Focus on making your employees happy

Recently, I recalled a kind thing that a boss once said, and I was stuck by the intense joy and smile it brought to my face today, eight years later.

For 14 years, I worked two part-time jobs: one as a Life & Career Coach and one as a software technical writer. During that time, I'd gradually reduced my tech-writing hours as I transitioned to my new career.

When my Life & Career Coaching clients consider working two jobs, I share my experiences. One of the Pros of my computer job involved holding onto benefits, which included pension savings. One of the Cons is that my managers frequently had to justify my presence to newly hired administrators (Why are we paying that high salary to the guy who isn't here every day?). My bosses often said, Just trust us, leave him alone, until the new hires could feel reassured by the quality of my work.

During the first half of 2007, I took a leave of absence because of a herniated disk in my back and the resulting surgery. At the same time, my start-up company had significantly increased its staffing and HR policies in anticipation of a corporate buy-out. As a result, after my surgery, I returned to many new faces, some new rules, and a more formal work environment.

Sometime during first few weeks back, one of the newly hired Bean Counters sent an email and asked me to verify my weekly hours. Given my hectic re-entry and the intensity of trying to get back up to speed with my work, I didn't give the question as much thought as I should have. I thought it would be easier to come in just two days a week instead of trying to squeeze in another half day, so I answered "16" (two eight-hour days). 

Well, in the day or two after answering, I began to see form letters informing me that my benefits were being cut. Without bothering to wander 20 yards down the Cube Farm to talk to me, the Bean Counter simply began hacking away. After exchanging a few emails with him, it became clear that this was all happening because I'd dipped below 20 hours a week.  

Ooops!  

Factoring in my 401K and insurances, I was instantly on board with coming into work for that extra half day. So, I sent an email to my manager, he sent a note to the Bean Counter and to me about reinstating my 20-hour work week, and he prefaced everything by saying, Let's make Gerry happy.

To this day, that line makes me smile. Let's make Gerry happy! At that time, it also made me want to work very, very hard for him. It would be a few more weeks before I was recovered enough from surgery to be able to work significant overtime, but I was ready to "show him some love" by doing some excellent work.

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Notice that my manager didn't explicitly focus on compensation, problem solving, resolving an "issue," facilitating better communication, motivating me, reciting policy, or performance coaching. Instead, he briefly-yet-powerfully invoked corporate culture, reminding us that—as we worked really hard—we should also "have each other's back" emotionally, caring about whether we were happy. It's about taking a little bit of time to generate that feeling in your exchanges with a coworker.

When I first became a supervisor, I received a week of management training, and I still remember several points made during that week. When discussing how to reward employees' performance, the instructor emphasized that different approaches make different people happy. Some like the latest new hardware gadget, yet that would be meaningless to other people. Some like the office with the window. Some love a small accommodation for child care. Still others are about the raises or the formal title. Or maybe it's about being placed on a particular project team and being able to do a certain kind of work.

Part of excellent management is understanding that motivation and making someone happy intersect, but they aren't the same thing. Motivation is about a manager generating employee performance; creating joy is about rewarding performance in a way that fosters SELF motivation.

When I was a manager, one of the biggest "bang for the buck" rewards programs involved me doing some detective work about an employee's tastes, writing a Thank You card for a very specific bit of good performance, and popping a $25 gift certificate for a product or service that that person would enjoy into the card: music for a music fan, a movie gift certificate if she liked films, a bookstore gift card for others. 

That really made people smile! But you have to take some time to get to know them to know how to create that moment.

My tech-writing manager knew how to do that, and I smile about it to this day. Thank you, Dave!

Are we failing to see what's there?

I do some meditative exercises while I work out on the elliptical machine at the gym. Generally, I try to stay mindfully in touch with how my body is feeling instead of distracting myself by watching TV, listening to music, or losing myself in thought. 

These past few weeks, I had a few interesting experiences I'd like to share.

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One of my meditative exercises involves visually scanning the room and noticing details: colors of the paint, cobwebs in one corner near the ceiling, charts, text on the machines, exit signs, what's currently on the screen of the three TVs across from me on the wall, other people working out in the room.

