7 steps to keep in mind when hiring, training, and managing staff in a humanistic management framework.

Here are seven steps to keep in mind when hiring, training, and managing staff in a humanistic management framework.

Step 1: Recognize the individual for who they are as a whole person, and not just as someone with specific knowledge you think might be helpful.

Step 2: Provide them with the right work environment so that their personality and skills can be utilized fully and not suppressed because you as the manager cannot figure out how to take advantage of their unique abilities and temperament.

Step 3: Ensure that your staff are properly oriented. They need to understand the big picture, how their part of the work fits into the rest of the organization, and how the different pieces inter-relate to create the whole. A good orientation explains how everyone in the company is dependent on everyone else doing their job in order for the company to work effectively. Make sure they know how important their work is, even if what you are asking them to do is sweep your floors. It is all essential or you would not have hired them.

Step 4: Make sure they have the training they need to do the job. If you hire someone to sweep your floors, but you do not ensure they know how to use a broom, they probably are not going to succeed.

Step 5: Verify that they have learned your specific and unique processes. Do not assume it is obvious. Every work group has its quirks. Even sweeping the floor for a company has quirky requirements. Do not omit those during training or you set your employee up for failure. If they do fail, do  not treat them as a failure; it was your fault as the manager that you did not teach them this quirk. If they come up with a solution to a problem and it is not the solution you hoped for, understand that they are creatively solving a problem, and that is a good thing. Do not punish them for that. Learn why what you thought was going to work—did not and how the processes need to be adjusted to take into account—the reality the employees experience.

Step 6: In the early stages of an employee’s work for you, check their work and help them learn from the mistakes made in Step 4. It is amazingly disheartening to think you are doing something correctly and doing it for a long time only to find out that you have been doing it wrong all along and no one bothered to tell you. No one feels good about that. When this happens, it is the manager’s fault. The sooner you can help an employee identify a problem and correct it, the happier everyone will be. The longer you let something linger, the more frustration and anger will arise when you finally do correct it.

Step 7: Thank them for their work. Do not take it for granted that they were going to do it anyway. People like to know you appreciate their work. The key to doing this step well is to understand that different individuals need different rewards for their work. In order to provide them with a reward that is meaningful to them, you need to know what is motivating them. It is not just that people are getting paid for their work. That is nice, but it is not all people want. I started my professional career working in volunteer management. With volunteers, you do not reward them with pay. You have to provide them with another reason to volunteer for you. Some people want public recognition. Some people are looking for friendships, some are looking to learn new skills, and some get really excited when they accomplish something difficult that they did not think was possible. In order to keep your employees happy and loyal, you need to treat them as the individuals they are and figure out what is motivating them so that you can individualize your approach for each employee. This sounds harder than it actually is. Break down the most common motivations and design your rewards and thanks programs to provide the customized motivation your different employees require. Structured flexibility really does work. Most managers fail at this because they are only really comfortable working with people who are basically like them and motivated by the same things as they are. A humanistic business manager stretches themselves out of their comfort zone to make sure they are treating each of their employees with dignity and celebrate the unique gifts and traits that each brings to the company. After all, if you have a company of likeminded individuals, you are limiting yourself and your problem-solving and your customer base to people who are like you. That is not good for business.


Learn more about applied Humanism in business at:
https://humanistlearning.com/category/businesscourses/

And get my new book on applied Humanist at: https://humanistlearning.com/new-book-applied-humanism-how-to-create-more-effective-and-ethical-businesses/

Managing Different Generations

The key to managing different generations is actually quite easy. Treat them all with dignity and worth. Crazy – I know. 

There aren’t really any differences in our emotional make up. All generations are basically the same emotionally.  We all need the same things to feel psychologically safe and respected. Managers can give that to employees of any generation by treating everyone with dignity.  

This also means – recognizing that each of your employees – are individuals with individual life experiences.  Those life experiences make some people more anxious. Some people more eager. Some people more suspicious and some people more open to the point it annoys everyone. 

