Thanks to the library’s automated waiting list I got an early copy of the new book “Punching In” by writer, Alex Frankel. I can’t recall where I heard about it, but it’s quite an interesting description of his experience testing and observing applying and working as a front line employee at half a dozen top-rated US employers - UPS, Gap, Starbucks, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, the Container store, Apple and applying at others where he wasn’t selected.

This is a chance for senior execs and HR people to hear first hand what it’s like on their front lines or ones that might be very much like theirs. It reaffirms a number of observations that probably ought to be obvious. First, many applicants honestly don’t know what sort of jobs they might fit into and which they won’t. Frankel was impressed that some screening processes correctly judged, but you’d have to say most didn’t.

The overall conclusion he almost gets to is that fit and perceptions are incredibly important. He really liked UPS, a job that sounds as if it would kill some people, while he hated (and implies most people might hate) some of the others. What struck me most is the last chapter in which he returns to his UPS experience and becomes positively rhapsodic about it, to the point where he almost toys with the idea of re-joining permanently. It’s particularly interesting to read how he fell in love with them - via experiences before, during and after his time there - and note what a special and unusual time it was (the Christmas rush, when package delivery takes on a special meaning it doesn’t have to the same extent the other 11 months of the year). For some employees it takes quite a complex of coincidences to hook them.

Considering these are all companies with applicants lined up at the door due to their reputations as employers, it’s daunting to see how difficult it is for even top organizations to impress and hold staff and what a combination of factors it would take to make each company irresistible.

In some ways even more impressive is his recognition that each of these companies has true believers among its staff, people who feel about their employer the way he feels about UPS. He notes how the attitudes of these individuals, particularly when they’re in leadershp roles, get close to rubbing off on him despite his own feelings and scepticism. The human factor is in many ways the most powerful influence, potentially outweighing specific policies and culture as I read it. I’m interested in whether others agree.

Coincidentally this week’s Herman Trend newsletter points to yet another study, this time by BlessingWhite, assessing engagement levels (and strongly correlated retention rates) across organizations in UK/Ireland, Asia Pacific and North America. In general considerably fewer than a quarter to a third of employees are actively engaged while nearly 20% may be actively disengaged. This is actually an improvement on results previously quoted in a number of studies, but not by much. There may be a small trend to improvement as the Hay Group’s Bill Cheshire has noted in Canada, but arguably still a long way to go to reach maximum potential, although we have only thin evidence that this might be in the range of 60% (a number estimated by Michael Koscec at Entec Corporation). While it’s overly optimistic to think we could ever expect all employees to be onside with any organization, it’s important to get a clear picture of where we are at in general. Frankel’s book is an interesting personal look at how such figures come about.

Today’s Training Zone (UK) item about pros and cons of blogging (free registration) drew the main opinions - it can be good for marketing, certainly for self-reflection by the writer, but nay-sayers cite their lack of time (and a wide-spread belief that it’s a vanity thing).

The larger question is who reads blogs and do they help? Clearly most of the people writing business blogs intend them to help and most must believe at some level that they do. Vanity undoubtedly drives a lot of short term efforts to get seen on the Internet, but to stick with it year after year, disciplining yourself to write two or three or more times  a week on your subject takes something more than vanity, especially if few ever read or comment on the majority of what’s out there.

Why bother? Of course some derive solid marketing benefits. I doubt that I will. I’m not great at marketing in any forum and see that a more of a by-product of the real question. For me that is… can blogging about leadership really help?

In organizations over the year, my most startling observation is there are so many people talked into leadership roles, for the money, the power, the prestige, the challenges and on and on, who have no training, no real inclination to lead or much knowledge of what its about at least when they start. In some ways perhaps that makes sense because leadership is best learned by doing. But lots of people never learn, which produces pain and misery for vast masses of employees, co-workers and organizations themselves so to speak.

The hopeful fact is that the best approach to leadership is extremely basic, human and easy to follow. Conversation about it can help. For me, I haven’t fully been able to figure out the best way to say it or develop those conversations widely. This medium may work. Only time will tell. It’s a new way to feel that I’m making the effort. As time goes on the results will enhance reflection and perhaps jointly the blogging community will ultimately identify what creates value and how. Right now it’s a bit of the wild west.

Again today I found myself giving a would-be human resources (HR) manager the same advice I give all job hunters - the new boss is the most important factor in any job you’re considering. A great boss can encourage you, give you projects, mentor, coach, guide and introduce you to a world of further possibilities. In other words, they can make your job exciting, worthwhile and a continual learning experience… or they can pigeon-hole you from day 1 and demand nothing, but routine, even menial results.

