Soundings

No News Isn’t Necessarily Good News

By Terry Starbucker

It happens the moment I step on a plane: that loss of control. Someone else is behind the wheel and taking me somewhere.

When control is lost, I get nervous. Edgy. Unsure. I need something to calm me down.

That something is information.

I feel better when the pilot comes over the intercom, welcomes us to the flight, and explains our flight status, estimated arrival time, and weather conditions at our destination.

Then I wait for the plane to back away from the gate. If that goes past the scheduled time, I start getting antsy again. I look at my watch. I try to read my newspaper, to no avail. I need more information. For every additional minute that goes by with silence (and no plane movement), the angst level increases.

In most cases, we’ll eventually start backing up and get the wheels up without further problems.

But every now and then, I experience what I call Tarmac Syndrome—a long delay with long periods of silence. Just a lot of angst, fidgeting, and eventually, anger. What’s happening? Why are we just sitting here? Why don’t I know anything? And the subconscious despair of, I hate it when I’m not in any control of my situation whatsoever!

Anyone who has flown on a commercial plane has experienced Tarmac Syndrome at one time or another. You know this feeling. It’s not good. It’s hard to focus on anything else.

Now take that feeling on the tarmac, and port it over to the workplace. Let’s say several weeks ago your boss told you about some “big change” in the company’s product strategy, a change that may dramatically alter your daily work activities, and said, “More details will be forthcoming.“ These details have yet to be revealed, so by this time you’re anxious, antsy, and unsure, and having a hard time getting down to the business of your work. Yep, it’s Tarmac Syndrome.

And as a result, it puts a big hit on company productivity, because you are not the only one who is experiencing this.

Thankfully, as most great pilots know, leaders have an antidote: It’s called telling them what you know as often as possible, even if you do not know anything new.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated the pilots who dutifully reported our progress, or lack of it, at regular intervals. I know what they know. Likewise, leaders who do the same thing with their teammates can diffuse a whole lot of angst.

Just saying something beats silence by miles and miles. Even if it’s a simple, “No news yet.” Because another side effect of Tarmac Syndrome is the dreaded “conjecture virus.” Let’s go back to the real tarmac for a second: How many times have you run a thousand scenarios through your head as to why the plane is delayed, in the absence of information from the pilot? In a business context, multiply this “conjecture storm” by the number of teammates, and then throw in the fact that these people will talk about these conjectures with each other, and the next thing you know the rumor mill is going bonkers, ratcheting up the angst even further.

It just boils down to communicating—and yes, not all changes require the kind of constant updating that a good pilot practices. But many of them do, and all you need to do to figure out which ones qualify is to put yourself in your teammates’ shoes and get on that imaginary plane. If any kind of a delay would put you in the angst mode, you know what to do as a leader: Grab the microphone, turn on the intercom, and start talking.

TERRY STARBUCKER is a service-company executive and a founder of SOBCon. From his blog, Ramblings From a Glass Half Full, at terrystarbucker.com.

How You Treat Them

By Peter Firestein

“Longevity of the enterprise requires alignment of workers’ goals with those of management.” The young energy-company executive who said this to me had taken over as general manager of a three-hundred-person operation in a major South American oil-producing nation before he was 30. His employer had sent him to find out why the operation’s productivity had been falling—and to set it right. It didn’t take him long to realize that weak morale and resentment against the parent company had permeated all levels of the local workforce. Hard-core union activists organized work stoppages on a regular basis. Local managers, with virtually no freedom to make decisions and no sense of a career path, resembled order-taking field engineers more than the heads of businesses the company had supposed them to be. On the front lines, staff carried out equipment maintenance at a minimal, rule-book level. This culture of neglect not only showed the poor attitudes of personnel responsible for making the machinery run—it further compromised the morale of those who were supposed to operate it.

The young general manager soon found the reason for the low morale. It was his company’s behavior toward its workforce. He discovered an employee healthcare system fraught with incompetence and corruption. Communication of goals and standards from top management was virtually nonexistent. Relations with employees were so bad that it was difficult to find anyone who could pierce his or her personal cloud of resentment to render a clear and unemotional view of the problems.

