Gossip.  It just feels sooo…good.

You know, the salacious delight of stringing syllables together about events or people about which you know absolutely nothing.  It is the non-contact sport of workplaces that fills the stands every day with eager competitors for the “latest dirt.”

I will take a risk here.  I am convinced that gossip falls into the same category as lying, insubordination and theft in the workplace.  Gossip, at its core, is dangerous and malicious.

When employees cloister themselves into caustic coveys that have no other intent than to spread around heaping helpings of hearsay, I believe the result is always destructive.  If gossip is the norm, no one will be safe. 

Gossip can be reduced and even eliminated if a workplace would agree to ask the following four questions.

First, if you cannot say it to my face, what is your fear?  Gossip is inherently passive-aggressive.  It means you have strong aggressive feelings but you do not have the ego strength (intestinal fortitude) or skills to say these words to my face.  Gossip is the “chicken” choice. 

Second, if you do have the glands for honesty, is the information you have based in fact?  Have you personally observed or researched what you know about me or are you a compliant child playing the easy game, “whisper-down-the-lane”?

Third, does your workplace wink and nod at gossip as an acceptable, but irritating, organizational practice?  Has someone in senior management ever said this: “Gossip, making comments about people or programs in our workplace that are not based in fact, is unacceptable.  We will not tolerate this behavior.”

Fourth, what has gossip done for you lately?  Really, think about this.  What is the remedial value of gossip?  When has gossip ever made things better in your workplace? 

Gossip is the stuff of “Entertainment Tonight,” “People” magazine and…our workplaces.  I cannot do anything about Hollywood, but I can do something about my company, Executive Enrichment, and you can control your work environment.  I don’t know about you, but my staff does not have the time, energy or my blessing to repeatedly start sentences with, “You will not believe what I just heard….”

Gossip is like pizza:  we really like it when it is juicy and hot.

The expiration date for gossip is 00/00/00 (forever).

Behind your back is always easier than in your face.

Every day, 365 days a year, this company opens five new stores.  Since this company was listed on Wall Street in 1992 it has grown 5,000%.  The employee numbers have increased from 10 to 140,000 since their first store opened in 1971.  This business is now in 37 foreign countries. 

Starbucks.

I think there is value in dissecting the heart and mind of outstanding companies.  The point is not to duplicate but to learn.

If Starbucks, with its outstanding business performance, interests you as a model of how to grow your organization, pick up a copy of The Starbucks Experience by Joseph A. Michelli (McGraw-Hill, 2007, ISBN—13: 978-0-07-147784-0).

You will learn the value of senior management sharing the financial future of the company with the people making the Frappuccinos, how to build a team of 140,000 people by requiring them to regularly read the Green Apron Book, how to create customer loyalty that results in the average Starbucks customer rushing in18 times each month and finally how to build employee satisfaction levels that regularly exceeds 85%.

I guarantee The Starbucks Experience will be read over and over again while sipping a nice ristretto latte, with one-quarter soy, one half nonfat, one-quarter organic milk, extra hot, with three ice cubes and whip.

New Free Article

For those of you who have employees who can, with alacrity, precisely describe how they were victimized by your organization on June 23, 1998 at exactly 2:24 p.m., you may be interested in downloading my newest article, “Forgiveness as a Business Strategy.”

People trying to “even the score” are costing us.  They spend a vast amount of organizational time strategizing how to get the other person or group to hurt as much as he/she was hurt. 

This article is written so it can be reprinted in an organizational newsletter or distributed to the victims and/or victimizers.

To download the article, please go to www.execenrichment.com and choose the Downloadable Resources option.  You’ll be asked to fill out a short form and then you’ll see a list of current articles available.

My Book About Why The Yellow School Bus is the Safest Way to Get Your Child to School

In the next section, LeMonHaranguePie, I make a statistical case for every parent to put his/her child on yellow school buses.  Read my column and if you are interested in knowing the factual basis for my position, go to my web site at www.execenrichment.com and choose the Products option where you can order my book, Unreported Miracles:  What You Probably Do Not Know About Your Child’s Yellow School Bus.

Seven-Part Leadership Development Training Series

If you are interested in bringing my sequential leadership development series (Leading Without…Apology) to your workplace and want to see how another organization has publicized the series to their workplace, choose “reply” to this LeMonAide and request a copy.  

Yellow school buses: the most misunderstood vehicle on the road today.

I run into people all the time who say, “I won’t let my grandson ride the school bus because they just are not safe…did you see the 6 p.m. news last night?”  Or, “Why don’t they have seat belts on school buses?  If seat belts are good enough for our cars, why aren’t our kids belted in?”

The problem with the school bus conversations is no one is dealing with facts, just feelings.

Here are the facts.

There are 50 million children in private and public school in the United States.  Approximately half of these students, 25 million, are transported on yellow school buses each day. 

These numbers mean school buses travel 4.3 billion miles each school year with 100 million boardings and deboardings each day.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, school buses are only involved in .03 percent of vehicular crashes that involve a fatality.

Specifically, there are approximately 20-25 people who lose their lives each year as a result of a school bus accident.  Approximately four to five of this statistic are children who lose their lives as a passenger in a school bus.

Put a pencil and paper to these numbers.  According to the facts, the yellow school bus is the safest vehicle on the road in the United States.