Everyone is different and treating each person as the individual they are – helps a manager give each employee what they need.  This also allows the manager to model professional and compassionate interpersonal relationships.  It sets the tone for how employees are expected to treat each other. 

Imagine if an office – everyone treated everyone else with dignity and appreciated what each individual brought to the team.  That’s doable.

The big difference between generations isn’t in personality. It’s in life experiences. The defining geopolitical events and economy at the time they grew up and entered the work force. This sets their expectations for how relationships are supposed to work – including relationships in the workplace. 

What cuts across all of that – is that everyone. EVERYONE wants to be recognized as a person with dignity and worth.  If you can do that – you can create an amazing team of individuals with different life experiences all contributing fully to the work and the team.

Humanism matters in business – because humans matter.

FYI – I have an online course on this https://humanistlearning.com/generationaldivide/ if you want to learn more or want to provide this sort of training for your team. 

Motivating Employees in a Lawfirm or Any Organization

I come at this question from both an evidence based and humanistic management perspective.  As I see it there are 3 keys to motivating employees in any organization.

 

1.    The work has to matter. It has to appeal to the moral imperative we all have. What problems are you solving? What happens if you don’t solve them? Why does solving them matter? And how does solving them help other people?  Is there a moral imperative to the work? Or is it just work?  Do your assistants know how what they do impacts the larger picture?  Or are they clueless about why you asked them to look up an obscure case?  Understanding why you are doing what you are doing and how it impacts real people – makes a difference.

2.    Is problem solving fun? Or frustrating?  All business solves problems. Lawfirms. Solve problems.  If everyone is oriented towards solving the same problem, work should be fun. If people are trying to solve different problems and they don’t respect each other – then problem solving won’t be fun. Or effective.  This is a leadership issue. How well does the team understanding the ultimate objective and is everyone on the team considered valuable? And able to give input?  Or are some people shut out because of their social position within the organization. There is nothing more demoralizing to an employee than having a great idea on how to solve a problem and having your managers ignore you or demean you for even suggesting an alternative. Be careful what you reward and what you punish. Which is why the third key is so important. 

3.    Is the work environment collegial – or is there bullying? It is pretty much impossible to be well motivated at work when you have a toxic co-worker. A bully in the workplace negatively impacts problem solving. Instead of working for the best outcomes, employees are working to protect themselves from the negative impacts of a co-worker.  Law firms are high intensity offices. It isn’t unusual for a pecking order to arise with the secretaries and paralegals and other assistants. Bullying, harassment, must be eliminated if you want highly motivated employees. Even if your work matters, if your workplace isn’t collegial and collaborative and if one individual is able to terrorize others, then you will never be able to create a collaborative and collegial environment where all employees can participate to their full potential.

 

Take bullying and harassment seriously. I teach how to make bullying and harassment stop using behavioral science techniques. I have experience teaching law firms these techniques. And offer MCLE and CE and continuing education for ALA (CLA) members. 

https://humanistlearning.com/

Confessions from a polite passive aggressive individual in the workplace.

I am working on a talk for the next HR Florida conference in August. It’s on how to deal with passive aggressive people so they don’t wreak havoc in the workplace.  In my mind, I was thinking of the bullies who control workflow by passive aggressively withholding information needed by others to get the work done.  I asked my friends and followers for input. One of them admitted he was passive aggressive at times and why.  He allowed me to share this in an article in the hopes that it would help managers understand their employee’s behaviors better so that people like my friend, don’t have to “scream” at you with their behavior. This just reconfirms my belief that when employees fail – it’s because their managers failed them. Keep that in mind when reading this.

(PS names have been changed to protect the innocent or not so innocent.)

Hi, my name is Joe (crowd: "hi Joe!") and I'm a hard core passive aggressive, not that any of you would care ("we feel your pain, Joe"). I've been a passive aggressive my entire life ("yeah, yeah, we know"), probably as a result of being raised in a very authoritarian household where overt defiance was an extremely bad choice ("ooh, yeah, confrontation sucks").