Perhaps the most important part of the exercise is to feel content noticing small, sensual details without giving in to a desire for more entertainment. Just breathe, sweat, move, and feel. Simply look and see. Just hear the sounds of the machines. Focus on, accept, and appreciate only those things.

When glancing around the room, I often notice announcements written on a whiteboard hanging high on the wall. I like to notice the different colors of dry markers used to write the messages, and the board often includes drawings and decorations. 

On this particular day, they had removed the whiteboard, probably to change the announcement. As I glanced about the room, I noticed feeling frustrated when my eyesight would land on the blank wall where the sign used to be, and I quickly looked elsewhere for something more interesting. I really missed that whiteboard!

It must have taken me the better part of an hour before I realized that, in my irritation about what WASN'T hanging on the wall, I was failing to notice what WAS there. In frustration, my eyes had been skipping over it without really taking it in. 

So, I returned my attention to the blank space on the wall. I noticed the two wooden supports into which the whiteboard slides. I saw smudge marks normally covered by the board, some shadows, and different shades of color on the painted wall. Once I relaxed and focused on that area of the wall, I actually found enough detail to occupy myself for a minute, which is a long time for a mindfulness exercise.

*          *          *

Another day at the gym: same exercise, but the whiteboard was up, displaying several announcements. During most of the hour I spent on the elliptical, my eyes moved across the contents of the whiteboard several times, and I thought I'd reasonably captured its content. There were various colors of lettering, some paper leaves decorating one corner, some squiggles and asterisks and underlining for emphasis.

OK, I've got it!

When my eyes would return to the board, I'd briefly notice the same set of characteristics: the colors, the leaves, the decorative squiggles and underlines. However, toward the end of the hour, as I glanced at the familiar whiteboard once again, I was startled to notice something new. For one line of words, the writer had drawn a small square where any lines in the letters intersected. The effect was like seeing rivets on the letters. Nice.

At this point, the distinctive decoration really seemed to pop. I wondered how I'd missed it the first, ohhh, twenty times I'd scanned the board!

*          *          *

On the one hand, these examples are trivial. They were just mental exercises. On the other hand, my failure to notice small details made me wonder what bigger things I might be missing in my life.

As it was with the missing whiteboard, my awareness might lapse because life isn't giving me what I expect, my mind so attached to what I think should be there that I fail to see what's right in front of me. Or I might miss details because I've convinced myself that I've gotten it all, and there's nothing left to notice or learn. Or maybe I'm just moving too fast to absorb details, or perhaps I'm distracted by other thoughts and agendas.

Could I be missing important details in my marriage? My job? The way I treat other people?

I'm reminded of the mindfulness concept of being present. How present are you being in your own life? What are you missing?

Don't be so sure...about ANYTHING!

You may have heard some variation of You can't learn anything if you already know everything. Well, I had an amusing, slightly embarrassing thing happen to me that illustrated this point.

Back in mid-May, I noticed that my car wasn't cooling down very much when I was using the air conditioner; it was blowing slightly warm air. This was odd, given that I'd purchased the new car a year-and-a-half ago, and you wouldn't think that the air conditioner would have problems already. I thought to myself that it was probably just low on Freon. I was due to bring the car in for an oil change anyway, so I'd have them look at the air conditioner then.

So, I bring in the car for an unscheduled visit to my dealer's Service Department, and I told them about the air conditioning problem. They say that they can do the oil change, but that the air conditioner situation often requires that they run more diagnostics; I'd have to make an appointment for another day to get that checked. 

Feeling a bit disgruntled, I put it off for another few weeks. That being said, Baltimore summers are hot and humid, and it wasn't long before the heat drove me to make another appointment. Dropping the car off, the attendant looked concerned when I said I'd wait in the lounge until they were done. He told me that air conditioning situations could run hours. I sighed, raised my eyebrows, and told him that I'd still like to wait for it.

Settling into the lounge, I set up my laptop, plugged it in, got some caffeine, and began to do some work. After only 10 minutes or so, the smiling attendant approached, and asked me to step outside with him; he wanted to show me something.

In a very cheerful, professional tone, the attendant began to explain to me how that red-and-blue hotter/colder dial on the dashboard worked. Within seconds it occurred to me what I'd done. The air conditioner worked fine. I'd been driving around for a month with the heat partially turned on. DOH!

