i’m feeling the pain of mott’s communication professionals; things don’t look pretty over there. in a year of record profits and with nary a word about leadership sacrifice, they’re faced with the unenviable task of fashioning palatable communication messages for why mott’s is asking employees for pay and benefits cutbacks.

to lend them a hand, i’m taking up a collection. drop your suggested copy in the comments. i’ll start things off:

mott’s new people strategy

• Reduce (your pay and benefits)

• Reuse (your uniform)

• Recycle (our workforce with those more compliant)

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“The built environment can constrain or facilitate physical activity. Understanding ways to encourage greater use of local environments for physical activity offers some hope for reducing the growth in the prevalence of obesity.”

dr. john m. macdonald, PhD, university of pennsylvania

translation: how can we change what’s around us to get us to move more?

macdonald, a PENN professor, studied the effect of a newly installed light-rail system on physical activity and BMI and found that the very act of offering an alternative led to healthier behaviors and healthier bodies. those who opted for the new commuting option walked an average 1.2 miles across their two daily commutes. a year after the light-rail’s installation, the riders were 6.45 pounds lighter than those who drove. (they did adjust their BMI downward, which is less meaningful to me, given the BMI’s controversy-ridden standing.)

the best part? i’ll bet these riders didn’t even think they were exercising. they were commuting.

after congratulating myself (again) for being so smart (smug) about making the city my home, i tried to figure out how companies could use this knowledge.

we already know that most companies aren’t set up for movement. we also know that sitting endlessly does more than contribute to our ever-widening bottomlines. it’s not likely that companies are going to redesign their existing structures to create more opportunities to move. they’re also not going to shut down email and phone service so you have to get up to talk with the team member who’s two offices down the hall. if the green movement continues to grow, they may advocate for more light-rail or other public transportation—something i believe would also increase the diversity of their workforce. but that’s long-term thinking. in the short term, we’re at a loss for how to improve the physical environment.

then again, we don’t sit all day. and some workers move. lots. what if we all started thinking of our normal movement as meaningful exercise, like the commuters? in switch, the heath brothers tell a great story about maids who discounted their on-the-job physical activity. they considered themselves to be non-exercisers—until the researchers changed their sense of identity. they told a group they were exercise superstars. suddenly, those maids were exerting so much more (unconscious) effort in their typical room cleaning, they lost weight. while losing weight isn’t always the point, increasing activity is. here, the simple act of changing the way they looked at themselves triggered new behavior.

over the long haul, companies can alter their “built” environment with consideration for physical activity. in the short term, they can help people change their self-image—and their health.

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more on the study:

• getting slim just by riding the subway
• public transit systems contribute to weight loss and improved health
• the effect of light rail transit on body mass index and physical activity

conant, a philly print shop, didn’t have an extraordinary idea. to get coworkers moving, they started a lunchtime walking club for them, clients and conant friends.

then they got creative.

working with local retailers, they created the d20 walking for rewards program and opened their group to everyone. they offer two daily walks departing from different locations. there’s no cost and no hassle. you just show up, walk a beautiful circuit, and get to know philly and others.

then they got motivated.

they’ve morning and happy-hour walks on the brain. and ditomasso, one of the d20 founders, now envisions, ““If [D20] took over and we had thousands of people walking, [maybe] we could turn into one of the fittest cities.”

two guys with a simple idea. this is how change happens.

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• read more about d20.

let’s just get this out of the way, shall we?

would i want to be laid off by george clooney? hell, yeah.

would i give up my severance for the opportunity? probably; i’m not above that.

would i think less harshly of my company’s layoffs if he were doing the dirty work? possibly. i mean, c’mon…it’s george clooney we’re talking about, people. if my company could wrangle attention from this level of heart-throbbing talent, i’d have to give the whole process some props.

now that i got the fantasy portion of this post out of the way [poof!], let’s get down to business. the business of layoffs.

in case you missed it, george clooney’s bringing his characteristic dash to layoffs this holiday season in a new movie, up in the air. he plays ryan bingham, a high-flyin’ layoff artist, hired by corporations too spineless to deliver the bad news themselves.

the concept got me thinking of firing and layoffs, of which we’ve been reading or personally experiencing far too much lately. this post isn’t about the layoffs that a company arrives at due to harsh economic times and after exhausting other alternatives, like change in leadership, process improvement, hiring and salary freezes, temporarily cutting salaries, and work furloughs. it’s about seizing layoffs as a simple solution to a complex problem―as in an across-the-board 10% rif to quickly cut costs.

let me give you three straightforward reasons i don’t like them. feel free to refute or add to them.

