Category Archives: Work

Change is good, right?

Change management is a very popular topic in the field of communications. There are process steps to follow for organizational change – you can even get certified to lead change.

In William Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” there is a quote about greatness:

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” – (Act II, Scene V).

Does this quote apply to change as well? Sometimes we choose change and other times it’s thrust upon us right? I’ve certainly lived and grown through both.

I’m an avid reader of Seth Godin’s blog and when I was contemplating my most recent career change, I saw this blog from him entitled, “Why Not” – here’s part of it and the link to the full post:

If someone offers you a project or a job with more leverage and the chance to both learn and teach, why not take it? If you can learn something new, more efficiently than ever before, if the opportunity to leap presents itself, why not? Now is a good time.

I admire Seth and Shakespeare and am excited for the next chapter in my career. It’s a great opportunity for me to work at the intersection of communications and technology, manage a team, and learn a new business. The best advice outside of the two writers I quoted today was from my daughter who said to remember to smile when I meet new people. I think I’ll close with that.

What if we were nicer?

Two stories of bad behavior caught my eye this week. I get that it’s “business” not “charity” but there are examples every day of businesses with a heart – Costco, Lowes and Starbucks offer benefits to part time employees for example but President Obama singled out office supply retailer, Staples, for trying to prevent its employees from getting health insurance. I’m not saying that I always agree with the President or with his health care policies but you can read the story here: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Obama_slams_Staples_big_companies_on_healthcare_Shame_on_them.html

Here’s a quick summary of the situation:

  • The Affordable Care Act requires companies with more than 50 employees to pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more. Reuters has reported that some businesses are keeping staffing numbers below 50 or cutting the work week to less than 30 hours to avoid providing employee health insurance.
  • Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, who just announced a merger with Office Depot worth $6 billion, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week, according to a Buzzfeed report on Monday. Oh, by the way, Staples CEO Ronald Sargent brought home $10.8 million in total compensation in 2013. The company reported net profit of $620.1 million through Feb. 1, 2014.
  • President Obama said, “There is no reason for an employer who is not currently providing health care to their workers to discourage them from either getting health insurance on the job or being able to avail themselves of the Affordable Care Act.”
  • Staples responded with a snarky statement indicating that the president did not have all the facts (not sure I agree with them either).

It sort of all starts with leaders right? Leaders have to care and insist that their companies adopt policies that are people first. What if we use pay as a measure of fairness. Seattle-based REI has more than 12,000 employees and it’s CEO makes $750,000. That’s a pretty flat pay scale that most employees would look at and say, “well the CEO has more responsibility than me so he/she is entitled to make a little more.”

To quote some famous pop song, “it’s not all about the money, money, money…” right? What about how you treat people – are you nice to the people around you? Do a search for “who are the nicest business leaders?” The results include, the greatest, the best, the most innovative, but not a single result for “nicest.” I found a person who wouldn’t make the list this week.

Amy Pascal, former co-chairman of Sony Pictures who was involved in the now infamous cyber-attack on the studio and subsequently lost her job, commented publicly for the first time this week. Here’s the full interview with the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31434419

I don’t want to work for her. She doesn’t sound like a nice person or the kind of business leaders that we need in this world. She said things like:

  • “If we all actually were nice, it wouldn’t work.”
  • “Here’s the problem: I run a business,” she continued. “People want to work for less money, I pay them less money.”
  • And she closed out her master class on leadership (and niceness) saying that she “learned a lot from the hack about how to relate to people.” And said “You should always say exactly what you think directly to people all the time,” she said. “In the moment, the first time.”

So, do businesses have to make more net profit than $620 million to pay for their employees healthcare? Would it all work if we were actually nice?

The Future Of Farming Is Here

It’s November and another harvest has finished at my family’s farm in Minnesota. It was a very wet spring and summer followed by a very smooth harvest of wheat, soybeans, sugar beets and corn. Since the last three all need to be harvested around the same time, I don’t think my brother and nephews sleep in September, October or early November. I love harvest – except for the fact that I’m allergic to everything. I did get to visit this fall and my kids and I got to ride in the combine with my nephew as he harvested soybeans. The changes in the last 75 years have to rival that of the industrial revolution. My dad would have been in his early 80’s and when he was young, they cut wheat by hand and thrashed it in bundles. In fact, farming has experienced a generation of change in just the last 20 years since I moved away. I used to drive the combine, which was sayincombine_ipads_cropg something because I’m not real mechanical compared to my brother and nephews. Now, the combine drives itself – quite literally – while using GPS locked onto a Russian navigation satellite that transmits to a receiver mounted on the roof. If that wasn’t enough to blow your mind, all imaginable metrics from the field, the fertilizer used, and the current yield, are monitored by software that is displayed on three iPads mounted in the cockpit. All of this technology has driven yield gains and efficiency, which my dad would have never believed. Global demand for corn and soybeans is rising and my family is doing everything it can to meet that demand – now if they would only get paid a fair price – that’s a whole blog for another time.

