Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

One day I looked up and I had only posted twice since April of 2014.  The reason is simple: it no longer feels safe.  The number of Trolls looking to make a huge deal of social media missteps has grown exponentially since I first began blogging.  The number of companies with policies against social media missteps has grown, and those policies carry real consequences.  Finally, I used this blog for communications with the Thomas Nelson workforce of which I am no longer a leader or member.  The combination of these factors makes blogging all risk and no benefit. The dilemma for me personally is that my old content, my "backlist" as we would say in publishing, still gets several hundred to a couple of thousand hits per month.  One day last month I had 700+ hits on an old article in one day.  There seems to be "an" audience, but not one I have been able to successfully define.  But again, unless I were to try and monetize that audience and make a li...

I am a 70-80% on-the-road consultant with clients from Annapolis to San Diego.  I have over 35 clients in 11 states.  I did this kind of work in the 90's with 40-50% travel usually involving regular trips to the same half-dozen-or-so destinations.  I can say after 9 months on this job that its easier now than it was back then, even though I travel more, because of advances in technology across a number of fronts: Smart Phones Mobile Computing (Wifi and VPN) Better Designed Luggage These developments make the travel less lonely and less taxing physically.  Phones I know it isn't news to you that smart phones are a game-changer in society, not just travel or business.  But take a moment to consider what we used not that many years ago.  I started travelling with one of the first Intel 286 laptops and a  pager . This was before the first cellular phones.  I was gone from Sunday night to Thursday night every other we...

Note: This post was written in September of 2011 and was never published until now. This year I passed my 30th anniversary doing corporate work. There is nothing like an anniversary to make you reflective.  Here are ten things that I've learned, much of it the hard way. 1. Work for Good People .  Stay at your current job, in school or even on unemployment rather than working for people you can't trust.  All other truths that follow below go out the window otherwise. 2.  Trust the People Who Employ You .  See #1 above if you can't.  Trust is seen by your employer as loyalty and good people will trust and reward you in return if they feel that you trust them (and work hard). 3.  Hire Good People .  It is a false choice that you have to look over bad behavior to keep good performance. Set as your standard that you require solid citizens who have the skills and the work ethic to do the job.  Overlooking schmuck-like characterist...

If you've read this blog or followed my tweets since I started using social media you know it has been an uneven path.  I have twice deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts only to re-start them some time later.  I have vacillated on the best use of this blog and generally questioned the whole purpose of this medium. Now a few years later I use this blog, Facebook, Twitter and Linked In on a regular basis. The reason I use four sites when I once questioned the use of social media at all is simple; it makes sense to separate various types of communication among various outlets and restrict access to some. If you have ever sent a Facebook friend request and been ignored, or worse yet been accepted and subsequently dropped, do not feel excluded.  I use Facebook for family and current close friends only. By that I mean if we grew up together but haven't seen each other since high school, or we work together but do not see each other socially, I don't grant you access on ...

Unless you get to be CEO, at some point in your career you'll work for somebody younger. When that happens it stings for a lot of reasons. It is an unpleasant right of passage like the loss of an older friend or grandparent. It tells you where you are in your career unless you do something drastic to shake things up. What it tells you about your career status may hold true even if you do shake things up. Organizations, as much as they may try to adopt egalitarian language, are pyramids. There are fewer positions the higher up you go. Along the way you reach a point past which you won't rise higher. You know that in your intellectual mind just like your know your own mortality. You just don't want it brought front of mind like when one supervisor moves on or retires and the next one is younger than you. This can happen for several reasons. You can be a professional in a skill that supports, but is not at the core of, your employer. I'm an HR professional in...

Please don't mistake this for a rant because it absolutely isn't. I have a bias for coming to work and I always, always do unless I'm so sick that I can't get out of bed. I have missed work because of road conditions a total of two days in the nearly 30 years that I've been working for companies. This doesn't mean as much as it used to; technology has changed the nature of work to the point that much of it can be done from anywhere. Missing a day here or there while working from home, especially if schools are closed and you are watching kids is sometimes the better part of valor. But what if your work won't allow that? What if you have to work in order to get paid and pay your bills? I find that a lot of younger workers don't understand what that takes. Here are some things I've learned and where my "I always go to work" comes from. I grew up in a rural community of 1,200 where almost every man did one of two things; worked on t...

Most employee handbooks define what the organization considers its intolerable violations; those things that, if you do, you're fired. Most offenses fall far short of that, thankfully, and are corrected by coaching or discipline; the offending party goes back to work while everything is kept confidential. Somewhere between those scenarios is that most difficult situation where everyone knows or thinks they know everything and the offense poisons team cohesion. The choices left at that point are to terminate the offender for a non-terminable offense, which isn't fair, or transfer them somewhere else in the organization. This can prove to be far trickier than it looks, but it can be done and is often worth the trouble. A great example of how this is being done well is Jeff Fisher's acquisition and management of Randy Moss. You don't have to be sports fan to get this example. To take the football talk out of the example you just need to know this: Moss is a fa...

In a corporate environment the truth is often a victim of power and the fear of it. That's as unnecessary as it is unfortunate. When people feel that they can't tell the truth to their boss, staff or peers it usually comes out of unfounded fear such as: 1. Afraid to make the boss mad 2. Afraid to look bad in front of others 3. Afraid to offend someone and deal with the tension or conflict. Now here's the problem; organizations in the information economy live or die based upon good decisions. Good decisions depend upon having good information, which can't exist when people aren't candid with one another. Coming from secular business almost ten years ago I was surprised that one of the biggest issues in Christian organizations is hearing the truth. Between the fear factor and the desire to be nice, the truth often suffers. In my role I have to sometimes say unpopular things to people in power. For me there's no escaping that obligation and it just comes...

I'm approaching 30 years working in private sector workplaces and I have learned a few things: loyalty is rewarded if you work for good people, getting behind can be cured by staying later, and a workplace romance is never a good idea. The reason is that the presence of position power and romantic attachment are toxic . This combination is toxic to relationships and to the workplace in several ways. 1. You can't hide a romance...don't even try . Once an individual with position power is perceived to show favor to someone on staff then favoritism is introduced, real or perceived, into the workplace. 2. Judgement gets clouded . The person with postion power may rationalize that they're being fair to everyone, but that's not always the case. Its worse when they lie to themselves that nobody knows. 3. The staff starts seeing ghosts . Even when no favoritism or romantic activity is going on, the perception that it is becomes the easy-out, blame-all for e...

I grew up in a small town. Actually, that's not true; I grew up about 10 miles outside a really small town in a community of about 500 people called Little Muddy, Kentucky. Next closest place was Morgantown, population 1,200, where my parents had their business. My wife and I raised our family is the next biggest place, Russellville, about 20 miles away with a population of 8,000. I am small town by birth and professional by choice. That's an important choice. We're a medium-sized company of 500 people. There's another way to look at that; we're a really small town of 500 people. When you spend more time at work than at home you build community with the people at work. Departments are like streets; some neighborhoods are furnished better than others. Everybody is into everybody else's business. Now I don't mean that in a bad way. You can't build community, connectedness and teamwork on the one hand and anonymity on the other. People can...

This shouldn't be a long epistle of a blog post. The princples are simple and straightforward and go something like this: 1. We should be dressed professionally every day at work. 2. You can wear casual clothing items and still look professional. 3. You can wear professional clothing items poorly and still look sloppy. 4. Overly revealing clothes never look professional unless you're a dancer. 5. You never know which minister, author, or customer you're going to run into. Nobody tied you up, threw you in the trunk, and made you work here. You came to the Bible Company and asked for a job. When you get dressed in the morning make sure to remember where you work. Central Parking's customers probably don't care how CP's people dress: ours do. HCA's content providers, their doctors, probably don't care if their receptionists are half dressed. Our content providers, our authors, more than likely do. Remember where you work. It really is that simpl...

Occasionally older team members leave your workforce involuntarily. That's a sensitive issue when it happens. Other older members of the team become unsettled because they probably worked with that person for years, and some wonder if they're next. There are legal issues involved as well. Age discrimination laws give disgruntled ex-staffers a tool with which to strike at your company even if no discrimination is involved. We've had some older people leave our workforce in the past few years. At the same time we also recently celebrated a milestone birthday with one of our most revered and respected colleagues. At 80, Jack Countryman is producing some of the finest work of his long and legendary career. In his late 60's, Larry Downs Sr. is doing great work in selling Spanish products. So if we're welcoming of some and not afraid to dismiss others, where's the line between when someone has excellent experience and when they become a candidate for termin...

In the spirit of the Seth Godin, Tom Peters piece on YouTube, I'm going to keep this post to the point. When you think of job skills you usually think of things you can do, like design a book cover or balance a spreadsheet. Those are important and will get you in the door. The keys to longevity, however, are the behavioral skills of coping with an ever-changing post-recessionary business landscape. 1. Adaptability to change - Change once came like an occasional tidal wave every few years and reset the landscape. Now it's like standing on the beach watching wave after wave after wave wash over your feet with no end to the waves on the horizon. You don't stand on the beach and bitch about the waves; don't stand in the office and complain about change. Its the business life you chose. 2. Resiliency in the face of change - Many bright, young talents start strong and burn out or become cynical when they see repeated changes. They blame management for poor planni...

I consider it a life-changing experience having spent 10 years in the Japanese automotive business. Even in an HR role I got to see first hand how a "culture of quality" permeates a corporate culture. I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to install anything like it at Thomas Nelson. Our business model is split between experiential content (live events, social media, etc...), electronic content, and physical content. While we want everything we do to be of high quality and value to the customer, we aren't solely focused on how to make an excellent physical product from the top down. This divided focus is contrary to the type of fanatical devotion to "the thing" you make that is required of a "total quality" culture. Still, we can make high quality physical products, and our product quality is in some cases an opportunity. Some regard the type of focus needed to make an excellent product too "blue collar" and so don't focus enough...

Most companies of any size (and any sense) have a policy against egregious off-hours and off-property employee conduct. Thomas Nelson is no exception. Unlike policies on specific workplace behaviors, these policies are intentionally vague and are intended to address a wide variety of non-work behaviors that reflect negatively on the employer's reputation. Such policies are rarely used today, but when used their very nature has changed significantly. Like so many traditional corporate workplace rules, the history of off-hours conduct policies goes back to the U.S. military. Aside from violations of military rules of conduct, for its officers the military used a catch-all rule against "Conduct Unbecoming and Officer" to address off-base conduct that besmirched the integrity of the military in general and its leadership (officers) in particular. Chief among these violations were public moral failings (drunkenness, carousing, etc...) especially while in uniform. In...

I am an unashamed fan of the late Sam Walton. Having worked in his organization and having met him on several occasions, I am as enthusiastic about his leadership and business brilliance as I am disappointed in what's happened to his company since his passing . Today someone passed along something I hadn't read in years; Sam's Ten Rules for Business Success. They are old, and timeless. The first person references below are Sam Walton's, not mine, and he uses "associates" and "partners" as interchangeable terms for his employees and vendors. That was his genius ; that he felt everyone who worked for him or supplied to him was his equal and an expert from whom he could learn, and his customers were treasured above all. ____ Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anyone else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of...