Before all these "air conditioning problems" began, we had an unseasonably cool late-Spring day, and I'd turned the heat on a little bit, just enough to put out slightly warm air. After a few weeks, when I needed the air conditioner, I turned it on, and it blew lukewarm. Given that I knew...I KNEW...what the problem was, there was no need to check the temperature dial. It didn't even OCCUR to me to do so.

I began to chortle loudly at what I'd done. The attendant tried to "make me feel better about it" (what do you want to bet he'd seen this before), but I assured him that it was OK to laugh at my foolishness. Oy!

So, in general, life often goes smoother if we're a little less certain about things. :-)

 

Escape the trap of "should"

I read this wonderful article today about stress. It contains some very helpful perspectives that center around the idea that we should manage stress better, not try to eliminate it.

It reminded me of how a recent uneventful workday suddenly overwhelmed me and what I learned as a result.

So, let me tell you about how it all went down. My workday had started off simple and easy. I actually had no Life & Career Coaching clients scheduled, when typical days could include meetings off-and-on from 9 am until 8 pm. So, I pretty much had a free day!

Although, I did have two non-client-related meetings, a plan to hit the gym, and an evening phone meeting and doctor's appointment lined up. There was still plenty of time to get all that done, and, in terms of work days, this should have been very light lifting.

During my late-morning meeting, I noticed three calls go to voicemail. Two were potential new-business clients, and one was from a current client. Given that it's important to close new business as soon as possible, it was at this point that I began to feel a bit of pressure to return those phone calls.

However, my meeting ran longer than expected—clear through the lunch hour; this is where my focus drifted. I was extremely hungry, and I felt pressured to get through lunch ASAP so as to get to those calls. 

It was then that I noticed that my website's formatting looked messed up on my smartphone (But it was working fine last week!). I can't get new business while my website is down, so, while I was eating, I rushed through an attempt to re-code and fix the problem (multi-tasking), which took an extra, unscheduled 45 minutes. 

After fixing the website, at this point, I felt frazzled. Eating meals late will throw me off emotionally. Multi-tasking stresses me. On the one hand, you may be thinking that what I was facing was trivial, and you'd be right. On the other hand, notice how trivial ways of being delayed or thrown off schedule create stress that makes it hard to function well.

The pressure I felt to get everything done by the end of the day suddenly felt unmanageable. My mind started racing and scurrying like this: I could make the phone calls. But I don't want to make the phone calls. I'm not good on the phone when I'm in a mood like this. Well, I could skip the gym, and then I'd have plenty of time to get things done. But the gym helps me to keep an even keel; it's important to take care of myself. And I can't move the evening meetings, they're both very, very important! The phone meeting in particular is about a VIP client, and it took me three months to get this doctor's appointment. I don't see a way to out! Arrrggghhh!

I felt trapped. 

As I retreated to the bathroom to take a break and do my business, it occurred to me that I know emotion management, I TEACH this stuff. It was time to apply the skills and approaches to myself.

So, I took some deep breaths, and I did my best to clear my mind. Then, I asked myself to answer this question honestly: Of all the things you COULD do with the rest of your day, what would you LIKE to do? What are you WILLING to do? I followed that with a few more deep breaths, kept my mind quiet and clear, and I waited for the answer to occur to me.

As I continued to slow down, relax, and clear my mind, the answer presented itself fairly quickly, and it felt easy and clear: The evening meetings can't be moved, so I'll do them. I want to go to the gym. Time permitting, I'll answer the call from my current client after my evening phone meeting, and I'll respond to the other two calls first thing tomorrow morning. 

Ahhhhhh! It all felt do-able again.

Later in the day, given that I had to spend some boring time in a my doctor's waiting room, I did a quick review of a document for a client using my tablet, and I emailed her comments before the meeting began.

No problem! What a difference emotionally from how I'd felt about it all at lunch.

*          *          *

Reflecting on how it all went down, several things occur to me.

Most of my unpleasant stress was caused by the strong feeling that I "should" do everything. That word never literally crossed my mind, but that's how I was behaving. As if I had no choice, as if everything had to get done, as if it was up to me to push my way through it all regardless of how I felt.

When I shifted into the perspective that I could do what I wanted to do or what I was willing to do, I felt more in control, the "trapped" feeling went away, and I quickly felt sooo much better. After feeling better and more relaxed, I was better able to get work done.

