Archives 2016

Three crimes led to one of the darkest moments in the history of the Canadian army.

Let me rephrase … one crime and two subsequent sins.

Click To Read Part 1

Click To Read Part 2

The Crime

The crime happened when two members of an Army unit deployed to Somalia captured, tortured and beat to death a Somali civilian. This was a violent crime, and in due course, the justice system dealt with the perpetrators.

The First Sin

A sin occurred when the unit and the system tried to cover up what happened. There are reasons for this, but all of them are inexcusable. When a few brave souls tried to expose the deception, they were victimized for being disloyal. As with all cover-ups eventually it began to unravel, the lies were exposed, and an inquiry was launched to ‘get to the bottom’ of it.

The Second Sin

A cardinal sin happened when leaders were not held accountable for failing in their leadership duties. The public inquest revealed that many in the camp knew the beating was happening and did nothing to stop it. When a cover-up was launched, leaders at every level were complicated by omission & commission.

The Repercussions

Some careers were slowed down, but to my knowledge, only one leader was punished. The Company Commander who was on leave and wasn’t in the camp at the time.

The Major accepted responsibility for his soldiers because he issued an order to stop civilians from sneaking into the camp and because he was their boss. In the end, he went to jail, was drummed out of the Army and lost his pension.

What has this to do with harassment in your workplace?

There is no excuse for anyone to harass, abuse or cause violence on a co-worker or employee.

If it were to happen, you must conduct a fair, transparent and rigorous investigation into it. If found to be true, the full weight of your authority should fall like a hammer on the perpetrator, up to and including being fired and the police being called.

If you cover up and try to protect the organization or excuse people you are equally guilty by omission as surely as the perpetrator is by commission.

Because you have lost your ‘moral authority’ to lead.

Read More about moral courage

In my opinion, every person who held a leadership position involved in the Somalia affair and that did not stop the crime or expose the sins should have been sent to jail.

And if I were the judge, the jail terms should have been longer & longer for each higher rank.

These people FAILED as leaders.

Police supervisors who cover up, ignore or excuse bad conduct; church leadership who knew but didn’t act to stop heinous crimes; your supervisors who turn a blind eye to harassment should pay a high price for their sins.

Why?

Because you are a leader!

You get paid as a leader, and you have the office of a leader!

You are responsible for the lives of the people who work for you

You cannot be able to stop every bad thing that might happen within your organization.

BUT, you can create a culture where every manager and supervisor knows that it is his or her job to stop harassment …

Dead in its tracks

In Part 1 of this series, I made the case that predators likely exist in every workplace.

And I posed the question: What can leaders do to protect our people when most people have been victimized at work at on average five times before they say something or quit.

Why Are They Not Saying Anything?

1) Most feel they nowhere to turn for help.

2) They have no faith that leadership will believe or support them.

What Is A Boss To Do To Provide Safe Harbour

Legally and morally, you are required to provide a safe place to turn.

Legally, the courts and governments have found that workplace harassment & violence is to be treated no differently that any other type of Occupational Health & Safety matter.

Morally, you are responsible for developing policies and procedures to keep employees safe.

What Are The 3 Actions You Need To Do:

1. Implement a Policy & Procedures

Developing a policy is the easy part, just Google ‘harassment policy and the name of your state or province’ and you will find all you need.

But you must do more. Because adding one more policy to that giant thick book of policies is useless unless it is lived and breathed by everyone.

Implement an education program with lunch & learns, guest speakers, role-playing, etc. to educate everyone on the policy and what it means.

2. Evaluate the risk

Form a committee to review any history of violence in your workplace by:

– Asking employees about their experiences and concerns for themselves or others.

– Implementing a whistle-blower line

– Reviewing any incidents of violence

– Assessing the workplace for the risk factors associated with violence.

– Getting information from your industry association, workers’ compensation board, occupational health and safety regulators or union office.

– Seeking advice from local police service

3. Get Serious

You are responsible.

As the senior person in your organization, you must champion and personally communicate your commitment to a safe workplace.

