This blog entry has been adapted from the June issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

As a leader, you have the ultimate responsibility for your behavior. You are the role model for your team. You are the only person who decides if you will act ethically. When it comes to honesty, respect, fairness, and especially safety, there is no off season.

Being ethical (or unethical) is reflected in everything we do. As a leader, our choices affect not only ourselves, but those working around us as well. It’s easy to make excuses for ourselves and be blinded by our own biases, but our customers, employees and peers are trusting that we are honest and fair individuals. There is no better time than now to re-examine habits and make sure that they are in alignment with this vision.

Let’s start with a mini-self assessment. In the past year, have I:

• Failed to admit a mistake I made?
• Let someone else take responsibility for my mistake?
• Accomplished personal business on company time?
• Used company tools or resources for my personal needs?
• Engaged in talking negatively about the company or management?
• Gossiped?
• Violated someone’s confidentiality?
• Sent emails to a coworker that would be an embarrassment if the boss found out?
• Ignored a company policy?
• Told a degrading joke about race, culture or gender?
• Failed to share information that another team member needed?
• Been less than completely truthful on an expense account, mileage report or time sheet?
• Accepted a gift that violated company policy?
• Knowingly delivered an inferior product to make a sale or meet a deadline?
• Manipulated the truth to complete a goal?

Self-evaluation is the first step. Taking action is the second. So, what are the guidelines for always making ethical decisions and doing the right thing?

Respect Everyone

Begin with respect. Respect for everyone, whether they’re your manager, your peer, your employee, your customer or your vendor. Treating everyone with the same degree of dignity, regardless of their position, speaks volumes about your character. If ever questioned regarding an action taken or a decision made, you will benefit from the support and allegiance of those whom you have treated respectfully over the years.

Accept Full Responsibility

Take complete ownership of your actions. Hold yourself accountable for the quality within your area of influence and for using resources legally, efficiently and properly for business purposes. Ensure that you are pulling your fair share of the workload. Taking responsibility isn’t just the ethical thing to do, it’s also best for the bottom line.

Expect Ethical Outcomes

While conducting a goal setting seminar, we instructed participants that the key to goal setting success is to do whatever it takes to achieve the desired outcome. An attorney in the group corrected us by saying, “Do whatever it takes, legally, ethically and morally to achieve the result.” We agree. Obviously, you are expected to achieve results; however, in your quest you must never jeopardize your integrity or compromise your company by making an unethical decision. Rationalizing that “the end justifies the means” cannot be an excuse for being unethical.

Quit Blaming Others

There is no “perfect” organization. Things go wrong. Sometimes things go very wrong. Assigning blame to others is counterproductive; it creates a culture of defensiveness. When things go awry, muster the courage to say, “What went wrong?” “How are we going to fix it?” “What will we do differently next time?” Keep the focus on solving the immediate crisis and proceeding proactively to assure the problem is not repeated.

By eliminating blame, you do not resort to using excuses which amount to taking the easy way out. Here are some of the most common:

• It’s policy, but no one follows policy
• Who cares? I’ll just do it this one time
• It’s a huge potential sale. What they don’t know won’t hurt them
• Everyone does it here
• My boss just looks the other way
• It’s a huge company. They’ll never miss it
• I work long hours and don’t get paid overtime. Doing personal business on company time compensates me for my time
• We don’t have the time to make it right. Send it anyway

As you know, making the right decision isn’t always easy. One CEO who knows and demonstrates the importance of making ethical decisions is Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. He issued the following apology after Amazon automatically deleted copies of the novel 1984 that were illegally sold on the Kindle:

Notice that he did not give an apology along the lines of, “I’m sorry that [insert name of employee, executive or other scapegoat here] did this, I had no idea.” He took the blame even though he may or may not have been the one to initiate the automatic deletion of the novels. It doesn’t matter who made that decision. The leader handled it gracefully and the response was positive. We highly suggest taking a look at the responses to his apology: people were very understanding and also very surprised at his sincerity.

Take a minute to reflect on your role as an ethical leader. Congratulate yourself for walking the talk when you have done so. On those occasions where you have been less than a stellar example, commit to having the courage to being above reproach the next time.

Finally, if you still have questions about what is or isn’t ethical, we provide one last assessment: How would I feel if everyone at my company knew I’d done (or not done) this?

1. Is what I am doing legal?
2. Am I following company policy?
3. How would I feel if someone did this to me?
4. What would Mom think if she knew I’d done this?
5. What is my conscience telling me about my behavior?
6. Would I want to read about my actions in the newspaper?
7. What would Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln or Ghandi think about my actions?

These practical tests can help you determine the rightness or wrongness of your actions. Remember, making ethical decisions is part of everything you do, everyday, every time. As Albert Einstein said, “Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.”

