The other day a box arrived at my office. Carefully packed in foam was this lovely award from Inscape Publishing. Although SkillSource has been an award-winning distributor with Inscape for sixteen years, I’d never bothered to select the physical “trophy” (as my son called it); opting instead for other forms of recognition that the company provided.

It occurred to me that the award is way more than a physical reminder of my company’s sales success. It’s an acknowledgement of a successful business partnership. Since opening SkillSource’s doors in 1995, I’ve tried out several business partnerships—affiliate programs, distributorships, joint ventures, product development. Most alliances were “meh”. One stands above the rest— my affiliation with Inscape.

What’s the difference between a so-so business partnership and one that is highly satisfying for both parties? I’d say it boils down to these 10 factors:

1. Integrity. Everything is handled with honesty, professionalism and straightforwardness. From product launches, to communicating about new changes in company ownership, to policies for our distributorship, I’ve learned that when Inscape makes an announcement, it’s the real deal. If you’re considering partnering with an organization and you sense inconsistencies— don’t do the deal. The foundation of your relationship is based on your partner’s integrity.
2. High-quality products. Are you super-excited about the value proposition your partner offers? When it comes to my Inscape product offerings, I most certainly am. Looking back on partnerships that didn’t work out, I realize that in some cases I jumped into arrangements where the products or services were not up to my standards. From that point on, I wasn’t fully committed to the partnership because I was secretly embarrassed by the product quality. Be sure anything that you associate with makes you excited and proud to talk about.
3. Honoring the relationship. Inscape has made a commitment to distribute their products solely through independent consultants.  They don’t sell directly on the internet. By honoring their distribution channel, they create confidence among those of us who help get their products to the marketplace. If you’re thinking of signing on with a group that has multiple ways to get to market—ask really tough questions to be sure that the arrangement will benefit both your potential partner and you.
4.  Investment. Inscape puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to training their distributors. We have many learning opportunities—conferences, webinars, and phone conferences designed to keep us up to date. Are your current partners doing the same for you?
5. Research and development. Because Inscape publishes research-based self-assessments, R&D is always on their radar. They are continually striving to improve the product and make it relevant to today’s workforce. If your potential partners aren’t continually looking to improve their products, you may eventually find that your position in the marketplace is suddenly irrelevant.
6. Consistent communication. How often do you hear from your business partners? How many channels of communication are there? As a distributor, I get monthly newsletters, access to a private distributor discussion board and connection points on social media.
7. Fun to work with. This is a biggie for me. If I don’t enjoy the people I work with, it’s just not going to be that productive.
8. Excellent customer service. In all the years I’ve ordered products from Inscape there has only been one error and that was resolved quickly and painlessly. Can you say the same for your business partnerships?
9. Stability in leadership. The top leadership at Inscape has been around for many years, providing consistent, stable stewardship for the company. It’s reassuring that it hasn’t been a revolving door at the top. And when leadership transitions have happened, it’s communicated to us clearly and in advance.
10. Recognition. I don’t do this for the awards—it’s really about numbers 1 – 9 above. But when the first nine are all in place, it sure is nice to get recognized for my hard work. Inscape has a long tradition of offering multiple ways to recognize and reward their distributors. Are you getting any acknowledgement of your contributions from your partnerships—either formally or informally?

Forming a business partnership requires a big commitment. Pay attention to the factors listed above and you’ll be sure to set yourself – and your future business partner – for success.

If you’ve ever left something important behind at a hotel, you know that sinking feeling that overcomes you when you discover it’s missing. At 4:30 pm yesterday I arrived home after an excellent two days of learning (and presenting) at the Michigan Nutrition Network CHOICES Conference. At 4:31 pm after removing my prescription sunglasses, I discovered that my regular eyeglasses were missing.

I’m very near-sighted.  My glasses are basically a part of my face, so when I realized they didn’t make it home with me,  I immediately called the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the conference was hosted. Luckily, the hotel is in my hometown. Here’s a rundown of my customer service experience, which was outstanding.

Service contact #1: Reception desk. I explain my plight and am immediately connected to Lost and Found.

Service contact #2: Elizabeth answers, listens carefully to me explain that I think they’re in the ladies room.She says she’ll check with Housekeeping and call me back.

Service contact #3: Elizabeth calls back within ten minutes. “I’m sorry Ms. Miller, we didn’t find the glasses.” I wonder out loud if they could be in the parking garage? “I’ll send security to check.”

Service contact #4: Elizabeth calls me a second time (again, within 10 minutes) to tell me they’ve located my glasses. She will hold them for me at lost and found.

