The Boss's Survival Guide

First Chapter

It's not your father's management job. That's the first and most important thing to know, whether you're a new boss, a veteran boss, the boss's boss, or a boss to be.

Yes, Dad may have trudged eight miles in the snow to get to work, but when he got there, he could depend on seeing the same faces he'd left the night before and that he'd see the next day, the next month, the next year. By and large, they did what they were told, reliably. Employees gathered at the water cooler to share jokes they thought were funny. If someone brought a briefcase, it was to carry paperwork and slide rules. And Dad was always right—at least that's what everyone said to his face.

But that corporate Camelot was a distant moon ago. Now you'll pray through the morning rush hour that your best people haven't scored a better deal overnight. People giggle nervously at jokes, worried they're not politically correct. You hope that security checks briefcases for cocaine and guns, and you go to parties wondering whether your peers will be talking about their new severance packages. Riding the economy offers more thrills than a roller coaster. Your labor lawyer is a speed-dial button on your cell phone, and a kid half your age is apt to look right at you and ask, "How do I know you won't screw it up?"

It's easy to be nostalgic for the good old days. "When I started out, the boss had all the power and all the perks," says Tom, a middle manager at a manufacturing firm who just celebrated the Big 40. "We did what we were told, and waited until the day we could be the boss. Now I am the boss, and no one will do anything unless they want to. I have to cater to them or they leave. When is it my time?"

Well, Tom, believe it or not, your time is now. It's true you've missed out on three-martini lunches, power suits, and insincere fawning. But you've also missed being a cog with no real power or influence. You've been spared doing the same damn thing every day for 30 years just to get a gold watch. You've also been entrusted with a job that matters in a way that managers' jobs have never mattered before, because your actions, more than any other factor, will make your best employees stay or go.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be a bolder, better boss: A boss with a strategic impact on the success or failure of your organization.

Of course, back when they tapped you, they never said that being a boss was easy. It's not. There's an alphabet soup of laws and regulations to worry about—ADA, FLMA, I-9. There's the challenge of trying to "do more with less" (if only your employees knew you're as tired saying it as they are of hearing it). The nature of work itself has been forever changed by technology and a global economy. In many ways, you're being measured against tougher standards than any boss before you.

But those changes pale in comparison to changes in the workforce. Those reliable, 9-to-5, pin-striped employees of the past have morphed into workers with a way of thinking and behaving all their own. Their needs, their values, and their concerns mean they need to be managed in a wholly different way.

And to make matters even more challenging, there aren't enough of them.

Let's step back for a moment to put your workforce into perspective.

Until the 1980s, employee loyalty meant punching the same time clock from diploma to grave. Whether the boss was a kindly father figure or an antacid-swilling S.O.B. didn't matter. People shrugged it off and kept plugging away until they earned that nifty gold watch.

No more! Today's employees have attention spans the length of an MTV video. They don't want your gold watch. They're Swatch employees; watches and jobs are of the moment, not for a lifetime. No wonder the average job tenure is now 3.5 years and shrinking.

But don't dismiss this Swatch mindset as youthful rebellion and wait for GenXers to just "grow up." The Swatch attitude cuts across all age groups, and it has nothing to with being raised by Big Bird. To understand it, think back to the mid-'80s when hundreds of thousands of employees at America's biggest companies were axed —often with little or no regard for their contributions, longevity, or dignity. The message to employees was clear: You're only valuable until we have a bad quarter and shareholders scream, at which point you're expendable. And although we like to think of mass layoffs as part of our unenlightened past, they're not. Record layoffs in 1999 and 2000 didn't make headlines only because the economy absorbed the shock.

Swatch workers have actually accepted this new economy, but they aren't stupid and they do have mortgages to pay. So they're ever ready to go where they can get the best deal: the best job challenges, the best compensation package, and, yes, the best boss.

As if the Swatch mindset isn't enough of a challenge, the problem is compounded by demographics. We'll save you the expense of therapy and tell you right now that you can blame Mom and Dad for that. They didn't have enough kids! You can do the math:

76 million Americans in the baby boom generation are beginning to retire.

- 44 million Generation Xers are left in the workforce. That means there are

32 million fewer workers to fill America's jobs.

And over the next 15 years the problem's going to get worse. Workers will be aging and retiring. The supply of 35 to 45 year olds will decline by 15 percent, but even according to the most conservative estimates, the demand for workers will continue toincrease. You don't need a calculator to see the problem. It won't begin to get better until 2010 when the kids behind GenX enter the workforce. That's a long time to wait.

