I read an article this morning on the TaxProf Blog discussing whether or not employers are required to compensate employees while their computers boot up. Apparantly there have been several companies (AT&T, UnitedHealth Group, Inc., Cigna Corp. and others) in the past year that have been sued because they are not paying their employees for the time it takes for their computers to boot up. The attorney who filed the suit claims that over the course of a week, these minutes add up and hourly employees are losing out.

Of course, the defense argues that the time spent while a computer does not constitute work. Employees are usually talking to friends, getting coffee or some other non-work related activity.

I can see both sides of the arguement here, but the real question I have is: How lousy is the work environment that employees would want to file a lawsuit over the time a computer boots up? Their is obviously a deeper issue here related to the overall level of job satisfaction that these employees have. Perhaps the Companies should try to figure out how to make their employees happy so that they can provide better service for their customers. Also note, just paying for the bootup time will not make them happy, it will just resolve this complaint. As I stated their is a deeper issue here.

Who is the Idea Killer in your small business? Is it you? Is it management? Are employees at all levels of the organization encouraged to be inovative and offer suggestions to improve the business?

One of the greatest assets any business can have are its ideas and its ability to out think and out innovate the competition – even much larger competitors. What happens in so many businesses that stops the innovation? Stop for a few minutes and examine your business and think of when and where new ideas are coming from – if at all. In a perfect world, they will be coming from everywhere.

Too many small business owners spend too much of their time holding the line. They do things because “that is the way we have always done it.” This is foolish. To propel your business forward, you must get out of the same old/same old. Look for new ways of doing things.

This is the difference between a bureaucrat and a leader. A bureaucrat will say that this is how is it done because it has always been done this way. Bureaucrats hate change. Leaders embrace change. Find the leader in yourself and look at your business. What process can be improved? What can you do better?

Bureaucrats spend their time whining about the way things are – crying when things have to change. Leaders make change happen.

When the dust is settled, the only ones left will be the true leaders.

I just completed reading, “The Secret: What Great Leaders Know – And Do”, another excellent Ken Blanchard book. This is not to be confused with another book of the same name by Rhonda Byrne, which I have not yet read. Blanchard teams up with Mark Miller who is the Vice President of Training and Development at Chick-Fil-A. Ken and Mark tell a story of a young manager named Debbie who is struggling in her new position. She enlists in the company’s new leadership mentoring program and is partnered with the head of the company (Jeff) where he teaches her the basic principles of leadership using the SERVE model. Jeff created the acronym, SERVE, to help him in remembering the five key practices of great leaders.

The “S” stands for “See the Future.” We have all heard this before. All great leaders seem to have outstanding vision toward the future and are seemingly able to see things transform before they actually do. As a leader in small business, we must create and maintain a vision of what we want our businesses to be. If it very difficult to travel the long road of success without knowing where you are going. Find out where you want to go, create a map, and stick as closely to your planned route as possible.

The “E” stands for “Engage and Develop Others.” For small business owners, this means that you must have the right employees in the right roles. You must hire the right people. Never underestimate the cost, financial, emotional, physical or time, that you incur from hiring the wrong people. Also, make sure you involve your team members along the way, making them part of the decision making processes. If you are going to achieve the vision you set forth above, you need the buy-in of every employee you have. You need to have as many people working toward your vision as possible.

The “R” stands for “Reinvent Continuously.” In your business, are you still doing things exactly the way you did 10 years ago? In order to maximize your success and to achieve the vision set forth above, it is important to always be looking for new ways to do things – regardless of what those things are. Always be looking for new ways to improve yourself and to learn more ways to do things. A line that stood out in the book for me was, “If you stop learning, you stop leading.”

The “V” stands for “Value Results and Relationships.” Notice how the line is not just value results. If all you care about is results, your employees will quickly realize this. Would you be motivated if you knew the only thing your boss cared about was results – regardless of its affects on the employees? This is where the leader must be able to listen, invest time getting to know his employees, care deeply for them and to accentuate the positive in the things that they do. See: Whale Done!

The second “E” stands for “Embody the Values.” In order to reach your full potential as a leader, your employees must trust you and they must trust what you say. If you tell your employees that customers are important, but your actions suggest otherwise, then your customers are not going to be very important to your employees. You need to profess what the core values of your business are and embody them. Live these values yourself and set the example for your employees.

I highly recommend this book for anyone in a leadership role – especially if you are new. The book is an extremely fast read – possibly a one nighter – at only 115 pages. If you have ever read a Ken Blanchard book before, you know that the story pulls you in unlike few management/business books do.