A place where kids can be kids?

I've never been to Chuck E. Cheese but I've been to a number of McDonald's Playhouses. With three kids, my wife and I sometimes cave in to all the whining around when we pass in front of a restaurant around mealtime. I've never thought twice of it, except for the bad habits associated with fast food. But that's a whole 'nother discussion!

What prompted this post, however, is the following article from the Wall Street Journal:

Calling All Cars: Trouble at Chuck E. Cheese's, Again - WSJ.com

The article mentions a number of altercations at Chuck E. Cheese locations, where police needed to get involved in order to break things up. What really got me was this quote: "... in some cities, law-enforcement officials say the number of disruptions at their local outlet is far higher than at nearby restaurants, and even many bars." Holy kiddie brawls, Batman! In a restaurant for kids?

At first, I was surprised. But when you think about it, it fits neatly in our current society. Anyone heard of soccer fights? Or hockey brawls?

A few days ago, Sean Avery was handed a six game suspension for an off-colour comment about his ex-girlfriends. This from the same league that handed Tom Kostopoulos a scant three-day suspension for a hit that cost Mike Van Ryn "a broken nose, a broken finger, a gash on his forward, some lost teeth, and a concussion." The same can be seen in little league where some parents encourage their progeny to duke it out with the other children, in a bid to establish their "superiority."

A few years ago, I coached my son's soccer team. He was only 7, but before the season started, league officials had all coaches attend a meeting where they clearly laid out the disciplinary rules for the season. It seemed that the previous year, there had been some nasty altercations between parents, as well as some parents taking it out on young children on the field. Last year, I saw some inklings of this behaviour from the parents of our nine-year old kids.

So is it any wonder that in a place designed for kids, but where they serve alcohol (duh!), adults would be so badly behaved?

In business, similar behaviour can be seen, but in more subtle ways. I will pass on the many instances of disgruntled employees who have gone over the edge, and focus on more subtle behaviours. These behaviours include intimidation, sabotage, and gossipping.

All of these behaviours can be devastating to the victims, to the teams, and to the companies involved. And whether you like it or not, it's not a problem with the employees. It's a problem with their manages.

Intimidation, sabotage, and gossipping cannot continue unless it is implicitly endorsed by management. How do you implicitly endorse such bad behaviour? Easy: don't do anything about it, lay blame on the person who complains, and don't give them an opportunity to seek help.

Not every one is well-equipped to deal with these types of work-related problems. Yet, when a manager tells an employee to "figure it out himself and not act like a baby," the results may not be what is expected.

An employee may choose to stop talking and not do anything, instead of confronting someone that he/she perceives as stronger and more powerful than he/she. This will affect his/her productivity. If the problem affects more than one person, then an entire team can be demoralized because of one individual. Tempers can flare, and people can easily fly off the handle.

I've seen teams go bad when one person caused problems for other team members, but management did nothing to intervene and stop bad behaviour. Eventually, overall productivity declined until the offending individual was let go.

What would I recommend to Chuck E. Cheese?  I would start by removing alcohol in all locations. Then, I would publicize that event because the fact that I am blogging about it (and I've never been there) is an indication that Chuck E. Cheese is probably getting a lot of negative publicity.

After removing the alcohol, I would take a look at the numbers to determine whether the incident rate goes down. With every incident, I would look for a common pattern and address the root cause, until Chuck E. Cheese, indeed, becomes a place where "a kid can be a kid."

Is this all the leadership we have to offer?

The recent melodrama of Canadian politics has made one thing clear: we have a dearth of effective leaders in our government.

An effective leader knows what to do and gets it done. His or her prime directive should be to put the enterprise first, and him/her after. Evidently, none of our current leaders seem to realize this.

Let's see, now:

