German Companies Doing Good Things

Just a quick hat tip to three German companies that are blazing environmental and modern workforce trails for the rest of us:

1. Siemens for opting out of the nuclear business, a brave decision that shows big companies can do the right thing.
2. Deutsche Telekom for providing flexible working hours and supporting a family-friendly work environment.
3. Volkswagon for turning off Blackberry email after hours to promote a better work life balance for employees.

Well done, you! And Merry Christmas (or happy holidays) to everyone.

Carnivals, Expats, HR and Hamsters

I could probably write a persuasive post comparing an expat assignment to a carnival and somehow work in the hamster angle but in this case the carnival and the expat never meet.  And the hamster is a completely different topic.

The Carnival is, of course, the HR Carnival hosted by Anne Freedman over at HREOnline.  It's a good one so if you haven't already seen it do click over.

The expat, alas, is not me, although I wrote a post about Expat compensation over at Compensation Cafe following a Cafe podcast.  You can listen to the podcast here and read the post here.

And finally, check out Tim Sackett's funny post about becoming a D List blogger.  He cautions that Laurie Ruettimann has already cornered the market on HR and cats so I was thinking of moving into the HR and hamsters space.  What do you think, could that be big?

Postscript: Google let me down.  I couldn't find a single picture of a hamster sitting at a desk analyzing health and safety reports.

** Rubbing the soft furry underbelly of the hamster counts as a benefit.

This Is How We Roll In Bavaria

In honor of Oktoberfest season here in Munich - and because I've been too busy to write anything new - I've decided to re-publish an excerpt from an article I wrote back in 2008 about what to expect at Oktoberfest.  The Oktoberfest Planning Commission has made this required reading for all first-time Oktoberfest attendees so please read the following very carefully.

(OK, I made that up.)

The Four Phases of Oktoberfest*
 
Phase I: Why are people staring at me?
You’ve had your first refreshing sip of ice-cold beer and are prepared to enjoy yourself but several complete strangers are looking at you as if they’ve known you forever and really like you and it’s just a little embarrassing. So you watch the band and look at the ceiling and gulp beer whenever anyone catches your eye, including your boss who's at the next table three sheets to the wind.

Phase II: I love you guys
You’ve finished your first beer and started on a second when it hits you that we are all connected. You start waving excitedly and blowing kisses to people at other tables and most of them wave and blow kisses back, except that guy two tables over who just threw up into his beer. This is the best phase to be in when you have to go to the bathroom because the deep, genuine love you feel for everyone around you allows you to glide past people and obstacles without getting yelled at or arrested. All you have to do is go to the front of the line, put your arms around the person you displaced - as long as they don't work with you - and tell them you love them... right before you dart into the bathroom and lock the door. When you come out they probably won’t be there anymore and even if they are, chances are that they will back away from you nervously so you're home free.

Phase III: I understand everything now
 
Finally, the unified field theory has been solved by you and the fundamental nature of the universe is no longer a mystery. The nature of the universe is hilariously funny so you laugh out loud. You share your new knowledge with the person sitting next to you and they totally get it. Now that you’ve solved the mysteries of the universe together you know that you’ll be friends forever. Unfortunately, neither of you will remember any of this tomorrow.


Phase IV: It's all good
In this phase, you have moved beyond understanding everything to a quiet, content acceptance of everything exactly as it is. Suddenly you realize that this is a perfect time for a Fischsemmel, which is pickled mackerel on a Kaiser roll with a slice of onion.** As you take that first tangy and slightly chewy bite your happiness is complete.


*There are actually 5 phases but Phase 5 happens the next day and isn’t nearly so nice as the other phases. I won’t say much about Phase V, except that it is a lot less full of universal love, omniscience and Fischsemmel than the previous phases. 

**It's better than it sounds.

Global Leadership Roundtable

Are you in a global leadership role or working in a global team?  Join us for the global leadership round table at Focus next week:

Managing an organization made up of people from the same cultural and linguistic backgrounds is a difficult task, but imagine if you were asked to lead a company that's spread out across the world. Would you be able to lead with a global perspective? What skill sets would you need to develop and refine? A panel of Focus HR and leadership experts plan to discuss:

• How to define, "global leader"
• How leaders can prepare to be global leaders, and necessary skill sets
• The pitfalls that impede global leadership success

Whether you are in a global leadership role or part of a global team, join the discussion and expand your global horizons.

Safe at Home

Ah, Spring. Warm sunlight, light breezes, budding flowers, laughing children, young German couples washing their cars…

There's magic in the air. We want to be outside.

In colder, harsher seasons we seek the haven of home, where we can lock out the rest of the world and feel safe.

But are we ever really safe, even at home?

The Japanese thought so…

It’s human to want to bury your head and ignore big problems until it’s too late. That's why we try to avoid thinking about gloomy topics like pollution, global warming and nuclear disaster.

That's why, despite problems we can see like massive oil spills, nuclear plant containment failures, melting ice bergs and dying species we believe people who tell us what we want to hear.

