The HR Whisperer

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ve decided to share my top ten reasons why any organization should be thankful for HR.    Here goes:

 10 – We figure out where to find people to get the job done, even if there are no niche employees to be found who are experts in Java, HTML, Sequel Pro, Cobol 2.56a, team building, play a mean set of drums, AND come to work on time – sober.

 9 – We understand that it is difficult to merge Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Al-Hijira, Bodhi Day and the Wiccan Yule for the annual holiday get-together.  But we do it anyway.

 8 – We explain – in simple terms – why NO ONE will be getting a raise this year, merit or otherwise.  We also explain why the C-suite got an increase in stock options.  We’ve got the bruises to prove it.

 7 – Instead of asking, “where’s the form for that?” we take care of it.

 6 – We tell you that your supervisors suck at managing people and then try to do something to make them better.

 5 – We say “no” even though the boss may not like it or it hurts, ’cause it’s good for business.  We also say “yes” when it’s good for business.

 4 – We routinely manage FLSA, ADA, FMLA, COBRA, OSHA, and HIPPA  – hell, do you know what these even are?

 3 – We cover your ass, legal and otherwise.

2 – We take care of all the people crap no one else wants to deal with.

 1 – We put the LEAD in Leadership.

It kills me, just kills me, when I read about HR-related issues in BusinessWeek magazine.  I know  it is a business-related sheet and all, but they don’t always make me feel all warm and fuzzy when they start talking about the human side of things.  It’s not often that an article will catch my eye, but in this case one did and so is the inspiration for this week’s blog. 

The October 5^th article, “The No-Cost Way to Motivate,” by Patrick Lencioni who also wrote The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, focuses on the fact that no matter who you are or what you do, everyone wants someone to be interested in them, both personally and professionally.  Lencioni says:

                “One of the greatest causes of misery for employees is the feeling that the person they work for isn’t interested in who they are and what goes on in their lives, personally or professionally. Regardless of how much money people make and whether their jobs suit them, if they feel anonymous they’ll dread going to work – and return home deflated…a manager needs to be interested in employees from a professional standpoint too, not only in job details, but also in motivation. And a big part of this is helping people figure out why their job matters to someone, somewhere in some way large or small.”

The famous Hawthorne Studies of 1924 found that if managers paid a more attention to employees and seemed to care about them, it raised morale and increased productivity.  That was followed by an additional 80+ years of research that essentially told us the same thing.  Then in 2008, Towers Perrin did an employee engagement study that found that  firms with the highest percent of engaged employees increased income 19% and earnings per share 28%. 

So it seems everybody is getting on the bus.  Even BusinessWeek.  So why don’t we see it in practice then?

As the HR Whisperer, this particular concept is one that I have been preaching about for years.  To be motivated at work, everyone needs what I call the EDA:  exercise, discipline and affection.*  You’ve got these, then you’ve got engagement.

Want to motivate employees and get them engaged?  Then use EDA:

Exercise – Give employees the opportunity to improve their skills and capabilities.  There are a ton of ways to do this, such as through education and training,  job enrichment or enlargement, coaching and feedback.  Provide opportunities for folks to have input into decision-making and to be innovative in their thinking or problem solving.  Exercising the brain keeps people interested and involved.

Discipline – Work with employees to set goals and strategies to achieve those goals.  The discipline of planning the work and working the plan creates that line of sight for achievement.  Additionally, provide challenging work assignments that not only broaden skills, but can serve as career advancement opportunities.  This will demonstrate to employees that stick-to-itness will reap rewards.

Affection – Employees continually tell us they want senior management interested in their well being and good relationships with their supervisors.  Lack of a good supervisor relationship is the number one reason people leave their jobs.  In Social Intelligence and the Biology of the Pack Leader, I talk about the importance of the supervisor-employee relationship.  To me, this is the biggie — and Lencioni agrees.

Of course there is no sure fire, quick fix.  Motivation depends on the individual’s perception of what is a valued motivator to them.  But even BusinessWeek tells us that if we pay attention to our employees and work to meet their needs, we’re going to get a pretty decent return on our investment.  And that’s a no brainer.

*I must give credit to Cesar Millan, whose catch phrase for creating a balanced canine is “exercise, discipline, and affection.”

Living in Florida has really gotten me accustomed to thunderstorms. I was driving in the car with my husband the other day and we were looking at these gorgeous fluffy clouds that were stacking up on top of each other. My husband, the wonderful scientist that he is, put on his meteorologist’s cap and educated me on the concept of convergence.

CAUTION: THUNDERSTORMS AHEAD!

The University of Illinois defines convergence as “an atmospheric condition that exists when there is a horizontal net inflow of air into a region. When air converges along the earth’s surface, it is forced to rise since it cannot go downward.” This happens a lot in Florida. Since the state is a peninsula, it gets battered with moist cool air coming in from the Atlantic and the Gulf coasts. When that air interacts with the heated land mass it forms those beautiful stacks of clouds called cumulonimbus. If the convergence is strong enough, which it is during the summer months in Florida, those cumulonimbus clouds often end up turning into thunderstorms.

Of course this discussion on convergence got me thinking once again about human behavior. What if a team has people with both “hot and cold air,” who are converging at a rate that makes them clash, causing massive thunderstorms?

Now, when we talk about convergence in an organizational teaming sense, it means that the group has come together to complete a task in which the impact that each person has on the task and on the team is profound. We could also define this as synergy – when the outputs are more than the sum. Bruce Tuckman is probably most famous for his “form, storm, norm, perform” model, in which he illustrates the development of teams. He says that when teams are in the storming stage of development they are not yet a team as they are internally focused or driven by personal agendas. It is when the group moves into the “norm” stage, where social and other rules have been established, that the group transforms into a team. At this point things do become very powerful and electric – and this spark of energy is just what the organization needs.

But what if this convergence is more like Florida’s thunderstorms rather than a Fourth of July celebration?

Here are some things you can do to help move your group from storming to norming:

• Educate the team on the concept of social/emotional intelligence; that while they cannot control what other people do or say, they can control how they respond. When we are aware of how our emotions control our responses and how our responses control our behavior and ultimately our success, we are more apt to modify our behavior to be more effective. It’s the concept of calm, assertive energy.
• Make sure there is a team mission that clearly identifies what the team is to do and how it will go about doing it. A good team mission will provide clarity, delineate a reason for being in existence and align members around a common goal. Once the mission is in place, you can start dealing with the issues of trust and integrity to help develop and strengthen the teaming relationship.
• Make sure that everyone on the team has an individual role to play. People want to be a part of something bigger, but they also want accountability. When they know what individual success means, they will be more apt to exert the effort to contribute to the team goal as well.
• Develop some team ground rules or a working agreement. If everyone agrees on a certain way of behaving, individuals are more apt to adhere to those roles since they had a part in making them.
• Serve as a coach, no matter what role you play in the team. Most often the coach role is reserved for the team leader or facilitator, but I personally feel that when we all have accountability for building the team, we can build that trust through our demonstration of compassion and empathy for other team members. It takes patience and courage, but you can help move the team from storming to performing through the consistency of your behavior.
• Don’t let the conflict stay in the clouds. Help the team leader or facilitator draw out and resolve differences before they get to critical mass. Conflict in teams is normal; it’ how you deal with it that is important. Not acknowledging conflict just makes things worse.

Remember, in a team sense, thunderstorms can be a good thing.