Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Rule #1 in Business: It’s Not About You

Every day, I get at least three requests from people who want to write guest posts on my personal blog.  I have given up responding to these people.

Why?  Because looking at my blog for 30 seconds will tell you that I don’t do guest posts. I have never done guest posts.  I may include tips from other experts, but the writing is always my own.

Yet people continue to ask me, because THEY want to do a guest post.  They are making this initial interaction all about them.  It doesn’t matter what I want or need.

This is not a good strategy for building relationships with people, especially managers and co-workers who have no vested interest in doing what you say.

What’s in it for them?

You might have heard the story of the salesman who greets a prospect by announcing, “I want to tell you about a great new product that has a thousand new features, all for the low price of…” The prospect stops listening as soon as she hears the words I want and slams the door in the salesman’s face.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to enter a negotiation or interaction with someone by expressly stating what you want. As I said in this post back in 2010, no one cares – they want to know what’s in it for them.

For my advice on how to proceed, check out the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Reader Question: Dealing with a Micromanaging Peer

This question was submitted by a reader at the Fast Track blog:

I’d like to get your input about how to deal with a coworker who micromanages laterally. I am a manager, and one of my peers, another manager, often takes it upon herself to tell the other managers how they should run their departments (even though we haven’t asked and it’s not within her realm of responsibility). It doesn’t happen all the time, but every few months or so she’ll go on a tirade and drive all of the managers crazy. For example, she’ll get on a dress-code policy kick and scrutinize every article of clothing staff wear, and then send repeated emails to department managers saying that it needs to be dealt with. The most recent time this happened, when I went to check on the “offensive” clothing, they fell completely within the code — perhaps she just didn’t like what the person was wearing?

She tells us which staff members need disciplining (when they don’t), tells us how to deal with clients, recites well-known procedures to us over and over, and will even go so far as to reorganize our service desks because she doesn’t like how they look! And I don’t mean just a little — I’m talking moving computers to a completely different location, and leaving post-it notes everywhere about why something isn’t right or shouldn’t be the way it is.

Usually I try to see where she’s coming from and consider whether she has a valid point, but often it’s just trivial things that don’t matter or don’t make sense. I’ve tried ignoring her, giving in to her, and being firm and telling her why my department chooses to do things a certain way and that we won’t be changing it. Nothing seems to help. I think she acts this way because she cares about our organization and likes to see things run smoothly, but it’s too much at times, and ultimately not her responsibility. Our organization functions well and overall our staff have good morale. I am perfectly capable of handling my team and, if I do say so myself, do a darn good job of it. How can I get her to back off when she gets like this?

Here was my advice:

I think it’s time you had a formal sit down with the micromanaging peer.  Ignoring her might be the path of least resistance, but at this point it sounds like her behavior is negatively impacting the productivity of your team – and this is a problem that’s yours to remedy.

Ask her to lunch.  If it isn’t completely out of the ordinary, go offsite so you won’t risk being interrupted or joined by another teammate.  Tell her there’s something important you need to talk to her about, and preface the discussion with a comment along the lines of what you said in your e-mail to us:  “I admire how much you care about our organization and I know that you want to see it run smoothly.”  This will help to mitigate her natural response (i.e. defensiveness) to what you’re about to say.

Next, tell her that while you appreciate her input on your team’s discipline, dress, etc. you are capable of managing these issues yourself and that you’d prefer it if she would confine her improvements to her own group.  Use a “this is what’s best for the organization” type of argument, such as “Right now my staff feels that it’s getting confusing cross-direction, and their work is suffering.”  Try to be assertive rather than wishy-washy.  You are a manager for a reason and your judgment should be trusted.

If this doesn’t work and she continues to interfere and wreck havoc around the office, you should talk to your boss on the down low.   Just remember to be solution-oriented and bottom-line focused in your comments, as the last thing you want to do is come across like you are whining or complaining.  You are not a tattletale and this is not a mere personality conflict.  Be clear that you are genuinely concerned that because of this woman’s actions, the organization is not operating as optimally as it could be.

For guidance from Fast Track's other amazing experts, check out the full post.

Building Culture in a Digital World

Quick quiz: true or false?

1. You don’t know anyone who works at your company.
2. You try not to involve yourself with your company’s digital networks.
3. When it comes to certain office protocols, you have no idea what is and isn’t acceptable.

If you answered ‘True’ to these statements, you’re part of the 20 percent of global employees who work on virtual teams, and your organization’s culture is a total mystery to you.

This is a problem, because even as we strive to enhance our cultures so our employees will stick around, our strategies mostly shut out employees who don’t come into our offices. If we want to encourage collaboration and track productivity, we have dozens of effective digital tools from which to choose. But when it comes to tools meant to inform and reinforce culture, there’s not much.

