At the age of 47 I would like to think there will be no more crises coming my way.  Yet, I am realistic to know that as long as I am breathing, this world likes to deal in drama.

In my last position as chief human resource officer, we built a great company with a wonderful team of people, but executive behavior began to turn toxic and the winds of corporate culture changed from calm to stormy.
I was fired for raising warning flags about out of control executive behavior.  Seven months later the company filed for bankruptcy, apparently due to the greed and egos of a few individuals.  This bankruptcy has cost thousands of people and businesses millions upon millions of dollars.  The personal and financial costs to me were enormous as well.  It was simply a crisis of life.

If you are old enough you have likely dealt with some tough life issues. As imperfect human beings living in a volatile world we are bound to run into difficulty several times in both our personal and professional lives.  When these difficult times hit us head on there are several questions we ask ourselves, however two particular questions come to mind: 1) Why me? and 2) How do I get through this?

Why Me? Although this is a very good question, you are not going to like the answer.  Tough stuff happens to everyone. When you see someone walking down the hallway who appears to have their life together, walking confidently, dressing sharply and appearing on top of the world, you can rest assured if they have not dealt with life’s difficulties, they will.  But my money is on the fact that they have dealt, or are dealing with something in their life that has shaken the very foundation of their beliefs.

We are not alone when it comes to dealing with a crisis. It is a time to bring those close to you closer. It is also a time to discover who will stand by your side. Everyday, someone around you is likely trying to work through a difficult life or business issue.  Simply put, you are not alone.

How Do I Get Through This? This is actually a better question to ask. “How am I going to get through this crisis and become a better person as a result?” We can choose to run away from adversity in life or embrace the hard times in life.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we should enjoy those difficult days, but rather accept that we are going through a rough time and make the best of it.  Otherwise, we will likely alienate all those people important to us: family, friends and coworkers.

The Results. I would much rather work with someone who has been tested by a crisis in life.  If they have tasted the scorn of the real world, and embraced and allowed the crisis to make them a better person, this individual will likely make a great coworker or leader. Those who have embraced and learned from adversity tend to develop genuine humility.  Humility is a wonderful quality that tells me someone is worthy to lead others.

Those who run from a crisis, or make the crisis worse by creating more issues and drama are not worthy to lead or serve in a position of responsibility.  People with excessive ego needs will likely run from a crisis and fail to learn the valuable lessons a crisis brings, hurting themselves and those around them.  I am not advocating accepting failure, but rather embracing what should be learned from adversity.

Great leaders experience success because of their humility and give credit to others rather than demanding the limelight or absolute loyalty.

What is a Crisis? The type of crisis you are enduring is not as important as how you deal with it.  Whether we are dealing with with abuse, trauma, death or disease, bankruptcy, financial setbacks, family disagreements or workplace distress, we should work to become better people on the other end of the ordeal.  This requires accepting crisis as a fact of life and learning through the eyes of humility. It is my hope you will become a better person for enduring your next trial in life and show how it can be accomplished with humility and grace.

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“The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great. Yet at the same time they display a remarkable humility about themselves, ascribing much of their own success to luck, discipline and preparation rather than personal genius.”

– Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great

Graphic Credit: Oblation by Netzie Bebing in Grey Tones

IN THE NEWS: See Kevin Kennemer, The People Group, appear in this news story covered by Tulsa’s NewsOn6 about a business owner who avoided layoffs.

When meeting with CEO’s, business owners and leaders, it is in their company’s best interest to understand the advantages of adopting, modeling and promoting a Great Workplace Initiative.  The company wins. The employees win.  Our society wins. Great Workplaces are also better able to avoid the scourge of U.S. corporations – the dreaded layoff.

When times get tough, Great Workplaces are better prepared for difficult business conditions.  According to a recent ground-breaking GreatPlaceJobs.com study, Great Workplaces perform layoffs at half the rate of their average-performing counterparts.  This means job applicants should be searching for companies recognized as Great Workplaces. Below are some observations about layoffs:

• Layoffs should be the last resort, not a knee-jerk reaction to please shareholders.
• A CEO who knows and cares for employees will first attempt cost-cutting measures and involve the entire workforce.
• The goal of drastic payroll reduction is to quickly raise the stock price.*
• Downsizing raises the perceived value of the firm but lowers the actual value.*
• A leader who has to look employees in the eyes has motivation to pursue alternatives to layoffs.
• Companies who avoid layoffs are better prepared to meet customer demand when the economy turns around.