When Army developed harassment policies in the 80’s, they used posters and peer training to educate the troops. That helped, but trust me, when the CO and the RSM personally came and talked about it … we took it seriously.

So get off your duff and demonstrate that you are serious

And when something comes up take it seriously, investigate it and act.

Build A Culture Of Safety To Provide People Somewhere To Go

Whether caused by predators, mental health issues, drugs & alcohol or challenging clients providing a safe workplace is 100% your responsibility as the leader.

Just as you take the financial health of your company seriously, invest the same into providing a workplace safe from violence and harassment.

Why?

Because it is the law,

It is the right thing to do, and

You are responsible!

In Part 3, We Explore The Leadership Responsibilities

Boards and executive teams everywhere spend an unbelievable amount of time and energy on developing their company’s mission statement.

To be fair, this is important work as it helps to focus the organization but, in my experience, high-level mission statements do nothing to motivate frontline staff.

In fact, the Gallup organization found that only 20% of U.S. workers feel proud of or engaged by their company’s mission statement.

Most companies promote their mission by putting up posters, give out mouse pads and coffee cups. If that doesn’t work, they push managers to explain their precious mission differently so that it will finally sink in. They believe that once those darn employees finally get it life will be all sunshine & roses and profits will climb.

Sorry to tell you that this is not going to happen.

Why? Leaders think big & are future-focused, and workers are focused on very intimate, personal and local issues.

read about reaching leadership nirvana

Focus locally

When I ask workers what matters to them, they say what matters most is their ability to support their families, have good-paying jobs and hope to have a better life for their kids — and do what they can for their community.

When you have invested so much energy into that lofty mission statement, the idea of a local mission may not make sense. Because a corporate mission is supposed to give employees something big and important to believe in and work for: but employees connect to what they do every day; their team and the community in which they work.

I could list similar examples from around the world. But when I was a leader of a large NGO we had two mission statements, the official one – World Peace – and the local one – Every person who needs help will get it – and that was the one that inspires passion.

You must understand that the mission that matters most to your workers is the local one.

You’ll find it’s almost always about keeping the doors open and the community healthy.

My recommendation is to ask your workers what’s important to them:

• What does it take to operate in their location?
• What does the plant mean to the local community?
• What would be lost if it went away?
• Ask your workers to imagine the company closing; what would they do to keep the doors open and deliver on their mission?

Talk about the questions and the answers on the shop or office floor, and invite every worker to respond. Listen carefully to what they say, and craft their local missions.

read more about how to talk to your people

Then start doing those things — now before they don’t give a rat’s patootie about anything.

Stanley Milgram carried out one of the most famous psychology studies in 1963.[1] He focused on seeing how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. 

40 Volunteers were introduced to an instructor in a lab coat, played by an actor, and another actor who was strapped into an electric chair.

The volunteers were told they were testing the person in the chair by having him to recall words from a list. Each time the person in the chair made a mistake the volunteer was instructed to administer an electric shock, increasing the level of shock each time a mistake was made from a slight shock to a life-threatening shock.

Two-thirds of volunteers administered increasing levels of electricity to a deadly 450 volts and everyone continued to at least 300 volts

Milgram concluded that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. 

Read more about moral courage

The experiment lives on in common culture as a damnation of our ability to inflict pain and acquiesce to authority.

The rest of the story:

Few are aware that the experiment had a variation where the volunteers witnessed other participants (also actors) refused to obey.

In the presence of others who disobeyed the authority figure the levels of obedience to inflict harm of the volunteers fell to 10%.

The point?

We all like to think we are strong enough to stop bad things happening when we see it.

But are we?

When was the last time you saw something wrong happening and didn’t say anything; didn’t refuse; didn’t set an example for others to find the courage to say no.

We all can be complicit, but leaders have the responsibility to set an example.

Be a leader, even when it is hard.

[1] http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

When someone enrols to take my online education seminars, I ask them a simple question: As A Leader What Is The One Thing That Is Keeping You Awake At Night?

Here is one reader’s question and my answer:

Steve, what keeps me up at night is:

I currently work shift leader for a restaurant. I love the company and what I do. My boss has talked about moving me into management, and he has given me a little constructive criticism, which I appreciated.