As amazing as all of this is, it’s only one example of the innovations happening in the world of farming. In full disclosure, the company I work for is involved in both of these examples but I’m not advocating for any particular technology or approach, just pointing out some amazing possibilities:

  • First, there is an abandoned brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota that some entrepreneurs fish_crophave transformed into a closed loop aquaponics system. What is that you may ask? Basically raising fish in tanks with a twist where the waste from the fish is actually used to fertilize plants, which are in turn grown hydroponically (in water). The whole system relies on some sophisticated filtration but uses very little energy and wastes very little water but on a small scale can produce protein, Tilapia fish, plants_cropand fresh organic vegetables 24/7/365 in a place like Minnesota where it’s 13 degrees and dark more than it’s light this time of year. You can learn more on the Star Tribune, where they developed a nice graphic.
  • Second, I learned about more large-scale fish farming that’s happening at projects like Open Blue, where they are farming Cobia, a premium white fish. It raises the fish from eggs to provide complete traceability from the farm to the marketplace. Another unique part of this project is the use of open ocean technology to culture fish in offshore enclosures, several miles off the coast of Panama in the deep sea. Now let’s talk about scale, the small farm in the brewery hopes to produce 5,000 fish a year, the folks at Open Blue are expecting to produce 1,600 tons of fish this year. Learn more here, especially of note is the great video done by CNN’s “The Next List.”

So, the next time you eat, think about where your food is coming from and then think about the fact that the world has approximately 2 billion people in the middle class today but will have more than 4 billion by 2030 – driving a huge need for increased food production and efficient use of resources. As a farm kid at heart, there’s no one I’d rather have at the center of these huge challenges than family farmers.

Does Passion Belong In Your Work?

I’ve heard advice both ways – try to get paid for following your passion and keep your true passion separate from your work so you don’t ruin it. I can actually see the wisdom and usefulness in both perspectives. On one hand, the cynical side of me says that there aren’t many people in today’s world who get paid for pursuing their passion – maybe artists, musicians, philanthropists, professional athletes and some entrepreneurs. What about Rachel Zoe? First question is – do you know who she is? I’ve heard of her but had never read anything that she wrote until I saw her blog post on LinkedIn today. Here’s something that she said that sounded more like an inspirational speaker than a global fashion icon:

Define your passion and remember why it has ignited and inspired you to be where you are today. I believe that you can and should live your dreams – and that rule should apply even in your professional life. If you love what you do, the success will come. If you let your passions and strengths guide you, failure won’t be an option.

I have a new respect for Rachel Zoe but I don’t really think there are many actuaries out there who say that their passion is analyzing the financial costs of risk and uncertainty but maybe there are. I read a book once about a guy who got laid off from his corporate job and ended up becoming a carpenter right before the last building boom. Hammers and nails weren’t his passion at all but doing that work 9-5 instead of working nights and weekends at his other job left him with much more time to explore his hobbies – like writing – and spend with his family. That doesn’t sound all that bad either.

I was in a meeting one time when we were debating the company mission statement and trying to find words that conveyed our purpose. The word “passion” was actually suggested because we were trying to illustrate how important our work was to the world and how engaged our employees were. It was probably the wrong word but I’ll never forget the response from one leader in the room who said “this is corporate America, we don’t have passion here.” What do you think? Do we? I was reading Fast Company magazine recently and came across this article about employee engagement. There was an interesting quote:

…employee engagement has become the new currency in today’s economy.Some leaders are ahead of the curve. Inspirations like Tony Hsieh from Zappos and Chip Conley from Joie de Vivre Hotels put an extreme focus on organizational culture and a premium on employee happiness. In return, people in these organizations deliver extraordinary value and produce fanatical customer loyalty. There’s a problem though: The majority of us are disengaged–70% in fact. That’s a  half-a-trillion-dollar problem in the U.S. alone.

Does passion for your work lead to engagement? I’m pretty sure it does. When I worked in public education, we didn’t have mission posters anywhere but pretty much everyone was working in education because of their passion for kids and learning. Why else would you do it? The stock options? The cafeteria food? Nope, it’s pretty much because you believe in it. What about you, do you live to work or work to live?