As a single data point, I can say that my passive aggressive comes out when I'm frustrated. At work this usually means that I'm frustrated with a policy or a boss that I think is screwed up but that I know I have no power to change, or else it's a situation where my time and effort have been committed to something by a boss where my input wasn't asked for or my assent was assumed - particularly when the activity in question is diverting me from my main purpose or goal in my job. Case in point: my district has a number of staff development days that are mandated. In past years, they took place during school days, so a substitute would be doing the job I love, badly, while I was off being walked through meetings full of jargon and buzzwords about teaching techniques that meant nothing to me. The crux of my frustration is that it feels like my district is deciding that we must have staff development (because that's what they're supposed to do), but they don't really know what they want us to learn, so they just throw stuff at us that doesn't seem to have relevance or a coherent plan behind it. So now I feel like I'm wasting time, _not_ getting my real job done, while some boss is checking off a box that they did their job to satisfy some boss above them. So I'm frustrated, and I show up with a big pile of personal work to do while fairly well ignoring the presenters that are spewing the jargon and buzzwords. Passive aggressive, big time. 

So in my case, in those instances, the solution is to give me a voice - give me some choice about whether I want to be involved in the dog and pony show, or would I rather get my real job done. My passive aggressive behavior is screaming at you that I'd rather be grading - and I hate grading - than be sitting in your meeting. If your meeting really is relevant and I'm behaving this way, then clearly I don't see the relevance - so perhaps the solution is to share the big picture with me and get my feedback about it. Maybe I don't sense that you, the boss, are really committed to the direction of this meeting or project or goal, and I think that any effort put into it is ultimately going to be wasted as the company shifts directions (again) and the old plan full of buzzwords is thrown out in favor of the new plan, full of new buzzwords. Regardless of what it is, I'm not being passive aggressive because I'm an a-hole, I'm doing it because I have a dissenting opinion that I don't believe I can openly express, so it's leaking out as passive aggressive behavior. Maybe we need to have a private meeting where my boss looks me straight in the eye, says "hey, this is all off the record, no repercussions - what's the matter?" If the boss and I can find common cause or make changes where my effort will be channeled into an activity I believe in, my passive aggressive will go away. Maybe I'm just a hard core introvert who wants to work in my cube, undisturbed, and you're throwing group activities at me left and right and it's putting my right out of my comfort zone. If we really cannot agree on a common path or a solution to my dissent, then perhaps I'm working in the wrong place. But I'd say that the number one thing passive aggressive people are looking for is the opportunity to have their voice heard and acted upon, probably in private, because if they felt comfortable enough bringing up their dissent in public, they'd have done it by now instead of being passive aggressive.

BTW - proud moment from my passive aggressive past: had a lab boss who could. not. run. a. meeting. She couldn't keep to a schedule or move a meeting along to save her life, so every time we had a meeting with her in charge there was no end in sight - it could drag on forever. So, I started taking a lab timer to our weekly lab meeting, setting it for 1 hour, and when it went off in the meeting I'd say "I have to go deal with my experiment" and leave. Was I running an experiment? Hell no. Half the time I'd go read email or something and then get back to work. My passive aggressive behavior was screaming "hey - keep yer damn meeting to an hour, would ya?", but she had no clue, and I was never going to say that out loud.

What lesson should you draw from this?  If you have an employee who is “not participating” the way you want – have a private conversation with them and LISTEN!  REALLY LISTEN. Give them a voice. Respect them. Employees aren’t robots. They are human beings. They deserve respect and if you treat them as a slave – you should expect them to behave in a passive aggressive way.

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Learn how to avoid these mistakes with my online course: 7 Sins of Staff Management.

When someone lies – leadership edition

For me there is nothing more frustrating and disappointing than an employee who lies. 

Not only has the person proven to me they are untrustworthy, they also prevented a problem from being solved. I’m not sure which is worse.

