Make More of Your Job

Workplace Myths: "If it Ain't Broke, Don't Fix it."

It makes me crazy that today’s workplace is so chock full of catch phrases and cliches.  Maybe we’ve come so far as a consumer society that we even need marketing phrases to describe our actions and life strategies.  Whatever the cause of this catch-phrase fever, it seems frequent in life that when something seems so simple and sensible, it’s probably wrong, which makes all of these popular cutesy phrases about as safe as a pit of vipers.

A few years ago, I read a management advice book by the present big cheese of the corporate sound-byte set. I was so irritated when he named his introductory chapter “Don't Mess with Success,” discussing openly how he would never let any market condition, corporate board member or peer change his approach to business.  Sure, it may have sold some books. However, the attitude paraphrased by the cliche phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" assures failure at some point down the road. In the real world, a non-adaptive position is a suicide mission.  With the rapid marketplace changes driven by technology and globalization every one of us has to work hard to stay one step ahead.

The danger of phrases like "don't mess with success" or “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is that they sound so logical. Yet lurking behind that catchy and clever façade is a career killer.

To get a real-world perspective on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” debate, just take a look at some of the businesses that were once powerful leaders in their industries, working under completely “unbroken” business models, and failed to evolve until it was too late.  It doesn’t take long looking at the automotive, airline or media industries to realize that if you wait until you must take innovative action, you may be signing your own death certificate.

The truth is, today’s business world is a fast-paced, constantly changing space. If you’re not constantly innovating, it’s only a matter of time until you’ll be left behind.  Assuming that because it “ain’t broke” you should leave it alone is a mistake.  You may not need to fix it, but you need to get to work immediately on a newer model.

Today’s business climate needs leaders who realize that what works today is almost guaranteed not to work tomorrow.  If your business approach isn’t changing, your results probably will -- and not for the better.  The next time someone tells you they don’t want to change something, because it “ain't broke” today, do yourself a favor and send them to work for a competitor.

Workplace Myths: "Slow and Steady Wins the Race."

Everyone has heard the old Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. I suppose it’s intended to teach a valuable lesson to children: that life is more about consistency and humility than it is about speed and ego.  In case you hadn't noticed, the world has changed a little bit since old Aesop was around, about 2600 years ago. In the modern workplace, the concept of slow-and-steady will get you run over.

If you took all of the available recorded information in the world during Medieval times, it took that amount of information about 475 years to double.  Through the advent of today's technology, the amount of written information in the world doubles every 8 months. It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.  Clearly, we no longer live in a world where neither slow nor steady work.

Today’s business climate is about speed and efficiency.  A technology that takes a slow and steady approach  will likely be outdated before it’s even complete. The same thing can be said about an employee.  The modern workplace calls for employees who can move quickly and embrace rapid change.  If you want to drive your career into the stratosphere, you had better learn to run fast until you hit a wall, then turn around and run fast in a new direction.

People who fear change or are slow to adapt are getting left by the wayside every day.  Just take a look at the employment outsourcing trend in the United States.  As low-profit jobs get sent overseas where they can be filled with excellent profit margins, we are still adding jobs to the American economy every day. Most of these jobs are much more desirable and much higher-paying than the jobs that we are outsourcing.  Waiting for the outsourcing trend to end would be a disaster, because it won't. If your job is one that is becoming prone to overseas outsourcing, you should start investigating ways that you can educate and protect yourself in this new economy.

If you’re committed to improving your career, you should always be watching where the global economy is heading and taking into consideration how it will impact you over the next few years.  With just a little foresight and planning, the rapidly changing atmosphere of today’s workplace will provide myriad opportunities.   Failure to pay attention to the trends and prepare yourself for what’s coming will guarantee you a nasty surprise.

When it comes to things like dating or schoolwork, feel free to apply Aesop's teachings from his famous fable to your life.  The images of that committed tortoise lumbering his way down the road to eventual victory may serve you well in those situations. Just don’t try to apply the idea to today’s workplace.  Remember, a lot of things have changed in the 2600 years since Aesop. In most cases today, that turtle would probably be roadkill.

