The Wave

Welcome to "The Wave"

Here you'll find occasional expert commentary on all things related to workforce change, respect, diversity and leadership by Gregg Ward, CMC - consultant, author, trainer and commentator.

Keeping Politics at Bay in the Workplace

It's fairly obvious the American political scene is red-hot right now. Many of the candidates are making statements about social issues that are designed as "red-meat" for their base voters, but which may be off-putting or even upsetting to those who don't agree.

As leaders, legally it's our job is to ensure that our workplace is free from harassment and discrimination - and this includes harassment and discrimination based on political views.

But from a teamwork and collaboration point of view, keeping politics out of the workplace makes very good business sense. When people disagree politically - especially on the social issues - they're far less likely to respect each other. Without respect, collaboration and teamwork becomes much harder to achieve. And as a result, the work, and the workplace, suffers.

Recommendation to Managers: during the next town hall or all hands meeting, remind everyone that... "Political discussions can make our work relationships more complex. And even though our co-workers may not say anything when we express our political views, we shouldn't assume they agree with us. So, I'd appreciate it if we all kept the political talk to a minimum."  And then move on to other business; there's no need to dwell on the message - people understand and most will be relieved when you say it.

Cain's Sexual Harassment Issues

As you may have heard, the media has been reporting on allegations of sexual harassment against Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain while he was the head of the lobbying group The National Restaurant Association.  I have no intention of weighing in on the politics here; but I can provide some expert commentary on sexual harassment as it relates to business leaders, which Cain was at the time.

On the one hand, Cain is right to claim that the guys at the top (and they are almost always guys) are big, rich targets for employees to aim at when making formal complaints about sexual harassment.  Typically, an employee who is having "performance issues" and worried that their employer may be about to terminate them, will launch a pre-emptive strike at their employer via a formal sexual harassment claim, often at the most senior person.  This will often force the employer to put the performance issues on hold while they investigate the complaints as required by law.  And even if the investigation proves no harassment actually occured, most organizations would prefer to avoid going to court and the bad press, and opt instead to just pay off the employee and separate the relationship after they've signed a non-disclosure agreement.

On the other hand, its just not credible that Cain never heard about the harassment complaints against him as he claimed yesterday (today he admitted he was actually accused). Any proper investigation of harassment allegations includes interviewing the targets of the harassment, any witnesses to the incidents in question, and the alleged perpetrator of the harassment.  So, it's very likely the National Restaurant Association did a proper investigation and that included talking to Herman Cain.

Another incredulity: while it's remotely possible that he wasn't told the outcome of the NRA's investigations or about the terms of its settlements with the two women, as the organization's leader and the man at the center of the accusations, it was probably on his mind. So, he would probably have asked and been told.

Now, if the NRA employees had no "performance issues," then its important that we acknowlege that it took a lot of courage for them to come forward with their claims.  Employees don't just claim harassment for the fun of it: investigations can take a long time, the people who make such claims tend to become pariahs, and there's never any guarantee that good things will result for anyone (except the attorneys, who stand to make a good amount of money).

I have no access to any of the specific facts in this case, but my experience tells me that it's likely that both of the incidents mentioned in the media turned out to be classic "he said/she said" situations where no smoking gun could be found. But in my experience, if claims are made by more than one employee, there's probably some amount of truth buried in there somewhere. Rather than risk a scandal, or tarnish Cain and/or the organization, it appears the NRA offered the two women who complained a 5-figure settlement, had them sign an NDA and allowed them to move on.  At this point, only the NRA's investigators really know if illegal harassment occured.  The public may never know.

As for how this will impact Cain's campaign for President, that's for political pundits to comment on, I'm steering clear.

Death of a Journalist

You may have heard on Wednesday that photo-journalist Tim Hetherington, the co-director of the award-winning documentary film Restrepo, was killed by an RPG while covering the conflict in Lybia.   I blogged about this incredibly powerful and truthful film, which focuses on a company of soldiers in a remote and dangerous outpost in Afghanistan, when it first came out last summer (see below).

National Geographic channel will re-air the film on Monday, April 25th at 9pm.  Please take the time to see Restrepo.

