Rodd Wagner's Blog, page 4
May 18, 2016
‘Thank You For Laying Me Off,’ Said Almost No One
The latest trotting out of an insensitive management myth was wrapped in a LinkedIn post by one Brian Walker, entitled “A Human Resources Career is Not for ‘Nice’ People.”
Walker’s résumé includes 16 years in human resources at Walmart, three-and-a-half at Kimberly Clark, and, until February, a little over a year as chief HR officer at Sally Beauty. He’s been responsible for terminating a lot of people. He calls it “restructuring.”
“There was a time that my wife began calling me ‘Grim Reaper,’” he wrote, “because during that time it seemed that I was always leading and executing really difficult restructuring efforts.”
Walker once discharged a man who, he says, lacked the experience and abilities the “revised structure” required. “When I informed him that there was no job for him, he took the paper I tried to give him with key data, crumpled it up, and threw it in my face. It was emotionally very painful, for both of us,” he wrote. “I ran into him about a year later while shopping in a local store. He saw me and called my name. I braced myself for what might come, but he was as friendly as could be. He informed me that he had a great job, and thanked me for making it possible for him to be in a position to get that.”
Can it happen? As Walker’s experience testifies, yes. But his wife’s “Grim Reaper” metaphor is closer to what the research shows. Commuting to work one morning thinking about how best to deliver for the company and being sent home just a few hours later to tell your family you are unemployed is, for most, a gut-wrenching experience. In an “at-will” world, it’s legal. But it’s a firm’s most egregious breach of the unwritten contract.
A look at the research on the psychological effects of layoffs and the perspectives of a number of people who’ve been through it can be found in my most recent column for Forbes.
May 4, 2016
Engagementologists are Misleading You on the Importance of Happiness on the Job
Sometimes consultants in the employee engagement field blurt out their pet theories as though they were facts. If enough people believe them (maybe because of the past reputations of the firms they represent), these assertions become myths. These myths sometimes guide company strategy. Then they become bad management practices.
Nowhere is this more of a problem than with the so-called “expert” opinions on happiness at work. Over the last few years, engagementologists have made the following assertions:
“There’s no proof happy employees will do anything great for your company.”
“Somebody can be happy at work, but not engaged.”
“Measuring job happiness levels isn’t enough to retain star performers and build a successful business.”
“Employees might be happy because they are lazy.”
All these are demonstrably wrong. Not just slightly wrong, but diametrically opposed to the actual state of things.
BI Worldwide Research Director Amy Stern and I recently conducted in-depth research on myths about job happiness. We published a white paper on the findings. This morning, Fast Company published a story on that myth-busting. If you lead a company, manage people, or simply have a job, it’s required reading.
The story can be found here.
(By the way, when I went to tag a parallel post to this one on LinkedIn, it turns out there is no “happiness” there. It goes to the problems we have with fundamental assumptions about what work is supposed to be. Good luck out there.)
April 27, 2016
Was Dan Lyons a ‘Widget’ at HubSpot?
I was plugging along reading Dan Lyons’ Disrupted when I hit chapter 12 – “Employees as Widgets.”
Wow, that sounds so familiar, I thought. I emailed Dan. He said it was just a coincidence.
Well, so be it, but it certainly put me in a great position to weigh in on whether Lyons was, in fact, a “widget” during his time at HubSpot. The controversy is instructive for what all of us should expect from our employers and what they should be able to expect from us.
My latest Forbes column has the verdict on each of the 12 factors.
March 30, 2016
Why You May Need an ‘Employee of the Month’
“Employee of the Month” programs are easy to mock.
Often clumsily executed, they can become meaningless, rote, or cheesy. Yet when I reviewed responses to BI Worldwide’s survey of people’s “most memorable” recognition, EOTM showed up quite often. Their answers indicate that for many workers, that kind of recognition is meaningful. Something important would have been lost if each of their employers decided not to have the program and failed to have something else in place that got the recognition to those who deserved it.
You can read the full Forbes column on the issue here.
March 24, 2016
The Not-So-Sweet 16 Reasons College Athletes Are Really Employees
There’s something incredible about March Madness.
The fun of comparing brackets with everyone from the President to your cubicle buddy. The break from work monotony to catch the final minutes of an upset in the company lunchroom. The gambling. The school pride. Doing Dick Vitale impressions at the dinner table. The TV on all day long. A distraction from the last of the winter’s snowstorms.
And at the center of it all, the drama of seeing which university’s employees can beat the other universities’ employees to claim the national title.
Yes – employees.
My case for formally recognizing the competitors for what, as a practical matter, they already are can be found here.
March 8, 2016
The Seven Lessons of Marissa Mayer’s Loss of Command at Yahoo
In July 2012, Marissa Mayer joined Yahoo as CEO to enthusiastic, if not fawning, coverage. In light of how things played out, that hope now seems naïve, whether one was a Yahoo employee hoping for a job with a future or an investor hoping for greater stock value. Mayer’s tour of duty is not over, but she’s taken Yahoo across enough ocean to make clear the lessons of the voyage. I make seven key observations in my latest Forbes column that apply to any organization.
The column can be found here.
February 29, 2016
Index to Articles by Rodd Wagner
The response since Widgets was published has been overwhelming, with coverage or guest columns in many of the major business media. The stories, columns, radio interviews, and podcasts have multiplied to the point that we decided it’s time for an index, which will be kept here at the top of the blog and updated as new items appear.
“Best friend at work” questions
Stop Using Employee Friendships to Measure Engagement – Harvard Business Review; August 7, 2015.
