Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact
» by Nagesh Belludi

“Walton Ten-Foot Rule”

Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s iconic founder and perhaps the most successful entrepreneur of his generation, showed considerable charisma, ambition, and drive from a very young age.

Sam was a committed student leader when he attended the University of Missouri, Columbia. One of the secrets to his reputation at college was that he would greet and speak to everybody he came across on the campus. And, he would address them by their name if he knew them. In a short time, he set off to make many friends and became well-liked. Small wonder, then, that Sam triumphed in nearly all the student elections he contested.

When Wal-Mart became sizeable enough, Sam realized that Wal-Mart could not just yet offer its customers lower prices than the other retail giants could. As part of his customer service strategy, he institutionalized the very trait that had helped him become popular when he was a student. He insisted on the “Walton Ten-Foot Rule.” According to the rule, when Wal-Mart associates (as Wal-Mart calls its employees) came within ten feet of customers, they were to smile, make eye contact, greet the customer, and offer assistance. As Wal-Mart grew, Sam added greeters who would greet customers at the door (and control ’shrinkage’/shoplifting.) Even today, the Ten-Foot Rule continues to be part of the Wal-Mart culture.

Likeability — A Predictor to Success

Likeability is an important predictor to success in life. Some people seem naturally endowed with appealing personalities. They tend to complement their aptitudes by being personable and graceful, by presenting themselves well, and by possessing the social skills for every occasion. They tend to win others over effortlessly. At school and college, they are their teachers’ favorites and get chosen by their peers to represent their classes. They get invited to the right kind of parties and gatherings, and live the life of these parties. At work, they are persuasive; they get noticed and quickly climb the corporate ladder.

From my observations of the traits of the talented and successful, I offer you a few reminders to help you become more personable, develop rapport, and thus maximize your chance of success.

• Look people in their eyes. Smile. Greet them by their names.
• Listen. Speak with a pleasant tone of voice. Speak in a positive manner. Show respect. Indeed, even your adversaries have some admirable characteristics.
• Show genuine interest in others. Try to build a rapport by sharing something about yourself with them.
• Say “Please,” “Sorry,” and “Thank you.” Offer a kind word. Compliment them. Do not flatter.
• Consider the other’s perspectives and perceive his/her circumstances before disagreeing.
• Practice compassion. Make a sincere effort to help others.
• Do not overdo any of the above. Try your best. Do not please others at the expense of your own sanity — stay true to your values, principles, and happiness.

Recommended Reading

• What the deaf can teach us about listening
• How to overcome shyness in initiating conversations
• Keeping good eye contact
• Overcoming the temptation to please
• The power of genuine interest in others

***See other articles related to customer service, likeability, charisma, popularity, personality development, self-confidence, inter-personal relationships

A common mistake we make in giving feedback to others is that we tend to defer corrective (negative) feedback. We put off criticism until the problem escalates or, as managers, wait until the employee’s performance review discussions. This predisposition is often rooted in the fear that negative feedback will offend the other and thus affect our rapport with the other.

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz offers a ‘puppy theory’ on timing feedback:

I have the puppy theory. When the puppy pees on the carpet, you say something right then because you don’t say six months later, “Remember that day, January 12th, when you peed on the carpet?” That doesn’t make any sense. “This is what’s on my mind. This is quick feedback.”

Immediate Feedback is Most Useful

I have previously discussed that effective feedback has three aspects: (1) initiate a personal conversation and make sure the other is ready to hear it, (2) explain his behavior, and, (3) help him understand the consequences of his behavior.

Do not neglect or defer feedback. Address problems while they are small. Immediate feedback ensures that the other accepts your feedback, understands his behavior and attempts to correct.

