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What’s the Real Reason You Work Those Extra Hours?

February 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
ZL04

Ever notice? When you ask someone how they're doing, they rarely say "fine." No, just about everybody says "busy." Yeah, we're so busy that we have to work all those extra hours–come in early, or work through lunch, or stay late, or pull a Saturday and/or a Sunday…or all of the above. Now, I'm not averse to high performing people working long hours. Often the reality is that there is no way you can get everything you need to do done. Too many mandatory meetings. Too frequent interruptions and fires to put out. Just too many tasks to accomplish, even without the interruptions. I wonder, however, how many managers and employees work long hours because, truth be told, they … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organizational Life Tagged With: , ,

Job Squeeze Is Real. Talk about it

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Cornell ILR

My alma mater, the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University recently hosted a conference on "The Quality of Jobs." They looked at how trends in what they call the "intensification" of work, the restructuring of jobs, and classic downsizing have impacted the quality of jobs and the levels of satisfaction employees (who are left) are experiencing. While papers with their findings will be published in the new year, one clear finding is that these job and work disruptions are real and that they are widespread: People are doing more and working longer hours to pick up the slack from those let go. There is more "fire fighting" and handling of short-term issues and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Organizational Life Tagged With: , , ,

Interesting Things Google Does re Its People

July 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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I recently attended a presentation by Shannon Deegan, Google's Director of People. Now, a lot has been written about this company and how it is up there in the stratosphere of "best places to work," as decreed by Fortune magazine and others. Not surprisingly, Google received around 2 million resumés last year and filled 5000 positions. And growth? They have grown from zero to 25,000 employees in just eight years. Here are a few points, in no particular order, that stood out for me from Shannon's speech: The company's mission, created by the founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, is not expected to change for at least a century. It reads, To organize the world's information and make … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Organizational Life Tagged With: , ,

Did You Ever Try to Climb a Lattice?

June 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Lattice Concept (iS)

For at least 40 years we have had the idea of "lattice" organization as an alternative design to the traditional hierarchy which assumes employees all want to climb up the ladder. In lattice organizations (and, beyond W.L. Gore & Associates, there weren't many of them out there back then), you could go in any direction–up, sideways, and even down–to keep your learning, development, and capacity growing. Well, the lattice concept is back with a vengeance. Deloitte includes the shift from ladder to lattice as one of twelve trends featured in its 2011 Human Capital Trends report. Organizations today are flatter, with a much more diverse, gender-balanced workforce that is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organizational Life, Talent Development Tagged With: , , ,

Remember, Managers Focus in Two Directions

August 16, 2010 By 1 Comment
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What is it that managers do? In his excellent recent book, Managing, Henry Mintzberg, the renowned expert in management and Professor of Management Studies at my alma mater (McGill), answers this question with a concise model. He says that managers get things done by operating: In two directions: inward towards his/her unit or team outward, toward the rest of the organization and beyond On three planes: information people action It brings to mind the Roman god, Janus, who had two heads, looking in opposite directions. This is a vivid image to remember when you manage. We seem to focus so much attention in management development on only one … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communicating, Leadership, Organizational Life Tagged With: , ,

We’ll Never Really "Solve" Organizational Life

August 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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In his newly revised book on change, Beyond the Wall of Resistance, my colleague Rick Maurer includes an interview with author/consultant Geoffrey Bellman. Bellman's response contains some wisdom that helps us all understand the truth about thriving in organizations (and, for that matter, in life). At the base of it all, we're all a bunch of naked human beings. Down underneath it all, in the game we never talk about–the primary game–we're all down there reaching, grasping, clinging, lifting, floating through life. But we seldom acknowledge this. We're all equal in that regard. We all share a resistance to looking into the deeper meaning of what we are doing. Let go of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Coaching, Organizational Life Tagged With: , , ,

Article – Raise Your Gaze: Staying Energized in the Daily Grind

November 7, 2009 By 7 Comments
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It is mid afternoon. You are sitting at your desk trying to pull together this important proposal for your boss. It is due the day after tomorrow. As you wrestle with how to incorporate a complex spreadsheet from the finance department, you wonder when your quality analyst will bring in those last two key pieces of production information. Then there is still your own summary piece to write. But what will you write? The recommendations just aren't coming from your brain. We have all been there. You hit a point when it feels like you are trudging through quicksand. Everything is difficult. Your energy and enthusiasm for the task is dropping rapidly. It's no longer any fun. You begin … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Articles, Organizational Life

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