A recent client of mine has returned to the workplace after years running her own business. I called her at the end of her first day, she was both excited and optimistic. Her new colleagues were welcoming and she was looking forward to a long and enjoyable relationship with her new career.
I called her at the end of her first week and found her completely overwhelmed with the amount of mail she gets on a daily basis. From the moment her name hit the corporate address book she was bombarded with more than 70 mails per day. The problem was so bad that she is was considering resignation. We are now working with her to develop strategies to manage mail and stay productive.
Her situation may not be unique, a significant number of our clients state email as a significant issue. Seventy mails a day to some might seem like a luxury to others it's overwhelming. What do think about email? Is there such thing as email addiction? What is enough/too much? How do you stay on top of your mail?
Friday, 30 March 2007
Friday, 23 March 2007
Is the criminal activity of the banks employees as bad that of the Banks?
I got round to watching the whistleblower programme on banks last night (aren't PVR hard drive recorders fantastic, I can now have a huge archive of programmes I never get to watch without having to fill the shelves full of unlabelled video tapes and DVD's)
The thing that struck me wasn't the content of the programme. It came as no surprise whatsoever that the organisation employed a minority of individuals that broke the rules or took part in criminal activity or bent the rules for personal gain. It didn't even surprise me that the perpetrators were so willing to talk, to an almost complete stranger, about what they do. Values and beliefs are a weird and wonderful thing. These people intrinsically know they were breaking the rules, yet still felt ok to both do it and talk about it. Why is that? Essentially it comes down to their own value set and what they believe is right wrong good bad or just down right criminal. My good friend and mentor Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall says "from whatever value system you live from, all other systems seem at best dull and boring, at worst, criminal and insane". The investigative reporter didn't even need to agree with her victims to get them to open up. Their value system was so strong that not disagreeing or judging their activity was enough for them to assume the reporter shared their value system! Why wouldn't they? After all there's nothing wrong with a bit of innocent corruption, is there?
As a regular "morality panelist" on BBC local radio it always makes me chuckle when the same person who thinks it's fair game to accidently get away with not paying for a DVD player from Tesco's would condemn "real criminals" to 20 years of hard labour.
What did surprise me, a little, is that the senior exec, when interviewed could not believe that there were people in her org that were clearly not living the values of the Bank.
It should come as no surprise really beliefs and values are capable of blinkering all but the most aware. There are few companies that do little more than pay lip service to owning and staying accountable for their culture, possibly because they don't know how!
Come up with a nice set of values that your customer's want to hear, plaster the words all over your marketing collateral and expect the rest of the company to toe the company line. That should do the trick, shouldn't it?
The thing that struck me wasn't the content of the programme. It came as no surprise whatsoever that the organisation employed a minority of individuals that broke the rules or took part in criminal activity or bent the rules for personal gain. It didn't even surprise me that the perpetrators were so willing to talk, to an almost complete stranger, about what they do. Values and beliefs are a weird and wonderful thing. These people intrinsically know they were breaking the rules, yet still felt ok to both do it and talk about it. Why is that? Essentially it comes down to their own value set and what they believe is right wrong good bad or just down right criminal. My good friend and mentor Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall says "from whatever value system you live from, all other systems seem at best dull and boring, at worst, criminal and insane". The investigative reporter didn't even need to agree with her victims to get them to open up. Their value system was so strong that not disagreeing or judging their activity was enough for them to assume the reporter shared their value system! Why wouldn't they? After all there's nothing wrong with a bit of innocent corruption, is there?
As a regular "morality panelist" on BBC local radio it always makes me chuckle when the same person who thinks it's fair game to accidently get away with not paying for a DVD player from Tesco's would condemn "real criminals" to 20 years of hard labour.
What did surprise me, a little, is that the senior exec, when interviewed could not believe that there were people in her org that were clearly not living the values of the Bank.
It should come as no surprise really beliefs and values are capable of blinkering all but the most aware. There are few companies that do little more than pay lip service to owning and staying accountable for their culture, possibly because they don't know how!
Come up with a nice set of values that your customer's want to hear, plaster the words all over your marketing collateral and expect the rest of the company to toe the company line. That should do the trick, shouldn't it?
Tuesday, 20 March 2007
Why the coffee machine
Having dived off the corporate merry go round in 2004 to to swell the ranks of the self employed one of the things I do miss is the coffee machine. Not the coffee, (the withdrawal symptoms left years ago and thankfully my tastebuds have made a full recovery) but the culture and the environment. The coffee machine is a great place to catch up on gossip, network, take a break and even find yourself coaching or being coached. I never gave the coffee machine a second thought when I handed in my final corporate membership pass and never in my wildest imagination would I have thought I would have dedicated a blog to it. I still take coffee breaks when working from home and I still sample the various flavours (Yuk!) of coffee from the machines of my corporate clients but it's not the same. The relationship with the coffee machine, and the people that use it, builds over time, casual visitors are always welcomed at a superfical level but it takes time to gain full membership to the inner sanctum!
I have even dedicated the title of a book to it "The Coffee Machine Coach"! It may be some time before I get it into publication. The intent is to collect my experience in coaching into a useful manual for both professional and amateur coaches. The inspiration for the book and my new career came from an old colleague called Jeff Hambidge who took the trouble to thank me (at the coffee machine) for helping him make a career decision through a quick chat at the coffee machine.
Sadly Jeff died a few years ago so I won't get the chance to let him know that his coffee machine words were also to have a profound effect on my career direction. Trading the safety and comfort of a senior management role and all the corporate trimmings for the relative insecurity of a career in coaching training and writing, thanks Jeff.
It may never replace the real thing but you never know who you might meet at the virtual coffee machine?
Steve.
I have even dedicated the title of a book to it "The Coffee Machine Coach"! It may be some time before I get it into publication. The intent is to collect my experience in coaching into a useful manual for both professional and amateur coaches. The inspiration for the book and my new career came from an old colleague called Jeff Hambidge who took the trouble to thank me (at the coffee machine) for helping him make a career decision through a quick chat at the coffee machine.
Sadly Jeff died a few years ago so I won't get the chance to let him know that his coffee machine words were also to have a profound effect on my career direction. Trading the safety and comfort of a senior management role and all the corporate trimmings for the relative insecurity of a career in coaching training and writing, thanks Jeff.
It may never replace the real thing but you never know who you might meet at the virtual coffee machine?
Steve.
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