Assessing the panorama of difficulties, the manager saw his challenge primarily as a social problem rather than a business problem. “If you want people to perform at a global level, you have to support them appropriately,” he told me.

To address the healthcare dilemma, he brought in a U.S.-trained physician on a full-time basis to reform and administer the system, placing special emphasis on care for workers’ families. English-language education, previously reserved for families of expatriates, became available to all employees and their families. The hiring of an experienced industrial attorney as ombudsman freed the company from having to rely on hostile union delegates for information.

The new boss told his senior people they would no longer be micromanaged. He decentralized decision-making and segmented managers into task-specific teams. Group leaders would run their businesses as they saw fit and take responsibility for their results. He advised anyone uncomfortable with this formula to find something else to do.

Having made these changes over a matter of months, he looked for ways to demonstrate a transformed company relationship with employees. Examining health and employee-attrition data, he identified road safety as a key factor in workers’ well-being. He made defensive-driving courses mandatory for employees and available to their families. Many private cars lacked seatbelts, so he bought the belts and had them installed.

But he knew that driving courses and seatbelts would go only so far if the roads were dangerous. The surrounding area consisted of hills and rolling savannah, and the roads through it suffered from neglect. Highway signs hadn’t been a priority for anyone in government and were inadequate. The manager developed relationships with local transportation authorities, identified danger spots, and upgraded signage along the district’s two major highways. The company paid for the sign changes, and the government was happy to let it do so.

At the same time, the manager began to look for allies. He announced that the company would reward certain kinds of behavior, such as careful maintenance of equipment and promotion of safe procedures, with gifts and family trips. Several union members responded. Then more did. Hostile activists became fewer.

In the three years he ran the operation, these reforms doubled the productivity of each area of the business, increased earnings, and cut work stoppages to a fraction of what they had been. Enhanced quality of life for employees led to improved morale, and business results followed. “Many tactics were involved,” the manager told me, “but they were all focused on ensuring that people who walked through the gate in the morning came in wanting to be there.”

The X Factor

By Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant

Is there no such thing as bad publicity? I say there is. One of the sea changes that came with the emergence of the online world was that bad things never go away. They hang in cyberspace forever. In the old days, a bad brand experience might get some news coverage, but it would quickly be forgotten. Not so with the Internet. YouTube not only gave consumers a single gathering place to watch videos—it gave them a permanent archive and, for the first time, a megaphone to comment on what they were seeing and a place to post wicked parodies and satire, many of which would be viewed more often than the original brand video.

This also raises the eternal question of what makes a good ad and what doesn’t. Why are some revered by millions of viewers, while others are pilloried? As with Hollywood and publishing successes, great ads have an X factor, something special yet intangible, such as an utterly unique performance that captures a piece of the zeitgeist in a bottle. I think all ad people will tell you that their greatest successes were complete surprises and that they would have bet the house on many of their failures.

Here’s a case in point. In the mid-1980s, I was part of a creative team that produced a TV ad for wine brand Le Piat d’Or. I hated the commercial because I thought it lacked a real idea and was just a bunch of soft-focus shorts of a pretty Parisian actress. But that ad ended up running for years, and stores in places where the commercial was broadcast would literally sell out after it aired. A full fifteen years later, I was in a restaurant with my wife, and the waiter suggested the wine to us. I rolled my eyes, and my wife told him that I’d helped create the launch advertising for that wine but was haunted by the commercial. The waiter’s eyes lit up, and he squeaked, “You did that ad? I loved that ad!” About five minutes later, I spotted the waiter in the round window of the kitchen door, pointing me out to the chef, who was smiling broadly.

Who knew?

