Resigning in protest

The story of the Jet Blue Flight Attendant that resigned from his position as the great Marv Albert would describe - In dramatic fashion, has been all over the news the last two days.  Cursing out a plane full of passengers, activating the emergency slides, grabbing a couple of beers, and making a run for it makes for a fantastic story.

Lots of folks have fantasized about marching in to the boss' office and firing off a pointed screed or diatribe and proudly walking out into a glorious future of happiness and success (or in the case of our friend from Jet Blue, possible jail time).

Sure, the flight attendant was fed up, had to deal with what sounds like an incredibly annoying and entitled passenger, took a shot to the head from said passenger's luggage, and seemingly just snapped. It happens.  Usually not as cool and newsworthy as this episode, but it happens.  People get fed up and quit their jobs every day.

But I wonder about  other scenarios that might make employees resign in protest.  These could be sub-standard working conditions, a hostile work environment, or even inept management.  

I mean really inept.  

The kind of management that would welcome back to the organization a notorious ex-employee.  A person in whose tenure as a high ranking and highly paid member of upper management left a history of failure, poor leadership, shattered public relations, and just for good measure was sued by another former employee for sexual harassment, dragging the organization through a public and embarrassing court case.

This just in - The New York Knicks to bring Isiah Thomas back to the organization as a consultant.

Yes, the Isiah Thomas that in four plus years as Knicks GM and Coach led the team to exactly one playoff appearance and made a series of colossally bad personnel decisions resulting in the team being burdened with a slew of bad contracts for under performing and below average talent.

And did I mention the sexual harassment lawsuit?  Ok, just checking.

If you were an employee of the Knicks, and your leadership openly welcomed Thomas back into the fold after his legacy of failure and embarrassing behavior what would you think?  Could you take it any longer? Would you feel compelled to head for the emergency exit, grab a beer, pull the slide, and make a run for it?

Could your management make such a colossally bad hire that it would make you resign in protest?

Footnote - apparently there is no truth to the rumor that Knicks owner Jim Dolan is looking to bring in Mark Hurd to get the back office operations in shape.

The Organization's Self-Image

A few days ago I stumbled across a very old post on a blog called Kung Fu Monkey titled 'Farm Fetish'. 

I know an odd title for a blog and sort of a strange post headline, in a sort of unsettling, not-safe-for-work kind of way. The main idea of the post is that changing demographics and dramatic shifts in agricultural production had rendered the idea of 'finding' the real America out on a family farm really was not just a quaint or nostalgic concept, but one actually inaccurate and misleading. Flickr - Dia

Since more and more Americans were living and working in cities, and less and less people were actually making a living as farmers, that our collective notion of ourselves as Americans and our collective self-image needed to adapt.  'Middle America' is no longer a farmer in Nebraska, but rather a web designer in Brooklyn, or an accountant in Chicago.

This notion is best summed up by this question in the article:

The honest question is, what in the American character keeps us returning to this completely false self-image?

I think that the post makes an interesting point, one that still holds up and additionally might be applied to many organizations as well, to their understanding of their markets, and potentially their workforces.

How much or little have organizations adapted their thinking of 'what it means to be us' and really took the time to understand the changes and re-composition of the people that make up the organization?

Have many enterprises started asking questions like:

What percentage of the workforce are managing significant challenges in caring for children or for older relatives? 

How many are not native English speakers?

How many are avid video gamers? 

How many blog or have large followings on Twitter?

We are seeing each week on prime time TV, courtesy of Undercover Boss, examples of CEO's and leadership in general not truly being in tune with the people in their organizations.  Is it enough for organizations to try and 'know' their customers and their markets?  Should they also strive to know themselves?

And if the organization did know these things would it be able to exploit that knowledge? 

And then would the knowledge get shared, such that the organization's self-image would change?

Ok enough.  I broke the record for open questions in a post. 

Anyone know some of the anwsers?

The Situation

Full Disclosure - I have never seen the new Reality TV show 'Jersey Shore', the saga of the misadventures of a collection of Italian-American young adults, but the other morning on a cable news show (when they were able to take a break from the Tiger Woods drama), ran a story about how some Italian-American groups and advertisers are up in arms about the show.

These Italian-American groups don't like how the show seems to play to traditional stereotypes, and some advertisers have canceled ads on the show, feeling like the content is inappropriate and don't want their brands associated with such an unsavory and offensive show.

I don't really care about any of that.

What is interesting to me, is that from the 'news' story (on MSNBC), we learned that one of the show's participants calls himself 'The Situation'.

A classic, classic nickname, made all the more timeless since is it is a kind of intangible concept, not a boring nickname that is simply a play on a real name, 'T-Bone', or somehow descriptive of an aspect of a physical trait, 'Shorty'.

No, 'The Situation' is pretty cool, makes you think (I mean besides about how much of an idiot the guy likely is). 

And since there is almost nothing more fun in the workplace than giving out nicknames to our 'friends', I figured I would try and come up with some 'Situation-like' monikers for some of your favorite co-workers.