Workplace Myths: "The Customer is Always Right."

Whoever came up with the phrase “the customer is always right” deserves to be poked in the eye with a very, very sharp stick. Obviously, the person who coined that phrase never worked in a service-based position.  To fix the saying and make it work for the modern workplace, one should say “the customer always deserves to be treated with respect." Treating a customer with respect, however, does not always include raising the surrender flag whenever they demand something from you.

I come from a sales and service background, and hardly a day passes that at least one customer doesn’t mistreat one of my employees or make a completely unrealistic demand.  I try to teach my employees that while the customer should be treated with respect and kindness, there are limits to what anyone should be willing to do, regardless of what the customer wants.

Not everyone is employed in a sales or customer service position; however, most of us deal with customers in some form or another on a daily basis. Customers come in two varieties: internal and external.  An external customer is someone who purchases goods or services from our company.  Internal customers are those in the organization  who patronize the services we perform at work each day.  If you’re a marketing employee, the sales employees are your customers, as your service benefits them as customers.

What people fail to realize is that neither of these customers can always be right.  Firstly, we are all human and can never make the right decision 100% of the time. Secondly, you are the expert on the service you provide and are in a much better position to be “right” about how things should work.

If the customer were always right, my product would be faster and cheaper. All of my employees would bow to the customer's every whim.  Obviously, that’s not the way to keep a business running.  When customers demand something unrealistic, or treat employees inappropriately, the only correct course of action is to respectfully reeducate the client and create reasonable expectations. If the client is unhappy about those terms, they are free to do business elsewhere.  Our job as businesspeople is to provide reasonable products and services for reasonable prices, not to conjure miracles or absorb endless abuse.  Customers who refuse to understand those facts should be quickly shown the door.

While it is never appropriate to treat a customer harshly, even when they are being excessively demanding or abusive, it is completely appropriate to refuse to do business with someone who you will never be able to please.  Continuing a business relationship with such a customer would be a recipe for disaster down the road.  Often times, employees are afraid to reeducate their clients and dole out reasonable expectations because they’re afraid their company will tell them that the customer was right.  If your organization doesn’t support you by drawing realistic and respectful customer service boundaries, then you should probably look for work at another organization.

Workplace Myths: Don't Be a Rat

Nothing gets me more fired up than when an employee who’s delivering bad news to me tells me that they would have brought the situation to my attention sooner, but didn’t want to be seen as a rat.  I am an incredibly loyal person at the office and in life. However, when it comes to information about what is going on in the company, there is no such thing as a rat.

Over the years, I’ve been forced to terminate several employees for unethical behavior. While it’s never a pleasant experience, it’s always made much worse by the fact that one or more of their peers knew about the indiscretion and failed to bring it to my attention. They didn’t want to be a rat or felt that it wasn’t their place to say anything.

As employees, it’s our responsibility to recognize that we are paid by our company in order to look out for its best interests. As a manager, I rely heavily on my employees to keep me appraised of what’s happening in my departments. Too often, employees make the decision to protect their own rather than come clean to superiors about what’s really going on in the organization.  These decisions can be disastrous not only for the manager, who cannot react quickly enough to solve the problem, but also for the employees who end up in a business that doesn't uphold its standards.

Especially when a co-worker or friend is involved in a sticky work situation, we tend to sweep the problem under the rug to prevent them from getting in trouble. Ask yourself this question: if you were at lunch and your co-worker shot another diner in the head, would you cover for him when the police showed up?  I hope your answer was no. If it was yes, you would be an accomplice to the crime.  It’s important to note that, outside the workplace, failing to alert the authorities of a crime being committed is in itself a crime. This law exists as a moral barometer to remind each of us that we are responsible for doing our part to see that rules are followed and society moves along in a positive direction.  So why is this lesson so often lost in the workplace? 