You can spot the good ones because they are alive, people with plans themselves for things that need to be or could be done that aren’t yet. They will talk about possibilities not only for you, but for themselves, their teams and the organization. You can feel them inviting you into the process. Others in the company will speak highly of them as coaches and cooperative supporters. Just ask around.

By contrast I very often get to hear (from people looking for new jobs) about current bosses who can’t imagine their report ever progressing. No one in their opinion is ever ready. They’ll consider hiring outside in almost every situation before looking at anyone internally… or they’ll constantly pick people they believe will simply follow orders. “Loyalty” plays big with the latter type. Cross them (ie: have a new idea they didn’t tell you to pursue) and you’re on the hit list forever. Bosses who aren’t interested in growing people abound. Which makes it easy to be a great boss.

Sometimes you just read something and say, “Right on, brother.” David Malouf’s post today is one of those! And they say accountants don’t understand people.

Often we discount others’ abilities to understand. Many times in frustration, we get at the real truths under the every day stuff we keep hearing over and over. I particularly like his comment about being tired of “leaders” who never interact with their protegés. Although I’m one of those who promote the (in my case) “five” irrefutable laws of leadership, I like to think all I’ve done is take the simplest advice available and used it to encourage exactly that - interaction with the people you’re trying to grow and lead.

Thanks David.

Every HR professional is facing a bigger set of new learning challenges than ever before. How are we going to learn the new social networking technologies, among them Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Twitter, YouTube and Second Life and still have time to do the basic job. There is only one answer: try them yourself whenever you have a few minutes. Do a bit at a time. Learn by doing.

I’ve always loved technology, so it’s easy for me to say. But none of it is completely transparent and easy. The new blog hasn’t been as easy to finish setting up as I’d hoped, but it’s been a chance to try engaging help via elance (a popular site for hiring virtual help, mostly in this case for techie challenges like web design. It’s only one of many, though that provide a mind-boggling array of services.

The technology is amazing, but the first time you try anything there’s a learning curve. Fortunately you can usually get advice from Google at any point along the way.

The real quesiton is going to be how many of these new initiatives you can juggle along with everything else. What’s the ROI for individuals trying this stuff? Are we going to drive ourselves crazy or can we anticipate there will be a limited number of sites and programs to learn and then we’ll feel “fully equipped?” Somehow that seems a bit unlikely just at this point. What’s your take?

People at every level of work often ask how to cope with frustrations they feel sometimes to the point of despair. Some days it seems there isn’t a sane boss or co-worker anywhere. If it helps to know you aren’t alone, I can certainly reassure you. Not only do I have my own moments of despair (and I’m the only boss I have to blame for that), but being in the leadership coaching business, I hear this constantly from every direction. Unfortunately it’s part of humans working together.

People need to vent. It helps to have someone just listen. Often this can’t be a spouse because it causes them too much worry and they usually just want to convince you things aren’t so bad. Co-workers may cause problems, too, by gossiping about your venting. With splintered families and social relationships there are fewer listeners. A non-work friend or coach is definitely a better choice, but they in turn need to learn coping skills to handle the deluge that usually arrives.

Venting is healthy - to a point. When it goes over the same ground too many times and becomes circular, it’s just more worry. You need to break off the conversation and come back later. Once the person is stuck in the rut, they can’t and won’t let go. They just want your commiseration at that stage.

When you pick things up later, a technique called reframing helps. First, see the challenge differently - it’s a learning opportunity. You’re going to encounter many others like the person now causing grief. If you can learn to handle this one, you’ll be far less likely to reach this awful level of despair next time… so can we move from that to get focused on strategies for coping and improving the situation?

Examples might help.

Recently a friend told me how he’d actually jeopardized his career because he was so frustrated with his boss. He’s in charge of quality improvement and needed the boss’ support to insist other managers follow the process he’d designed. The boss kept advising to cool things off, but my friend is evaluated on results and there weren’t going to be any unless people cooperate. In a risky outburst he basically told the boss she wasn’t doing her job and should get off the pot and do it. This resulted in a counter-speech about "catching more flies with honey than vinegar."