• Michael Ignatieff: he was pegged as the next Liberal leader. In that capacity, now more than ever, he should step up to the plate and take a stance. Instead, he chooses to sit back, be non-committal, waiting to step forward when conditions are favourable. Not the sign of a great leader: I will jump in when things favour me.
• Stéphane Dion: I admire the guy's tenacity, but enough is enough. Wednesday's blunder makes Inspector Clouseau look like Stephen Hawking. Few people want him as the head of the Liberal party, yet he clings on like a desperate cat hanging from a tree limb. An effective leader recognizes when he/she is no longer helpful. Mr. Dion is no longer helping the Liberal party: he is severely hindering it. If there was an election today, Mr. Dion's mistake would probably hand a majority government to the Tories.
• Stephen Harper: in a scant few days, Stephen Harper has tarnished his image as a strategic, competent leader and now appears as a self-absorbed, power-hungry man. He showed that he is willing to go to almost any length in order to hold on to power. In the last two months, he has twice shown that he is completely out of touch with his surroundings. Once, after proposing a measure that infuriated Quebecers and most likely cost him his majority. And now, the current political upheaval. His address on national television was one filled with fear-mongering, blaming, and finger-pointing. He has become the most polarizing figure in Canadian politics and for the first time in years, "sovereignty" has once again become the centre of political discourse.
• Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe: both acknowledge that they need to rely on each other to get through the current mess. However, how long could such a coalition last? Mr. Duceppe has stated that he is willing to vote in favour of any measure that is favourable to Quebec. He has also pledged not to undermine the coalition for the next 18 months. But how will he vote if a measure is proposed, that does not favour Quebec?
• Bob Rae: after dilly dallying, Mr. Rae seems to have donned his suit of armor and is ready to do battle. He stepped to the forefront of the coalition, ready to lead them to battle. Too bad the governor-general has scuttled his plans, for now. Nevertheless, he is the one that currently projects the best leadership qualities. He is calling for calm, and working to reassure business leaders that there is no 'crisis' in Ottawa, while simultaneously working with the other party leaders. In the past few days, he has decided to enter the leadership race and has stepped up to role of coalition advocate. If he does it well, keeps on message and maintains his enthusiasm until the Liberal leadership race in May, he may well become Mr. Dion's successor.

We're in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis, with daily announcements of massive layoffs, dire warnings of tough times, and meanwhile, our government is putting more effort on saving its hide than it is on creating a better future for all Canadians.

When I look at our neighbours to the South, who just elected a unifying figure to counter eight years of disastrous PR, all I can think about is this: Is this really all we have to offer ourselves?

Surviving your first performance review, last part

A few tips for those who received a negative review:

Surviving your first performance review (part 5): Thriving after a negative review

Voluntary layoffs? Think real hard first

To piggy back on my earlier post on the subject, asking people to voluntarily leave their current job, in order to cut costs, can backfire:

The Globe and Mail: Voluntary layoffs seen backfiring

The problem with such an approach is that employers see employees as only a number on the balance sheet. And if they can set that number low enough to have a high number on the bottom line, they think they have won. Wrong on so many counts!

When laying off employees, you do much more than reduce your expenses:

• You affect morale, especially if you do it over and over again. Cut once, cut deep.

• You affect productivity, especially if you announce layoffs weeks ahead of the actual cut. By the time you actually make the cut, you may have more than expected because people will tend to focus on the expected bad news, prepare their resumes, and so on. When your focus is not on your job (for whatever reason), performance will almost always suffer;

• With voluntary layoffs, you run the risk of losing even more if your best people decide that they want to leave. Your performance will automatically be reduced, because that star performer leaves not only with his her salary (a win on your balance sheet) but also with the accompanying results (a loss that will outweigh the win on the balance sheet).

Voluntary layoffs may seem like a good plan, that humanizes the layoff process, but you need to think of the company in the long term. Sometimes, saving money can cost much more than you expect.

Performance reviews part II

Part two of the article on surviving your first performance review:

Surviving your first performance review (part 2): What they expect

Layoffs, hospitals and budgets

With rounds after rounds of layoffs expected in the coming months, this is a timely piece:

The Art of Laying People Off

I especially like Guy's #10: don't let people self-select themselves, because you will lose your best people.

In Quebec, the government did that a few years ago in the health sector. Nurses and doctors were offered early retirement and many of them jumped at the chance. On top of that, they limited the number of admissions in medical faculties. Net result? Today there is a severe shortage of medical staff, at a time where needs are constantly increasing. It will take another 7 years before things get back to normal.

The reasons for doing so were for budget-balancing purposes, which is highly laudable, but I think the government officials failed to look at the big picture. They failed to take into account that many in the health-care sector were fed up with the system and were only looking for a way out. They failed to see that needs for medical personnel would increase, not decrease over time. They failed to adequately project the effects of limiting the number of health-care professionals trained by the system.

How bad is it? There is a large shortfall of family doctors in Quebec, partly because of the decisions made in the '90s and partly because of the bad rap general practitioners (GPs) receive in medical schools. I was recently discussing this with a specialist, and as he explained it to me, most professors in medical universities are specialists. Hence, they will vow for their profession and will encourage students to follow in their footsteps. Few GPs teach in university, so there is no emotional appeal to incite students to become family doctors. In fact, according to an article in today's Journal de Montréal, in 2008 300 new GPs were added to the workforce, while there was a need for 346. The race is not lost, but it's going to be difficult to win.

The lesson, for any business, is that you should not let your best people go, just to save money. In the long run, the costs can greatly outweigh any savings you make on the balance sheet.

Your first performance review is approaching?

What should entry-level empoyees expect from their first performance review? See some answers (including mine) here:

Entry Level Careers Examiner: Surviving your first performance review (part 1): What to expect