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Handling talented, but toxic, employees

May 2010 Quest for Workplace Excellence

When you think of the driving force behind the choices of leaders when coaching employees, what emotion comes to mind? Is it appreciation? How about passion? Optimism? For many managers it is those. For some managers, unfortunately, the driving force is fear. Fear of what an employee will say or do if things do not go their way.

These employees who are causing fear in leaders are typically the employees who are the top performers, obtaining great results, but are still managing to leave a path of destruction behind them. They are not pleasant to work with. They throw fits. They threaten to quit. Never are they accountable for their actions, and if they are held accountable, giving the manager the cold shoulder is a common response. However, because of extensive knowledge, experience, etc., they are, or at least they convince others that they are, indispensable. This gives them leverage, and they use their talents to drive fear into their managers by holding them hostage.

If you have an employee like this, but still manage to find yourself thinking, “I don’t know what I would do without them,” you may be in treacherous waters. It could be the employee that strolls in late everyday, but is the contact person for your major accounts and seems to know all the customer needs to a “T.” Or maybe it’s the intelligent, but easily angered, employee who has knowledge of complex systems within the company that no one else knows. You are right when you say that you don’t know what you would do without them, because being without them is a scary thought. But it is possible. These employees hold you hostage on purpose and threaten to make you walk the proverbial plank if you do not comply.

It is important to remember what we have said time and time again: the difference between a leader and a manager lies in one word: power. Managers get their power from a title that is based on an organizational chart. Based on a manager’s position, they have the power to tell a certain group of people what to do. A leader may or may not have a formal title and/or position of authority, but they have a relationship with people where others make the decision to follow them. A great question to ask is: if you left your current organization and became a manager in a new organization, would your direct reports follow? Would they still follow you if the salary was the same or a little less? If no one is following you, you are merely taking a walk.

When you don’t do what you should do to hold your direct reports accountable, and you avoid doing so out of fear, you are neither a leader nor a manager: you are a HOSTAGE!

To be a leader, you need to be respected. When an employee holds you hostage, they are showing that they don’t respect you, even though the employee doesn’t come and tell you to your face. A bigger problem is that everyone on your team sees that you don’t hold the deviant employee liable and the rest of the team may begin to lose respect for you.

Here are 10 tips to release your hostage bonds and start down the path to re-claim your position of manager and relationship status of leader.

1. Lean in and get closer to the employee. Employees who hold their managers hostage effectively do so because they know their manager is hesitant or lacks the confidence to talk to them about the issue. When employees exhibit behaviors that undermine the success of the organization, team or manager, these behaviors need to be addressed in a timely manner.

2. Don’t manage by hope and hint. When an employee does something they are not supposed to do, tell them exactly what you need them to do differently and when you need them to do it in order to be a successful member of the team.

3. Utilize the strategy, “notify now, meet later.” If you have let the employee know about the importance of arriving to work on time, the next time they come to work late, say something like, “John, we need to talk about your contributions to the team. I don’t have the time right at the moment but I want to meet with you at 4:00 pm today.” This accomplishes two things. First, it immediately lets the employee know that the behavior is a problem for you. Second, it lets the employee think about the meeting during the day and that, most likely, is a good thing. Last, it allows you time as the manager to carefully think about what you want to say, or the questions you want to ask, in order to gain agreement that there is a problem.

4. Clear your strategy with your boss and HR. What you don’t want is for the employee to go around you, to your boss and have your boss side with the employee over fear of what the employee might do. When the employee says, “I am going to HR or your boss,” if you have reviewed your strategy and both HR and your boss are on the same page with you, you can look the employee in the eye and say, “Going to HR and/or my boss is a great idea. Would you like me to help you get the meetings set up?”

5. Follow up. During your meeting to discuss your employee’s accountability, set up the next meeting to review their progress. To ensure that the meeting will happen, be sure to put it into both of your calendars.

6. Expect the J Curve. When you begin to hold people accountable who resent the fact you are asking them to change their behaviors, many times the relationship gets worse before it improves. For example, prior to meeting with an employee, he communicated with me very little about the progress of his projects (the end of the small curve on the letter J). After I met with him about turning his projects in complete and on time, he stopped communicating with me altogether. (The relationship gets worse – moves into the lower part of the J curve). As we worked through the problems and he turned in his projects on time, he felt better about his performance and the relationship rose much higher up the stem of the letter J than before. Knowing the J curve, when the relationship declines, you can say, “I thought that might happen,” and you shouldn’t let it bother you.

7. Remember the truth. Employees who threaten to quit over being held accountable, very seldom actually follow through on their threat. The reason that most employees don’t quit is because when they think about having to find a new job, they quickly remember that any new employer is not going to put up with their attitude. They will have to change even more for a new employer than they would when correcting the problem you are currently discussing with them.