Meanwhile:

• We keep voting for politicians who ignore the problem or pretend it doesn't exist
• Leading countries continue to rely on outmoded, centralized, unsustainable energy production
• Other countries follow their lead, probably with even lower safety standards
• Industrial leaders lobby for lax environmental laws and win
• Nursing moms can’t eat tuna because of high mercury content
• Tokyo - one of my favorite cities - has radioactive water

We’re not safe at home. The Germans have recently woken up to this fact, electing the green party in the heart of car manufacturing country. They get it.

What about the rest of us?

I read an excellent post today about envisioning the future you want but belief must be combined with action. How we vote, how we buy, how we behave is just as important as how we believe.

By combining belief with action we can create the future we want to live in.

A future in which are safe at home.

Modern Workforce: Managing Remote Workers

As an HR executive, my project social partner Dave Ryan ponders how to manage remote employees, which he wrote about over at HR Official. And as a remote employee, my challenge is to stay engaged. So as our next tandem blog topic we decided to tackle remote workers from these different perspectives.

How do you keep a remote employee engaged? The simple answer is, you don’t. Employees are ultimately responsible for their own feeling of engagement. But there are things you can do to encourage that feeling:

Perspective #1: Team Lead

The largest team I ever managed was made up of 109 functional experts in 9 sub-teams in multiple locations. Each of the 9 teams had a senior consultant that reported to me and worked directly with each team. Several of the consultants on my team worked in the same building with me so it was relatively easy to connect with them. But with the remote folks I had to be more proactive about reaching out and staying in touch.

Over time we adopted a number of processes to facilitate communication and identify potential problems before they became actual problems:

• Weekly 30 minute 1:1 – Although I’m a firm believer that technology can replace most meetings, some personal interaction is necessary so we kept these 1:1 meetings fairly religiously.

• Weekly status report – Instead of status meetings we used a weekly status report to make it easy for anyone who actually cared (mostly me) to scan and identify overall status, current tasks, milestones, potential issues, to dos, etc.

• Monthly team meeting – We met as a team about once a month to brainstorm and share information. After the meeting we also went for dinner, for which I footed the bill and charged in as ‘team bonding.’

• Team communications – I used email to communicate process changes and team updates. I know that seems hopelessly outdated now but it was what we had. I tried to keep it short.

• Prompt follow up – I responded to any email from my team members immediately and insisted on the same courtesy from everyone on the team. There is nothing more frustrating as a remote person than feeling ignored.

• To each according to his need – Some of the consultants in my team needed more guidance and support than others. I triaged my time according to how much help each person needed.

Perspective #1: Remote Employee

I currently live and work in Munich while most of my colleagues sit together in California. In addition to the geographical difference, I’m 9 hours ahead of the corporate action. Sometimes it gets lonely here in the future and staying motivated can be a challenge. A few things make it easier:

• Good management – A big challenge for remote teams is that not all managers feel comfortable managing someone they can’t see and talk to face to face.

• Corporate support – Working with remote colleagues can be a challenge for people who aren't used to working in virtual teams and they may forget to include - or balk at including - their remote colleagues. But at companies where virtual teams are the norm the difficulties miraculously evaporate.

• Effective communication – If you aren't an effective communicator you cannot work remotely or manage remote people. That means being able to communicate clearly and concisely without relying on interpersonal crutches like appearance, personality or body language.

• Web 2.0 – I rely heavily on collaboration tools like Webex, Lifesize, Salesforce.com and an all-purpose corporate wiki to communicate what I’m working on and stay current with what others are working on.

• Experience – I’ve worked in the IT industry for 15 years in various roles so I can run with projects with very little guidance. If I were to start a new job in a new industry remote work probably wouldn’t work that well for me.

• Accountability – At the end of the day it’s up to me to make sure my manager doesn’t regret having a remote employee. This means being responsive, reliable and available. It also means reaching out when I need something and communicating early and often.

These are my experiences of what works best for managing remote people and working remotely. Be sure to check out Dave's post as well and if you have any other suggestions we’d love to hear them!

Modern Workforce Series

Within the next week I'm expecting my third child, which will I expect will add to my work life complexities. From a blogging perspective, however, it presents certain possibilities.

The workforce is changing and becoming more diverse. Companies are employing more contractors than ever before to minimize fixed costs. The workforce is also expanding globally in order to remain competitive. Technology allows more people to work from home or collaborate effectively from remote locations. And we now have four generations in the workforce (and it may be 5 or 6 before the Boomers retire).

I consider myself a modern worker: I have almost three kids. I'm about as remote as you can get, nine hours ahead of most of my colleagues. I've studied in Moscow and managed teams in California, Tokyo and Munich. And I rely heavily on technology to make it all possible.

And lately... probably influenced by my personal situation... I've got modern workers on the brain. In particular, how do they navigate the workplace and how can companies best manage and engage them?

