“If management stopped demotivating their employees then they wouldn’t have to worry so much about motivating them.” W. Edwards Deming If you read my blog post last week you know that I was the winner of The Listserve email lottery and as a result had the opportunity to ask 5 questions to a diverse group of 25,000 strangers. This week …
What I Learned About Work By Winning the Lottery: Part 1
What would you want to say if you had the chance to send an email to 25,000 strangers dispersed across planet earth? That’s the question that faced me last week and I had 48 hours to decide what to do with this opportunity. The Listserve is an email lottery. One person every day has a chance to broadcast a message …
The Best Strategy To Reduce Stress & Anger In The Workplace
Workplaces with high levels of employee stress and anger are increasing their risk for many negative business outcomes including: Employee fatigue, concentration difficulties and diminished problem-solving abilities Diminished quality, productivity and customer service Under reporting of critical business issues (in order to avoid blame) Poor teamwork and coordination among individuals who are resentful and feel that they have been treated …
Are Your Meetings Getting The Job Done?
Meetings are the place where an organization can access the collective knowledge of its members to make the best possible tactical and strategic decisions. Meetings are the place where organizations can work out conflicts, coordinate individual efforts and get everyone on the same page. Meetings are an inevitable, necessary and ubiquitous element of organizational life. To my knowledge, no …
The Big News About Tiny Habits
The path to perfect is littered with failure and disappointment and should be avoided by anyone seeking self-improvement. Perfect is the enemy of good because perfect is an oversized and complicated fantasy, not an achievable goal. When it comes to making changes in your work habits or your relationships or your health it often pays to think small. I am …
Just in Time EAP
“Just in time” counseling is what we provided to a single mother of a 16 year old son recently. She called us at 1:30 am besieged by worry about her son who had neither called nor made it home for his midnight curfew. Believe me when I tell you that this mother was not seeking an appointment to see one …
Drug & Alcohol Problems in the Workplace: 4 Ways Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) Can Help
EAPs help employees and organizations with a wide range of personal problems that affect work performance. None may be more important than the misuse of alcohol and other drugs because of the additional safety and health risks associated with substance abuse issues. The misuse of alcohol and drugs becomes an immediate occupational health and safety concern when an employee’s coordination, …
Leadership & Inner Transformation
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Washington civil rights march and Dr. Martin Luther King’s iconic “I have a dream speech.” I have listened to that speech countless times and it never fails to inspire me. David Brooks wrote a wonderful tribute in the New York Times yesterday analyzing the leadership approach of Dr. King where “the idea was …
Marriage and the Workplace
A few weeks ago the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that Dr. James Knight had a right to fire his dental assistant Melissa Nelson because Dr. Knight’s spouse (based on his admission of an attraction to Ms. Nelson) viewed the relationship as a threat to their marriage. Ms. Nelson, who had been an excellent employee for 10 years, filed a gender …
Seven Tips for Addressing Conflicts with Coworkers
In my role as an EAP consultant I have a front row seat for observing the damaging effects of workplace conflict on individuals and organizations. Destructive conflicts should not be confused with the constructive process of conflict that often propels creativity and innovation. Constructive conflict is based on a spirited competition of ideas and strategies and aims to improve the …
How Employee Assistance Programs Support HR Recruitment & Relocation Efforts
You may have noticed that Comprehensive EAP has been featuring a “We help with everything” theme in many of our communications this year. The reason for this is straightforward: despite our continuing efforts to communicate the incredible diversity and breadth of services we offer organizations and their employees, many people still think only of mental health counseling (and maybe dependent …
Walking the Talk About Wellness