8. Cross-train others. This is suggested not only for employees that hold you hostage, but also for any employee that has specific knowledge or skills in your organization that no one else has. When this knowledge is shared with at least one other person, the threat of the employee leaving is greatly decreased, because, when and if they leave, you won’t be up the creek without a paddle.

9. Document. It is also important to record all processes and procedures so that this knowledge is accessible and preserved. Be sure to inform all employees of this practice and let them know that this is a priority. They key with this is to follow up to ensure that processes and procedures are recorded.

10. Have the guts to take big action! If the employee is not going to change, then you need to regain your leadership title the old fashion way. Coach them. Counsel them. Train them. Document your process with HR’s help. When all this does not work, SHARE THEM WITH YOUR BEST COMPETITOR. There is no greater strategic planning action than to take the employee who causes you the greatest grief, and give them to your competitor to screw up their business plan.

    When interviewing to fill their position, ask candidates, “How do you feel about helping out in the ______ department?” The employees’ responses will give you insight as to whether you have another prima donna on your hands or a great new team member who will be eager to help colleagues, resulting in shared knowledge. When you begin to work on cool stuff with your new employee, your competitor will be thinking, “How did I even get into this hostage situation?”

When you can finally remove the word Hostage from your business cards, you will once again be able to say, “I love my job!”

Have you had any experience with being held “hostage” by one of your employees? How did you change things to ensure it never happened again?

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Tips for getting the most out of your home life and your professional life

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
- Michael Altshuler

Just 25 years ago, business basically stopped at 5:00 pm. The receptionist went home and the office phones were turned off. If your need was urgent, you may have left a message on a machine to have your call returned the next business day. Very few people had mobile phones. If they did, the phone was permanently mounted in their car. The internet was in its infancy. And, there was no email streaming 24 hours a day. Back in the good ol’ days, the boundaries between your work life and personal life were clear. Today, for many of us, the overlap between work and personal life is unavoidable.

How did this come about?

• The Struggling Economy

• Global Business

• Accessibility: “CrackBerry” Disease

• Dual Income Families

• Societal Expectations

We wanted to know how great leaders handle work-life balance. After surveying more than 250 organizations, comprised of over 100,000 employees, we learned that leaders of organizations in the Best of the Best benchmark (top 25%) do things differently when it comes to work-life balance. More than 81% of the Best of the Best employees agreed with the statement, “My company encourages me to achieve work-life balance.” Only 67% of employees in the overall benchmark agreed with the same statement. Clearly, the Best of the Best leaders are setting a good example for their employees.

If your work-life balance is not what you’d like it to be, check out 10 ideas below to help you tip the scales in your favor:

1. Keep a time log. For a week, keep track of how you spend your time. If you find that 90% of your time is being spent on accomplishment and achievement tasks, you may want to remind yourself that at the end of your life, you are not taking your things with you. That is why they do not mount trailer hitches on hearses. Do not let your desire for material possessions derail your work-life balance. Ultimately, it’s not about how much “stuff” you have, but how you spend your time.

2. Make a list of what you really enjoy. Life is short. It can be over in one heart beat. Make a list of the people you really enjoy having in your life as well as the activities you enjoy. Then, put a plan in place and block off the time to make enjoyment a bigger part of your life.

3. Prioritize. What is an acceptable balance between your work and personal life? If it is currently 90/10, your goal may be to change that ratio to 70/30. Once you determine the right balance, put a plan in place to make it happen.

4. Buy the tickets. I learned this great tactic from Terry Paulson, a fellow faculty member with the Institute of Management Studies. Start by making a few dates with the friends and family who matter most. Buy a few tickets and get those events in your calendar. Don’t worry, when you’ve paid good money for theater, concert or sporting event tickets, you’ll find a way to get everything done so that you can go.

5. Acknowledge what you don’t need to do. There are some tasks, both at work and at home, that simply do not need to be done. Most likely, nobody will care or even notice that some of these tasks are left undone. For example, you don’t need to respond to every email. There are many emails that can be assigned junk status so you don’t even see them. If you find there are some tasks that still need to be done and you don’t have time to do them, delegate them to someone else. Even freeing up one hour a day will relieve stress and allow you to put more enjoyment in your life.

6. Put margin back in your life. Filling up every minute of your day adds stress. When every moment of your life is scheduled, there is no room for anything to go wrong. If you schedule back-to-back meetings at 9:00 am, and the first meeting runs late, you are going to be trying to catch up for the rest of the day. If you need to pick up the kids by 5:00 pm, schedule your last meeting to end at 4:00 pm. That way, if the meeting does run over, you have built in a margin.