Remember, you can’t get anyone but yourself in trouble.  If a friend or coworker chooses to act in a way that is damaging to the company, that was their choice, not yours. Your choice is simply whether to become part of the problem or part of the solution.  If your organization is one worth working for, your supervisor won't use an error as a chance to abuse someone, but rather as a learning experience.  I expect my employees to make mistakes and to grow from them.  I do not, however, expect them to hide the mistakes from me and allow them to fester.

I understand and empathize with the discomfort involved in bringing tough knowledge to a supervisor’s attention, and I’m not suggesting that you become an informant about every behavior of your office peers.  However, when a situation arises that could present a legal, structural or productivity challenge to your organization, you are bound in duty to notify your superior regardless of the persons involved. If you know that someone in your company is injuring or abusing the organization, and you fail to bring it to your superior’s attention, you are just as guilty as your poorly-behaved peer.

Mistakes are made and problems arise every day in the modern workplace, but how someone reacts when they occur tells you an awful lot about what that person is made of. 

Workplace Myths: You Should Avoid Office Politics, Part 2

As we last discussed, understanding the politics that drive your company’s decision making is a vital asset if career advancement is on your wish list.  You may not like or agree with the political process that your company uses to hand out raises or promotions, but without understanding it you can never hope to get yourself in line for either.

A company’s politics are like its personality, manifest in every decision making process company-wide.  Just like an individual’s politics, a company develops its political affiliation based on its values and priorities.  Just as someone who is socially liberal might choose to become a Democrat, a company that seeks to dominate the market at all costs might prefer aggressiveness over thoughtfulness in its employees.

In addition to hard facts like performance or attendance, promotions and raises are often decided based on other “soft” political factors, such as loyalty, passion or dedication.  These soft factors are always subjective, so to ensure that you put yourself on the fast track to promotion, you must try to understand not only the soft decision making factors that have impact in your company, but also the criteria that are used to judge them.

Once you understand your company’s personality, you’ll be able to align your actions and attitude with the behaviors favored by the politics of your organization.  If you need some help figuring out your company’s political personality, try these following hints:

• Research your company’s values – Even if they aren’t publicly discussed, nearly every company decides on a set of important values that will drive its process.  A great employee will always be able to name the company values of the top of their head and will demonstrate them in their daily activities.
• Look for similarities amongst senior managers – Chances are that most of the people your company promotes have key traits in common. If you can isolate what they are, you’ll know what your company is looking for.  Stay away from drawing conclusions about style and stick to analyzing skill sets or strategies that these managers have in common.
• Get to know your company executives – In addition to analyzing your senior managers, understanding what drives your executive team will give you enormous insight into the patterns at your company.  These executives are busy, so respect their time, but interface with them whenever the opportunity presents itself.
• Ask your manager what he or she looks for when promoting – Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.  So before your next job opportunity becomes available, ask you current boss what they would look for if they were hiring today.  That information would give you a valuable head start the next time a job opens up.

Earlier: Workplace Myths: You Should Avoid Office Politics, Part 1

Workplace Myths: You Should Avoid Office Politics, Part 1

If there’s one piece of totally misguided advice passed around most in the workplace, it’s the advice to avoid office politics. Sometimes I feel like there’s a whole section in the bookstore devoted solely to ways you could steer clear of the daily politics that occur in all of our corporate environments.

This terrible bit of advice comes primarily from a misunderstanding of the true definition of “office politics”. When people suggest that you should avoid office politics, what they actually mean is to avoid unnecessary drama or petty squabbles that occur at work. Differentiating between this and actual political behavior that could influence your career path is important in mastering the political process itself.

While staying away from office politics might lower your stress level, it will also guarantee that you have no upward mobility. If I advised someone who is looking to advance their career that they avoid office politics would be like telling a presidential hopeful to ignore the campaign process. Without understanding the politics of your office and becoming involved in them, you can never hope to move up in your corporate world.

In my company, for example, I try to make my politics obvious to everyone. I always play favorites, which is a clearly political move. But as long as I am candid about what defines my "favorites," those politics are productive, and you as the employee have a chance to thrive within that political system.

