Where Have All the Heroes Gone?

I was ten minutes into my stationary bicycle ride a few days ago when I was struck by a story in Time magazine. The title of the story was “How I lost My Hand But Found Myself.” The story was a very personal reflection from a senior Time magazine correspondent who had lost his arm from an explosion in Iraq. Michael Weisskopf was on special assignment in Baghdad to do a story on the American soldier. The grenade had landed two feet away from him as he sat in an armored humvee with six other people. His first reaction after waking up in a hospital and being told that one of his arms was missing was, “why the hell did I pick up that grenade?”

My reaction was pretty much the same, “why the hell did he pick up the grenade?” In the article, Weisskopf recalled that one of his nurses said that he picked up the grenade “because of an instinct to survive.” I’m not up on war games, but I can’t imagine that Weisskopf believed that picking up a grenade would contribute to his survival. In fact, if his only concern was surviving I think he would have simply dived out of the humvee. No, I believe that there was something else going on in that 30 seconds before the explosion. I think that Michael Weisskopf became, maybe unwillingly….a hero.

With another 50 minutes left on the bicycle, I had a lot of time to think about the people in my own life that I considered heroes. I tried to think of people who had sacrificed their own well-being to save a life or advance a worthy cause. Instantly my grandmother came to mind. After raising seventeen kids of her own, she took on the responsibility of raising me after my parents died. I was a relatively good kid, but I think that took courage.

I also thought of a good friend of mine who at the height of his professional career, found himself caught between quietly observing an abusive work environment and self-preservation. I suppose I’ll never know how long he contemplated the risks involved with doing the right thing. And if there was ever any hesitancy about doing the right thing, I never saw it. No, my friend insisted on working through the system, on using the HR policy that every company has in place to protect people from harmful work environments. Like Michael Weisskopf, my friend picked up the grenade.

Fortunately my friend didn’t lose an arm, but it probably felt like it. He lost his job and the chance for a comfortable life as a corporate executive. He learned very quickly in order to have a successful anti-discrimination and anti-sexual harassment program in place, HR mangers need to have the courage to make them work. In other words, someone in HR needs to be willing to pick up the grenade.

The fact is, employees need to know that HR is a safe place where facts can be sorted out and the people involved can be comforted. I realize that might be wishing for a miracle since HR managers are people first. As a result, it would be impossible for any HR manager to not at least consider the “protect thy self and thy family” rule. However, the reality is….the first time that management shoots a hostage, confidence in HR will end and the chance for a healthy work environment will be lost. I guarantee it.

This means that at any moment HR managers can find themselves in the eye of the storm. I’ve known a few who were faced with this dilemma and buckled under the weight. They selected club membership over integrity, silence over action. I don’t think that they were bad people. Unfortunately, there is often a thin line between heroes and villains. The outcome can often rest on one decision. Still, whether those HR managers who select the passive route know it or not….the sacrifice is far too great. One of the fastest ways to put an organization on the fast track for financial decline and talent decay is to allow a hostile environment to exist.

Heroic behavior is finding the courage to take a significant risk or make a great sacrifice to achieve, in some cases, a basic goal. Equality and personal respect in the workplace is pretty basic. Yet, the pursuit of these basic rights can create an HR manager’s “defining moment.” It can mean the difference between five pages in a handbook and something tangible that employees base their daily interactions around. However, heroism always involves a significant real or potential cost to the heroic person. It is a fact. Both Michael Weisskopf and my friend know that. However, I’m confident that if and when that bridge is crossed, the question will not be “what did I loose” but rather, “what did I gain?”

Personal Sabbaticals: What You Do In Life Echoes For An Eternity

It’s finally summer in the mid-west. The trees are green and full. Everyone is either walking and sweating or jogging and sweating. The air is thick with the smell of someone’s dinner cooking on the outdoor grill. It’s that time of year when people try to make the most of every single day. Everyone wants to shake off the winter blah and rejuvenate themselves with exercise, garage sales, and scores of outdoor festivals. A longer day means more time to spend doing the things that you love.

Like the movie, “Ground Hog Day,” I’ve watched Wisconsin summers repeat themselves in perfect form for too many years to count. I can also remember many times sitting on a park bench, watching the grass blowing in the wind and asking myself, “what if this was my daily routine for a month, three months or a year?” “What if my responsibility each day was to engage myself in a good book, quiet walk or an interesting project?” “What if I could do whatever I wanted to all evening, tomorrow and the next day?” Of course if I could do those things, I would probably be retired or better yet I would be on a "personal sabbatical."

I came to the conclusion that every human being needed a personal sabbatical twenty-five years ago. My lay-off in 1981 from a local truck seat manufacturer made me the recipient of an unplanned sabbatical. At the time, I considered it a gift from the heavens since it allowed me more time to complete the admissions process for acceptance into the undergrad program at UW-Madison. The plan was to begin my second attempt at higher education when the fall semester came around. Indeed, the layoff gave me twelve months to make the transition from a factory worker to a returning adult student.

I jokingly refer to that year as the most important year in my life. It was the year that I spent planning the next 15 years of my life. For 12 months I exercised diligently, wrote in my journal religiously and generally slowed life down to a snail’s pace. I read, I listened and I thought. I would sit and think for hours and then I would think about my thoughts. I reconciled the gap between who I was, and who I wanted to be. I existed in the moment.

Normally we associate the concept of a personal sabbatical with the academic community. However, sabbaticals, which have been part of the fabric of higher education for over 100 years are now becoming a common practice in corporate America. In fact, with a little research I discovered that roughly 11 percent of large companies offer paid sabbaticals to employees and another 29 percent offer unpaid sabbaticals, according to the latest data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Even though paid sabbaticals are typically the province of large companies, 16 percent of small companies and 21 percent of mid-size companies today do offer unpaid sabbaticals.Five years ago, only 15 percent of all companies offered unpaid sabbaticals.

Call it enlightened or call it HR strategy, but employers that offer sabbaticals know that making it easy for employees to explore their interests beyond their career is a good way to build loyalty, increase retention and foster greater creativity at work.

In an article entitled, “The World’s Best Perk,” J. Robert Carr, SHRM's chief professional development officer said it best, "The theory behind sabbaticals is that everyone wishes to do something perhaps radically different for some period of time. A sabbatical can curb the impulse to quit. You don't want talented people to walk out the door. The goal is to hold on to your employees."

While personal sabbaticals are relatively new to much of the corporate world, workplace sabbaticals date back to the early 1970s, particularly for firms in the Silicon Valley. Companies such as Tandem Computers Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. initiated such leave programs in order to offer relief from the daily grind of a corporate high tech environment. Employee burn out has been a concern in the high tech community for many years. The success of these high tech firms is heavily dependent upon the creativity of their employees.

By offering employees a chance to focus on their personal goals, firms such as Tandem, Apple, Intel, and IBM offer their employees opportunities for personal growth which, in turn, enhances their creativity. High tech firms aren't the only ones using sabbaticals to combat stress. Programs to counter job burn out have also been put in place in law firms, consulting agencies, and other industries.

Besides replenishing energy and creativity, individuals who have experienced sabbaticals express a wide range of benefits including the ability to focus on learning new skills, accomplish life-long goals, contribute time to volunteer programs or spend quality time with family. Whatever the focus of the sabbatical, employees routinely return rejuvenated and eager to resume their jobs.

Apparently the often held belief that sabbaticals are a luxury of the academic community and something that will never be allowed in the business world is no longer valid. It’s clear that personal sabbaticals are not just for professors anymore. They are becoming a part of corporate America and are gaining popularity. So if you’ve had a desire to send the summer working on that novel, or think it’s time for a bicycle tour through the hills of France, start planning your sabbatical today. You won’t regret it and you might even learn something new.

Back In the Game

Greetings everyone! Our thanks to all of you who have periodically stopped by to check for new postings and comments. Our thanks as well for reminding us that you can't read anything if we don't post anything...lol. And you certainly can't comment if there are no new postings either. It's a poor excuse but the Imagine Group team has been completely absorbed in getting the new website live (please take a look!) and completing a massive marketing effort. All I can say is...."we're back."

So please put us back on your list of blog favorites! And as always, feel free to share your thoughts on any topic posted here.

Dr. Lovelace

Hello Everyone!

Hello everyone! And welcome to the Imagine Nation blog. The purpose of this blog is to provide a place for dialoging about that place where we spend most of our waking hours….work. Yes, one of the most commonly used four letter words our daily vocabulary! The place we can’t live with and we can’t live without. Work…a place where many of us look for immediate gratification, professional growth and financial well-being. Work…a magical place that we that as children, we listened to our parents describe to us each evening. Work, a place that came to embody our entire educational effort, (i.e., “you have to go to college if you want to get a good job…”).

So what’s the status of this magical place for most Americans? Well, according to a recent article published by BusinessWeek, ”More than 31% of college-educated workers are regularly logging 50 or more hours a week at work, up from 22% in 1980. Forty percent of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on weekdays, reports the National Sleep Foundation, up from 31% in 2001. About 60% of us are sometimes or often rushed at mealtime, and one-third wolf down lunch at our desks, according to a survey by the American Dietetic Assn. To avoid wasting time, we're talking on our cell phones while rushing to work, answering e-mails during conference calls, waking up at 4 a.m. to call Europe, and generally multi-tasking our brains out.”

Yet, with so much time spent doing this dance, it seems that most of us hate the music. According to a survey commissioned last year by the Concours Group, an executive education, research and consulting firm, only 62% of managers strongly or moderately agree that "I really care about the fate of this organization," and only half were glad they chose to work at their company over another. Moreover, only 35% of managers said their organization inspired the best in them.

If this were an episode of CSI, we would have ourselves a heck of a case to solve. Let’s review the facts. The majority of American citizens spend too much time at work, and far too little time with non-work related activities such as family, exercise, and just plain doing nothing. Most people gain little satisfaction from their jobs and yet continue this painful ritual for 20-30 years. Since our team of forensic scientists were unable to find any law prohibiting anyone from leaving their job, it does beg the question, “so, if we don’t like it…why do we not change it?” One of those life mysteries that simply makes one go hmmmmm…

This blog is dedicated to all of you who have thought about the paradox of work in our lives. It is a place to ask questions, offer insights, share resources and generally work on our individual strategies for incorporating work into our world.