This is a first, this week’s blog is a letter to a friend. But I think the message applies to a many people out there. Heck, if the shoe fits, consider this your New Year’s Resolution…

Dear R.

If Eskimos have many different words for snow, you have a similar huge repertoire of ways to put yourself down, to diminish your accomplishments. I wish you could watch yourself, you’re ruthless at attacking any compliment that’s thrown your way. It’s like a more efficient version of the old Star Wars missile defense shield, every compliment is shot down long before it reaches its intended target.

Okay, I think a little self-doubt can be a great thing. Lord knows, a number of people have told me that through the years. But in your case you not only don’t get the buzz off people saying nice things about you, you put energy into attacking what they say. It must be incredibly tiring.

I have a simple rule. If all of the people around me believe that I’ve got what it takes to get the job done, even if I have my doubts, I can be persuaded to accept their point of view. Especially when the people who are tossing bon mots are clearly experienced, savvy and insightful.

So here is your homework assignment. Practice saying, “Thank you Bob.” “Thank you J.” “Thank you D.” Don’t let Nancy Negative take hold, just practice the art of graciously accepting compliments tossed your way. Given how few and far between they are for most of us, it’s a silly source of fuel for you to squander.

40 hours a week is tough enough. Treat compliments like the ballast that allows you to survive the workplace grind. In fact, I even know people who keep a file of nice things that have been written to them. One woman, would even write down compliments that were said to her and put then in her file. She calls it her “victory file” and she reads it on those tough days when everything is going wrong to put herself back into a more positive frame of mind.

You might never get rid of those negative thoughts rattling around inside your head. That said, just because they’re there, doesn’t mean that you have to listen, or act, on them. You can just let them fall on deaf ears. Your own.

Again, I’m a fan. I think you have a lot of potential for helping to take us to the next level. But we all need you to stop beating yourself up and putting all that energy into moving all of us forward. We can afford to squander any energy with the challenges that lay ahead of us.

So please consider this a pat on the back. And a kick in the butt.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Recently I saw an excellent speaker at an HR conference. She was enthusiastic, smart, well read and incredibly informed on her subject. Her topic was increasing employee involvement and I was very interested in her presentation.

Turns out she’d worked for a big company and she’d pioneered using online bulletin boards to solve work, and non-work related problems, by giving them a common space to solve problems. She gave examples of corporate problems that were solved quickly and efficiently. There was even a story about a worker who was able to locate a donor match for surgery quickly and efficiently.

There was only one problem, she never got the audience involved. During previous sessions speakers got the audience involved asking questions, making comments and offering solutions. It was truly an interactive experience.

But during the talk on employee involvement, nada. One person asked a question in ninety minutes. One.

Her session had great information. But she never modeled the topic she focused on, getting people involved.

We all have to be careful when we try to cut the same kind of corners at work. We should understand that our words are important, but not usually the most important part of our presentations. No, there is often a much bigger message that we need to understand and respect if our message is to gain maximum leverage for our audience.

It’s our actions. Read the speech that you’re about to give to see if your actions are aligned with it.

If they aren’t aligned, you’ve got options. You can increase your walk. You can decrease your talk. Anything to get them aligned will help the cause. Yours!

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Last week a friend stopped by who’d just been riffed by Microsoft (reduction in force, for the luckily uninitiated).

She spoke angrily about the HR woman who answered most of her questions wrong concerning her severance and departure from the company. Initially my friend was told there was no severance beyond six weeks and her layoff would leave her just short of the date where she’d be fully invested in her pension. Later she talked to a more senior HR staffer who reassured her that she would receive enough additional time to receive her pension.

Misinformation. It happens all the time. But I can think of few times more painful than when you are getting laid off to get bad information. In football the term for this would be piling on. And yet I hear from people all the time who have to go through an experience that would be difficult enough by itself, getting laid off, but then the salt water is poured in their wounds by insensitive or incompetent HR or management staff.