Service contact #5: Valet parking attendant at the hotel’s circular drive.  ”No problem, ma’m, I’ll go get them for you.”

Service contact #6: Concierge comes to my car and personally hands me my glasses. Relief washes over me and and I blather on and on with thanks. The young man graciously listens to me and says, “Not at all; it’s my pleasure.”

Six  points of customer contact. Six times that people calmed my worries and never once gave the impression of being inconvenienced by a customer. And one unmet security guard who walked through the skybridge, into the elevator, up to the top floor of a parking garage and back again with my eyeglasses.

Whoever says customer service is dead hasn’t left their eye glasses at the Amway Grand Plaza.

Overheard at a lunchtime conversation in the company cafeteria:

Employee: “That sure was a big announcement by the CEO this morning. They’re really moving the boxes on the org chart this time. What’s your reaction?

Mid-level manager: (shrugging shoulders, sounding nonchalant) “Meh. I’ve been around this place for a long time. It’s just same monkeys, different trees, as far as I’m concerned.”

As a leader, you may have become blasé about corporate restructuring, especially if you’re a survivor of numerous downsizing/outsourcing/right-sizing battles. Trust me on this one when I say: You may be feeling chill about the latest company reorg, but the employees who report to you most decidedly are NOT.

There’s an old adage out there that says “people resist change”. I think that’s not quite accurate.  In my opinion, it’s not always the actual proposed change that people are resisting. Rather it’s the disruption their work lives are about to undergo when they hear of organizational realignment. Even when an announced change is welcome (“Finally, it’s about time!”), there is still that period of uncertainty and lack of clarity about “who does what”.

If your department is in any way affected by your company’s reorganization, there are several things that your team members will want to know before they can move to the task of making the change. Typically, their questions proceed in the following series of steps:

1. As you might suspect, the first reactions tend to be “Me” questions, like:
• Where do I fit?
• Will I like it?
• What will I be required to do?
2. Then, once those questions are answered, people expand their curiosity beyond themselves to:
• Where do others on my team fit?
• What happens if there’s not a place for others?
3. Then, people start to assimilate how this change might be useful:
• What are the benefits to me, my team and the company?
4. And finally (and only after all the other questions have been answered) are people ready to discuss the transition:
• What’s the process for the changeover?

In my experience, leaders often breeze through steps 1 -3, providing only the most cursory of explanations. They want to move as quickly as possible to step #4. Here’s the problem with rushing steps 1 – 3: if people aren’t comfortable with the answers to the first three steps, then they’ll find a way to get the team back to the step for which they require more information.

Don’t be a blasé leader. Even if you perceive the organizational change to be a non-issue, be sure to build in time to communicate the changes. You’ll probably need to communicate the change numerous times and in several formats in order for it to sink in.

Not sure where to begin? Try these four ideas for getting people to buy into your change.

In 1995 I started the consulting company SkillSource. Early on I made the strategic decision to function as a home-based solopreneur, meaning I am the primary service provider. When projects require it, I sub-contract out training delivery and consulting services.  For the administrative side of my business, I make use of a cadre of skilled professionals: web designer, tax accountant, my virtual assistant Suzie and so on.

For me, it’s been a fantastic career choice. But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Over the years, I’ve met many talented colleagues who have taken the plunge into self-employment for awhile, only to be lured back into working for a larger, more established organization.

So why do some people love being out on their own, while others prefer working for The Man?

Beyond the practical considerations such as start-up capital and paying for one’s own benefits, there’s a whole other facet to determining your self-employment viability: does it fit your temperament? Take my unscientific quiz to see if you’re suited for running a home-based business:

1. Are you comfortable working for long stretches by yourself?
2. Can you make tough decisions without the input of many people?
3. Are you a focused person?
4. Do you have an established network of service providers to whom you can turn for assistance?
5. Do you have the patience to teach yourself how to do things—especially mundane things like how to fix a broken printer?
6. Have you ever worked for a small company (less than 25 employees)?
7. Do you like to sell?

How did you do?

My (unscientific) analysis: if you enthusiastically answered “Yes!” to at least five* of the questions above, in my opinion, you are suited to the life of a solopreneur.

Here’s my rationale:

Questions 1-3 address the solitary nature of self-employment. If you are the type of person who needs the energy of other people to be productive, self-employment may not be a good fit for you.

Questions 4 and 5 speak to the need for solopreneurs to be do-it-yourselfers. You don’t need to do everything yourself, but you do need to know where to find people (at a reasonable price) who can help you.

A “yes” to question 6 means that you’re already familiar with how to wear many hats. Small businesses don’t have huge budgets or large staffs, so everyone needs to pitch in. This will serve you well if you go out on your own.