My favorites are always employees combine decent skills and knowledge with supreme work ethic. I believe that I can always help educate someone, but I can rarely cause someone to want to work harder. This means that occasionally very intelligent people lose promotions to less-smart, harder-working peers. That is certainly a political process informed by my personal beliefs as a leader. I assure you that if I eradicated my personal politics and always promoted or hired the smartest candidates, laziness would mount and the business would suffer.

The politics behind your entire organization’s strategy and decisions are another topic completely. However, they are just as necessary on a company level as they are in smaller groups. Politics in companies aren’t inherently flawed or evil. Companies are capitalistic ventures that are in business to make money -- eliminating politics in them is impossible. After all, they exist in every organization and society on the globe.

Some suggest that you could create a non-political workplace by handing out raises or promotions exclusively based on merit. The problem is this: whose version of “merit” should be used? Should merit be decided by skill, work ethic, tenure? Merit is subjective; any time profits are combined with subjective decisions, the end result is always inherently political. I am in no way advocating companies being ruthless or unethical in the all consuming quest for profits. Instead I’m suggesting that an open display of politics is never a bad thing. Even when politics turn negative, there is only one way to change them: getting involved. Running away from even the most tainted political situation will only guarantee that the situation stays status quo.

In a business environment, politics affect everything from budget decisions to pay increases. The politics of your organization are inherently based on the beliefs, ethics and style of the most influential people at your company, namely the same people that could give you a leg up in your career. You may not always agree with the politics of your organization or your managers, but understanding them will prove valuable as you navigate your way to career advancement.

Next up, we'll discuss ways in which you can understand your company's specific political climate and how you can use this understanding to your advantage.

Workplace Myths: You Shouldn't Take Business Personally

The next time someone in your office tells you that you shouldn’t take a business issue personally, punch them in the face. Once they’ve gotten back to their feet, tell them that they shouldn’t take being punched in the face personally. Telling this person that being punched in the face shouldn't be taken personally makes about as much sense as what they told you.

Chances are you’re doing everything in your power to improve your career path and increase your standard of living. If that’s true, the best thing you could do is start taking everything at your work personally.

In my personal experience, all but one of my jobs has been created expressly for me. Only one promotion I ever received was a job that existed before I got it. Why? Because I take my success or failure personally. If the company is suffering or stagnating, there won’t be a lot of upward mobility for me, so I’m painfully aware that the company’s future success and my own are intertwined.

If one of my businesses has a disappointing quarter, I get mad, or sometimes sad, and then I pick myself up and figure out a way to get even. If someone were to pass me over for a promotion, I’d take it personally. If someone purchased my competitor's product instead of mine, I’d take it personally and I’d take the opportunity to learn how to ensure that it never, ever, happened again.

The bottom line? My work is a huge part of who I am. Not taking it personally just isn’t an option.

Most of us are at our jobs a minimum of 8 hours a day. That means that 1/3 of our personal time is spent as an employee (or employer). If failures or successes of the company roll right off of your back, you’re wasting a third of your life. If your boss thinks you’re lazy or wrong for a job and that doesn’t bother you, get another job. Give the success to someone who cares.

Taking your job personally can be an emotionally rattling experience full of ups and downs, but there’s no other way to live your career. If you can’t find a way to be elated by the highs and fired up by the lows, chances are someone will be telling you to not take it personally when you’re on your way out the door.

Workplace Myths: Raises Should Come with Tenure, Part 2

Yesterday we talked about the difference between wage increases and raises. Today we’re going to talk about how you can get one and what factors are in your control.

Wage Increases

Remember, wage increases are intended to maintain your current standard of living, so they should happen automatically when inflation occurs. Assuming you continue to have the same job description and perform at an average rate in your role, most companies look at wage increases annually. Historically these wage increases should be between 1.5 and 4 percent.

When it comes to wage increases there really isn’t much you can do to ensure you get one. They are usually a company-wide decision, though often times different roles get different percentages based on the market.

