rabbijaffe

As the school year begins, and I will imminently attend meeting after meeting, I present:

The Top Ten Ways to Stay Awake at Meetings

I learned an important life lesson this past year. I can’t handle long meetings. I like to be very honest with myself. I’m sure there exist folk who can sit and happily watch as presenter after presenter goes on for hours. I’m not one of them, Therefore I made this list for the world…

and for me!

#10: Rapt attention. Focus on every word the speaker is saying. Try and see how you can apply their wisdom instantly… Oh, who am I kidding? No one can do that!

So, I present:

#9: Attach a Coffee IV. There’s no better way to regulate slow and steady mass intake of the beautiful chemical we call caffeine. Indulge!

#8: Stealing presenter’s material. Nothing’s better than a feeling of triumph. And nothing beats that repeat triumphant feeling as you smugly stroke the presenter’s pointer stick (etc.) each time they fumble for it or confusedly scratch their head.

#7: Heckling. Remember that classic moment from Back to School when Derek (Robert Downey Jr.) wanted to help his diving team out by heckling the other team? I can’t imagine a better way to stay focused than a foghorn at the speaker’s most critical moment!

#6: Stealing the show. Who can forget when, in the movie Catch Me If You Can, a young Leonardo Decaprio walked into a Fench class and saw no teacher in the room? What did he do? For an entire week he pretended to be the French teacher! (If you haven’t seen it, check here- it all begins at 8:21.)

So what should you do? Pop into the meeting before it’s up and running, walk to the front and get the ball rolling. You’ll be so proud of yourself you won’t even notice the endless hours of meetings with the real presenter.

#5: Excitement. Nothing makes a meeting more exciting than, well, making it exciting. I’d say it would be a good idea to heavily blur the lines between and a professional meeting and a gospel church. Think lots of “amen’s”, ”praise the Lord’s”, and a solid chunk of “Halleluja’s”.

#4: Unrelated questions. I once dared a friend of mine during a speech to raise his hand and ask, “What does this have to do with strudel anyway?” OK, so you ruin the presentation and lose respect from those around you… but the look on the presenter’s face at that moment is a memory that will last a lifetime!

#3: Cell phones. Maybe a bit more common in Israel, but I’ve most certainly watched as people answered their cell phones during classes and at weddings. They then proceeded to have normal volume, full fledged conversations. Rude? Yes. Fun? Probably. Might as well just leave that puppy on, and when the loud obnoxious ring goes off, answer it and say loudly and proudly, “Sure. This is an OK time to talk.”

#2: Sunglasses. Remember Weekend at Bernie’s? (Yes, I watched too many movies growing up.) An entire movie dedicated to two guys pretending a dead guy was still alive. The secret: Sunglasses. If you can trick people into believing a dead guy is still alive with shades, certainly you can nap to your heart’s content at a meeting without anyone noticing. Right? 

And the #1 best way to stay awake at meetings:

#1: Laptops and blackberries. Nothing looks more professional that clicking away at a laptop or pushing buttons on a blackberry. Even if all you’re doing is chatting with someone else across the room or playing video games. Just try not to shout out a random “YES!” (unless you can time it with the meeting- see #5).

I hope this helps me and all others start off the new year the right way!

Welcome to the the final post in my leadership series.

* * *

There is a well-known concept in Judaism that you should not rule your household through fear.

Let’s examine for a moment what that means:

Say there was a family where everyone was absolutely terrified of the man of the house. He overreacted terribly and violently whenever anyone did something he didn’t like.

One day when his son was playing around in the house, he banged into the wall and the kitchen fire-extinguisher fell to the floor and was badly damaged, probably so much so that it won’t work anymore.

He heard his father coming into the house and was so terrified of his reaction, the boy quickly hid the busted fire-extinguisher.

Now, if he had a relationship with his father based on trust and respect, he would simply tell his father what happened, suffer what consequences may or may not come, and (most importantly) the fire-extinguisher would be immediately replaced.

