Surviving L.A. - Takes Management

*****Disclaimer.....for those of you who are new to Surviving L.A. or who have forgotten my earlier disclaimer....I am NOT making this stuff up. I don't have to. I live in L.A. where this stuff happens....daily....makes me wonder why some TV shows are so bad when some of this fabulous stuff is available for foder. Writers for The Office look here!****




When Richard first accepted the job here on the left coast he worried about the business environment and its reputation for being far more laid back than the rest of the country. Would be be able to keep up his frenetic business-at-light-speed-until-midnight, then-slowing-until-1 a.m. pace?



Turns out that yes he can....just check your email at 2 a.m. But there are definitely differences in the work environment out here. As it turns out, Richard and I got lucky. We could have found jobs with our friend Tommy (name changed to protect the innocent), who works at Strobe (named changed to protect the guilty).



The type of business is irrelevant. This insanity should not happen any place.




When Tommy wishes to dialogue with (and no, you do not speak to, you dialogue with) his colleagues, he must open with his name, indicating that he is taking ownership of the words coming forth from his mouth. This is a good strategy for ensuring that no one shows up being possessed by an alien intent on wrecking their business model.



Meetings open with a discussion of how everyone is feeling today, to gauge the level of readiness and receptivity among the participants. Meetings close with a discussion of everyone's feelings about the meeting.



Monday Morning Water Cooler Talk at Strobe


Tommy: My name is Tommy, and I am disappointed in the lousy performance of the Kings yesterday.


AJ: But I, as AJ, am excited that they lost to the Rangers, because I feel we need all the victories we can get.


Tommy: My name is Tommy, and I am emotionally ready to agree that the Rangers played a good game, but, with due respect to your feelings toward your team, I still dismay today at my teams poor performance. I do not feel I would be productive in the budget meeting.


AJ: I, as AJ, can say we should change the topic of the budget meeting to a discussion of how to deal with losses suffered by our athletic champions.


Tommy: I, Tommy, thank you for compassion toward my feelings. I feel this will be a very productive meeting and that the team will have a lot to contribute.


AJ: Group hug!


Tommy: You didn't say AJ says.




How someone does their job at Strobe has to do with their mental model. Not skills or attitude, but how an employee perceives their job is critical to the management of this company, and it applies to everyone from the CEO to the front line workers, who I gather are in the service industry (read: a lot of high school and college kids in a low-skill, low-wage job, not a career).

A manager, adhereing to the "improve business by sharing your feelings" recently sent out a late-night missive in which s/he described being fatigued by all of the dialogues with employees and wondering what s/he could do to shift their mentality to building a learning community in which they could improve their servant leadership. (Because, of course, that's what high schoolers want to work on.) S/He questioned his own actions of asking management to solve a problem during pulse check huddles rather than allowing employees to grow in problem solving. S/He wondered if he was the reason so many shift managers problem-solved for the employees rather than allowing them to think critically and problem solve for themselves and the company (again, because that's what a high schooler with an after-school job thinks about at work). S/He closes, pondering the questions he posed and added that s/he was more and more resolved to approach them differently so that she didn’t hamper their business maturity and development. Please reflect on this missive and be prepared to dialogue about your reflections at a 10:00 meeting tomorrow, which will no longer be about the budget.

I can tell you what the mental model of a high schooler working on a Friday night is: "Have I made enough yet to buy that Xbox game? (Slurps on free Coke) Why isn't it time for me to go home? (checks out the girls walking by) Should I ask Katie to the party?"



A recent management meeting to decide how to compassionately announce layoffs at the corproate office was held at an exclusive (read: expensive) L.A. hotel, and resulted the following information: 150 of you will lose your job over the next year. But don't think about that now. We expect really great work from you until the pink slips go out. This is the 9th year of double-digit negative cash flows, and the management team finally feels like the company is ready to make the shift from a good company to a great company. We feel the operating philosophy is being practiced at a high level, and we have the right people and processes in place to make this happen.


Good ahead and re-read that paragraph. It won't make any more sense the second time around....


So please pray for Tommy. Pray that he does not leave the job. Because whenever I need to feel good about my challenges, I remember the hell he lives in, which he cannot decide is closer to a cult or 1940s Germany.


So, Richard and I are Surviving L.A. -one 9-to-11 p.m. workday at a time.