We wrote about the tremendous costs of stress to organizations. It’s also known that one of the key stressors for employees consists in conflictual relations with their manager. Below is a nice, less than 2 minutes video detailing all the damage it does to the companies.

The film ends by the invitation to “learn more about HR programs.” One comment on Youtube just below the video is blunt: “HR programs in most Fortune 500 are simply the strong arms of bad management.”

Indeed, in order to propose the cure one must establish the diagnosis. Companies are pouring millions into training their managers and undoubtedly, over the years, many improved, learning how to listen better, involve, trust. Yet, as the readers of “Freedom, Inc.” know there is so much a good manager can do within a hierarchical bureaucracy—a fertile ground for the bad managers and an arid ground for the good ones.

So watch the film meanwhile.

Laurent is a friend and we share our views on corporate liberation.

He recently attended an event in Lille, France where several cases have been highlighted.

Read here his report.

Blog’s note: This is an ultimate book on “How”. We found many of its simple tips inspiring (such as if you have something to be done and can’t do it in 2 minutes write it down somewhere—calendar, to-do list, even a piece of paper—but get it out of your mind or it soon will be swamped with all the things you still have to do and which buzz in your mind as a cloud of mosquitos). That said, we were happily surprized by the book’s two pages (64-65) reminding the reader of the importance of “why” : without a clear “why” there is no reason to look for the “how”.

Read the book’s excerpt below.

The Value of Thinking About “Why”

Here are just some of the benefits of asking “why?”:

•  It defines success.
•  It creates decision-making criteria.
•  It aligns resources.
•  It motivates.
•  It clarifies focus.
•  It expands options.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these in turn.

It Defines Success   People are starved for “wins” these days. We love to play games, and we like to win, or at least be in a position where we could win. And if you’re not totally clear about the purpose of what you’re doing, you have no chance of winning. Purpose defines success. It’s the primal reference point for any investment of time and energy, from deciding to fun for elective office to designing a form.

Ultimately you can’t feel good about a staff meeting unless you know what the purpose of the meeting was. And if you want to sleep well, you’d better have a good answer when your board asks why you fired your V.P. of marketing or hired that hotshot M.B.A. as your new finance director. You won’t really know whether or not your business plan is any good until you hold it up against the success criterion that you define by answering the question “Why do we need a business plan?”

It Creates Decision-Making Criteria  How do you decide whether to spend the money for a five-color brochure or just go with a two-color? How do you know whether it’s worth hiring a major Web design firm to handle your new Web site?

It all comes down to purpose.  Given what you’re trying to accomplish, are these resource investments required, and if so, which ones? There’s no way to know until the purpose is clarified.

It Aligns Resources  How should we spend our staffing allocation in the corporate budget? How do we best use the cash flow right now to maximize our viability as a retailer over the next year? Should we spend more money on the luncheon or the speakers for the monthly association meeting?

In each case, the answer depends on what we’re really trying to accomplish—the why.

It Motivates  Let’s face it: if there’s no good reason to be doing something, it’s not worth doing. I’m often stunned by how many people have forgotten why they’re doing what they’re doing—and by how quickly a simple question like “Why are you doing that?” can get them back on track.

It Clarifies Focus  When you land on the real purpose for anything you’re doing, it makes things clearer. Just taking two minutes and writing out your primary reason for doing something invariably creates an increased sharpness of vision, much like bringing a telescope into focus. Frequently, projects and situations that have begun to feel scattered and blurred grow clearer when someone brings it back home by asking, “What are we really trying to accomplish here?”

It Expands Options  Paradoxically, even as purpose brings things into pinpoint focus, it opens up creative thinking about wider possibilities. When you really know the underlying “why”—for the conference, for the staff party, for the elimination of the management position, or for the merger—it expands your thinking about how to make the desired result happen…

Is your purpose clear and specific enough? If you’re truly experiencing the benefits of a purpose focus—motivation, clarity, decision-making criteria, alignment, and creativity—then your purpose probably is specific enough. But many “purpose statements” are too vague to produce such results. “To have a good department,” for example, might be too broad a goal. After all, what constitutes a “good department”? Is it a group of people who are highly motivated, collaborating in healthy ways, and taking initiative? Or is it a department that comes in under budget? In other words, if you don’t really know when you’ve met your purpose or when you’re off track, you don’t have a viable directive. The question “How will I know when this is off-purpose?” must have a clear answer.