OK, but suppose you're some sort of cockeyed optimist and you think the boom times of the late '90s were a freak occurrence and economic downturn will free up all that labor. Sorry. Even that won't solve your problem, because labor and talent are not the same thing. If they were, the Rangers would have help wanted ads at DFW and Alex Rodriguez wouldn't be earning $170,000 a game for the next decade.

For most of the '90s we had a labor shortage and a talent shortage. But when companies downsize, guess who they'll send packing? Not the best workers. It'll be the people who couldn't get interviews before the boom times!

In fact, if anything, the talent shortage will grow faster than the labor shortage because of the changing nature of our economy. As we shift increasingly from a manufacturing to a knowledge economy, more jobs require people to think, conceptualize, and create than ever before. Not everyone can do those things, or at least not well. (And even if the Gen Xers are right and they are disproportionately smarter than all other generations, there are fewer of them, so fewer still who can be superstars!)

Nope. The shortage is real, serious, and long-term. Accept it.

Of course, some companies feel like they've already got the situation under control. When the manager at a Silicon Valley company recently pointed out to his boss that many experienced workers were leaving the company, the boss gave him the Marie Antoinette wave. "Oh, just throw a few more baubles at them," she said. Problem solved. Or was it?

Well...she had the right idea. With quality workers in short supply, she knew she had to make her current ones stay. She knew retention is the name of the game. What she was missing, though, was an effective solution.

And, of course, she wasn't alone. Most companies trying to cope with dwindling talent have developed equally ineffective retention strategies. They practice the three Os:

• Options (they bribe people to stay)
• Overtime (they force the remaining people to work longer hours)
• Offshore (they send jobs overseas to make up for the lack of workers here)

(Then there are the companies that use the fourth O: Ostrich. They simply refuse to see the problem.)

Of course, none of these strategies is effective for the long term. They're expensive, complicated, and stress-inducing. They also do little to resolve the underlying problems that encourage good employees to leave. Fortunately, there is a solution to the talent shortage that is long-term, inexpensive, and readily available. So readily available, in fact, that it's usually overlooked. That solution is you: the boss.

Perhaps you've been fortunate. Have you ever been challenged, encouraged, and rewarded? Been treated with respect and compassion? Found talent you didn't know was there, grown beyond your expectations, and made a real contribution? In short, have you stayed in a job because of your boss?

If you answered yes to either question, you aren't alone. In a 2000 Lou Harris poll, 40 percent of people who rate their boss "poor" said they would look for a new job within the year. Only 11 percent who rated their boss "excellent" said the same thing. Clearly, the boss isn't the only factor people consider when making a job change. But think about those numbers another way. If 11 percent of your people left instead of 30 percent or 40 percent, wouldn't your company show its appreciation with a nice bonus check?

Middle management isn't the disease; middle management is the cure!

Too bad it's so darn difficult. Being a boss these days is kind of like being in an SUV. You sit there, high in your "command position," powering down the road. Then suddenly you come to a bump or a sudden turn and BLAM! It's all you can do to keep from overturning.

And the bumps and turns are everywhere! Just look at your to-do list:

• Yesterday's Problems to solve
• Today's Production to maintain
• Next quarter's Profits to make
• The Parallel universe (in which your own boss lives) that you have to contend with
• The Politics of the organization
• The Policies you have to enforce
• The Personal stuff (like dentist appointments, dinner plans, and the like) that encroach from outside the company's walls
• And then there's your People

We say that people are our greatest asset, but they usually wind up toward the bottom of the list. We get to them at 4:45 when we're tired and our best has been used. We don't set out to do that, but our performance is judged more on production and profits. Besides, the people will be there tomorrow. They'll understand...won't they?

No wonder even the best-intentioned bosses find managing well is hard. We said the solution was simple. We didn't say it was easy. Mike J. sent an email to WorkingWounded.com: "I tried to take all the bad qualities of every boss I had and throw them out the window. The problem was, I developed some original bad habits of my own. In my own opinion, I would not work for me!"

The toughest part may be letting go of outdated management styles. We cling to the way we were managed earlier in our careers, but it doesn't make any more sense than dealing with Russia as if it's still a communist superpower. Swatch employees need a new kind of management:

• They want to be trained: They know they may be job-hunting tomorrow, so maintaining and growing their skills is vital.
• They want to be coached: They don't need a manager who'll walk to the plate with them, hold the bat, swing, and run. They do need a manager who will show them how to be better hitters, strategize their next at bat, and show them how to beat the opposing team.
• They want flexibility: Families and personal lives are their top priorities, and they need flexibility to be able to manage those parts of their lives.
• They want the truth: They're savvy enough to accept mergers, downsizings, and massive change as part of life. They can cope with anything, but they want to know what they're coping with.
• They want to belong: They want to believe in what the organization is all about, and they want to know they're making a contribution.