Ouch! Listen when you get that comment. The boss is telling you to cool it and they mean it. Further outbursts are definitely likely to be career limiting. A far better solution is to draw the boss in by asking for coaching. Ask how you should approach people, how important it is to get results, what should you do if there aren’t any by year end? This way the boss can solve problems with and for you and can see what you see… that results, which she, too, is ultimately responsible for won’t be easy to get without a better strategy.

Another recent case: a co-worker of a friend was asked to present to a team meeting on my friend’s project (and take credit for work my friend has laboriously achieved in improving relations and results with a difficult client). This capped some obvious prior efforts by the co-worker to get my friend to give her all the information about the project. Was the boss suddenly favoring the co-worker and ignoring my friend and her effort? Well, it didn’t sound like it to me. My friend had opened our conversation by telling me she’d just been given a terrific performance appraisal rating her in the top 10% of all employees… by the same boss.

Once the venting was over (or at least waning), I suggested the boss might see my friend as so superior she was becoming a "fixer" - opening new client relationships, getting them up to speed and then being able to turn them over to a weaker co-worker and take on yet another challenging situation. If that’s true, that’s not only a great compliment, but a major step toward ensuring promotion to more money and responsibility.

Before venting to the boss or complaining, it’s important to seek feedback that could help determine if the better interpretation is or could be in play. Perhaps the boss hasn’t been fully aware that’s what they were doing and how my friend might react. If asked, "is this what you want me to do, train my co-worker," he might leap at saying yes… or at least begin thinking, "that’s not a bad idea," to my friend’s great benefit. Venting could hurt.

Often these useful twists only come to mind after the initial conversation. Both parties have to get out of the rut they set for themselves when they approach the situation with highly emotion. Emotions don’t let go within that first conversation. You need time out. The next day or so is usually soon enough to step back and ask more strategic questions, look at other possible interpretations and where they could take you. You can even go get several opinions (again, ideally from non-work, non-spouse parties). If you ask, "why else might someone have done [whatever it was]," you may be surprised.

Next - what if there isn’t a really good alternative interpretation? Settle on the most positive one you can even it seems far-fetched… and then check it out… doing so may actually help it come about. No single guess may be the best view. It often takes trial and error to work toward something positive, but just the step of coming up with one new idea to try takes a lot of the sting out of the situation and gets you back to driving toward a solution instead of just sympathy.

Googling "people skills" dredges up some mighty strange stuff. Their sixth highest listing is a blog or column in a publication called AskMen.com, Canadian Edition. I haven’t looked at the American version because this one is so… well… astounding. However, I’m easily won over. If it’s true that 5 million read this stuff, it has to have some value and impact.

If this is what it takes to get men, presumably mostly young men trying to find their way up in organizations, to read some of the 40,000 articles claimed on the site, it can’t be all bad. But you have to read to believe. The article in question on "people skills" is a said to be a re-post. Apparently this is a popular topic. It supposedly responds to a guy who asks how he can stop swearing so much at work. Would anyone really ask that? No matter, it supports developing effective social skills - much to be applauded.

The author suggests in the first couple of paragraphs under the tip "Speak Clearly" that men should wake up and become "eloquent" as a way of getting ahead. Sounds like a fairly big jump. To quote: "He can beautify, amplify and impress his colleagues with his million dollar words and witty comments." Say what, "beautify… his colleagues?" Even allowing for cultural differences in approach and language, that’s an unusual suggestion.

I was also mightily intrigued by the words linked to other articles. "Listen" shows up as a blue link to an article about the need to listen to your significant other - excellent advice, but some of the examples might be called questionable. The same with the article linked for "Emotions." Again, a laudable topic with undoubtedly good intent, but definitely backed up by what you’d say at the very least are ‘unusual’ examples. I’ll leave it to readers to check these out since reporting the contents would not really fit here.

The bottom line? Everyone is and should be concerned about their people skills at some point. If it takes rather odd examples to get through to a certain segment of potential leaders, so be it. It won’t be my market, but I’m glad someone’s making the effort. I just hope they graduate to something a little more focused at some stage.

Okay, I’ve finally been sucked in.  Visiting a bookstore to use a gift certificate, a new book (with an Amazon release date of January 1) by Marci Shimoff caught my eye.  On her web site she is billed as a key teacher of The Secret, a book I have consistently avoided.

Her new book, Happy for No Reason, summarizes seven ingredients for happiness in easy chapters, a more useful topic. With the Secret I certainly believe the thoughts you hold are critical to the results you achieve.  Since there isn’t a lot more in the book judging from what others tell me, I haven’t taken time to read it.