Related topics keep occurring to me during the day and I'm running out of crumpled napkins to write them on:

• Coping as a Working Parent
• Effective Collaboration With Fewer Meetings
• Manage the Time Zone, Don't Let It Manage You
• Best Practices for Leading Global Teams
• Diversity and Good Management
• Etc.

I have lots to say about each of these but I also welcome guest posts if anyone would like to chime in. If you're interested, DM me at @workgal or drop me a line at laura.k.schroeder@gmail.com.

Top 5 Talent Management Trends in 2011

Here are five of my favorite talent management trends to help you get excited about 2011. Why? Because these trends promise change, growth and opportunity.

Trend #1: Creative talent acquisition strategies - In response to talent scarcity companies will continue to pursue creative strategies to acquire top talent such as contractors, remote workers, retirees, part-time workers. As a result, the workforce will grow increasingly culturally diverse, global, virtual, connected, and multi-generational. Needless to say, traditional top-down hierarchical management styles and one-size-fits-all approaches to talent management won't cut it with the modern workforce.

Trend #2: Focus on engagement - Few top performers consider themselves highly engaged and as many as 1 in 5 are actively looking for new opportunities. This isn’t surprising given that the workforce has undergone both a cognitive and a demographic shift while talent management practices lag behind. Given ample evidence that companies with highly engaged employees outperform companies with neutrally or negatively engaged employees, over the next few years we'll see more companies adopt - not just talk about - best practices such as closer scrutiny of manager quality, continuous feedback, talent mining and mobility, workforce segmentation, employee recognition programs and differentiated pay.

Trend #3: Technology’s finally starting to deliver on its promises from the 80s - I've been waiting a long time to say that! Modern talent management solution capabilities include talent profiles, faceted search, talent pooling, goal alignment, embedded multi-dimensional workforce analysis, mobile device access and collaboration tools. These solutions help business people work together across borders and time zones; accurately assess workforce costs, capabilities and capacity; align work to business objectives; and optimize deployment of a highly diverse workforce.

Trend #4: HR’s about the business - It always was, but now that costs have been cut as far as they can there’s a new focus on value creation. HR professionals have a unique opportunity to help drive share price with improved workforce insight, alignment and optimization and it will be interesting to see how they take advantage of this opportunity. Modern HR solutions can help but aren't a substitute for strategic thinking and execution - the solution needs to fit the strategy, not the other way around.

Trend #5: Global's the new black - According to a recent Towers Watson study Creating a Sustainable Rewards and Talent Model companies are focused on creating globally consistent talent and rewards strategies in order to improve efficiency and alignment while reducing costs and risks. Global consistency will require companies to identify talent programs and critical talent pools across borders; standardize job profiles, compensation plans and competencies; and define a global performance and rewards process. At the same time, companies must remain locally flexible in order to stay competitive and compliant in each region. In other words, global companies need to get better at managing both globally and locally.

Wishing you a very talented new year!

Project Social: Sustainability Pays for Itself

My Project Social partner Dave Ryan and I were catching up on our various sustainability projects and he suggested I write a short post about how Germany supports renewable energy.

Americans tend to distrust new legislation, and not without reason. But check out what intelligent legislation in action can do:

Thanks to the adoption of feed in tariff legislation in Germany, anyone can become an energy provider.

For example, if you install solar panels on your house the energy produced feeds into the grid and the energy provider pays you for it at a fixed rate.

You can kiss your energy bill good bye and probably even recoup enough cash back each month to repay the loan you took out to pay for the solar panels. Best of all, once you’ve paid off the loan your investment turns into an annuity.

That’s the beauty of sustainability: It pays for itself.

As a result of sustainable legislation, Germany is already enjoying the benefits of renewable energy, such as less dependence on foreign oil, fewer power plants, more choices for energy consumers, a thriving domestic industry and leading the charge on green technology.

Increasingly, being competitive will mean being sustainable. For example, did you know:

• According to Deloitte: 50% of shareholder proposals in 2006 were sustainability related;1
• In 2010, a record number of investors filed shareholder resolutions related to climate and energy;2
• According to E&Y recruiting top talent is more difficult for organizations that do not communicate their sustainability agenda.3

Make no mistake: The world as we know it is changing, moving to decentralized computing, sourcing, production and knowledge networks in order to increase capacity and lower costs. Energy production will necessarily follow, which will mean a cognitive shift in how we think, behave and conduct business.

If you’d like to get a glimpse of a world where distributed power production replaces big, ugly, expensive power plants, check out this preview of The 4th Revolution…



And don't miss Dave's latest post on making green pay!

1 Deliotte, “Sustainability: Balancing Opportunity & Risk in the Consumer Products Industry” (2007)
2 Ceres, “Investors Achieve Record Results On Climate Change”, July 7, 2010 - available here
3 Ernst & Young, “Ready Or Not, Here Comes Sustainability” (2009).

Project Social - The Role of HR During Good and Bad Times

My Project Social partner Dave Ryan and I were talking about what topic we wanted to tackle next and decided on the role of HR during good and bad times - Dave's post can be found here over at HR Official.