 

How much is 115%

I was reading a job posting the other day. It was a posting for a consulting lead at a large firm that sponsors a really popular soccer team. One line in particular caught my eye, “willingness to work 115% of time to meet client needs.” What does that mean exactly? Am I required to find more hours in the day? The last time I checked, 24 hours was pretty much the maximum available right? What kind of company writes that into their job descriptions and what kind of candidate is attracted to that job? Do any of you out there work 115%?

It’s not like I’m allergic to work or anything. I grew up on a farm so I know what real work is. I used to do some chores before school and after school and then sometimes work in the fields for 12 or 15 hours a day. My dad used to work in the fields all day and then sit up all night when our hogs were having piglets. I know for a fact that my family who still works on the farm actually do work 24 hours straight. But my family is growing food to feed the world and they are often working against the weather – you only have so much time to plant and harvest after all. But why would you want to do that in consulting? What corporate client needs that kind of attention? I mean come on. I used to have a job that encouraged working nights and weekends. In fact, some managers would check online to see which people’s messenger status were green/available. It’s like when George Costanza left his car in the parking lot when he worked for the Yankees so that his boss would think he was working late. Of course that plan failed when he left it there too long; birds camped out on it and it got covered with garbage.

Here’s my closing thought. In a recent article in US News & World Report here: http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/lebron-james-decision_14170.aspx#.VCQ16pQRCno, research highlighted how Lebron James’ decision to rejoin the Cleveland Cavaliers is reflective of his generation. Here’s an excerpt from that piece:

As a Millennial (those born between about 1976 and 2001), the 29-year-old James’s decision to return to Northeast Ohio reflects what studies have reported about his generation and the workplace. It’s a good idea for employers to pay attention. According to a study from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Millennials already make up 36% of the workforce and will represent 47% by 2020. As the best player in the NBA, James could have gone to many teams and commanded top dollar. He also could have been in bigger media markets – such as Los Angeles or back in Miami – rather than the relatively obscurity of Cleveland. Yet throughout his announcement James emphasized personal preference over professional glory. “My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now,” wrote James, an Akron native, in an essay for Sports Illustrated. He noted that he wants to raise his children in Ohio. “The more time passed, the more it felt right. This is what makes me happy.” That sentiment – focusing on personal happiness first and integrating a career into it – comes up in study after study of Millennials.

I know he’s just a basketball player who makes millions of dollars to play a game but I have a lot of respect for what Lebron James had to say and might actually agree with Millennials in that survey. This weekend, I think I’m going to focus 115% of my time on happiness.

Social Media Breakfast?

Have you ever been to a social media breakfast? It’s almost an oxymoron right? It could be on a list with bitter sweet, definitely maybe, jumbo shrimp or seriously funny. It sort of sounds like one of those virtual conferences where people synchronize their watches to tweet each other or all agree to post their status on Facebook from the comfort of their homes along with their coffee and toast.

Well, it’s a real thing where people gather together in an actual place and have breakfast and discuss social media. I’ve been involved with the Minnesota version of the breakfast, SMBMSP, and am part of a panel discussion on the use of social tools inside the firewall at SMBMSP #63 on Monday, March 3: http://smbmsp.org/2014/01/smbmsp-63-behind-the-firewall-social-networking-for-employee-collaboration/

There are SMB’s all over the country from Boston to Seattle. The event in Minnesota started in February 2008 and has been going strong ever since. I’m rather fond of their informal motto of “community + coffee with a side a bacon.” According to their web site,

“Since it’s founding, SMBMSP has been a regularly occurring event where like minded folks across the Twin Cities get together to share & learn about social media. Online membership has grown to over 2,300 professionals from all different disciplines, and many partnerships, jobs, career changes, and friendships have blossomed because of this group’s ability to connect people who enjoy sharing what they know!”

That kind of sounds like what social media was intended to do right? Bring people together? I know facebook started out being a way for college kids to rate their peers and find out if they were single. Now that almost everyone is out there, it seems like people share too much that is worth too little. Twitter was an ingenious innovation, limiting the length of communications! After working in corporate America for almost 20 years and creating lots of 70 page PowerPoint presentations and sitting through full day meetings, that’s a concept I really like. It’s much harder for people to understand though with the hash tags and the mini urls and the language all it’s own. LinkedIn is easy but it’s status as a meat market of sorts for talent and recruiters is a little hard to get past. Do you understand all the social tools like Pinterist, Snapchat, Instagram, Google+, Vine, and the hundreds of others? Some brands have like 9 icons on the bottom of their page so you can “connect” with them. I mean really? Are they bringing people together? Are they even doing a good job with their brand?

However you feel about social tools, find a local social media breakfast and connect with people, dress business casual, create a new tradition and be alone together.