Did you know that as nimble as an ordinary bat is when flying it can’t take off from a level place?
If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and painfully until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then it takes off like a flash.
That’s also a good description of what happens to workers who aren’t given what they need to succeed.
Whether it’s coherent instructions, correct and complete information, additional training, viable feedback, or something else, without it they struggle to survive, let …read more

Last Monday we discussed some of the ridiculous reasons that managers use to excuse their lack of fairness and Tuesday we covered what most employees actually mean by ‘fair’.
The main focus was on compensation and that doesn’t begin to cover it.
Unfair treatment from pay to perks to training to strokes to any form of attention will create problems.
Note: I didn’t say ‘might’ or ‘may’ cause problems, but will cause them.
Not just engagement, motivation and retention problems, but also problems with creativity, innovation, initiative (AKA leadership) and especially trust—there won’t be any.
So let’s be clear.
There is no acceptable reason to treat …read more

Yesterday I told you how monkeys lose productivity when treated unfairly.
Unlike the managers I described in that post, good managers know that unequal pay, but they also know that it’s not just a matter of title/grade.
Not everyone with the same title deserves the same compensation—in fact, to do so would be extremely unfair!
Most companies establish a range for each job and some guidelines within each range, but the guides frequently fall short of what’s needed in the real world.
How do you draw the lines to achieve fairness?
You might think that ‘fair’ is some kind of universal one-size-fits-all yardstick, but all …read more

As you may know, I coach with a focus on MAP—it’s effects, uses and how to enhance/change it—so I tend to collect articles and information that will help illustrate and/or drive home a critical point.
MAP is both timely and timeless with the same topics arising in successive generations of managers, so the past articles are often of just as much use now as when they were written.
Obvious as it may seem, fair treatment of employees is one of those things to which managers constantly make exceptions citing all sorts of ‘reasons’.
Years ago I read an article about a study by …read more

There is a dangerous assumption out there that ‘leaders’ are chuck full of positive traits and on the side of the angels, but I’m here to tell you that it ain’t necessarily so. Just as leaders come in all shapes, colors and sizes they come with a wide variety of traits, not all of them positive. But it seems as if succession is tough all over.
Italian police have caught the Sicilian Mafia’s number two, the latest in a string of top-level arrests that has given the crime group that once terrified Italy problems with rebuilding its leadership.
The hero …read more

Is your company fair? Is fairness part of your MAP? Are you fair to your people? How often have you heard (or said), “That’s not fair!”
People accept that life isn’t fair—more or less. Whereas you can’t walk away from life, but it’s relatively easy to walk away from a company or manager you perceive as unfair.
What do people expect within the business world in terms of fairness?
The obvious is that they don’t want to be shafted a la Enron. However, fairness refers to more than the obvious, most often to the company/manager doing what they said they would do, i.e., …read more

Is your company fair? Are you fair to your people? Is fairness part of your MAP?
How often have you heard (or said), “That’s not fair!”
People more or less accept that life isn’t fair, but are more than likely to walk from a company or manager they perceive as being unfair.
What do people expect within the business world in terms of fairness?
The obvious is that they don’t want to be shafted a la Enron. But fairness refers to more than the obvious, most often to the company/manager doing what they said they would do, i.e., walking their talk.
Fairness is what people …read more

By CandidProf. This is the second part of a discussion about what today’s teachers face and the choices that they make. Read all of CandidProf here.
There are some students who come along who are indeed beyond anything that we should realistically be expected to deal with.  Yet, all too often, we are expected to deal with those students.
Every semester I get a notice from the Disabled Students Office about several students who are taking my class who are registered as disabled.  We are expected to make “reasonable” accommodations.
Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what constitutes “reasonable.” Some students have hearing problems …read more