If shame has any value whatsoever, it is only within the narrow framework of an internal “Evil Indicator.” That is to say, when you actually do harm/hurt someone, your own conscience will say “shame on you,” (usually with the internalized voice of your parent/inner judge).  This has the incredibly powerful effect of stopping us in our tracks, hanging our heads, and feeling “bad.” This is not what one would call a resourceful state.

So what in the world would bring this dynamic into the workplace?  Unfortunately, a mix of patterned unconscious behavior and less than conscious language usage. There is almost nothing more debilitating, and thus de-motivating than being made to feel shame. When a manager uses language that shames a worker, that worker will have numerous reactions, depending on his or her own relationship with shame.  The one reaction I have never seen or heard of is an excited, motivated, resourceful, can-do reaction. Even when someone genuinely reacts with wanting to do a better job, the shame they feel disables them from doing so.

Shame and blame are close cousins. They come from a “child” place rather than an “adult” place. Blame is the childhood vestige of not wanting to “get in trouble,” and so we blame someone else for whatever happened. Trying to off-load the shame by blaming someone else unfortunately doesn’t work; as you merely take on the shame of knowing you pointed the finger elsewhere. What is more, blame doesn’t figure into ANY solution process, whatsoever. It merely side-tracks the process for a useless foray into Shame-land. As a matter of fact, blame as an obstacle to process improvement is actually a big enough topic for its own chapter. Hmmm….

Back to the power of shaming language. When people feel lousy, they do lousy work. This is obvious, and empirically measurable.  Shaming obstructs productivity, creativity, and morale; not good for an organization. It can be done unconsciously, and have the same bad effect.

Here’s a real world example, where the consciousness or unconsciousness is not clear, and yet the damage was done: Long ago in a galaxy far away, while working diligently on a project for a client, I received an amazing E-mail. From my perspective, it was a perfect example of how to utterly de-motivate me. Although the client knew that I was fully committed and producing an abundance of deliverables beyond expectations; the language chosen for this E-mail questioned my dedication and professionalism, as well as if I was even doing the work.  There I was working my tail off, and among many other choice phrases, he actually used the words “if only you would step up…” and do what I was already doing? Ask yourself, what would go through your mind?  Would you ignore it and happily get back to work? Would it stop you in your tracks? Would you be motivated to jump back in?

On a conscious level, using language to shame a person into taking action is commonly called a “guilt trip,” and we all know how we react to them. Why in the world would we do unto others, what we can’t stand done unto us? Of course, using language to shame a person just to “down them a notch” is outright abuse, which has no productive purpose whatsoever.

On an unconscious level, most of this mess has no malicious intent,  but merely results from an unfortunate choice of words. Not being conscious of the actual words we use puts us in danger of this behavior, so there’s where we can put some intention. The repeating theme here is being Conscious.

Action Steps:

1. Remember that it’s a complicated process to transmit a concept residing in one brain into another; stay conscious and don’t do it in autopilot.

2. When you use words, pitch, tone, and volume to convey something, keep in mind the recipient’s relationship to those components. (The image we see connected to a word can be a vastly different image than the one they see.)

3. Keep in mind that your whole meaning could be shifted, and even side-tracked by your listener’s reaction to what you triggered. It’s important to us to express ourselves, but even more important for the listener to actually hear what we meant.

4. Take a little extra time and care with your communications. When trying to transmit a concept, put yourself in the receiving position, and see how it comes in. How can you lift someone, rather than downing them? How can you help them to a resourceful state, rather than shamed and bereft of motivation?

By avoiding shaming and blaming, you can keep the communication in a productive and positive dynamic, keeping people engaged and involved. And after all, when you get right down to it, won’t you feel better as well?

In order to keep this national conversation going, the Obama Administration is now planning a series of regional forums on workplace flexibility in cities across the country.  These events will address the impact flexibility can have on a range of industries – from healthcare to hospitality to manufacturing – as well as in small businesses and local governments.  They will explore how flexibility can work for employees in a range of professions and income levels – including low-wage workers, whose need for flexibility is often acute.

But beyond these official events, the White House is also asking community members from across the country to contribute to the national conversation on workplace flexibility – through the White House Work-Flex Event Starter Kit.

The “Starter Kit” is designed to encourage a diverse range of stakeholders – from employers and managers, advocates and state and local officials to civic associations and working Americans from all professions and industries – to organize their own community-based events on workplace flexibility.