Recommended Reading

• Sandwich feedback technique and why it is ineffective
• Manager Tools’ feedback model
• Six steps to appreciate people
• Any excuses for not complimenting your people

***See other articles related to giving feedback, criticism, manager skills, interpersonal skills, praise

We eat change for breakfast!
* Harry Quadracci

Good fortune follows honesty.
Fame follows sacrifice.
Education follows practice.
Intelligence follows hard work.
* Subhashita

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell,
fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life.
All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in
the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
* Swami Vivekananda

Hard work and light food -
this is the readily available medicine for any disease.
If you do these daily, you shall not be afraid of any ailment.
* Subhashita

If things seem under control,
you’re just not going fast enough.
* Mario Gabriele Andretti

Discover the power of praise -
it will make your world a better place.
* Unknown

People are beginning to see that the first requisite
to success in life is to be a good animal.
* Herbert Spencer

Don’t be afraid of polarizing people.
* Guy Kawasaki

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of
splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as
possible before handing it onto future generations.
* George Bernard Shaw

Everything comes if a man will only wait.
* Tancred

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Few things can help an individual more than to place
responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
* Booker T. Washington

To repeat what others have said, requires education,
to challenge it, requires brains.
* Mary Pettibone Poole

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
* Ben Hecht

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass-
it’s about learning how to dance in the rain
* Unknown

Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue;
it makes it a requirement for survival.
* Rene Dubos

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the nonessentials.
* Lin Yutang

It’s easy to say ‘no!’ when there’s a deeper ‘yes!’ burning inside.
* Stephen R. Covey

There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity;
but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
* Washington Irving

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate.
None else has the blame, none has the praise.
* Swami Vivekananda

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

A skilled manager understands how to get work done through her staff under all circumstances. She makes herself available, delegates effectively and provides appropriate feedback. She works hard to sustain an effective work environment in which her staff feels motivated and takes pleasure in their achievements.

The skilled manager is talented at discerning what her employees think and feel about their work, and assessing their level of happiness on the job. She recognizes unhappy employees through these four noticeable changes in behaviors over time.

• Tardiness: The unhappy employee tends to arrive late, leave early and takes longer breaks. He is often elusive and hard to pin down.
• Disdain: The unhappy employee can be grouchy, whining, or exceedingly complaining. He tends to be oversensitive: he sulks at even the slightest criticism, gets defensive, or accuses supervisors of picking on him.
• Indifference: The unhappy employee cannot focus on his responsibilities. Consequently, his work tends to be disorganized and incomprehensive. His workload is a struggle. He fails to update management on a regular basis, rarely has a say in important matters, and resists new assignments.
• Aloofness: The unhappy employee is inclined to distance himself physically, socially and emotionally from his coworkers. He is likely to be uncooperative and refuses to accommodate others’ requests.

Recommended Articles on Managing

• Four questions for employee performance appraisals
• Delegate Outcomes, Not Just Tasks
• Distinguish Accountability from Responsibility
• Excuses for not praising people

***See other articles related to Motivation, recognition, managing people, work environment, leading

Last week, General Electric (GE) announced that its Board of Directors had accepted CEO Jeffrey Immelt’s recommendation that he not receive his bonus for 2008 and $11.7 million in compensation under a long-term incentive plan.

In 2008, GE’s missed its profits estimates and the company’s stock declined significantly. Still, GE reported the highest revenues in its history, a profit margin of 9.59%, and a net income of $17.4 billion. Jeff Immelt could have claimed his 2008 bonus and the long-term compensation he deserved for the company’s performance between 2006 and 2008.

Additionally, he held more than 1.6 million shares in the company. The value of his GE stock has depreciated by more than $45 million since 2-Jan-2008. (GE’s stock price declined from $37.10 to $8.60 between 2-Jan-2008 and 27-Feb-2009.)

Over the last several years, the world of business has experienced a public uproar over executive compensation. This has led to a perception that corporate executives are greedy, resent shareholders’ proposals to cap compensation, and focus on short-term results. Considering this bitterness, Jeff Immelt’s initiative in turning down a substantial portion of his compensation is certainly praiseworthy and admirable.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Jeff had stated, “My compensation is never going to be an embarrassment to GE. … It’s going to be responsible; it’s going to be appropriate; it’s going to be transparent; and it’s going to reflect the financial performance of the company.”

GE has long been a model for corporate governance. Since taking over as CEO four days before the 9/11 tragedy, Jeff Immelt and the company’s board have aligned executive compensation with long-term company performance, converted over to equity-based compensation plans, stipulated that executives hold large proportions of GE stock, and committed to greater transparency and disclosure.