Let me lay a card or two on the table. I like the vast majority of Human Resources people I’ve met through the years. I’ve spoken at HR conferences, I’ve written for HR publications and I consider many HR people to be my friends. This shouldn’t be surprising because I like people with heart.

It pains me when people in HR forget that they need to be the bridge between the company and its people, rather than just serving as an agent for the company.

Let me explain. I once spoke at a HR conference. I began by asking if audience members grew up with an adult’s table and a children’s table at big family events like Thanksgiving. Most of the audience smiled and said they had.

I then asked a simple question, as an HR person, which table do you sit at where you work, the adult’s table or the children’s table? For the rest of the session, every person who spoke began by saying that they sat at the adult’s table and then they explained why. “I have a great relationship with the CEO and board.” “I attend executive staff meetings.” “I report directly to the CEO,” were typical responses.

Oh, there was one exception. At the very end of the session one HR director said that she preferred the children’s table because you could play with your food, there weren’t a bunch of annoying rules and meals were always fun.

The correct answer concerning which table is either “both” or “neither.” The most effective HR people must be able to mix it up at both the adult and children’s table, but they should never allow just one audience—executives or employees—to dominate their thinking. Because, to be effective, they need to be a bridge between both groups.

It is tough to have to fit in both in the rarefied air at the top of the corporation and in the trenches where the work really gets done. Let’s just give thanks that there are people out there who can.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

A recent survey by The Conference Board, a not-for-profit organization that disseminates information about business management and economic trends, showed that job satisfaction in America hit a record low in 2009.  Part of the problem is managers who run roughshod over morale.  Part of the solution is employee surveys that provide an underpinning for managers’ performance appraisals.

Formal grievance procedures against miscreant managers are a drastic option, and often bring adversity to the whistleblower.  But so-called “upward assessments” empower subordinates by giving them input into management performance appraisals.  Measuring management behavior, not some nebulous notion that “the company cares about its people,” will rein in abusive managers simply because once something is measured, it generally improves.

I don’t need to refer to the human resource trend du jour — I already know this because my previous manager was Darth Vader reincarnate.  Recognizing the threat to his evil little empire, he usurped the survey process, twisting it to the dark side.

Published norms, articles about workplace bullying, quarterly process meetings and retreats were all his decoys, but his ultimate subterfuge was the employee survey.   He cunningly constructed this devious document to shirk responsibility and shroud his malice.  His dastardly plot recognized that direct surveys represented a powerful check upon his unfettered malevolence.

When I started this job I was bemused that our 25-person department had its own set of norms:  ten principles that basically boiled down to the golden rule.  Everyone else in our large organization was content to operate under organization-wide principles.

On the surface, our department was a group of top-notch professionals working in accord.   It seemed we had struck the optimal balance between efficiency, effectiveness and employee moral, but why did we have a special set of norms, I wondered?   Why were they plastered everywhere:  on the conference room walls, on our manager’s door, in meeting rooms?  One could not walk more than a few yards without encountering them.

I was new, but no one on our team seemed capable of belittling, intimidating, disrespecting or otherwise mistreating a co-worker.  Was this because of the norms?  Or was something more sinister at play that the norms were hiding?

A few months after I started it was time for my first quarterly “process” meeting.  As far as I could tell, this was rare, if not unique to our department.   Part of the unusual agenda called for a discussion of our norms and a potential employee survey.  An extra copy of our norms was posted on the meeting room door, almost as if there had been a recent breach of etiquette.  There had been, many breaches, the perpetrator ambushing her victims then squirming to our manager Darth for refuge.

As I ventured more frequently into various domains within our organization I noticed people wincing when I told them where I worked.  But I was new, an innocent wookie oblivious to the dark side of the force.  I went about my merry way even as my day or reckoning drew closer.

