Renaissance Leadership

Remembering the Great Pumpkin

One of my best bosses ever was Judi Hangen at AT&T.  As the Director of our telemarketing sales office for business accounts. Judi believed in always saying hi to each and everyone of her employees every day.  She also believed in thanking everyone for showing up and demonstrating their loyalty to both AT&T and our customers.  How did she do this?  She brought out the Great Pumpkin at work!

Every day, like clock work, Judi would walk around the aisles of our call center and carry a huge plastic pumpkin filled with candy.  She stopped at every desk and greeted each employee with a smile, a thank you and a treat; everyone loved working for her.  Even though she could've chose to sit in her office and drive the center's results simply through her management team, Judi always felt a need to connect with every employee in a positive way every single day of her job.  And it's a policy I have adopted ever since.

The Great Pumpkin is a fun way to say thank you every day to your team and reminds them how important they are to your company's success.  Even with today's carb and sugar conscious employees, you can hand out fruits or delicious treats such as South Beach candies in addition to small pieces of chocolate or Jolly Ranchers.  It's not the treats, it's the thought behind it that ultimately counts and if you want to maintain a high performing team, five minutes spent with the Great Pumpkin can lead to increased results, improved morale and years of loyalty.

Check out Jim Jenkins in Steven Van Yoder's revised edition ofGet Slightly Famous!

Steven Van Yoder has just published the second edition of his amazing book on developing marketing strategies called Get Slightly Famous.  It's one of my favorite books which helped shape how I manange my own marketing efforts.

I worked with Steven as a client for two years and then we joined forces last year to partner on a project at Booz Allen to develop an external marketing program for Dr. Patrick McLaurin, the former Director of Corporate Diversity and Inclusion. 

Steven's second edition of the book features a piece on our work together with Dr. Patrick McLaurin as well as yours truly in a featured side bar on developing your own internal branding strategy.

Whether you're a solo practitioner or a Senior VP in your firm, you must read Steven's book. Filled with highly practical advice and high-end strategic concepts, Get Slightly Famous is a book no executive should be without!  Click here to order your copy today and be sure and check out pages 48-49 for my own advice on developing your internal brand!

Save a Tree and Your Sanity

I don't know about you, but I get so much junk mail that I can fill up my trashcan in two days with all the advertisements and unwanted solicitations that come through the postal system.  And after a while, I get tired of recycling it!  I'd rather see more trees planted than keep killing them.

But now you can do something about it! 

Green Dimes is an organization that will take your name off a majority of the mailing lists you're on AND they'll also plant a tree for every month of your membership.  A $36 membership for one year saves you from lugging in and throwing out all the unwanted junk mail and you're helping our planet as they plant a tree in your name!  You can go Green and feel free when you notice the lack of mail to throw in the garbage can!

Check them out and be sure to give a gift membership to someone you know!

Holiday Greetings Gone Wild!

In my most recent edition of Everyday Team Building, I wrote about the need for companies to evaluate their holiday messages and activities for employees to ensure that their policies and procedures never actively devalue the beliefs and values of any employee.  Companies today are more diverse than ever before and so leaders need to realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas or Hanukkah, and that it's quite possible that you could be sending the message of "you're not one of us" if someone doesn't feel like participating in the Christmas gift exchange or the office Christmas luncheon based on their personal beliefs. Click here to check out the latest issue of Everyday Team Building and see the article in question.

I was surprised at the number of people who felt that this notion of being inclusive is "watering down" how we celebrate the holidays and that it's taking political correctness too far.  To me, these people are missing the very point I was trying to make: not everyone celebrates Christmas or Hanukkah and because of pressure some companies put in their employees to participate , many people may feel put upon to "get into the Christmas spirit" in the office and thus, reduces their sense of belonging. 

Even concepts like gift exchanges are a nice idea but there are segments of the population that don't believe in gift giving and when people "opt out" of them as part of the office holiday party, there's often an underlying (and unexpressed) opinion that this person is not a "team player."  And at a time when we celebrate the season of giving, we've now found a subtle way to tell certain employees that "you don't truly belong."

