Collaboration Does Not Require Promixity

The business world is abuzz lately with “collaboration.”
      Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stirred controversy and discussion last week, both inside the company and out, when she issued her edict that will effectively end all employees' work-from-home. Yahoo needs to rebuild the culture it lost over the years by creating a more collaborative environment, which can only happen, she insisted, if everyone is in the office every day.
      Her industry peers at companies like Google and Apple appear to agree. Google, for instance, recently introduced its Frank Gehry-designed “Bayview” expansion of its Googleplex headquarters, a key feature of which is that no individual employee will be more than a two-and-a-half-minute walk from any other staffer. 
      The idea, according to a spokesman, is that such proximity encourages and builds collaborative behaviors and spontaneity that, in turn, lead to greater innovation and creativity.
      Before his death, Steve Jobs similarly talked about the importance and value of collaboration and spontaneous encounters between employees. In the context of introducing the design for Apple’s new headquarters, he said that some of the best ideas to come out of Apple were the result of spontaneous encounters and conversations in hallways and break rooms. 

The Value of Collaboration

A collaborative culture is one where engaged employees work together toward a common purpose. People bring their unique skills and backgrounds together as a team or unit and contribute collectively toward a greater outcome, to fulfill the organization’s vision.
      Conversely, where the notion of collaboration is foreign, employees compete with one another, resulting in dysfunction and redundancies. In a collaborative culture, the organization realizes multiple benefits, including:

• Greater clarity about what is needed for the organization to succeed

• Inclusive decision-making

• Fresh thinking and innovative solutions

• Efficient, concerted actions in the service of shared, measurable goals

• Effective time management

• Greater trust, and broader engagement

So assuming Marissa Mayer and her peers are right, is physical proximity a requirement of effective collaboration? Ironically, the same day as her announcement, the Census Bureau released a study that shows a steady rise in the number of people engaged in at-home work today in America. Some 13.4 million people – about 9.4% of the workforce – worked at least one day per week at home in 2010, an increase over 1997 data that showed 7% of the workforce did.
      Case in point, employees at a client company of ours are now occupying a gleaming new, glass-encased headquarters building, trying to adapt to a new concept of “workplace.” The building was designed for 110% occupancy. No one has a permanently assigned desk, office or landline phone number.
      Rather, people – including the CEO and his senior management team – work in large, open areas at long tables among their function or department peers, using laptops and mobile phones wherever they may sit on a given day. Rooms of varying sizes are available for meetings or conference calls.
      The design is a physical manifestation of the evolution of the modern workplace, acknowledging that people do work from home on occasion. Others travel. The building design team’s analysis said it could safely anticipate that all employees would never show up on any given day. Why accommodate them all every day?
      But in such cases – which we know have become the norm – is collaboration possible without every employees walking distance from one another, as some insist? Enter modern technology, which is largely responsible for allowing people such freedom in choosing where they work.
      Achieving a collaborative way of life within an organization where everyone is under the same roof is one thing. It’s an altogether different matter when people are scattered around the globe or across the country in multiple locations – never mind the work-at-home employees.

Using Technology to Sustain Collaboration
Web and video conferencing enables real-time face-to-face web conferences, bringing the additional advantage of seeing people’s faces while we talk with them, enabling everyone to catch the subtleties of facial inflections, like smiles and frowns, that add meaning to one’s words. It also enables the group simultaneously to examine documents under discussion.
      Similarly, webinars facilitate online collaboration for larger groups and company-wide meetings such as leadership town halls and All Hands meetings. Webinar leaders – be it the CEO, a division head or an internal expert – can present new initiatives, new products, new ideas or approaches. 
      Some webinar solutions offer recording and archiving functions that enable employees who want a second viewing or who may have missed the initial meeting the opportunity to view the recording at their leisure.
      If used regularly by all team members, internal social media like Yammer can also stimulate and sustain collaboration, regardless of employees’ proximity to one another.
      So while we understand Marissa Mayer’s desire to bring all Yahoo employees back to headquarters, improved collaboration can’t be seen as the real reason. Rather, the real motive is more likely her need to bring some order to a chaotic situation. 
      Collaboration occurs not because people have been forced into a single common location, but because a conscious decision was enacted to make it happen and then to do right things that sustain it.
      As the March 5 New York Times article noted several paragraphs deep, Yahoo had become a company “where employees were aimless and morale was low.” Ms. Mayer's immediate fix is physical proximity. Time will tell whether it was the right approach. Any improvement in collaboration would be a bonus, but not a rationale for her action

Activating a Corporate Initiative

One of the most challenging tasks for any manager, often layered on top of many daily responsibilities and activities, is activating a new corporate initiative or strategy. These plans often originate at the senior-most levels of the organization and fall on the shoulders of the managers to enact, sometimes without sufficient support or forethought, unfortunately.