7. Leave work at work. Many years ago, I went to the home of an executive I was working with. As he opened his garage door, there was a 4″X8″ plywood sign that said, “Be Here Now!” When I asked him about the meaning of the sign he said, “Without the reminder, I bring my work into my home. The sign is all I need to go home and really enjoy my time with my family.”

8. Protect your personal time off. Schedule your errands, like grocery shopping and picking up the dry cleaning, on the way home from work. That way, you do not have to spend your enjoyment time on your days off doing chores and errands.

9. Don’t email on the weekends. If you feel compelled to check your email on the weekend, work off-line. When you send an email, many in this world feel compelled to respond to you. There is very little communication in the workplace so critical that it cannot wait until Monday morning.

10. Just Say “No.” Knowing that there will always be more to do than there is time to do it, get more comfortable with saying, “No, I’m not able to help you with that right now.” If it’s important, negotiate a time line that will work for you.

Time is the great equalizer. We are all blessed with the same number of minutes each day: 1440, to be exact. You can’t save time, make time, or find time, but you can schedule and plan for how you want to spend your time.

This blog was original featured in September’s Quest for Workplace Excellence.

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Monday mornings can be difficult. You come back from a relaxing weekend to be bombarded by meetings, phone calls, and basically any other distraction under the sun. To help inspire you to seize the week, we send out a free Leadership Quote of the Week email on Monday mornings. Quotes from inspirational leaders will remind you of your role as a leader, and inspire you to look at the upcoming week in a new light.

Sign up here to start your week off with a little perspective.

Here’s a preview:

Never under-estimate the value of an open mind.

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

-Everett Dirksen, U.S. politician who helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964

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From January 2010 Quest

For the last 20 years, we have had the privilege of working with thousands of leaders. Leaders who are passionate about life and love what they do to earn their living. Leaders who are CEO’s, managers and supervisors representing all types of organizations and industries.

What is important to note is that each of the leaders we have worked with and every one of us who is reading this article are equally fortunate in one way: we are all blessed with the same amount of time each day. Everyone has the exact same 1,440 minutes each day and 365 days each year. Although we are all granted the same amount of time in a day, some people accomplish a lot more in their time than others do.

How are these people able to accomplish so much more?

Read the rest of the Quest article…

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• Setting Personal and Professional Goals part 1
• Motivation… Start with Yourself!
• Business Innovation

There may be 50 ways to leave a lover but there are only 2 ways an employee leaves an organization: physically, as in moving on to a competitor, which is manageable and the company hires a great employee to take over the job; or mentally. It is this second one that strikes fear into the heart of every manager: the employee who mentally quits, but stays with the organization…

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• Tips to Maximize Meeting Effectiveness

• Tactic #1 – Is That Your Best Offer?
• Tactic #2 – Referencing an Expert Opinion
• Tactic #3 – Asking a Closed-Ended Question
• Tactic #4 – Asking an Open-Ended Question
• Tactic #5 – Concede Small
• Tactic #6 – Share Both the Pros and the Cons
• Tactic #7 – Meet You in the Middle
• Tactic #8 – Silence is Golden
• Tactic #9 – Say “No” and Stick To your Guns
• Tactic #10 – Yikes! You’ve Got to be Kidding!
• Tactic #11 – Higher Authority
• Tactic #12 – Good Guy/Bad Guy
• Tactic #13 – That’s Not Good Enough
• Tactic #14 – Facts and Statistics
• Tactic #15 – Trade-Off Concession
• Tactic #16 – The Ultimatum
• Tactic #17 – Sweetening the Deal
• Tactic #18 – Clarifying the Ground Rules
• Tactic # 19 – Moving the Goalpost
• Tactic #20 – Isolating Agreement

• Tactic #21 – Putting the Most Difficult Issue Last
• Tactic #22 – The Safeguard
• Tactic #23 – Uncovering the Real Reason
• Tactic #24 – Would You Like the “Meal Deal”?

Click on a link below to view an archived issue.

• April 2010 – Social Networking Sites make Customer Service the New Killer Business App
• March 2010 – Will Your Employees Stay or Will They Stray?
• February 2010 – Cultivating Innovation
• January 2010 – Goal Setting
• December 2009 – Great Leaders are Grateful
• November 2009 – Leading During Turbulent Times
• October 2009 – Surviving the Down Economy
• September 2009 – Work-Life Balance
• July 2009 – Does Employee Engagement Still Matter?
• May 2009 – 8 Tips to Building Stronger Cross-Departmental Teamwork
• April 2009 – Captain Phillips showed he CARED
• March 2009 – Engage the employees you have
• January 2009 - Leadership Lessons from Captain Sully
• December 2008 – Being an Inspirational Leader
• November 2008 – Firing Employees Up in a Down Economy
• October 2008 – Leading in Chaotic Times
• May 2008 – Award for Workplace Excellence Winners