A “Starter Kit” event could take a range of forms – a town hall meeting designed to spur open discussion; a briefing by business or policy experts; a training workshop for employers, managers or employees interested in implementing flexibility in their own workplace.

The only real requirement is that “Starter Kit” events encourage meaningful discussion on flexibility.  And to channel this local and community insight back into the national policy dialogue, the White House has created an online system for organizers to register their events and share feedback from their discussions with the Administration.

These “Starter Kit” events represent a tremendous opportunity for local leaders and working moms and dads to make their voice heard at the White House – and to ensure the national conversation on workplace flexibility reflects the realities facing employers and employees on the ground.  Our hope is that communities across the country will use the “Starter Kit” as a first step in joining the national conversation on workplace flexibility.  To get started, visit the “Starter Kit” on the White House website:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/work-flex-kit

Jessica Glenn, Communications Director

Workplace Flexibility 2010

Georgetown Law

When a mother or father comes home from a workday, one or both make dinner, helpthe kids with homework, read stories at bed-time – all working parents know we haveboth the role of employee and parent to fulfill. The vast majority of us want to do bothof those to the best of our ability. But in most traditional working environments, ourconfidence, stamina, and sense of well-being has been eroded during the 8-10-12 hourdays.

At home, we are looked up to by our children and sought for advice from friends andrelatives. But when we enter a traditionally-managed workplace, all of the sudden we are treated as children who require lots of rules to govern our behavior and a system of punishment (the progressive discipline process) for failure to comply.

As front-line employees, despite years of experience and knowledge regarding the processes and equipment with which we work, our ideas for improvement are ignored – until we finally quit offering them. Over time, we lose the interest and excitement about our working world – and that communicates itself to our children.

People deserve to be honored, respected and treated with dignity at work. However, most companies – in the interest of mitigating risk – create lots of rules. These rules and the “parental” management practices that come with them have resulted from the actions of a small percent of the workforce who doesn’t want to work. This small percent (we’ll call them 5%ers) can’t be trusted and are looking to do as little as possible and get away with as much as possible (and should be removed from the workforce or work team as soon as possible). Traditional companies have focused human resources and management attention on this 5%.  However, when these practices and policies are applied equally to everyone, it minimizes the sense of value the 95%ers have, is disrespectful to them as adults and erodes their interest, excitement, passion and loyalty to the organization.

Companies feel required to establish detailed behavioral rules that apply to everyone for fear of costly lawsuits. Media attention to a few high profile cases confirm the fear and also quantify the potential cost. While there is the slight possibility for a lawsuit or someother costly event to impact the company, what is certain to happen every day is the loss of innovation, productivity, customer focus and company loyalty that results from treating adult employees as potentially bad children. Companies who treat employees atall levels as respected, valued adults enjoy the following documented results:

• Annual turnover rate of less than 4%
• Monthly absenteeism less than 1% (even where absences are paid)
• Zero EEOC charges
• No lost time accidents for 5 years

••••
Companies that have begun the journey of changing their culture, enjoy immediate improvements:

• Reduction in turnover with a bottom line impact of $2.5 – $4 million in one year
• 60-70% reduction in waste
• Increases in efficiencies (to established standards) often exceeding 100%

•••
Treating people as valued adults improves company and business performance. It fosters parents who come home with a sense of pride in their accomplishments and pass this confidence on to their children, our next generation of leaders and workers. It’s not onlythe right thing to do, it’s the ultimate win/win.

Based on how logical it is, how moral it is and how future-focused it is, it must be a well-kept secret. Otherwise, it’s baffling that this simple concept seems so illusive to so manybright leaders.

I have a friend in the professional services sector in New York, working in one of those pressure-cooker 24/7 type of environments I wrote about recently.  In fact I have a whole lot of friends in these industries.  They work insane hours and are, for the most part, remunerated very well.  Most of them laugh at me when they hear what my blog is about.

“When you get called in on a Sunday night to close a deal that for every hour it goes on the client is losing a million dollars, then they don’t care if your wife is sick, your kid is walking for the first time, or your grandma is dying.  They are paying me to accept this deal and all the conditions that go with it.”

“When you’re paying a person fresh out of school with no experience  $100+K you’re not paying them for a 40 hour week.  When you’re entering these kinds of careers, you sign up  for the premium service at the premium price.”

They make fair points.  It is all about one’s perspective.  But my friend has come up with a rather ingenious and ground breaking work life solution.  And because he’s single and not a parent (and a “he”), it might be considered even more unusual.