A few years ago one of our client companies merged with their biggest competitor and they asked us to facilitate some preliminary meetings with the other management group which, until the merger, had been their rivals. There was much anxiety in both management groups about how to merge the two very different, adversarial and extremely competitive cultures. Andrew, a senior …
A Day in the Life of a Special Lobsterman
Philip Tuttle is a self-employed lobsterman who works the waters off Harpswell, one of my favorite spots in the midcoast Maine area. His enviable commute to work consists of walking about 25 yards from his back porch to his 26 foot lobster boat, the Queen Tut. His commute might be pleasant but that is the only aspect of a lobsterman’s …
Mindful Leadership
Did you hear the story about the fellow who was walking through the Broadway theater district in New York and was accosted by a frantic stage manager? The stage manager told him that he needed to find a replacement for an actor that had suddenly come down with a case of laryngitis. The curtain was going up in 10 minutes …
Three Grandfathers
I hope that you had a wonderful Father’s Day and were able to share some old memories and perhaps create some new ones as well. Now that I have completed my ascent to that third rung on the generational ladder, I feel a keener appreciation for the lifelong reach of my grandfathers’ influence. My grandfathers, Jack and Sam, had very …
Six Ways Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) Contribute To Employer Health & Wellness Initiatives
The business community is developing a variety of interventions that are designed to improve the health and productivity of employees while controlling their health care costs. Employers are well-positioned to positively influence employee health and behavioral choices with a wide array of tools including: financial incentives to reward positive health behaviors, healthy food choices in the cafeteria, effective management practices …
EAP Essentials #4: How Employee Assistance Programs Support Employees With Dependent Care Issues
Most EAPs offer organizations integrated dependent care resource and referral services (for children and the elderly). Typically, dependent care services are accessed through by phone (some EAPs make this service available 24/7) or via the EAP website. There is significant variation, however, in what these services offer employees and how they are actually delivered. Some EAPs provide employees with information …
Reduce Employee Burnout, Increase Employee Engagement
The idea of employee burnout been in circulation since the 1970s and continues to be relevant in contemporary discussions of job stress and the employee experience of work. The original burnout metaphor refers to the smothering of a fire or the extinguishing of a candle by depriving it of the resources (oxygen) it needs to burn brightly. By extension, the …
Micromanagers Waste Human Capital in the Name of Leadership
You know them. They are the management equivalent of helicopter parents (without the personal commitment and attachment). They hover over the work of their employees and they insist on inspecting and controlling the smallest details of a project. They are irritated by employee initiative and insist on being consulted on all decisions, even those well within the scope of the …
Connecting the Dots: Management Training & Employee Health and Productivity
When an employee reports being sickened at work by toxic fumes leaking into their work area, most organizations will carefully and expeditiously investigate the matter. We expect them to seek out the origin of the fumes and engineer a solution that protects employees from illness and the organization from liability. It would be short sighted and foolish, not to mention …
A Time To Reconnect With Estranged Family & Friends
This has been a week of strong emotions. The sudden and wanton destruction of lives at the Boston Marathon finish line briefly shattered our sense of safety and compelled us to think about our shared human mortality and vulnerability. We reached out urgently to connect with friends and family members in Boston. Most of us were overjoyed to learn our …
How Small Changes Can Lead To Big Gains
“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way …
EAP Essentials #3: The Business Case for Employee Assistance Program Mental Health Services
The compelling logic that supports organizations investing in EAP mental health and substance abuse services is based on some well-documented facts*: Mental health and substance abuse disorders are prevalent in the workplace In the U.S. 30-40% of the population experience mental health and/or substance abuse disorders at some point in their lives 15-20% require professional assistance in a given year …
A Wealth Of Information Creates A Poverty Of Attention