Our next departmental oddity was our yearly retreat.  Wait a minute; retreats are for dysfunctional teams, aren’t they?   I remembered from business school they might be an appropriate venue for an organization that manufactured widgets even while marketing was promoting screws and operations was into nails.  Clearly, they needed a retreat, but not our small, laser-focused workgroup; unless, of course, this was part of the elaborate charade.

It was, and my days of blissful ignorance were ripped asunder back at H.Q. when I fell into the crosshairs of Darth’s personal assistant.  Apparently, my tendency to ponder nuances annoyed her.  For daring to suggest that inventory items need to be entered into a database for proper tracking I was publicly excoriated.  Such was her venom that several witnesses were quite shaken, a 12-year veteran of salty Navy language, I was even taken aback but maintained enough composure to suggest she read our norms.

I was beginning to connect the dots.  Our department’s public image was but a cover up, all a happy face on a veil that concealed the twisted anger of an ogre who was mollycoddled by lord Vader himself.

I was but the latest victim of a long line of rapacious rampages where employee pride and self-confidence were laid waste.  No wonder everyone was so compliant and cooperative, they had succumbed.  After each devastating raid, our resident ogre sought respite in Darth’s chamber.  Job done, she then retreated to her cube to suddenly transform into the public image of serenity beneath her conspicuous copy of our incongruous norms.

Now I knew why everyone winced, everyone except unaware upper-level management.  Job satisfaction is good for productivity so they must be informed.   Not through formal grievance procedures,  but by eliciting employee input into our manager’s performance appraisals, Darth could be redeemed, and the ogre laid bare and slain.

By attempting to hijack it, our manager had shown his repressive regime’s soft underbelly: the employee survey.   His rendition was an utterly corrupt and deceitful document that deliberately avoided questions about management, misdirecting potential blame to feeble droids.  The sham demonstrated that a targeted survey could be powerful straightjacket on managers disposed to running amok.

An employee survey designed to elicit upward feedback would shine light into the dank crypt where he and trusted assistant conspired to wreak havoc.  Executives could then expose the tyranny lest another promising career be dashed.  Powerful energies aimed at self-preservation could be unleashed toward productive ends, and that represents a big disturbance in the force for good.

About the Author: Noel S. Williams currently enjoys work as an Information Technology Specialist.  While he also holds a master’s degree in Human Resource Management, it is his training as Jedi Knight that gives him the fortitude to delve into the dark side of workplace unfairness.

Inc. magazine and the nonprofit I work for, Winning Workplaces, have partnered to find and recognize exemplary workplaces; those that motivate, engage and reward people. A model workplace can offer a critical competitive edge, ultimately retaining employees and boosting the bottom line.

Together, Inc. and Winning Workplaces will identify and honor those benchmark small and mid-sized businesses that offer truly innovative, supportive environments, thus achieving significant, sustainable business results.

“Growing, privately held companies have always excelled at competing based on the people they employ,” states Jane Berentson, Editor of Inc. magazine. “Their innate ability to innovate is woven throughout their cultures, including the way they manage and motivate their employees. Inc.’s partnership with Winning Workplaces is a great opportunity to fully recognize private company excellence in supporting their human capital.”

“Winning Workplaces is thrilled to partner with Inc. as we honor truly exemplary organizations who have created workplaces that are better for people; better for business; and better for society,” said Gaye van den Hombergh, President, Winning Workplaces. “These organizations are an inspiration to business leaders looking for ways to leverage their people practices to create more profitable and sustainable companies.”

The application process is open through January 22, 2010. To apply, go to tsw.winningworkplaces.org. The Top Small Company Workplaces will be announced in a special issue of Inc., which will be available on newsstands June 8, 2010, and on Inc.com in June. An awards ceremony, honoring the finalists and winners, will be held at the national Inc. On Leadership Conference in October 2010.

About Inc. magazine
Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, Inc. magazine (www.inc.com) is the only major business magazine dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies that delivers real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. With a total paid circulation of 724,110, Inc. provides hands-on tools and market-tested strategies for managing people, finances, sales, marketing and technology.

About Winning Workplaces
Winning Workplaces (www.winningworkplaces.org) is an Evanston, IL-based not-for-profit, whose mission is to help the leaders of small and mid-sized organizations create great workplaces. Founded in 2001, Winning Workplaces serves as a clearinghouse of information on workplace best practices, provides seminars and workshops on workplace-related topics and inspires and awards top workplaces through its annual Top Small Company Workplaces initiative.

About the Author: Mark Harbeke ensures that content on Winning Workplaces’ website is up-to-date, accurate and engaging. He also writes and edits their monthly e-newsletter, Ideas, and provides graphic design and marketing support. His experience includes serving as editorial assistant for Meredith Corporation’s Midwest Living magazine title, publications editor for Visionation, Ltd., and proofreader for the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Drake University. Winning Workplaces is a not-for-profit providing consulting, training and information to help small and midsize organizations create great workplaces. Too often, the information and resources needed to create a high-performance workplace are out of reach for all but the largest organizations. Winning Workplaces is changing that by offering employers affordable consulting, training and information.

An ongoing labor story here in Boston underscores why jobs and employment must remain one of our highest political, economic, and policy priorities. It involves three Hyatt hotels whose management abruptly terminated some 100 housekeeping workers after having them train replacement workers from a Georgia-based contracting company. The workers claim they were deceived into thinking they were training vacation fill-ins.

As reported last week in the Boston Globe:

When the housekeepers at the three Hyatt hotels in the Boston area were asked to train some new workers, they said they were told the trainees would be filling in during vacations.

On Aug. 31, staffers learned the full story: None of them would be making the beds and cleaning the showers any longer. All of them were losing their jobs. The trainees, it turns out, were employees of a Georgia company, Hospitality Staffing Solutions, who were replacing them that day.

Labor advocates and elected officials have responded with dismay and outrage, and with good reason. Hyatt employees with 20 years service were making a modest wage of a little over $13/hour plus benefits, which based on a full-time work week adds up to annual earnings of around $26,000. Their replacements will earn about $8/hour, which leads to annual earnings of around $17,000. Hyatt, in effect, has eliminated 100 jobs that pay barely a living wage and replaced them with jobs that pay less than subsistence wages in an expensive metro area like Boston.

In response to the growing firestorm, the Hyatt Corporation said that it is setting up a task force to help the terminated workers find employment and extending their health benefits to the end of the year. This strikes me as being too little, too late, and a shallow attempt to look better in the public eye.

Contracting has become a common form of replacing full-time employees, and at times, economic necessity may require changes in staffing arrangements. But one has to wonder about the social responsibility and ethics of a major corporation that deems loyal 20-year employees earning $26,000 “too expensive.” And if the allegations about deceiving their workers into training their replacements are true, then we can only wonder if they have any decency.

On a broader scale, this disturbing situation raises at least three questions that are front and center when we consider jobs and employment:

1. How can we create an economy that delivers a living wage for all who work to support themselves and their families?

2. The Hyatt workers were not unionized. How can we encourage unionization as one path toward safeguarding America’s workers from this type of sudden, devastating job loss?

3. How can we ensure a viable safety net of health care benefits, transitional income replacement, and placement assistance for those who have lost their jobs?

About the Author: David Yamada is the Founder of New Workplace Institute and a Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. He is an internationally recognized authority on workplace bullying and psychologically abusive work environments, having written leading analyses of workplace bullying and the law and authored the Healthy Workplace Bill, model anti-bullying legislation that has been the basis of bills introduced in over a dozen state legislatures since 2003.  For more about David’s background, see his bio at: http://law.suffolk.edu/faculty/directories/faculty.cfm?InstructorID=59.

This article originally appeared in Minding the Workplace on September 24, 2009. Reprinted with permission by the author.