There are a few qualities he possesses that make these kinds of out of the box solutions easier to negotiate.  Firstly he is brilliant (I mean really, like rocket scientist smart).  He’s got all the right schools and all the right grades.  He has a phenomenal work ethic.  He’s interested and interesting; a good conversationalist, and one who delivers – something that engenders deeply loyal clients.

Several years ago, after years of schooling, a ton of student loans finally paid off and an on-fire career, he realized that whilst he might be on the fast track, there were some dreams that were going to die on the vine if he waited much longer.  He walked away and traveled the world for a couple of years, literally and spiritually exploring the planet.   On his return, uncertain as to whether he wanted back into his old career, a temporary contract was leveraged into a unique part time schedule where he has negotiated summers off.

He works his guts out for nine months of the year.  And then every summer he works in a completely different environment where he’s able to give a little back to the world and certainly restore himself.  It’s a beautiful solution. His company gets his absolute best from September to May.  He then renews and restores his passions from June to August.

There is a price to be paid.  He’s firmly off the promotion path.  That has been made clear.  Which I find interesting, given that some working mothers in his company with more traditional part time schedules have stayed on course for promotions – a highly unique feat in itself.

And it’s not something he talks about much.  Not because it is a big secret.  But it is certainly not to be announced to the world.  What if everyone wanted a deal like that?

Indeed.  What if?  In the world of work I dream about, neither of these consequences would have much traction.   But in my friend’s competitive, intense environment, what he has created is truly radical.

Mothers in negotiating the work life solution that makes the most sense for them need to remember a few key elements:

1. Flexibility does not always mean less.  It might.  But not always.  Think through whether you need less hours, or more control over the ones you currently work.

2. It is your job to sell your offering as a win-win and as a business solution.

3. Be aware of the massively disproportional career responses to part-time and related work life solutions.  If part-time is right for you, be prepared to re-negotiate pay, bonuses and promotions.  Don’t accept relegation to the side-track unless that is what you want.  And don’t find yourself doing a full-time job with part-time pay.

When did you last come up with a really creative solution?  Or hear of one?  Post your thoughts in the comments.  Who knows who you can inspire as we share innovative work life solutions.
Chrysula Winegar can be found www.wlbconsultants.com.  This post is updated and revised from the original posted as Get Creative!  It is Possible! on Nov 10, 2009

On Tuesday, preschoolers in Richmond, California, showed up for school and were handed jerseys embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. RFID tags are tiny computer chips that are frequently used to track everything from cattle to commercial products moving through warehouses. Now the school district is apparently hoping to use these chips to replace manual attendance records, track the children’s movements at school and during field trips, and collect other data like whether the child has eaten or not.

While school officials and parents may have been sold on these tags as a “cost-saving measure,” we are concerned that the real price of insecure RFID technology is the privacy and safety of small children. RFID has been billed as a “proven technology,” but what’s actually been proven time and again (PDF) since the ACLU first looked at this issue in 2005 is just how insecure RFID chips can be:

• RFID chips in US passport cards were cracked and copied from a distance of 30-feet using $250 in parts bought from eBay (2009).
• RFID chips used in building access cards across the country were cracked and copied with a handheld device the size of a standard cell phone that was built using spare parts costing $20 (2007).
• California State Capitol RFID-based identification cards were cracked and copied and access was gained to member-only, secure entrances (2006).
• RFID chips implanted in humans were cracked and copied (PDF) (2006).
• The RFID chips used in the Dutch and British e-passport were cracked (PDF) (2006).

Without real security, RFID chips could actually make preschoolers more vulnerable to tracking, stalking, and kidnapping. Someone who wants to do children harm could potentially sit in a car across the street and scan the children’s jerseys without teachers, school officials, parents, or children ever knowing that any information has been read. And if this information can be read, it can be copied easily to a duplicate chip. A child could be taken off campus while the duplicate chip continues to tell RFID readers that the child is safely at school.

These are just the tip of the security issues—and we haven’t even touched on the core privacy concerns. The editors of Scientific American said it well back in May 2005: “Tagging … kids becomes a form of indoctrination into an emerging surveillance society that young minds should be learning to question.”

At this point, we have far more questions than answers about the RFID system in use in Richmond:

• What security measures are in place on the RFID chips?
• How will data collected from the chips be used? How long will it be kept?
• Were parents given a choice whether or not to have their child “chipped?”
• Were parents told how RFID technology works, what the privacy and security risks are, and what the school has done to make sure the chips are secure and compliant with student privacy laws?
• And did the County consider these questions before they received a federal grant for this program?

