Management Craft

What are you worth?

Curious about what you are worth on the open job market? George's Employment Blog offers this like to a site with several salary surveys.

Click on the link.
Select "Salary & Hiring Info"
Then "Salary by Title"
Then input your info. For the fun of it, I looked up a few for Seattle:

These are average salaries plus bonus.

Biologist - $53,000
Chief Human Resources Officer - $239,000
Consultant - $95,000
Curator - $70,000
Geologist - $59,000
Software Engineer - $84,000
Registered Nurse - $67,000

I wonder if we will EVER  create more equity for important jobs that serve society like teachers, social workers, fire fighters, police, scientists, and such. Who could make an impact here? What's the path to making teacher pay attractive?

In Washington, teachers with a PhD have a pay range between $40,000-57,000 and you don't hit $50K until you have been there for 10 years (this is K-12) (got this info here).

You gotta be kidding me? $40K with a PhD? The student loan payment alone would soak up all their earnings.

I don't have kids and won't have kids, but I would pay more per year in taxes IF I knew that this extra money would go directly to teacher pay.

Perhaps student loans for people dedicating their career to teaching ought to be forgiven. Or something. Something must happen.

Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked.

Should Leaders be More or Less Visible?

I was reading a company vision document that a reader emailed. One statement caught my eye more than the others:-

"The new leadership style advocated by _______ focuses on preventing problems. This will result in  leaders being less noticeable than managers."

Their notion is that the work of prevention is less visible because no problem occurs.

In general, I think the idea of invisible leadership is pretty interesting. I am bothered by the embedded assumptions of words such as empowerment, inspiration, motivation, performance management, and even plain old management. At the core of these words is POWER and/or CONTROL.

Invisible leadership feels more like doing the best things without yielding power. Invisible leaders influence the system and people by being a partner.

 "A leader is most effective when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his troops will feel they did it themselves." Lao Tzu

How do you select, hire, measure, and retain invisible leaders? Now that's the rub. Well, if they love what they do (and they'd have to) retention is probably not the issue. Finding invisible leaders will take more work and a whole new mindset toward hiring criteria. The behavioral interview, so popular today, might not work to find the best invisible leader.

And what about all those leadership incentives? How do you determine stock options and bonuses? Well, stock options ought not be tied to performance anyway and bonuses don't improve performance, so those functions are in need of reinvention even under the current, louder leadership model.

Personally, for my next corporate gig, I want a fair wage for what my role is expected to contribute and then NO financial incentives. Hold me accountable - absolutely. Fire me in a heart beat if I do not perform. If I am doing my job as a leader, you will know it - not because I get accolades at meetings or make big and flashy wins. You will know it because the workplace is engaged, on fire, and performing better than you could have imagined.

Look out...leadership in progress.

Read and Enjoyed

Bren over at Slacker Manager offered this review of my book, Focus Like a Laser Beam. Here is a snippet:

I think my favorite section was the last three chapters which described ideas and techniques for dialing in personal focus. Some of this was really timely for me, since I’ve been in a bit of a funk for a while. I’ve got lots to do, but had a hard time digging into it. Reading this book gave me just the kick in the pants that I needed to get moving on a few critical new initiatives.

Bren also does a good job summarizing my use of the laser beam as a metaphor for focus:

Digging into the physics of lasers led her to the understanding that there are some real comparisons to be made between how we focus at work, and how lasers work. Basically, lasers can be described in three stages: stimulated emission, which is when a photon passes by an atom, which causes the atom to produce a new photon identical to the original–this happens over and over until there are lots of happy, excited photons dancing around; coherency which describes the light emitted from a laser is constituted of photons that are of parallel wavelength (which basically means they’re of the same color and that the crests and troughs of each photon’s wave are in step with its’ peers; and collimation which describes the property of laser light to stay as a tight, focused beam for long distances.

Cool. Check out the rest of the review. Thanks, Bren!

Here are a few diverse posts I read and enjoyed.

This is an interesting post from Fractals of Change about what's going on the Linksys Social WiFi world. It's pretty cool stuff and  something to think about if you travel and need WiFi.

Foneros are members who’ve agreed to share their Internet access through their WiFi routers.  If you’re a Fonero, you can be a Linus and allow other Linuses to use your access free in return for free use of all FON hotspots.  Or you can be a Bill and charge nonLinuses for use of your access. Currently the rate is 3 Euro/day.  The Bill keeps half and FON keeps the rest.

I like this post from Dick Richards called 3 Principles of Change. If you drive change, facilitate change, manage change, or experience a lot of change, check it out.

That things change in the realm of human activity only after they are accepted for what they are is the reason that customer and employee satisfaction surveys are important. It is the reason that W. Edwards Deming insisted that fear be driven from the workplace: where there is fear there is likely to be denial or avoidance of what is. It is the reason that a recovering addict must say, “I am an addict.” It is the reason that honest feedback is essential to the growth of a person.

And I love this short post from Bert at Open Loops about the downside of talking too much.

As I began the first practice interview to establish a baseline from which to measure his progress, something became very clear:  He couldn’t stop talking.  I would ask a 30 second question and he would drone on and on for at least 10 – 15 minutes — or so it seemed.

This is not and introvert-extrovert thing. I am a strong introvert but I think that I have this problem sometimes, too. Some people talk too much because they like to talk and are natural story tellers. Others talk too much so they can be in control. The root of my talking too much is in the need for control, I think. I have in the past confided that I am a recovering control freak.