reason #1: they’re inhumane. in up in the air, the young, female upstart determines companies can save money by laying off via videoconferencing. über-efficiency! clooney, because he’s clooney and we can never really be allowed to hate him, throws down his cloak of integrity (and his mileage card, which would soon be worthless if technology held sway) and insists that’s no way of doing business. there’s honor in laying people off face-to-face, tissue box properly positioned in front of you. well, i tell you. there are plenty of managers who would kill to implement that policy. because laying people off is damn hard, no matter how well executed. it takes a toll on those on both sides of the table. and those who bear the message are often play pieces too―not the ones who engineered the layoff or influenced consideration of alternative cost-savings efforts.

reason #2: they’re cowardly. tell me you can’t think of someone who was laid off who should’ve been let go for lackluster performance long ago. or of someone else who got caught up because of the formulaic approach and the headcount reduction required. layoffs are the lazy manager’s performance management system, used to weed out poor performers and suggest a high performance culture. layoffs done in this vein may offset survivor’s guilt, but they destroy the credibility of the company’s talent processes and equate layoffs with the shame and embarrassment that affect 46% of unemployed americans today.

if you’ve experienced a layoff, you know about reason #3: they stick in a company’s craw. it’s not just the too-much-work, too-few-people scenario. that’s an everyday fact of corporate life. or the loss of focus while everyone tries to figure out who’s next on the chopping block. or even the survivor’s guilt and subsequent lack of engagement that takes years to restore. it’s the severing of company promise—the hidden costs of layoffs.

yes, layoffs can be a necessary part of keeping a business alive. and yes, companies rebound from them. but once a company uses layoffs to manage the numbers, employees know they are just a number and that the leadership who asks them to give their all is not willing to give them even 5-10%. that’s a problem not even the dreamy george clooney can fix.

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note: i haven’t seen up in the air yet, so my comments on the movie are based solely on my intellectual and artistic admiration for george clooney and available reviews.

i’m not much for crafting predictions or resolutions, probably because i’m not one for forecasting in general. i’ve never had a five-year career plan. i can’t even claim to have had a one-year career plan. i left college a clueless drama major in the dark hours of ‘87 and have been weaving my way to a happy, successful-on-my-terms life ever since.

however, an important guiding list did come into being nearly three years ago.

i don’t know if it’s my aquarian nature, my jewish nomadic genes, or some other less charitable attribute, but i get bored easily…way too easily. upon turning 42, i noticed that i was bored! i mean, really bored! bored to the point of misery and miserable to be around. i weighed several alternatives—none of which seemed particularly feasible—before stumbling upon the idea for what became known as my “42 list.”

i asked my friends and my family to contribute, and together we came up with a pretty good list, though it never quite made it to 42 items. the list consisted of things i’d always wanted to do but had been afraid to, things i love to do and hadn’t done in a while, and things i wanted to try: wear a tutu, don a huge ring that covered my knuckles, take a yoga class, get back into the theater, volunteer regularly, dance in the rain, and so on. my friends got really into it. one friend decided she wanted to join in, so we took a trapeze class together.

to the outside observer, i’m sure the items seem disjointed and quite possibly weird. what’s the big deal about wearing a huge ring or taking a yoga class? from my vantage point this list represented courage—my courage. to wear things i knew would make me standout. to appear foolish. to take physical risks. to place myself in uncomfortable situations. to be a beginner.

while i didn’t write a “43 list” or a “44 list,” i’ve maintained the mindset that came with the exercise and it’s now moved from the distinctly personal to the decidedly professional. a courage snowball, if you will.

people say you need to be on your a-game to be successful. i say courage is the greater differentiator. courage empowers you to share your opinion when you’re a junior player in a room of senior execs or your perspective’s unwelcome. courage guides you to bring your whole self to work. courage allows you to release the reins on a project and let someone else strut their stuff. courage fuels your ability to take the step even when the outcome’s uncertain.

out of a distraction from boredom i’ve discovered a life-long resolution: to be courageous in ways both big and small. and to do it with panache. care to join me?

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today i have the honor of guest blogging on fistful of talent. so, hop on over there to read about what my sucky family vacation has to do with your change effort.

i’m honored to be guest blogging about change efforts on fistful of talent (date TBD). while writing this post, i revisited some preferred sources on managing and communicating change, and even found a few new ones.

articles/interviews

• john p. kotter, leading change: why transformation efforts fail (introduces his eight-step framework more fully discussed in leading change)
• john p. kotter and leonard a. schlesinger, choosing strategies for change (abridged; requires payment for full article)
• booz & company, 10 principles of change management
• peter guber, sharing stories, not just information, to communicate effectively
• carol aiken and scott keller (mckinsey), the irrational side of change management

books

• roger d’aprix, communicating for change
• william bridges, managing transitions: making the most of change
• harvard business review, on change

blogs/websites

• rosabeth moss kanter’s blog, the change master
• holger nauheimer’s blog, change management blog
• leadership and change on knowledge @ wharton

i’m curious — what would you add to this list? which would you dispute?

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