TERRY O’ REILLY is co-founder of Pirate Radio & Television, an audio-production company based in New York and Toronto. MIKE TENNANT is co-creator and writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s radio series The Age of Persuasion. From The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture (Counterpoint). ©2009

A Team of One

By Joel Kurtzman

One CEO I know well has narrowed his role from visionary founder to that of what I can only call “chief spreadsheet officer.” This CEO, unquestionably a brilliant financial thinker, brings in his direct reports, examines their numbers in minute detail, and barks orders with respect to operational activities that are likely to bring down costs.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is that this CEO is so confrontational, rude, and brilliant that several of his direct reports have told me that often they are so nervous the night before meeting with him that they cannot sleep. One confided that she gets so anxious that she has thrown up. Several times, I have seen people go in to speak with this CEO smiling and emerge from his office so angry and frustrated that, once out of earshot, they punch the wall or go into the bathroom to yell. The worst thing you can do, one direct report said to me, is to say, “I’m not sure” or, “I’ll get back to you with an answer” or, God forbid, “What do you think?” Even his board of directors is intimidated. And most often when a direct report makes a decision, he overrules it or simply barks out, “No!”

This CEO is almost a household name. He is recognized for his wealth, philanthropy, Wall Street Journal editorials, and musings on the economy. But the companies his holding company runs have barely grown over the past decade, and the turnover rate of his top executives is atrocious. When I asked one of his business-unit heads to name his most significant accomplishment, he simply said, “I survived.” The sad fact regarding people who worked for this CEO was that they were almost all talented and smart. They came into the organization knowing it would be tough and left feeling defeated. The CEO often played on those feelings to negotiate deals that were heavily weighted on commissions or equity awards, and then he refused to make the awards.

This CEO may be an extreme case, but far too many leaders are like him in degrees. They look to their direct reports for only one thing: to help increase shareholder value so their own pay packages grow even fatter. These CEOs are members of a team of one. And in some ways, they even see themselves as working in opposition to their direct reports. Rather than viewing their teams as teams of leaders, these CEOs view them with mistrust and suspicion. They think the people working for them are incompetent, and they fear their teams will make them look bad before their boards and with their shareholders. And yet: What can a CEO who is operating a team of one really accomplish? Can he or she create value? Change direction? Restructure the balance sheet?

While it may seem trite, the fact is that the best results come from people who treat others with respect, recognize their contributions, and enlist their help. It means trusting those with whom you work. And although not everyone is a genius, to be sure, not every job needs a genius’s touch. A great deal of business is simply doing, on time and correctly, what you said you were going to do.

JOEL KURTZMAN is editor-in-chief of the Korn/Ferry Institute’s Briefings on Talent & Leadership, publisher of The Milken Institute Review, former editor of Harvard Business Review, and former founder and editor of strategy + business. Adapted from Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary (Jossey-Bass). ©2010

Gonna Buy Five Copies for My Mother

By Jeffrey J. Fox

Great leaders do not waste management and marketing time seeking to get on the cover of Bossadacious magazine. Great leaders and managers care far more about getting stories of their products, grateful customers, and compelling case histories into the magazine and on television.

With the rare exception of building brand awareness, there is little good, and lots of bad, that comes from glowing executive profiles. Profiles are not a substitute for internal communications or for external advertising. Profiles give competitors clues as to strategy, spending, capital budgets, and upcoming products, and insight into key executive personalities and on succession and organizational issues. Profiles have to appear to be balanced, so the writer, interviewer, or commentator often throws in a caveat or a negative. This information is fodder for the analysts on the teams fighting to get your customers, your meal tickets, and your lunch.

Don’t give external speeches unless you are saying something to impress your customers.
Don’t politic for somebody running for office.
Don’t go to Davos or Aspen or wherever. Go to work.
Don’t sit on boards unless there is an acceptable way to get other members as customers.
Don’t give others an unearned edge. Rather, look for an edge and use it. Celebrities love media coverage. CEOs love market coverage.