      Most corporate initiatives begin with the best of intentions, often compelled by external changes that confront organizations with vast challenges. To succeed, such initiatives ultimately require change at the individual employee level. In other words, each person, regardless of role and responsibilities, must reinvent the way they do their job. And that means behavior and attitude change, too.
      Where most initiatives fall apart, as our experience has shown, is in the execution. They’re well planned and launched with much fanfare and attention-getting activities. The CEO and his/her executive team are suddenly highly visible to the organization, talking and writing through various means about the need for change and what is compelling it.
      Sometimes, initiatives are branded with catchy names or phrases, and banners and posters hung around the organization’s facilities urging everyone to do “X” in support of the initiative.
      But then, things go back to the status quo ante, and everyone returns to doing their jobs as they always had. Banners and posters become yesterday’s wallpaper, scuffed and dusty, largely ignored. The individual employee looks around, sees nothing has really changed, and proceeds accordingly.
      Somewhere down the line, the senior team notices, for instance, that their market share slippage is continuing unabated. They see the same external forces threatening the company’s viability and future. They realize that everyone has resumed their old way of doing things. Why?
      If they’re honest with themselves, it’s likely because they weren’t role models of change. For instance, if the initiative included severe spending cutbacks and headcount reduction but employees saw that senior executives still got curb-side limo service to and from work every day, the message sent to employees was that the changes being sought were not universal. The CEO and senior team itself were not demonstrating the kinds of behaviors and individual sacrifice and change it expected from the rest of the organization.

Contingency Planning

The most effective change initiatives are well planned ahead of their actual introduction – planning that anticipates the natural fall-off in interest that accompanies most of these types efforts. Messages are developed and tested, and managers and supervisors are brought into the effort early, fully informed of the rationale for the changes being sought, and provided the necessary background to bolster the case to the larger employee audience.
      Regardless of what the initiative is, how broadly it encompasses the organization, and how thorough the pre-planning and message preparation is, the first thing any manager must do is secure as much information about it as possible, review the information, and then check his/her understanding.

• Does it make sense?
• Does it answer the “why” and “what’s in it for me” questions that employees will ask implicitly, if not explicitly?
• Is there any missing information, background, data or context?
• What questions does the manager still have?

Getting Answers

If managers and supervisors still have questions after a well thought out introduction, it’s likely their team members will, too. The second step, then, is to fill those information gaps and get answers to the outstanding questions. 
      Central to this process is the Employee Communications team, whose role is to distill the essence of the initiative into words, ideas and context that are meaningful to people, and linking it clearly to the larger corporate vision and mission. Then, Employee Communications must help guide individual unit managers to make the message germane to their teams and what each individual must do – that is, relevant to their specific function within the organization and their individual responsibilities.
      Only then can managers begin to prepare to present the initiative to their teams. They should proceed not in a top-down way but rather in a discussion mode, where employees have the opportunity to talk about it, ask questions and voice concerns. Employees may not agree with the decision (initiative), but if they understand its context and rationale, they will be more likely to enact it, and more receptive to procedural changes, even if they disagree with them. For senior level executives and communicators intent on guiding a major change initiative through to success, it is critical to keep this localized context in mind.
      At the same time, of equal importance are actions, the active, visible buy-in by the CEO and his/her senior team, modeling the behavior changes they expect from the rest of the organization – not just at launch time but as ongoing habits, central to their personal management style.

Perceptions and Perspectives

In both our personal and professional lives, we proceed through our days with perceptions of ourselves within the context of the larger world, and we act accordingly.

            We have no other choice. Because we are only human, our unique point of view necessarily limits our perceptions: i.e., what our own five senses provide us in terms of information, input, and people’s reactions to us and what we say and do.

            On those occasions when we can broaden our perspective by adding those of others, our eyes are opened. And though we may not always be pleased or comfortable to learn these kinds of truths, our ability to live in the world and work with other people has nevertheless been significantly expanded and improved.

