17. The Last and Overarching Rule: Tell the Truth! (and a Few Action Items to Grow On)

In the movie A Few Good Men, there is a memorable scene where Tom Cruise, as defense counsel, confronts witness Jack Nicholson, a veteran marine colonel. After they exchange a few barbs, Nicholson baits Cruise, “What do you want!?”

Cruise responds, “I want the truth!”

Nicholson’s comeback is, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

I think of this scene fairly often and smile to myself when I see executives and managers “dumbing down” the messages they give to employees. Truths are “spun” into “company speak” so that what is really going on with a sticky situation is clouded over beyond recognition. Fact is, many people in positions of power and influence just don’t understand that you can’t lie—even little lies, white lies—to the people on whom you depend for success and prosperity. The result is that those people feel as though you don’t think they count. Those people feel as though you think they are stupid, unworthy, and not to be trusted.

Worse, they will hate you for it. Yes, I said hate.

But I don’t mean the kind of explosive hate that we see depicted in films or on TV. I mean the gnawing hate that surfaces in far-less-obvious ways. “You think I’m stupid? Well, I’m smart enough to fool you!” “You don’t trust me to know? I’ll show you how much I know!” “What I think doesn’t count? Oh yeah, well, count this!” Those phrases sum up the active dislike of the ownership, management, and organization that can arise when employees feel compelled to respond with hatred, and that can disrupt the organization’s present and corrupt its future.

Whenever the opportunity arises, I ask leaders why they couch the truth in nonsense and company speak. The answer is generally the same. Leaders are afraid that the whole truth cannot be “handled well” by the employees. When I press for what “handled well” means, the responses are fascinating and even amusing. The leaders fear leaks of proprietary data, fear of creating fear or anger, fear of defection from the ranks, fear of emotional and contagious negative responses—the list goes on. My amusement comes from the apparent lack of “people knowledge” these leaders have accumulated over their years in business. They are unable to understand that the people they are protecting from the truth are the same people who deal with divorce, family tragedy, financial setbacks, serious illnesses, child rearing, college tuition, and elder care issues. These leaders fail to understanding that their employees deal with truths far more gut-wrenching and emotional than nearly anything an honest company communication will offer. In fact, they often deal with those stresses and setbacks on a daily basis.

But the worst is that most people have active and highly sensitive “BS monitors.” They easily see through the half-truths. When truth goes missing and the truth is required to make sense of things, people tend to scan the world around them and find the truth. In an effort to determine what’s really going on, they gather bits and pieces of their own evidence. Then they come up with the “truth” and adjust behavior and attitude based on their truth. The saddest part to this is that the “new” truth is the perception that becomes reality, and nothing management says can dispel it. So, the entire activity of “truth finding” damages trust and fosters passive-aggressive behaviors.

A veteran Minitab nonmanagement employee told me a story about the effects of truthfulness that speaks loudly about its value in building and sustaining a great company. Back in the early 1990s Minitab was having some tough times. Sales were slack; money was tight. There was even the remote possibility that the company might not survive. The employees knew that there was trouble and began to fear the possibility of layoffs.

Ken Falkenbach, Minitab’s first COO, gathered all the employees together and told them, in detail, the nature of the crisis—he laid it all bare before them. It was painful; it was the unvarnished truth. Then he declared that, in spite of the situation, Minitab would do whatever it would take to avoid cutting staff. He expressed confidence that, if they all took a temporary pay cut to stem the tide and came up with a few additional cost-cutting measures, they would be okay.

The employees took Ken’s candor and commitment as a rallying cry. A number of suggestions were offered, but the most memorable among them was to interrupt the use of many outside services and to have employees take on and share those previously outsourced tasks. For a period of months, employee volunteers cleaned offices, hauled trash, refilled toilet tissue dispensers, and even swabbed commodes to support their company.

Today Minitab employees remember those difficult days with fondness, and they describe that period of time to new hires as a coalescing experience, and a first indication of what the company could and would become.

Last Rules

So now, let’s look at some overarching rules that can be followed to move an organization to become an engaged workplace. In short, there are just a few things that leaders and executives need to do to build a work environment that nurtures employee commitment to the mission and purposes of the company:

• Leaders must make sure all employees know what is expected of them and what things they can expect from the company and its leadership.

• Leaders must oversee a culture that treats people with respect and care.

• Leaders must provide resources and be a resource themselves.

• Leaders must own the responsibility for downward communication that is regular and clear, and they must require the same of mid- and lower-level managers.

Leaders must behave in a way that builds trust, confidence, understanding, and a visceral relationship between employees and company, and leaders must visibly model that behavior and demand it from their subordinates.