An old friend of mine came over for coffee on Sunday. She currently works as a recruiter but worked for years in HR at both big and small companies.

She talked about an unpleasant experience she had working as the sole HR person for a consulting start up. At first everything was great: the two founders (a couple of techies-turned-consultant-entrepreneur) loved her ideas about talent management and encouraged her to introduce best practices. People were to be recognized as the drivers of value, treated with respect, supported in their personal career goals, etc.

My friend recruited and on-boarded a qualified group of technical consultants and there was a real family feeling for the first several years. Then a series of poor business decisions – such as not hiring a qualified sales person as the business expanded - led to a cash crunch. Suddenly the tone changed. Salaries were reduced, although not at the C-level. Several projects were severely undermanned but hiring was frozen. Paychecks were late, causing extreme hardship for several employees.

Finally, employees were let go without any notice or severance – it was my friend’s bitter task to communicate this to people she had hired and worked beside for several years without inconvenient legal problems. Not surprisingly best people - the ones most critical to current projects - began jumping ship as well as the company began its final collapse.

And the co-CEOs? Apparently they sat in their office playing World of Warcraft while all this was going on.

I guess this is a good lesson for would-be talent managers: With the best talent management practices in the world you still have to run your business intelligently.

‘I wanted to make a difference,’ my friend remarked sadly. ‘I thought I could effect change from below but you can’t without support from above.’

‘That sucks!’ I commiserated. ‘So that’s why you quit and now you do recruiting. Uh... how do you like it?’

She shrugged indifferently. ‘It’s OK.’

‘But you can really make a difference as a recruiter!’ I protested. ‘You can help good people find new jobs after their lame CEOs destroy their company.’

She laughed but shook her head and explained, ‘I have limited influenced over who gets hired. In my experience it’s rarely the most qualified person and usually the person the hiring manager ‘clicks’ with.’

Just to be devil’s advocate I asked, ‘But isn’t it more important to hire someone who gets along with the team and can also do the job than someone with the top qualifications?’

She allowed that it is but added that too much value is placed on impressions rather than substance, which impacts overall performance.

‘Maybe you can help the best candidates by coaching them on what the hiring manager’s looking for,’ I suggested.

‘The only thing we're measured on is time to fill,’ she informed me. ‘I’m not paid to find the best candidate or help people - I’m paid to fill positions as quickly as they open. And they’ll replace me in a heartbeat if I perform slower than my colleagues.’

‘Oh,’ I said. What could I say?

What would you say?

More On Leadership and Stinky Fish

A great post over at Fistful of Talent about the overconfidence of new managers lured me in by mentioning stinky fish in the title. I mean, who doesn't enjoy stinky fish analogies about leadership?

The author Suzanne Rumsey briefly describes her own first management experience and admits she wasn't 'all that.' Which made me think of my own first management experience...

Overconfidence? Guilty as charged. I jumped at an early chance to manage a global team. I had a graduate degree in international business. I had almost a year and a half of professional experience. I had worked abroad. I was totally ready to lead.

Looking back I don't think I was such a terrible first time manager. It wasn't an easy gig: I had to produce a Japanese HR product with no knowledge of Japanese HR practices. There was no team so I had to build one, which at the time meant training non-technical people who had the functional skills I needed to develop software. Japanese employees also respond to a different leadership style than American employees, which I had to adapt to. I did my best, I cared about my team and we got the job done.

But my leadership style was pretty rough, especially vis-a-vis other more senior team leads who created work for my team. In other words, I managed down OK, I managed up sort of OK, but my lateral management left much to be desired.

Fast forward a few years to my first global project management job as an implementation consultant. I'd cut my teeth at a big German transportation company and was stepping up to a functional lead role for a huge global implementation at a high end global car manufacturer. Again, I was a bit junior for the role but completely confident in my ability to get the job done... if everyone would just do as I said.

(Does anyone else hear laughing?)

I soon discovered that project management is much harder than management. When you manage people, if you have half a brain, a dollop of self-awareness and decent people skills you can get people pointed in more or less the right direction. They report to you, after all, so you have a whole bag of tricks to incent them.

Whereas project management is like herding cats. No one reports to you so technically, no one has to do what you say. Your influence is indirect, i.e., you might be asked to provide input on someone's annual review or you can recommend that a problem consultant be removed from the project. But that's about it.

So all of a sudden you're in the realm of persuassion and consensus building rather than coersion. You have to figure out what people want and help them get it so they'll do what you want. More importantly, you have to keep the trade off of favors balanced with the end goal in mind so that the project keeps moving forward.

And if you're paying attention, here's what you learn: Direct managers must also lead with persuassion and consensus building rather than coersion, at least if they want to be effective.

Unfortunately, not all managers learn this lesson. How can they, with so many props at their disposal? To a large extent, managers control upward communication, work assignment, compensation and perqs. Who needs leadership skills?

The 'smart' ones focus on building relationships to their own colleagues and management team, too often at the expense of the people reporting to them. We can't even blame them for this because in most companies managers are by and large dependent on the good will of other managers rather than their own teams.

