You must jump through the hoop of Fire, and

Skate to the middle of the Pond

to face the Ogre

So fear

Will no longer hold you back

From anything

It will not disappear

But it will not stand in the way

Anymore

A client, who is an executive coach, confronts the ogre who stopped him, as a child, from skating to the middle of the pond. This was sent to him, because regardless of the concrete outcome, he will realize a critical and long lasting achievement…the more important outcome.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Face the Ogre is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

Most of my work involves executive coaching and consulting to leaders regarding change, developing leadership teams, innovating in the work place and the like. I also work with a small number of psychotherapy patients, because I love to see people blossom regardless of the garden’s name or location. Sometimes, maybe often, the learning from one garden applies to the other.

This post is one such example. It is about learning to be with and hold the intensity of life – alone, something leaders have to do but not among the competencies we often discuss.

Rewired Brain

The Rewired Brain

The other day a patient lamented, “I wish Peter [her husband] could appreciate how much I’ve changed. I’ve rewired my brain. I can feel it. I know it looks different in there. I wish I could show him before and after pictures.” She’s right. She has over-ridden and overwritten well worn neural pathways and created new ones. She no longer travels the Highway of Anxiety or the Mile of Fear. A year ago, she was afraid to open her door at night and terrified by noises in the dark. Overwhelmed by demands of caring for her one year old son and other facets of adult life, she fled to her parents’ home daily. She now travels along streets named I Can Do This and It’s Cool to Be an Adult. I most enjoy watching her move on down I’m Loving My Life Road.

Now What?

What about her lament, her desire for others to recognize the degree and intensity of change with her? “That’s the next step, learning to hold all the emotion yourself, without the need for others to know or appreciate. Sometimes it’s only for you.” I explained.

I learned this from my practice supervisor years ago when he said,”Being a psychologist is a very lonely profession.” I was surprised. How could I be lonely when I have such intimate conversations with people? He went on, “You have spectacular moments. You can be awe-struck at times, but you can never share the experience. You have to learn to hold it and to be with the loneliness.” He was right. There have been times I’ve sat in my office after a patient leaves, unable to move from the chair. I have unsent tear stained letters written to patients when our work and our relationship ends.  I write them for myself as a way to “hold” and at the same time “release” the experience.

This holding is a tough one, totally do-able but an odd kind of loneliness not marked by sadness, just alone-ness. It’s a muscle many of us don’t learn to exercise, to be alone with our thoughts and our feelings without acting on the urge to tell, to share.

But there is a reward. Held thoughts and feelings morph. They produce.

Try it. You might like it.

All-one. Alone.

The Leader’s Loneliness

Leadership is also a lonely sport. It demands the ability to hold life, at times without solace, comfort or sharing.

I was thinking about this the other day, when news of Osama Bin Laden’s death was reported. I pictured the public appearances President Obama made during the days leading up to this event, knowing all the while what was about to take place. Meantime, he had other presidential duties to perform, and he did so without ever appearing to be a man holding the tension of what was unfolding.

To see an actual demonstration, watch this video of President Obama addressing The White House Correspondent’s dinner that took place a few days before the invasion. Please do enjoy the humor while you watch.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve Rewired My Brain, Now What? is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

“Who among us will lead the way in taking less so that together we can be more?”

The rest of this article appears as a guest post on Dr. Jack King’s Servant Heart blog. To read it click here

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

What Would Sargent Shriver Ask of Us? is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

While there is no sure fire way (pun intended) to avoid being pink slipped, there are a number of steps you can take to increase the chances of holding on to your current position.

1.  Do the Basics Well

• Be on time. Don’t take long lunches, leave early, dress poorly, use work time and resources for personal business.
• Do quality work and meet deadlines.
• Maintain excellent relationships with managers, peers and customers.

2.  Understand and Contribute to Important Goals

• Make it your business to know your company’s and your organization’s most critical goals.
• During difficult economic times increasing revenues, maintaining customer relationships and cutting costs typically matter most.
• Stop working on extraneous projects you initiated like organizing the weekly betting pool and find more important work to do.

3. Take Your Manager’s Perspective

• Ask your manager what he is most concerned about – what keeps him up at night?
• Help solve these problems.

4.  Stay Visible

(Thanks to Wendy Gelberg of Gentle Job Search for this tip.) Some think if you stay below the radar you will be safe.  This is based on the old principle that you keep your head down so the teacher won’t call on you, but if no one knows your value you are expendable.

• Communicate your value to your manager.  Don’t assume she sees what you are working on or the value of your contributions.  She may be focused on other priorities or her own survival and may not fully appreciate the scope of what you do.
• Volunteer for important highly visible projects that involve and will put you in front of key decision makers.
• Find a mentor who has an important role in the company.
• Ask for and keep testimonials about your work and the quality of your interactions with others.  Share them with your manager, her manager and your mentor.

5.  Uplift and Support Others

• Stress is everywhere and some people retreat to their most defensive and least productive behaviors. Don’t do likewise.
• Be supportive of your team mates.  Most jobs require people to work on teams.  Show that you are a team player even in tough times.

6.  Work to Keep Your Current Job and Prepare for Your Next Job

• The best time to find your next job is while you are still working because your confidence is higher and your network is easily accessed.
• Make sure you have contact information and good references from key people.
• Polish your resume.
• Stay in touch with people who are being laid off.  Be a resource to them.  They will find jobs and if needed they will help you in return.

7.  Think Outside the Box. Take Calculated Risks.

• Consider whether this might be a good time to volunteer for severance.  If you’ve been thinking about leaving and have other options to pursue the timing may be right for the following reasons:
  • Leaving on your own is less stressful than having someone make this decision for you 
  • You may be able to negotiate a better severance package
  • You will avoid the stress of waiting for the inevitable pink slip and can use your time and energy to pursue your desired situation
• If you have creative solutions to cut costs or increase revenues tell the right people.
• If you have ideas that will help the company avoid laying off even one person, tell someone.  Perhaps you are planning to start a small business and are willing to work half time or job share while you launch this endeavor.  Managers don’t want to lay people off and welcome alternatives, although use your judgement about sharing the reasons why.

8.  Be as Flexible as Possible and Let the Right People Know

• If you are willing to relocate to a profitable branch in another state where they are looking for talent let the right people know. (Weigh the possibility of layoffs in this new group before you volunteer. A new group member may be the first to go either because they lack seniority or because people don’t know them and their work yet.) 
• Continuously learn about new areas of the business and develop new skills.

9.  Network, Network, Network

• Being well connected in your company and your industry is an asset in your current role.
• Most people find jobs through networking.  Building and maintaining these relationships in good times puts you a step ahead when it’s time to find your next position. 

Finally, it is important to understand the criteria your company uses to make layoff decisions so you know what you can control or influence and what you can’t.  If your company uses a straight seniority system, last in first out, you should still do all the above in good times and in bad, but be prepared and don’t beat yourself up when you receive word that you are being laid off.  

Following are various examples of how layoff decisions are made:

• Seniority
• Non-critical Work – This is a decision about the job function, not the person doing the job.  Non-essential or non-revenue generating jobs or entire departments may be eliminated.
• Restructuring - Companies may eliminate layers and/or departments, combine jobs, outsource, cancel or delay projects.  Again these actions are aimed at the job not the person in the job.
• Performance – The company may let go of poorer performers and retain the best. Unlike restructuring, where it’s about the position, this is about the person. When poor performers are laid off remaining employees may be asked to fill vacated positions.
• Early Retirement Packages 
• Voluntary Severance

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Avoiding the Pink Slip Epidemic is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

A number of years ago I helped close several business units and manufacturing facilities. My role included advising leaders on people aspects of the closing; developing communication plans and strategies to keep employees motivated, productive and serving customers;  and delivering programs to help employees achieve their transition goals. 

In each case, people were treated with care and dignity.  They responded in kind – acting with respect for the business, customers, and each other.  Stories from from two of these businesses appear below. 

Southwest

The Southwest plant (SW) was without competition for its product so reducing cost and advancing the process technology were low priorities.  This changed when several new companies entered the market.  Within a short period SW’s costs were not competitive and they missed a generation of technological advances that improved production speed and product quality.  Loss of customers, revenues and decreased profit margins followed quickly. After a two year decline  the parent company gave SW’s leadership team one more year to develop a plan for staying in business or one for going out of business.  The leadership team, in turn, involved the entire employee population in these endeavors.  For the first 9 months they focused on ways to stay in business, but the required investment was too great.  Neither the parent company nor other partners were interested.  Together the leadership team made the painful decision to close the business.  The team spirit they developed and what they learned about working together in the previous 9 months served them well in doing so.

They began with a vision. “Downsizing with Dignity” became their charge and along with it a goal of ensuring that every person who wanted one would have a job.  For the next 6 months as they tended to the business of closing the plant – selling assets, dealing with legal commitments, fulfilling customer orders, closing the books – they banded together, shared resources, and supported each other.  During one event everyone wrote their name on the back of each business card in their collection and tossed them into an empty aquarium tank.  Employees looking for work, went through the piles of cards.  When they found one for a company of interest, they contacted the related SW employee who then made an introduction to his/her contact.    Every person from the SW plant found a job within months of the closure.   At the final ending ceremony  each member of the leadership team was gifted with a clock that was designed and hand assembled by employees.  The face of the clock was made from the plant’s main product and the rest from spare parts.  It included an engraved note of gratitude.  This clock is one of my most cherished pieces of professional memorabilia. 