 I have zero tolerance for liars in the workplace.  Once I have verified that they lied to me, I fire them. I don’t have the time or energy or money to fix the problems they create. It is already hard enough to fix the problems our company solves, whatever that is, without having to do double duty fixing the additional problems caused by someone who lies.

 I don’t care what the lie is. If they didn’t finish a project or can’t – tell me so we can work around it and fix the problem. Don’t tell me its going to get done and then not do it and then lie about why you didn’t do it.

 How should a leader handle this?  Professionally. First, trust but verify. Don’t assume they are lying. Find out. Do your diligence. Find out if what they are telling you is true or not. If they are telling the truth, deal with the problem and ask them to come to you for help so these things don’t get out of control.

 If they lied, say goodbye. 

But what if it’s a co-manager. Not someone who works for you but one of your colleagues?  Then you have a real problem. This is very common with passive aggressive people. I again, take a trust but verify approach. It’s all about documentation so that they can’t get away with their lies anymore.

If you have a verbal agreement, write it down and ask them to confirm via email your understanding of the agreement. That way – when they don’t do what they said they were going to do – you are no longer in a he said she said situation. 

I like to approach this as me trying to fix a communication problem. I don’t call them out as a liar. It is entirely possible I am the problem. So – I confirm and double check and put everything in writing so that the communication problems we are having are sorted out before too much work gets done. If they lie – they will be caught. And I don’t have to argue with them or accuse them of anything. I just let them dig their own hole if that’s what they want to do.

Never stoop to their level. Never make it personal. It isn’t. Either people are professional (which means ethical, honest and responsible) or they aren’t. If they aren’t, do what you need to do to protect the work (not yourself – the work), because solving problems ethically, responsibly and honestly is what good leadership is all about.

I have a short program on the principles of Humanistic Management for $15 if you are interested in learning more about the what and whys of how professionalism impact collaborative problem solving. https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2237

Diversity – Age and Millennials

Diversity has many dimensions. It’s root is difference and how we manage differences between people.

There are so many ways humans differ from one another. Sometimes we differ because of culture, gender, race, religion, age, and economic status.

I want to focus right now on age differences as I was asked about this by a client. If you have a big enough business, you have employees that range from young 20 somethings to people of retirement age.  And the differences between the life experiences of the people in the almost ready to retire group are totally different from those just starting out.

Not only is an older person more likely to be married and own a home, they are also more likely to have grown up without electronics (aside from a tv that probably didn’t have a remote) and had an amazing amount of personal freedom in their childhood along with possible mandatory military service.

Young people just entering the workforce, on the other hand, grew up as digital natives. They didn’t have a lot of freedom as children as their parents were too afraid to let them play outside by themselves. They’ve had no shared experience like military service and they have yet to get married and have kids. (check out the research on millennials here - http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/millennials/)

What you need to know about these “differences” is that they are generalizations.  There is no stereotypical baby boomer and there is no stereotypical millennial. Yes, millennials are more narcissistic than boomers (but not by much. Whereas ~15% of boomers are narcissistic – ~17% of millennials are – which isn’t a really big difference when you think about it).

What I’m trying to say is that do not treat any individual millennial or boomer as if they were stereotypical. They aren’t. They are an individual. And as an individual, they could vary quite a bit from what the “average” person of their age group is said to be like based on the data.

As Steven Pinker states in his book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - “Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.”

When faced with diversity of any kind, what you should strive to do is to treat people like the individual they are. Get to know them as individuals and don’t resort to stereotyping them just because they aren’t the same as you.

It’s this last bit that gets to the crux of the problem people have with diversity. We want everyone to be perfect for us. We expect other people to respond to us the way we want them to respond to us.

But, I’ve got news for you. The world doesn’t revolve around you and you are unique. Even within your age cohort, ethnic group, gender etc, there is a tremendous amount of diversity!  Allow other people to be who they are and stop trying to impose your ideas of who they should be on them.

