ThinkTank

The results of a recent survey of high school students in the United States found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed had cheated at least once on a high school exam. That’s a pretty significant number. But what is far worse is that most of those kids didn’t feel that they had done anything wrong! In reality, I’m certain that peer influence has a lot to do with this type of behavior, but more than half who admitted cheating believe they acted the same way their parents would have – because they’ve witnessed them cheating to get ahead. They also see it happening with famous celebrities, their athletic heroes and in politics, but don’t get me going on about those folks.

It seems that with all the traits, or “assets” as one organization terms them, we as parents try to instill in our children, the one that is glaringly absent or severely diminished is ethics.

The Search Institute in Minneapolis, MN has identified forty key external and internal assets that kids need to properly mature and become solid contributors to society. If you’d like a copy of the list you can request one from me by youing the contact button at the top and ask for 40 Assets.

Some of the key assets on that list which relate to the formation of human ethics of the highest quality are:

• Positive and responsibly behaving adult role models
• Peers who model these adults
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Self-esteem

There are quite a few more which thread together the fibers of who we become, but if you don’t have integrity, you have no foundation on which to build and develop what is commonly referred to as “character”.

The Josephson Institute of Ethics has created a website www.charactercounts.org, that details “The Six Pillars of Character”.

Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. If there’s any doubt that as an adult you might not be “walking the talk”, the site has more details about each of these values and how you can incorporate them into your daily life.

Remember, it’s that time of year when many of us make New Year’s Resolutions. It’s never too late to reflect, renew and polish ourselves as role models. Either way the impact you have on others is considerable.

Brian Howe is a professionally-trained executive and business coach, writer and speaker, who owns ThinkTank Coaching. He is also a Certified Mediator, and holds the highest human resource certification, Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). He has worked with over 300 business owners and professionals, coaching and consulting with them on leadership development and other aspects related to people in business. He can be reached at (770) 922-6007 or via his website www.coachbrian.com

I caution my business coaching clients to beware of computer consultants, network administrators, or anyone for that matter, who come bearing paper certificates but little hands-on know-how. Yet I hear of many businesses who are so strapped to fill vacant positions, they don’t want to avoid hiring outside consultants or permanent employees by being too critical about experience and results. Does Certification = Qualification?

I read about a man who was finishing up a contract as a network technician in Europe.  He wanted to find work in the U.S., so he updated his resume and posted it on the Web.  Being curious, he ran an experiment to test the value of having a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification.  So he put two resumes out there. 

Only the first was accurate, and detailed his many years of network and telecommunications experience working with many networking products and his resume also noted he was soon to receive a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

The second resume was similar, not as detailed, listed fewer years experience, and did not include college information.  But it did list an MCSE certification.  He used an alias last name on this resume, considering he wasn’t being quite truthful.

Three days after posting the bogus resume, he started getting telephone calls and was offered positions based on phone interviews conducted while he was still out of the country.  But not for the real resume.  This aggravated him, knowing that he’d spent thousands of dollars for education, and spent many hours crawling underground, installing cable and figuring out how to configure complex networks.  If all he had to do was read a ‘Dummies’ book, spend some money for the tests and better job opportunities would present themselves, infuriated him.

The computer industry, and many others, are flush with certification programs.  In addition to the MCSE program, there are — Certified NetWare Engineer (CNE) and Certified Network Administrator (CCNA). Cisco engineers can become a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), while their 3Com counterparts earn a Master of Network Science (MNS) certification.  But do these certifications offer real value to the people who receive them on behalf of their employers?

Two recent studies indicate employers perceive employees with certification to be more competent and productive.  Further, the employees themselves viewed certification as contributing to their professional credibility.  When supervisors compared otherwise similar employees, they found those within MCSE were consistently rated more competent than non-certified employees.

But does certification reflect knowledge or capability?  Some highly experienced and very qualified engineers complain that their co-workers cram for two days, pass a few exams, and then demand and receive a higher salary.  It’s also interesting that some test preparation firms offer a money back guarantee if you don’t pass the test after studying with their simulated exams — no training necessary.

Even folks at Microsoft’s admit so-called “paper MCSEs” — people who cram and pass the tests with little or no real world experience — are a problem, but say current and future tests will use more sophisticated situational testing which better reflect  candidates’ actual capabilities.

Network professionals note that a Cisco program is ideal because it requires previous network experience, and hands-on testing using Cisco equipment. More certifications are requiring the candidates design and build a working network.

Most managers agree that certification alone is a poor basis on which to judge the potential contractor or employee’s worth.  As one experienced and certified engineer puts it, “While experience is key, experience and certifications together are even better.”