In Happy for No Reason the standard basics about achieving happiness appear: the concept of a happiness set point, physical health, meaningful work, friends, a close love relationship and several others, some of which she reveals in her You Tube video, linked from the book’s site.  Very slick. You can pretty much get the ideas in the first few listings if you search "Happy for No Reason" in Google. She calls them seven "steps," but they’re really not steps as much as habits that must work together.  Not a heavy-duty book, but with generally solid, comprehensive ideas.

The idea that stood out most as new and different is summarized in a chapter about a step called "Don’t Believe Everything Think." I notice she describes the same concept in a video on her site about The Secret, arguing that many of the 60,000 thoughts we are said to process daily are misleading and that feelings are a better indicator of whether we are moving forward positively or feeling so negative that we will mess things up.  This sounds like an interesting idea that bears some further thought.

More than anything I was impressed by the packaging.  I see she is even a cofounder a group of 100 motivational speakers who have created a site called the Transformational Leadership Council. It’s a quick list of many big as well as smaller names in the motivation business. 

Slick packaging doesn’t mean the information is any less helpful.  If anything we can hope that it will encourage more people to take key ideas seriously and use them.  We’re all in the process of trying to lay out the most useful, simplest and most appealing ways of getting the same principles in front of people. A good effort.  Both her MBA and media training certainly lend power to the message whether or not they make her an expert in these areas.

My objective with my five principles is a simple model for what you or organizations actually need to do to be effective in all sorts of situations. ADKAR (previous post) looks helpful for organizations.  Stephen Covey’s seven habits work well with individuals.  Both could be stretched to the opposite situation (organizations or individuals), but most systems are designed primarily for certain types of challenges and from a single point of view.

ADKAR’s elements - Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement - effectively describe end results needed for organizational change. As a memory aid they don’t point toward HOW to achieve these, which is where I find most managers ask the most urgent questions.  The strategy is good; how can it be executed?

Take "desire" for example.  Desire or motivation often seems to managers the most difficult thing to develop in yourself or others if it isn’t there to begin with.  ADKAR accurately suggests that once you become aware of the need for change you need to create a state of wanting to or desiring change.  But how?

My corresponding principle is "positive."  I describe the five principles as habits you need to build toward in yourself, others or both. With this in mind, I think managers have a relatively easier time concluding what they need to do - talk and behave in ways that get people into habits of feeling positive about aspects of work in general. Most can think of ways to be more positive, more of the time.

You can’t usually get a group of people fired up, motivated or filled with desire to change on the spur of the moment.  There are exceptions.  When the theater you’re in is burning or some other inescapable crisis makes it absolutely clear that you should all be motivated, pretty well any leader who stands up and points to the door is seen as charismatic. 

Highly charismatic individuals seem to have the ability to motivate groups purely through words.  Unfortunately lots of CEOs attempt this by putting speeches on video and sending them out to the troops.  Needless to say, lots fail.

But if you work with a group of people over time and have always been honest and positive with them, encouraged them to take initiative, and they’ve seen the results that occur when they jump into action as you suggest, they are very likely to do so again when you point out that change is needed. They build on already positive beliefs that taking action makes sense. They are positive about acting and positive they can succeed. That’s how "desire" bubbles up when needed - a lot of small positive elements adding together.

Am I splitting hairs? Maybe. But my focus is decidedly in favor of describing what’s needed in terms people can most easily see how to put into action. Consistently positive people make both organizational and personal change far easier.

Imagination makes us human, but challenges our happiness. Dan Gilbert points out in Stumbling on Happiness that what distinguishes us is our ability to imagine a different present, future or even past. Though he identifies many pitfalls, he doesn’t offer a lot of advice for solving the problem this raises.

We need this ability to be able to plan change, but it comes with a cost.

Writers such as Nobel Prize winner, Andre Gide, pointed out long ago that comparison makes us miserable. When we think how things could have been or could be different, we often torture ourselves with the thought. He noted: "In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future." 

Buddha offered a solution among his first principles (All life is suffering; all suffering results from desire), advising us to work at avoiding desire, meditating toward peace and acceptance, while Helen Keller advised: "Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged." That she could do this despite severe disabilities provides a ray of clarity.

It isn’t imagination that creates problems, but what we do with it.

The same is true in leadership. If we dwell on what people could have done and make them miserable because of it, we won’t get nearly as good performance as if we appreciate even small progress and encourage thinking about what else can be done right now that can lead to great results in future. Finding the right balance, as always is the key.