Why don’t you know that?  You don’t know about those numbers because the only time you hear about school buses is when one is rolled over in a ditch and covered by your local TV news station on the 6 p.m. news.  To be honest, no media outlet is excited about reporting another safe trip.

And, what about those seat belts?  Four years ago, NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) conducted exhaustive testing on both “lap belts” (the kind you will find on an airplane) and “lap-shoulder” belts (the three point harness system mandated on automobiles). 

The lap belt had two liabilities.  In a 30 mph rear impact test, the lap belts either resulted in severe abdominal or spine injuries and/or caused the child to “submarine” under the seat in front of him/her. 

The “lap-shoulder” belts certainly proved to be much safer than the lap belts but resulted in minimal safety advantages.  Specifically, NHTSA concluded its findings with this statement, “…widespread use of the lap-shoulder harness may result in saving one life per year.”

And one life is worth it all.  Maybe.

The cost of putting lap-shoulder belts on all school buses may actually increase fatalities and injuries of our children.  Follow this reasoning.

Seat belts will increase the cost of a school bus, right now, by about $8,000.00.  If your child’s school district has 100 buses that means almost a million dollar increase for pupil transportation. 

If a school district has to choose between books or buses, buses will always lose.  Therefore, the cost of providing lap-shoulder belts will result in fewer buses and fewer buses mean more of our children go to school in private cars, walk or ride a bicycle.

And here are the irritable numbers that is the bottom line of this column. It is statistically 100 times safer to put a child on a yellow school bus than it is to drive your child to school.  It is statistically 50 times safer to provide a yellow school bus ride than it is to allow your child to walk or ride a bike to that school building. (If want to look at my research on this topic, please look at the book I wrote, Unreported Miracles:  What You Probably Do Not Know About Your Child’s Yellow School Bus, which appears under LeMonJuice in this edition of LeMonAide.)

We all live our lives according to “the numbers.” 

Think about it.  If you went to the airport tomorrow to get on a flight and the agent behind the counter, after handing you a boarding pass, said, “Good luck,” you may pause and say, “Pardon me, ‘good luck,’ what does that mean?”

If the agent said, “Well, 35% of all our flights have crashed in the last year,” you probably will ask for a refund and get out the road atlas. 

I am appealing for the public to judge the safety of yellow school bus transportation on the numbers, not the latest video footage on the 6 p.m. news.

If you are going on vacation and will stay at the same hotel for four or more days, here are five tips to make this stay more enjoyable.

First, when you make the reservations request a room on the top floor (so you do not feel like you are living under the floor of the elephant house at your local zoo) and at the end of the hallway.

Second, reserve a room that does not have an adjoining door to the next suite.  These rooms are notoriously noisy.

Third, bring your own pillow.  If the supplied pillows resemble a padded rock you will remember this tip.

Fourth, move the furniture to meet your needs.  Obviously if there is a sideboard that weighs as much as the Queen Mary, you will not be rearranging anything.  But, does the desk have to be right in front of the air conditioning/heating unit?

Fifth, if there is “turn-down service,” call Housekeeping and make arrangements for this to be done when you are out of the room.  There is nothing worse than getting ready for bed only to have someone knock on the door and then quickly try forced entry.  I know I have been an unappetizing sight for several housekeeping personnel.

Remember, if you are renting this room it is your temporary home.  Within hotel guidelines and furniture screwed to the floor, you have the right to make these four walls your place.

If you would like to personally meet with me during the month of July, here is my schedule.  Please call 800-373-4040 to set up an appointment.

“Where are you at?”

Anyone see a problem with that question?

There is a consistent rule in both written and spoken English:  do not end a sentence with a preposition.  So we are all on the same page here, below you will find a list of 17 single-syllable prepositions that should not be the last word from your mouth or pen.

at                                                    by                                        in

on                                                   near                                     to

from                                                down                                   off

through                                           out                                      past

up                                                   of                                        for

with                                                 like

I used to carry on my body or in my briefcase a small spiral-bound notebook, an electronic notepad on my cell phone, a stack of very small Post-it-Notes, 3 X 5 white note cards, and a gigantic At-A-Glance calendar.  No more.

If you want to advance old age or induce a myocardial infarction, start looking through the myriad of places you are making notes to yourself only to find out you have missed an important meeting or deadline.

Whatever your method, designate one locale to regularly enter data about what your life should or will look like tomorrow. 

My worst nightmare is me savoring a second cup of coffee on a day off while watching the Today Show in my jammies only to have my home phone to ring and then hear a historic client seethe, “The crowd is here, the LCD projector is set up, the microphone is tested and ready…where are you?”

Sleep plays hide-and-seek with me, Lord.

My pillow is a cushy torture chamber filled with the horrific screams of incomplete “to do” lists that beg for someone to put them out of their misery.

Deep breathing, visualizing, muscle relaxing,  Lunesta, Simply Sleep, Benadryl and other “take-this-one” solutions have left me…exhausted.

I just want to lie down somewhere where it is safe and just be me without…passing a test or always knowing the right answer.

Lord, I have been calling You, but your cell must be turned off.  I’m irritated because my eyes are bloodshot and You seem to have disappeared.

So I need You to show up and slow me down…and give me some peace.  And I don’t need any of that Sunday School sentimentality.  You know that 23^rd Psalm stuff   -- “The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want for anything.  He makes me lie down…in green pastures.  He restores my soul.”

Could You turn off the light?