Many supervisors and managers regularly spend a great deal of their own money buying rolls, fruit, cookies, cakes, pizza, snacks, candy and other treats for the office. If you do that and enjoy it, I’m not trying to talk you out of it. However, I want you to think about why you do it, if there are drawbacks to it, and are there other ways to achieve your goals. Some of you may never have spent a dime on food, snacks, decorations or anything else for employees. If that’s the case, you may have some issues in the other direction! As with most things, a balanced approach is the most effective.
- Why do you do it? Are any of these thoughts lurking in even a small corner of your mind?
- *The employees will appreciate my efforts.
- *If something negative happens, they’ll remember that I did this for them.
- *This will soften employee’s attitudes about some of the things that are happening at work.
- *This will let employees see I’m not as bad as some of them may think.
- *My manager will be impressed at what a caring person I am.
- *This will inspire the employees to do something similar.
- *I’m going to look better than the other supervisors who don’t do things like this.
- *This will let employees know I appreciate their work.
- *This will be fun and we’ll start the day with a smile!
If you have similar ego or emotion-laden reasons, you probably can stop spending your time and money, and you won’t see any difference at work. If you do it because you think the employees need it, want it, expect it, will be angry or upset if they don’t get it, or will suffer without it and can’t reasonably be expected to provide it for themselves, you can also likely save yourself the pressure and cash.
Food and treats don’t off-set a bad work environment or poor supervisory practices. If you are ineffective, discourteous and uncaring, all the food in the world won’t make you popular. If you are effective, courteous and caring, you will be appreciated more for that than for food–but, food still won’t make you more popular. When employees are unhappy about work issues they don’t make comments like, ”Usually I’d file a grievance about what she did, but she was really nice to spend her own money on pizza for us last Halloween.”
Food, snacks and candy treats are not considered by most employees to be requirements for them to think well of a supervisor. In one of my programs I ask people to say the name of a supervisor they remember in a positive way, and why. The reasons tend to be repetitive: Fairness, mentoring behavior, and overall work effectiveness. Not once, in the twenty-five years I have taught that class, has anyone ever mentioned the fact that the supervisor brought food to work.
Most employees eat enough, drink enough and take enough breaks, that food and sweet or fattening treats are not only unnecessary, they are unhealthy and unwanted. Employees don’t expect you to provide those things, and may even wish you wouldn’t. Participants in my training programs frequently complain that they desperately try to avoid calorie temptations, then come to work and find food everywhere. If you are the only one bringing food, you could do others a favor by not doing it. If other people are bringing it too, you can bow out gracefully, except for an occasional very small and more healthy item.
What are the drawbacks? Apart from the health issues for employees, there are other drawbacks to regularly, or even semi-regularly, providing food or snacks for an entire office or work group:
- It is very expensive! It doesn’t sound expensive to say you’ll buy bagels. But, by the time you add cream cheese, plastic knives, napkins now and then to replace others, and jam or jelly, you can spend twenty or thirty dollars easily. If you’re buying more expensive food, you can easily spend fifty or more dollars.
- It is time consuming, usually in the morning when the last thing you need is more time pressure. And, if you do the awful thing of delegating the food pick-up to a support person, you’ve ruined that person’s morning.
- It’s messy and disruptive at work. The set-up is time consuming, and whether people gather at once or wander in to eat, it takes time away from work. You or someone else will need to clean-up the war zone after the food is gone, and that takes time as well. Even having rolls and fruit on the counter requires some set-up, maintenance and clean-up.
- If you are trying to thank employees through a food gift, it does little good to arrive early, set up the food, then go to your office the rest of the morning–no one will get the connection between the food and your thanks. (And if they do it will be a brief one.) On the other hand, it would seem tacky to put a card next to the rolls and fruit that says, “Provided by…… Thank you for your work.” To make it effective, at least you need to send out a message thanking people for their work and inviting them into the break room for the food you have provided. Otherwise you have to gather people around to say thank you, then tell them to enjoy the food. See how much trouble that is?
- Setting up food, even light snacks, detracts from your work focus for considerable amounts of time, as well as detracting from your appearance of having a work focus. I don’t mean this to be terribly feminist, because that’s not my style–but seeing a female supervisor or manager struggling with grocery bags, setting food out, serving it, and washing dishes and putting things away, doesn’t seem to me to be the image most women want to portray at work. Men who do the same thing may look cute or impressively non-sexist, but it still tends to look as though they have little to do at that moment except kitchen work.
- It can become a way for some employees to show their hostility by sneering at the food and refusing to eat it, demonstrating to their co-workers that they can’t be bought by supervisors or managers.
- It can become an unofficially regular activity that is difficult to stop, like feeding deer! I once kept apples in a bowl in my office, and let employees know they could come in to get one. I wanted to encourage the face-to-face contact, as well as having them eat something healthy–and it worked very well in that way. But, six months later I had to stop it for several reasons:
*Three or four employees were eating two or three apples each, a day.
*When I had stepped out of the office momentarily, employees would still come in for an apple and there was some question about privacy of materials in and on my desk.
*It seemed that an employee inevitably wanted an apple just about the time I was receiving a phone call that needed privacy, or that prevented me from talking to him or her–which was my purpose for the apples in the first place.
*If I wanted the apples to be crisp and fresh, I had to buy them every few days, not buy them and let them set around and get mushy.
*I was spending about $30 a week on apples, and that was several years ago.
You’d think I would have caught on that even God couldn’t deal with the problems related to apples!
- Here is the biggest drawback, from my perspective: Most supervisors and managers who provide food or treats want employees to appreciate it. When appreciation isn’t shown or expressed, the supervisor or manager can feel angry, hurt, disappointed, frustrated or simply become more and more cynical and detached from the employees. I have heard far too many supervisors comment bitterly on lack of appreciation by employees to not think that isn’t an issue. Sadly, the employees who don’t say thanks or show appreciation would be surprised to think they should. They didn’t ask you to bring it in, you make more money than they do anyway, they ate it and enjoyed it OK. What more do you want?
Are there other ways to achieve your goals?
- The most justifiable reason for a supervisor to personally buy and bring food or other items to work is as a specific thank you for effective work over time or for a special project. You can do that by writing a thank you note to each person, if the number of employees is not too large. That allows you to mention each employee’s specific contribution. It also avoids the problem of thanking all employees in the same way–with a cake in the break room or pizza at lunch–no matter what their levels of support and participation in a project.
- Now and then provide a snack other than a food item. Consider giving a package of sugarless gum to each person. If they don’t want it they can take it home.
- Limit the times you bring in food, but make it nicer when you do. For example, save the money you would dribble away the rest of year on doughnuts, and have professionally made deli and bakery trays delivered once or twice a year.
- Take your tone from the contributions made by other employees. If employees routinely take turns bringing in food and everyone contributes cheerfully and without rancour about the few who do not, do your part. If few or no employees bring in items, you need have no guilty feelings about not being the office host or hostess.
Put your energy and focus on effectiveness as a leader for the group and for individual employees. Put their energy and focus on effective work and the energy and enjoyment that grows when a team is working well together. Employees will bring their own preferred snacks, and they’ll remember you as the supervisor or manager who made the work environment fulfilling for everyone, all the time.
February 16th, 2008
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Life and Work, Supervision and Management |
5 comments
I’ve decided that’s one way to group people–you’ve either used an IBM Correcting Selectric or you haven’t. If you have, you will recall that in the 1960s and 1970s, it was considered the most spectacular item ever introduced into an office. The Selectric II is the one most of us remember as being so phenomenal: The elements–the font balls that could be removed and replaced with different text size and 
style–were easy to use and so much fun, I found reasons to bold and italicize words, and go from 10 pitch to 12 pitch. Courier, Helvetica, Script, Presidential and Orator, were among the font choices and I used all of them, whether it was necessary or not. Up until the Selectric II, the small letter l was used for the number one. The Selectric II had the number. Pretty exciting stuff!
The big advantage of the Correcting Selectric II was the built-in correcting tape that allowed us to get away from the little pieces of white tape that littered most desks. (Although that was a big improvement over correcting liqud that made blobs on paper.) Do you recall searching around looking for a strip that wasn’t totally used up, so you could correct an error? When the Selectric II was first introduced it had a ribbon that picked up the carbon from the paper, but the preferred correction method was the white tape that covered the error. AND, there was a half space key to allow re-typing a longer word over an error that had less letters. Just writing about that gives me chills of excitement!
Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know: The original Selectric design that moved the type-ball across the paper in a brand-new way, was a modification of a toy typewriter from the 1950s for which IBM bought the design rights.
I’ve asked participants in the last dozen or so audiences or groups to hold up their hands if they have used an IBM Correcting Selectric. A few say they are still using Selectric III models in some office functions; several who used Selectric and Selectric II models hold up their hands with pride and look around to see who else was a Selectric graduate. The majority haven’t heard of the concept and have only used computers. That’s fine too. But if they get a new computer, it will look about the same as the old one, and work about the same as well. (We won’t talk about Microsoft Vista.) They’ll never know the joy of having a a brightly colored, futuristic looking Correcting Selectric, with a nifty cover, delivered to their desks. I can’t help but feel slightly sorry for them. (But, I wouldn’t want to replace my computer with a Selectric, would you?)
February 13th, 2008
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Life and Work, Technology, Blogs, A/V etc. |
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It seems obvious that we must open our mouths to speak, but many people forget that number one rule. They have good thoughts, creative ideas, sharp wit, and something worthwhile to say, but they lose 90 percent of their impact because they don’t open their mouths enough to get the words out. It is almost impossible to be viewed as dynamic, strong, confident and capable if your words are muffled, mumbled or muttered.
This rule about opening your mouth, is crucial for people who are being interviewed, taking Assessment Centers, leading meetings, speaking on behalf of a project, or just conversing every day.
Opening your mouth and using your lung-power to project your words allows you to project your thoughts, which is why you were talking in the first place. We used to call that verbal projection, and it was the focus of speech and drama classes and part of the study of elocution. It should be part of the personal and professional development of anyone who wants to be effective and successful.
- Opening your mouth to project your words is easier to do when you are looking up and forward, with your posture comfortably erect, rather than having your head down and your shoulders and body slumped–a much more effective look as well as sound.
- Opening your mouth and projecting your words increases the amount of facial expression you have and the level of energy you convey.
- Speaking up and out gains the attention of listeners.
- Projecting your words reduces just one more distraction for listeners–and most listeners need as few distractions as possible.
- When you open your mouth and speak clearly and distinctly, you are less likely to use irritating fillers in your conversation–umm, ahhh, errr–and you will reduce subvocal sounds that are distracting: Coughs, hacks, chokes, nervous laughing, sniffs and throat clearing.
I’m not talking about a tongue, teeth and tonsil display. Nor do you need to be like Demosthenes, the Greek orator, who was reputed to practice speaking with pebbles in his mouth until he could speak clearly around them. You just need to hold your chin up a bit more, open your mouth a bit more, look more directly at your listeners, put more air into your lungs and project your voice a bit more–nothing dramatic or over-done, just clear speech.
Perhaps the best way to ensure clear speech is this: Have something worthwhile to say and have the desire and commitment to say it effectively. If you can’t or don’t speak up and speak out, you may never be fully valued, and never get to achieve all of which you are capable. If you make effective articulation a habit, your next big goal is to make sure your words are effective as well. There is no point in opening your mouth to speak more clearly, if you only make it easier put your foot into it!
February 12th, 2008
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TLR |
Assessment Centers and Interviews, Personal and Professional Development |
2 comments
This cartoon is on the www.savagechickens.com site, and is by Doug Savage–who can help you talk like a pirate.
Even pirate chickens are apparently addicted to text messaging!
Writing a message, reading mail, watching videos, perusing a newspaper, taking and sharing photos, getting news reports, shopping, sharing photos, sending cards: Perfectly OK activities during leisure time. Not appropriate during training, meetings or other business activities. However, those are the latest in rude behavior when people bring cell phones, PDAs, laptop computers and other technology into training sessions and to work.
I love technology and am thrilled to have access to computers and various communication devices. However, I am frustrated and disappointed at the uncivil and unmannerly actions of people who use them in a discourteous way. And, I’m disappointed at how often it is not confronted by instructors, supervisors or co-workers. Technology can be part of training, but when individual students bring their own technological devices to class it is almost never intended to enhance learning–and almost always detracts from it.
*Reading a magazine article on a PDA is no more acceptable than reading the actual magazine in class.
*Looking down at a phone and rapidly text messaging throughout a training session attracts the attention of everyone around the person and is almost as distracting as talking. Playing a game on the phone or a PDA is equally distracting.