So here goes:

The Equilibrium - The guy that never can take a side on an issue.  Sees the benefits and drawbacks in every approach.  Never will come out for or against anyone.  Happy to simply go along with the consensus while being sure never to actually help form the consensus.

The Standoff - The one that once takes a position, will dig himself a World War I style trench and hunker down until the bitter end. You will have to practically mustard gas this guy to get him to budge. After a long time in the bunker when the stress is high and hallucinations start to set in, The Standoff might climb out and wade back into the field, where hopefully you can put him out of his misery.

The Malaise - You know this guy.  No matter how exciting the news, how interesting the project, or how crazy the office holiday party gets, The Malaise can't seem to get jazzed up.  Likes to wear old, Mr. Rogers style cardigan sweaters and walk very, very slowly.  Will be the first one to notice when the network is down, or the copier is out of paper. 

The Operation - This guys turns everything, no matter how simple, into a ridiculous drawn-out series of e-mails, discussions, meetings, unnecessary documentation and the like.  Nothing can be solved quicky, and certainly without soliciting input from all members of the team, from management, and possibly the custodial staff.  No decision can be rushed, getting everyone's input is good.  Now, how long should the weekly status meetings be, 30, 45, or 60 minutes?  Let's have a meeting to discuss this.

Last Call - This is the annoying guy that makes sure he is the very last one to leave the office every day, and makes sure the boss and everyone else knows it.  Walks over to the vending machines at about 5:30pm every day and loudly proclaims 'I wish we had Red Bull, I could use a Red Bull about now'.  When you leave at 5:00 likes to stop you in you tracks and ask, 'What's this, half a day?'.  He then retires to his cube and proceeds to put on headphones and play World or Warcraft until 8 o'clock. 

Who are some of your favorite workplace 'Situations'?

Hit me up in the comments.

Abandon Ship

A recent article on MSNBC.com titled 'Workers may jump ship as economy improves' articulated several reasons why many employees, and in particular high performing and high potential employees will look to leave their current employer once the economy and jobs market improves. Flickr - Sea of Legs

Some of the reasons cited for this conclusion will likely be familiar: lack of trust or feeling that employers care about them, compensation cuts, lack of career development opportunities, and low engagement levels all could conspire against employers seeking to retain their top performers.

So what can an employer do, even today when times are still ridiculously tight, resources are scarce, and everyone feels stressed and overworked (when they are not just thinking about being happy to simply still have a job).

Some of the most important points raised in the MSNBC piece -

'To ensure that employee engagement does not suffer, organizations must rebuild peer networks — especially across teams and departments — to increase employees' connection with their colleagues', and 'Whether an employee's job matches his or her personal interests has the greatest influence on engagement in comparison to all other aspects of the EVP', both have direct implication in the HR Technology space. 

Technologies that can help distributed colleagues find each other, surface common interests and skills, and enable some aspects of 'socialization' in the workplace will become more and more important. And workforce planning tools that can be leveraged by both management and employees to help identify and align career aspirations with opportunity can play a major role in determining whether or not some employees choose to move on.  A great internal opportunity may be present, but if the right employee does not 'find' it , (or get found), it may as well not exist.

I think in 2010, a major trend in HR Technology will be the development, application, and execution of tools and platforms that will facilitate these connections, help build these networks, and hopefully align worker's interests with the organizational opportunities.

Nations and Companies, Haves and Have-nots

I read an interesting piece in Esquire online titled 'What Makes a Nation Rich, One Economist's Big Answer'.

In the piece, the author asserts that some countries are wealthier, safer, and more successful than others not primarily due to natural resources, colonial traditions, or even technological advances. Flickr - peppergrass

Rather, some simple and basic concepts of openness, transparency, and fair and trusted institutions are the most likely predictors of success as a nation. The author cites examples of the split US-Mexican city of Nogales and North and South Korea as examples supporting this theory.  North and South Korea have essentially similar climates, natural resources, histories, and there really is no 'real' reason why one nation should be any more successful and its inhabitants standard of living substantially better than the other.

The author offers some macro-level approaches to the issue (trade embargoes, diplomatic pressure, support for open government) and some micro-level remedies (more and faster internet access, more robust encryption tools, and better cell phone networks.) 

What I wonder is if some of these 'nation' recommendations could also to be applied to organizations?

What if there really was not any inherent advantage in your organization's products, services, location, or otherwise that you could leverage to win in the marketplace? What if your success was largely going to be determined by the very same criteria we see in the success of nations? Namely, openness, transparency, employee access to information, no fear of draconian reprisals, and an environment where everyone has a right to be heard?

What if the really important differentiator was culture, how people are treated, the willingness of employees to open up, and the organization's support of honest, open, and transparent communication?

Maybe those are the really important differentiators.  So instead of draining every last ounce of managerial and company energy trying to uncover 'the next big thing', perhaps try working on those other capabilities or traits that are freely open to all.

And maybe, just maybe the 'next big thing' will emerge.