We are increasingly awash in information. The remote gives us faster access to the information on television and Google gives us instantaneous access to the expanding universe of internet based information. Our phones, email and social media give us continuous and real time updates on our friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues. We are buyers and sellers in an information economy. …
Small Change, Big Gain: The Benefits of Smiling
Even the “show me the numbers” folks over at the Wall Street Journal are alerting their readers to the fascinating body of research demonstrating the positive impact of smiling. It appears that remembering to smile more could pay off in a variety of ways including better heart health and lower stress levels. The idea that facial expressions don’t just reveal emotions …
EAP Essentials #2: How Employee Assistance Programs Help Managers Improve Employee Performance
When it comes to balancing work and personal life managers have a double challenge. They not only have to figure out how to make work and home trade offs for their own well-being, they are also charged with the responsibility to be fair and responsive to their employees who are trying to manage the same challenges. Employees routinely talk their …
EAP Essentials: How Employee Assistance Programs Support Organizations During A Crisis
A group of employees witnessed a fellow worker fall to his death. He slipped and fell while working on a catwalk high above the production floor. The HR manager who made the initial call for support to the EAP said that some workers were crying openly while others were leaving the plant to go home. The plant manager, who had …
The Night The Kids Drove Me Crazy & Harry The Happy Boy Came To Dinner
Maybe you have had the thought, especially in this final phase of cabin fever season: “I am losing it. The parent I want to be is leaving the building and a lunatic is poised to take his place.” This is a true story that took place on a Tuesday night many winters ago. I know it was a Tuesday because …
Six Tips for Minimizing Commuting Stress
It’s not your imagination. It’s a hard cold fact. Researchers at Texas A&M, after collecting data on auto speeds on most major roads every 15 minutes every day of the year, have concluded in their 2012 Annual Urban Mobility Report that traffic congestion is wicked bad. To be more precise, the average commuter loses 38 hours – nearly a week …
Telecommuting & The Snowstorm Named Nemo
As the Northeast digs out from the storm named Nemo, I am thinking about the status of telecommuting in the workplace. I haven’t seen the numbers on this yet, but I would wager that a record number of Massachusetts employees were working from home last Friday as this super storm approached and the governor ordered everyone off the roads. The …
The Most Important Employee Motivator
EAP professionals don’t need a Gallup pollster to tell them that many Americans are feeling distressed about their jobs and work environments. We see the evidence every day in our offices: employees who are discouraged, running on empty and preoccupied by thoughts of “getting out.” The good news is that managers don’t need a big budget or anyone else’s permission …
Caring For Elders: 6 Ways To Reduce Caregiver Stress
Providing ongoing care and support to an elder can evoke mixed emotions ranging from a sense of accomplishment and pride to guilt, anger and frustration. The 2012 American Time Use Survey reveals that nearly one quarter of those between the ages of 45-64 identify themselves as elder care providers. Caregiving can be stressful and difficult: 20% of caregivers are providing …
My Boss Was Tarred and Feathered by the KKK
This week’s blog, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, has been published on the WBUR Cognoscenti website.
Sleep Faster, We Need The Pillows: 10 Tips For Slowing Down Stress
When that feeling of being under so much pressure at work starts to carry over and you feel just as driven at home, it’s time to slow down, not speed up. We have gotten very good at doing more in less time, undertaking several things at once, processing ever more information, and constantly reacting with split second decisions. But these …
Twenty Ways We Can Help You & Your Family
1. Professional assessment and short-term counseling for any personal problem or concern. 2. Experienced consultation on improving workplace relationships with peers and/or managers. 3. Guidance to help determine what mental health counseling approach will work best, based on communication style, goals, insurance and ability to pay. 4. Consultation focused on improving communication effectiveness at home and/or …
What Were Your Best Moments In 2012?