When it comes to student safety, insecure RFID creates more problems than it solves. We hope to work with the school officials and parents in Richmond to help them take a good look at this program and whether it properly protects the privacy and security of their young children.

Building on the last exercise concerning conflicting/contradicting directives from management, and losing your “best and brightest,” I’d like to address a prime motivator behind much of this confusion: the pursuit of “power.”

This isn’t innately an evil pursuit. Depending on your understanding of power, it is both necessary and nourishing to everyone concerned.  This is where I’d like to make the distinction between real power and the great pretender: counterfeit power.

Counterfeit power looks like the archetype we’ve all come to know: one person making other people do things. As a manager/leader, this looks right, at first glance. The problem is the inevitable breakdown of this system, and the built-in Machiavellian behavior that follows.  Neither of these enable one’s business to flourish, while allowing the leader to breathe freely, and the work force to not feel trampled. Real power does! Counterfeit power (making people do what you say, etc.) is temporary and fleeting. Real power (enabling people to do what is needed, etc.) grows and blossoms organically over time.

Enabling others to do things, and evoking their best work gives you phenomenal power. This is one of those wacky paradoxes of life: the more you give, the more you have. Not to belie my 60’s roots too much, but it could be said that power and love are quite similar in that respect.  They share this incredible and rare paradox. Mathematically and realistically, the converse is just as true: the more you withhold, the less you have.

Let me give you a real-world example of how this plays out. One organization that I worked with some years ago was suffering every ailment  a retail establishment could suffer. Sales volume was down, morale was horrendous, staff turnover was a runaway train, and quality was almost non-existent. Management had been unable to make their people do what they wanted them to do, no matter how many management training seminars or workshops they went to. They brought me in to ”fix the problem.”

By systematically training and giving the staff an understanding of the big picture and how they fit (or could potentially fit) in that picture, they understood why they needed to do what they needed to do. We could make an agreement with each other wherein they would do what was needed, and management would in turn provide the tools, training, and return commitment required. They understood how keeping the organization alive and healthy gave them the security of an ever-increasing paycheck, and the environment supported them attaining their highest potential. They accomplished the tasks at hand not because I forced them, but because it was obviously the best thing to do for the organization, and thus themselves. Mutual commitment and enlightened self-interest are bi-products of Real Power.

Real Power requires no use of force or show of strength, and doesn’t hide behind the duck-blind of authority. Counterfeit power requires all of the aforementioned, using up incredible energy, and only lasting until the inevitable coup. Puffing up, wearing gold braid, and intimidation are all doomed to fail.

You remember every teacher, supervisor, or friend who helped you to be the best you, with fondness and respect. If they asked something of you, chances are you would want to help. They’d never need to bully you.  Managers or bosses rarely think of themselves as schoolyard bullies, yet the dynamic they foster is just that. And the results are just as detrimental.

Action Steps:

1. The next time you come to a four-way stop sign, take the opportunity to make eye contact and smile to each of the other drivers before letting them go first. Have that tiny interaction with them. As you drive away, pay attention to how you feel: heart rate, breathing, are you smiling? (warning: this usually puts you as much as 45 seconds behind schedule). Do you feel the power?

2. Then at the next four-way stop sign, make sure you go first, no matter who you tick off. Then see how much power you feel like you have, and for how long. (Hey, you won, right?!)

3. Notice from the first experience/experiment, a tiny taste of how much better you feel, when you bestow “power” and thus become powerful.

4. Notice from the second experience/experiment, how hollow and empty your victory was.

Helping someone up will always give you far more power than shoving someone down. If we all learned this lesson early enough, our world would be a far more productive and compassionate place.

Regular readers of my food blog know that my almost-four-year-old has been blessed with a, let’s say, discerning palate. (And by “discerning,” I mean that his list of Won’t Eats is approximately 638 times as long as the list of Will Eats.)

This has been going on for close to two years now: I cook something new and exciting and delicious, and Harry refuses to taste it. I’ve stopped letting him see my disappointment (at least I think I have), because I’ve learned that the more I show him how important this is to me, the more likely he is to assert what little control he has. I make dinner for me and my husband, and if Harry doesn’t like what we’re having he’s free to grab a yogurt or a cheese stick. Luckily his disdain doesn’t apply to fruit, so he’s getting all his nutrients. And for the most part I’m ok with all this.

