Final Voting for My Bad Boss

My Bad Boss Logo

I wake up every day and give thanks that I’m my own boss. I’m not really cut out to “work for” the glowing icons of The Peter Principle. (Someday I’ll write a story about when one said “You’re no D***ie Sl***y,” referring to a consultant in another region, to one of my top-performing colleagues when she was talking to him about billing and selling the most work in an entire consulting region. Brutal and Stupid. Not a great combo.)

The final voting for My Bad Boss runs from August 14-21. Here’s the story that’s in the lead:

Cancer Can’t Stop This Boss
My story starts with me being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. I am in my early thirties and have not worked since March of this year. I also have three young children under the age of 8, and a wife who cannot work due to my condition. I think you get the idea.

In the industry I work in, disability benefits are available but only equal about one-half of what I normally would be making. These benefits are formulated from a day to day basis for days you have received no other compensation for. Needless to say, every day claimed is extremely important in the basic task of feeding my family and keeping the lights on.

I have been an employee for about 10 years and as such, I have built up some paid time off. I sent paperwork in to take some of my time off, to help pay the bills, but when the paycheck came, I was short on several days. This was compounded when I did not claim disability benefits on the days I thought I was being paid for. As an end result, I lost out on my vacation days AND DISABILITY BENEFITS. Talk about getting hit where it hurts.

My boss threw away the paperwork I sent in and then lied about ever receiving it knowing that filing a grievance for the time I should have received would take months if not years to resolve. Its hard enough just trying to stay alive, let alone trying to pull knifes out of not only my back, but the backs of my wife and children too.

Got anything to top that? And if you do, I will personally go and ninja kick your boss in the neck for you.

NB to HR: Make this right. There are the rules, and there’s what’s right. And if you don’t do anything else this year, GET YOUR PEOPLE TO SIGN UP FOR DISABILITY INSURANCE. Enough with the ridiculous training classes and quarterly meetings. Do something that matters. Get people to sign up for LTD. What are you waiting for? (To make this easy, within a week I’ll post a communication kit that you can use. Free.)

What Do You Do If Employees Don’t Do What They’re Asked To Do?

I just cracked up when I read “Do Chores Like a 13-Year-Old Girl” on White Trash Mom. It’s about a 7-Step drama that unfolds when the mom asks the daughter to pick up some dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher. The last step goes like this:

Step 7-The dramatic performance of this task increases the time spent on this chore to 30 minutes. After finishing this chore, SLOWLY go and report to your parent that this task is done. Tell them this information as if they had asked you to kill an entire family and bury them under the front porch—-the chore is that distasteful.

It is at this point that the parent will either be completely disgusted and allow the teen to go back to more “important” tasks or if the members of the household will be forced to watch additional drama.

Sure, it’s funny when it’s about kids and parenting. I’ve experienced a little of this drama in my own house. But what do you do when your employees don’t do what they’re asked to do? I’ve been known to ask and ask in my own business, only to be surprised that things didn’t get done.

Dealing with Broken Dishes
My business partner, Sarah, calls this kind of behavior “Broken Dishes.” That is, if employees are asked to do something, and then they do it poorly or “break the dishes,” then they don’t get asked to do that work again. And guess who does? The high performers. (Sarah also has a phrase for that: Performance is punishing.)

So, what do you do when employees don’t do what they’re asked to do? Do you come down hard? Do you let it go? Is there something that keeps your organization running without drama? I wish I had an answer for that. But I was the guy who was laughing when I read the story, so I’m interested in what you do. (And I could always use some advice on raising teenagers!)

What do you do with broken dishes? Or 13-year-olds?

Can I Give You Some Feedback?

I worked at a consulting firm that used “benefit of the doubt” as an excuse for any kind of bad behavior. Someone flubs: Benefit of the doubt. Someone stabs you in the back: Benefit of the doubt. Someone says they’ll do something, then they don’t: Benefit of the doubt.

“Benefit of the doubt” at that place meant, “Give that person a break no matter what they do.” It mattered more at that place to “get along” than to confront reality. I used to be known for saying, in response, “No doubt, no benefit.”

At that same place they also used to say, “Can I give you some feedback?” Listen, “feedback” was never the positive kind. I mean, do you need to ask permission to compliment someone? Hardly. So, whenever someone would say, “Can I give you some feedback?” I’d say, “If you want to criticize me, go ahead.” That usually ended it.

I liked this Fedex Kinkos ad with a manager who does some straight talk with his staff. He didn’t ask them, “Can I give you some feedback?”

What Great Supervisors Do

I’ve found that something Leo Tolstoy said about families is also true of supervisors. Great supervisors are all alike; every bad supervisor is bad in his or her own way.

That’s a paragraph from Wally Bock’s article, “How the Great Supervisors Do It.” It’s a thought stimulating piece that could be the basis for a new managers’ day.

Wally’s Three Star Leadership Blog is one of my daily reads. If you’re interested in a practical take on leadership and developing talent, you might want to add it to yours, too.

eBossWatch Knows if You’ve Been Bad or Good, So Be Good for Goodness Sake

ebosswatchYou better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I’m tellin’ you why: eBossWatch is comin’ to town.

Are you the boss who likes to dish it out, but can’t take it? Are you the kind of boss who just loves performance reviews so that you can “really give it” to your people? Could you be a case study in Robert Suttton’s bestseller? Then you better watch out, because eBossWatch is all along the watchtower.

Nobody Should Have to Work with a Jerk
“We developed eBossWatch because of a personal experience I had,” said Asher Adelman, creator of eBossWatch, in an interview last week. “I interviewed for a job with a CEO who seemed like a nice guy,” he said. “But when I started it was too late, and the CEO was a nightmare. He threw things and was abusive.”

eBossWatch’s motto is “Nobody should work for a jerk.” In these days of transparency, that goes double. “I know that employees don’t want to work for an abusive boss,” said Mr. Adelman. “That’s why we wanted to hold managers accountable.”

360 Degree Feedback: It’s Not Just for HR Anymore
Sure, 360 degree feedback is a start. But what happens with that information? Is it just stored in some HR vault and acted on weakly, or not at all? And how does 360 degree feedback work in a small group, or with a raging jerk? Do you think people are willing to write that down? eBossWatch makes it a much cleaner and more painless process:

Help alert others about a nightmare boss, or recommend a great boss. The survey takes only about a minute to complete, and you remain completely anonymous.

Open Information for Everyone
“It’s not just to get bad managers,” said Mr. Adelman. “Somebody who’s been an excellent manager — people will want to know about that, too.” Yep, be good for goodness sake. Then you can get a good rating on eBossWatch.

A 6-Question Set Keeps eBossWatch from Libelous Comments
“We limit our survey to a 6-question set,” said Mr. Adelman. “That keeps the site professional and clear-cut.” eBossWatch also uses IP tracking to keep a level playing field. “We want open information, and one person gets only one vote on a boss.”

The six questions in the survey use a set of radio buttons ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” Brian Moore of the New York Post writes, “The process is caveman-easy.” Simple makes eBoss Watch work easily with these questions:

  1. I feel like there is open and honest communication between my boss and me.
  2. I feel like my boss cares about me as a person.
  3. I feel like my boss cares about my career development.
  4. I trust and respect my boss.
  5. I like working for my boss.
  6. I recommend this person as a good boss to work for.

The site allows users to search for “bosses” by name, company, or state. I think I might just go ahead and add a couple of names to the site. (One really good, and another not quite so.)

The HR lesson here is that there’s real transparency out there, folks. HR needs to get out in front of this stuff or risk waking up one day with their names on HRAintSoGreat.com.

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