every day. If saying “no” or “not no” sounds too harsh, try this statement: “That sounds very interesting. Let me think about it and get back to you.”

This gives you some time to decide what’s really important… more volunteer work or five hours of sleep at night. When you do get back to the person asking for help be firm and clear that you are saying no. Never use the word “maybe” and don’t offer an excuse. Start protecting the time you need to take care of yourself. Remember, like a well, it must be filled for others to drink. When you are completely depleted by life’s demands then you have nothing to give to life and loved ones.

If you find yourself overwhelmed by your “to do” list, then it’s time to decide what you really need to do and what you can release. For at least one week, keep a notebook with you at all times and record every activity from your day - both work and your personal activities.Your next task is to set aside some private time to sit down and go over your list. Start by crossing off completely unnecessary activities that don’t enhance your life or career. Perhaps that extra twenty minutes you spend everyday traveling to the local coffee joint in the morning could be replaced with a coffeemaker at home that can be setup to brew automatically in the morning. Then add your favorite type of muffins to your grocery list.

The next step is to identify what could be done by someone else. Errands, dry cleaning drop-off/pick-up, etc. should be delegated to a family member or you can hire someone locally to do this for you. Last, but certainly not least, go through the essential activities. Buy a planner for these tasks and schedule them into your day. Open your planner every morning and start at the top of the list… at work or at home… and keep going until you are done for the day.

And remember—if you don’t get it all done, you probably put too much on that list. Besides, the only person who truly EVER had their work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. (For those of you who never read the book- just check it out!

I pick up the paper, glance at the news and doom and gloom shroud leading stories. My heart starts to beat faster and my brain races into thinking of all the possible ramifications.  Words create our reality.When fear takes over, little that’s positive can happen.

I’m no ostrich but I also believe that once seeds are planted, people react to them. Look at the hording behavior, the clamped down wallets, the scarcity mentality that occurs. I know I can get into that place all too easily and I am not alone.

As a devoted reader, it pains me to say that I am ready to abandon my morning practice of the newspaper. And forget the television. That’s both auditory and visual negativity. Knee jerk responses come from fear.

In tough times, focus on what can be done to move forward—not retreat into typical responses. Nobody downsized their way to greatness. This is the time for the skills of resiliency: adaptability, agility and alignment. It’s the time for creative thinking, appreciative inquiry, as well as humor coupled with hope.  Yes, humor—because laughter helps us stay afloat and centered.

Resiliency—get the mind set right and the skill set will follow. It’s how we stay rightside up in a world that’s upside down.

Close to three-quarters of executives (73 percent) are willing to sacrifice at least one percent of their salaries to fund their companies’ “green” initiatives, according to the latest Executive Quiz from Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY), a premier global provider of talent management solutions.

Fascinating. Having just addressed two companies who are practicing the triple bottom line (profits, environmental footprint, community connection), I can’t help but feel a small ray of hope that perhaps immediate personal gain might also include some nod to other residents on the Planet Earth.

As laudable as this statistic might be, 1% is a drop in the proverbial bucket. What kind of action, processes, and corporate initiative that has long range effect would companies put into practice? That’s even more significant than the CEO salary donation. House of Floors in Florida makes sure that every floor they install can be recycled. Novo Nordisk just put in wind power to generate their plants in Scandinavia. Now these actions carry more weight ( and results) than a CEO’s donation.

Praise the donation BUT I am hoping there are greater corporate actions to back it up!

If you don’t get the NY TIMES Sunday edition, you might have missed a small snippet that caught my eye. Alan C. Greenberg joined Bear Stearns in 1949 and rose to become chief executive.

One would think that with the pending merger with JP Morgan Chase, Mr. Greenberg  (at age 80) would be thinking of his stock options and retirement.

Instead, Mr. Greenberg is planning to give some $360,000 to some of the bank’s lowest paid employees who may lose their job in the merger. According to the April 27,2008 edition of the NY Times, “…25 longtime workers will receive $200 a month for over six years. The recipients include mail room and clerical employees, several of whom have physical or mental handicaps.”

He wrote each employee to say that this was his way of giving his personal thanks. Now that’s what I call LEGACY Leadership.

The HR Capitalist has an excellent post by Kris Dunn that was written after Kris saw a whitepaper released by The Workforce Institute titled “The role of Front-line Managers in retaining hourly workers”. The whitepaper proposes that managers who reduce employee turnover be rewarded. It seems that if managers who keep employee turnover low are only doing the job for which they get paid. Kris makes some interesting points so I recommend you visit her blog to read the full post.

The HR Capitalist