Open Loops

The Importance of Saying “Thank You”

Four years ago, I posted about the importance of saying “Thank You” to staff members who go above and beyond our normal expectations.  It’s now three year’s later.  Our economy has tanked.  In just six months, my profession has gone from a huge teacher shortage to a teacher surplus due to budget deficits in the state budget that resulted in huge teacher layoffs.

With over 120 school systems in North Carolina announcing at least 100 layoff each and some announcing 700+ layoffs, a minimum of 120,000 teachers face unemployment.  One would think that with that number of teachers who now don’t know how to pay their family bills, the ones who still have jobs would be overjoyed about their continued employment.  Surprisingly, although thankful for their jobs, they still see their future threatened:

• Our governor took back one-half percent of all state employee pay retroactively, many times out of only one check.  In other words, many teachers found their last check of the year $100 - $200 less than normal.
• A projected pay cut of 10% is being considered.
• Another plan being considered has the school year being cut by 5 days this coming year and 10 days the year thereafter.  This means 5 – 10 days without pay.
• The state is raising the student to teacher ratio, meaning they will have more students per class.
• New anti-bullying legislation promises more responsibility, but comes with no funding.
• Taxes are promised to be raised.
• Money for instructional supplies has been slashed.
• Money for repairs and custodial items has been slashed.
• The “No Child Left Behind” requirements are still being raised.

In short, teachers are expected to do more and increase learning.  They are to do this with more students,  for less pay, fewer materials, in less time, and in rooms needing repairs. 

In these poor economic times, administrators, including private sector managers, still need to understand that those still employed still need reassurance that they are valued and that their contributions mean something to the organization.  Ways to tell employees, “Thank You”, are even more important now than four years ago when I wrote the original post.  Not doing so could mean plummeting staff morale and less productivity.

What are you doing during this rough economic time to tell your employees that you value them?

Three Las Vegas Slot Machine Motivational Strategies for Projects

On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I sat in front of a slot machine and fed that blasted thing more than it was giving back.  Even though I was losing at the time, I found myself unable to walk away and continued to bet one "pull" after another.  A tidy profit that I'd made at the roulette table soon dwindled down to nothing.  When I made my last bet, I looked around the casino floor at the hundreds of others who sat there doing the exact same thing.  I wondered, with the odds so stacked against winning at slots, how did Vegas keep us playing until our money was gone?  It had to be more than just blind greed throwing dollar after dollar into the slot machine in hopes that the big jackpot was just a pull away.  Then, suddenly, I watched the machine next to me coax another gambler into playing.  Only then did I see that the machine itself was motivating us to play.  It was using techniques that kept human beings seated for hours while it slowly took their money.  It motivated them.  It motivated them using strategies that many managers should be willing to pay to learn.

How to Manage Your Boss: Making Sure Your Boss Sees the Best in You!

In my quest to go completely online and avoid installed programs, I started with Outlook, the ubiquitous email/calendar/to do list/contact list program.  This has forced me to get to know my Gmail intimately.  During my migration to web mail at work, I created a small hack with Gmail that looks very promising for those of us who, along with managing others, still have a boss to whom we answer.  The goal of it is to help our supervisor see the best in us so that the information is fresh and available when evaluation time comes around.

Storming the Matrix: Can You Live Online?

In the movie, "The Matrix", the hero spends all his time trying to escape from living in a computer generated world.  It's funny to think that there are those of us who would prefer the opposite, and want to storm the matrix to get inside, living completely in a digital world.  We are coming very close to that with web apps that are improving each day to the point that it is very tempting.

Is it possible that one can do everything one needs to do to accomplish required tasks and achieve goals by using online tools only?  That question popped in my mind years ago when I read a quote from Bill Gates who said that the future would be oriented to an online world and that Microsoft would lead the way.  Since then, with the proliferation of WiFi hot spots, home wireless networks and wireless cards for laptops, as well as the new Google Gears that allow web applications to work offline, that future is close to being here.  However, Microsoft is not leading the way.  Instead, one of Microsoft's top officers stated that they are now years behind other companies in preparing viable web applications that Bill Gates promised.  Other companies, however, have blazed the way with webapps that promise everything that installed software promises -- but are available anywhere, anytime, on any computer.

One Way to Facilitate Change

In business, if one is not moving forward, you can be assured the competition is. In one's professional goal pursuit, if one is not progressing forward toward the prize, you can be certain that your colleagues are.  Without constant improvement, it is certain that other companies, departments, and people will inevitably pass us by as they move toward the same prize that we covet.  The problem is that organizations, such as small business, major corporations, non-profit organizations, and schools, are often resistant to the change that is required to propel us forward.  Employees, although I admit there are those early adopters that embrace change and seize opportunities to try and do things that are new, often run from change.

In attending my district's Leadership Institute last week, that was one of the points that was hammered home several times.  In our reading, one quote struck home with me.  It said that it was the effective leader's responsibility to "recognize the need for change...or create it."