In a recent article for Fast Company, Austin Carr reported on a few new technologies that are a step in the right direction. Yammer, which is an enterprise social network that Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion, acts like a Facebook for internal business use. It enables employees to exchange messages, media and status updates—integrating the option to “Like” a coworker’s post or give him or her “Praise” badges.

Taking it a step further is emotional intelligence company Kanjoya, which has a product called Crane that taps into an organization’s Yammer network and analyzes data to measure how employees are feeling at any given moment or on any given topic. Crane can tell, for instance if your employees are irritated by a new policy or don’t like the way management is handling a current issue. Although it’s not always clear what leaders should do with Crane’s data from a big picture perspective, the program at least allows them to address small details that might otherwise go unnoticed and fester.

For tips on how to effectively build culture in a digital world, check out my full post on the AMEX Open Forum.

How to Lose a Pointless Process

It’s one of the great injustices of Corporate America.  Complex processes spring up around everything, and only some of them make sense.  As someone with an eye toward improving productivity and adding to the bottom line at your organization, inefficient, overly complicated, unethical, or just downright silly processes may irritate you to no end.

Off With Its Head!

Whether you’re a new employee who has seen things done better on the outside or a tenured one who knows change is essential, your first reaction might be to march into your manager’s office and let her know exactly what you think of this nonsense.  This may include an emotional, frustration-fueled recommendation (read: rant) to do away with the process immediately.  Or better yet, why not skip your boss and go straight to the source of the problem – the “keeper” of the process?

Well, hold your horses because this approach doesn’t usually work.  The truth is, most processes were implemented for a reason, and most were sensible at one time.  Managers, and especially the “keeper” of the process, are invested in it and presumably understand the big picture regarding how the process fits into the scheme of general operations.  They will probably not appreciate being told how things should be by someone who doesn’t have the whole story.  And by railing on said process, you may in fact be implying that they are not doing their jobs well, which will put them on the defensive right away.

For more tips on coping with bureaucracy, check out Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Help - My Co-Worker Can't Say No!

Over at Intuit's Fast Track blog, a reader wrote us with the following question:

Here’s the question, with our experts’ responses below:

My manager quit earlier this year, leaving me to run the marketing department with a woman we’d just hired.

I wasn’t in favor of the hire because I was concerned that she lacks professional maturity, but now she’s my co-director and we’re making do.  They’re not replacing my manager, and there’s been no conversation about how our roles have changed or what our strategic direction forward looks like—we’re just barging ahead.  My problem is this:  She’s hardworking, cheerful, and bright—and absolutely incapable of saying “no” to any request.  Whether it’s another director, a member of the senior team, or even (not making this up) a janitor with another “great idea” for improving the web site, she’s on board and happy to make it happen.  Web cams on the roof?  Sure!  Amateur photo contest?  Why not!  Some of the projects have been great, but most just clutter up the site and create huge amounts of work for me, because she doesn’t think about how her “happy to do it” attitude drags me into hours of editing work for unproven ideas that sound like fun and then backfire in big ways.  Our more boring, but important, work falls by the wayside, and our numbers are suffering because she won’t focus on fundamentals.

We now report to someone off-site, and he’s as hands-off as can be.  How can I work with her to make her understand that we need to make decisions as a team, and that her decisions set precedents for expectations we can’t undo?

Here's my response:

I can rather picture this person.  She is very idealistic and enthusiastic, but lacks the experience and critical eye to fully understand what’s doable and what isn’t.  Working with her would probably drive me to distraction too.

But that’s not helpful, because your success in your role depends on your ability to get this co-manager to cooperate with you.  So I’d appeal to what seems to matter most to her – that people like her.  I’d take her to lunch and preface the discussion with how happy you are to be working alongside one of the group’s rising stars.  Ask her if she’s amenable to developing a system for vetting projects so that the two of you are perceived as a can-do team, the one with which everyone wants to work.

Then, lay out your suggestion.  I recommend that this include meeting semi-weekly to discuss your duo’s priorities and decide what you’re going to move forward on, and in what order.  Neither of you should give other team members definitive answers on their recommendations until the two of you have met.  This will hopefully give you a regular chance to talk her out of ideas that are not feasible, or re-direct her energies into the fundamentals you mention.  Always remain positive when discussing an idea, no matter how wacky.  Say something like:  “That sounds really fun, but given that we’ve already committed to X, I think we should revisit it.”  The less forcefully you shut her down, the more likely she is to comply.

It sounds like you may be a little older than her.   If this is the case, perhaps you can offer yourself as a mentor and she’ll begin to lean on you for more strategic direction.  At that point, you can probably be even more direct with her about the problems that can arise when expectations aren’t managed properly, and your advice will be better received.

For great answers from the other experts, have a look at the full post at Fast Track.

Talking Your Manager into Flextime

Happy New Year, everyone!  It's "Reader Mail" time! 