            The same holds true in the realm of corporate communications. At the start of a new assignment, our client liaison provides us an overview of the company and the challenges it faces – in particular, the challenges for which we have been retained to help solve.

            Yet, as well informed as she/he may be, the liaison can give us but one perspective. It’s not surprising, then, that our best work happens when we are able to launch new assignments with the benefit of additional perspectives and insights, which we do through a number of means, not the least of which is talking to as many people as possible, both inside and outside the organization.

            This is not to say that the liaison is wrong or ill-informed. In fact, our client contacts are usually among the best informed in the companies we work with, because they’re usually in a senior communications role, which demands that they stay well connected and current.

Limited Perspective

Even so, the perspective of one person who resides in one part of any organization is necessarily limited and influenced by where that person sits and whom she/he listens to and respects.

            Even the CEO is not immune to this shortcoming. In our years of working with a range of corporate leaders, some have been very conscious of this challenge of perceptions and perspectives, and effective at dealing with it directly. Others have not, carrying an arrogant attitude that says, “I know what the truth is.”

            The CEO of a former client, a global airline, made it a central part of his job to reach out regularly to the company’s many stakeholders: employees, paying customers, FAA regulators, stockholders, etc.

            Once, we were visiting their headquarters and, when we went to lunch in the company cafeteria, I spotted the CEO sitting at a table with a half-dozen employees. When I remarked on it, my host said that that was the CEO’s habit when he was in the headquarters office. He would simply pull up a chair at a table and dine with employees. He would talk to them, listen to them, answer their questions, and share ideas.

            We were told that he did the same when he traveled, always building into his schedule sufficient time at the airports around the world to talk to ground crews, customer service reps, and aircraft crew. He flew both coach and first class, and quizzed adjacent passengers about their experiences with the airline.

            As it is with us when we start an assignment by immersing ourselves in multiple perspectives, a CEO like this one is going to be smarter and better connected to the core truths of his organization, as well as the ways that it evolves.

            He will often sense impending changes before anyone else does. He has no illusions about the forces that impact the health of his company, and doesn’t have to rely on a buffer zone of advisors, assistants and, dare I say, yes-men. Consequently, he can operate more effectively, and make better-informed and timelier decisions based on reality.

            There’s an additional advantage of his reaching out. Because he makes the ongoing effort to extend himself and listen to his company’s key stakeholders, he operates with their support and trust – which is perhaps his greatest asset in doing his job.

            This holds true whenever we seek to broaden our own self-perception by folding in additional perspectives. When we do so, we envelope greater truths beyond our own world view and bring ourselves closer to the ultimate reality, building greater trust among our peers along the way.

Reinforcing Values Drives the Right Behaviors

Most established companies are built on a set of values, underlining the business’ core purpose and setting forth principles to guide their employees in the future to sustain the organization’s health and success.

       Values are not and never should be an after-thought. Rather, they should accurately reflect the vision and mission on which the company was created and built, as well as the attitudes and behaviors of its founders. If they are encouraged effectively, values can serve as a fixed point of truth for succeeding generations of managers and employees to hold true to the founding principles of the business.

       As a means of “living its core values” and reinforcing employee behavior that reflects those values, a former client used to conduct an annual contest among its employees. Each year, managers and supervisors would nominate individual employees or teams who they felt best exemplified the meaning of the company’s five core values: “customer focus,” “honesty,” “innovation,” “respect for people,’ and “team spirit.”

       Each year, ahead of the year-end company holiday party where the awards were announced, the company president and the head of human resources would sit together, review the nominees, and select the most worthy teams and individuals in time to honor them at the annual party. Winners would receive gift cards for local shops. It had become a well-established tradition of recognizing and rewarding the behavior that senior leadership sought.

       I remember thinking at the time that it was a grand idea because it put the spotlight on and rewarded the individuals and teams who were living, behaving, and acting the way the company had expected them to operate, in a manner that perpetuated the founding principles of the company.

       I once got the opportunity to peruse the nomination papers and was impressed with the kinds of efforts people made, and the wonderful ideas many had offered. Most of these people went beyond their 9-to-5 routines and extended themselves for the betterment of the company. There were instances of individual creativity that saved the company a lot of money and/or improved products and efficiencies, or customer services.