JEFFREY J. FOX is founder and president of Fox & Co., a Chester, Conn.-based marketing consulting firm. From How to Be a Fierce Competitor: What Winning Companies and Great Managers Do in Tough Times (Jossey-Bass). ©2010

HR: You’re Doing It Wrong
Worth the Trip

By Laurie Ruettimann

There is cautious optimism in the career marketplace right now as various research indicates a small uptick in temporary and permanent hiring. With a cohort of new colleagues entering your company, in-house HR activity will increase and everyone will get excited about new possibilities resulting from an expanded workforce. As a result, you can expect more requests to attend industry conferences.

Employees will file these appeals under the heading of “professional development,” and sure enough, there are amazing opportunities in the marketplace for employees to learn and grow. But while everyone loves the concept of growth and development, we all know that time spent away from the office has an impact on productivity.

Which is to say, in this economic climate, a conference had better be good—if not amazing—to justify the expense. Here’s a simple set of guidelines to judge if a conference will provide ROI for your employees, your organization, and your shareholders.

First of all, content still matters. It’s exciting when an A-list celebrity is scheduled to deliver a keynote address, but it is incumbent upon you to ensure that the thesis of a conference is relevant, insightful, and provides a pathway to improving the future of an employee, the profession, or the industry. When I consider attending HR conferences, I look for sessions that will challenge attendees with uncomfortable and controversial ideas. I want a conference to get under employees’ skin and invoke a call to action.

Geography is also important. It can look suspicious if you’re spending company money to fly executives to a conference located next to a popular golf course in Boca. When revenue is down and morale is low, no one should be attending conferences that aren’t essential. But getting out of the office can be a motivating tool, and there is nothing wrong with rewarding hard-working colleagues for their accomplishments. In fact, only the worst HR professional would advise you that sending a successful sales representative from Omaha (no offense, Omaha!) to a conference in San Diego is a bad idea. When someone is doing something right, a conference with great content in a great location may make perfect sense. Think carefully about geography and use your travel and conference budgets wisely to send messages about goals and rewards in your organization.

Finally, conferences are an excellent way to improve your people’s networking opportunities and your organization’s credibility within the industry and with clients. Personal relationships move business, and there’s no reason why your employees can’t learn something at a conference and do a little something extra to get business done. Task them with creating goodwill with clients, developing new alliances with complementary departments, and improving operational efficiencies within the organization by understanding a different side of the business. For example, maybe your HR leader can attend an executive summit and then spend an extra day with a local sales branch in the host city. Perhaps the VP of operations can take a half-day away from his conference to visit your small R&D pilot plant that he wouldn’t normally see. And it might make sense for your director of customer service to make time to visit your most important client in the area.

Conferences are back whether you are ready for them or not. The best leaders will have thoughtful opinions on how, when, and why employees should attend. It’s time for leaders and managers to start thinking about how to shape them into more meaningful opportunities for employees—and for the organization.

LAURIE RUETTIMANN is an HR professional based in Raleigh, N.C. She blogs at punkrockhr.com.

The Employees You’re Slamming Are Behaving Rationally

By Frances Frei

It is difficult to find something written about change that doesn’t talk about how hard it is. My observation couldn’t be more different. I find that change happens in an instant. Deciding what to change and finding the right levers for changing it—those are the complicated parts.

I’ll use culture as an example. I was recently working with some executives who were lamenting that their employees weren’t acting with a sense of urgency. And no matter how many times the senior management team implored employees to move faster, the needle on urgency didn’t move. The team concluded that employees just didn’t believe that urgency really mattered.

They didn’t, for perfectly good reasons. When I asked the team to explain their employees’ behavior, they attributed all kinds of fundamental character flaws to these individuals they had carefully selected and trained—lazy, uncommitted, distracted, risk-averse. I let them get all of that out of their system. And then I asked why a smart, well-intentioned employee would act without urgency in their organization.

It took a few tries to break the habit of judging and psychoanalyzing their employees, but eventually we got somewhere. It turns out that when employees made mistakes, they were often pounced on by the most influential of the senior team. In some cases, it bordered on ridicule, a public hearing on someone’s judgment and intellect. Once we uncovered this pattern, we were 95 percent of the way toward change.