I’m a manager in a small department and have to get approval of flexible schedules for staff from my Boss.  Boss wants everyone to be at work during normal business hours, doesn’t like flexible schedules, and sees all requests as the same (trying to get out of work).  Yes, I’m confused about this thinking and believe Boss doesn’t really understand flextime and its advantages, but I’m wondering how to best discuss this.

Boss tends to overreact whenever I bring up the topic and gets into the issue of “not trusting the employee to really work and not goof off.”  I see a request to temporarily change a schedule by arriving earlier and staying later on some days and leaving early on other days because of family schedules/child care issues to be different from a request to work at home on certain days on an ongoing basis.  The first example involves working all hours at the office for a limited amount of time and the second example involves working some days at home with no finite term, but Boss lumps all these requests together and denies all of them.  Any suggestions or advice on how I can approach the subject and try to get Boss to logically consider these requests?

For answers to this quandry from four career experts including me, check out the full post at the Fast Track blog.

Help! My Colleague is a Mooch!

Picture this scenario from a reader:

Recently, a new colleague has joined my team. My boss has instructed us that we have to work very closely together as a team to deliver on goals, but whenever there is a brainstorming session on she never fails to say, “I don’t know,” and I end up being the one coming up with all the ideas. I tried bringing this up with my boss, and she said I’ll have to iron this matter out with my new colleague. Is there is a way of politely telling my new colleague that she can’t always give an “I don’t know” answer and needs to pitch in and do her part?

For answers from four career experts (myself included), check out the Fast Track blog.

Managers: Should You Sweat the Small Stuff?

A reader wrote in with this scenario:

As a manager, I know how to handle big performance issues; people need to be warned, given time to improve, and then either shape up or ship out. I’m wondering, though, about less severe issues and how to properly handle them.

One of my biggest day-to-day headaches are the minor transgressions, those behaviors that technically violate policy or slightly inconvenience employees, but are far from a fireable offense. For example, our company doesn’t allow sneakers as part of the dress code. We have an employee who walks to work, so he wears sneakers to come in and keeps a pair of appropriate shoes at his desk. This would be fine, but he often forgets to change and will spend the majority of the day violating the dress code. Generally he forgets because he jumps right in and focuses on something more important: his job! I don’t feel like I can sit this guy down and tell him that he’s violated our shoe policy and he’ll need to remember to change or he’ll be fired. That just seems silly.

Another example is an employee who doesn’t check our message board and won’t set up email reminders. She doesn’t want the email clutter, but also doesn’t want to take the time out of her schedule to check in for important messages every now and then. So if we need something like a health insurance form filled out, I need to hunt her down to get it completed. Obviously this example DOES affect my job, but am I to threaten the job of one of our top performers over it?

These ARE policies and requirements we’ve set though, and I don’t want to give the impression that our policies (small or large) can be violated without consequence. There are many examples of minor transgressions at the office. Each one adds up to drain more of my time/energy, and I do see signs of other employees following suit. Without consequences, there is no motivation to change.

Over at Fast Track, I weighed in along with three other fantastic career and workplace experts.  Let us know what you think of our advice and if you have anything to add!

Can Contract Workers Ever Really Fit In?

According to technology firm Mavenlink’s 2012 infographic, The New Independent Workforce, the contingent workforce–comprised of self-employed individuals, independent service firms, solopreneurs and temporary workers—has grown by an estimated 4.3 million workers since 1995. By 2020, 40 percent of American workers, or nearly 65 million people, will be contingent, and shortly thereafter that percentage is expected to rise to 50 percent.

Why this explosive growth? The biggest reason is that companies in all industries–especially in technology, management consulting, marketing, education and journalism–are on board. Mavenlink reports that 90 percent of firms have used contracted talent, and a recent Economist Intelligence Unit study found that 61 percent of senior executives anticipate a growing proportion of functions to be outsourced to contingent workers.

The key questions are: What do contingent workers have to do with organizational culture, and how can managers help them assimilate so that they're positive additions to the team? For these answers and more, head over to my Culture Beat column at the AMEX Open Forum.

 

What Does it Mean to Be Innovative?

Being innovative means solving a problem in a unique and creative way. Companies like Google, Apple, GE and Facebook have made billions because innovation is a principal value in everything they do. Given the positive associations with it, every organization likes to think it fosters innovation, but unfortunately, the truth is often much different.

According to research recently published in the Journal of Business Venturing, which looked at two decades of data on 62 countries, both individualistic and nationalistic cultures support innovation. While it’s not a major surprise that individualism is strongly associated with innovation, a more intriguing finding is that cultures that value the success of the group and have high degrees of patriotism also encourage innovation in their people. Countries like Japan and Sweden, for instance, are traditionally more collectivist but are also extremely innovative.

For more on the qualities of truly innovative cultures, head over to my column at the AMEX Open Forum.