Tidbits offer best advice, quotes, more from 2003

The primary mission here each week is to offer ideas, strategies, trends and opinions that provide you — entrepreneurs and bureaucrats, chief executives and office managers, sales people and dock workers — ways to make the working experience more satisfying and productive.

Since reality dictates that not even the most faithful readers stop by each week, let me repeat today what I think is some of the best material from 2003’s columns.

Nationally, more than 7 million people — 75 percent of them women — provide unpaid assistance for aging adult relatives or friends. MetLife Insurance estimates those caregivers lose an average of $650,000 in income by taking off time from work or having to leave their jobs.

Nearly 90 percent of female human resource executives and specialists said they "did not trust senior management" or their organizations in an informal poll conducted by Atlanta-based business consultant Joseph Mancusi at a national HR convention.

Consciously improve employee-management communications so that workers feel free to express themselves and managers listen.

Calvin Hobbs, executive vice-president of The Hartford’s (insurance company) 6,400-employee claims group, offered a five-step approach to improving the organizations decision-making process.

Listen intently so that the person speaking feels heard. Accept what the person is saying as their truth ("don’t place your reality on top of theirs"). Encourage people to speak up (clearly, directly and honestly) without fear of intimidation. Expand conversations by adding insight or at least acknowledge the idea being presented even if you disagree. If you reach an impasse, be brave and say what you feel anyway, Hobbs said.

When business consultant Roxanne Emmerich moved to Minneapolis, she toured the sprawling Mall of America. In each of the first 50 stores she visited, a sales clerk would smile and ask, "May I help you?" an approach that resulted in no sales.

Upon entering the next store, a high-end women’s clothing boutique, the pattern changed. The young male sales clerk approached, held his hands at her shoulders, and asking her to wait a moment, then scurried off. He returned seconds later and held up a stunning blue sweater to her shoulders, directed her to a nearby mirror and said, "don’t you agree this sweater does an incredible job of making your lovely blue eyes even lovelier?"

After leaving with sweater in hand, she learned the difference between store 51 and the others. Employees of the "blue sweater" store were "encouraged, motivated and trained to be the extraordinary humans they are, without limitations" rather than merely polite and solicitous, Emmerich said.

When deciding whether to engage in office politics and corporate infighting, remember these three rules: Only fight if the prize is worth fighting for, if you know you can win and if there is no other way of winning. Remember people who fight frequently have the most enemies. Joe Owen in "Management Stripped Bare, Understanding Business as It Really Is," (AMACOM, $17.99).

"It’s not that anybody’s against work, it’s just that overwork is taking time away we could spend with our families, our friends, even our pets." John McGraf, founder of Take Back Your Time Day (Oct. 24) a national movement to reflect on whether the average 1,978 hours Americans work more than Europeans annually is worth it.

"When we leave difficult and annoying people alone, by dismissing their behavior as no big deal when it is, we’re giving them carte-blanche permission to do whatever they want," said Jean Gatz, author and speaker whose presentation "I Already Took a Pain Pill — Why Are Your Still Here?" is popular among national business audiences.

"The way to respond to these people is not to try to change them but change the way we respond to them."

Final thought: In assessing whether it’s worth the "investment" in becoming an Employer of Choice, consider that Best Places to Work companies averaged a return on investment of 9.6 percent the last four years compared to minus 0.56 and minus 0.71 percent for the S &P 500 and Russell 3000 indexes respectively. Best Places companies also experience more job applicants, significantly lower turnover, lower health care costs and higher levels of customer satisfaction, research shows.

Write Eric Zoeckler at The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206 or e-mail mrscribe@aol.com.