Southern New England

The assembly work of the southern New England plant was being outsourced to the Far East.  Within a year the plant would shut down.  Employees would be laid off in stages.  Again, the challenge was to engage needed employees through their time of departure.

I developed and led 3 experiential hands-on workshops.  “Managing Transitions” mapped out the various stages employees would go through as a result of the layoff and provided strategies and tips for moving through them.  Managers were the first workshop participants.  They went through an additional module where they learned how to work with and communicate to employees during the transition process.  Guidelines included:

1.  Over Communicate – people often don’t hear things the first time around when the message raises stress and anxiety. 

2.  Communicate information via multiple channels and modalities.

3.  Create symbols and ceremonies to mark endings, such as a monthly goodbye party for exiting employees.

4.  Provide emotional support if and when employees need to talk or vent.

5.  Arrange a final closing event and invite all former employees.

6.  Create a private and quiet space where managers can just sit and breathe, listen to music, run on a treadmill, talk to a coach or their peers, and engage in other activities to help manage the stress of supporting employees while knowing their futures are uncertain as well.

We provided two more workshops and resources to help employees develop job search goals and strategies, resumes, and cover letters; as well as to increase their comfort and effectiveness with networking, interviewing and negotiating offers.   As in the case with the Southwest, employees were grateful and while they were sad to see things come to an end, they were not angry, there were no law suits or ugly scenes.

Prior to the final closing event, a seasoned assembly technician whose hobbies included horticulture asked permission to deliver a short speech about “endings.”  The day of the event he walked onto the stage carrying a healthy vibrant geranium plant with over-sized brilliant crimson flowers.  In the other hand he held a pair of trimming shears.  Standing in front of the podium, he began to hack away at the plant.  The audience responded with a chorus of ooohs, as if feeling the pain of each cut.  He delivered a short but poignant and emotional speech explaining the need to cut back the older life of the plant that had reached its peak in order to make way for new leaves and flowers to grow.

Click here to find out about seminar on this topic.

Click here for seminar on creating alternatives to layoffs.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Downsizing with Dignity is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology

Imagine laying off 8% of your workforce then having kudos spread like wildfire across the internet using words like ”authenticity, transparency, accessibility and integrity.”  Meanwhile your customers commit to more word of mouth marketing and placing more orders to ensure your company survives the economic downturn.  This is exactly what happened immediately after Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh announced layoffs and that the company would “take care of employees properly” by providing 2 months severance pay, more for those with 3 plus years at Zappos, and full health insurance coverage for 6 months.  He was specific and transparent about the company’s finances and future outlook.  Hsieh also discussed the emotional aspects of these actions and encouraged employees to respond.  Failure to act as Zappos did may result in the following scenario described in INC. Magazine,  “It felt like torture…engineers seemed to be writing deliberately inscrutable code in order to protect their jobs.”  It would literally take 4-5 hours to make heads or tails of it – a job that normally takes 2 minutes.  (Seminars on Downsizing like Zappos   and    Creating Alternatives to Layoffs)

Below you can read part of Hsieh’s initial layoff announcement to employees.

“I know that many tears were shed today, both by laid-off and non-laid-off employees alike. Given our family culture, our layoffs are much tougher emotionally than they would be at many other companies.

I’ve been asked by some employees whether it’s okay to twitter about what’s going on. Our Twitter policy remains the same as it’s always been: just be real, and use your best judgement.”

 (To read the full text of Tony Hsieh’s email to employees click here)

Here are a few of the plethora of statements from customers, employees and industry experts that flooded the internet.

“Known for its extensive vetting process when hiring people, Zappos is now earning praise for how it fires people. Beyond a generous severance package, the shoe e-tailer is being commended for the comprehensive way the layoffs were explained to workers.”  (retailwire.com)

“I believe this is one of the companies that deserves to survive and succeed, contrary to many of the Wall Street fatcats that are getting away with taxpayer money… Let’s spread the word, Zappos is a company with integrity and dedicated to the clients !!! Consumers have to exercise their power to ensure that the best companies have a chance to succeed !!!”  (Zappos customer, LinkedIn)

“Good for Zappos for handling an unfortunate reality of  business with humanity, something sorely missing in corporate America.” (Twitter)

Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin are some of the insightful, kind, and compassionate corporate executives that I have ever had the privileged of working under. I was a mere rank-in-file employee. I am sure, without a doubt, when Tony says this was an extremely difficult decision, he means it. I think Tony was being as transparent and honest as he could be about why these events transpired. When he says it was emotional, he means it.

Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin have gone beyond every conceivable limit to make Zappos one of the best companies to work for in the United States. Zappos isn’t just a website, it isn’t just a cultural perspective, it is a family. During my time there, I noticed that Zappos cares for their employees like no other company I have ever seen. I worked in the Silicon Valley in the heyday from 1999 to 2002 during the implosion of the dot com companies. Somehow, Zappos was able to maintain a work hard play hard ethic while giving employees every possible comfort you can imagine.

In kind, the employees respond by working more productively and with a sense of ownership in their tasks. That is why the vast majority of the comments left on the site say something about how impressed they were with the fast delivery of their merchandise, or how wonderful the customer loyalty team was while speaking with them.

In contrast to Zappos, public .com companies like webvan, gave their employees no notice at all. The employees showed up to work only to find the doors literally chained shut as a putative measure by some government agency. Do you think those employees got severance packages and 6 months of paid Cobra?” (zappos blog)

“I am a repeat customer and will continue to be. I have 3 married children and 7 grandchildren and 2 soon to be grandchildren in law. I have passed the catalog that came with my shoes to them and told them to pick out their Christmas as I will be doing all my Christmas shopping at Zappos. I hope that will help the Zappos situation just a little. And I have emailed all my friends and family the web site to Zappos telling them how great product you have, how quickly items are shipped and about the free shipping and return also. Some have already made purchases from you. ” (zappos blog)

Ten Tips for Downsizing with Dignity

Company leaders demonstrate their real values when making tough decisions in difficult times.  While lay offs may be unavoidable the way you treat people during the process speaks volumes.  Word of your actions and what they say about the company travel across the internet at lightning speed.   Your current and future employees, customers, vendors, competitors, industry experts, and stock holders will hear the good, the bad or the ugly. 

If your core values include caring about employees, layoffs are a time to walk the talk.  So why don’t more companies do the kind of things Zappos does, beginning with a clear and straightforward explanation of what’s happening, allowing people to express their regrets and say goodbye, and providing services or compensation through a reasonable period after the layoff action?

Layoffs are emotionally difficult.  Rather than sit with the discomfort – our own, the person who was laid off, and his/her peers - many of us cut and run.   But when you turn your head away from the bleeding, others see you as simply not caring enough to look and tend the wound. 

Because layoffs are seen only as a cost saving measure, the idea of spending more than the bare minimum seems illogical.  But layoffs are much more than a cost saving measure.  They are an opportunity to strengthen motivation, morale,  the culture,  and the company’s reputation. It is difficult to manage the competing tensions of saving while investing but it is possible.  Here are 10 tips to guide you.  

1.  Be transparent and open. Explain what actions you are taking and why as well as the company’s current and predicted financial picture.

2.  Be generous.  Offer the best severance package possible.  (Consider how much you would have to pay for the kind of marketing Zappos received.  You are investing in your company’s future not just saving money.)

The algorithm for time to finding a new job is 1 month for every $10,000 in salary, and that’s in relatively normal times. Help employees get through this period.

3.  Continue to offer health insurance by paying some portion of or all of the employees COBRA expenses.  

4.  Help employees land on their feet by offering workshops such as 

• Managing Transitions*
• Job Search Strategies that Work*
• Job Search Tool Kit – resumes, cover letters, networking, etc*

*Germane Consulting offers these workshops

• Starting Your Own Business

5.  Make arrangement for former employees to use company resources - phones, laptops, internet access, and printers – during their job search

6.  Create and communicate a plan for saying goodbye.  Don’t just “disappear” people.

7.  Use your network to help people find work or start their own business

8.  Offer to be a reference

9.  Create a mechanism to communicate to remaining employees  good news about those who have left – with their permission of course.  For example, announce who has landed a new job and where, who has started a new business, or decided to stay home with family.

10.  Involve employees in finding ways to cut costs.  Meetings on a Napkin™ is Germane Consulting’s methods for engaging large groups in structured problem solving sessions that deliver creative outside the box solutions and engage everyone in implementation.  Employees who are closest to the work know a great deal about what can be done at the operational level.  In addition, you will be showing once again that you are all in this together and that employees have some control over their own destiny.  Both factors will help sustain morale.

©2012 Germane Insights. All Rights Reserved.

Finding the Upside in the Downturn is an original post from Anne Perschel on Germane Insights - Achieving Leadership Excellence through the Art and Science of Psychology