Managers who can't provide these things lose their talent. It's that simple. Too many other jobs are out there where the bossing may be better. The old days of "my way or the highway" are gone. Now it's their way or the highway.

An awful lot of us put huge amounts of time and expense into finding the smart, skilled, talented people for our jobs—and then we manage them as if they haven't enough sense to come in out of the rain. Fortunately, we're trainable. With a little thought and attention, you can become the kind of boss even the most fickle employee will want to work for.

1. DON'T HAVE A FEAST ATTITUDE DURING A FAMINE

Suppose that you went in to work tomorrow and discovered that a computer worth $5,000 was missing. What would happen? Someone would call the police. There would be an investigation in which people were interviewed, evidence examined, and routines questioned. Ultimately, you might adopt new security procedures or buy security equipment.

Now, suppose that you went in to work tomorrow and a key employee quit. What would happen? Although replacing the employee will cost far more than $5,000, odds are there would be no investigation. No one would see the situation as a crisis. No one would find out why the employee was leaving, and there probably wouldn't be any changes made to make it more likely people would stay. Retention guru Beverly Kaye suggests there should be.

We are in the midst of a labor and talent shortage. Don't be cavalier about people. Treat them as precious resources, and take it seriously if you lose one.

2. DON'T RECRUIT LIKE YOU USED TO RECRUIT

It used to be (until just a few years ago) that applicants came to the job market as sellers and companies came as buyers. Companies posted their jobs and applicants came touting their skills, hoping to impress the companies into buying. But times have changed. Today, it's the company that has to do the selling, impressing the best candidates so they will come to them instead of going with a competitor. One 20-something actually did look at E-Trade's CEO and ask, "How do I know you won't screw it up?" So change that old recruiting mindset: Think of recruiting as a time to "sell" your job—its challenges and opportunities—to the buyer. Share your vision; then lay out a plan for how he can help make it happen.

3. DON'T ABUSE EMPLOYEES

If you abuse employees, they won't take it out on the dog—they'll take it out on customers.

Sam Walton claimed that his highest priority was treating employees well because happy employees would be better with customers, who in turn would buy more. Walton started out in a small town in Arkansas and built the biggest retail company on Earth. Perhaps he was on to something.

4. DON'T BE A "READY, FIRE, AIM" BOSS

Recently, the pace of the workplace has become so accelerated that managers have been valued for the speed with which they act. That may be good for developing campaigns, implementing strategies, and establishing sales and production targets, but it's not OK for working with people. One employee complained that her boss spent so little time with her that he couldn't pick her out of a police line-up. If he didn't know who she was, how could he possibly know how to deploy her talents? He couldn't—he was too busy solving problems

without all his resources.

Employees need time. Time for you to get to know them, time for you to coax out all they have to offer, time for you to make them feel appreciated. When they come to you with problems, don't save 10 minutes by telling them the answer. Ask what they've already tried, what else they can think of doing. Turn their questions into learning opportunities for you both. It's fine to be a type A personality when it comes to your assignments, but when it comes to people, adopt type B behaviors. Sometimes inefficiency is more efficient in the long run.

5. DON'T FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE

We all learn as children to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. But following the Golden Rule assumes that others want what you want, and that may not be true.

Ask what employees want. And then do it unto them.

6. GET OUT OF THE WAY

If you know anything about Ebay or instant messaging, you know that peer-to-peer relationships are where it's at. When two or more people have data or merchandise to trade, going through a central hub or up a hierarchical ladder only slows things down. The same is true at work. Employees who are unencumbered by their bosses can achieve enormous gains if they're given the latitude to work together and make decisions without having to clear everything through the boss. So don't discourage employees from networking and tackling problems on their own. Don't see them as a threat to your power. Accept that how things get done in your group may bear little resemblance to the organizational chart. If anything, learn who the catalysts are in these informal "self-organizing communities" and then support their efforts.

Sure, there's a risk in stepping back and giving your people freedom, but if you want employees with initiative and creativity, you've got to give them room to exercise them.

Bonnie, a mid-level manager at a health insurance company, required every one of her 50 direct reports to check in with her every morning. How much time, and how much morale, was lost as people waited in line to report to Mama? Don't be a Bonnie. Get out of your employees' way.

7. BE CUSTOMER FOCUSED

We all know that the customer is always right. If we do what customers want, they'll keep buying. Former Sun Microsystems executive Jim Moore observes that bosses have customers, too: their employees. And just like the customers of your business, they can go elsewhere if they're unhappy.

So give those employee customers what they want. That doesn't mean honor every request for a raise, a vacation, and a bonus. It means tailor a working environment for them that meets their individual needs: their need for recognition, the kinds of challenges they respond to, the degree of attention versus independence they require, and so on.