My original post about Restrepo

The Power of Diversity in Egypt

I’ll admit, like many, I’ve been focused non-stop on what’s going on in Egypt.  And as far as I’m concerned, Mubarak couldn’t have slinked away any faster.  BUT, what is really fascinating to me is that this earth-shattering political change was driven yes, by young people, but more importantly, by an incredibly diverse group of young people.

College students, the unemployed, doctors, accountants, taxi drivers, Google executives,  Muslims, Christians, soldiers, administrators, engineers, secularists, you name the group – they played a role in the uprising. If there was any commonality at all among them, it was only the fact that they were all Egyptians by birth, marriage or choice. Their national, historical pride and self-generated people power brought all of these different young Egyptians together.  And working together – trusting each other, including each other, leveraging off each other’s’ strengths and relationships, allowing individuals to put their skills and experiences to the tasks they could do best - they changed the world in a very short period of time.

You see, I’ve been banging the drum of diversity and inclusion for so long I’ve become deaf to myself.  But every now and then something happens – like the revolution in Egypt – that re-energizes me from top to tail.  I’m thinking, "wow, if a diverse group of young people can bring down an all-powerful authoritarian regime; imagine what a diverse group of employees can accomplish in a company that is truly inclusive and actively leverages their diversity – no matter their rank - in pursuit of common goals."

If success in nature comes by leveraging diversity to survive and thrive; the same is true of organizations and of national liberation movements.  All it takes is a group to bravely step up and say “working together, respecting each other, we can accomplish anything.”  Bravo Egypt; bravo diversity.

The Senate Grows A Bit of Spine

Today, the US Senate finally grew a little bit of back-bone and voted to repeal the Clinton-era policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  Regardless of how one personally feels about homosexuality, the fact is that since the late 1990’s over 13,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen,  and marines have been booted out of the military and their careers cut short – not because they weren’t qualified to serve; not because they weren’t brave in battle; not because of anything other than their sexual orientation.

Our nation is fighting two wars, our military is stretched to the breaking point and yet our government spent enormous amounts of time and resources training, deploying and then getting rid of over 13,000 gays and lesbians - many of whom played vital roles in the war on terror.  This is a huge waste we simply cannot afford.

And the argument that gays and lesbians serving openly in the military would impair unit cohesion holds very little water; especially since over 100,000 active duty personnel responded to a recent massive survey (400,000 were polled) in which 70% said they would “work together to get the job done” if there were a gay service member in their unit.  69% felt certain that they were already serving side-by-side with gays and lesbians. And no doubt many of these same survey respondents would openly call themselves patriots and Christians.

If the vast majority of our military personnel are OK with it, why is it so many Republican (and 1 Democratic) senators were so opposed to repealing DADT?  Of course there are a few who truly have personal or religious objections to homosexuality and they are voting their conscience.  But I can’t help but think that many more of them were simply afraid to vote in favor of repeal because of their fear of being continuously hammered on cable TV and right-wing talk radio by a small, but extremely vocal group of religious extremists and political ideologues who dominate the national conversation on the political right.  These are the people who keep screaming about the homosexual “agenda,” and repeating the lie that homosexuals are pedophiles (when in fact most pedophiles are heterosexual men) over and over again until any and all decency and respect for other human beings are drowned out in a sea of hate.

The reality is the fear of Rush Limbaugh’s and Fox New’s wrath has got a lot of Republicans running scared on DADT.  Perhaps they won’t pay a political price for it; perhaps they will.  But at the end of the day, DADT is going away and a lot of loyal and brave patriots in our military – gay and straight – will be the better off for it.

The Oracle Gives the Finger

In announcing this week that he has hired Mark Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. to be the new President of Oracle, Larry Ellison - and by extension his company - is sending a very clear message to the corporate world:  “integrity and ethics come second to profits.”

In case you were on vacation, Hurd resigned in August after an internal investigation at HP brought to light that he’d engaged in a personal relationship with a contractor who had received a number of inappropriate payments from the company’s coffers.  While there was no finding that Hurd had violated HP’s sexual harassment policy, Michael Holston, their general counsel remarked: “[Hurd] demonstrated a profound lack of judgment that seriously undermined his credibility and damaged his effectiveness in leading HP.”

So, fast forward a month and here we have Larry Ellison gleefully appointing Hurd (remember, he's the business leader with a profound lack of judgment) as President of the world’s second largest software maker and reporting directly to Ellison, a my-way-or-the-highway CEO not known for his diplomatic skills.  