• Finally, leaders must operate the company and pursue success in a transparent fashion.

You may have seen The Bucket List, a popular 2008 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Two characters list the things they want to do before they die. Well, I have my own list to show you, but it’s not a “bucket list” of things to do before you die. It’s a list of the things you should do if you (as an organization) intend to thrive and live! These items aren’t the last things you should be doing but the first things you should undertake. Like now.

Is your organization ready to build a way of behaving and conducting business that improves the likelihood of attracting and keeping people? And do you want those people to be loyal, engaged, productive, and aligned with the organization’s goals? I’ve laid out a list of to-do’s for you. To keep the list manageable (and the book small enough to carry in one hand), I have limited the to-do’s to one or two for each of the sixteen previous rules.

If you manage to adopt six or more of the rules as leadership guides, and you are able to implement six or more of the suggested items from the list, I can promise you a wholly different and improved work environment, as well as a far more engaged and productive workforce. So, get about changing your company!

Rule #1—Why They Come and Why They Stay

1. Take a new approach to employee orientation. As a standard aspect of orientation, create a conversation with all new employees about what they can expect from the company, its management, and other employees. Make sure that each new hire hears from someone (of status and authority) all that is expected of employees with regard to work ethic, productivity, and behavior.

2. Executives should participate in orienting new hires. Require that at least one senior management person communicates an official welcome to all new hires, and that the senior management expresses confidence that the new hire will have a great opportunity and be a valuable contributor to company success.

Rule #2—Play “Win-Win”

3. Make a concerted effort to build an internal communications system that is biased toward clear explanations of decisions; communicate how the execution of plans benefits the customer, the company, and the individual.

4. Enforce a ban on office politics. Let those in power positions know that political maneuvering and manipulation of data, situations, or people will be treated with swift and visible discipline. Let the employees know that they are working in an environment where they don’t have to watch their back, or worse, CYA.

Rule #3—Cultivate Leadership

5. Find your leaders and train them in the skills of leadership. A plethora of “leadership” development experiences are available for purchase. Yet have you noticed that the quality of leadership in our organizations is not improving—regardless of the dollars spent? Maybe the wrong people are being exposed to the opportunity.

6. Executives should look for leadership qualities in their people, and begin to concentrate time and money on those who have a natural talent for and interest in leadership. You can train a person to be a manager, but you can only develop inherent leadership qualities already in the possession of individuals.

Rule #4—Provide Resources

7. You want your staff to be successful, and it’s up to them to choose the path to that success. That said, conveying resources and control to the employee indicates how you feel about them, either positive or negative. So, hand over control of resources to someone who is inextricably linked to the success (or failure) of the project. That will motivate them to take ownership of the project and to invest pride and extra effort in doing it well.

8. To convey the expectations that accompany resources, the manager should express that he sees something in an employee or subordinate; the manager should verbalize that he recognizes the employee’s or subordinate’s talents and skills; that the employee’s or subordinate’s potential is clear, that you want to see it actualized, and here are the tools to make it happen.

Rule #5—Demand Contribution; Be Worthy of Receiving It

9. Don’t demand effort; demand contribution. And the only way to effectively demand contribution is to show employees where their contribution adds to the big picture, where an employee’s contribution adds to the organization’s overall goals.

10. A carefully nurtured culture is only part of the battle to draw an employee’s best possible contribution. The culture has to be regularly communicated, so the employee recognizes what part she plays in the company’s progress and the customer experience. The employee must be told what a contribution means and what it looks like, and she must be told that contribution is what is expected, what counts, and what will be counted.

Rule #6—Applaud Effort; Reward Contribution

11. It’s toxic to reward effort. If you start to reward effort, the people really making contributions will see their efforts as denigrated. So, don’t reward the churners, at the same level that you are rewarding the people who are propelling the organization forward. The contributors will see that rewards are tied to the wrong metrics and that the company is indeed rewarding motion not results.

12. Punishing people isn’t a good use of time and energy. It’s not a sincere effort to motivate a deadbeat employee, and it ends up being focused on revenge. If someone isn’t capable of focusing on outcomes, there’s little you can do with that person anyway, as he is unmanageable. There’s little that can motivate him...except the powerful force of withholding recognition and rewards.

Rule #7—Become a Cheerleader

13. It’s not childish to cheerlead, because you have to let the employees know that they’re doing a good job. You’d be surprised how much employees crave a little encouragement, and how quickly that encouragement translates to high levels of commitment.

14. It’s wrong to think that all people invariably want is more money. Pay and benefits are just substitutes for warmth, caring, and recognition of worth. Don’t set up your organization so that the only way you can express your appreciation for an employee’s value is with money, you’ll find it’s just not enough; it’s never enough.