I shall share my thoughts on executive compensation in a separate blog article tomorrow. [Update on 1-Mar-09: Release of this article postponed due to its sensitive nature.]

Recommended Reading

• Jeff Immelt on understanding breadth, depth and context
• Jack Welch’s four types of managers

***See other articles related to executive compensation, corporate governance, Jeffrey Immelt, Jack Welch, General Electric

Among the hundred blog posts I wrote in year 2008, here are the ones that received the most visitors, largely by means of Google Search and referrals.

1. The ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions. The best way to impress an interviewer is to discuss your credentials and accomplishments in terms of personal success stories using the ‘STAR’ technique. By following this simple technique, you can narrate direct, meaningful, personalized experiences that best identify your qualifications.
2. Jack Welch’s four types of managers. Organizations face the challenge of developing and sustaining a culture that is both values-centered and performance-driven. Nothing hurts morale more than when leaders tolerate employees who deliver results, but exhibit behaviors that are incongruent to values of the company.
3. Why the sandwich feedback technique is ineffective. The sandwich feedback method consists of praise followed by corrective feedback followed by more praise. However, the sandwich technique amounts to undercutting praise with criticism. A praise followed by criticism undermines the positive impact of praise and weakens the significance of the corrective feedback.
4. Time management: Log where time actually goes. Before you begin managing your time effectively, you need to develop an idea of how you spend time currently. Track how you use your hours and minutes during a suitably long period of time, ideally a whole week. The immediate benefit of time logging is that it induces a sense of significance of your time.
5. Keeping good eye contact. Our eyes play a major role in our interpersonal communication. The eyes express our moods and reactions more overtly than does other body language. People who keep good eye contact are usually seen as personable, self-assured and confident.

6. Overcoming procrastination: The ‘10-Minute Dash’ technique to get a task going. One of the easiest techniques to overcoming procrastination is to begin. Quite often, seemingly difficult tasks get easier once we get working on them. In short time, we get into the ‘flow’ and work towards completion.
7. Effective delegation: Delegate outcomes, not just tasks. The key to effective delegation is to approach delegation as an offer to present to a team member, not a demand to be made. Delegating outcomes–not just tasks–helps managers skillfully present assignments to their team members and empowers them to get the job done.
8. Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘done’. We need to accept the prospect of compromises to our goals and aspirations. We need to acknowledge that our expectations are often excessive and uncalled for. When we develop a ‘good enough’ or ‘perfect enough’ mindset, we realize that imperfection is, after all, a negotiable outcome.
9. Never surprise your boss. Success in building a relationship with your boss begins with recognizing that this relationship hinges on open communication, cooperation, and credibility. Bosses dislike surprises–positive or negative. Keep your boss in line and suit her preferred style of communication.
10. Make your weekends feel longer. The key to making your weekend feel longer and having a relaxing time is to reorganize your plans and freeing-up time for your favorite, pleasurable activities during the weekend. By prioritizing, improvising and staying on top of things you can arrive at the end of your weekend contented and full of energy for the fresh week ahead.

Thank you very much for your continued readership and support of my work. I wish you and yours a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead in 2009.

Preamble

This article is the first in a series of three articles that describes how to get clarity about your present role in your organization and write an effective job description.

Jobs and Job Descriptions

Jobs are the fundamental building blocks of an organization; they evolve to fulfill essential functions of the organization. The organizational endeavor is, therefore, the sum total of the endeavors of individuals at their jobs. It stands to reason that each job needs to be structured and formally defined. A job description serves this purpose: it is a formal detailing of the specific duties of an employee, her responsibilities and span of control.

A job exists to realize the purpose of an organization. For this reason, a job description should focus upward — it should be written primarily to reflect a specific need of the organization. In other words, a job description, for the most part, should describe the role and not the employee that holds the job — not what she can do, should do or wishes to do in her role.

Who Should Write Job Descriptions

Job descriptions help the management examine the structure of an organization and ensure that all the necessary responsibilities are adequately covered. Ideally, therefore, jobs should be defined from the top.