It occurred to me that, in my 20's, these moments of overwhelm or upset would often snowball into a week of "being in a mood." Decades later, after learning many emotion-management skills, this kind of one-hour-freak-out experience is as bad as it usually gets. Even though I'm talking about trivial events kicking up stress, that's quite an improvement, and it greatly affects the overall quality of my daily life. Handling the little things well really matters.

Finally, as I went about the rest of my day, I noticed that there was no down time until I arrived home at 8 pm. That being said, even though I was a bit tired from being very active and busy, I didn't feel bad emotionally. It doesn't feel bad to chip away at a large pile of work if you feel as if you're doing what you want to do and making reasonable progress. I think that's a good example of the kind of "good" stress discussed in the Can Stress Help Students article, the kind that focuses, motivates, and assists goal completion. 

You can change how you feel

I was reading a friend's post on social media today, and she mentioned that it'd been more than 30 years since her last migraine headache. Someone else asked if she knew what led to her migraines going away, and this was her response:

Yes! I worked really hard at it! I attended the Mind-Body Institute at Beth-Israel Deaconess Hospital (in Boston), a program started by Dr. Herbert Benson's (author of the Relaxation Response). After the program, I went in for monthly check-ins for a while. I did a lot of exercises aimed at relaxation and mindfulness. I talked to doctors, got my physical pain under control—but the first step was recognizing that I was in constant physical pain—then got some emotional chaos in order. It was a five-to-six year process for me.

Two things stood out.

First was that she used a combination of Western medicine and Mindfulness/relaxation techniques together (click here for handouts about Mindfulness). She didn't get "religious" about one particular approach, and she didn't pit one technique against the other.

Second, my friend framed this experience as a project, one in which she was in charge, she would need to be patient, and she would need to take assessments and make adjustments over time. Implied in all of that is the belief (hope?) that she could do something about her own health and well-being. She had some power, some ability to take action. 

Certainly, as she's told me, she would see some results in the first few months and years, but she was determined enough to give it five or six years to get the maximum results.

In my Life & Career Coaching work with clients, I regularly hear from some of them, Easier said than done! True, that. However, is effort put toward a five-to-six-year project worth 30+ years of being migraine-free? 

Slowing down: taking a mental break at a red stop light

As mentioned recently, I'd been working with a client who was thinking, feeling, eating, breathing, walking, talking, and living way too fast! As a first step toward reducing his anxiety and poor decision making, he needed to slow everything down.

One important method of living slower is being on the lookout for opportunities to slow down. This posting is an example of me discovering such a chance and taking advantage of it.

I was three blocks from my home recently, slowing my car to stop for a red light when I felt this impulse to push the car-radio button. On the one hand, I had a slight urge to hear some music. On the other hand, it was more habit than desire. All in all, I had begun to reach for the button on Automatic Pilot, without really thinking about it.

Then, something odd and helpful happened. I popped out of my semi-trance and wondered what it would be like to enjoy a slower, more peaceful moment, what it would be like to "just be" instead of trying to fill up the moment with something better. It was an instance of snapping out of mindlessness and into mindfulness, 

So, instead of turning on the music, I sat back in my car seat, took note of how my body felt, took a deep breath, cleared my mind, and just "noticed things" while waiting for the red light. They were simple, every-day observations, such as a few people walking on the sidewalk, the traffic light, my dashboard and car wheel, the blue sky and clouds, and some near-leafless trees. 

Because I was paying closer attention to these every-day scenes, they seemed more vivid, clear, and interesting. I'd slipped into being content in the present moment without desiring anything more; breathing, sitting, and checking out the street scene was good enough for me.

It's noteworthy that, by giving these ordinary things some extraordinary attention, I ended up feeling really, really GOOD, instead of feeling irritated or bored by the red light as is sometimes the case.

I was able to maintain this clear, observational mind for the rest of my drive to work, and I arrived relaxed and in a very good mood. 

A Life Coaching model applied to Ferguson

A common Life Coaching model first involves helping people to create a clear, detailed vision for a much better future. When assisting with a vision, one of my favorite tactics is to ask The Magic Wand Question: If you could wave a magic wand and make it so, what would a perfect, wonderful situation look like? In this way, the coach helps the client to stay focused on the desired end game without self censoring based on current limitations and without balking out of fear.