These employees were behaving rationally according to the dominant—if informal—performance-management system. Senior management could not have been clearer: Present only polished work that you’re damn sure is right. It was no surprise that few people revealed any intermediate progress. It made perfect sense to wait until every i was dotted, every t crossed, before making any sudden movements. That behavior looked like the absence of urgency. And senior managers’ actions were at the root of it.

The solution? It wasn’t to keep clarifying the importance of urgency. This team had to stop punishing small mistakes, particularly mistakes that were a consequence of working faster. And they had to start celebrating speed, with public acknowledgment that moving faster requires new behaviors such as sharing unpolished ideas and building on each other’s work.

The lesson? Before setting out to change something, figure out why people might be behaving rationally in the culture and systems you’ve designed (or permitted). The least likely, least useful explanation is that good people have suddenly gone bad. The most likely explanation is that you’ve created an environment that is setting them up to fail. Now, change your behaviors that are contributing to that environment. I promise it won’t take long.

FRANCES FREI is associate professor of business administration in Harvard Business School’s Technology and Operations Management unit. From her co-written blog Decision to Lead, at decisiontolead.com.

Post-Crisis Management

By Jim Stroup

One of the many problems managers encounter is maintaining the link between focus and perspective. The more responsibility you acquire, and the higher you go—indeed, the more quickly you rise—the more risk you run of thinking that what got you there is what everyone wants more of.

A conspicuous case in point is crisis management. Your outfit may be under threat due to previous bad management, a set of unfortunate external developments, or both. In such an event, it may be necessary to make room for someone who has a clear grasp of the issues at hand, a firm approach for working through them, and an ability and resolve to make the many hard decisions necessary to pull off the recovery.

The irony is that when such a person proves to be successful, you may have a new problem on your hands; in fact, the more successful the person was, the greater may be the problem. Suddenly everyone, including this new hero, can become convinced that the problems encountered were the result of the lack of the management style used to extract the organization from them, and the recipe for avoiding such disasters in the future is to maintain that style, under this particular manager.

A firm takes a great risk and suppresses its ordinary cultural proclivities to discipline itself to expressing the prescriptions of a single boss; due to the dire circumstances, this is often done unreflectively and uncritically. The organizational trauma of the event, and of the desperate measures taken by all hands to meet it, can have a spectacular effect on that corporate culture. There will be change, but the wrong kind, and the wrong lessons will have been learned.

A group that has submitted to emergency management will thus often find itself still under that management long after the emergency has passed, particularly if it resulted in the boss having been consecrated as a singularly vital leader.

People and organizations that have been burned once don’t want to be burned again. Moreover, they typically come through such ordeals lacking the standing to counter such newly powerful leaders with alternative, non-emergency approaches.

Of course, we all know what power does. Such a leader is unlikely to willingly relinquish the extraordinary quantity of it that has come under his or her control. Indeed, such a leader will probably feel genuine concern for the welfare of the organization and its stakeholders if the style is attenuated, or the stylist even threatened with removal.

And so the political dynamics of the situation will tend to cause everyone concerned not only to lose the focus-perspective link but to lose perspective altogether, and to focus on exactly the wrong issues. The next emergency will be on the way, and the previous one’s master will be its first victim.

JIM STROUP is a management consultant specializing in organizational leadership. From Managing Leadership, at http://managingleadership.com/blog.

We May Require Documentation

By Kris Dunn

Work in a high-volume HR shop long enough and you’re bound to run into some bad human behavior: lies . . . deceit . . . job abandonment . . . dress-code violations involving Spandex . . .

I was talking to a former teammate today (previous company), an HR pro who reported to me and supported a large call center. We were talking about the good old days, and she asked me to recall the single worst example of human behavior we worked on together, from an employee-relations perspective.

I thought about it for about twenty seconds and recalled this one:

Player: Customer-service rep, call center.

Issue: Poor attendance, was out on bereavement leave at least monthly, seemed to be from a family with a lot of aunts and uncles.