But every so often, I try to casually encourage him to expand his culinary horizons. This week, that took the form of a brand-new cookbook by one of his heroes: Dora and Diego Let’s Cook. I figured, if his Diego t-shirt, his Diego sunglasses, and his Diego backpack could motivate him to get dressed, perhaps a Diego-endorsed recipe might work that same magic in the kitchen.

Shockingly enough, the first recipe Harry chose to try was Broccoli con Queso. Yup, broccoli.

Here’s how it went:

First, Wall-E had to help stir.


And Harry didn’t want Eve to feel left out.


Each diner got his or her own bowl. Wall-E and Eve both loved their food, said Harry.

As for Harry, eh, not so much.

Incredibly enough, Harry insisted it was the cheese sauce that was the problem. He actually ate an entire (admittedly tiny) broccoli floret, plain. This is earth-shaking news, people. Earth-shaking.

I’m pretty sure he won’t eat another for quite a while, but I’ll take what I can get.

So. Do you have a discerning eater? How have you handled it?

“Two to three months vacation,” Taft was quoted as saying, “are necessary in order to enable one to continue his work the next year with that energy and effectiveness which it ought to have.”  He suggested that men and women a like should have “a change of air where they can expand their lungs and get exercise in the open.”

The article contained a subtitle:  WHAT BIG EMPLOYERS OF LABOR AND MEN OF AFFAIRS [probably quite a few of them I suspect] THINK ON THE SUBJECT.  Leading industrialists and bankers of the day were asked what they thought of Taft’s suggestion.  Some actually thought it was a good idea.  Not surprisingly, others thought it was crazy, but conceded that a month off wouldn’t be a bad idea.

That was one hundred years and one month ago, when we produced a tiny fraction of what we do today.  And Taft wasn’t the first to call for legal vacations for everyone.  The great naturalist John Muir, father of our National Park system and recently re-immortalized by Ken Burns, called for “Centennial Freedom” in an 1876 newspaper article.  He urged Congress to pass a “law of rest” giving everyone the right to vacation time no matter their station in society.  “We work too much and rest too little,” Muir wrote, capping the article off with the observation that “Compulsory education may be good; compulsory recreation may be better.”

Well, now it’s 2010 and vacations are a disappearing necessity, important for our health and for family bonding but ignored by our policymakers.   The United States shares with Guyana, Suriname, Nepal, and that paragon of human rights, Burma, the dubious distinction of being the only nations in the world without a law mandating paid vacations.

Congressman Alan Grayson wants to change that.  He introduced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, a modest proposal mandating one to two weeks of paid vacation for American workers, a quarter of whom get none at all.  All Europeans, by contrast, get at least four weeks and many get six or more.  But judging by the explosive response in the conservative Blogosphere, you’d think Grayson had called for the end of western civilization as we know it.  “He wants American to become a 21^st Century France,” charged one outraged blogger.  Does that mean that if the law passes we’ll all end up drinking red wine and eating brie?  Oh, the horror!

But as I mention in my article “Less Work, More Life,” in the September 2010 issue of THE PROGRESSIVE magazine, vacation is only one of many ways to give Americans more time to care for their families, health, communities and environment.  MomsRising has been a leader in the fight for much needed family leave and workplace flexibility.  CLASP and other groups have led the fight for paid sick days.

Economist Dean Baker champions a German policy called Kurzarbeit, that tops up the salaries of workers, encouraging companies to keep everyone employed with shortened hours, rather than lay workers off.  As a result, German unemployment did not rise during the recession and the German economy has bounded back.  Such a policy, as Baker argues, should be a big part of any new stimulus package.

I also particularly like a Dutch law called The Hours Adjustment Act, which requires businesses to allow workers to reduce their hours while keeping the same hourly salary, chances for promotion, health care and pro-rated benefits.  The law expands freedom of choice for millions of workers.  Employers must grant the requests unless they can show it will mean a hardship for the firm, something that happens in less than five percent of cases.

All of these ideas merit consideration from progressives and from the Obama administration.  It’s time to catch up with the rest of the world and reduce working hours so all can work (while raising the minimum wage so poorer workers don’t suffer from income losses).  Our savings in health costs along will more than make up for the cost of these measures.  We want bread, and roses too!

John de Graaf is the Executive Director of TAKE BACK YOUR TIME (www.timeday.org)

My husband came back the next evening, clearly astonished, announcing that the Chair had okayed the proposal. And I thought: “Things really are changing.” That was 2005.