Who’s the Boss? There Isn’t One

By Rachel Emma Silverman

June 19, 2012

BLOG’S INTRO: A recent article on a freedom-based company we know—Gore—and a more recent company—Valve. It’s always interesting to learn about new Freedom Incs. and we hope this WSJ article will inspire some to liberate their own companies—one of the most difficult leader’s tasks, one we tried to help with by writing our book.

Like many tech companies, Valve Corp., a videogame maker in Bellevue, Wash., boasts high-end espresso, free massages and laundry service at its offices.

One thing it doesn’t have: bosses

Valve, whose website says the company has been “boss free” since its founding in 1996, also has no managers or assigned projects. Instead, its 300 employees recruit colleagues to work on projects they think are worthwhile. The company prizes mobility so much that workers’ desks are mounted on wheels, allowing them to scoot around to form work areas as they choose.

Welcome to the bossless company, where the hierarchy is flat, pay is often determined by peers, and the workday is directed by employees themselves.

So, how does anyone get things done?

You can read the full article here

By www.elsua.net

If there is one topic out there in the field of Social Business that has been bugging me for a long while, as perhaps one of my strongest pet peeves ever, way even before we first started using the concepts of Social Business and Enterprise 2.0, that would be the one on Employee Engagement. More than anything else, because all along I have always felt that employee engagement is a myth. A huge one, actually! It’s a one way lane that has been imposed over us by the business world as perhaps the Holy Grail  of social networking. Essentially, the main reason why the corporate world is looking into social networks as the next big thing, because there seems to be this notion that social networking empowers knowledge workers to be more engaged, therefore happier, more motivated and committed, resulting in happy employees delighting happy customers. How wrong!! My goodness! Why have we let employee engagement take over the entire conversation in the Social space, when it doesn’t even exist in the first place?!?

You can read the full post here.

By LISA BODELL

Wall Street Journal, Small Business, July 31, 2012

Right now, somewhere in your company, one of your employees is rolling his eyes. Make no mistake, it’s because of a policy or rule that leadership created.

The eye-roll—and its cousin, the defeated shrug—are the silent protests of people in every area of your company.

If you want to know the true source and depth of their frustration, there’s only one surefire way: Invite them to a brainstorming meeting.

Once you have gathered your teams together, provide blank sticky notes and ask everyone to pair up. Then present this question: If you could kill or change all the stupid rules that get in the way of doing your work or better servicing our clients, what would they be?

You can read the full article here.

Bloomberg UTV’s “The Date Pathbreakers”

“Nayar was appointed president of HCL Technologies in April 2005. He went on to reshape the organization with his ‘Employee First, Customer Second’ philosophy, which placed the needs of the employee before those of the customer,” writes Wiki. HCL became the 4th largest Indian IT company with more than $3 billion in sales and more than 80,000 employees.

Nayar has famously said that employees are not monkeys though most are treated like they were.

Nayar’s philosophy is quite similar to the Freedom Inc.’s one which is why we feature here a 20-something minutes programme with him on the HCL’s premises. For those who want to hear Nayar explaining his philosophy in an interview you’ll find it below in this post. Enjoy both.

Google is supposed to be the perfect place to start a career. Many recent surveys have pictured the search giant as the world’s most attractive employer, with famous perks as the twenty percent free-time being highlighted by many as HR best practices. I visited Google’s offices in Paris, where an employee told me “Google spoils us,” and in Tel Aviv, where besides free food at all times, employees also have access to a 3D printer, a fully equipped music room, giant legos, a pinball machine, NintendoWii, and more, much more.

At Google offices employees have free food at all times and many other treats. However, there are young people turning down job offers from the search giant. More Google Office Pictures here

However, there are some young people turning down offers to work in the company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Some suggest the two main reasons to refuse working for Google is not being insane but to start their own company or to work for a smaller company. This is the case of Clément Delangue, a recent graduate from ESCP Europe, the world’s first business school. Clément has turned down a job offer from Google at a time of economic turmoil where youth unemployment is extremely high.

You can read it here

Here is an interesting op-ed “A more inclusive fabric” by the New York Times editorialist Roger Cohen from March 11, 2012.

It seems that courtesy and civility can guide people behavior not only in some companies (such as Freedom Incs.) but in this jungle called urban street. In preparation for the 2012 Olympics London proves it works. Let’s hope this will serve as another example that self-direction works better than “nannies”–as Roger Cohen puts it–who tell us what to do and punish when we don’t obey.

You can read it here