Theoretically, a manager is the most knowledgeable about all the jobs he supervises. He should be responsible for defining and maintaining the job description. However, hardly a few managers are keen on writing effective job descriptions for their employees. Most managers tend to be cursory: they use generic templates provided by their Human Resources or Personnel departments, or, at best, maintain a longwinded list of an employee’s activities. A majority of job descriptions are vague, out-of-date, indistinct and therefore inadequate. Consequently, job descriptions are often ignored in several organizations.

Why You Should Write Your Job Description

One of reasons you may be dissatisfied with your job or performing poorly on the job is that you tend to perform your day-to-day tasks without any formal detailing of your role. In all probability, you are not completely certain of everything your manager expects of you and how you will be measured against these expectations. In other words, a formal job description may not exist for your job, or, if it does exist, it is badly out-of-date, imprecise and inaccurate.

As the job-holder, you are the best person to write a job description for your job since you have the most on-the-ground knowledge of your role. This assumes, of course, that you can develop or have previously developed a sound understanding of what your role requires of you in the context of the objectives of your organization, including those of your supervisor and immediate management.

Additional critical reasons that may lead you to write your job description include,

• Redefinition: The nature of your role has changed due to redefinition of the nature of your business, restructuring, revisions to your organization’s objectives, or change in management or your supervisor-manager. Such changes may lead to a significant disparity between what you have done in the past and what may be expected of you in the new context.
• Transition: When you are moving out of your job, you may consider helping your management recruit a proficient replacement by defining the exact nature of your current role and the skill sets or credentials desirable in potential candidates. A separate blog article will discuss how to identify and define desired characteristics in job candidates.
• Measurement and Feedback: A job description can help setup a well-defined, consistent understanding of expectations and measures that form the bases of formal performance appraisals.
• Promotion or Compensation Review: An exhaustive job description is indispensable to persuade management to assign more resources or responsibilities to you or appraise your role, job title, compensation, or benefits.

Most significantly, you can use this opportunity to precisely define your role, correlate what you do with what is expected of you in your role, and ensure ownership and job satisfaction. This sense of better control and direction will translate to stronger motivation at work.

Recommended Reading

• Dissatisfied at work? Are you really a square peg in a round hole?
• How hard you should work
• Overcoming the temptation to please

***See other articles related to effective executive, contribution, objectives, goals, responsibility, job description, career success, performance assessment, managerial skills

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
* Leo Buscaglia

A cheerful thought in you produces cheerful thoughts in others.
You are filled with joy and intense delight when you see a batch of
hilarious children playing mirthfully and dancing in joy.
* Swami Shivananda

Hard work performed in a disciplined manner will in most cases keep
the worker fit and also prolong his life.
* Mokshagundam Vishveshwariah

If you wish to avoid criticism,
do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
* Indira Gandhi

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has
the blame, none has the praise.
* Swami Vivekananda

Be prepared to take some shit in life;
just do not take more than a mouthful at a time.
* Forrest Gump

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do
something you want done because he wants to do it.
* Dwight D. Eisenhower

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
* Chinese Proverb

‘If something’s free, I’ll take two,’ a mentor of mine once said.
His point was that people don’t value things they don’t pay for.
* Edwin J. Feulner

A great mentor is one who aims for others’ abilities to surpass his own.
* Unknown

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
* Martin Luther King, Jr.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
* John F. Kennedy

It is common sense to take a method and try it.
If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.
But above all, try something.
* Franklin Roosevelt

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
* Benjamin Franklin

If a man be gracious,
and courteous to strangers,
it shows he is a citizen of the world.
* Francis Bacon

If you think about disaster, you will get it.
Brood about death and you hasten your demise.
Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith,
and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action,
richer in achievement and experience.
* Edward Rickenbacker

There is not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself.
* William Shakespeare

Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.
* Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hold a true friend with both your hands.
* Nigerian Proverb

Personal leadership is the process of keeping
your vision and values before you and aligning
your life to be congruent with them.
* Stephen R. Covey

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations