The 8020Info Water Cooler

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The 8020Info Water Cooler
Issue #89 - Vol. 6 No. 9
26 June, 2006

1. Creating A Strong Workplace Climate

Leaders must shape the culture and office climate where they work, to energize employees and nudge them towards higher accomplishment. In Harvard Business Review, consultants Scott Spreier, Mary Fontaine and Ruth Malloy identify six factors that shape your workplace climate:

Flexibility: This aspect highlights whether employees perceive that rules and procedures are really needed or are just red tape. It also reflects the extent to which people believe they can get new ideas accepted. In high-performance climates, flexibility is high.

Responsibility: The degree to which people feel able to work without asking their manager's guidance at every turn. People should feel they have a lot of responsibility.

Standards: The degree to which people perceive that the company emphasizes excellence -- that the bar is set at a high but attainable mark, and managers hold people accountable for doing their best. When standards are strong, employees are confident they can meet the organization's challenges.

Rewards: Whether people feel they are given regular, objective feedback and are rewarded accordingly. While compensation and formal recognition are important, the main component is feedback that is immediate, specific, and directly linked to a person's productivity.

Clarity: Whether people know what is expected of them and understand how their efforts relate to organizational goals. In study after study, this dimension of climate has been shown to have the strongest link to productivity.

Team Commitment: The extent to which people are proud to belong to a team or organization and believe that everyone is working towards the same objectives.

2. Dealing With The Pot-Stirrer Top

The Pot-Stirrer loves to find injustices in the company -- real or imagined -- and take them up as a cause. He constantly takes issue with decisions and, like a dog with a bone, won't let go. Worse, he tries to involve everyone else in the issues that rile him, and in the process dampens workplace morale.

"This is the employee you lose sleep over," Shaun Belding writes in the Hints From Hell newsletter. "He's fairly competent at what he does, but far from enthusiastic. You may have been thinking of firing him, but on what grounds? You've also been concerned about the negative impact that disciplining him would have on the rest of your employees. What messages would it send?"

Belding's advice is:

Document everything, with as much detail as possible.

Talk with him in private. Tell him you have some concerns about the effect his behaviour is having on the rest of the team. Make sure you have specific examples.

Give him the benefit of the doubt. Ask him if he's prepared to be a more positive team player, and listen to his answer positively.

Monitor his behaviour afterward. If he improves, acknowledge that effort and thank him. If he falls back on his old ways, move on to a progressive discipline strategy.

"People who negatively impact a team's morale can be poison to an organization. Sometimes the direct approach is the best approach," concludes Belding.

3. Understanding Your Client Better Top

Australian small business coach Leah Mclean says that business can often feel like a puzzle, as you try to put together the pieces. In dealing with clients, some parts to be sensitive to are:

Listen for yearnings: Yearnings expressed by your client can help you to identify ways to support him or her in satisfying something important. To hear yearnings, you must often push past the obvious.

Watch for dissatisfaction: Where is your client dissatisfied? Where are the holes of dissatisfaction in your market? "Find them and fill them," she says.

Watch for rapid change: Rapid change means something important is going on -- and may be an opening for you.

"The more that you take the time to understand your clients, the more you will step from the role of supplier into the role of partner," she stresses on her Working Solo blog.

4. The Case Against Online Registration Forms Top

If you have a web site, no doubt you would like to capture -- and register -- people who visit it. But increasingly, people of all ages are showing distaste for such online forms, MarketingSherpa publisher Anne Holland notes on her blog.

People find typing contact information boring. Worse, it means they have to give up control. "With forms, the paradigm of Web surfing has switched so that marketers are in the driver's seat to some degree -- and consumers don't like it," she says.

That doesn't mean removing all registration forms or stopping newsletter offers. But she argues it does mean relaxing somewhat on the amount of information you demand.

5. Zingers Top

The four common business plan mistakes are asking potential investors to sign a non-disclosure agreement, since they generally won't; spending too much time describing the market rather than your strategy to dominate it; making wildly optimistic projections and assumptions; and exaggerating your experience.
(Source: Business 2.0)

The top 21 per cent of Canadian donors provided 82 per cent of the value of all donations in 2004.
(Source: Statistics Canada's The Daily)

Consultant Bob Junke says salespeople deal with two types of people: The A group, who have the authority to buy, and the B group, who may influence the decision but don't have the power to buy. The typical representative calls on one A prospect for every six B prospects while high performers deal with twice as many A contacts as B contacts.
(Source: Sales and Marketing Management)

Productivity guru David Allen says one of the most powerful forces promoting procrastination is not necessarily the desire for perfection but its evil twin, the fear of imperfection. If you don't engage with something, you can maintain the illusion you're capable of flawless execution.
(Source: David Allen's Productivity Principles Newsletter)

Once job candidates have been screened for competence, you need to judge them by the values of your firm to get the right teammates, consultant Jim Clemmer recommends.
(Source: Improvement Points)

6. Q & A with 8020Info Top

Question: Last year (http://www.8020info.com/issue 72.html) you suggested some marketing blogs to read. Can you recommend blogs on other subjects?

8020Info Consultant Harvey Schachter responds:

There are so many new blogs on so many subjects, it's hard to keep track, let alone offer firm recommendations, particularly since the quality of a blog often tapers off after awhile.

But a good place to start is with two blogs by former magazine editor and publisher Rick Spence. He posts reasonably frequently, with good ideas of his own and links to other thoughtful souls, and there's a Canadian slant to the blogs. Canadian Entrepreneur (http://canentrepreneur.blogspot.com) offers business tips, updates and ideas while Selling To Small Business (http://sellingsb.blogspot.com) focuses on sales.

Others to consider:

Famed venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki offers his incisive thoughts, recently featuring a lot of sardonic lists, at Bona Tempora Volvantur, or Let The Good Times Roll (http://blog.guykawasaki.com).

Three people offering sound management advice are Lisa Haneberg at Management Craft (http://managementcraft.typepad.com/management_craft), Adrian Savage at Slow Leadership (http://www.slowleadership.org), and Brendon Connelly at Slacker Manager (http://slackermanager.com).

Lifehacker (http://www.lifehacker.com) is a lesser-known part of a glitzy family of blogs that includes Gawker and Wonkette. It offers productivity tips aimed at tech types but some of the ideas can be broadly applicable. Other productivity blogs I like are Achieve-IT( http://goalsuccess.typepad.com/goaltips) and Jason Womack's In The Life (http://www.davidco.com/blogs/jason), the latter weaving in stories from his athletic endeavours.

Baseball fans will learn a lot about major league baseball and their own management situation at Management By Baseball (http://cmdr-scott.blogspot.com). But be warned: The blog entries can sometimes be as long as an extra inning ball game.

Technology writer Nicholas Carr is worth catching at his Rough Type blog (http://www.roughtype.com).

Ask again next year. I'm sure there will be more.

7. News From Our Water Cooler Top

Sometimes it is useful to have an outside facilitator guide your planning discussions -- bringing independent perspectives and fresh methods that help your group think together as a team, identifying key issues and creative solutions.

If you need to jumpstart your efforts and make the most of your planning time, 8020Info can offer skilled facilitation, tools and techniques. Among them are our fast and effective Planning Assumption Checklist, which has been a recent favourite with clients, and scenarios, which illuminate strategic possibilities and harness the imagination.

If you're interested in exploring the possibilities, call Rob Wood at 613-542-8020 or email contactus@8020info.com.

8. Closing Thought Top

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
-- Thomas Edison