Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Is a Staycation Day at Work Totally Unappealing?

When I posted on the Fast Track blog about taking a staycation day (i.e. mini sabbatical) at work in order to rejuventate one's career, I received quite a bit of pushback.  It seems that many people object for a variety of reasons.  So I wanted to pose the question to this community:

Would you ever take a staycation day at work?  Why or why not?

Please check out the post and let me know what you think!

Should CEOs Be Hard Asses?

A few years ago, a friend's successful startup was bought by a Fortune 500 company. I will never forget the conversation I had with him when he was well into his tenure as a top executive in the new organization.

"I'm making more money than I ever dreamed," he said. "And yet the things I see every day, they're wrong. With every decision I make, my morals get a little looser. I just don't know if this life is for me."

Here was a perfectly average guy thrust into a position of power, at the moment of realization that maybe he wasn't enough of a jerk to run a large company.

For those who read Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, this issue may sound familiar. By anyone's definition, Jobs was one of the technology world's greatest success stories, taking product innovation and creativity to an entirely new level. But, and this is a big but, he was also a hard-hearted narcissist who treated loyal employees like garbage. Was Jobs' harsh approach necessary and would Apple have done as well without it?

For both sides of the debate, have a look at my column at the AMEX Open Forum.

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.

 

Is Negativity Causing Turnover in Your Office?

Negativity is the worst infectious disease that can threaten a culture. Pervasive negativity is one of the leading reasons people leave organizations in droves, and as you know, mass turnover is really expensive.

According to Ross Blake in his article "Employee Retention: What Employee Turnover Really Costs Your Company," talent replacement costs an organization between 30 and 50 percent of the annual salary of entry-level employees, 150 percent of middle-level employees, and up to 400 percent for specialized, high-level employees.

Of course, the best way to combat negativity is to uncover its root cause, which likely has something to do with dysfunctional culture. You’d be surprised how addressing issues here can make a difference.

Nevertheless, even in a positive culture, some employee negativity is inevitable. How do you keep it in check? For five anecdotes to try with the individuals on your team who are bringing everyone down, check out my post 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.

How Messed Up is Your Culture?

In times of stress and change, the business world is not an easy place to be. There are the usual challenges of longer hours and heavier workloads. However, when your culture is dysfunctional, your organization will not last long.  But whether you're a concerned leader, an owner or an employee who’s questioning your own judgment, what should you watch out for?

Here's one sign. Your internal competition is worse than your external competition. Although some competition is healthy, teams that constantly fight with one another over executive support and resources impede progress. A culture in which employees criticize and belittle those in other groups, or target one department as the source of all angst (“You have to work with finance on that? I’m so sorry!”) is also disastrous for morale.

For the rest of my warning signals, check out the full post on the AMEX Open Forum blog.

Recognition Goes Beyond a Sign on the Wall

I have mixed feelings when I walk into a small business and see an “Employee of the Week” sign. On the one hand, I want to commend the owners for recognizing their stellar employees. But on the other, I’m hoping that the culture of appreciation goes a little deeper.

The one-on-one nature of many employer/employee relationships today provides an excellent opportunity to sustain a culture in which employees are consistently and thoughtfully recognized. If done correctly, your people will be more likely to outstay and outperform their counterparts in similar organizations.

Creating such an environment, however, requires a multi-pronged approach that touches many components of the employee experience. For how-tos, please have a look at my post on the AMEX Open Forum blog.

What Martin Luther King Can Teach You About Being a Protege

In 1940, the Christian minister and civil rights champion Benjamin Mays became the president of Morehouse College, the first university for African American men located in Atlanta, GA.  Shortly after his tenure there began, Mays met the 15-year-old Martin Luther King, who had skipped both the nine and 12th grades to enroll as a freshman at Morehouse.  King developed a close relationship with Mays and was an eager student.

Mays influenced King by his own example, guiding him toward the ministry and the preaching of a social gospel.  The two men were so important in each other’s lives that they eventually made a promise – he who outlived the other would deliver the eulogy at his friend’s funeral.   Sadly, on April 9, 1968, Mays saw King’s mahogany coffin delivered to Morehouse on a wobbly farm wagon pulled by mules.

Benjamin Mays and Martin Luther King are just one of many famous mentor/protégé pairs – there’s Socrates and Plato, Aristotle and Alexander the Great, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, and Camille Pissarro and Paul Gauguin.  Due in part to the prestige of their mentors, all of these protégés went on to be extremely successful themselves.  It’s a strategy that has worked time and time again: if you’re truly terrific at your work and put yourself in a position to be noticed and admired by your boss and other senior level executives, you are much more likely to land on the fast track.

The best place to start is with your immediate manager. Even though you may think she’s aware of everything you’re contributing, this is most likely not the case, especially if you work in a large organization with thousands of people, or a small organization, where every employee wears a variety of hats. 

If you want to be the person your manager considers her right hand, please take my advice over at the Fast Track blog.

 

Raise Your Income Without a Salary Increase

When you’re underpaid or not earning enough money for some other reason, a common solution is to find a new job.  Yet, this still isn’t totally practical given the job market’s slow recovery.  Until things improve significantly, you may well be stuck where you are.

However, this does not mean you’re helpless.  I asked Laura Vanderkam, author of the new book All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, how one should go about increasing income without making a drastic career change.

Laura's first suggestion is to bump up yours hours.  If you’re paid by the hour, this will obviously increase your income.  Also, if you work part-time, transitioning to full-time will also help your finances a lot. But even if you’re salaried, putting in just a few extra hours per week of focused work will often, over time, pay off in quicker advancement.  These don’t necessarily need to be face-time hours.  If you normally watch TV at night after dinner or after your kids go to bed, try spending two nights a week thinking through your organization’s problems instead.

For more of Laura's tips, head on over to the Fast Track blog.