       People do pay a lot of attention to how employees are rewarded and recognized. How else do you explain the plethora of entertainment and sports awards, as well as those in every other field? People like to acknowledge superior performance in any field. So these kinds of programs are a good idea.

Meeting Expectations?

It all seemed very inspiring and a good way to reinforce good work. But there was something about it that troubled me: the sense of a predictable routine of it all and the realization that there would be winners every year.

       It’s a bit like the “Employee of the Month” plaques you see in the lobbies of many hotels and restaurants. With a finite number of employees, it’s likely that everyone will eventually be honored. The first few times the award is given, everyone will generally agree that the selected winner is worthy of merit. But by the time you’re into the fourth or fifth year of the program, with 50 to 60 out of 75 or so employees having been honored, the award has lost all significance and meaning.

       Suppose the president of my client company had felt that none among the nominees were worthy of recognition? Would he decide not to give any awards that year? Would he be prepared to stand before the holiday gathering and say, “Sorry, nobody was worthy of the ‘Core Values Honors’ this year”? Nope. It’s not going to happen – though it does happen in some realms. Occasionally, for instance, the Nobel Committee does not give a Nobel Prize for Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize – justifiably.

       But skipping a year in what had become company traditions like this “Core Values Honors” would have had a negative impact. So it continues year after year and inevitably begins to feel a bit tired and predictable.

       Not to discourage this very appropriate recognition of outstanding service on the part of hard working employees, but organizations should be nimble and creative in how they do so. They should break out of the cookie-cutter expectations of an annual or monthly prize and be more spontaneous – and a bit unpredictable. Rewards and recognition are most meaningful when they occur randomly.

       There’s nothing wrong with flagging someone’s outstanding work one day, and then highlighting someone else’s three days later. Nor is there anything wrong with not recognizing anyone for a long stretch of several months, if no one merits the recognition. Taking that approach will have greater impact and meaning to people.

       The important thing is to be paying attention to what the employees are doing, ready to provide constructive criticism, to help people be better at their jobs. And, at the same time, be ready to say “thank you” or give a pat on the back when someone does a good job. And give a significant reward and/or recognition when they go above and beyond, especially when that effort embodies the values on which the organization was founded.

Employee Engagement is a Two-Way Street

The responsibility of keeping employees well informed about and engaged in the business is a mutual one. 
            That is to say, it is critical that company leadership and managers maintain an ongoing dialogue with employees to assure that they understand, comprehend and act on the challenges and opportunities that confront the business.

            But, at the same time, it is just as important for the individual employee to stay engaged in, be curious about, and stay informed about the business: what makes it tick, its history and heritage, its internal and external challenges and opportunities, and its paths to success.

            That said, I surprised myself last week when I momentarily forgot this little truth. I had the honor of delivering a webinar on behalf of Citrix and Ziff-Davis on the subject of keeping a distributed workforce engaged and connected to the business. It was done as a companion piece to a parallel white paper I'd prepared on the same subject.

            As the date of the webinar approached, I was polishing my presentation, which focused mostly on what I assumed the audience would be most interested in: techniques and new technologies for communicating with remote employees and keeping them informed and engaged, topics that I did indeed cover. Belatedly, I realized I was forgetting one important element – which I added almost as an after-thought to my presentation.

Two Sides to the Same Coin

In talking about the attitudes and behaviors that leaders and managers must have toward a distributed workforce, as well as the communications techniques, messages and tools that organizations must use to reach them, it occurred to me that there are two sides to that coin.

            Yes, it is incumbent upon communicators, managers and leaders to make every possible effort to keep employees in the loop and engaged in the business. It is one of their most important roles. And doing so with employees who are not, as a rule, in the main office but rather working from afar in a remote or home office presents additional communications challenges. Yet it is even more critical because distributed employees can become easily disengaged.

            But this is a two-way street, as I told my audience. The burden of staying connected and engaged in the business is just as much a responsibility of the individual employee as it is his/her employer.

            So, the natural question arises: how do you instill in employees the urge to stay engaged and informed? Frankly, it has to be self-motivated, something they desire, connected to their urge to succeed.

            If I were to give a speech to a college graduating class, I would tell them that if they're going to get ahead in business, they must be engaged in the business itself at least as much as their own role. While they learn their job, master its intricacies, and doing the job well, they must, at the same time, strive to understand the details of what drives the business. In fact, they must make a concerted effort always to connect their role to the larger mission of the business.

