Corporate Games – Page 42

Working With Men

If you sell or market or deal
with the opposite sex,
Leadership And The Sexes
by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis
is a must read.

One of the insights?

Men protect the system.
Women protect the individual.

That’s why men have less issues
severing weak links.
They sacrifice the individual
to save the team.

Women do also.
That is necessary in business.
But usually with more misgivings.

Oh, and a key point in the book?
Women don’t need to become men
to be successful.
They should understand them though.

How To Collect From Delinquent Customers

Ray Silverstein in
The Best Secrets Of Great Small Businesses
outlines some creative ways
to collect money from delinquent customers.

They include
Bartering – taking goods or services instead of cash
Transferring to a credit card
Recovering the product
Not honoring warranties or guarantees
until the payment is made

Waiting too long to get paid
may mean not getting paid at all.

The Public Apology

On one of the writing loops,
a writer accused another writer
of a serious faux pas.
The thing was…
the accuser was wrong, clearly wrong.
The accused was nice about it,
classy yet firm.

I waited and waited and waited.

The accuser never apologized.
At least not in public.

Yes, I know it is embarrassing.
Yes, I know it is hard to do.
But if you make a mistake in public,
you admit to it in public.
If you falsely accuse someone in public
(not a bright thing to do),
you apologize in public.

Do that and you’ll retain some integrity.
Don’t do that and you’ll look like a complete ass.

Working With Stereotypes

We are all in danger of
being stereotyped in our career.
It can harmless or even beneficial
(the always punctual German)
but sometimes it can derail a career.

How to fight a harmful stereotype?

Be aware of it
and don’t give anyone an excuse to apply it.

A Jamaica born buddy
is often viewed as ‘easy going.’
Great for personal,
damaging for a project manager.
She makes it a point to
always be on time,
always have agendas for meetings,
always follow up on assignments.
Her tabbed binders are a visual reminder
that she is not a person to flub off.

As a woman,
I am very aware of the irrationally emotional label.
I scrap all negative emotions.
I vent in private to buddies
but on the job, I have a quiet anger
(as effective as the noisy kind).

I do show positive emotions though.
That helps counter the cold hearted bitch label
many businesswomen earn.

It sounds challenging
but remember, we are building personal brands.
Any brand should be managed carefully.

The V-P Of Human Resources

An executive announced proudly
that his company has a female Vice President.
“Let me guess,” I replied,
“she’s in human resources.”

I was right.

How did I know?
Unless the company has staffing as its product,
the V-P of Human Resources
is overlooked as a candidate
for the President or CEO position.

By placing their only female exec in that position,
the company is sending a message
‘Women can only advance so far.’
She’s a token.

Now, if the company has a female V-P
in critical areas
like sales, operations, even finance,
then I know that company is
walking the talk.

How To Get Laid Off

Yesterday, I talked about one way
executives avoid paying severance.

So what do you do
if you’re the target of
an isolate and ignore campaign?

You get yourself laid off.

Laid off, not fired.
Fired means no golden parachute,
no cash to fund your transition.
Not good.
You have to be annoying
but not break any of the written rules.

If your workplace is suits and ties
(and there is no written dress code),
you go in semi-casual.
If meetings are stuffy and formal,
you crack (clean) jokes.
You ask your boss tough questions
in front of others
(bring out some of the dead bodies).
You do what you’re told
but you don’t volunteer.

Eventually, you will be let go.
You’ll get no reference
but if they were trying to get rid of you,
you wouldn’t get that anyway.

How To Avoid Paying Severance

In these tight financial times,
executives are doing their best
to avoid giving costly severance packages
to downsized employees.

One way to do that?

Isolate and ignore.
A loved one’s manager was replaced.
He had been with the company
for decades.
The severance package would have been substantial.

So the company didn’t lay him off.
They moved him to a smaller office,
took away his assistant
and his staff,
gave him a useless task to do
and then ignored him.

Completely.

The manager was upset
but there was no basis for a lawsuit
(ignoring someone is not a crime).
Eventually his ego couldn’t take it
and he left.

No severance paid.

Can We Do This?

I had a new commenting software
installed on a group blog.
All the old comments were deleted.

I asked my fellow bloggers
if this was an issue.
The question thrown back at me was
“Can we retrieve them?”

Of course, we can.
Almost everything is doable
(barring the obvious – living forever, etc).

That isn’t the real question.
The real question is
“Is doing this worth the resources?”

In this case,
we decided it wasn’t.

Clarity And Irony

I received an email invitation
from a professional body
for a relaxation seminar.

In bolded letters
was
“Dress Code In Effect.”

What dress code?
The business suits regularly worn
to these events
or the yoga pants
regularly worn to relaxation seminars?

Books such as The 4-Hour Workweek
stress supplying answers
before questions have to be asked.

These answers, however,
have to be clear.

Look at your FAQ’s.
Are the answers open to interpretation?
If so, consider re-writing them.

Business Is NOT Rational

We often forget
that corporations consist of people
and
people are not rational.

They prefer buying from friends,
regardless of costs.
They like to earn bonuses
and will manipulate numbers to do that.
They only put the company first
when they personally gain from it
(that gain can be pride, financial, etc).

As business leaders,
one of our jobs is
not to fight it,
but
to align employees’ personal agendas
with the company’s.
Make the irrational choice
the rational one for the company.