But I don't want to get all systemic here. My point is simply that putting a manger in a project manager position forces them to learn some new skills that will stand them in good stead as a manager.

So here's an idea: Before you give someone more power than they are ready to wield, why not give them a chance to show what they can do without it?

Compensation in the Membrane

I love compensation. Although I don't think compensation is the only or best way to motivate people, I adore complex, global, multi-faceted compensation programs.

I... just do.

I used to be a software developer for a large, global software vendor. My job was to manage the design and development of the Japanese HR requirements in the global product.

My work involved adding "local" features to the existing global application, which essentially meant slogging through other people's code trying not to break anything with the new stuff.

Did you know that code has personality? For example, French code tends to be brilliant and erratic with cryptic (if any) comments. German code is orderly and concise, with over-capitalized comments that imply the reader is stupid. American code is sometimes brilliant, sometimes sloppy and rarely commented.

It was mostly fun although I sometimes fantasized about blowing up the old code and building something from scratch.

Fast forward, glossing over several jobs, life events, and international moves.

A few years ago I was recruited to design the compensation solution for a new product line at another company. The company was in the process of developing an HRMS solution based on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model.

At first the 'compensation team' was just me and one developer. That seemed small to me after transitioning from a large global team, but on the upside, fewer schedules to coordinate.

We ran around like Benny Hill that first year, only mostly without the slapstick.

I wrote product designs, marketing collateral, white papers and user documentation. I tested each new feature. I trained the sales people and consultants. I presented our product vision to analysts, prospects and customers.

My development partner was just as busy on the technical side, developing the product, testing the limits of new tools that hadn’t even been QA’d yet and working weekends to squeeze in just one more enhancement.

We followed a few simple design principles:

1. Compensation is core, not something you do in a separate system.

2. The solution must be flexible enough to work in any country.

3. Information to make a decision should be available where it's needed.

4. All processes should have a consistent look, feel, set up and behavior.

5. Don't build features no one will use.

One of the great things about SaaS is you can deliver a lot of product in a short amount of time. Our rapid progress helped us attract customers, who shared their passion about compensation and helped us refine our business requirements.

The product grew. The team grew. The company grew.

Today the product is used by more than 100 companies worldwide and growing.

Want to see it? :-)

Click HERE to watch a short product preview.

Poor Working Moms

Recently there’s been a fair amount of discussion around gender inequality when it comes to compensation. It turns out that on average, women earn as much as men with one notable exception: working moms, who on average earn less than men and childless women alike.

Now they tell me.

The disparity in earning power has as much to do with career choices as salary. There are several forces at work here:

Availability – Working moms are available at odd times and in an era where promoting work life fit is still pretty cutting edge it makes them stand out. The burden is usually on them to set expectations and find ways to make it work with individual personalities.

Flexibility – Lack of flexibility also plays a starring role when it comes to a working mom’s reduced earning power. Working moms are more likely to have limited ability to travel, relocate or live away from home during the week, all of which may deny them access to higher paying roles.

Time Out – In addition to missing salary raises and bonuses while on maternity leave, working moms lose months or even years of work experience. And not just the actual experience but the whole ‘being there’ factor that forms such an important part of human relationships. It's sad but true that corporate life moves on without you while you’re at home changing diapers and trying to fit back into your skinny jeans.

Perception – People who work long hours may resent people who knock off at 3 to pick up the kids, which is understandable to a point. Working moms also miss out on office social life, which can be even more damaging than missing meetings.

Note that none of these things involve people trying to put working moms at a disadvantage, although I do think there’s a tendency to focus on the superficial rather than the real. The reality is that although working moms have availability constraints, they are also highly efficient. Not all of them, of course, but the ones that were efficient before they had kids tend to be amazingly efficient after.

Now, you’d think in a company where ‘doing more with less’ is important this would bring them lots of success but it can actually have the opposite effect, as we will see below.

There are two kinds of working moms,* the plodder and the work horse. The plodder does her work, has a smile for everyone, and goes home after lunch. She’s well-liked but not on anyone’s radar for advancement. The work horse cranks out high quality work at high speed and could easily take on more responsibility but rubs people the wrong way with her relentless productivity and acting like her time is more valuable than anyone else’s.

Which is OK if you’re an executive but don’t try it with some lame-ass excuse like raising a family.

*There’s actually a third kind, the player, who has a full-time nanny at home and spends as much time networking as doing actual work. However, the player is rarely salary challenged and is therefore irrelevant for this discussion.

The financial disadvantage of working moms is not a legal problem, it’s a mindset problem. Even in Germany, where women can take up to a year of paid leave to have a child and two additional unpaid years, working moms suffer from the missed time. And companies are reluctant to hire women because they can legally go on extended maternity leave at any moment.

But the way we work is changing whether we like it or not. People are focusing more on work life fit, more people work remotely and social media tools are re-defining how we interact and collaborate. Today’s workforce is dominated by people who prefer face-to-face meetings (and lots of them!) but that is already changing on the heels of new technology, new economic reality and a new generation entering the workforce.