As with hiring any contractor or employee . . . find out about the results of their work.  Check references by contacting their managers, or hire a professional firm to do it.  Past history is the best predictor of future behavior.  To coin a phrase from a recent best-selling business book, “People are not your most important asset. The right people are”.

I repeatedly hear that employers “can’t find good people”. Well, this is a true story about some business owners who know what to look for.

I come from a small, formerly rural town. It’s getting less small and less rural every day. Recently, I heard a business success story that compelled me to write about it.

Two business owners were seeking ways to improve the operations and flow of their organization. With the right people as mid-level managers, they knew things would get better. They also strongly believed in giving existing employees development opportunities so they studied current employees and found someone, I’ll call her Vickie, who demonstrated a strong work ethic and a great deal of common sense.

Vickie was an immigrant fromMexico.  Her formal education there had ended with the sixth grade.  As a young mother, she needed work, and found it in the cafeteria of a local business, and was loyal to its owners for many years.  Once the owners realized what prospective talent they had right under their noses, they decided to help develop the woman for a supervisory role.  But, instead of “dropping her over the wall”, as I discussed in a previous article, they carefully chose ways to have her learn what was needed for her advancement. 

Some classes at a local community college proved to be too rigorous for Vickie, so they discovered ways that were more self-paced and directly related to the position they had created, and for which they were grooming her. 

Vickie responded in an extremely positive fashion to their efforts, absorbed information like a sponge, became extremely proficient at managing the food service function, which included preparing wholesome, and well-balanced menus for school age children, ordering everything for the food prep unit, preparing for meals if extended power outages occurred, a frequency in that part of the country, and finding creative ways to maintain the budget.

So, as you can see, Vickie’s managers were pleased with their investment and Vickie was pleased with the opportunity, promotion, salary increase and job enrichment.  It’s also evident that Vickie’s loyalty to the organization is dialed up to the maximum and it would be very difficult to lure her away from those two managers who provided for her advancement – a critical component of a very strong employee retention program. 

If you own a business or manage a group of employees, I strongly urge you to find ways to develop them and provide job enrichment – even if their next opportunity lies at another company.  The more you do this, the sooner you’ll become . . . and stay an employer (or leader) of choice!

Your daily ‘balancing act’ requires thoughtful planning of how to best spend your time, and where to direct your efforts and energy. In order to plan more effectively, develop solid business (and personal) strategies, and take the appropriate actions, you must know what your priorities are. Here’s what you need to know about priorities.

Priorities are based on our values – achievement, intimacy, personal satisfaction, independence, caretaking, plus our goals – like building business, establishing or developing a career, raising a family, saving for college or retirement, finding and maintaining a committed relationship, and getting spiritual needs met, etc.

As an individual with your own values and goals, your priorities will likely be different from those of others, and they may conflict in varying degrees, with the priorities of folks close to you. It’s important to recognize and clearly understand your own priorities before you decide to accommodate the priorities of others in your life. 

Ultimately, you make the decisions about your life and even when you negotiate and compromise, you are making a choice to compromise. And life is really about choices, isn’t it?

Priorities are relative to each other. What you are saying is that for you at this time, whether you’re at work, home, or the gym, A is more important for you to being doing than B. Life changes – so do your priorities. Stay focused in that regard. Give yourself frequent ‘reality’ checks. 

So how do I prioritize? Start the process by asking yourself some questions about a particular activity in order to determine how to rank it in your list of priorities. These might include:

• What are the costs (time, money, etc.) vs. the benefits of doing it? 
• How well does it fit into my goals or the goals of my employer? 
• Is there a deadline for doing it?
• Can I meet that deadline? 
• How much fun will I have doing this?
• Have I promised/agreed to do it?
• Which of my needs will be met by doing this? 

Get them down in writing

Before you turn in for the night, on a blank piece of paper, index card, day planner or PDA, list five or six key tasks you have to do tomorrow. Number them in order of their importance to you. Most PDAs, like my PALM or my computer’s Microsoft Outlook, have a ‘Task List’ that lets you choose a priority number.

One coaching client insisted that ‘get more customers’ was his only task each day. After a session, he decided to prepare a task list each night consisting of three action items he would do the next day to ‘get new customers’. In doing so, he more keenly focused on exactly what his priorities were around attracting more business.

Take this list with you. And keep it handy! Start with item 1 and work on it. Pull out the list every 15-20 minutes and look at that item until you’ve finished item 1. Continue with the rest of the list in the same fashion.

Now, a coaching note: Don’t get all stressed out if you only finished two or three, or even one item! Stressing over it will not help you complete more tasks. Remember, you’ll be working on the most important ones. For longer periods of time, you can use the same process. 