Clearly Ellison, who attacked HP’s Board for “cowardly corporate political correctness” when they forced Hurd out, doesn’t think Hurd has a profound lack of judgment when it comes to making money.  And he may be right; after all didn’t Hurd preside over the miraculous HP comeback after the disastrous tenure of former CEO Carly Fiorina?  And didn’t Wall Street – ever the arbiters of good business sense (yes, I’m being sarcastic) - drive up Oracle’s stock price after the announcement.

But, let’s look at the new boss from the employee’s point of view.  If I worked at Oracle, I’d be thinking, “Hmmmm…the CEO just hired a second-in-command who is ethically challenged and who got fired for having a profound lack of judgment. So, either ethics don’t matter here at Oracle or the rules don’t apply to the big dogs.”  In fact, at this point I’d be inclined to think both.   I’d also be thinking: “What about Oracle’s Code of Ethical Conduct which the HR and Legal departments have been shoving down my throat year after year? I guess that doesn’t apply anymore?”

From where I sit as the author of “Bad Behavior, People Problems & Sticky Situations: a toolbook for managers and team leaders” Ellison is giving the finger to Oracle’s HR and Legal departments by hiring Hurd.  And, he has publicly undermined Oracle’s efforts to portray itself as a responsible corporation where employees are held to the “highest standards of ethics and integrity.”

But it’s pretty safe bet that Ellison doesn’t care what I think (or what many of his employees think) about his decision. He’s probably dead chuffed (as the Brits say) with his new President and saying to himself: "to hell with ethics and integrity, there’s money to be made." And I’ll wager that most corporate heads are nodding silently in agreement with him.

Go See RESTREPO

Once a year I make a movie recommendation and this is it...go see RESTREPO.  This is a feature length documentary about a platoon of US soldiers deployed in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley during 2007, which was at that time the deadliest area of the country for coalition troops.

"Restrepo" is the name the soldiers gave to a remote outpost they built in the middle of hostile Taliban territory, and it is also the name of one of their comrades, Juan Restrepo, who was killed in combat. They selected it as the name for this outpost in his memory.

Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for a documentary, this powerful film makes no political statements whatsoever: you are simply a fly on the wall watching what these young men are experiencing as they battle an unseen enemy while trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals. We see the men become deeply unnerved, courageous beyond imagining, stoic, hysterical, tender, scared, angry, and sad within the space of 90 gripping minutes.  We even get to watch them goofing around like the boys that many of them are. And if you have never been in combat or experienced the agony of waiting day after day for the enemy to attack, never knowing when or how, then this film will be an eye-opener and gut-wrencher for you to say the least.

But, that's not why I recommend you see it.  Rather, I believe you should see it because I think it is our duty as citizens to learn about and understand as best we can what we are expecting our warriors to do in Afghanistan; if only to be better informed when it comes time to voicing our opinion on political policy.

One final observation: during the credit roll, as the lights came up, my son and I noticed quite a few young men sitting alone watching thoughtfully to the very end. It was obvious to us that they were active duty military.  If they have the courage to see this film, then so should we.

The Judge Has Spoken!

The Judge (Judge Vaughn R. Walker) has spoken and struck down California's ban on gay marriage - known as Prop 8 - as unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Let the fireworks and the i-hate begin.

Fundamentally, any law that seeks to discriminate against one group of people in favor of another as Prop 8 clearly did, is - on its face - unconstitutional. That's exactly what the judge - a conservative, a Bush I appointee and one of two openly gay federal judges - said in his ruling.

He also went on to blast holes in the Prop 8 proponents' theories that children of gay parents are more likely to be gay, that heterosexual marriage is "better" than homosexual marriage, and that religious conservatives' freedom of speech is being curtailed by gay marriage. He found no merit in any of these theories and was surprised that the ban's proponents tried to support them with shallow, factually incorrect and unscientific evidence.

Nevertheless, religious conservatives will continue to insist that their faith and religious beliefs override the laws of this great nation. They will once again proclaim us a "Christian nation," (in spite of the facts to the contrary, we were pluralistic right from the start) and decry the end of American civilization. And interestingly, many of these self-proclaimed Christians are saying some very un-Christian and hateful things about the judge, his ruling and anyone who supports gay marriage. I've always found it somewhat fascinating and repulsive to hear someone - who claims to be a Christian - spewing the kind of hatred and intolerance that Jesus inveighed against regularly. Seems incredibly hypocritical to me.