But that’s not what happened.

A fire in the kitchen! A fire in the neighboor’s house! A fire in one of the kid’s bedrooms!! Countless possible emergencies… and absolutely nothing anyone can do about it, and no one will know until it’s too late.

Why? Because the household was run with fear as the main source of functionality.

And why did daddy choose such a method? Because on the surface it appears to be effective. And it might be sometimes. But any positive results achieved through fear can be achieved better through respect, and with more lasting benefits for all parties involved.

* * *

So, how is this applicable in the workplace?

I honestly do see the benefits of employees fearing their employers (at least somewhat). And I definitely think an environment with absolutely no fear in the workplace could be a rather awful thing (Think: Laziness, stealing, lateness, rudeness, all with zero consequences).

But we must keep in mind several principles I’ve mentioned so far:

1. The employee is the backbone of the organization. Their success is everyone’s success.

2. The employee is imperfect and will make errors.

3. The employee has a lot to learn and plenty of room for growth.

4. I as the employer must help my employee to learn and grow from his mistakes.

How can I as an employer do this?

Well, if you have been following the other rules from the previous posts, and you are talented and charismatic, you will likely have all your employees’ respect, and you will have certainly limited the need for instilling fear in your workers.

Most people wouldn’t steal from or take advantage of an employer they like and respect.

And by limiting your fear tactics and fostering open communication with the folks on the floor, when a problem arises they will be less likely to hide from it, and more likely to approach you so you can help them to move beyond it, and become the best employee they are capable of being.

And this, of course, is beneficial to the both of you.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this series, and bless all of you that if you are the “lower man” your boss sounds like what I’ve described (they’re out there, I promise!), and if you find your way to the top, you keep these principles in mind to create the most productive atmosphere possible:

1. Beware of obnoxious typing syndrome 

2. Deal with problems, isolate them, and MOVE ON

3. Keep the appropriate levels of oversight

4. Get your hands dirty

5. Show appreciation

6. Don’t try and please everyone

7. It existed before you arrived

8. Prioritize!

9. Set clear and reasonable expectations

10. And: Don’t rule with fear

There are a few things about the work world that I would like to believe:

1. Everyone is hired with a clearly stated, reasonable job description.

2. The boss’s goal is that each employee will succeed.

3. An additional goal is that this success should continue as long as possible, therefore causing less turnover, which is ultimately beneficial for everybody.

4. The growth of each employee is important to the employer.

5. That growth will come with occasional slip-ups. The worst thing I can do is condemn my employee when those slip-ups occur. The best thing I can do is help him learn from them.

It sounds so logical, and a sure fire method to successful leadership.

And yet this is what I feel comes out of some less than stellar employers:

1. Job expectations are not clearly conveyed.

This can be for numerous reasons. One of those reasons is because the employer is unsure of what they want.

A far worse reason might be because the employer wishes to remain intentionally vague so that EVERYTHING they ever wish of you can be smushed into your job description.

Unclear or open-ended expectations are a recipe for failure. It’s like trying to find a hidden treasure, but the treasure map is completely undecipherable. 

2. This lack of a “treasure map” and inevitable failure is only relevant if the boss cares. If the employer does not think that his employees are a fundamental element of his organization, there’s only one thing to do:

Run!

Personally I think high turnover rates are embarrassing, as well as detremental to success. Unfortunately there are employers out there who think of their employees as cheap Tupperware containers. Use them as much as you want and as aggressively as you wish, and if for whatever reason they are renderer no longer useful, just toss them in the trash can. After all, they’re cheap and you have plenty others. 

3. Within such an environment your every error is subject to criticism and ultimately termination when convenient for the employer.

The beautiful machine is the one where each employee is provided with a clearly defined role, feels he is a part of a team where is participation is essential and important, knows he can go to his boss when he needs assistance, and can rest assured that when mistakes happen he has been fully trained how to grow from them.

