Scorched by Enron, WorldCom and other infamous notables, directors today champion corporate integrity and emphasize the value of sound governance. And their quest has a familiar ring: uphold solid business ethics, be clear on management’s responsibilities and ensure the job is done right.
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One of the great editors of Time magazine coined the term “gold collar worker” to describe the creative types he had doing neither manual nor clerical work for him.
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Happy cottagers kibitzed on the lake town’s pier on this first Saturday of the season. But at the dockside café where they’d stopped to collect their wits, Nancy People and her business partner looked as pale and deflated as air mattresses left out all winter. “Am I back to 70-hour work weeks, doing it all myself and trusting no one?” David asked Nancy, miserably.
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Financial stability, innovative practices and environmental sensitivity prove to be the three pillars upon which a respected corporation is built
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“How do you define corporate respect?”
That’s what we asked Anna Alderson, Peter Carr, Roger Gibbins, and Paul Vella, who agreed to join us in Calgary for a special panel discussion in honour of Alberta Venture’s third annual survey of the province’s Most Respected Corporations.
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Recent events have widened the corporate governance gap between Canada and the United States. Legislators in the U.S. are scrambling to be seen to be acting decisively following the Enron crisis, enacting tough legislation with detailed rules for managers, directors and auditors. >
Many professional people struggle with managing their time at work. After long and overwhelming days spent ticking items off a list, they collapse in front of the television, too exhausted to do much else.
In time, the joy and rich flavours of a fulfilling life begin to fade into a monotonous drone of compressed work days separated by too few opportunities to recharge. Instead of spending time on worthy projects that make a big contribution, it is easy to just feel spent.
The thieves of time leading to inefficiencies and drops in productivity are distraction and procrastination. These have led to the striving for greater focus. But focus remains elusive for many people buried under the unbearable weight of seemingly urgent work. Stephen Covey was one of the first writers to distinguish between tasks that are important and merely urgent. A flurry of books and speakers are out on the market promising great focus and improved relationships with time.
Procrastination and distraction reflect a life not focused on what is most important. When I am clear about and emotionally connected to my core values, my larger vision for my life and the deeper sense of life mission, I am simply less willing to put off the work of bringing these about; I am far more resistant to the lure of other opportunities out of alignment with my purpose. Connected to my higher purpose, I am far more likely to stay focused on my highest value activities: the much smaller number of work activities that create true value and important results.
Balance is ultimately about the allocation of our scarce resources to the various areas of our lives. Of all our personal resources – energy, money, intellect, talent – time can be the most challenging to leverage. Most people, by the time they are in their mid-30s, are acutely aware of the passing of their time towards an inevitable death. This is the root of time stress: the feeling that life is slipping away and cannot in any way be reclaimed. Few people on their death beds pronounce a lifetime of long work days as their greatest achievement or the desire to have spent more time at work as their greatest regret. In a balanced life, work supports a full life; life does not exist for work.
Paradoxically, one of the most powerful ways to improve my relationship with my time at work is to make stronger commitments to my leisure time activities. As I am more committed to non-work activities, I have a bigger reason to be more efficient and productive at work.
Leisure time is not about doing nothing. While there is a legitimate need for rest and the peaceful respite of a good movie or favourite television show, recreation is about activity. Historically, a life of leisure was the privilege of the upper classes who were free from the need to do physical labour. People of the leisure class spent their time developing philosophy, expressing themselves through the arts, making forays into politics, experimenting with the world of science and exploring the world of commerce and enterprise. The dawning of leisure was the dawning of doing work that matters. A focus on increasing the quality of leisure time makes more space to spend work time on meaningful activities that make a difference.
Keith Hanna, M.E.Des., is the author of Higher Purpose, Higher Profit: Putting Core Values Into Service , a venture development facilitator and coach to service professionals. You can get in touch with Keith at keith@ventureguiding.com or send feedback about this column to feedback@albertaventure.com.
The Business of Life is a column dedicated to finding simple yet meaningful ways for career-conscious people to improve their overall quality of life
Nancy People watched a warehouse employee pace off the softball diamond behind her company’s building. Kevin was starting a team and was keen to hold lunch-hour practices. Nancy had just given him permission to use the muddy lot. If only all forward thinking was as easy to implement, she brooded.
That morning, Ed, their sales manager, had announced he was taking early retirement next year. The company needed to open a branch office by then, too. And if Nancy didn’t hand off the advertising and PR aspects of her job soon, she’d be scheduling a nervous breakdown instead. But grooming new managers was proving as thankless as bathing her dog. Nancy’s promotion of Liza to assistant sales manager had provoked several bites. The stuff that made Liza’s a top sales rep – her competitive drive and ownership of projects – had rubbed subordinates raw. After two months as a manager, she’d quit for a senior sales position in another industry. It mystified Nancy – she’d made a point of sending Liza to an intensive manager-training program, right away.
“Hey Nance,” said David, arriving for their partners’ meeting. “I was thinking about my first job. It was one of those hyper-organized franchise operations. But everyone got a mentor. This guy showed me who I could lean on, how to delegate and how to give orders. Ed’s kind of an old-school, sink or swim guy. D’ya think Liza needed a mentor?”
Nancy made a note. Then they identified two possible managerial candidates within their firm. It was a puny list and they hadn’t a clue how to test their instincts about the candidates’ skills. They decided to pick some brains for advice.
Nancy drew up a list of industry colleagues to call and handed it to her assistant, Bev, who was giggling over a memo. It was from Kevin. It emphasized the time and cost savings of exercising during lunch-hour softball; the Christmas charity the team would support with each $1 pop-fly penalty, and the opportunities for high-stakes gambling. Nancy gasped; Bev explained: “Kevin managed the volleyball team. When our van broke down on the way to the playoffs and we were eliminated, it was heartbreaking. So Kevin quickly offered up his garage band as the banquet’s entertainment, if the other teams would let us play a wild-card round. They did.”
Nancy forgot the anecdote until the next day, when one of her contacts rattled off tips for developing future managers. “Are you sure you want managers?” he asked. “Managers command and control. Leaders innovate, motivate and inspire loyalty. Have you actually forecast the skills you need? Aren’t you really after people with quick wits, who can solve problems with the tools at hand?”
Kevin certainly knew how to design end runs and rally couch potatoes, thought Nancy. But how could she audition him for management? “Let him co-ordinate some small task, or design a training module,” said her colleague. “See if he can patch up a client relationship. Give him lots of honest feedback. Discover the skills he lacks and get him help for those. But for heaven’s sake, Nancy, don’t start by enrolling him in those all-inclusive training programs. He’ll be overwhelmed. Won’t remember a thing.”
At their next meeting, David boasted that he’d gleaned 11 tips through his research. “First, name the traits you want in managers. Then every few months, have employees nominate others who display three or four of those traits and offer awards.” David paused. “This next one, I heard 10 times: spread the training out. If you rely on one big fat training session ?”. Nancy cut in: “They won’t remember a thing!”
Have some advice for Nancy? Want to share your HR challenges? Send an e-mail to feedback@albertaventure.com.
Next month , Nancy puts an end to pilfering.
People’s Files is a regular column illuminating workplace human resources challenges. Characters and situations are fictional and are not meant to represent any person or persons, living or dead.
Who asked business for an opinion when governments called for a dramatic restructuring of the public health care system? Who indeed
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Carmen Murray, general project manager of Enabled Simulation & Optimization Software located in Edmonton, believes an exemplary employee is one who’s driven, hard-working, persistent and strives to perform their very best all of the time.
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