Org-Fitness Today!

Bad News Boomers

Most of the news coming out about Boomers is typically good. We think of ourselves as wiser, wealthier, and healthier than past generations. Maybe that is just our thinking! (?)

I read over on SportsGeezer, a new report is out from Beth Soldo, a sociologist from the University of Pennsylvania. She reports that we are more stressed out, are not in as good shape, and we get hurt more than our predecessors at age 50.

You can read the full report here and check out SportGeazers post here.

We're lucky we live Hawaii, we don't have the excuses of places in other climates with bad weather, etc. These days, you can find reports to support just about any viewpoint or perspective.

I think I am going for a run!

Assessment Use Growing?

According to the Institute for Corporate Productivity, the use of psychological assessments for selection and development is on the rise. The percentage of business organizations that currently use assessments for these purposes is 58.3 percent and it is expected to rise to 75 percent.

With estimates of between 3000 and 7000 different assessment tools available, it's important to choose a good tool when using assessments. If you would like to know more about some of the things to consider when trying to choose an assessment, please contact me and we can discuss your interests.

March Madness: No Kidding, A Shocking Statistic on Lost Productivity in the Workplace

I am not a big sports fan. Let me rephrase that: I don't watch or listen to a lot of sports in comparison with a lot of men. I read in the Friday, Honolulu Star Bulletin an interesting statistic: Corporate America is likely to lose $1.2 billion in productivity during the NCAA basketball tournament. The full article is to be published in the Sunday Star Bulletin edition. If you would like to know the source of this information, I found it comes from Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc. which is a based in Chicago. Click here to read the full report.

I wonder how this compares with productivity loss on the Monday after the NFL Superbowl? According to one source (CNBC), the loss productivity in the work place related to the Superbowl is around $800 million. That was spread out over the entire month of January. Again, the CNBC data comes from Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, Inc.

Are there other large sporting events that impact work productivity like this? I would imagine the larger dollar loss for the NCAA tournament is based on the number of days involved versus the Superbowl being just one day, and a Sunday at that. Many of the NCAA games are played during the week, during regular, business hours.

Is your company doing anything to monitor or limit loss productivity? With the ability to follow most events via the web these days, are IT departments putting in place any filters? I know there have been companies that block access to sports web sites. How prevalent is that though?

I'd love to hear comments from anyone who is familiar with or has stories about loss productivity in the workplace related to sporting events. I'll say this, if the productivity lost at work during the NCAA tournament is anywhere close to these estimates, that is truly March Madness.

Mission Possible - Badwater and Don Fallis

I like to write about something a bit lighter on Friday's and today I want to let you know about a friend of mine, Don Fallis.

As many of you know, I like to run. It's one of my passions. OK, some might say an obsession. :-) For the last five years, I have been actively involved with the HURT (Hawaiian Ultra Running Team) running group. Don was one of the first people I met in HURT and in his welcoming and accepting manner, took me under his wings, to learn about ultra running.

Now Don has always been pretty humble in achievements and life in general. However I want to let you know about something he is undertaking. Don has been accepted as an entrant into the Badwater Ultramarathon. This is no ordinary ultra. Don has finished other 100 mile runs, however I think they have all been on trails. The Badwater Ultramarathon is a 135 mile road race run from Badwater in Death Valley up to the Portals on Mt. Whitney in July.  Will it be hot?? That's an understatement!

You can read more about Don and his adventure at his site, here.

I'll conclude with this: Don is 65 years old and is running this as a way to build awareness for keeping active and not letting age stop you. Did I mention he is a Type II diabetic? Go check out his site.

Must Read Post: Continuing the Discussion, Abusive Communication in Heathcare

Yesterday I posted about the verbally abusive physician and some "how to's" from Crucial Conversations.

Bob Sutton, author, consultant, and Stanford professor, has written about this on his site, Bob Sutton: Work Matters.

Bob has authored a new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. He doesn't pull any punches and in a new post on his blog, he describes his own experiences from consulting in health care and shares a letter from a physician that is very revealing.

I don't want it to seem like this is a "pick on a physician" site. As Bob would say, there are assholes in all lines of work. Health care just offers a unique and different setting with the hierarchal nature usually putting physicians at the top.

What the people at Crucial Conversations discovered was that the reason a lot of health care incidents take place is because people don't speak up. Why don't people speak up? Because of fear. Why are people afraid? Because they don't like being humiliated or yelled at, etc. You can read more about that here in an executive summary of the report, Silence Kills. Let me know if you would like to read the full report.

Bob's post is very good. Check it out here. Let me know your thoughts in the Comments below.

The Communication Conundrum

What do you do in a situation where you've got someone being verbally abusive? Especially if that person is a doctor.

Since some of my work is in the health care field and I have heard stories of situations similar to what I described above, I was glad to see the latest from the folks at Crucial Conversations. Crucial Conversations is book and training program based on the work of an organization called VitalSmarts.

I was fortunate to get certified in the Crucial Conversations training while I worked at Servco. What I like about Crucial Conversations is it gives great examples and tools for dealing with common work related communication issues. The training includes a basic communication model that helps people understand their own communication patterns and also how to understand more clearly the communication of those around them.

Kerry Patterson answered our tough question here.

Let me know what you think of this. If you are interested in learning more about the Crucial Conversations training program, please contact me.

Does Your IT Department Know Change Management?

During my Pepperdine MSOD program (1995-1997), one of the professors wanted to institute a group project that involved students to collaborate on-line. Now by today's standards, that would be expected and no big deal. However, back then, this was a big deal. There was a lot of resistance and push back by many of the students. It became a really good example of how not to implement new technology.

In a column from CIO, Change Management: A Better Starting Point for ITIL by Brian Johnson, the author argues for the inclusion of change management practices while implementing IT changes. He goes on to state that change is often the reason IT initiatives take place in the first place.

In your organization, do the IT people use change management technology? Are they versed on the soft side iof IT implementation? Do you have someone with an organization development background working in partnership on major IT implementation? It always better to think through these things from the beginning versus trying to go back in to repair the damage after the fact. Your thoughts??

Here is Something to Think About

I got this in an e-mail from Sylvia Leduc last night. She is a coach on the mainland. This is really thought provoking and challenging. I wish there was a way to get it viewed by more people here in Hawaii. Our public education system is in dire need of reorganization, leadership, and change. Yet due to strong unions, government mis-management, and numerous other reasons, Hawaii's public schools continue to operate in mediocrity. Because of this, there is a huge number of private schools and those who can afford to, send their kids to private schools and this acts as a bleeder valve and takes the pressure off from anyone seriously doing much to improve the public schools.

Click here to view this video. Make sure your speakers are turned on. AHS stands for Arapahoe High School.

Click Comments below to share your thoughts after viewing this.