What is your connector score?

Being a connector is important (Just ask Malcolm Gladwell in his now famous 'Tipping Point'). Being connected has enabled meetings, created jobs, and in some cases social climbing too! So why is it we are so busy discussing how Malcolm Turnbull spoke to Donald Trump?

The power of your network is important to everyone and any business. In China, all of this is common place and just considered a way of life.  These networks are not transactional they are reciprocal.

The most important lesson for all of us, it to recognise the social capital in our relationships and to treat them with respect.

everyone's talking about it

It seems you can't pick up a newspaper or watch a current affairs program without someone talking about childcare, working parents, or flexible working hours and practice. So what's the drill? Well quite simply, there is no easy answer.

Ask any working parent and they will tell you that to start work at 8.30 your child is in care around 7.30 and to work back late means that they often do not get the chance to say good night. Then there is the other related problems of getting meals on the table. If you get home at 7pm then dinner will be ready about 7.45 and bingo the kids are now going to bed quite late.

Now there are some employers who claim to have it right and say they have family friendly practices. These employers win awards, have articles published about how they are 'helping balance work and family' but scratch the surface you you get quite a different picture.

It seems that family friendly practices are reserved for those who are less senior in the company. You see the CEO couldn't live without his PA being available every day or at short notice to stay late. Or the head of department or director of a section needs to be able to work when and how the CEO dictates. So herein lies the problem. We have educated women, who have climbed the corporate ladder, had their children later in life and want to work in fulfilling senior roles. They just want to do it in family friendly hours.

Do we really want to lose this talent from organisations? It seems anecdotally, that a large number of women just simply get retrenched and with a new baby to care for they accept the package they are offered and leave. It seems some just take a different position in the organisation in order to maintain some type of employment and at times these new positions come with less money. So while we know this is discrimination, there appears to be little that can be done about it. Comments such as 'I don't want to be seen as a trouble maker' and 'I don't have the energy to fight it' are common place around the 'mothers' circle'.

Another problem seems to be the direct manager. It does not seem to matter if there are organisational policies in place the direct manager appears to be able to make them work or fail for the return to work employee.

Let me know your thoughts. It is time for organisations to pay more than lip service to family friendly practices. You can post your comments on open discussion or email me for a confidential review.

Toxic management

Toxic workplaces

Let’s imagine that your best friend tells you this. “I have a partner who I love and I know they love me its just that they want me to be better than I am so they yell at me and belittle me in front of others, and I feel really worthless after it happens”. Most good friends would say “they don’t love you this is abuse!” and if it went further and it was physical, we would do just about anything to support them to leave. But psychological abuse is as detrimental and what’s worse we often can’t see it until it’s already done the damage. Now let’s just change one fact in the above scenario. It’s the friend’s boss or work colleague. Now you probably say it depends. If it is a colleague, we tell them to ignore them or find strategies to deal with it. If it’s their boss we call them an idiot or a jerk and we say you should look for another job or we wonder if there is something else behind it. Maybe they are difficult at work, have dropped the ball and not delivered, perhaps they are not as competent as we first thought. So we start to question our friend. Have they done this, tried that, what lead to it, and we help them to strategise to stay.

Its time to get more serious about the problem though. Organisations need to realize that where there is smoke there is at least burning embers. High turnover, people constantly working back, being in tears, looking over stretched, people constantly reworking things or people who are micro managed when it could be expected that they could do the job are all the tell tale signs.

Its time we recognize that we all deserve to work in places that respect our skills, our needs and us as people. The workplace bully is no different to the abusive spouse. They create relationships that are dysfunctional where there is an imbalance of power and organisations are great places for these people to hide. Traditionally these people hide out under the guise of management.

There is a media interest too. While books have been around about dealing with problem people at work for some time, recently there is a move to suggest that some of these difficult people may in deed be psychopaths (Snakes in suits, Working with Monsters and the Pocket psycho). And we have even tried to turn the problem into amusement through writings such as the Devil wears Prada. It’s interesting indeed that there has been a recent increase in the reporting of workplace bullying. Now one might argue that its all part of the changes to the workplace relations law (workchoices) or it could be that we are just saying enough is enough. It seems to me that it’s probably a combination. Now I don’t want to just dismiss the workplace relations link, but it is time we say enough is enough.

Everyday in my practice we see people who have been bullied. So I am going to open a dialogue about it. You can post your comments on open discussion or email me for a confidential review. Let’s get serious about understanding and resolving the problem.

Ever wondered...?

If you have ever sat at your desk wondering how you might solve an employee problem or situation, you might have overlooked that help is at hand. Did you know that my business, Talking Trends can assist you in:

* Creating culture change programs that integrate into your performance management system, values and work practices;

* Providing training and team building days for your teams and managers that assist them to be more productive and obtain their goals and drive outcomes;

* Coaching your senior managers to improve their management and critical thinking skills;

* The provision of mediation services to get a workable solution that does not involve the courts yet is legally binding; and

* Assist you in creating policies and practices that support your people and your managers.

For more information check out our website www.talkingtrends.com.au or give me a call on 02 9281 4266 and see how we can help you to improve your workplace.

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