We love lists and we particularly love “best of” lists. During the last days of December, the print and electronic media are brimming with the seasonal staples: “THE BEST (WORST) MOVIES/STORIES/BOOKS/ENTERTAINERS/GADGETS/SONGS/ETC OF THE YEAR” lists. December’s steady diet of top ten lists will soon be followed by January’s abundance of New Year’s resolutions. Lists are an efficient way of organizing …
Sometimes the Hardest Part of Change is Getting Started
Before color tv and before personal computing and long before the internet, my portal to the outside world was a glossy magazine called TV Guide. Our copy came in the mail every week and I studied it carefully. I couldn’t read yet but I remember being captivated by the cover photos of television celebrities: every week a different entertainer was …
The Best Holiday Gift You Can Give Your Coworkers
It’s that time of year again. The season of family gatherings, work festivities and vivid memories is upon us with all its promises, demands, traditions and expectations. In the spirit of inclusiveness we have learned to say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” as a gesture of recognition for those who may not celebrate in the Christian tradition. Our developing …
Opiate of the Mrs. – 5 Tips For A Successful Two Career Marriage
In a couple of weeks I will celebrate my 44th wedding anniversary. I’m not bragging. Honestly, I feel lucky that I didn’t screw it up when I think how very young and immature and needy I was at the outset. Like all marriages, mine dodged a few bullets along the way and should be considered a work in progress, but …
Our Love/Hate Relationship With Change
Many of us have a love-hate relationship when it comes to making changes in our life. We think a lot about wanting to eat better, exercise more, drink less, manage our time more productively, be kinder and gentler with our loved ones, and continually improve our current selves. The desire for self-improvement is a hard-wired component of human nature, an …
Corn Beef on Rye With a Side of Business Vision
In 1982, Zingerman’s Deli served their first magnificent overstuffed sandwich in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The founders, Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, were united by their dream of the perfect corn beef on rye. That year was my (lucky) 13th year in Ann Arbor and I just couldn’t get enough of their insanely addictive food. I left Ann Arbor in 1983, …
Veterans in the Workplace
Of the 21.5 million veterans in the United States, 9.1 million are currently in the workforce. Ninety thousand troops will be looking for their place in the workforce in the next two years as they return (many after multiple tours) from Afghanistan. A million service members will be leaving active duty over the next 5 years according to government estimates. …
Humility and Stress in the Age of Digital Steroids
In an age where we all can be broadcasters and publishers and personal brands and some of us have hundreds or thousands of friends and followers, the idea of humility may seem a bit quaint and dated. However, in an age of always on, always connected and need it a millisecond faster, humility can be a powerful antidote to the …
Vulnerability & Leadership
One of the best things about social media is that it gives us daily access to the wonderful world of serendipity. Here I am scrolling through my Facebook feed of baby pictures, spam, political and social appeals, and miscellaneous artifacts of friends and family when I see a post from a friend linking to a Ted Talk by Dr. Brene …
When Domestic Violence Comes to Work
“Domestic violence is absolutely a workplace issue. When a victim of domestic violence leaves their abuser, where is the one place the abuser knows the victim will be every day? Work.” Cambridge (MA) Domestic Violence Advocate October is Domestic Violence Month and the occasion presents an opportunity for organizations to review their preparedness to manage these high risk situations. Of …
The Engines of Individual Motivation
Three years ago this month Microsoft shut down its Encarta website and acknowledged the obvious – that its encyclopedia had absolutely no chance of competing with Wikipedia. In 2009, Wikipedia – a free collaborative project – was getting 97% of the online encyclopedia visits in the United States. Encarta, after 16 years of trying, was a distant second with 1.27% …
5 Ways EAP Expertise Improves Your Organization’s Performance
1. EAPs improve early identification and intervention for employees with mental health and substance abuse disorders. 30-40% of your employees will experience mental health and/or substance abuse disorders at some point in their lives. Depression accounts for as much medical and disability cost as hypertension, diabetes, back problems and heart disease. The positive impacts of early intervention for an organization include: savings …
Four Tools For Getting Unstuck
Who doesn’t hate the feeling of being stuck? Whether it’s stuck in traffic or stuck in a business meeting that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, the experience of being captive can be excruciating. Frustration and irritation rapidly escalate when we sense that we are wasting our time and missing an opportunity to do something we want to do. The …
Help, I Just Went to School With No Clothes On!
