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The Cranky Middle Manager Show #119

Hi everyone. Welcome to a truly unique episode of the Cranky Middle Manager Show. It’s unique in that I demonstrate what a real middle manager I am… I’ve been RIFfed from my day job. That’s right, as of Dec 31 I’m out of a job, but not to worry. There are some exciting things in the pipeline…here’s what you need to know:

1) The show will continue and will get even bigger. I have plans darn it

2) I know the newsletter is late, given the circumstances I hope you’ll forgive me

3) Look for news on a Cranky Middle Manager Live Webinar event. It will probably happen in late December or the first week of January.

4) I’m really okay…this is a good thing in the grand scheme of things

Now on with the show…..

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to a special irony-filled edition of the Cranky Middle Manager. I recorded this interview with Judith Bardwick, about her book “One Foot Out the Door- How To Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business” about 24 hours before I was re-orged right out of a job. They were very nice about it, and pretty generous so I’m fine, just couldn’t get over the big giant coincidence with today’s topic.

2:58 The quote of the week, not to get too melodramatic, is from Prince Siddhartha, better known as The Buddha. I’ve spent a lot of time this week contemplating beginnings and endings, so I guess I’m in good shape.

3:58 Welcome Dr. Judith Bardwick… what is the Psychological Recession and why should we care? It’s that despite the relatively good economic news, and a chronic shortage of good employees, none of us feel safe and secure in our jobs and that keeps us disengaged and unproductive (EDITORIAL NOTE- YA THINK????).

10:00 Why do companies do the things that create these problems? it’s not intentional (we hope) but the result is the same. Don’t folks fearing for their jobs try harder? Here’s the data:

• 20% of employees are engaged and loving their jobs
• 60% are disengaged…. they’re there but not committed and doing enough not to get fired
• 20% are actively disengaged, either job hunting, sabotaging the organization or just not giving a rat’s behind

13:22 What does a manager in the middle do when they are being asked to implement policies that are going to make this worse? Well, you can take this book upstairs, but what else can you do? You can change your relationships with subordinates but there’s only so much you can do if the organization doesn’t support you from above.

17:24 Which companies get it? Check out Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For

It’s about mutual respect and mutual goals as well as openness. Here’s where I go off on a rant about how accounting is the problem with treating people properly. I’ve spoken about this before in Management Issues way back in the day. Check it out.

21:54 Morale and satisfaction scores don’t tell you a darned thing. Judith is pretty firm that engagement is a much better indicator. She does a better job of explaining it than I could.

24:00 For resources, Judith gives us a bunch of topics to Google. They include:

• relationship between engagement and commitment and financial outcome
• the role of managers in creating commitment and engagement

Seriously, don’t let the weasels get you down.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 2:07 am and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.