In this new world, the focus will be on output and quality rather than 'being there.' Relationships will still be important but they won't be based around the water cooler.

In this new world, the smart money's on the working mom.

Let's Not Overdo This Qualifications Thing...

A recent post over at Steve's HR Technology about jobs that require degrees got me thinking.

I believe that how well someone will do at a job has more to do with who they are than what sort of degree or experience they have.

There are exceptions: If you're going to perform surgery on my brain or represent me in a court of law, I want to see a degree or two after your name and I don't want to be your first client after graduation.

But for a lot of the jobs out there, an understanding of the basics is enough to be going on with.

Let me tell you a story about a time when I talked my way into a job I wasn't qualified to do.

It was while I was in graduate school getting my MA in international management with an emphasis on Japan studies. There was a paid summer marketing internship in Tokyo that I wanted. Paid. Marketing. Tokyo.

I knew it must be mine.

Unfortunately, half the students in my class also knew it must be theirs. Most of them weren't a big threat to me - my grades were good, my Japanese was adequate, I'd already lived and worked in Japan and I'd taken a marketing class.

So, I had what you might call the basic minimum profile.

Only one person was a real threat to me. His grades weren't quite as good as mine, but no one actually cares about grades and his Japanese was friggin' amazing.

I plotted his downfall. Just kidding - he's still a good friend of mine - but I did plan to get that job.

Fortunately, the application required a self-introduction video. I wasn't so arrogant as to think I had the job in the bag when I heard this - because not everyone warms to an overconfident ham - but I knew this was my chance to stand out.

Let's face it, a video is almost always better than a resume with dubious credentials like 'ESL Teacher', 'Graduate Study Body President', 'Senior Aerobics Instructor', 'Writing Skills Tutor' and 'Assistant Financial Aid Clerk.'

I enlisted my teacher for help crafting a modest-yet-compelling introduction. I practiced the heck out of it. I wore my one suit and used copious amounts of product in my hair.

I shined. I exuded reliability. I appeared to speak fluent Japanese. I smelled good (just in case).

And I got the job. That was the first hurdle. The second hurdle was doing the job.

Despite my fluent introduction, my Japanese wasn't good enough to sit in on Japanese focus groups and take notes. We employed some note takers who would turn in their handwritten comments at the end of each focus group but that didn't help me much. I could decipher typed kanji characters with the help of a dictionary but the hand-written notes were way beyond me.

So, that first week I made stuff up. I told Coca-Cola executives their new Fanta drink was too pink (well, it was!). I told the Zegna management team that people found their suits elegant but expensive. I told... well, never mind, it was for the best.

I wasn't flying totally blind, you understand. I'd lived in Japan for 2 years and could read facial expressions and body language and I also understood some of what was said.

But in that first week or so, the guy I beat out for the job would have been a better fit.

Then something changed. In the focus groups, the same sorts of phrases were used over and over. I started being able to recognize and decipher the hand-written kanji characters. My brain adapted and began accepting new types of information.

After 6 weeks, I could fly through 10 hand-written pages of notes, pluck out the salient points and write up a killer executive presentation outlining product and marketing recommdations.

At the end of the summer, after several of my executive presentations had been favorably received by key clients, they offered me a permanent position after graduation. Which I politely declined.

It was a great learning experience but the job just wasn't challenging enough.

Boundary Conditions

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." - Douglas Adams

Recently Deutsche Bahn had a flurry of self-inflicted misfortune as a result of a combination of cost cutting and poorly defined boundary conditions.

Boundary conditions are the constraints and assumptions that shape a design, strategy or plan.

For example, when designing software one of the questions the designer has to ask is, What could go wrong? This is a pretty crucial question because the user may not understand how to navigate a particular process, or deliberately try to get around a constraint in the system.

The software designer's job is to gently herd the user into the right direction, where 'right' is defined as 'transaction completed correctly, no risk to security, no bad data and no one throwing their computer across the room.'

Think of the answer to the question, 'What could go wrong?' as the leading question you ask in order to define your boundary conditions. Your design must reflect these because too often what could go wrong does go wrong.

Just to clarify, this does not mean you design for everything that could go wrong because that would be insane. What it means is that you design to avoid the most likely and/or critical failure scenarios and have a backup plan (such as a correction function or an undo button) for everything else.

I'm oversimplifying but it's hard to unpack years of lessons learned from software design in one sentence.

So, getting back to Deutsche Bahn, they diligently defined boundary conditions under which their air conditioning unit would function properly. Unfortunately, they designed their system for a temperature that is frequently exceeded during the summer.

There were financial reasons for doing this, of course, but the bottom line was that the air conditioning would stop working as soon as it actually got hot.

Then they skipped some maintenance checks to save costs.

Finally, they made a mistake that as a system designer makes me cringe - there was no backup plan built into the system.