If prices are increasing, you’re doing your job, and the company consistently fails to provide you with a wage increase it’s probably time to start looking for another company. In an inflationary economy the average company is making more money. So if they aren’t doling out wage increases, they're using that money to improve their profits while their employees' standards of living are dropping.

The good news is that most companies have become accustomed to routine wage increases. In fact, in most white collar jobs today, the average annual wage increase is generally higher than the actual amount of inflation, which means the employee is winning each year. Even so, the difference between actual inflation and the wage increases given is likely to be only a percent or so, which will hardly give you a big boost in your standard of living. If you’re looking to improve your lifestyle, the way to do it is to get yourself a raise.

Raises

Raises are intended to be a reward for providing a greater value to the company and for over achieving in your role. There are only three times that an employee should be given a raise, as there are only three ways that an employee can impact the bottom-line profitability of their organization.

• Increased Productivity – If you consistently get more done and deliver better results as time passes, you are probably a good candidate to receive a raise. The most typical way that increasing productivity will lead to a raise is by getting promoted. Each time you take on greater responsibility in your current job or deliver more results in the same amount of working hours you are sending a message to the company that you are capable of doing more. Before long, you’ll be on the fast track for promotion, and with that new job a raise is almost always a part of the package.
• Reduced Expenses – Another way to deliver more value to your company is by helping to reduce expenses. A company’s job is to deliver the best profits possible to their shareholders and a large part of that process is expense control. If you can find new ways to reduce expenses without affecting the productivity of your organization, you will soon become highly valuable. Each time you find a wasteful expense that you can help your company eliminate or a more cost effective way to run your business, you are adding dollars to the profits of your organization. When a good company is able to achieve a better profit margin, they will always look to pass on a portion of those profits to the employees that helped get them there, usually in the way of a raise. By becoming a crusader who finds ways to eliminate wasteful spending, you will ensure that your name is on that list.
• Added Revenue – The fastest way to secure a raise is by helping drive more revenue for your company. Too often, people think that the only people who can impact the revenue at a company are the salespeople selling the product. It may be easier to directly impact revenue if you’re in sales, but the truth is that anyone can impact revenue by providing innovative ideas about how to increase productivity, penetrate new markets or even develop or market new products. Every employee should constantly be thinking of ways to help the company earn more revenue, and every good company should be open to hearing their people’s ideas. Without fail, if you’re the person who finds a way to bring more dollars in the company’s front door, a raise will be just around the corner.

Earlier: Workplace Myths: Raises Should Come with Tenure, Part 1

Workplace Myths: Raises Should Come with Tenure, Part 1

Somewhere in the history of the modern workplace, the line between a raise and an annual wage increase has become blurred. It seems that most people believe that for every successive year that you work for a company, you should automatically be given an increase in salary. If you look for the logic behind that statement, however, you’ll find that it doesn’t exist.

Companies are in business to make money. If they paid out more to their employees every year, even if revenue were shrinking, they would be in bad shape in no time. I believe that the misguided expectation of an annual raise has come about because, as a corporate community, we no longer draw a distinction between raises and wage increases. Let me explain the difference.

Wage Increases

As capitalism developed through the beginning of the industrial revolution, the impact of business on national economies was dramatic. As unemployment dropped and productivity increased, demand for many products (from energy to housing to material goods) increased.

Along with demand came inflation and an increased cost in living. Wage increases were introduced into the economy to make sure that as inflation occurred, employees were able to afford a consistent standard of living.

The idea behind a wage increase is that, as time passes and the economy ebbs and flows, no individual employee should feel a significant difference in their personal lifestyle. Therefore, if inflation took prices up 4% in a year, each employee’s compensation should be adjusted to match that inflationary quotient. Wage increases were never intended to slowly improve an employee’s standard of living over time, but only to ensure that as time passed price increases and wages stayed even.

Raises

A raise is a different animal entirely. Raises came about in the modern workplace for two reasons. First, it gave employers a way to stratify and motivate their employees. If the best person in a position made more than an average person in the same position, paying that person more would both reward them as well as motivate the others. Second, raises were designed to increased compensation for added work or responsibility -- in other words, raises were awarded for promotions.