1st step of increased scrutiny: We asked him to bring in a funeral program for each of the funerals in question, which he promptly and consistently provided upon returning from the days off associated with the funerals.

Brainstorm by HR manager: Call the funeral home in question to make sure we had the spelling of the name right. Side benefit: See what happens when we give them the name.

Unbelievable outcome: Customer-service rep in question had a family member on the “inside” at the funeral home. She mocked up a new program for each fake funeral, complete with funeral home logo and pictures of the deceased. It was a scam!

Outcome: Termination. Awe at the employee’s nerve. Nausea. Uneasiness for the future of the human race.

Human nature exists, and HR pros get to see the downside in employee-relations issues that involve anger, ambition, lust, lies, etc. But faking funeral programs to get a couple of extra days off? That’s taking your game to the next level. The escalator’s going down, and he won’t be needing that fall jacket. It’s warm where he’s headed.

As for me? I’ve got my cynicism to keep me warm, complete with a mission of ensuring that every employee handbook I work with has the “we may require documentation” clause in the bereavement policy.

KRIS DUNN is VP of People at DAXKO, a software company serving U.S. membership-driven organizations. From the Fistful of Talent blog, at www.fistfuloftalent.com.

What Is the Value Of a Piece of Paper?

By Chuck CSIZMAR

What do you do when an employee informs you that she has just achieved an academic milestone: a college degree, an advanced degree, or a certification from a professional association? After offering congratulations, do you take her to lunch, perhaps tell her to take the next day off, or do you do more? Do you somehow reward her for that accomplishment? Perhaps with a salary increase, or a promotion?

Many employees seem to expect that when they achieve some academic credentials that come with a piece of paper suitable for framing, they should receive an increase in pay or a bump in title, if not an outright promotion. “I am more valuable to you now,” they seem to imply.

However, if you don’t need another MBA graduate, or a senior engineer, legal counsel, or whatever, should you pay extra for one?

Some managers feel compelled to react with a salary increase or title bump; they want to acknowledge the employee’s personal achievement and avoid the risk of demotivating good people. They especially don’t want to lose someone who is ambitious and career-oriented. Such a loss might be perceived as a mark against their management capabilities. But is raising the cost structure a good business decision, or a feel-good, I-want-you-to-like-me emotional knee-jerk reaction? Do managers have the right answer to the “why?” question?

If you already pay to educate your employees—through tuition reimbursement—should you be expected to follow up with more once the company-paid courses run through to completion? Chances are you don’t require employees to remain with you for a defined period afterward, right? So technically they could use your money to prepare themselves to work somewhere else. Where is the fairness in that?

Have you asked yourself: What’s the market value of an employee with a higher education or certification level? Compensation surveys don’t differentiate on the basis of whether employees have a particular degree or other credentials. In some cases (engineer, attorney, nurse, etc.), educational requirements are mandated before one can assume certain roles. At the end of the day, what the market highlights is the common pay rate for experience, knowing the job and being competent at performing it.

Does the market say a premium should be paid? No.

Perhaps a promotion, then? But job grades are not typically influenced by formal education levels either, and no credible job-evaluation system scores on that basis—only equivalencies. Job evaluators recognize that, while what the employee knows how to do (job knowledge) is critical, how that knowledge was attained is less important. Life experiences do count, trumping the piece of paper. Book learning is not an evaluation factor.

If, ultimately, the newly certified or graduated employee returns to the same job function, then what does the company receive for granting extra money? If the job role remains the same, where’s the ROI?

You can acknowledge an employee’s personal achievement without increasing your fixed costs and possibly creating disruptive internal equity concerns among other employees. Remember that fair and balanced treatment is a perceived state of play, and the employees are always watching.

So offer your congratulations, take the newly minted certificate holder out to lunch, and give her a day off. Tell her that she’s now eligible for advancement when a higher position comes available—but have a care before raising your fixed labor costs without a corresponding increase in ROI. She may indeed be more valuable to you—but that is for tomorrow.

CHUCK CSIZMAR is founder and principal of CMC Compensation Group, providing global compensation consulting services to a wide variety of industries and nonprofit organizations. From the Compensation Café blog, at http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_cafe.