Now they’ll change faster. The Custom-Fit Workplace, by Joan Blades and Nanette Fondas, provides managers with the tools they need to match today’s workplace to today’s workforce–one in which mobility is high, homemakers scarce, and child and elder care commonplace.

While writing Unbending Gender a decade ago, I came to recognize that many managers’ instinctive reaction to new ways to work is, “But that’s impossible!” This is a key problem to overcome. Blades and Fondas offer practical tips to help managers overcome their fears of the unknown by describing successful examples of off-ramps and on-ramps, telework, part-time and flexible hours, and programs to allow parents to bring babies to work. Aimed chiefly at a business audience, this book signals a new and important step in disseminating ideas for updating employment to fit 21st century realities.

Of course, Joan Blades being Joan Blades, The Custom-Fit Workplace is not just a book. It’s also a website: customfitworkplace.org. So far, the site chiefly has comments by women activists. Let’s hope it can realize its potential as a national and international resource where employees can turn for help in redesigning their jobs–and where employers can learn how to manage new work arrangements effectively.

Blades and Fondas tell lots of stories about individuals who have redesigned their jobs to better fit their lives, and also provide an updated “business case” documenting how redesigned work helps employers’ bottom line. Another boon is the book’s carefully nuanced picture of unions’ role in helping Americans balance work and family in an era when 45% of union members are women.

The national conversation this book will spark needs to include discussion of what we at WorkLife Law call the “flexibility stigma”: fully 40% of working parents told the Families and Work Institute that using workplace flexibility options would jeopardize their careers. WorkLife Law is currently running a Working Group on Flexibility Stigma, composed of lawyers and social scientists. We are just starting to untangle the gender pressures and workplace norms that create flexibility stigma. So read The Custom-Fit Workplace–and stay tuned.

© Joan C. Williams

What happens when two different balls fly over the net or the plate at the same time? Which do you aim for, or do you .it back and forth between the two, praying to hit one of them? What’s the most likely result? You guessed it: missing both.

In every organization where I have witnessed unrest, staff turnover, bad morale, lack of productivity and focus, the culprit is the same: More than one ball is being pitched.

When setting the mark or target for your people (or your kids), is there one single point to aim for, or are mixed messages filtering through the system? When you know that doing an excellent job—learning, developing new skills, improving, etc.—is what will garner recognition and advancement, that’s what you will aim for. Clear, explicit direction. A simple equation.

When any other criteria are added, what once was a simple equation becomes a complex polynomial with countless unknown variables and shifting values. The vast majority of us see how unsolvable this is, and eventually give up. What’s the point in killing yourself, doing excellent work, when it becomes obvious (watching others advance) that excellent work isn’t the goal? And trying to figure out what the goal really is, when excellence is what is being verbalized or promoted, teaches nothing but hypocrisy.

The “Best and Brightest,” tend to share this question in despair, as they “check out” emotionally, mentally, and finally physically. And the very organizations shouting “we want to attract and retain the best and brightest” are ignoring the first rule of doing so. If we look at our own families, aren’t we trying to help our children to become the best and brightest of their generation? Isn’t this the same dynamic?

We know that the best and brightest contribute excellent work.  They want to be recognized and rewarded for that work. The not-so-best or brightest cannot contribute excellent work, so unfortunately they strive to maintain other criteria as a smoke-screen. This other criteria can be anything from office politics to acquisition of status symbols.  Which demographic does your organization (or your family) cater to, protect, or nurture? Which demographic would you prefer to build your organization (or your family) with? Whatever you reward or cater to is what you will develop more. Is there one clear pitch to swing for?

Action Steps:

Although this may seem complex, the real lesson here is in simplifying things. Folks who share the virtues of working hard, being loyal, being participative and contributive, also tend to believe strongly in the virtues of justice and fairness.

1. Take a look at the message or messages that are being sent through your organizations or family, by who is advancing and who is not (and why?)

2. Is recognition strictly lip service, or does the organization have significant real material ritual and peer celebration to illustrate and reinforce its commitment to excellence of performance. In a family situation, recognition and celebration are just as important.

3. Remember that this works in reverse when folks get rewarded for all the wrong reasons! This is how people get trained to lie, cheat, or bully from childhood.

4. Do what you can to introduce and promote a Meritocracy in your organization or family. Make sure that advancement and reward are based strictly on merit. This is the simplest goal to convey, follow, or measure.

The really good news? The simplest, easiest way to run an organization coincidentally attracts and retains the best and brightest. This is a win-win strategy for any organization, from a multi-national corporation to a two person family.