I actually got one letter from a woman who admitted that "if people don't celebrate Christmas, then my company doesn't want to hire them!"  That's fine if you're a small business owner with only one or two employees, but most mid-size and all large companies today are more culturally and ethnically diverse than ever before and it's illegal to discriminate and enforce practices where you hire or fire someone for their religious beliefs.  What struck me from the responses I received is that there are people in companies who feel that just because there's a predominance of people whose interests and beliefs are openly celebrated in public that it's okay to potentially alienate the few who don't.  And to accuse companies of "watering down" the meaning of Christmas as "reverse discrimination" means these people are missing out on the bigger picture!

It's simply not appropriate to endorse one set of religious customs or practices over another in today's workplaces.  People think this means becoming Scrooge-like and not doing anything, but I'm saying just the opposite.  This is a time of year when I think it's important to have celebrations to honor the good work people have done all year and to acknowledge the sense of spirit that comes during the holiday season.  However, you have to make sure that what you celebrate and how you go about it is done in such a way so that you don't devalue anyone who works for you. 

Why Congress Needs Diversity Training...

The Mark Foley case has given us another glimpse as to why our own elected officials are in need of some Diversity training. 

Mark Foley, of course, is the House of Representative from Florida who recently resigned because of sexually explicit messages he sent to a young male page.  While I find Foley  truly shamed and completely at fault for what he did, some of the responses from Congress about the situation clearly indicate that most people in our government know very little about sexuality in general and could benefit from a little Diversity training.

One thing many in Congress are doing is equating homosexuality with pedophilia.  This is a highly uninformed response.  Statistics and studies show that most pedophiles are not homosexual men.  In fact, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a 1998 study that states that 90 percent of pedophiles are men and that 98 percent of those men are heterosexual. Click on the link for the Journal and you'll see that there are a plethora of studies and resources that clearly make this distinction. 

Unfortunately we now have many members of Congress stating mis-information and are justifying their inability to respond to accusations about Foley's extremely offensive and abusive behavior for fear of being accused of being homophobic.  Yet these are also the people who want to ban same-sex marriage and gay rights in the workplace! 

Sorry, Congress, you can't have it both ways.   Both you and the Roman Catholics who tried to pin the blame on homosexuals for these horrible acts need to know the facts and stop trying to blame gay people for such sexually violent acts.  Especially when pedophilia is really more about predatory sexual abuse and has quite literally nothing to do with sexual orientation in general.  Pathological behavior and one's attraction to the same sex are two different conversations.

If the Foley incident amounts to any good, maybe it will be to allow people to continue to have the conversation about sexual identity.  I think the more people learn about what constitutes sexual violence versus sexual orientation, the general public will see the difference and will not allow the uninformed platitudes uttered by Congress and religious conservatives to serve as the voice of authority on human sexuality.

A Little Integrity Please...The Problem With Success Gurus

Recently I got a DVD from one of those infamous Success Gurus who promise to teach you how to be "totally 100% and completely happy with your life."  I bought it because I had read one of his books on how success is really a science and I've come to the conclusion that most Success Gurus are peddling their wares without much integrity.

Personally, when someone has to infuse their introductory materials with phrases such as "I'm sitting in my beautiful beach front condo in the big island of Hawaii as I write this," I find this sort of statement to be nothing more than bragging.  And it's also geared toward making you, the reader, feel as if you can claim all that for yourself because in the next paragraph, this same guru  says he's fully prepared to teach you how to use his system so you can experience the same level of success for yourself. 

One of the things that truly bothers me is how success gurus play on the sense of time sensitivity to get you to enroll in their programs.  The DVD is new and there's a SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER (code for "please buy now") to save $300 of his success learning system if you'll enroll in the program NOW as the deal expires "two weeks from today." 

