Education

Earlier this fall, my wife and I attended a wonderful evening dinner theater, in which the themed evening was “A Tribute to Frank Sinatra”. During the course of the show, we were entertained to no fewer than 50 of the great melodies made classics by Ol’ Blue Eyes. Prior to the show, we settled in for a magnificent dinner, and during that time, our host came out to greet the audience. After announcing some memorable anniversaries and special occasions among those in attendance, the host offered a wonderful short story about Sinatra.

OK, we all know the ol’ stereotype of how bureaucratic government jobs can be. I’ll let you determine the extent to which that’s true in your own unique situation. Instead, I want to underscore just how damaging bureaucratic behavior can be and how to address its root cause—which we’ll get to momentarily.

2018 is right around the corner and isn’t too early to begin considering the HR and hiring trends for the upcoming year. 2017 was mainly about culture and performance. Another vast internal shift is coming, however, and this one will focus on technology and how it can be utilized in the recruiting process as well finding, connecting, engaging, and hiring people. In the upcoming year, one of the shifts will focus on technology as a way of life in the workplace.

Consider the postage stamp. It has one singular goal. It remains focused. This focus was a habit it developed in the face of fear. The fear of leaving its home and its other family of stamps, but it knows that in order to get what you want out of life, you must push through in order to create the life you want, and not just settle for the life that is given to you.

There are a lot of reasons performance appraisals can get wonky. Managers who don’t take the time to get the input they need or are just not paying attention; Forced stack ranks that have glowing words, and a “meets requirements” rating because there were too many other “exceptional” exceptional players in the mix; Or a boss who says, “You write it, I’ll sign it.”

So, you tidied up your Résumé, polished off your Cover Letter and sent your job application in. It seems like months ago that you did that and at last the phone call has arrived. You tell your friends and family that you think you’ve got the job, if you can only get through the interview next week! It can’t be that hard, could it?

It is far easier to focus on how well we are managing budgets, casting vision, charting direction and delegating responsibilities to others. It’s a simple task to focus on all the things we are doing correctly while systematically ignoring the very things that could be causing us to fail as leaders.

A paradigm shift is happening today about the meaning of work, what a job is, what it means to be an employee, and the changing nature of a working life. We are working and living longer, so it's crazy to think of education as a single decade at the beginning of our lives when we might have seven or eight more!

I’m blessed to have had many people in my life who demonstrated the benefits of simply being nice. I’m able to interact with and learn from, some of the nicest people on the planet, including my wife, Diane, Ken Blanchard, and others. I've learned the science of positive psychology and well being from the wonderful Lisa Zigarmi.

Face it, email is here to stay. We tend to have a love/hate relationship with email. On the one hand, it provides us the connection, information, and even business leads we need. On the other, it is the source of some ongoing problems. But there are ways to make changes that will help. Let’s look at four.