The Garbage Factor™ noun 1. universal measurement of the amount of toxic behavior that will be tolerated by employees, team members, and customers.
I sat in on a business meeting yesterday where a department head was giving a report on what his team had been up to during the past year. The meeting’s focus was team building and information. His intention was to share changes and build confidence in his team so that other departments would have more confidence in the team. When he was done with his 20 minutes, the only thing I was confident of was that I’d never want anything to do with that team.
In 20 minutes, he managed to insult the team 8 times (and insult 2 other departments once each). That’s one insult every 2.5 minutes. The GarbageFactor™ in full force!
These were so bad, I had to write them down. Ready for the groaners?
Regarding the mission statement “I’m not saying we’re actually doing these things.”
“We’ve had some challenges there, we’ve made some mistakes, but we’re improving.”
“We weren’t hired to be creative.” (The teams work involves about 70% creativity)
“We’re not smart enough to do this by ourselves.”
“We weren’t doing our job in the past.”
“We have to get better at it.”
“We’re struggling with quarterly updates.”
We’re going to continue to make mistakes.”
He then referred to one department as “obstacles to communicating with clients” and another department as “the big Gorilla.”
You can’t make this Garbage up!
Chapter 1 – We meet at a business event, have a good connection and exchange business cards. Without any further interaction from you (no phone call, no email, no postcard, no meeting), you decide to add me to your ezine or other email list. (Double points if I’m not your target audience and you put me on your ezine anyway.)
Chapter 2 – I initiate an email because we have something in common and am reaching out to introduce myself, ask a question, offer information. Without any further interaction from you (see above), you decide to add me to your ezine or other email list. (See #1 about double points.)
Chapter 3 – We have never met. Because we have a trade association in common, a business associate in common, you saw my blog, you found my name somewhere that makes you think we have a legitimate connection (we don’t), without any interaction (see #1), you decide to add me to your ezine or other email list. (See #1 about double points.)
Chapter 4 – I recognize you are a spammer who has deluded oneself into thinking you are networking. I unsubscribe from everything you send me, list you as spam in my email filter, vow never to do business with you or recommend you.
A Tweet I saw earlier today got me thinking. Take a read and see what comes to your mind.
@The_Troy_Show “We will continue having meetings, everyday, until I find out why no work is getting done.”
This so clearly summed up what happens in many organizations. Meetings are scheduled because it’s the way things have been done, but no one stops and thinks about whether the meeting will be effective and efficient or whether there may be another way to accomplish the task(s) at hand. Organizations also don’t evaluate past meetings to see if they’ve met the same effectiveness & efficiency standards.
There are many books and experts on managing time and meetings (@chucbarnes is one of my favorites). So why aren’t people using this information?
I’ve always decided whether or not to attend a meeting by which of my body parts needs to be present in the meeting. It’s simple, if my mouth & brain need to be at the meeting, I attend, if only my ears need to attend the meeting, I check notes from someone else who attended.
That’s easy enough for me, I manage my own schedule. But why don’t managers show respect for their employees’ time by giving them the same rule? If employees don’t want to attend a meeting, then they don’t see the value, or something else holds more value at the time. Managers need to make sure the meeting has value (and don’t use spin…employees can see right through it). Many meetings do impart valuable information, but when there are too many meetings on the schedule, people have difficulty discerning which ones are important.
Meetings need to be assessed for effectiveness the same as any other activity within an organization. Listen to employees. They can probably tell you which meetings are the good ones.
Kept in the Dark
Oct 26
I stopped by a furniture store this week to pick up a new desk chair. As I was checking out, there was a sign behind the cashier that announced that you could “win a $1000 shopping spree.” I asked the cashier how I could win and he went from smiling and happy to down with a visible loss of energy. He said to me “to be honest ma’am, that sign was here when I came in this morning, but no one told me what it’s about. We are too busy to leave the cash registers to find out, so I’ve looked stupid all day because I can’t tell customers how to enter.”