If you aim high and come up short, you'll achieve more than if you aim low and hit the mark.
 
Once the vision is clear, then the coach helps people to create long-term goals and strategies (in general, what needs to happen to create the future you envision?). Finally, given the vision and long-term goals, the coach helps the client to identify a few manageable tasks you could accomplish right now that would move that process along (what would you be willing to do this week? this month?).

If you can do a few small goals every week, all month long, for a few years, then magic happens. You can build the future you imagined.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to apply this process to the situation in Ferguson, Missouri. Of course, this is just an intellectual exercise. I'll leave it up to others to determine of this is something they would actually want to DO, mind you. ;-)

Vision: Imagine a city five years from now in which authority respects community members, and citizens respect authority. Citizens feel as if they belong, there's a place for them in the city, and they have equal opportunity to thrive and succeed in Ferguson. Leadership is skilled and reflects the make-up of its citizenry. Cooperation, collaboration, and communication with citizens has been woven into the process of how the city runs. Specifically, imagine a black mayor, and four of six city council members being black. Imagine a black police chief, and 40% black police officers on the force. (If not black, then an incredibly strong and clear ally of the black community.) Imagine racial profiling statistics involving arrests and ticketing having plummeted.

Long-term goals could be: 

• Work with organizations focused on social justice (for example, the ACLU or the NAACP) to hire a community organizer to lead this effort. Give this person the space and authority to coordinate.

• Hold monthly community meetings to listen to citizens and provide status about ongoing efforts. Spin off specific task forces as issues crop up during these meetings.

• Meet with influential community leaders to review plans and gain their support. Sometimes leaders will be obvious, such as the pastor of a church. Sometimes they will not be obvious but will be equally powerful, such as the wise grandmother who lives on the corner of the block, sees everything, talks to everyone, and who indicates approval with a nod, a smile, or frown.

• Find a few influential white leaders who will publicly back and support this effort. Begin to build a coalition of support.

• Begin to explore funding sources that you'll need for campaigns and for paying your community organizer. Be sure to get some grant writing expertise, and people who have experience soliciting major funding for political efforts. Blend a mix of long-time Ferguson residents, short-term Ferguson residents, and help from outside the community.

• Identify the most win-able city council seats, identify candidates, train them, and build campaigns to elect them. Build a strong Get Out The Vote machine, and put it to work for primaries and elections.

• Provide ongoing education in the community about the vision and the plan. Emphasize the importance of the midterm elections as being the vital election cycle for Ferguson. Enlist people with marketing, graphics, and political advocacy experience to provide this community education.

• Encourage the "house party" model throughout the city, so that every-day-people can meet and stay connected with neighbors, and so that focus and enthusiasm can be nurtured and maintained over a long period of time. Encourage small, neighborhood based projects, and don't micromanage them.

• Investigate setting up a small-business mentoring program, which could provide a bridge between disenfranchised citizens and the city; the goal should be to increase the feeling of citizens that there is a place in Ferguson for them. Look into boosting job-training programs.

Short-term goals could be:

• Form a leadership board that can provide coordination of events until the hiring of a community organizer. 

• Put together a vision statement of your 5-year plan. Enlist members of the community skilled in marketing for ways to communicate this vision as succinctly, strikingly, and powerfully as possible. Run ideas through field tests and focus groups (attend house parties of interested and active citizens, run the vision ideas past them, observe the effect of the message, solicit feedback, and rework the vision accordingly).

• Brainstorm ways to take most of the energy off the streets and away from protesting, and put it instead into sustained, organized, political effort toward enacting your vision. Figure out how to get citizens to keep their eyes on the prize.

• Leverage the energy of recent youth protests by identifying a few youth leaders. Involve them in the planning process.

• Approach your black city council member to ask about shadowing or internship possibilities. Investigate how you will train your future leaders.

• Begin conversations with respected community leaders about their willingness to run for office.

• Attend city council meetings, listen, observe, and soak it all in. Learn the ropes of local city government, and begin to get an understanding of where you are most likely to make inroads with your efforts.

Interesting ideas, eh? Thanks for letting me share them.