Personnel weren't trained in what to do in the case of extreme heat. Windows couldn't be opened. Passengers (including infants, elderly, and all those poor people in business suites) sat trapped in moving cars at temperatures of 50 C and upwards.

I wonder what that fiasco is going to cost.

When designing software or defining business strategy, it's imortant to define appropriate boundary conditions that consider costs as part of the equation.

But don't stop there:

Try to identify what can go wrong when you cut costs. . .

and what it might cost if something does go wrong in terms of money, reputation, human life, etc. . .

and whether the cost cutting really makes good business sense when you get right down to it.

Talk Like a German: Ending a Meeting

To continue with my theme of Brevity as the new Courtesy, I have translated some useful phrases for ending a meeting or conversation with a German*:

• I'm sorry, but I don't believe I can help you any more.

• I'm afraid I can't help you any more. It would be best if you would talk to Herr/Frau So-and-So yourself.

• Excuse me but I must now end our meeting. I have something important to do.

• Would you please now let me continue working?

• You now have all the necessary information. I can't do anything more for you.

• I'll give you the telephone number for Herr/Frau So-and-So. Please contact him/her yourself.

*Source: Textbook 'Eismann, Volker (2007): 'Success with Telephone and Office Meetings.'

Brevity: The New Courtesy?

My German father-in-law handed me a book from the 70s called (translated from the German):

'Shorter, More to the Point, More Precise: The New Communication Style of the Modern Leader.'

(Kind of a longish title for a book on communication brevity but it's shorter in German.)

The introduction reads as follows:

''Information was never so important. We live in complicated systems held together by an information net. Distance is irrelevant. People exchange information, sometimes over telephone or Internet, or even on paper. The volume of communication is growing: meetings, memos, messages, notes, emails. We need a new communication style that is shorter, more to the point, more precise. We need a new definition of courtesy that takes other people's time into account."

Two things occurred to me as I read this:

1) The Germans are sometimes considered rude for their curt, direct communication style. Even I think so and I'm used to them. Still....

2) Think of the time that could be saved if people would say what they have to say and be done with it!

Do we create more work for ourselves with unnecesary verbal embellishments and waffling? Can we learn to live without them or are we too sensitive, too fragile, too ready to take offense?

I'm not denying the importance of polite communication in business and social interactions, I'm just not sure what that actually means.

Therefore, for the next month I resolve not to take offense when someone speaks or writes to me bluntly... as long as they keep it short.

*Picture courtesy of Chris Wolf.

Always Available, Always Broken

'Always Available, Always Broken' is the name of an article I read recently in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

According to a study of people working in the IT branch throughout Germany, there is a level of stress permeating the entire industry that can negatively impact health and productivity.

There are several predictable culprits, for example:

• Fewer people having to do more work due to the current economic situation.
• The expectation that one is available round the clock via several different types of media.
• The ever changing nature of information technology, resulting in an overwhelmed feeling.

And one culprit that may surprise you: performance management, in particular goals.

The study cites 'new management techniques' involving the rollout of goals and frequent performance reviews. Sound familiar?

But wait, we like performance management and we sort of like goals. And frequent performance reviews are a plus for the employee, in fact some bold thinkers have even referred to timely and constructive feedback as part of employee compensation now that there's no money.

Plus, we all know that Generation Y loves regular reviews because they can't wait a whole year for feedback.

However, the researches who conducted this study warns that this can lead employees to feel like they have to permanently prove their right to be employed. And that can be unnecessarily - as in not value adding - stressful.

Because it creates a feeling of control and insecurity rather than trust.

And the results?

Well, for one thing, more people come to work when sick, which is not good for productivity or general workplace health. Or the national health care bill, come to mention it.

And of course team work tends to get shot to hell in this kind of paranoid, suspicious atmosphere.

But more importantly, highly qualified workers, who are expected to be pretty scarce in just a few years, are being systematically burned out.

This definitely raises some interesting questions about the level of stress of employees in other countries that have a less generous social net and vacation policy than Germany. Not to mention the possible social cost of stress related illnesses over the next decade.

In any event, it sounds like somebody's missing the boat on talent management. If done correctly, one doesn't expect big German men to cower in a corner weeping or laughing hysterically during a simple job satisfaction survey.

(This is why I always say you should talk to people, you don't get nearly as much depth from an online survey.)

What do you think, when does performance management turn into unhealthy micromanagement?

A Convenient Truth... for some people, anyway

This weekend we were invited out to the countryside for a friend's birthday party. The weather was perfect, with a stunning blue and white Bavarian sky over lush green rolling hills as far as you could see, dotted by the odd red roof or light brown cow. All day long we sipped wine, grilled everything you can grill, ate frozen Snickers and downed all manner of ecclectic side dishes.

In between the more serious business of eating we talked about everything under the sun. We were a youngish (think new 30), urban, professional group from all walks of business and it was a great chance to compare notes on the workplace with other working moms.

One discussion stood out for me because it dichotomized two sides of a debate that I have been personally interested in since having children:

Part time employees and the role they play in modern business.