Unlike wage increases, raises have always been intended to reward performance rather than to balance economic factors.  As such, they should only be given when the employer feels it is appropriate.

The Confusion Begins

Two major issues evolved over the years which contributed to today’s misguided notions about compensation increases: the end of wage decreases and annualized raises or promotions.

In the early days of the modern business world, employees were given wage increases when inflation occurred, but they were also given wage decreases in recessions or when the cost of living decreased. This makes sense as the companies in question were always adjusting compensation to keep employees in the same standard of living based on the economy and keep their profit margins similar from year to year. Sometimes employees made more and sometimes they made less, but they could always afford the same lifestyle if they were doing the same job.

As labor laws developed, however, most companies continued to give wage increases when inflation occurred but stopped giving wage decreases when deflation occurred. Once wage increases became standard and wage decreases disappeared, people began to believe that each year they were entitled to more money to increase their standard of living.

Around the same time, as larger companies became the norm, organizations started implementing all of their raises and promotions at the beginning of the fiscal year. This coincided with the timing of wage increases, which contributed to the belief that raises and wage increases were really more or less the same. At this point, unless an employer made a specific distinction, many employees began to believe that wage increases and raises were exactly the same.

Today, when people get a 1% or 2% increase in compensation, they are often upset with the amount of their “raise” when it was, in fact, a wage increase. As with all wage increases, it was an adjustment to compensation that reflected an increase in cost of living, not an increase in performance or responsibility.

The bottom line is, each of us should be able to count on our company to help us maintain our current standard of living as long as we maintain our current job description and performance. That assistance should come in the form of a wage increase as the economy grows. If what we want is to increase our standard of living, the only way to achieve that is by getting an honest to goodness raise. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to make sure that happens.

Workplace Myths: "There is No Such Thing as a Stupid Question."

Whoever first said “there is no such thing as a stupid question” certainly proved that there is such a thing as a stupid statement.

There are many myths that exist in our modern workplace, and a lot of them teach us to behave in a way that is counterproductive to the goals we have for our careers.  The statement above is one of the worst offenders.

I am a firm believer that people looking to move up in the corporate world should be relentless questioners; aside from active work experience, it is the single best way to educate yourself about your profession.  But let’s face it, folks. There is a huge difference between a great question and a stupid one.

The statement should be changed to: "The only stupid questions are ones you could answer on your own."

Just because you have a question about how something works or how you should proceed does not mean that it is a question you should ask someone else.

Over the years, telling people that there are no stupid questions has become an excuse for people to ask all sorts of things that they shouldn’t need help in answering.  These questions aren’t asked out of true interest, or the inability to answer them independently, these questions are asked out of laziness.  If you tell me that there are no stupid questions, what’s to stop me from asking you what I should do at every turn of my daily activity?  Asking a lot of these questions is just an excuse to not learn, or at the very least to have someone else do your work for you.

As a manager, if I answered every one of the questions that an employee asked me, I would be crushing their ability to become independent.  My goal as a manager should be to make my employees so good at what they do that they need me less and less each day.  The day I’m completely obsolete is that day that I’ve really done my job.

With every question you encounter, your first goal should always be to get the question answered on your own.  The world today is full of amazing user-accessible research tools, from books to blogs, and going through the process of discovery is a vital part of educating yourself.

Sure, it can be frustrating to try to answer your questions without assistance, but it can also be amazingly interesting. Even the process of researching your questions will guarantee that you will end up with much more information than if someone else just gave you a shortcut to the solution.  Trust me when I say that the employee who asks only difficult questions and even then has clearly thought about and experimented with potential answers is always the one on the fast track.

Every one of us has been in a meeting where someone embarrassed themselves by asking something idiotic and it doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict how those instances affect people’s careers. 

So the next time you get the urge to ask something in a meeting ask yourself:  "Is this something I could answer on my own, is this an opportunity to learn and expand my knowledge base?"  If the answer is yes, you probably just saved yourself from asking a stupid question!