How to Deal With An Irate Person

Many times, during the course of a day, we have to deal with irate people.  Whether we are in Customer Service and dealing with angry customers or school administrators dealing with angry parents, handling an irate person and being able to lead them to a more calm — and logical — state can be a very desired skill.

The most common mistake that people make is to assume that when someone is out of control, we should calm our voices to model the desired state we wish the person to have.  The assumption is that the other person will match us and a calm and logical conversation can then take place.  Unfortunately,  this rarely happens.  Instead, because of the calm demeanor, the complainant doesn’t feel heard.  Their rationale is that since the listener is not as outraged as they are, they must not have been listening or they don’t believe what was shared.  The result is no trust so the person remains angry and outraged.

The Art of Presentation: Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, & Tom Peters

Presentation Zen has a great post that contrasts the presentation styles of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Tom Peters.  Seth is a marketer.  Guy is a venture capitalist who started at Apple Computer.  It would be an understatement to say that Tom Peters is a management consultant.  All are authors and use public speaking in their work.

It is interesting to see the different styles, ranging from Peters “owning” the room to Kawasaki’s casual sitting-on-the-desk-while-I-talk style.  It reminded me, as someone who desires to improve his public speaking skills, that different styles of public speaking abound and work for many different people.

Five Ingredients to a Thriving Business

Over at Genuine Curiosity, Dwayne Melancon shared his experience in visiting the first Starbucks in Seattle, Washington.

"The first Starbucks is located in Pike's Place Market along the Seattle waterfront, and the store was opened in 1971. When we walked in, I was struck by the fact that it really doesn't "feel" like the Starbucks I know and love. Sure, there are similarities, but this "version 1.0" of Starbucks has a different ambiance. "

Dwayne goes on to examine the difference between the more modern Starbucks and the original, which has been around for 35 years.  He then explores the reasons why Starbucks has survived and thrived for this long.  Mentioning Focus, Re-invention, Innovation, Evolution, and Involvement, Starbucks has adapted as the years wore on.

How to Tell Someone They Didn't Get the Job

It’s that season again.  Public schools are winding their academic year down while district administrators and principals are gearing up to hire teachers to fill vacancies they know they will have next year.  In this activity, I’ve seen many bad practices that made the interviewer look unprofessional and made the applicant feel sub-human.  Here are a few things that have happened in the last two weeks (not in my building, thankfully):

• Cutting interviews short due to personal appointments
• Applicants, who were promised building-level interviews at schools that had advertised vacancies, being turned away at the door with no explanation
• Making a hiring decision and then interviewing applicants when it was known the position was no longer available just to have a fall-back position — and not telling the applicant their chances were slim
• Promising to make a timely decision and then not doing so
• Making a hiring decision and failing to notify the candidates who were not chosen
• Sending applicants not chosen a curt you-didn’t-get-the-job letter — that HR probably wrote with the help of the corporate attorney — and nothing else

Potential employers do not have to expose themselves to a lawsuit to show sensitivity to applicants who are not chosen for a position.  A Psychology Today article shares better practices when it comes to hiring and, specifically, how to inform those who were not hired so that they rebound from the process in good form and with their self-esteem intact.  From providing procedural information about the decision-making process (yes, I know the legal perils of saying too much), to using the person’s name in the body of the letter, several emotionally sensitive strategies are discussed.

“Cut to the chase. Don't put off the bad news by starting the letter with a compassionate paragraph highlighting a candidate's good points. These "buffers" prepare a reader for good news and just make them feel worse when they scroll down and come to the real reason for the letter.”

There is great information here.

Psychology Today: The Fine Art of Rejection.

Intuition is a Part of the Process

Seth Godin posted about the differences between intuition and process, as they relate to business and personal innovation and improvement.  Taking each one in turn, he explores our acceptance and enthrallment with intuition.  We are infatuated with the person who never has to wonder what to do to perform well or to improve.  They just seem to know.  If we ask them to explain their choices, they would be hard pressed to provide explanations that we could understand.  He goes on to explain that although intuition has its place, it is process that provides us growth and improvement that is documentable, dependable, and repeatable.

I see intuition and process, however, as two parts of the same concept.  Each provides a different benefit, much like different instruments contribute to make beautiful music.  Another analogy would be they are like the human brain with intuition being the right, more creative half, and process being the left, more analytical half.  Put them together and a synergistic effect takes place that helps them perform better than the sum of their two halves.

Intuition provides the impetus of an idea.  It shows the possibilities that exist.  Being a personal attribute, the benefits accrue only to the person who has the intuition.  Process, with its procedures, analysis, experimentation, and documentation takes the idea, enhances the benefits, makes them available for everyone who follows the process, and makes them repeatable.

Intuition and process are simply two different components of the same thing:  Improvement. 

.Tags: Success