            Managers, whether consciously or not, gravitate toward those employees who are fully engaged in the business over and above their own narrow role and responsibilities. These are the employees that managers are eager to hire and promote – as opposed to the clock-punchers, the folks who are out the door at 5 o’clock, regardless of what’s on their desks.

            Comparing the two types of employees, it becomes obvious which is going to contribute more to the company’s strategies and ultimate successes: the one that connects consistently what he/she does every day with where the company is going, the one whose individual efforts always support the organization’s larger purpose.

Is Apple Falling Back to Earth?

Has the post-Steve Jobs era finally arrived at Apple?

      It has been a full year since he removed himself from company leadership at Apple, a short time after which he succumbed to his long battle with pancreatic cancer.

      In his stead, the former COO, Tim Cook, was appointed as the company’s new CEO. Cook has had one year to remake the company in his own mold and, if that’s the case, Apple fans are not giving him high marks.

      Witness the lead story in today’s Wall Street Journal. Headline: “Apple Makes a Wrong Turn as Users Blast Map Switch.” That pretty well sums up the gist of the story. The rollout this week of the latest operating system update for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, iOS6, brought with it a new Apple mapping app, replacing the Google mapping app that had been a mainstay since the 2007 introduction of iPhone.

      Even casual followers of Silicon Valley news know that the once loving relationship between the two companies is ancient history. With this latest move, Apple has made a clean break from its erstwhile informal partner.

      But the complaints about the new mapping app are numerous, quick to arise, and, apparently, well founded. The app is deeply flawed. Its maps are inaccurate, identifying place names incorrectly, and often spotting locations in the wrong place. Also, the maps are not as detailed and current as Google’s.

Not ready for prime time

Simply stated, the app was not ready for prime time. But is this a fluke? After all, though he had numerous blockbuster successes, Steve Jobs was not without his mistakes. The initial Apple TV, for instance, was a dud. But still, it makes you wonder.

      On the other hand, is everyone just sitting back waiting for Tim Cook and his team to foul up Steve Jobs’ creation?

      Those of you who read this blog with any regularity will know that I am an inveterate Apple and Macintosh fan. So it may come as a surprise that I, too, had a less-than-satisfactory experience with the company recently.

      Last Saturday, I acquired a new MacBook Air laptop, a beautiful machine that’s remarkable for the computing power and speed it packs in such a thin, lightweight package. Being so thin, however, it lacks a DVD drive like most other laptops. So, how was I to load the Microsoft Office software I already own in a DVD format?

      And therein began the problem. Failing at my attempted amateur work-arounds, I finally called Apple Tech Support and, in short order, was speaking to a pleasant woman who immediately understood my problem. Her recommendation was that I call Microsoft’s Mac Help Desk, which, she said, would offer me an online URL from which to download a digital version of the software I had previously bought.

      Long story short, after sitting on Microsoft’s hold for 35 minutes, listening to static-filled elevator music, a young lady kindly and patiently explained to me that Apple’s own tech support web pages include a full explanation of how to address my (apparently very common) problem. She added that she and her Microsoft cohorts had gotten numerous such referred calls and were annoyed at Apple for palming off the problem on them.

      She was kind enough to stay on the phone with me and walk me through the process. Problem solved, no thanks to Apple – which from my perspective is shocking. The Apple Tech Support team has always been top-notch, a model for any other company aspiring to Apple’s greatness. Not this time.

One plus one equals…

Could this anecdote and Apple’s widely panned mapping app indicate that Apple is coming back to earth to join the other mortals among the world’s corporations? Is Apple a victim of its own success? Has the company over-extended itself in its ability to support the millions of new customers buying its iPhone, iPad, and computers?

      Steve Jobs was famous for his ability to say “no.” He said no to numerous good ideas because they didn’t fit the Apple model, or they over-reached the company’s ability to deliver greatness: great ideas, great products, great design, and great service.

      In fact, do any of the senior people at Apple have Jobs’ sense of what works and what doesn’t? Tim Cook is a superb operations guy, which is why he was Jobs’ chief operating officer. He got things done, usually in a very smart, efficient way.

      Jonathan Ive is one of the greatest, most creative industrial designers of our age. He is the genius behind “the look” and feel associated with the Apple products we all know so well.

