3 Perspectives on Reviews

Ok, I know I’m a broken record on reviews, just like I was a broken record on goal setting a couple of months ago.  Well, right now it’s annual review time at the F50C and a couple of months ago it was goal time.

So here’s the deal: I’ve given three reviews now in the 2007 and 2008 cycles where each employee got a very similar score and very similar mix of you-did-some-stuff-well-and-other-stuff-not-well feedback. I should add that all three got an average score, denoting straightforward, solid work that was not insufficient nor was it out-performance. All three reacted very differently to their very similar reviews and now I share with you my perspective on them:

Person A: Lower pay-grade, newer in career. Very resilient.  Took the review score and feedback for what they were: honest reflections of performance, and tools to use to help them improve in the coming year.  Bummed that the score was not higher but generally understood that their performance was not remarkably different from your average analyst.  Since the review has repeatedly stated commitment to improving, has tried out different tactics and is keeping the feedback front-of-mind.  Performance now is not an overnight switch to perfect but I trust completely that this person is committed to learning from mistakes and to moving from a task-checklist way of working to a more sophisticated leadership style. So far, I’m very impressed.

Person B: middle pay-grade, a bit further on in career. The review gave this person pause, although they held it together and remained very professional during the review meeting.  Their style is one to take input and digest it, consider it, analyze it for a while, so this person took the review information and thought it over. They also sought out a mentor they trusted to get a second point of view.  This was smart, because this person helped reinforce that an average score is not a NEGATIVE score, just average, and that the feedback is useful if the person was willing to use it and take action. The employee then spent the year trying out a variety of tactics and techniques to neutralize weaknesses and push out of their comfort zone, and partnered actively with me to figure out how to leverage their natural strengths to deliver more and to build trust and credibility.  This person in the 2008 cycle got a stellar review score and was also promoted.

Person C: highest pay grade, furthest along in their career, least time at the F50C. FLIPPED OUT.  None of the feedback in the review was new, but the person had a very strong negative reaction, tears, defensiveness, and was all over the place in terms of response — could not stop talking, did not finish points, jumped from point to point to point. Most concerning to me was a serious lack of resilience around the score and message. The person used almost exclusively “always/never” language: They will always get a poor score, they will never improve or be promoted, there is nothing they can do to affect their own situation.  They also used a lot of victim language: they did out perform, just none of their partners, clients or management saw it because it was subtle. External circumstances (the project, the economy, their switch from IT to business) caused the problem.  Lots of absolutist and low locus of control language. Lots of exaggeration around how bad things really are — the sky is falling (e.g. average score = worst score ever, mix of positive and negative feedback = everyone hates them).

What about you? Who are you? I mean really, honestly: are you an A, B or C?

My Annual Review

I am delighted by my annual review today: both a raise and a bonus! And I’m super proud of my score. I think this is more good news in the category of, Good things still happen despite this crappy economy.

Here are the major themes of my review:

Communication and Managing Execution are signature strengths. This isn’t news to me; I’ve studied my strengths, weaknesses & preferences enough to know what I’m good at and be able to articulate what I’m good at.  My boss happens to agree.  Also nice to hear is that I got a lot of positive feedback from my clients and even more importantly my team.  My boss thinks I’m getting to be quite good at managing people, and in particular coaching & helping them with career development. Good, because that’s why I like to manage people! Also heartening to hear is that I cut through the spin & confusion and get teams focusing on what’s most important and high-impact.

(By the way, being able to describe what you’re good at is important — often, it’s hard to tell others what our talents are because we’re all, Well duh this is nothing special; it’s just the way I am. Isn’t everyone wired like this? No,  everyone really isn’t wired like this, whatever your “this” is!)

My key opportunities right now are:

• Watch out for being too adaptable and picking up the buzzwords & jargon.  Influence w/o authority becomes a lot easier if I keep the technospeak out of it, use plain language, and get my partners to use plain language.  This is the business-world equivalent of my ridiculous ability to pick up regional dialects, y’all, and I’m over-using it.
• Set clear end-state expectations, delegate, and then let others execute in their way. Ah, the pains of moving from heavy on individual-contributor to heavy on doing-through-others.  I know I have trouble letting go of the methodology or process, especially when deadlines are tight or execs are phoning.  And if I don’t do this, how do a) my team members have an opportunity to grow? and b) I hold partners accountable to execute?  Teach others to fish, MFK, just order the fish and stop baiting, casting & reeling for them.

None of this information is a surprise to me, as I keep a pulse check on how I’m doing throughout the year – not just at review time.  I ask my peers, partners and even my team. And I ask my boss all the time.  He has even said, “I can’t physically give you enough feedback,” — Well, yes, fluid in-the-moment feedback is probably an opportunity that routinely shows up on his annual review.  So I go get my own.

But what’s really nice about this review is that my weaknesses are good ones to have, and seen in a positive light by my boss.  He and I both believe I can mitigate them.  They’re pretty sophisticated, and not game-changingly bad, like, Can’t deliver squat, or No one trusts or wants to work with her. These are things that if mitigated don’t keep me from slipping back, but rather propel me forward.

Quick Tips: Writing Reviews

I really do appreciate how my boss writes performance reviews.  He is to the point, possibly blunt, but I like that he doesn’t mess around with empty words or fluffy crap.  He is a wonderful editor of the reviews I write.

He just edited three for me: a top performer, a B-player and my bottom performer.  Here are the simplest, best tips I’ve learned over the years from him:

Top Performers: Celebrate. Three cheers for them, and make sure they know it.  Say thanks, in writing.  Tell them what they’re known for.  Tell them you want them to take their signature strengths to the next level, and tell them what that level looks like.  Celebrate all the wins. Yay for great results!

B-players: Lots of concrete examples. Ah, the tricky fate of the B-player.  They are walking along the fence and can fall off either side.  Give lots of concrete examples of specific behaviors that aren’t working — it’s been my experience that often times B-players can’t see what they’re doing wrong; they don’t “get” it.  Help them get it.  Spell it out, especially if they’re Gen Y. Or passive aggressive like we Minnesotans are.  Bonus tip: Raise the bar way up. Tell them it’s raised.  Tell them how high.  It’s also been my experience that B-players will meet your bar. Don’t give them a lame bar.

Problem performers: Pick a theme. Do NOT give a litany of all the stuff that bugs you and all the crap they’ve done wrong. You want to prompt new behavior, not demotivate and destroy. What is the one, two if you must, game changing behavior they can focus on?  Just like your stars: what are they known for? Make sure you’ve got solid examples. Make sure this is the game-changer that their clients, their staff, your leadership peers are all talking about.  Tell them this is their opportunity to take this golden ticket and rock it.  Rock it means neutralize, not turn into a talent. How many people are given the courtesy of a frank and honest assessment? Tell them to rock it.  Tell them it is their choice.

Oh and duh — are your performance reviews over for the year?  Well, start giving this feedback NOW, and keep doing it all year.

What if you’re an employee, not the one writing the review? Well, make your boss be frank and honest.  Ask what you’re known for. Ask what your signature contribution is.  If they can’t answer, start asking your peers and clients and staff. Ask those people anyway.  Why are you waiting for your boss to give you feedback? Don’t give away all your power – go out and ask for it yourself.

Slightly Shocking Advice

G is a colleague who is one of the most amazing leaders of people I know.  He has been doing it for 14 years. I often look to his example & mentoring for advice. Yesterday at lunch he gave me some slightly shocking advice.

Background: At the F50C, annual and mid-year review time brings with it something I’ll call Leadership Assessment to help me avoid being dooced.  In the Leadership Assessment process, all managers of a department get together for a marathon session in which they discuss every employee: their strengths & weaknesses, potential for promotion, readiness for promotion.  They also set the employees’ review score and any compensation increases above & beyond what the score brings.

What’s nice about this is that important things like score and potential for promotion are not at risk to be in the hands of just one power-mad, jackass boss.  The group is a tempering, if not eliminating, influence on that kind of managerial abuse.  Of course what’s totally uncomfortable about this process is knowing that every manager on the team is sitting around talking about you, judging you, and sharing dirty laundry about you.

The slightly shocking advice:

Before every Leadership Assessment period, G asks his boss, What are you planning to say about me at Leadership Assessment? If that isn’t enough for the timid folks out there, G then tells his boss, After Leadership Assessment I’m going to come back to you and ask you what you actually said about me, and what everyone else said about me.

Wait, it gets better:

Then G goes in turn to each of his employees, and tells them: Here’s what I plan to say about you at Leadership Assessment, and then afterwards I’m going to come back and tell you what I actually said and also what everyone else said about you.