* A “no” answer to question 7 is a deal breaker. If you’re going to go it alone, you’ll need to learn to sell. If you’re like me, you may never learn to love it, but it’s a vital part of keeping your cash flow going. If the thought of making phone calls and networking with strangers breaks you out into hives, then you might want to re-think your path to self-employment.

That’s my two cents’ worth on how to decide if self-employment is for you.

Now, it’s your turn.  I’d love to hear from other solo business people—

What are the key factors that you think determine a solopreneur’s success?

I wrote a much-read blog post called Sitting Kills. What Your HR Department Can Do About It. In that post, I wondered what role HR departments should play when faced with data that says that people who sit for the majority of the day are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack. If that statistic is true, think about all the call centers around the world: they are a literal heart-attack waiting to happen.

I have a possible antidote.

Parade Magazine featured an article in their Stay Healthy section titled Push Pencils—and Pedals! in which four under-the-desk gadgets were featured as a way to promoted more activity.

Among the items suggested:

This Webble Ergonomic Footrest

Not into wobbly footsie? Well, then, how about this:

Stamina InMotion Elliptical Trainer

I can’t decide whether to laugh or hop right online to order one of these bad boys. I mean, can you imagine all the jiggling and jostling that would occur if a bunch of teleservice reps were revving up on their ellipticals while taking customer calls? It’s quite the visual, isn’t it?

Funny mental images aside, it does have me wondering . . .

If you were a manager and an employee asked you for an under-the-desk “foot fiddler”, what would you say? Both items retail for $150. If one of these products were incorporated into, say, a 300-person call center for all employees it would cost $45,000.

Employers across the globe continue to seek ways to manage employee benefits costs. This could possibly be seen as a smart way to insert preventative health measures into the workplace. Now, with the addition of research pointing to the health risks of a seemingly low-risk job, is that enough to move this request from wacky to wise?

Would you as a manager agree to it, even if the request entailed a far-fetched exercise device?

Or, is it not far-fetched at all?

There’s a new game making the rounds these days called Phone Stack. Have you played it? The basic gist is this—when you dine out with friends, everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table and then embarks on a huge game of chicken— who  can resist the siren call of their phone for the longest time? The stakes are fairly high: the first person to take a call agrees to pick up the tab for the whole group.

Reporting on this game, the blog GetKempt says, “It’s a buzzing, flashing reminder of every phone-etiquette rule the world seems to have forgotten.”

I like it. A lot. In fact, I think we should kick it up a notch and play Phone Stack at our next company meeting. It’ll be like an intervention to see who’s the most addicted to their mobile device.

If I were to suggest this process (we’re in business, we don’t do “games”, right?) at a meeting, the outcry would be fierce:

“I’m expecting an important call.”

“I just need to sign off on this P.O. Accounting is emailing it to me any minute now.”

“My customers expect me to be available”.

“Who do you think you are?!”

There is truly very little that can’t wait. Most of the “emergencies” in our business lives are urgent because we allow them to be. When people are constantly checking their phones, it feeds the urgency, creating a vicious cycle. Every time a phone buzzes or someone glances down at their lap (do you think we can’t see that?!) it disrupts the flow of the meeting. It sends the message “What’s happening outside this meeting is more important than the topic of the meeting I’m in.”

“But wait!” you say, “What’s going on outside this meeting room IS more important.”

Well, you’re not alone in that opinion. According an infographic published by SocialCast, 71% of employees in the U.S. feel that most meetings are a waste of time.

Feeling vindicated? Hold on a minute. . .

Consider this: When you attend a meeting and fake your attention, you’re contributing to that statistic. Your attendance at a meeting doesn’t mean you’ve met the mark. It’s your participation that counts.

As I see it, if you think that meeting will be a huge waste of time, you have two choices:

A)    Put on your Big Kid Pants and accept that you need to be at this meeting, and you will give your 100% full attention.

B)    Prior to the meeting, find a way to speak up and suggest to the meeting planner in a professional manner that perhaps there’s a better way than conducting a face-to-face meeting.

Anything less is just contributing to the problem.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to have the offender “pick up the tab” at the meeting, we’d be all set . . .

 Photo credit: istockphoto.com © sndr

Earlier this week I presented a session on Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries to the Western Michigan chapter of the Project Management Institute. The session was so well-received that many people asked for copies of the Power Point presentation. Well, you know how that goes—a Power Point without the corresponding speaker commentary is a bit flat.

So, I created a modified version that excerpts a few key concepts. You can view it via SlideShare by clicking here.