      Scott Forstal is the driving brains behind Mac OS X, and the iPhone operating system, as well as their many iterations.

      Phil Schiller is the company’s chief marketer. But while Jobs was alive, he could never hold a candle to Jobs’ genius for marketing. I always got the sense that Schiller was Steve Ballmer to Jobs’ Bill Gates.

      Collectively, these guys and their support teams are top-notch. Virtually any company would be better if they hired any or all of them. But they lack the innovative insight and blockbuster genius of Steve Jobs.

      I sure hope I’m wrong because I’ve been an Apple fan since 1984 when I bought my first computer, an Apple IIc, followed five years later by my first Macintosh, an SE.

      But it’s hard to believe that four smart guys can equal and replace Steve Jobs. I think we can only conclude that, like Sir Isaac Newton’s falling apple that inspired his law of gravity, Apple is coming back to earth.

Deal with Disaffected Employees Directly

When our son was a pre-schooler, he was plagued by repeated ear infections and persistent colds. Each case meant a trip to the pediatrician for diagnosis and appropriate medication and treatment. After several instances, his doctor recommended a permanent fix: a tonsillectomy.

            So that’s what we did. The effect was almost immediate. The ear infections ceased and the frequency of colds dropped to nearly zero.

            Sure, we could have continued treating the symptoms rather than the cause, but our son wouldn’t have been the happy, playful boy he became, nor would he have thrived.

            The same case is often true in business. Recurring problems can point to deeper issues that are not being addressed. And in the case of recurring efforts by employees to organize a union shop, the deeper problem often can be traced to poor communications and an insufficient effort to engage employees in the business.

            A few years ago, a midwestern manufacturer asked for our advice and counsel in nipping in the bud a surging effort to unionize its assembly line workers. I paid a visit to their headquarters offices along with a colleague who specialized in labor union communications.

            We had been provided preliminary background information and insights into the issues and the current situation beforehand, and brought with us a two-part presentation proposing both an immediate solution and a longer-term strategy to stop this situation from recurring.

A Recurring Challenge

As we learned, this union organizing effort seemed to pop up every few years. To date, the company had successfully defeated it each time. This time, it seemed more serious and threatening than in the past.

            The two of us sat down with the operations management team, the head of human resources, and director of corporate communications to hash out the challenge, and to offer our solutions.

            The managers listened intently to my colleague’s recommendations for dissuading the workforce from voting for union representation. I’d worked with him before and knew his ideas were sound, and had previously proven effective.

            My part of the presentation came next and centered on a strategic approach to employee communications to gain the trust and understanding of the workforce in the future, something that was currently missing in this case.

            In essence, my proposal called for more frequent contact by senior managers with the hourly workers through a variety of means, including occasional walks through the shop to engage individual employees in conversations, and town hall type meetings where they could share relevant information about the state of the business and listen to ideas from the employees.

            I also recommended an on-going flow of information, through a variety of means, about the external marketplace and its impact on the company to help employees better understand the larger picture.

            Though the company team seemed to like our ideas, we left without a commitment and went back home to await their response. They never called back. They somehow headed off the union threat on their own. But I later learned that the effort to unionize the shop resurfaced again a couple years later.

Avoiding Their Medicine

Why didn’t the company management team opt for the medicine of more effective long-term employee engagement? Let me guess.

            Like a lot of long-term commitments, it demands that you make changes in the way you operate day-to-day. And in the current business climate, that is not a choice a lot of managers like to make. The kind of choices they do like to make are often those that have a short-term pay-off: cost cuts that improve margins; changing suppliers for higher quality or greater reliability; adding staff and production throughput to address increased demand for their products, and the like.

            But the kinds of changes I was urging were behavioral, asking managers and company leadership to operate outside their comfort zones and spend more of their limited time on the job engaging employees more than they were accustomed to. It would also have meant they’d have to think more about the connections between the employees’ world and where the business needed to go.

            I’m afraid to say that some managers and leaders seem to take their workforces for granted. The individual employee is brought into the company to perform a specific set of tasks and, in return, is paid a fair wage and benefits. Shouldn’t that be enough?

            No. It’s not enough.

            Union organizers find disgruntled employees in dysfunctional organizations and promise them more formal, rigidly controlled engagement with company management on their behalf – albeit with union representatives serving as intermediaries – to level what is perceived as an uneven playing field.