I find this advice amazing, mainly because it never would have occurred to ask this of my boss, or tell this to my employees without their asking first.  As much as I love and crave feedback, I am timid when it comes to asking for my leaders to lay my brand perception, potential and reputation all out on the table like that.  And I was super impressed when G told me he did this for his team.  He says consistently they love it.  I talked about managerial courage a little bit the other day: that’s nothing compared to this courage.

Are you bold enough to have your leadership really lay out for you all the external perceptions & reputation?

Are you bold enough to ask your manger to be frank about your potential for promotion?

Are you courageous enough to tell these things frankly but fairly to your employees?

Rypple Again

I swear this is it.  But I did try out Rypple on my team and 100% of them ended up replying! And they were very candid, which is awesome.   Not just candid, but focused, specific and actionable.  VERY awesome, totally usable.

(Rypple says if you ask 4+ people you have a stronger chance of candid response and full participation.  I think this is because the people you ask can see the count (not the who) of people you ask, and with 4+, folks are more comfortable that they’re truly anonymous.)

So, ta-da, here I share with you:

What my team said about me

Keep Doing

• Empower your direct reports, which makes them feel their commitment and work is valued and does add to the bottom line.
• Be very proactive & take follow-up action.
• Share knowledge, contacts & resources with your tea.
• Hold career development conversations.
• Recognize us, & hold us accountable.
• Give immediate feedback.

Start Doing

• Consistently ask for feedback and make those discussions open and comfortable.
• Ask, trust & limit over-advising when it sounds like things might be working out.
• Don’t react quickly to bad news. Let us talk through it together to arrive at next steps or a solution together.
• Provide information on how we each fit into your area and how your area fits into the team space. Provide leadership and direction on how we can add value to the broader business intelligence efforts at our company.

This is only slightly wordsmithed:  I reformatted it into keep doing/ stop doing form, and changed the “Don’t do X” statements into “Do Y” statements, because it’s always more effective declare what you ARE or WILL be instead of what you are NOT or SHOULDN’T BE.  I firmly believe you accomplish much more when you run towards something instead of running away from something.

I really like how candid everyone was. They called out a couple of blind spots which I didn’t know I had! Specifically:  jumping in to give too much advice too soon, and over-reacting to bad news.  Wow, I’m glad to hear i do the latter because I always hated it when I had managers who did that!  I can see it in myself now — I hear bad news and my bias for action goes into  fix it fix it fix it mode.  My team members will be better served by letting them — and holding them accountable to — fix the messes themselves.  This means holding back the advice, asking more questions like, “what do you think we should do?” and tempering my over-reactions.

I’ve sent this same summary to my team and my boss, so that all can see what people like about my management style and so that all can see what I want to hold myself accountable to address.

I hope that some of you are totally shocked that I shared the results back to my team & boss, at review time no less.  Good, if you are shocked you should be! We managers should absolutely be modeling how to know and own our strengths & weaknesses, and if we are going to hold our teams accountable to be more effective & use feedback, then we should in turn model it ourselves and avoid hypocrisy. Try it, try being honest & show your integrity!

If you manage people and think asking your team for feedback and then heaven help it, letting everyone know what that feedback was is too risky or immature or sets a dangerous precedent or whatever, then there is something wrong with you and you shouldn’t be managing people. Also you are a total coward.  I’m serious, go find a new job where you aren’t allowed to manage or review others.

How to Give Useful Feedback

Intern Nathaniel at Rypple left a comment the other day and then pinged me, which I thought was thoughtful since he is clearly doing some viral marketing.  So I like Intern Nathaniel, he seems conscientious and the guy’s just doing his job, trying to be a good marketer in a web 2.0 world. Brother’s gotta get the rent.

Anyhow, squeaky wheel gets the grease and all, I did go check out Rypple and it’s intriguing.  It’s a service that “lets you ask a question of people you trust and get back private feedback and then use that feedback to improve.”  I haven’t tried it yet, but I will after I write this post and then I’ll report back.  Cruising quickly around the site, here are my initial impressions:

• Might be very useful for small companies or firms where HR does not have a robust partner feedback process in place.
• Hmmm, how is this better than sending an email request for feedback?
• Only as good as the question you ask: with a vague, open-ended question you might get vague answers.  With a focused, specific and actionable question you will probably get useful answers.
• User interface is cute. I’m big on cute & friendly UI.
• The sample questions scrolling on the home page are really good. They appear to be real questions from users; Rypple has some beta users who really know how to solicit useful feedback.

Like I said, I’ll try it out and report back.  I am going to ask two questions of my team:  what is the one thing you wish I would do more more of to support you, and what is the one most annoying thing I do that I should stop?

In the meantime, here are my top tips for giving really useful feedback.  These come from real-life trial and error with my teams, effective feedback I’ve gotten, and trainings:

• Give it right away. Give it in the moment, when the behavior and result is fresh.  This makes it real and concrete for the person you’re giving it to.
• Make it actionable. What’s the call to action? Feedback like, Listen more, has no clear action a person can take to fix it. Feedback like, When you text in meetings and interrupt when I’m talking, it doesn’t seem like you’re listening to us, has very clear actions a person can take to fix it.
• Don’t avoid the hard stuff. Ignoring subtle things, or painful things does not mean they will go away. They will get worse. Nip it in the bud.
• Be as objective as possible. Obviously, this is about judging others’ behavior and style, so no one is perfectly objective.  But focus on observed, demonstrated behavior, the impact & consequences of that behavior.
• Load up on praise. People, if there’s one thing to remember, it’s REWARD THE BEHAVIOR YOU WANT MORE OF. Same concept as focusing on strengths: you’ll get a way bigger payoff when you focus on what’s working.
• Give it all year long. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’re not giving balanced, fair, constructive feedback all throughout the year, or if your message when giving performance reviews is a surprise, then you shouldn’t be managing people and there’s something wrong with you.
• Set expectations for change. Don’t just say, You sucked at X. Also say, I expect to see Y next time.
• Support them to change! For Pete’s sake, please also say, Let’s work together to figure out how you can do Y. Or, I’ve got your back as you work on Y. Then have them put Y on their agenda each time you meet for status — keep it active and real, and for Pete’s sake, GET THEIR BACK.
• Give feedback to peers & partners. Just because you don’t have direct reports doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be helping peers & partners to be more successful by catching them doing things right and providing actionable, specific, balanced and useful feedback when things aren’t going so well.  And just because you have direct reports doesn’t mean you get to slack on this.  We are all more successful when we help our peers, partners & clients to be successful. Do your part.
• Give feedback to your boss and your boss’ boss. This is tricker.  You have to invest a lot in your upwards relationships.  You MUST be trusted & known for being reliable and driving results.  But giving upwards feedback helps your mucky mucks be more successful, and a rising tide lifts all boats. This is good for them, for you and for your team. Practice with the small stuff and work up to the big stuff. Catch your mucky mucks doing things right, too! Here’s an example:  I used to tell my boss he needed to thank & recognize my team more.  I also helped him out by telling him what to thank them for and by writing nifty handwritten notes for him to sign.  He respected and valued this feedback, so I branched out a little, tested the watters and still got good results.  Finally I was able to tell him, Hey I don’t think you realize it but you come accross as really intimidating to certain folks at lower pay grades, and here’s why. He had no way of seeing this directly, and knowing this helped him adapt his style to connect better and thus get better results from some key people.

8 Tips on Giving Performance Reviews

I was talking with a colleague today about her strategy on a challenging performance review she has to give and it got me to thinking: what are some of the best pieces of advice, tips & techniques I’ve gotten?

