When People Take The Lineup Into Their Own Hands

Today I was boarding a flight and someone was in my assigned seat. When I inquired about their seat assignment they replied, "Oh, I didn't want to sit in my seat up front so I just took a different one. You can sit somewhere else." Having been through this before, I politely told them I wanted to take my assigned seat so it didn't cause problems when other people boarded the plane. They gave me a disgusted look but moved to a seat close by.

By the time the plane was ready for takeoff, this person had caused 4 other people to have to move to a different seat. It was literally a chain reaction with several people "miffed" at having to sit somewhere else. All because someone wanted to change their place in the "lineup" without thinking about it's impact on others.

The next time you plan on making a change in your lineup, think about how the change will affect those around you. If it's for the better, perfect. If not, and you want to maintain a positive relationship with the other performers, you might want to think again... or come up with a solution that works for them too.

Think Engagement Isn't Important?

In the past two years I have met more than one person who believes that "employee engagement" is highly overrated. If you are one of those people, consider the human resource services company, Kenexa. Their primary focus is to help employers and managers learn how to more fully engage their employees.

Sixty percent of the Fortune 100 companies utilize Kenexa's services. Their revenue has tripled since its IPO in 2005. They now have offices in 18 countries. Some of their findings include research that shows that companies with higher employee satisfaction have a 700% higher shareholder return than other companies.

Rudy Karsan, the CEO, best sums up the impact of their work when he says, "When you're in a job you enjoy and you're good at, you're not just a better worker. You're a better spouse, a better parent and a better citizen." In other words, when you help an employee get their work ring in good order, their whole circus improves.

What manager, supervisor or CEO wouldn't want to make that happen for those who report to them?

National Boss (Ringmaster) Day

Today is National Boss Day. In Juggling Elephants terms, we would call a boss a "ringmaster." In celebration of this day, we thought it might be fun to highlight some interesting statistics about bosses from the October edition of Fast Company Magazine:

• According to a 2008 Yahoo survey, 43% of Americans don't like their bosses' management style.
• In that same survey, 55% agree that people don't leave companies, they leave managers.
• 32% of employees defy orders from their bosses although 86% of Americans give their superiors high marks.
• Companies with at least 3 women on their board averaged a 16.7% return, which is 45% better than the typical company.
• Last year, the highest paid CEO was Larry Ellison, who made 192.9 million dollars.
• The average US income in 2007 was $40,690. For CEOs it was $151,370, and for S&P 500 CEOs it was 8.8 million dollars.
• Of the Fortune 500 companies, only 12 have female CEOs.

Work/Life Balance Is Up To You!

Yahoo Hot Jobs has a timely article on creating a better "work-life balance." The biggest statement came early in the article when it stated, "Finding balance is largely up to employees, rather than employers." With the focus on you, read the article by clicking here.

Multitasking and the Restroom

Studies have shown that the brain is not "wired" to handle complete focus on more than one task at a time. Multi-tasking is truly the brain bouncing back and forth rapidly between two tasks. It is recommended that the most effective multi-tasking is when you are doing mundane or routine tasks that don't require too much thought. (Actually, I must admit that walking and chewing gum at the same time for me is a challenge.)

That being said, I must mention a multi-tasking pet peeve I am seeing way too often. I don't know if this is happening in the Women's Restroom but it happens all the time in the Men's-especially in the airport. Men will go into the restroom while talking on their phones and will carry on a conversation while taking care of business. (I guess you could say that some are taking care of business while taking care of business). I wonder what Emily Post would think about the etiquette of that? Multi-tasking should have some boundaries.

As a side, when someone is talking on the phone in the public restroom and I am next to them, I personally like to see how many times I can flush so that the person on the other end of the phone is wondering what is going on.