Overworking in America

In some place I’ve worked, it is a badge of honor to share how many hours you worked in a week or a month.  People competed to see who could log the most hours in the office while others talked about how late they were on email the night before or how early they got to work in the morning.

This really isn’t something to be proud of.  I remember my first job out of college where I had a boss who said, “The only people who know you work late is the night janitor or the security guard you see on the way out.”  I also had a boss once who used to count the cars in the parking lot at 6 pm or 6 am and then tell me that we had a morale problem since people weren’t working late or coming in early. My response was always, “Is the work getting done?” If the answer is yes, then why do people have to spend more time in the office—especially since most people are on email long after they leave the office.  Technology frees most of us from being tied to a specific place to do our work.

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza left his car at the office one night when he was working for the New York Yankees?  The next day, he heard George Steinbrenner telling someone, “That George Costanza is a real go-getter. He was here when I left last night and he was already here when I came in this morning.”  No, George wasn’t there—his car was in the parking lot. So George Costanza being George, decided to start sleeping in his office so Mr. Steinbrenner would continue to think he was a great employee!

According to a recent article in the Washington Post by Christopher Ingraham  titled, When Working Longer Hours Doesn’t Add up, he says that “half of full-time workers report working 41 or more hours per week and nearly a fifth say that number ticks up to 60 or more.”  He says this isn’t healthy—not for the worker nor for his/her family relationships.  The Centers for Disease Control reports that “overtime was associated with poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates, more illnesses, or increased mortality.”

Ingraham goes on to say that most Americans say that family takes priority over work—yet  many of us are willing to make personal sacrifices for work including going to work when we’re sick; missing out on personal experiences due to long hours or no vacation; and working different shifts from a spouse because they couldn’t find child care.

So the next time you brag about how many hours you worked or hear someone else doing it, think about your health, your relationships, and your life and go home. Spend some time relaxing with family or friends and get enough sleep that you don’t make silly mistakes!  Find ways to be as productive as you can be in a reasonable day/night at work and as always, do your best and if your boss still wants you at work all the time just because, maybe it’s not the right job for you.

Getting Innovation Right

Throughout the year we’ve been talking about innovation. Innovation equals success. Innovation is about adding value to your organization and to the marketplace. As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time to reflect how you can position your organization to leverage the marketplace and add value.

In his book, Getting Innovation Right, Seth Kahan's theme is the best ideas are useless if they don't add value. Kahan highlights suggested activities for leaders in order to drive success for their innovations in the marketplace.

1.  Pursue and leverage inflection points - those dramatic and decisive shifts in your relationship with the market whether positive or negative. Anticipate them and use them to your advantage. Positive ones can grow your base, increase you offerings and customer loyalty, and improve your place in the market.

2. Build innovation capacity. Developing new products and services has a stress factor. Does your organization have what it takes to channel those pressures and turn them into productive use? Strong innovation leaders do this through strong internal leadership, exceptional talent management, and robust idea management. They manage critical forces, talk to the right people, build partnerships, and hire and develop people who understand and embrace the power of innovation.

3.  Collect intelligence. The best innovation rises from a sea of products, services, customers, competitors, and internal equities. Your intelligence gather efforts should start with the interrelated areas of customers, market conditions and organizational capabilities. Be sure you’ve defined the scope, determined your goals, conducted interviews, consulted sources, and performed your due diligence.  Gathering and applying pertinent information must be an on-going effort to enhance the quality of your strategic decisions.

4.  Shift perspective. Challenge your own assumptions. They may be constraining your ability to see new opportunities. Get out from your own box. Listen to your employees, partners, customers and competitors.  Seeing the world through new alternatives and points of view helps to identify opportunities to pivot into a positive inflection point that will drive success.

5.  Exploit disruption. Disruption is part of business life today and it can come from anywhere. Just like conflict, if it’s ignored or mismanaged, it can be disastrous. Successful leaders identify the opportunity embedded in adverse conditions and exploit it – disruptions such as customer challenges, industry change, fierce competition and new business models. Turn turmoil to your advantage.

6.  Generate value.  Value is what causes people to separate from their hard-earned cash, drive investors to invest, and shoppers to shop. It’s a perceived benefit – such as the value of brand (Coke vs. Pepsi). Skillful innovators understand what drives value, what it looks like to customers and all their stakeholders, and how to generate by delivering something more, better or new.

7.  Drive Innovation uptake – customer acceptance of a new product or service. When you align your innovations with what your customers value, they become your ambassadors. Every stage of the innovation process holds opportunity to introduce new ideas into the market and engage your customers. Working together you move from a mere transaction toward a generative relationship.

To help his readers get innovation right, Kahan provides tools and techniques, templates and guidelines, and step-by-step instructions. If you’re thinking of what you want to accomplish in 2016, this may be a great place to start!

Your Leadership Vision

Vision, mission, strategic plan – no matter the size of your organization, you have (or should have) these in place. Large organizations go through great lengths to establish them. Entrepreneurs often do, but they often fly by the seat of their pants. (In the writing world, this is called pantsing!)

This was the topic of a recent leadership breakfast – what an individual leader does to develop a leadership vision for herself and for her organization. See how you do. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

1   1.     What is my vision for my team?
2.     What is my individual leadership vision?
3.     Do I have energy around that vision?
4.     Does that energy and vision permeate the team and the workplace?
5.     Is it manifested in my actions, values and goals?
6.     Is there character and spirit around it?

Some of the leadership qualities reported by Forbes, and this list is not inclusive, are listed below. Can you think of a leader who’s exhibited some or all of them? What have you done to embrace these qualities?

• Honesty
• Ability to Delegate
• Communication Skills
• Sense of Humor
• Confidence
•  Commitment
• Positive Attitude
• Creativity
• Intuition
• Ability to Inspire

However, leader’s don’t do it all on their own. What does it take to manifest your leadership vision? Consider the following:

• An inspired team
• A shared vision
• Expert help and support
• Courage to face the unknown
• Strategic planning
• Hard work and determination
• Having an advocate or coach
• Pausing to celebrate the journey

Use the following questions as a roadmap to develop a leadership vision, whether it’s for yourself or for your organization:

•    Why? Why are you in business (or the role you’re in)? What motivates you to continue
•   What? What is the corporate/organization/team mission? List a few goals. What will it take to get there?
•   Who? Who is your business impacting? Who can help your business?
•  Where? Where are your strategies and goals taking your business? What is your growth plan?
•  When? When do you forecast reaching your business goals?
• How much? How much time, energy, and money will your company need to invest to reach these goals?
• How? How will your company get there? What methods, means and actions are required?
• What makes your vision unique? What makes your vision inspiring memorable and important?

Thanks to Mali Phonpadith CEO, SOAR Community Network, for an inspiring and thought-provoking session.