He told me that I have skills to become a manager, but that I cannot let other people see my emotions. He says I wear my heart on my sleeve and that allows employees to take advantage and use it against me.

Would you have any advice on how to check my emotions when trying to get my team to perform? How do I keep from wearing my heart on my sleeve?

My response:

What a terrific question!

It is important to be authentic to yourself – including being a boss. There is research that shows employees are more engaged, happier, loyal and productive when they believe their boss is authentic and cares for them.

Assuming your boss has your best interest at heart, I would go back to her/him and ask for factual examples of why they made that comment.

Was it something you did or said that raised concerns? Ask probing open-ended question to get them to be specific about why they think that. Then ask for ways you can improve.

You may want to read my blog on Partnering With Your Boss it walks through how you can assess the relationship you have with a Boss and how you can improve it.

But remember, as you implement their recommendations you need to be authentic and not a mirror image of your boss.

I hope that helps?

I have lots of good stuff in the blog section of my website

Take care

We often think a crisis as a flood, fire or other disaster. But a crisis can be caused by a death, an organizational change or any event that rattles an organization to the core. A crisis casts a long shadow into the future and threatens the very core of your being.

How do you make good decisions when events are confusing?

How do you decide what’s important when the decisions you make today will impact a future you can’t imagine?

Click to read about preparing for Crises

Relying on strong values in a crisis

I led the disaster management team for Canada’s largest NGO and probably one of the most dramatic moments of pressure for me was 9/11. The images and story of that day have been told many times and do not need to be repeated.

But on news of the event, my mind immediately began to focus on what decisions I needed to make quickly to keep the organization from panicking, to focus my team on the right work. At the same time, I had to respect the volunteers and staff worried about their families and friends.

As we had people & operations spread all over Canada, the first message I sent out was for everyone to pause and breath. I needed people to calm down, and then I started issuing gentle instructions: those worried about their families could leave. We had to find our people who were travelling to ensure they were safe.

The people who were willing to stay on the job were put to work on planning and providing solutions. We organized a conference call for all of our people and explained that whatever happened we would be using our organizational values as the base of our actions.

Be aware of the effects of stress

Typically, the stress you feel during a crisis is caused by fear, anticipation and desire:

• Fear of disaster
• The anticipation of the outcome
• The desire for it all to be over and get back to normal.

This fear will put unbelievable pressure on you to make decisions, solely to give the impression of doing something. You must understand that every decision you make expends your energy and organizational resources – energy you need to stay strong and lead.

Studies have shown that you can make 12 decisions a day. Make sure your decisions are focused on live safety and the survival of your organization – not the type of pizza needed for lunch.

The leadership role

Click to read more about leading in a crisis

To be effective, you need to discover what the real problem is. A challenge as you will face a tsunami of information – most of it inaccurate. It’s your task to discover the truth by asking the right questions, listening, and being present with your people.

A leader in a crisis responds by:

• Facing the crisis and building energy through positive action
• Being vigilant for new developments and information
• Maintaining focus on the priorities
• Assessing and responding to what is in your control and setting aside what isn’t.

Take action

Click to read more about business continuity planning

When taking action, you should do these 4 actions to resolve the crisis:

1. Act. Once you understand the problem, you will see that there are only a couple of realistic options open to you. Make a choice and act. General George Schwarzkopf often said that the quality of your decision does not increase beyond knowing 75% of the information available. So act.
2. Get everyone together. You have the power to draw people together to act as a team. If your people know you are in charge, they will respond to your direction.
3. Don’t look for blame. There will be an impulse to find blame. But scapegoating is counterproductive. Focus on the crisis, not on blaming others. After the crisis, it will be up to you to analyze the actions of others, but at the moment focus people on what needs to be done, not on who was at fault.
4. Do what needs to get done. In normal times, rules, policies and budgets are created to provide processes for the normal course of business. However, most rules were not created with a crisis in mind. Do whatever has to be done, and don’t worry about the ‘rules’!