The issue I have is that this guy ALWAYS has the discount on his site so there really is no expiration!  Why not just say the cost is $697 and be done with it!  It bothers me that these people espouse integrity but they use the lowest common demonator marketing ploys to get you to sign up for these programs.  And why do these Success Gurus feel compelled to play on a sense of time urgency and take advantage of people's gullible states? 

It's because they CAN! 

Over the years I've endured Anthony Robbins' books, listened to his tapes and I've also suffered through the endlessly horrible Rich Dad, Poor Dad series.  I also had the misfortune of reading Joe Vitale's work--a "spiritual success coach" who once sent out a massive email to everyone on his mailing list asking everyone to pray for his home in the Gulf Coast so that Katrina would avoid it.  Funny, he didn't ask anyone to pray for the city of New Orleans at all--his entire email was about rallying people to pray for his multi-million dollar home.  And then the guy had the audacity to send out a message after Katrina saying how the power of prayer worked because his house was perfectly fine--all the while never asking anyone to support those who completely lost their homes and their lives during the storm.  It's this self-centeredness that most Sucess Gurus have that truly turns me off. 

All of them will tell you that their own personal system is the best and the only one you'll ever need.  That's because if you read two or more books by these people you'll realize all of them tend to say the exact same thing; each has his or her own mental model or marketing spin on it to get you to listen to their version of how they became multi-millionaires through self discovery.  Go read any books by Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins and anyone else who teaches you how to succeed in life and you'll find that they tend to all say the same thing but with different chapter headings in the book and even more products for you to buy from their websites and weekend seminars.

Many of these success gurus are great at providing some of the valuable lessons you need to succeed, but what they're best at is getting you to enroll in THEIR programs and spend upwards of $25,000 for one year to learn "all the secrets of success."  The premise of all these programs is that the reason most people are not successful is because they focus too much on what they don't want. 

Every Success Guru will tell you that what's stopping you is YOU and that you have to change your own mindset to get what you really want.  To a certain extent I think that's true. A positive mental attitude accounts for a lot.  However, if you're an entrepreneur or the manager of a large organization, you also need to know how to relate to people, possess a bit of business acumen, and you also have to have some level of expertise in your field.  Simply focusing on your attitude and developing positive mental pictures is not enough.  You do have to do some work to be successful!

Success Gurus do not teach you how to develop your interpersonal skills, leverage your strategic mind or develop a business model.  They simply preach their "attitude is everything" message and hope that you'll keep paying for their weekend retreats and seminars year after year to listen to them say the same thing over and over again.  I did some calculations and realized that if you go beyond this $29.95 DVD that this one guy is selling, you'd end up spending more than $50,000 to read his books, listen to his tapes, and take his seminars--and every time you'll hear his same seven principles for success and not get any practical business advice.  Where is this guy when you get home from the seminar and need to write a business or marketing plan?  I assume he's sitting at his beach front condo enjoying the knowledge that you've given him what he wants...the ability to laugh all the way to the bank. 

Because if you're not successful after going to one of these programs, the Success Guru will tell you that you're the one who's accountable for the lack of positive results!  That's right, it's never about them.  It's all about YOUR attitude and you have no one to blame but yourself when your life doesn't turn out the way you want.  According to the Success Gurus, it's because you didn't fully invest in the program so they'll never have to give you your money back even though all of them offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Don't get me wrong.  I think it's important to believe in yourself and most of us have to continually work at developing our confidence.  But real success in business also comes from having a clear vision, great communications skills and an ability to develop and deliver well-branded services to your customers.  You do have to understand and appreciate both your strategic left-brain and your more contextual and creative right-brain to truly survive in this world.

So save your money and don't buy into these faddish motivational ploys to get you to spend money to find the "Secrets to Success."  Unless these people are going to work side by side with you and support you in improving your technical or contextual skills, you're just wasting your time and you're just continuing to feed these people's highly over-sized egos.   Platitudes with attitude will only take you so far and then you need to simply hunker down and do the real work.