            This appeals to employees who feel cut off from the business anyway and, frankly, have ceased really caring about much beyond the paycheck, and a fair and safe work environment.

            The frustrations that shop floor employees sense when they feel detached from the company’s purpose and when their ideas and insights are not sought are the kinds of aggravations that build up over time, festering to the point where a union organizer finds fertile soil in which to sow his seeds of dissent.

The Futile Pursuit of "Perfect" in Job Postings and Its Impact on the Workplace

In the midst of a persistently high unemployment rate, the job market continues to be a buyer’s market. Because of that, people who may be unhappy or feel frustrated with their current jobs are stuck, reluctant to leave for fear that they won’t find another position elsewhere.

      This double-edged sword is changing the nature of many workplaces and the inter-relations there, while stifling the vital organizational renewal that the natural attrition of normal times brings companies, with new employees coming and established employees leaving.

      With little movement of people out of organizations (except in cases of lay-offs), postings for the rare openings these days have become pursuits of perfection. Requirements are often absurdly detailed and lengthy, virtual shopping lists of specific talents, skills and experience.

      That’s fine for highly technical jobs where familiarity and facility with various equipment and/or computer software is necessary. But for those positions that require intellectual curiosity, agility, and creativity, as well as an ability to work well with a variety of people, there is no ideal job description.

      Still, the employers advertising for many such positions apparently operate under that delusion that “perfect” is attainable.

      An article in The Wall Street Journal reported that a study found that 31 percent of the 811 small businesses surveyed had unfilled job openings in July because they couldn’t identify applicants “with the right skills or experience.”

      In an opinion piece, “Mind The Gap,” in the July 9 & 16 issue of The New Yorker, author James Surowiecki cited the “dearth of qualified workers… and the gap between the skills that American workers have and the ones that businesses need.”

The “Right” Candidate

That’s recruiters talking. I say that in the pursuit of the perfect, employers may be overlooking the right candidate. Working from that notion, that there is the perfect candidate out there, creates an insurmountable barrier to the applicant who, in the light of day, could be the best fit for the team and contribute the most to the greater good of the organization.

      Unfortunately, the resume screening software in wide use today seeks the perfect candidate, but makes no accommodation for anything except for the candidates that match nearly the entire shopping list. So, as the Journal article notes, positions go unfilled.

      On the other hand, the right candidate is going to be the one that comes with his/her own unique skills, talents, abilities and intelligence that may or may not meet all the specificity outlined in the job posting.

      While the job certainly has its roles and responsibilities, in addition to fulfilling those, the right candidate will also ultimately make the position distinctively his or her own, reflecting his/her unique personality, approach, and talent mix. In the long term, the team and the organization will be stronger for it.

      This paradox is compounded by businesses’ own reluctance to prepare new people fully and properly for the job. Both the Journal and New Yorker articles note that, to an increasing degree, businesses are loath to invest in training, on the assumption that the perfect candidate is ready to go full speed on Day 1.

      As Surowiecki notes, the ultimate irony of this weak economy is that “most companies worry less about getting every possible dollar of new business than they do about keeping costs down. That makes them slow to hire, which keeps unemployment high, which keeps the economy weak, which in turn makes employers more reluctant to hire,” adding that they are similarly disinclined to hire anyone who needs the least bit of training because of the attendant time and money investments.

      With unemployment stuck above eight percent for the past 41 months, employers can afford to be choosey, willing to wait to find that one special needle in the haystack of resumes and cover letters.

      While they make little accommodation for training, they also likely don’t provide chances for the new hire to gain an understanding of and appreciation for the company's culture, how things work, or anything much more than learning where the washrooms and parking lots are. “Just do your job. Oh, and by the way, do it at a salary far less than your last job.” And yet, they still get thousands upon thousands of applications.

A Changing Workplace

What does this do to the workplace? What kinds of employees begin to populate an organization like this? How do the older, more established employees – those who may consider themselves “stuck” – feel toward and about the newbies who are working for less money? Are there still time and opportunities for camaraderie, for personal moments and friendliness anymore?

      What's increasingly missing today is the notion that new people come into a company, feel their way around a bit, find their niche, and establish their own style and unique contribution to the larger whole in their own unique way. They grow into the job. They learn and understand their role, the nature and heritage of the company, how the business works, its customers, and the idiosyncrasies of their new boss. Given that opportunity, they feel encouraged to bring fresh insights to old challenges.