Rule #8—Build on Respect

15. By not giving and demanding respect in the workplace, organizations become politicized, and you are destined for decline when ideas and initiatives are not judged on their merits but on the personal allegiances of people within the organization.

16. Recognize that the workplace has replaced the family social circle. It’s a club that meets every day, and workmates engage with their extended “family” at work very much as they did with a blood-related family decades ago. At work, we seek advice, we commiserate, we support each other, we argue...and we trust each other.

Rule #9—Cultivate Trust

17. Trust must flow from leaders and managers to employees, but it also must flow back from employees, and employees have to trust that the leadership cares about them, not only as a means to an end, but as people. So, you must demonstrate that you care about what your people care about.

18. Leaders have to communicate the truth while being clear about what they expect from people. Organizations should have transparent financials, processes, and decision-making. That’s a key element for fostering teamwork, trust, and camaraderie.

Rule #10—Make Room for Fun

19. Pride yourself on building and nurturing a healthy and creative work environment by believing and behaving as though your people—given resources, guidance, and recognition—will amaze you with what they can accomplish.

20. Introduce fun into the workplace. Foster lightheartedness. Leaders and managers should be pleasant to be around. Remember that fun in the workplace is not mutually exclusive to productivity. Indeed, one actually enhances the other.

Rule #11—Seek Alignment

21. Cultivate engaged employees by building “linking opportunities” between an organization’s wants, needs, and culture and the issues that drive what the employees’ care about. The first steps for creating that alignment is to know your employees at a very deep level.

22. Establish an open culture where employees feel integral and essential to the organization. They must feel as though they are directly contributing to the organization’s goals. When employees are aligned with the organization’s values and mission, and the organization displays its respect for individuals, employees will engage more actively. Guaranteed.

Rule #12—Understand Human Capital

23. Human capital can also be understood as the wealth-generating potential that exists within the people who work for an organization, and it embraces all facets of their knowledge, skills, and intellectual properties; it encompasses the skills, experiences, and effort of your workforce. It is their ability (and their willingness) to “do” things on behalf of the enterprise.

24. Progressive, insightful human resources experts (and I like to put myself in that category) have had to work very hard to discourage organizations and management from looking at people as nothing more than interchangeable parts. We have made an effort to show that people are just as valuable to organizations as the buildings and the equipment that the organization owns, maintains, and invests in. In short, organizations need to see their people as investments, and each one individually unique.

Rule #13—Treat Employees as Volunteers

25. Remember that your employees are volunteers; treat them as such. The labor market will not always favor the employer. Your challenge? Get your own employees to want to come back to work each week, to want to boost your competitive advantages, to want to contribute at the highest level possible for the tasks assigned. You can meet that challenge by behaving as though you really need them to show up again tomorrow.

26. Employees are far more willing to consider other work options, all the time. They are willing to risk their skills and aptitudes in the marketplace, including the skills you taught them. Any hint of a “plantation mentality” on the part of management is justification for the employee to seek work elsewhere.

Rule #14—Know the Culture

27. Survey your employees and regularly ask questions about their feelings about how the company is doing. Ask if they believe they are learning, growing, and contributing, and if management is doing a good job. Ask if management is communicating well, behaving appropriately, and listening to comments, suggestions, complaints, and feedback from employees.

28. Follow up on survey responses that indicate trends and consensus with clear answers about what you heard, what will be done, what will be considered, and what is not possible. Then, take high-profile action that is focused and clearly connected to the feedback.

Rule #15—Understand Change

29. Whether change is perceived positively or negatively is often a matter of how change is communicated and experienced. The response to the change can be managed, if the reason for and benefits of the change are carefully articulated, and the expected outcome is seen in the light of these benefits.

30. If you are implementing change, be forceful. Communicate it; communicate it again. Have a plan in place for dealing with people who are passive-aggressive and recalcitrant. Those types of people will emerge, and if you don’t immediately address their negative behavior, that behavior gives permission to others to act negatively; nonaction is interpreted as an indication that the leadership isn’t really behind the changes being put in place.

Rule #16—Cultivate Ethics

31. The consequences of unethical behavior are that you don’t just start down a slippery slope, you tumble down the slope and crash in a heap at the bottom. The bond of trust between the organization and the employee precipitously falls apart, and it affects your competitive edge.

32. Beyond the competitive disadvantage presented by unethical behavior, far worse deeper damage can be done to your organization, at the cultural level, at the visceral level, with ethical lapses of any magnitude: Jaded employees won’t be proud to go to work for you nor will they be proud to tell others about their workplace, turning away potential employees, customers, and vendors.