Before you call HR and ask them to cut 10% of your workforce, consider these other cost-cutting strategies adapted from our friends at the Great Place to Work Institute:**

• Involve people to develop strategies. This provides people a sense of control in a difficult situation.  Losing a sense of control in difficult situations can send employees into a tail spin and all their energies will be spent ruminating about the dangers and unknowns ahead rather than the business at hand.
• Share information. Leaders should not run and hide in the board room.  If the leaders are not out front communicating, employees will create answers to their own questions and this information will spread like wildfire via the company grapevine.  And certainly do not force the employees to read news about their very own company in the media.  Leaders are better off sharing information and often.
• Show up, be available and say thank you. Get out of the office and walk around the workplace and visit employees. Listening is a great skill, especially during tough times.  Answer the questions you have answers for and obtain answers for those you don’t.  Be sure to say “thank you” to your employees.
• Start cost cutting with yourself. Leaders should lead by example and that means cutting their own salaries and benefits if that’s what is needed.  Don’t ask employees to do something you are unwilling to do yourself.  Suspend bonus payments for employees and executives.  This will send the message this is a team effort.

What are other alternatives to layoffs?

• Voluntary retirements.
• Allow normal attrition to slim down workforce.
• Reduction in hours for non-exempt employees and pay reductions for exempt employees.
• Offer unpaid leave. There could be employees who would like some time-off to handle some personal matters, further their education, etc.
• Offer reduced-salary sabbaticals with benefits.
• Impose a hiring freeze.
• Quickly work with under-performing employees. If they do not improve, respectfully part ways. Don’t wait until the economy turns south and disguise the separation as a layoff due to economic reasons because survival anxiety symptoms may surface in the remaining employees.
• Cancel business travel, especially with the current accessibility of video conferencing.
• Suspend 401(k) contributions.  But if you do this, make sure the executive retirement plan contributions are suspended too.
• Finally, rid your company of bullies and jerks.  Bullies impair productivity and raise health care costs and paid time off requests.

Great Workplaces outperform their competition, attract and retain the best talent, enjoy greater cooperation among team members, experience high levels of customer satisfaction and employee innovation, plus a number of other wonderful benefits.  It is never too late to start your Great Workplace Initiative.

* Excerpt from Corporate Violence by Dr. Howard Stein citing Jonathan Lurie 1998.  My thanks to Dr. Howard Stein for his friendship and brilliant mind and writing.

** Adapted from Maintaining Trust in Difficult Times” by Amy Lyman, Co-Founder & Director Corporate Research, Great Place to Work Institute.

The latest research has found Great Workplaces based on positive people practices create a buffer against economic storms. According to research just released by GreatPlaceJobs, the leading job search platform and networking community helping job seekers connect with positions in award-winning organizations, has quantitatively linked Great Workplaces as business powerhouses even during an economic crisis. The GreatPlaceJobs Great Workplace Employment Study shows it makes prudent financial sense for leaders to adopt, model and promote positive people practices in their company.

Our good friend and business affiliate, Asher Adelman, president of GreatPlaceJobs, recently released nationwide the findings of their groundbreaking research. “The study shows that top-ranked Great Workplace employers are much more recession-proof than the average company, having conducted layoffs at a rate of less than half that of companies in general,” said Adelman, founder of the leading job search platform and networking community for Great Workplaces.  Adelman also stated, “The last thing a job seeker wants is to be hired by a company that ends up having to lay off workers a few months later.”

According to the GreatPlaceJobs press release, companies that have been recognized as great workplaces conducted far fewer layoffs than a general sample of companies.  Only 35% of excellent employers conducted layoffs in 2008, as opposed to a shocking rate of 73% of regular companies.  In addition, the revenue growth rate at great workplace companies in Q3 2008 was 27.4% higher than their competitors, and the average stock price of the excellent employers was close to 10% higher at the end of 2008 (compared to the beginning of 2008) than that of their competitors.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

• Layoffs: Fortune’s 100 Biggest Companies had more than double the number of layoffs vs. the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For in America.
• Bankruptcies: Nine bankruptcies or bailouts in the 100 Biggest; none in the 100 Best Companies.
• Revenue growth: Less than 3% at the 100 Biggest Companies; Almost 30% at the 100 Best Companies.
• Share Prices: While both groups’ share prices dropped in 2008, the drop was nearly 10% more in the 100 Biggest.

If you are interested in more information, here is the link to the press release.

What are your thoughts about this latest research?