On one side of the debate was Tanja, an experienced orthopedic surgeon who has taken twice as long with her residency because she has two kids and only works part time. She feels it is unfair that her residency has been extended so long when, except for the actual hours present in the clinic where she works, she performs at the same level as her colleagues. At the end of the day, she sees the same number of patients, performs the same number of surgeries, fills out the same volume of paperwork.

'Part-time workers are the deal of the century,' she informs us. 'They cost about half what the full-time people do and they work more efficiently. When I was full-time I would take a long lunch break, chat for an hour, procrastinate before doing my paperwork, because I had plenty of time. Now I get in, check out my case load and usually grab a sandwich between cases because I know I have to leave at 3. But supervisors need to be more flexible to reap the benefits.'

Brigitta, a tall, blue eyed Austrian who seems quite friendly until someone whispers that she manages the entire pension fund of one of the world's largest companies, and then you think she can't actually be that nice, nods but disagrees.

'I think some jobs lend themselves to greater flexibility than others. Your job is a perfect example. If you're operating on someone's knee it doesn't matter if you do it in the AM or the PM, and Monday may work as well as Tuesday. But if you're working on something like ongoing negotiations, where you need to be in constant contact with the other parties and easily reachable, it's not feasible to make the other person wait or brief someone else to step in on your off days.'

Then she laughs and since this is before I know what she does for a living I see it as a friendly laugh, and maybe it is, because who says that women who are reponsible for billions of dollars in a male dominated culture can't also be genuinely nice? 'I personally hate it when I can't reach someone.'

What the heck, I laugh, too, because I'm tipsy and, I mean, who does like that?

She continues: 'Whenever I call someone in the US and get their voice mail it drives me crazy. And I know it drives the Americans crazy to call here and not be able to get straight through to the person they want to talk to because anyone in the office might pick up. Americans like voicemail better than talking to people.'

I felt this was a little off topic but it still struck me as an interesting observation.

She focuses on Tanja's situation again and offers a truce: 'Look, I'm pretty easy going about letting folks work from home, although I have plenty of colleagues that are total hardliners about that because it makes them feel out of control.'

Tanja rejoins with: 'Exactly. They feel uncomfortable. But I see that as a lack of trust.'

Brigitta: 'True, I see your point. But it's easier to work with people if they're right there.'

Tanja: 'Oh, ja, it's definitely easier, if that's all that matters.'

Brigitta (raising her wine glass at Tanja and me): Hey, if someone would offer me my current job at 80% FTE I'd jump at it!'

We drink to that. And I thought Brigitta raised a fair point about ongoing negotiations and the different levels of suitability of some jobs over others when it comes to working fewer or more flexible hours.

But bottom line, I think Tanja hit the nail on the head when she pointed out the potential economic advantage of part-time workers, if only companies could be more creative about utilizing them.

What do you think?

Back to the Basics

I work in Munich. Not surprisingly, my colleagues are German. We're a small group so we often have lunch together in our favorite local restaurant, which happens to be Italian. Every month or so they publish a new menu and we dutifully select one of the specials, eat it, have an espresso, pay and walk back to work.

Today we had an Italian guest, a global IT consultant that came to discuss global payroll strategy. He used to manage IT for the United Nations and has a steady supply of stories and business insights. We took him to our Italian restaurant.

Without glancing at the menu he engaged with the waiter in Italian, asking him what he recommended. After several moments of consultation it was decided that lightly grilled fish with a side order of steamed vegetables would be the best choice.

I've spent time in Italy and know enough to follow Italian recommendations on food so I promptly ordered the same, even though I didn't understand much besides, 'fish.' Wine was also procured.

Naturally, it was delicious. 'Was that even on the menu?' I asked.

He smiled. 'I have no idea.' An expressive shrug to show that it was of no importance.

Waving his fork, he continued. 'It's all about people. You have to engage with people to get the best results. You have to talk to them.'

Yes, I thought. You have to engage with people if you want them to do their best for you. If you give people a form to fill out they will fill out the form, with varying degrees of enthusiasm or boredom. Nine times out of ten they will not bother to do more than fill out the form because that's what you asked them to do. If you want them to do more you have to ask them to do that, too, and pretty soon you have to tell people to dot every i and cross every t.

Sometimes the menu is just in the way.

Recently the Compensation Cafe blogged about how processes can get in the way of people doing a good job. The actual credit goes to Steve Roesler at his All Things Workplace blog. The main idea is that most people want to do a good job but in too many cases it's the organization and processes that try to force them to work in a particular way that discourage engagement and prevent them from meeting their full potential.

I would say it like this: The best organizations let people play to their strengths.

My lunch companion also shared with me three rules for effective management, none of which had anything to do with organization or process:

'I tell my employees three things.

One: Be curious. If you aren't curious you will never stretch your potential.

Two: Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Three: Don't work alone. Even if you do your best thinking on your own, come up for air and communicate. Share. Connect.'

Well. That beats filling out forms any day.