Management often expects employee’s to be proactive, but if you don’t follow through and make sure they have the ability to be proactive, then it is the same as purposefully keeping people in the dark. If management has implemented something new, then it is management’s responsibility to inform staff of what is new and how it will affect them. Employee’s need time to learn and ask questions. They deal with customers on a day to day basis and will likely know the types of questions that customers will ask.
Keeping employees informed is not limited to new things for customers. Managers need to ask “What is new?” and “Who else needs to know about this?” Then they need to get out there and inform staff. Small efforts such as this add up to big results in motivation and performance. Employees want to do the right thing and they want to be informed, but they also need management to clear the way so they can. If employees don’t get the communication they need, it just adds to the GarbageFactor™.
BCC:
Oct 7
Why do people use BCC? I’ve used it in the past, most often BCCing myself so I have a file ready copy of what I’m sending. But occasionally, I’ve BCCd someone to keep them from being blindsided by something that I’m confident is going to end up on their desk (but not completely sure). Many of us have been on the receiving end of a note that was BCCd to someone else. Most of the time, we don’t know about these, but everyone once in a while we find out. I don’t know about you, but when I have found out, it’s put a major dent in the relationship with the original sender. This is mostly because BCC in these cases really meant “Because I’m Covering my Career, and I don’t care about yours” (with the emphasis on the second part).
Which now makes me wonder, is BCC a way to encourage people to be passive-aggressive with their communication? Is a BCC really necessary? Why not move the BCC to a CC, and get it out there in the open? And, why have we still not acknowledged that there are at least two generations in the workplace that have never seen a real “Carbon Copy” of anything?
I sent a note out yesterday and moved what may have been a BCC to a CC. I’m 99.999% sure it’s going to end up on her desk anyway. Might as well let the person I’m communicating with know that I’ve already taken care of it for her. Now if I can just get her to let go of her other passive-aggressive communication habits.
How do you feel about BCC?
You can not create a collaborative team if you do not have a team of equals.
If people are not intellectual equals, resentment will set in.
If people are not attitudinal equals, resentment will set in.
If people are not commitment equals, resentment will set in.
If people are not value equals, resentment will set in.
If people do not equally respect each other, resentment will set in.
Phonics at work?
Oct 2
Is that Kos N. Johns or Cousin John's?
Don’t forget the “d”
Sep 30
Just read a story about a woman who works with a manager that screams, storms around, disciplines & mocks people publicly, and frequently uses threats as part of her management technique arsenal. Apparently upper management and human resources have been made aware of this garbage. I don’t know their excuse, but it sounds like this manager doesn’t know the difference between “shrew” and “shrewd.”
Who needs training?
Sep 29
I spent 2 hours this week in training classes for my dog. I never thought of myself as needing training to train my dog, but I hit an obstacle with him that I couldn’t overcome. I’m well aware that if you want different results, you’ve got to do something different. But sometimes, you can’t easily identify which behavior is going wrong. And sometimes, you aren’t doing anything wrong, but instead, a step or technique is missing.
The trainer helped me get over my obstacle. I learned quickly trainer that what I needed to do differently would appear when I started to think differently. If I change my thinking, I change my behavior, I then get different results. I am really experiencing two different classes in one. My dog is being trained, and so am I.
More training is needed in the workplace to teach managers and leaders how to be better managers and leaders. Managers get upset with employee behavior, but they keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results with the employee to change.
I’ve often said in my seminars & speeches “When you don’t know what to do, you won’t until learn something new.” Are managers willing to admit to themselves that they don’t know what to do? Do they blame the employee for not changing when it’s the manager’s behavior or attitude that needs to change? If their employee has a bad attitude, is it the manager’s that the employee is modeling?
Often, the person promoted into management was the best “technician” (i.e. the best sales person, trainer, engineer, writer, carpenter, etc.). That doesn’t mean that the person has the skills to be an effective manager and/or leader.
Companies need to supply good managers because of the trickle down affect. The better the manager, the better the staff that reports to the manager. Keep improving the manager’s skills, the employee’s skills will improve. This is a triple crown: the company wins, the manager wins, and the employees win.
Science has proven what we know intuitively. But why is business still playing to the myths of motivation? TED talk by Daniel Pink, author of upcoming book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