One time I received a phone call from a recruiter asking me to consider the top HR position of a local company. The recruiter stated the top leader of the company was essentially the devil incarnate, yet they needed the HR executive to create a great workplace.  In other words, the CEO was evil but they wanted a work environment that was employee-friendly.

The recruiter became upset with me when I told her the scenario would never work.  Not with me.  Not with anyone. Not even a miracle worker could turn the culture around as long as the current CEO was in power.

Corporate culture flows down from the top.  It flows down from the CEO, not the HR department.

Have you been challenged with the task of creating a positive corporate culture?  Unless you are the CEO, it is doubtful you will have much luck changing the culture from negative to positive, bad to good, mildly unfriendly to moderately friendly or from downright hell to heaven.

The CEO must be the champion of the company’s culture.  The personality of the organization tends to follow the traits of a strong CEO.  Without his or her strong support, commitment and role modeling in action, it will likely be an uphill battle to rid the company of bad organizational habits supported by the leadership team.

Leadership author and speaker John Maxwell has very wisely stated, “everything rises and falls on leadership.” This certainly holds true for company culture.

If you want to create a high-performance work culture that attracts the best and brightest talent, you must first successfully convince your CEO to lead your corporate culture team.  And it is important to realize a Great Workplace Initiative is not a project with a definite beginning and end.  This will be a never-ending process of molding your company’s personality.  Just like individuals should always be in a continual state of learning and changing, the organizational unit should be changing as well.

When clients call and want us to help them mold their company culture, my response is, “take me to your leader.”

This past summer our family went deep sea fishing off the coast of Florida. Along with the others on our boat, we had a fantastic, relaxing, fun and exhilarating time.  Plus, we caught hundreds of fish that day.  We joked around, had fun and were focused on the job at hand: fishing.

(Picture: Kevin and daughter Katie after a day of deep sea fishing off the coast of Destin, Florida.)

I love to have fun.  But I also love to work.  My life goal has been to have fun while I work.  My goal is to live one life no matter where I am.

Who are you when you go to work? Are you the same person your spouse married?  Are you that same thoughtful, caring parent your children see most every day? Are you the one who takes your family on fun vacations and relaxes and has a good time? I think the world would be a better place if we lived one life and remained that one person family members love at home.

My hope is that I will be the same guy at work, home, church, fishing or wherever I go.

In our society, however, there seems to be pressure to morph into Type A, no nonsense business freaks at 8:00 am each workday.   We are not supposed to care how the work gets done as long as it gets done.  Would you want your spouse to work for you?  Would you want your son or daughter to work for you?  Better yet, would you want one of your dearly loved family members to work for the worst leader in your company?

If your answer was no to any of these questions, you need to make some changes.

First, everyone deserves respect. We need to make sure we treat all people, whether employees or family members, with respect and dignity 24 hours/day.

Second, we need to lead one, consistent life, whether we are at work or at home. The struggle between work and life happens when we see the two competing for each other.  Leaders who demand employees choose work over family will eventually lose.  They may win the short-term battle for the employee’s time but will ultimately lose the talent war and the employee may lose their family.

Third, accept who you are. The pressure to morph into something you are not from 8 to 5 is more than anyone can bear over the long run.  If the office does not like who you are, find another company, career, workplace, or start your own company.  Be yourself and live one life.

Fourth, live your values. Some people are comfortable when the lines are blurred between right and wrong; when values can be stretched to match the situation.  That is an uncomfortable zone for me.  I suspect it is an uncomfortable zone for you as well.  Fuzzy values and inconsistent living is no man’s land. If you won’t put up with fuzzy values at home, do not allow it at work either.  Live one life.

Fifth, listen to that voice inside your head. I believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.  There is a small little voice inside my head that tells me when something doesn’t feel right. No, I’m not crazy or hearing voices or taking some new medication.

How does this topic relate to Great Workplaces or company culture? Employees are looking for authenticity. Leaders who are authentic live the same life at work and at home.  They do not put on one face for the office and another face for home.  They have found the freedom of being one person.

Be yourself and your work environment will have a greater chance to succeed.  Be that leader who loves his/her family at night and weekends.  But don’t lock that person up when you go to work.  People at work are looking for compassion too.  To win over the head, hands and hearts of your employees you need to be yourself – live one life.

The benefits of creating a Great Workplace cannot be more evident than when the economy turns south.  The U.S. and World economies are subject to cyclical movements in both positive and negative directions.  It is a given; there will be periods of growth and expansion, and conversely, there will be periods of restriction and conservation. We know with certainty that each cycle, and the period in-between, is coming.  Companies ride high during times of expansion, growth and spending, and hunker down during the slow, restricted and conservative economic periods.