*The fact that someone jumps to turn off a phone doesn’t make the noisy ringtone any less disruptive–especially since the ringtone is often musical and creates laughter that can destroy the tone of a discussion. Even vibrating phones can be disruptive when they rattle on a table or buzz from backpacks.
*Answering a phone out loud, while jumping up and leaving the class or meeting to talk, is obviously disruptive. Answering a phone and talking, while sitting in class or a meeting is rude beyond belief.
*Watching a movie on a portable DVD player at every break takes away from the focus on training for the person doing it, and for those who even casually observe it.
*Taking photos of unsuspecting fellow students or the instructor, and sending them to others is an unsettling action and creates hostility.
*Recording comments made by students during class discussion, then playing them back later as a joke, shuts down participation.
*When an in-service training participant is typing on a laptop computer, in a class that doesn’t require that level of note-taking, the eyes of everyone around him or her focuses on the computer screen. And, the trainer only sees the shiny side of a laptop cover instead of the face of the trainee.
I have started announcing at the beginning of class, and putting it on the front of my workbook, that no electronics are to be out in class. Training coordinators are happy to have me take care of that for them, and most students are glad to have it under control as well. The participants who aren’t happy about it usually adjust. I count on their involvement in class activities–and the quality of my instruction–to get them over the shakes of not having something electronic to play with!
What are your thoughts about this issue? I’d like to hear them, and others would as well. (When I receive comments about older posts, I ensure those are passed along in an updated article. Or, if you want to just write to me directly without it being shared, let me know that.)
February 11th, 2008
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Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development, Technology, Blogs, A/V etc. |
2 comments
Occasionally someone says something you just know isn’t going to result in anything good: “You may not like to hear this, but…..” “I’m probably going to be sorry I said this, but……….” “Promise me you won’t repeat this to anyone…” “He won’t get mad. He’ll think this is funny.” “No one will find out!” “Just one time.” Or, “Hold my beer and watch this.”
If you have said similar things, you likely have also said, after the inevitable bad result creates stress, anxiety and trouble for you, “Why do I do this to myself over and over again?”
Well, you may not like to hear this, but…it’s because you lack self-discipline. And I should know, because I lack it, too. But, I’m better than I used to be, and I’ll be even more self-disciplined when I grow up.
Here are some tips for self-control and self-discipline of your talk and actions:
1. Thomas Jefferson said, “When angry, count ten before you speak. If very angry, an hundred.” That also applies when you’re in a great mood and everyone around you is talking and laughing. Conversations are most risky when everyone is telling a funny story, an anecdote or a “Can you top this?” experience. Be quiet for a moment, even if you have to find a reason to stop talking, and let your mind calm down. The concept works as well for those times when you are tempted to do something that you know is risky, personally or professionally. Calm yourself and give your mind time to think rather than only react.
2. While you’re calming yourself, either from anger, excessive good humour, the desire to impress people or to do something with a potential for problems, think of the worst slant someone could put on it. How could it be interpreted differently than you mean it? How will it sound when discussed with a sneer, a smirk, a shocked tone, a disapproving frown or a disappointed head shake? How will it look in the photograph? How will it read in the newspaper? How will it sound in the employment hearing?
3. Say the funny, sarcastic or oneupmanship thing to yourself, instead of out loud; imagine yourself doing the outrageous thing, instead of actually doing it. You will find it surprisingly gratifying to say the nasty comeback in your mind, while appearing to be gracious and in control. You will save yourself a lot of grief by only thinking about doing some of the things you are tempted to do, instead of giving in to tempation based on anger, ego, greed or any other emotion. It may be true that, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so doeth he” but he won’t get fired, disciplined, divorced or slapped for what he only thinketh but doesn’t doeth.
4. Stay out of situations you know may lead to doing or saying things you will regret. I once read that almost every negative activity in our lives have fellow travelers. Those are the things that don’t seem like problems, but lead to them or are linked to them in some way. For some people, going to lunch with co-workers is a fellow traveler for nasty gossip; immediately hitting reply on an irritating email is a fellow traveler for writing an angry response; starting an angry rant is a fellow traveler for mean or obscene language; telling “war stories” about experiences is a fellow traveler for exaggeration and lying; drinking to excess is a fellow traveler for doing outrageous stunts that lead to accidents, injuries and even illegal activities. (Hence the “Hold my beer and watch this” remark.) Identify the fellow-travelers that accompany the situations you’ve lived to regret. Then, avoid those to help avoid the negative actions and talk.