What's perhaps most interesting is the way in which the judge framed his arguments - almost tailor made for Supreme Court’s traditional swing vote, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has shaped decisions that struck down laws that discriminated against gay men and lesbians. Here's an insightful analysis of the decision.

There was a time when inter-racial marriage was banned in many states. These laws were appropriately struck down as unconstitutional. Now, inter-racial marriage is not even on society's radar. This will be the case someday with gay marriage, but for now, there are many in this country who will use this issue as a political weapon to divide us against each other. We need to come together to help our country, let's keep our eye on that instead and let go of the hate.  Wouldn't Jesus do that?

What Matters on Memorial Day

Memorial Day always reminds me of my father - now long gone - a former Marine who served in the Pacific during WWII.  And while the Marines weren’t a career for Dad, in many ways his time with them, the things he saw and the life and death lessons he learned, played a decisive role in shaping the man he was after the war.

As I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s Dad always appeared to me to be a black and white kinda guy – he didn’t do well with ambiguity or shades of gray. If he liked you, he liked you – if he didn’t, well…you probably knew it.  Still, he was intensely loyal, even to friends with serious failings like alcohol abuse and philandering, and tried his best to live by the maxim of “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” I, and our family’s friends, knew my Dad as someone who lived his life with integrity, discretion, dignity and a kind of harmless sexist gentle-manliness that today seems almost quaint and naive.

But, he did have a bit of a temper. When the boxer Mohammad Ali – a personal friend of our family – refused to be inducted into the Army in 1967, I remember Dad smashing plates down on the dinner table and calling Ali all sorts of coward.  But, within a week or two he’d cooled off and started writing in support of Ali in his sports columns in the New York Daily News. It was an unpopular position for Dad to take – especially among his intensely Republican friends and colleagues – and he got a lot of hate mail for it.  But he figured (correctly, I think) that Ali knew what he was doing and ought to be respected for the very public position he was taking.  (Dad had zero respect for draft dodgers.)

And when rumors of JFK’s dalliances with women started surfacing publicly in the 1990’s, I asked my Mom if Dad – who was buddies with many of the guys in the White House Press Corps – had known about it.  “Of course he knew,” she said to my surprise, “but back then, the Press just ignored that kind of stuff. It just didn’t matter.”

So with the House of Representatives voting to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the possibility that for the first time in American history, gays and lesbians will openly serve, fight and possibly die for our country, I sure wish Dad was around so I could ask him what he thinks of it all. A homophobe who generally kept his prejudices to himself, I suspect that Dad, like a lot of our men and women in uniform today, would first wonder if they are qualified and trained to fight in the nation’s wars. If told that they were, he would most likely give them a pass, saying “it doesn’t matter.” 

Maybe that is my Dad’s lesson for us all this Memorial Day – when it comes to being in the military, serving honorably, with dignity, discretion and integrity are what matters most of all.

Stirring Up The Passions

Quite a few people from all sides of the aisle have lambasted me for my "Driving While Brown" posting on this blog, which tells me that I wrote it well.  Most say that my fear of police racially profiling people as a result of the new AZ law is misplaced or exaggerated. Sadly, I wish they were right, but they are not.  As someone who worked for and with a big city police department for many years, I am convinced that this law will be interpreted as follows by most AZ cops: " if the person has brown skin and they're in Arizona, I'll stop them on my reasonable suspicion that they are an illegal."  That is called racial profiling.  Might cops catch some illegals this way?  Sure!  Might a whole lot of American citizens be stopped and have no proof of citizenship and risk being locked up for nothing - you betcha!  I'm all for national ID cards - but we don't have one yet; I'm all for ensuring that only people legally allowed in this country get to stay here - but we don't have a system for doing that yet. I'm all for going after employers who knowingly hire illegals - but because politicians are in the pockets of those employers, those laws are not enforced.  BUT, I am also for the Constitution which protects American citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.  Stopping someone simply because they "look" like an illegal is unreasonable search and seizure.  Now, if everyone's OK with that, then we need to change the Constitution.  Frankly, I believe our efforts are better spent coming up with national immigration policy that works for all AND for enforcing laws already on the books.