If you allow them to be who they are, they may just surprise you by knowing something you don’t that will help make you a better person and your company more effective. Don’t let the lack of shared cultural experiences throw you off. These other people are still human and still want and need the same things that all humans do. To belong and to be respected.

Tipping Point in Workplace Bullying

The tide is turning away from tolerating abusive behavior in the workplace.  At least I hope it is.

Abusive behavior, whether it is in the form of a horrid manager or a horrid coworker, causes real harm to the victim in the form of emotional distress. And this harm negatively impacts the company’s ability to function and serve customers.

Abusive management is as damaging as other forms of abusive relationships.  Just as a battered woman may be terrified of doing anything that will upset her abuser, an abused customer service rep is unlikely to go out of their way to help a customer if they think doing so will bring down the wrath of their supervisor on them.

Scared workers are ineffective workers. But the blame doesn’t lie with the victim. It lies with the abuser who is creating an atmosphere of fear.

Workplace bullying is serious business that negatively affects your business. There is a reason why more and more business leaders have finally decided to stop tolerating abusive behavior in their workplace. There is a reason why California just changed their law to require all companies with more than 50 employees teach their employees how to stop abusive behavior in the workplace (see: http://www.prlog.org/12392861-is-your-company-ab-2053-compliant.html)

The government of Australia considers bullying in the workplace so destructive that they estimate it costs their economy between $6 and $36 billion in lost productivity every year so they have taken steps to fight it as a nation.

Bullying in the workplace is no longer something that can be hidden. We live in an age of digital media and social sharing and bullies are now leaving digital trails of their crimes, and yes, stalking and harassing someone is criminal behavior.

All this heightened awareness of the problem is great. But let’s not waste this moment. One of the reasons bullying endures at all levels of society is because it’s hard to stop. It requires specialized skill and knowledge. The good news is that these skills are easy to learn and teach. What needs to happen now is that we start teaching these skills to our employees.

If you haven’t already learned what it is you need to teach – take my free 2 hour course – Creating a Sexual Harassment Training that Actually Works.  And if you are a victim of bullying consider taking – Ending Harassment & Retaliation in the Workplace.

Humanistic Tendencies in Business

Your business is not a computer program and your employees aren’t robots

For a while, business management was seen as a technical job. In some cases it still is. This is the type of management where the task to be done is broken down into component parts so that a human or robot can do one little job and then it moves on to the next person/robot for the next little thing and this keeps happening until finally, all the little jobs are completed and the task is done.

This is a mechanical view of management and it has its uses.  The problem is that humans aren’t robots and the mechanical model can only improve productivity to a point.

Humanistic tendencies in business aren’t just a reaction to mechanical managing. It’s also about recognizing that humans matter. That the business is run by and for humans and that humans matter.

Humanistic tendencies in business help us to recognize that even as we automate our businesses, our companies are still essentially collections of people working together for a common cause. Your workers aren’t slaves. You don’t own them. They aren’t “resources” or robots. They are human just like you.

Managers who try to exercise power over workers as if they are slaves aren’t good managers. They have no idea how to lead and share power WITH their employees. The humanistic tendency is about respecting the autonomy of your workers and the creativity that comes with that autonomy. It’s a much more democratic and respectful approach.

Finally, the humanistic tendency in business is that our businesses aren’t just about generating money or capital. They are about using capital to help solve the real problems we face as a society. It is the rejection of greed as a governing value in business.

Humanistic tendencies in business value the business in terms of how well it helps humans thrive. All humans and not just those who own the company. This means that a humanistic business gives employees with meaningful work that provides a living wage. And no you can’t separate out the living wage issue from a humanistic approach to business because any wage that isn’t enough to live on creates societal problems and doesn’t fix them. If a business can’t afford to pay a living wage, from a humanistic perspective, it’s a failure because it’s is creating a net drain on society.

Is your company part of the solution? Or part of the problem? And if it’s part of the problem, what do you plan to do about it?