      Instead, we have an expectation that new hires will attain the necessary insights and understanding to do the job – through osmosis or ESP, I suppose – and do so quickly because there’s no time to waste.

      Is it an anachronism to believe that people can grow into the job? Is it wrong to support the notion that every job is unique to the person who holds it, that people can mold the job to their unique skills and style and thus contribute to the strength of the team and the advancement of the organization?

Question, Listen, Discuss, Debate and Learn

Much has been written both here and elsewhere about the continuum of communication. That is to say, good communication practices encompass a back-and-forth exchange of information and ideas where the manager is questioning and listening as much as or more than speaking and conveying information.

      But if listening and seeking input is so important, why do so many managers fall short in that department?

      I suspect the short answer has to do with finite time: managers have much to do and not enough time in which to do it. So in the communication continuum, it often feels more critical for them to disseminate information and data to their teams, and then move onto the next task.

      Certainly there are times in the typical workweek when that is necessary. But the manager that falls into the habit of justifying the overuse of one-way communication is on track for failure down the road.

      In this era of Twitter, Facebook, email, and text messages, we have become accustomed to taking the easy route when communicating with our teams. An email to all team members alerting them to a change of process or policy is certainly appropriate. But when email blasts become a manager’s principal means of communicating to his/her team, then he/she is no longer communicating. He/she is spewing. Such information downloads fall on deaf ears.

The Team’s Value to the Organization

The reason we build teams of people within our organizations is to achieve the excellence that several people working together can attain that the individual working alone cannot. So it stands to reason that the person managing that team wants to tap into the best that his players bring to the mix.

      Questioning, listening and engaging in proactive dialogues is how the best managers do that. So what exactly does that look like, ideally?

      Again, I add the word “ideally” because we have to be cognizant that the sturm und drang of the day-to-day business can sometimes overwhelm and cancel out the good intentions of striving for excellent communication.

      So let’s assume that the periodic ebb and flow of busy-ness on the job allows for contemplative moments when one-on-one conversations or productive team meetings can occur. The well-organized manager knows best when those times are most likely to be available – first thing Monday mornings; at the end of the billing cycle; before the next production run gets started, etc.

      The wise manger with foresight finds those periodic opportunities and works them into the calendar. Those times become the most valuable of the workweek or month. When the manager and team members are prepared, much can be accomplished, and the ball figuratively moved down the field.

Preparation is Key

Preparation on both sides is critical but means something a bit different, though it follows parallel tracks. The manager, in particular, should come to these regular meetings with an open mind, ready to hear and learn things he may not expect, as well as a desire to discover and discern specific information related to issues of the moment, in particular the current challenges and opportunities the team is dealing with.

      A significant component of the manager’s preparation is staying plugged into the larger organization and the outside world that impacts the business as a whole. He/she should be able to bring that information to his/her team and make it relevant to their day-to-day efforts.

      These meetings are also chances to reflect together on how their unit might work better with other units, how collectively they can contribute to the organization’s larger purpose. To that end, it is the manager’s responsibility to bring in the outside view that is not regularly conveyed into the confines of a unit’s figurative walls.

      For their part, the employees’ responsibility is to come to these discussions with ideas, insights and open minds. Their preparation is best achieved over the course of doing their jobs, making note of problems that recur or opportunities they sense are not being fully exploited. These are the gems that the alert manager with good listening skills looks for and hopes for.

      At the same time, the manager encourages the sharing of bad news along with the good because he/she knows that responding negatively to the employee who brings the bad news will only discourage others from doing so in the future, which in turn leads to small problems festering into insurmountable crises.

      I fear that the typical team meeting consists of a manager speaking for a short time, concluding his/her remarks and then asking whether anyone has any questions. Hearing none, everyone returns to work. The result is that employees often feel purposeless and a mere cog in a machine, disconnected from the larger operation.

      It is far more effective to allow the team to learn together with the manager posing open-ended questions that force them to think through a challenge or opportunity and arrive at their own answers. They then share those answers and begin a discussion and debate.

      Together, the team learns while often coming up with practicable solutions, or uncovering new ways of looking at and thinking about challenges and opportunities. At the same time, the individual employee becomes more engaged in the business, feeling he/she is an active contributor to its larger purpose, and that his/her voice is heard. It’s all good. It’s effective communications.