5. Replace the problem actions and words with something benign or better. A friend of mine says she often excuses herself to go to the bathroom, make a phone call, return an urgent email she just remembered, or similar things, to give herself time to stop complaining and gossiping. Another friend says she is honest about being angry, and just the fact that she says it, helps her calm down. She’ll say, “I’m so mad right now I could scream vile things, but I don’t want to do that. Give me a few seconds to calm myself.” She makes a slight joke of it, and says, “Ohmm” in an exaggerated way, and regains emotional control. But, if she lets herself start, she can be on a yelling tangent that makes her sound like a screaming banshee! Get a drink of water; walk around the room or the block; step back slightly and let others talk while you think; pick up something and put it somewhere else to break your thought pattern. Whatever it takes.
6. Don’t say or do anything you feel you should apologize for or warn people about before you say or do it. That ought to be your first clue.
7. Don’t say or do anything solely to impress other people. We should have learned that truth from childhood, but the urge to show-off is strong in the human psyche. When it’s your ego urging you on, you can almost bet you’ll make a fool out of yourself at some point.
8. Think of the worst possible thing that could happen. Not just a bad thing, the worst thing. The absolute worst thing–even if you think it’s not likely. It will certainly give you pause for thought to picture yourself reading the story in the newspaper, explaining it at your dismissal hearing, or seeing someone cry about it.
9. Think of the last five foolish things you said or did and see if you can pinpoint where things went wrong and why. What triggers you to lose your temper, say the inappropriate thing, decide to do the risky action or make the wrong response? You may not be able to avoid those situations, but you can plan a better way of doing things next time. If every meeting with a certain group ends with you presenting yourself in a way you don’t wish to be seen, but you must attend the meeting, find a way to break the cycle: Sit in a different place, take detailed notes as a way to keep yourself occupied, pretend you are being interviewed for a job and want to impress your potential boss, or set timelines for appropriate behavior.
10. Be the person you want to be until you are. That goes past “Fake it until you make it” and implies being it. You don’t have to fake being a reasonable, logical, pleasant, positive, professional person–that person is inside you, or you wouldn’t be concerned in the first place. Discipline yourself to be that person by letting your better-self take control. Mentally picture your mature person teaching your more childish self. When you’ve gotten through a day, a shift, a meeting or a conversation and done it in a way that models maturity, you can jump up and down mentally and yell an exuberant, “Yahoooo!”
What do you do to help yourself avoid problem situations, actions and responses? Others might benefit from knowing what has worked for you. I’m sure I would!
February 9th, 2008
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TLR |
Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development |
4 comments
Not long ago I wrote about Detective Robert Knight, who I recalled from my very first days on the Denver Police Department. He was a Knight to me at the time, though we were never close friends and I rarely saw him after the early 1970s. I was notified just now that he passed away a few days ago after a long and brave struggle.
The one thing I can do for Detective Knight is to keep him alive in memory by using his name when I can, so people who never met him will know he was here and that he was a significant person in the lives of many people, especially in my life. Think about it: I had perhaps five personal conversations with him in my entire career, and the last one was in about 1971, but I still smile at the memory of those few conversations and the graciousness with which he accepted me and helped me. That’s impact!
If you have ever heard me give any kind of presentation you’ve heard me mention many people from whom I have learned valuable lessons or who simply brought good cheer to my life: My mother, Creola Kincaid Lewis; many police officers of all ranks; family members and friends–including friends of my parents who I didn’t know until after my parents were gone; long-ago neighbors, and chance acquaintances. I’ll mention them over time in this training journal as well.
Some of those people are still living and now and then I let them know how I’ve used their names. Many are not living, but I try to make their personalities, foibles and contributions come alive in the minds of others. I’m not maudlin about it; I don’t use the same person’s name repeatedly, as though I am obsessed with remembering them; and I blend some funny stories with some thought provoking ones. However, I am purposeful about it. My goal is to make them present in the room and sharing the story with us.
Who do you mention regularly? Send me a note about that person, no matter when you read this post, so others can share your memories. If you aren’t using the names of those who live in your memory, make it a challenge for yourself: Honor every one of them, every time you can. That’s what I’ll always do for Detective Robert Knight.
February 5th, 2008
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TLR |
Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development |
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