Priorities are a concept that Americans (and the world in general) seem to be rather clueless about.

We live in a world where we watched with bated breath while dozens of Iranians died in the fight for their freedom. Well, we did… until Michael Jackson died, of course. Now it feels like Iran fell off the map.

I was teaching a 6th grade class this past year about a section of the Bible. We discussed all sorts of interesting scenarios and the laws that might follow. In order to make the classes more fun and memorable for my students I try to make my scenarios as visual and wild as possible.

One case involved a man who was entrusted to watch over his neighbor’s cocker spaniel. One day as he was sitting there watching the pooch, a lion which had escaped from the local zoo jumped through the window and ate the dog. (The question at hand was whether or not the dog’s watcher was held responsible for its death.)

My students cried out in horror. They were completely freaked out by the example I had given.    

I enquired why they were so freaked out now as opposed to all the other crazy scenarios I had created:

Them: How can you speak of a dog getting killed?

Me: Hold on. We’ve been doing scenarios for weeks now. When we spoke about humans getting murdered, nobody got upset about it.

Them: But most of us have dogs!

Me: (In disbelief) And none of you have parents, siblings, friends!?!

And no matter how much we discussed this, they did not get why this irked me.

And judging by some of the research out there, whoever is reading this right now also migt not understand why this irked me.

But I digress…

This post is really a continuation from my previous post about a new employer who wishes to hop into a new scenario and strip everything away to rebuild things from scratch.

When the new boss-man decides things need to change, his next step is (or at least should be) to prioritize.

My mental picture, which inspired the photograph at the top of the post (a $64 stainless steel stapler), is the new CEO who makes the list of everything he feels needs to be improved upon, and one of the things on his list is his dislike of the company’s staplers.

So he spends two hours on the internet researching in order to find out which are the best staplers out there.

Then he spends a half hour on the phone with a sales rep trying to finalize the company’s purchase of the staplers.

Later he will have a 45-minute meeting with his staff to discuss the new staplers, culminating in everyone signing a form upon the receipt of their new stapler stating they are personally responsible if their new stapler is lost or damaged.

And also culminating in a staff of people wondering why the company hired this bozo.

This might sound like an overly exaggerated scenario…

That is, of course, unless I’m describing someone you are either employed to, or were employed to in the past.

This example from my life still makes me laugh. I was once the employee of a brand new principal who made a semi-arbitrary new rule that on a specific monthly holiday all students were required to wear white shirts.

In theory it was a nice and respectful idea.

In practice:

a. Kids make mistakes

b. It’s only an OK idea

c. Might be nice to focus your attention on slightly more important issues when starting in such a position

So the first holiday rolled around. Probably a dozen or more students forgot about the whole white shirt thing.

No big deal, right?

He made them sit in an in-school suspension until a parent, who was probably busy at work, was able to go to the school and bring them a white shirt. Some students missed half their classes that day!

Everyone, as you can imagine, was very angry at the principal.

But did he stop there? No way. Months later, same deal. Several students forget, several students suspended, several parents peeved.

And when all the smoke clears, what do we have? Tons of frustrated students, who in no way appreciate the policy (and laugh at the principal behind his back). Scores of really ticked off parents, who in no way appreciate the policy (and laugh at the principal behind his back). A bunch of frustrated teachers wondering why their students are missing class to sit in the principal’s office. And: No improvement in the memory of students vis-a-vis their white shirts.

And for what!?!? What if he had succeeded? Big deal! This was objectively as unimportant of an issue as one could imagine. It wasn’t even in the galaxy of what this man should have been focusing his time and attention upon. And he didn’t get it. And I’m not sure if has yet figured this one out.

You’re in a new leadership position and want to make some changes? Fine. It’s going to be a lot of work. Figure out what are the main issues you would like to work on, and for now let everything else go.

And for God’s sake, try and look very closely and objectively at what should have never been focused on in the first place.