Also, here’s a plug for the WMPMI group. They have a lot of really great things going on, including a brand-new event called THE Project 2012, which is a collegiate project management competition. I love it when our future business leaders help grow the talents of those coming along.

Here are a few photos from the event:

Participants at the pre-session networking event

It was standing room only! That's me waaay up front.

And look at this great book they gave me, Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage. It’s authored by a couple of directors from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, so it should be a good read. Look for a book review down the road.

Many thanks to the kind folks at WMPMI for your great hospitality and the wonderful things you are doing to promote professionalism in your discipline.

Part Three of a Three-Part Series

The conclusion of this series on integrating our work and personal lives focuses on the changing nature of work—when we work, how we work, and how others around us deal with it.

Part One of the series was What is Work Life Integration? and Part Two was Work Team Leaders: A Key Ingredient for Successful Employee-Friendly Practices. I talked with Tracy Brower, Director of Performance Environments at Herman Miller for her perspective on this topic.

JM: Tracy, you’ve been researching flexible work scheduling as part of your dissertation for a Phd in Sociology. What have you uncovered?

TB: There have been several interesting trends that have emerged.

First, the companies I’m studying readily admit they don’t have flexible scheduling figured out for high-structure jobs (like production workers and call center employees). However, one factor that is important to employees regardless of the job they do:  control over their schedule. Employees seem to say, “If I have some measure of say in my work schedule, I will feel less stress.” A key component that helps people feel that control is if there is some consistency. For example, if an employee has a schedule that is non-standard (ie: Mon/Wed/Fri days days and Tues/Thurs nights) then it should remain that schedule from week to week.

Here’s another interesting development that’s occurring because of increased globalization: the perception of “shift work”. I talked with a company that has many locations inChina and India. When the company was in growth mode, they had knowledge workers with MBA’s working on all three shifts, and the workers were fine with that. Then, somewhere along the line, the MBAs working the third shift starting to balk at doing so. There was a stigma attached to working third shift. Managers were hearing the knowledge workers saying, “If I work third shift, my friends will think I work at a call center, so I don’t want to work on third shift.” There’s a perception that “white collar workers don’t work off-shift”.

There’s a second aspect to the issue of “shift work” and it’s this: our own notion of what “shift work” is will change because with globalization, the need to connect with our global partners and customers creates demand for our time at all hours of the day and night.

At this point, in highly developed countries, we tend to treat it [the need to work “off shift”] rather episodically. It’s not part of our normal work pattern. Because we need to connect with our global customers and partners, we will begin to create new work patterns.  One pattern is that we’ll end up clustering our work. For example, if I need to conduct a conference call at 5:00 AM to talk with a business partner in London, I’ll just keep working for several more hours after my call, even though my standard work shift starts at 8:00 AM.  That’s not my “normal” shift, but it’s what fits in the flow of my day. As the practice of “clustering” work becomes more accepted, I think our own notion of shift work will change as well and perhaps, by extension, the stigma of working “off shift” will go away. 

JM: And by extension: this flexibility and “clustering” will only work if your boss supports it. For example, if you do the call at 5:00 AM and just keep working until 8:00 AM and your boss says, “Hey, we work from 8 – 5, so I expect you to work until 5:00 PM” then it’s not worth it.

TB: Exactly. Here’s the thing about providing flexible work schedules: You’re not giving people a free ride. Usually flexibility comes with a lot of demands. It comes with a tradeoff.

One of the challenges in today’s world and the reconfiguration of our work life is that technology has accelerated the pace of everything. One of the phenomena that I’ve observed is something I call “fast information, slow people”—meaning: information can move so quickly and is so encompassing and yet humans have a hard time keeping up with it. Add human expectations: people expect responses really quickly and expect the information to move really quickly. The information/content can be created so quickly and as a human it is hard to keep up.

JM: Is it that we expect humans to process information nearly as fast as our technology?

TB: It’s not just processing it (that’s transactional); humans are good at processing information.  It’s the synthesis. Data is coming in from all different places and we need to put it together and figure out the meaning. Computers can process really well, but it’s uniquely human to synthesize. It’s not that we can’t do it [given enough time]; it’s [that given time pressures] the acting on it that can be overwhelming. It’s not that the processing is mentally difficult, but there are so many things that need to be done.

JM: That concludes our discussion of integrating our personal and professional lives, courtesy of Tracy Brower. Tracy, thanks so much for your time.

TB: My pleasure.

Part Two of a Three-Part Series

In this second installment of a discussion with Tracy Brower, Director of Performance Environments for Herman Miller, we explore a key factor that determines the probability of success for a company’s work/life integration policies. The first article in this series was in What is Work/Life Integration?. 