Unfortunately, the companies who live in a short-term world and do not develop a long-term Great Workplace strategy will eventually succumb to the enemy of average and/or economic conditions.  At best, they are only prepared for economic high times.  The moment trouble comes, however, these ill-prepared organizations eventually close their doors.

On the other hand, companies who have conscientiously developed Great Workplaces where people thrive are prepared for both sides of economic weather conditions.  They ride the waves when they are high, taking advantage of all the good momentum.  And when economic conditions turn bad – and they will – companies with great work environments seem to ride out the storm in a calm and collected fashion; even picking up business from alternative sources, adding new clients, capturing untapped markets, pulling in revenues from varied sources and innovating their way out of an economic disturbance.

Why do companies with Great Workplaces survive economic storms?

The people inside Great Workplaces make the difference because their company truly cares for them by creating a sustainable, flourishing culture.  As a result, a majority of their energized employees are engaged and running on all cylinders. The benefits of creating a Great Workplace are numerous.  As chairman of the board, CEO, business owner or start-up entrepreneur, the proven benefits of building a Great Workplace will likely make your company a powerful force even in the most difficult of times.  Why? The benefits of creating a Great Workplace have been researched and proven by the Great Place to Work Institute:

• Higher productivity
• Higher profitability
• Better customer satisfaction
• Lower staff turnover rates
• Greater number of applicants for open positions
• Attraction of the best and brightest talent
• Less resistance to change
• Lower health care costs
• Lower workers’ compensation costs
• Lower absenteeism rates
• Lower presenteeism rates
• Higher levels of cooperation
• Higher quality products and services
• Increased innovation and risk taking
• Higher returns to stockholders

When you build a winning team with a great work environment, employees will take care of business during both good and bad times. It is a winning formula for building a long-term, growing and profitable organization.

The Good News

It is never too late to begin the process of building a Great Workplace.  Any company can get there from where they are today as long as the top business leader is the one leading the charge.  It is better to invest your time and resources to develop a Great Workplace and survive an economic storm than to carelessly leave your company culture to chance and file Chapter 11 when the next storm blows in.

Edward R. Murrow, the famous American broadcaster depicted in the movie Good Night, and Good Luck once said, “The obscure we eventually see, the completely obvious takes longer.”  In your quest to building a successful company, do not assume the creation of a great work environment is complicated.  In fact, the steps are quite simple, if not completely obvious from a people practice perspective.

Company Culture Flows from the Top

In the people practice profession, there is the tendency to over-complicate work culture and how it impacts the bottom line.  The basic principles of a great work environment are quite straightforward, and rest entirely on the leadership’s shoulders.

One of the most important business strategy questions leaders can ask themselves is, “How do I create a great work environment that attracts, motivates and retains the best and brightest talent?”  You might be surprised the answer is not any of these; above market compensation, best in class benefits, top trends in office space design or technological superiority.  The answer is summed up in one, very important, highly-relational, powerful word: trust.

Definition of a Great Workplace

The Great Place to Work Institute, after twenty years of thorough research on the top high-performance companies in America, formulated their definition of a great workplace as a place where employees “trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with.”

A leadership team who can be trusted by employees is well on its way from average performance to a great workplace where magic happens.  The good news is employees are not necessarily looking for expensive perks, like coffee bars, gyms, restaurants, game rooms, hair salons and spas, daycare, on-site doctors and nurses, media centers, theaters, dry cleaning, or concierge services.  Although these benefits are very nice options, they do not guarantee a great work environment.

When leaders sincerely care for their people and build an environment of trust, employees will believe in the company mission and develop respect for their co-workers.  Trust is like the secret ingredient found in Coke.  Without it, the recipe will not work.  Many have tried to copy great workplaces without trust and failed.  Without trust, the environment will not click, no matter how grandiose the company’s compensation, benefit and work/life programs.  It is amazing how creating an environment of trust, the missing ingredient in many average performing companies, will hasten the transformation of your company into a great workplace with the potential to outperform your competition many times over.