If . . . Then

By Dave and Wendy Ulrich

When there is a clear line of sight between what we do and what we value, we find work more meaningful. When living in Michigan a number of years ago, Dave and his dad decided to attend a public broadcast of a championship boxing match from Las Vegas. One of the fighters was from Michigan and a hometown favorite. The rowdy fans watching the broadcast were loudly supportive of his efforts. At about the third round, Dave leaned over to his dad and said, “I don’t think he can hear us in Vegas!” All of the fans’ yelling was having no impact on the outcome of this fight. This obvious conclusion dampened the enthusiasm Dave and his dad felt. Without a line of sight between their yelling in Michigan and their favored boxer’s ability to perform in Vegas, their interest eroded. The hometown advantage of crowd support dissipates when the crowd cannot be heard.

In a training program, a leader did a presentation to employees on the company’s stock price over the last decade. He charted stock price against earnings, competitors, capital structure, strategic initiatives, and market conditions. Participants were convinced that a higher stock price was in their best interests—they knew a higher price meant more money and job security for them—and they were highly motivated to make the price go up. But when they were asked how they could impact the stock price with their actions over the next ninety days, they were mostly stymied. Their interest and desire for higher prices remained high, but when they could not plainly connect their daily actions to the long-term goal, they were like the Michigan fans at the Las Vegas boxing match: The stock exchange could not “hear” them from New York. They would look at the daily stock price, hoping that it had gone up but having little sense of influence. Not exactly a recipe for feeling that one has enough and to spare of what it takes to make a difference.

DAVE ULRICH is a professor of business at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. WENDY ULRICH is founder of Sixteen Stones Center for Growth. From The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations (McGraw-Hill). ©2010

Should Managers Date Employees? Sure, Why Not?

By Steve Tobak

Get this: I’ve worked for four—that’s right—four CEOs who dated and ended up marrying their employees. Here are the gory details:

All four CEOs were men.
All four CEOs were married when they started dipping their pens in the company ink.
All four women worked directly for the CEOs, three as administrative assistants.
To the best of my knowledge, all four couples are still together, reasonably happy, and yes, wealthy.

But wait—it gets better. I actually knew two managers who, as best friends working for a relatively large, public company, dumped both of their wives for their administrative assistants . . . at exactly the same time.

OK, so clearly, this sort of thing happens. A lot. But the question is: Should it happen? Let’s discuss that for a minute.

There are lots of things that executives and managers shouldn’t do. They shouldn’t commit insider trading. And yet, top executives from IBM, Intel, AMD, McKinsey, and Atheros were busted last fall for blabbing confidential information about upcoming earnings, mergers, and restructuring announcements to a hedge fund, Galleon, in the biggest insider-trading scandal in decades.

It bears mentioning that the executives were all men and the person each blabbed to, like teenagers on their first testosterone high, was a woman. Hmm.

Executives shouldn’t commit fraud either, but all too many do. They shouldn’t over-leverage their companies and make millions while shareholders lose their shirts, but they do. They shouldn’t cut sweetheart deals with unions that’ll forever keep their companies from making money, but they do. They shouldn’t drive their companies to the point of needing to be bailed out by taxpayers, but they do.

Now, saying that executives can do a lot worse is a crappy excuse for bad behavior that, at a minimum, exposes the company to potential litigation and creates the perception of favoritism. Which is probably why many companies have policies prohibiting that sort of thing. Not to mention that it puts the employee at risk—although, if the relationship goes south and the employee’s job goes south with it, there is legal recourse.

Still, folks are spending more and more time working, especially executives, so as a practical matter, the office is a natural place to meet potential mates. Should managers and those who want to date them be penalized? Should two consenting adults be penalized?

You know, I guess I have to say it after all: They can do a lot worse.

STEVE TOBAK is a marketing and strategy consultant based in Silicon Valley and a former senior executive of a number of public and private companies. From The Corner Office, at http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo.