Clinton tells the story of her roots

Hilary Clinton is re-energizing support in Pennsylvania. In part, according to an article by Steve Denning, because she is starting to tell the story of her own roots. Her grandfather lived in Pennsylvania and worked in a lace mill. Her father grew up there too and played football for Penn State.

Our militaristic leadership model (and media portrayals) leads us to assume that the ideal leader must be aloof and invioable. A new theory of leadership is emerging, namely that leaders embody the principles of the people they lead. As such effective leaders work hard to understand the values and opinions of their followers—rather than assuming absolute authority—to enable a productive dialogue with followers about what the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act.

Hilary Clinton shows her leadership skills by tapping into middle American values and "telling her story".

Business leaders can no longer afford to remain aloof - they need to make the connection with employees. Stories are a wonderful way to show humanity and connect in a meaningful way. But beware - everyone knows a faker - perhaps Hilary was wise to speak about her roots in Pennsylvania - home is always a good place for passion.

Generational expectations - implications for the world of work

My 15-year old daughter and I buy music in very different ways. She finds the notion that that someone would buy a physical object that contained a finite number of songs arbitrarily selected by someone else - rather quaint. My daughter is very clear about what her purchases and her expectations are high.

Businesses are beginning to catch on - music sellers, networks and studios are adjusting to a new world view where the customer is not only right, but expects to be able to exercise that judgment with a click of the mouse.

Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program and the author of a new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.” http://www.shirky.com/ suggests that the web is not competition for traditional media, but a completely different system that empowers groups and individuals, a place where choice is not only an option, but an imperative.

As a communications professional and engagement specialists I have to ask myself what this will mean for the workplace of the future. Portal-based web sites and customized benefit packages are just the tip of the ice-berg.

I was chatting with a young woman the other day – an engineer. One of her key motivators for becoming involved in volunteer activities within her organization is that she is able to exercise her creative design abilities. Can we expect to see a world where employees and managers co-design the job function? Take that one step further and one can envisage interactive strategic planning. Exciting or terrifying – depends how you look at it.

What's your bed side manner like

This story on healing. A friend was hospitalized and at one point a doctor entered the ward with a group of student interns. The doctor and students did not greet any of the patients or request permission to review their cases. Instead they proceeded to discuss ailments, pointing at body parts and reviewing charts, never once looking acknowledging these people.

Horrible. Yes indeed, amazing that our doctors are still being trained in this antiquated fashion.

Scratch below the surface of many North American corporations and you will find much the same sort of behavior, with employees being viewed as no more then a resource with an associated productivity number.

Healing happens far more effectively when there is a human element to care. Likewise employees are far more productive when their unique skills and talents are acknowledged. If your manager primarily ignores you - your chances of being actively disengaged are 40 percent, where the national average is 18 percent.

When opportunity knocks

Imagine - if you do not already have this - that the most perfect person walks into your life. This is your soul mate. He or she is gorgeous and meant for you in every way. Do you:

1. Jump in boots and all

2. Decide you can't possibly get involved because he/she is not in your social circle

3. You really like this person but you are too busy right now - you will get to him/her later

4. Check your bank balance and decide you don't have enough money to ask out your soul mate

5. Take nine months checking the person’s credentials by which time he/she has found someone else.

What has this go to do with business? Quite a lot actually. Often we come across strategies, tools and processes that we instinctively know will work for our organizations, but for a variety of reasons we brush them aside; we're too busy, it's too much money, need to do more research, have never worked with this company before. And so the opportunity passes by.

A fellow I know who works for a large bureaucracy found a process he loves. But he said no because the supplier was not on the preferred vendor list.

Same values - entirely different customer service

Two big box stores right next door to one another – a shared parking lot and that is where the similarity ends. First I went to Big Box number one – a home and hardware store.

In BB1 a sales person was hard to fine. Only one of the three individuals I spoke to was able to direct me (with a wave) in the general direction I needed to head. As I was paying for my purchases the young man behind me was rather abruptly told he had to go to another teller because this one was closing. When he, quite rightly, objected that there was no closed sign – he was ignored.

After I had paid for my purchases I tried to head for the parking lot. But I was stuck – there did not seem to be any way for me to take my shopping cart down to the underground parking. I appealed to a member of staff for help: “each cart is worth $250,” he told me, “you can’t take it to the parking lot, it’s too expensive if we lose it.”

Yeah right – let’s see what good a whole lot of expensive carts do you without any customers.

Big Box number two was an electronics store. I was on a hunt for a vacuum cleaner. The young man I asked help from, politely took me over and gave me a thorough explanation of the product I was interested in. I asked if I could have a cart and right away he trotted off to find me one. As I was waiting for him two other sales people asked if they could help me.

Once I had paid for my purchase I went to the elevator. I pushed the button and waited - but nothing happened. I turned to one of the nearby greeters to ask if there was a problem with the elevators and she waved to me and called out that she had already called someone to see about the elevator. Boy what a difference. But wait it gets better. A young man arrived. He spent about five minutes trying to get the elevator to work – to no avail. He then happily picked up my purchase and cheerfully escorted me and it to my car.

Yes, yes, yes I am going back.

Now I happen to know that both of these organizations have similar values – I went to their respective web sites and checked. But in the one organization the values are simply words on paper, in the other they are real things that people do every day to make the customer experience worthwhile.

Getting those values off the shelf and into the hands of your employees is pretty key. What are you doing to make your values real for employees? I’d like to know because if you’re doing it right – I want to do business with you.

When 15 year olds know more

We had dinner last week with a dear family friend who we have not seen for a number of years. One of the topics under discussion was how senior executives isolate themselves from the rest of the organization. Our friend cited the example of a client of his where the executive team was protected by a phalanx of secretaries and assistants – to the detriment of the organization.

My 15 year old daughter (whose experience of the working world is limited) shook her head and made the following comment: “That’s just daft everyone knows leaders are supposed to inspire people and get them to collaborate. How can they do that if they never see anyone?”

How indeed? Gives you pause for thought when a 15 year old intuitively understands what a highly paid 45 year old executive cannot implement.

Engagement and the happiness score

On a ten point scale a one point difference in worker’s trust in management has the same impact on life satisfaction as a one-third change in income. This from an article by Professors Helliwell and Haslam in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun.

One could conclude that companies could save a wack of money by improving levels of trust rather than giving increases – a debate I’m not going to enter into. I’m more interested in the notion of happiness and its positive impact on productivity.

Helliwell and Haslam also point out that happiness increases with a sense of group identity and when we feel we have control over our surroundings.


Intuitively we understand that happy employees are productive employees. Indeed many of the questions we ask when attempting to gauge engagement relate directly to our well-being; Am I heard? Do my opinions count? Does anyone care? Do I contribute to departmental and organizational goals?


We put a great deal of effort into carefully crafted compensation packages – and they are important make no mistake. But I can’t help wondering how much we could increase productivity if we focused more of our efforts on the “happiness” score.