JM: Tracy, your research has uncovered a discouraging statistic about companies that offer “employee friendly” policies (such as flex-time): 

100% of companies surveyed said they have a large suite of these types of practices, but 80% of employees at these companies said they didn’t feel free to fully use those practices. 

What’s causing this paradox?

TB: It is a paradox—a corporate culture paradox. What I’ve found is that in even the most progressive of companies, sub-cultures exist. The paradox is that a work team leader can create a sub-culture that is counter to the organization’s “open” and flexible culture. So, even if the organization as a whole  is very supportive of these employee-friendly practices, there can still be pockets within the company where the leadership is more traditional—I call them “managing by the whites of their eyes” type managers. These leaders feel that if they can’t actually see their employees, then they aren’t able to effectively manage them.

JM: What’s type of leadership style best fits with an “open” organizational culture?

TB: It’s the “managing for results” leader—and those are the leaders who will support the more flexible workplace practices. Work team leaders are that critical link. They’re the “linchpins” for helping employees feel they can bring their whole self to work. Support of flexible work schedules is dependent on a person’s direct supervisor—if the work team leader is still old-school, employees will feel less comfortable availing themselves of the employee-friendly practices.

JM: So, it seems that trust plays a big part in making a flexible work schedule a viable option.

TB: Trust is huge. More companies are going to more broad “flexibility” policies, so the administration of it is up to the work team leader. For this reason, there’s variance in the perceptions and administration of the policies.

Trust tends to erode when employees perceive a gap between what the organization as a whole espouses (“we have policies to help employees achieve work/life balance”) and what the work team leader actually executes.

It’s really a two-way street—trust needs to flow in both directions from the work team leader and the employee. The work team leader needs to trust that employees are getting their work done, even if s/he can’t actually see them performing the work. The employees need to trust that their work team leader has their best interests in mind and will support them.  

JM: Thanks, Tracy for that fascinating look at the role that work team leaders play in work/life integration. The third part of our series (which posts next Tuesday) will focus on emerging trends in the way we think about and organize our work life.

Part One of a Three-Part Series

I attended a Workforce Issues panel discussion during which panelist Tracy Brower discussed forces shaping work/life integration. Tracy and I first met when we were colleagues in the Learning Development Group at Herman Miller. Tracy is currently the Director of Performance Environments for Herman Miller.

In addition to her day job, Tracy is studying for a PhD in Sociology; her dissertation research is on the integration of personal and work life. After the panel discussion, I contacted Tracy to see if she would be willing elaborate on some of the themes she raised during her panelist remarks. She graciously agreed.

Here is Part 1 of our discussion, which defines work/life integration and why it’s an important subject for the workplace.  

JM: You told me that one of the reasons you’re studying sociology is that you’re interested in how work shapes us and how we shape work. That seems to be a good place to start—why study work/life integration?

TB: Most people live it, in one way or another. We’re parents, or we have parents. Most of us work outside the home in some capacity. And, we all have interests, hobbies, and obligations outside of the workplace. There’s a lot of research that suggests successful life integration is high on people’s priority list. We need to find a way to make it all work, but we haven’t figured really figured out how to do it.

JM: What area does your research target?

TB: My research has focused on [interviewing] senior executives because they’re in the position to catalyze decision making; and because their choices and behavior tend to send cues to others about what is acceptable within their organizations. So people [who work at these executives’ companies] look to them for cues and signals. Company executives are important influencers of organizational culture.  And, I’m studying both men and women, which is a slightly different focus than some of the already-published research literature which tends to study only women; women aren’t the only ones who face challenges with integrating life/work.

JM: How do you define work/life integration?

TB: The popular press calls it “Work/Life Balance”. The problem with that description is that it suggests there is a tradeoff—that one side must be “up” and the other one “down” like a weight scale that has two sides to it. Using the word “balance” suggests that the two aspects are completely separate from one another. The reality is they are completed integrated. So I use the term “integration”. You can’t decouple work from other parts of your life.  Our personal lives and professional lives aren’t separate “containers”.

Another term I sometimes use is work/life “navigation”. In sailing there’s a term called “sounding” – it’s when you put the pole down into the water to determine how deep it is. That’s what work-life navigation is: you’re constantly “checking in” with the people in your life. It is fluid and you have to navigate through it. You are constantly reorienting and reconfiguring the logistics in your life to make it all work. There’s a constant shifting due to changes in one’s life.  

JM: Thanks for helping us set the stage, Tracy.

Up next Tuesday: exploring the role that work team leaders play in creating successful integration of one’s personal and professional life.

photo credits: istockphoto.com