At the end of the summer I can be certain that on the first cool sleeping night, when early fall is in the air, I will have my prototypical school anxiety dream. It’s a lock. I was predicting this annual event last week to an HR colleague who said: “I thought I was the only one who had those.” Judging …
Never Worry Alone
Last month, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) added to its list of honors by moving into the number one spot on the 2012-13 U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Hospitals” list. MGH is a complex institution with more than 23,000 employees that handles some of the world’s most difficult and complicated cases. Hospital staff arrive at work every day knowing …
Workplace Violence At The Empire State Building
At around 9 am this past Friday (8/24) Jeffrey Johnson shot and killed his former coworker, Steven Ercolino, at the Hazan Import Co. in New York City. Minutes later the police shot and killed Mr. Johnson as he was attempting to leave the scene. Mr. Johnson, 58 years old, was laid off last year from his position as a clothing …
Warning: Vegging Out Can Be Very Stressful
Every morning I wake up and, after having a cup of coffee and reading The Boston Globe, I go to work on the Sudoku puzzle. Like millions of other people I look forward to testing myself against the day’s 9×9 grid. We puzzle people (let’s not forget the crossword folks) happily engage with this task even though we are never …
Breaking News: Happy Outperforms Grumpy
While we do not have access to the performance appraisals Snow White might have completed for Happy and Grumpy , the business research consistently demonstrates that happy employees produce more, miss less work, are less likely to quit and make a greater commitment to their jobs than grumpy employees. In their recent review of this research in the Harvard Business …
True Grit: Why Learning To Fail Is The Secret To Success
“Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting” Christopher Morley Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb 6000 times before he finally figured out that he could make a filament for the electric light out of carbonized cotton thread. Edison is the presumed author of the phrase: “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.” While it’s an appealing …
The Kindness Challenge
The signature of Tom Peter’s iconic first book, “In Search of Excellence” was the following 6 words: “Hard is soft. Soft is hard”. He was talking about how “hard” financial numbers can be easily manipulated and “hard” business plans can be nothing more than fabricated flights of fancy. The true hard stuff, he maintains, is something business often undervalues as …
Sorry, Charlie! We Don’t Want Tuna With Good Taste, We Want Tuna That Taste Good
Thank you Ira Glass. For those of you who do not know Mr. Glass, he is the creative force behind ”This American Life” which is an insanely good and quirky radio program on NPR. Ira is a consummate story teller but this wasn’t always the case. In a jewel of a video, he describes the sizeable gap between his taste in …
“Free” EAP Is Really “Pretend” EAP
I am completely amazed that there has not been more debate surrounding the emergence of the so-called “free” EAP that is being offered as a throw in by some carriers as a way to attract business to their more profitable insurance products. Let’s start by calling this “free” EAP by its real name which is “pretend” EAP. “Pretend” EAPs offer …
What Are You Getting America for her 236th Birthday?
My father Charles (center) with his two brothers Joseph & Irving circa 1942 I’ve been thinking a lot about getting our country a gift on her birthday this year. But what can I give a country that already has so much? What can I give that has value and significance? When I was about 5 years old, I remember my father …
Discover the Power of Positive Reinforcement
What if I told you that there was an empirically validated tool which gives managers the capacity to improve employee performance and discretionary effort while simultaneously reducing their stress and improving their creativity? Let me sweeten the deal by telling you that this tool does not require a budget and you don’t need permission to adopt it. The “silver bullet” …
Be From The Land of I Don’t Know
We invite a lot of gratuitous psychological trouble when we convince ourselves that we fully understand the motivations of the people around us at home and at work. You can save yourself a boatload of stress and unhappiness simply by making a commitment to be from the land of “I don’t know.” Just because we have the mental capacity to …
Goldilocks, Peak Performance & Stress: Finding “The Zone”
When it comes to stress, if the soup’s too hot you can strain your heart, increase your risk of chronic disease, weaken your immune system, be distracted by worry, become irritable and pessimistic and find yourself making poor decisions. And if the soups too cold you risk boredom, lethargy and lack of motivation and engagement. But if the soup is …
Welcome To Stress.Health.Business.
For the past 32 years I have had a front row seat at the ongoing drama of elation, disappointment, achievement, loss, bravery and betrayal that occurs every day in the world of business. This has been the sustaining and motivating privilege of working all these years in the EAP profession. Employees and managers and family members have trusted me to …
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