Pavel Brun, artistic director at Cirque du Soleil, has learned that clowns do their best work when put into an ordinary environment, because they look for humor in the familiar. Gymnasts, on the other hand, often do their best work in exotic environments because it encourages them to use their technical expertise in creative ways. That's why he has developed an individually tailored plan for each of his 160 performers. Do you have a specific plan for each of the customers of your bossing?

8. MEASURE, EVALUATE, REWARD

Would Marion Jones have taken the gold in the Sydney Olympics if she'd never set goals or measured her progress? Of course not. In the sprints and marathons of your workplace, your employees need goals and measurements too. They need to know clearly and measurably what you expect of them. They need regular progress reports so they know if they're on target. And like Marion, they need medals when they succeed.

But measuring and evaluating aren't just for employees anymore. Bosses need those things, too. If you're going to be the kind of boss that people want to work for, you need to hear from your employees how you can help them. You need to hear from them how you're doing. And, like Marion, you need kudos from them when you succeed. You need a system (formal, informal, written, or verbal; the specifics don't really matter) that will let your employees give you the same kind of feedback you give them. Create such a system and use it. Listen carefully and act on the information. It's the only way you'll earn the gold.

9. REVEAL YOUR WATERLINE

WL Gore is a successful manufacturer with an entrenched and unusual corporate culture. Among other things, they encourage employees to make decisions themselves. Only decisions below the waterline are reserved for managers. What's the waterline? It's the point at which a decision can have major ramifications for the company. Think icebergs meeting the hull. A client with $1,000 in sales? Let the employees decide. A client with $1 million in sales? Get the manager involved. Of course, that means that all Gore employees and managers know the company's waterline. Do you and your employees know yours?

10. ASK, "WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KEEP YOU?"

Retention guru Beverly Kaye notes that bosses almost never ask what it will take to keep someone. They fear they won't be able to fill the request. But Kaye says that many requests are filled more easily than bosses think, and even if an employee's top request isn't possible, numbers two and three might be. Simply asking the question lets employees know they're important. Still don't believe us? Then think about how you'd feel if your boss asked you this question.

11. E=M(C)2: ENERGY = MISSION X CASH X CONGRATULATIONS

Do you want your employees to bring more energy to work each day? Then follow the simple formula that Ken Blanchard adapted from Einstein's original formula for the creation of energy. First, create a compelling vision for your people. Even the most mundane widget maker can help his employees see the benefits their widgets bring by reporting glowing stories from the customers. Second, although contributing to a mission is important, it won't have nearly the impact if employees' wallets are empty. So make sure you recognize their efforts with appropriate pay scales, bonuses, and raises. Third, although contributing to a mission and receiving cash rewards are critical, nothing gooses energy on a daily basis like genuine pats on the back. So be generous with your praises. Most people think good bossing is an art, and it is. But in this case, it's also a science.

12. BE THEIR MOTHER FLAME

For each Olympic games, the Olympic torch is run across the host country, passed from one runner to the next. The process is symbolic of Olympics past, and it allows many people to be involved. Sometimes, however, the torch goes out. That's why a small truck drives alongside the runners. Inside the truck is the mother flame, ready to relight the torch when needed.

Employees need a mother flame too. They get tired and discouraged; their flames and their passions go out. When that happens, they need to come to you to relight them.

One sales manager could sense when one of her best performers was fading and would call the employee into her office for the "Yes, we believe!" speech. It was a mini-pep rally that assured the employee that the manager still believed in the product, the process, and in her. Other managers make it clear that when an employee needs to talk they will put down what they're doing and make themselves available to simply listen.

The forms that mother flames take are endless: a few minutes of problem-solving, an encouraging word, a shoulder to lean on or to cry on. Find something that works for you. You'll be surprised. It takes remarkably little to rekindle an employee's flame if the gesture is timely and genuine.

This book is jammed with hundreds of ideas you can use to save time, solve problems, and stay out of jail. It's also designed to help you maximize your strengths as a leader. What is a leader? Someone with a fancy office and a title? Someone with a wall full of awards? Someone who is constantly called by headhunters? No, we take a simpler view. A leader is someone with followers, and this book is dedicated to giving you the tools and insight to keep your followers.

This book aims to give you something else as well. It aims to give you the tools to create a more humane workplace for your people. There are many reasons to do that. Do it to keep your best people. Do it to attract other stars. Do it to ensure the success of your own career. But most of all, do it because it's the right thing to do.

If you succeed, and you can, you'll earn the genuine respect of your staff. You'll find strengths you didn't know you had. You'll make a significant difference in the lives of your employees and in your company. Imagine what it will do for your career.