I sometimes talk too much and interrupt people. Here's the cool thing. When I notice this (getting better at it all the time) I can immediately stop and the conversation improves. When I have coffee chats with folks I will often talk to myself and remind me to talk less and listen more.

Let go of control. Doing this makes for a better conversation and is much more fun. Although I am a recovering control freak, not being in control feels like a cool breeze.

9 Minute Webcast about How to Focus

**Update** - Link is fixed! :-)

I've done another webcast, this one is short, only 9 minutes. In this webcast, I share ideas for how to use chunking as an alternative to multitasking. Check it out and let me know what you think. If a peer or team member is challenged by multitasking, pass the link along!

Click here to see the webcast.

It requires Flash 8.0 and you will be directed to download it for free if you don't have it. One note: if you don't want to download a Yahoo toolbar at the same time, be sure to uncheck that before you download Flash.

By the way, the first webcast is available on iTunes and all of my podcasts and webcasts will be available there. They will all be listed under the category of business. Search by my last name to find them with ease.

If you want to subscribe to all my webcasts, here is the feed for those:

http://lhaneberg.hipcast.com/rss/focus_like_a_laser_beam.xml

(just put this URL into your favorite aggregator)

I will begin sharing podcasts after the July 4th holiday!

I feel like a radio star except that:

• I am not getting paid.
• My equipment is primitive and tempermental (ergo, the output is primitive and flawed).
• I am producer, director, actor, PR agent, and bottle washer.

Hmmm, I guess I am not a radio star. But it's fun!

Confession: I once wanted to be a radio DJ - I even interned at a station that played Top 40 and was called "The Crush" (in Florida, orange crush). Now you know two embarrassing ex-hobbies.

What makes a great place to work?

The 2006 list of the 100 greatest places to work in the US is up here. Many of the same companies top the list, Gore, Wegman's, Amex, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Four Seasons... Seems to be a disproportionate number of financial services companies and this really surprises me - I wonder if something is driving this...

I found this explanation of their judging criteria interesting.

What Makes a Great Place to Work^®?

Any company can be a Great Place to Work^®!

Our approach is based on the major findings of 20 years of research - that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.

At the heart of our definition of a great place to work - a place where employees "trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with" - is the idea that a great workplace is measured by the quality of the three, interconnected relationships that exist there:

• The relationship between employees and management.
• The relationship between employees and their jobs/company.
• The relationship between employees and other employees.

 

In other words - it's all about relationships. I could go further to say it's all about conversations, because that's our mechanism for relating to each other.

How would YOU define a great place to work? Do you work for one of the 100 companies listed? If so, do you regard the workplace as great?

Hot in Seattle

Golly, it is hot in Seattle. And because this is a relatively rare thing in Seattle, we don't have air conditioning. Many people don't have A/C here. But on days like these we wish we did.

Just had to vent. I am having trouble thinking and my brain is overheating!

I know, we have nothing to complain about compared to the scorched southwest or many other hotter places.

Time for a lime Popsicle.

Taming the Monster - E-MAIL!

I love these two posts from David Lorenzo. In post 1, called Making the Most out of E-Mail, he shares some new habits he is going to try to reduce the time he spends on e-mail and improve his focus. In the second post, E-mail Maximization Day 1, David tells you how day 1 went.

These posts offer great ideas for breaking free from the grip of e-mail and they are very funny. Please check them out!.

New Podcast and Webcast Page

I added a page to my main website for all my webcasts and podcasts. Check it out here.

If you are a newer reader of Management Craft, check out the podcasts I did last year.

Over the next month, I will be adding several more podcasts and perhaps a couple more webcasts.

I am calling it my Virtual Fireside Chat Room.

Thanks to artist Jon Conkey for creating the above painting for me to use as a branding element for all my podcasts and webcasts. Jon lives in New Mexico and in addition to his main website where his larger works are featured, he has a great blog called Themeworks where he posts one small painting a day that he does to hone his skills and spur creativity. He is numbering the paintings 1-365 and he is currently on number 83. This one is my favorite so far. I love paintings of the Rio Grande Gorge.

Great Company Blog

I know a lot of my readers have websites and blogs and many are small to medium sized business owners (hint: travel professionals, this is especially for you). I thought I would pass along a blog I came across that I think is excellent.

It is from a coffee shop here in Seattle called Victrola Coffee & Art. My pal Kathleen turned me on to the place today. To look up their address, I went to their website and then found their blog.

Love it!

The blog is human.
Interesting - even if you are not from Seattle.
The content draws you in and makes you want to be a part of their community.

If you have a company blog, check this out. If you love coffee, check it out.

By the way, the real experience was great too. It's a way cool coffee shop. They offer free wifi so there were lots of laptops, and I am happy to say that the majority were Macs. Great art on the walls. Victrola is situated in the energizing neighborhood of Capitol Hill.

Looking for Stories About Your Company

I am writing a book with two other people about how business is changing and we would like a few more examples to illustrate the trends we describe in the book. Here is a list of the situations about which we are looking for examples. If any of these statements describe your company (or a portion of it), and you would be willing to briefly tell me about it, please send me an email at lisa AT haneberg DOT com:

- Non-traditional structures and roles
- Major shifts in products and services
- Started up the company differently – in a nontraditional manner
- Making choices that might seem irrational
- Utilizing informal communication channels
- Transparency with customers and/or employees
- Fluid structure of priorities and assignments
- Recognition that expertise expires
- Taking steps to stay ahead of the curve of change
- From the start, the company was driven by the heart

Also, if you do business with any companies that you think we should talk to, I would appreciate hearing about them, too. Thanks!