I recently took a fabulous Webinar on marketing and social media (Colleen Wainwright, www.communicatrix.com ) that mentioned something that made perfect sense to me-the content you provide online to your readers should follow the 95/5 rule-95% of what you post should be useful to others; the remaining 5% can be reserved for shameless self promotion (SSP).

Going forward, I promise to stick to this formula.  It is pure coincidence that this post comes at exactly the time I am launching my long-overdue blog.  I know that I owe you all at least 19 additional posts before again even thinking of mentioning a promotional tidbit…  You have my word.  So without further ado, here goes-the best SSP Great on the Job could ask for.  Apparently, it’s time to reach out to Wal-Mart.

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Sunday, May 24, Eduardo Castro-Wright, Vice Chairman of Wal-Mart, was interviewed for the NYT business section.  Castro-Wright was asked, among other things, what business schools should be teaching more or less of.  Here’s what he said:

I’ve done this quiz several times when we have gone to talk at business schools. I always ask people, “So who’s taking accounting?” And everybody raises their hand. And, “Who’s taking strategy?” And everybody raises their hand – and you go on with your typical curriculum about the business school. Mostly they are very good at teaching strategy, operations, management, finance, accounting.

But then I ask, “O.K., how many courses have you taken on how you talk with an employee you’re firing?” Or, “How do you talk with the person who comes to your office late at night to tell you that her daughter is sick and she might not be able to come in the following day?” Or, “What do you say when they come in with issues in their marriage that are impacting their job?”

As managers and leaders of people, those are the kinds of questions that one deals with probably 80 percent of the time. I think that business schools could do more to prepare kids to deal with the often more difficult side of business management and leadership. The balance of courses is probably weighted to the numeric side of business as opposed to the people side of business.

I couldn’t agree more.  Technical skills are important.   But in my mind, in 9 out of 10 cases, the precursor to success isn’t being the smartest, hardest working or most technologically savvy.  In fact, it’s the way you ask for time off when a family emergency arises, or how you handle a crisis when, as my dad used to say, the feces hits the rudders.  And frankly, it’s how you introduce yourself on your first day, week, month on the job in a way that is interesting, compelling and memorable.

So what should you do when an employee tells you that his daughter is sick?  1) you can and should be as supportive as possible to your employee, and 2) you need to maintain the forward momentum of your organization.  Here’s the rap:

1. Be supportive and empathetic “I’m so sorry for your situation, is there anything we can do for you or your family?”
2. Offer to help with his workload if necessary: “do you need help in getting anything taken care of while you’re out?  do you have backup to cover for you?  is there someone I can reach out to on your behalf to make sure nothing falls through the cracks while you’re out?”

In an ideal world, your employee would come to you with the solution in hand (I’m going to be gone tomorrow but I’ve covered my bases and Jonathan will take over for me).  But if that doesn’t happen, ask how you can help move that process along.  The goal is for you to make sure your employee and your firm are both taken care of, so if you have to step in or step up, its worth it to keep things running smoothly.   And besides being the right thing to do, it will no doubt generate goodwill on the part of your employee.

With that, an introduction to Great on the Job.  Take a look around the site and see what you think!

best, jodi

Management Guru Fans Bonus:
NYTimes/EduardoCastro-Wright