CEO effect on employee motivation
Finally, Evidence That CEO Character Hits The Bottom Line – Forbes; September 23, 2015.
It’s Not Just the Manager Who’s Responsible for Employee Motivation; It’s Also the CEO – Chief Executive; July 10, 2015.
Compensation
Why Meaningful Work Trumps Money – Fast Company; November 12, 2015.
The Science Behind How Pay Affects Productivity – Fast Company; November 10, 2015.
Creativity
Plummeting Sheep And The Tortoise Mind: John Cleese On ‘Liberating’ Creativity – Forbes; February 16, 2016.
Dogs at work
Who Let’s The Dogs In? – Forbes; June 26, 2015.
Donald Trump
Let’s Fire Him: Trump Is A Bad Poster Child For Executives – Forbes; July 27, 2015.
Employee happiness
The 12 Ingredients Of Working Happier (And Better) – Forbes; January 28, 2016.
The Consultants’ Crusade Against Happiness – Forbes; May 22, 2015.
There’s no reason employees can’t be both engaged and happy – Smart Blog on Leadership; July 1, 2015.
How to Create the Ultimate Employee Experience – 33voices podcast; May 1, 2015.
(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Your Own Engagement – widgetstheblog.com; January 13, 2015.
Fridays
How To Make Friday The Most Productive Day Of The Week – Fast Company; April 17, 2015.
Glassdoor
Seven Steps For Gathering Job Intelligence Through Opaque Glassdoor – Forbes; December 19, 2015.
Holacracy
From Chiat To Hsieh: Pulling The Little Red Wagon Of The CEO’s Goofy Idea – Forbes; June 1, 2015.
Individualism
Why Do Employees Think They’re Special? Blame Your Selfie – Forbes; October 8, 2015.
Ice Cream And Individualism: Leadership Lessons From A U.S. Navy Submarine – Forbes; June 8, 2015.
Overtime and paid leave
Don’t Kid Yourself; All Leave Is Limited – Forbes; August 13, 2015.
The 41st Hour Should Be Expensive – Forbes; July 21, 2015.
Public relations
The Optics and Reality of ‘Empathetic’ Amazon – Forbes; August 18, 2015.
Predictive analytics
Your boss may be spying on you (and you might welcome it) – USA Today; January 20, 2016.
Recognition
How To Paste A Professor To The Wall: A Lesson In Recognition – Forbes; February 24, 2016.
Why Your Caveman Boss Struggles To Say ‘Thank You’ – Forbes; November 21, 2015.
Praise And Trout: What I Learned Fly-Fishing With Charlie – Forbes; October 24, 2015.
Quiet Praise to Keep Employees Captive – widgetstheblog.com; January 8, 2015.
Retention
What Your New Rules Index Says About Whether Your Should Quit – widgetstheblog.com; January 26, 2015.
Traditional employee engagement programs
The Beatings Continue And Morale Fails To Improve – Forbes; December 8, 2015.
Management Has to Start Playing By New Rules in Order to Engage Employees – Human Capital Institute podcast; December 8, 2015.
The End of ‘Employee Engagement?’ – Forbes; May 11, 2015.
“Mark Five to Survive!” Why Your Old-School Engagement Program Is Destroying Engagement – widgetstheblog.com; April 8, 2015.
“Get Me Out of This Bucket” – widgetstheblog.com; January 9, 2015.
10 Reasons Not to Do an Employee Survey – widgetstheblog.com; January 7, 2015.
Treating people as widgets
Twelve ways to treat your employees as humans – The Globe and Mail; May 24, 2015.
The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees Like Real People – Inc.; May 5, 2015.
Feel like a widget? Blame “human resources” – The Globe and Mail; May 4, 2015.
We Must Regain Our Humanity at Work – ChangeThis.com; April 15, 2015.
No Robots Were Employed in the Writing of This Post – widgetstheblog.com; February 3, 2015.
Driving Home the Wrong Point – widgetstheblog.com; January 6, 2015.
Wellness programs
‘Cough Up Another Dollar, Chubby': The ‘Loss Aversion’ Mind Game Your Firm May Be Tempted To Try – Forbes; February 20, 2016.
Work-life balance
Why Managers And Employees Have Wildly Different Ideas About Work-Life Balance – Fast Company; February 5, 2015.
– widgetstheblog.com; March 20, 2015.
February 24, 2016
How to Paste a Professor to the Wall: A Lesson in Recognition
If you want to see the power of reinforcement in action, try a little experiment on one of your professors or another presenter. Fill one side of the room with rapt attention, head-nodding, and laughing at her or his jokes. Fill the other side with neglect. It takes about 45 minutes for difference to have its effect, but it does indeed work.
My new Forbes column on the “dopamine effect” can be found here.
February 22, 2016
Speech Open to the Public March 2 at the University of St. Thomas
Most of my speeches are at private events. But if you live in the Twin Cities and would like to hear me talk about Widgets and the science of working happier, I’ll be speaking at the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas on March 2.
I’ll be showing pie charts of my favorite bars and bar charts of my favorite pies.
The event is free, but requires registration, which you can do here.
Hope to see you there.
February 20, 2016
‘Cough Up Another Dollar, Chubby': The ‘Loss Aversion’ Mind Game Your Firm May Be Tempted To Try
Nineteen researchers (yes, 19; insert light-bulb-changing joke here) released a study this week concluding that giving “obese” people money and then docking it when they fail to walk enough works better than giving them money when they do walk enough. In my latest Forbes column, I hammer this “loss aversion” mind game.
The column can be found here.