The Seven Leadership Principles

How does a leader create a great workplace through the simple ingredient of trust?  Robert Levering, founder of the Great Place to Work Institute, who has many years of experience researching successful companies, states there are seven principles leaders must follow to build and maintain trust in their organization:

#1 – Leaders share information. The leaders of great work environments are willing to share information with their entire workforce.  They are not afraid to provide employees of all levels important updates about the company’s status, whether financial, non-financial, positive or negative.  Withholding important company information drives a wedge between employees and leaders, creates misunderstandings, fear and distrust among employees who spend most of their waking hours at your place of business.  Since employees are investing their lives with you, isn’t it likely they deserve to know where the company has been, where it needs to go, how it’s performing and how their efforts make a difference?  Open up the internal information highway and you are well on your way to greatness.

#2 – Leaders are accessible. Leaders in great workplaces do not hide in their execu-caves.  Effective leaders get out of their offices and walk around and mingle with employees.  These same leaders allow employees to voice concerns without fear of reprisals or losing their jobs.  Many of the 100 Best Companies hold regular lunches with employees where leadership shares information, shows sincere concern for employees and listens to their concerns.  More importantly, leaders follow-up on employee concerns and improve the work environment with each interaction.

#3 – Leaders are willing to answer the hard questions. Trust is built when employees see leaders who are not afraid to stand up and field the hard questions.  Employees do not expect leaders to have all the answers, but develop strong trusting relationships with leaders who honestly state they do not have an answer but will respond at a later date.

#4 – Leaders emphasize two-way communication. Leaders who actively listen to employees concerns and engage in two-way communications earn the trust of employees.  Most management teams are good at sending communications or orders down the pipelines, but not necessarily comfortable with receiving feedback from their workforce.  Great workplaces have open, two-way channels of communication.

#5 – Leaders always deliver on their promises. Miss this one and you’re done.  Making a promise and not following through is like going thermal nuclear on your workplace; people get burned.  Employees want to know if leaders will deliver on their promises.  This includes the small things as well as the big things.  Treat your employees like your best customers and you should perform very well in this area.

#6 – Leaders show recognition and appreciation. Deep down employees crave recognition for a job well done.  Receiving recognition and appreciation is one of the biggest unmet needs employees have in today’s society.  Go ahead and make a big deal about employee and team accomplishments.  Brag on your employees in front of other employees  Then sit back and watch a special, positive, energizing, company culture develop in front of your eyes.

#7 – Leaders demonstrate sincere, personal concern. According to the most recent Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, the number one driver leading to employee engagement is determined by whether senior management is sincerely interested in an employee’s well-being.  You can’t fake sincerity.  It shows in your attitude and other non-verbal clues.  If the leaders are not sincerely concerned for their employees as people, your best talent will likely move to a place where they are better appreciated.

Live by these leadership principles and your organization will soon be inundated with resumes from the best and brightest talent in your industry wanting to work for your organization.

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This article was originally written for The Business Owner Journal and will appear in the November/December 2008 issue.

Anyone can have a bad day and lash out at a coworker. Civilized people will later apologize for their poor behavior. On the other hand, there are certifiably rude people in corporate America who have made incivility, rudeness and verbal abuse a way of life in business. The companies who employ these violent neanderthals in business suits should beware of their negative consequences.

In a recent behavioral study reported by Harvard Business Review, it was determined that workers on the receiving end of verbal abuse became impaired in their ability to perform tasks. According to researchers, “their studies indicate that after exposure to rudeness, people think hard about the incident—whether just ruminating or trying to formulate a response—and those thought processes take cognitive resources away from other tasks.”

“The mere thought of being on the receiving end of verbal abuse hurts people’s ability to perform complex tasks requiring creativity, flexibility, and memory recall,” according to Christine Porath of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and Amir Erez of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida.

The study also found the environmental impact of rudeness to be very profound and overreaching to even those outside the receiving end of the abuse. Researchers stated, “Verbal abuse affects more than just those who experience it directly; it apparently can harm innocent bystanders.”

If you want your company culture to deteriorate with increasing doses of fear, risk aversion, inability to make decisions, and lack of communication, employ or promote rude people. In other words, trying to create a great workplace while employing rude people is a recipe for failure.

It is common for business leaders to allow executives, rainmakers, and movers and shakers to behave in a rude manner, including verbal and psychological abuse. Leaders falsely believe the rude rainmaker’s contributions overcompensate for the toxic venom they spew in the office. Some mistaken leaders believe a toxic tyrant’s abuse causes employees to work harder.

Do you want to build an energized, profitable and high-performance organization? Require your leaders to take a stand against rude behavior. At times doing the right thing is difficult—it calls for strength of character—but it brings great rewards. The CEO must weed out abusive employees no matter their position in the organization. By doing so, the organization can return to an environment conducive to creativity, flexibility, productivity and profitability.