Also, don’t forget that if you see you’re not making progress, you can always change your priorities, even during the day – remember you set them. So, if you think your boss may have set them you chose to take ownership of those, making them part of your list. Just keep the list handy, re-prioritize and work on them one at a time! You’ll accomplish much more.

Yep. You heard it right here. This executive and business coach is admitting that he was a ‘micro-manager’. Well nearly, I guess, according to some parts of the descriptions I’ve researched. But before you pass judgment, I did say was, and it was a long time ago while I was being groomed for a promotion into a senior management position.

Let me explain how I contracted my ‘disease’ and then how I ‘recovered’ from it. I was infected (and affected) by a former boss, who was a micro-manager. Granted, he was under a lot of pressure to perform successfully, because he was given charge of an expansion project in the southeast which would grow the entire corporation by 30% in the areas of revenues, profits and staff. So he did what he believed a former military leader should do – he took command of his troops. Now, I’m not saying that all military leaders are micro-managers, but like the rest of the world, some are. We were a fairly young bunch, too. At 31, I was one of the oldest employees, and many of the younger folks had recently finished college.

Let’s talk about micro-managers. Micro-managers use their authority and raw power, and flex their muscles for their own self-interest. They control and manipulate the time of others. They don’t trust people to correctly assess their workloads and they guard their own time like precious gold. When they enter a room or join a discussion, they exhibit a sense that they be must listened to.

Micro-managers require excessive approvals, and become huge bottlenecks within their organizations. And they are in constant ‘monitoring’ mode, demanding all too frequent and largely unnecessary reporting. This last one really fit me, probably because it was my first leadership role and I was practicing what I had experienced and learned. I also wanted to succeed and wasn’t quite sure how to do that. I didn’t hover around as well as my boss did though, because I had the additional responsibility of a sales quota. But one of the worst characteristics of all is that micro-managers rarely share rewards and recognition.

So how did I ‘recover’? It was simple. I got some un-requested, specific and rather blunt feedback from a peer. She pointed out that the inane sales reports I asked for were cumbersome, took sales people too long to fill out, and didn’t provide any really valuable information, but seemed only to be a justification process for my salary.

Whew! Was that a smack in the face! She continued by revealing that every minute sales people aren’t selling is time-wasting and would seriously hinder further company growth.

Well, I was mad as hell and pretty ticked off, but when I looked at myself in the mirror that night, it was clear as a mountain lake . . . she was right! I was either blind or severely myopic to the fact that I was micro-managing and creating a huge, wasteful bottleneck.

Seeing this wisdom, I took action the next day and made some significant and permanent changes to fix my ‘management mojo’. In fact, I should have written the book, “My Way or the Highway: The “Micromanagement Survival Guide”, but I didn’t – Harry E. Chambers did. And it’s a great business resource for managers, business owners, and especially those considering developing their careers as leaders.

And if you’re ready to take action and ‘recover’ from being a micro-manager or being a boss with any kind of ‘toxicity’, feel free to contact Coach Brian.

“I’d rather not have to get into it. In fact, I’d rather kiss a snake.”
– A Small Business Client

Why do we make the ‘dollars discussion’ so challenging? During a recent coaching call, my client sounded highly stressed. Her voice was straining, like her vocal chords were over-stretched.

When I asked her what was her biggest challenge at this moment, she didn’t talk about her rapidly-growing business, or the balance issues in her life, nor even how much she accomplished since our last session. She wanted to know if I’d negotiate salary with a potential new hire.

I found this interesting, because one of the key things we coaches work on with our clients is openness and clearing out past issues.

So there it was, right in front of us — the salary issue. (Maestro, some terribly ominous music, please).

After asking for clarification, she described the process as something that she felt ‘cheapened’ both sides.

There’s the coy candidate, usually not revealing current or desired compensation (often because of training by so-called experts who teach job seekers how to get the best salary), and the stingy (frugal, cheap, tight – fill in your own adjective) employer, who fears the offer might be an insult.

Well, if you want to feel better about making a job offer here’s some thoughts:

1. Do your homework. Find out what the market is paying, not only in your industry, but overall, in your geographic marketplace.

2. Plan. Then stick to it.

3. Be open about the salary amount. Float a ‘trial balloon at least twice and say something like, “If we offer you $75,000 in salary, plus the benefits we’ve discussed, does that fit with what you’re looking for?” If they agree, then consider that a ‘conditional’ acceptance of the offer.

4. Avoid giving a ‘salary range’. Any candidate who is given a salary range will surely be attracted by the ‘top’ range amount as their target — not the bottom.

5. Once you’ve gained cooperation with the candidate, let him/her know if a salary offer is firm. The games they play will most likely stop because money is pretty straightforward — either yes or no. If there is still wavering, then unresolved issues exist.