1. Focus on signatures. Don’t dilute your message by giving a litany of everything that sucks about the person, or for that matter list everything they do that makes them walk on water.  Instead, focus in:  what are they known for? What is the single great thing that everyone wants them on the team because of? What is the weakness that is their main limiting factor?
2. Focus on the whats and the how. What did they accomplish, and what was the impact? But also talk about how they got it done.  I have an employee who got very little what accomplished because the project stalled (it wasn’t her fault).  But the how of how she dealt with it and focused on what she could control outshines the poor results.  Conversely, my colleague’s employee walks on water when it comes to project results, but is alienating the team and possibly taking sole credit for team results. Very bad how!
3. Keep it short and lean. I have learned so much about writing my self review and writing others’ reviews, from my boss.  He hardly writes more than four sentences in any section. (We have sections for the whats, the how, and the upcoming plans.)  He cuts out the crap, the fluffy words,  unnecessary adjectives, is firm but fair and gets to the point.
4. Use concrete examples. State observed behavior and consequences. Give specifics. No surprises, either — you should have been talking about concrete examples & feedback all year long. Geez, that’s management 101.  If you haven’t been giving tons of praise and a fair amount of actionable, in-the-moment constructive feedback all year there is something wrong with you and you shouldn’t be managing people.
5. Get partner feedback. Use your company’s feedback form or create your own, and ask 3-5 key partners of each of your employees for specific, candid and actionable feedback.  If they have direct reports, consider surveying their team. It will provide insight you might not have been able to see otherwise, especially if your team member is an individual contributor who operates fairly independently.  Oh, and best to summarize and anonymize before sharing with your employee, duh.
6. Use reviews to inspire. You are trying to inspire behavior changes, not de-motivate and cause people to shut down & disengage.  Talk about how you want the person to be successful, but in order for them to be successful they need to be able to look at poor performance or signature weaknesses straight on and deal with them.  For your A-players, talk about how you want them to take great performance and signature strengths to the next level.
7. Make it actionable. Identify what specific behaviors you want to see more of / less of in 2009. Talk with everyone about how you can support them as manger & coach to improve, or if already great, take their game to the next level. Ask them to identify concrete actions they will take. Follow the review process with a career development conversation and development plan. Keep those career conversations going with your employees throughout the year.
8. Thank them. Tell everyone that you’re glad they’re on the team and thank them for their hard work. (Unless of course you’re deeply, deeply not or they really, really didn’t.) This step is especially important for those of us in companies that are unable or unwilling to give merit increases due to the economy.

I F#%!ed Up

Days like today are the best days to have a blog, because what else would I do with my angst? With a blog, I can store it all neatly right here and get it out of my head.

So….I f#%!ed up today in a very big and very public way.

Actually, I messed up back at xmastime; it just came out today.  I have a client, who is sunsetting a Small Subject-Area Tool.  At xmastime, I proofread a newsletter release he wrote about the sunset.  I failed to catch a critical error: He stated that Large Important Tool (the parent of Small Tool) was being eliminated entirely in 2009.  Not true. Only Small Tool is being eliminated.  It was my responsibility to catch the error — my client wasn’t in a position to know.

The newsletter went out over email today, to a third of the company.  The newsletter clearly & falsely stated that Large Tool is being eliminated. This caused quite the shock & surprised, and the newsletter began being forwarded.  Within minutes it had hit my boss’ boss’ inbox.  She’s the SVP.  If she got it that quickly, it was only minutes before the Executive Committee and the CEO got it.

The Executive Committee and the CEO loooooove the Large Important Tool. News, even false, of its demise  has likely triggered heart attacks.

But you know what? I’m not worried.

Sure, it’s an incredibly public mistake. Right before review time.  Visible to important people who control my promotion. And I have to publically issue a retraction. And apologize to my client for my mess-up, since he never would have released the news item if I hadn’t green-lighted it. And I don’t get to be a jackass and hide, or point blame at my client, or in any way deflect my responsiblity.

I‘m not worried, because I’m confident that I’ll be judged not on the fact that it happened, but on how I fix it. The fix — the retraction — is already underway, and I’m managing my SVP’s expectations. My boss is in the loop, and I’m over-communicating to him (insurance he likes).

Bear in mind, my personal brand is protecting me. If I wasn’t a great performer, and if my past actions hadn’t consistently showed I deliver results, prevent problems, fix problems and communicate well, then I would be judged on the fact that I caused the problem.  I think about a couple of my employees, past & present, whom I would have judged very harshly if this had happened on their watch, because they were inconsistent performers and this would have reinforced my perceptions of  spotty performance.

Great performance, a willingness to take partners and consistent ownership of weaknesses & mistakes are like money in the bank: I’ve got a little checkbook balance now I can spend, without being over-drawn.  If I handle the fix well, I might break even or end up with net positive credibility.

But GOOD GRIEF, there’s nothing like public massive fail in an area of strength to really make a gal feel like a million bucks! Plus, I broke my mother’s car key today, the remote-access kind of car key that costs $300 to fix/replace. MASSIVE FAIL.

Guess all I can do is keep on dancing, and laugh a little, so as not to end on a sour note.  HAHAHAHAHA!

Love the One You’re With

Ok, I’m pretty happy about work right now for two reasons.

The first is that our goal-setting process is coming to an end and I’m locked. My colleague spoke up today in front of my boss and said he thought I’d been asked to take on too much given the resources I have, and I appreciate that. But even though I’ve been tasked to boil the ocean, I’m OK with failing on some of my objectives since you learn and grow most from failure.  And because of the way our points system is set up — voluntary assignment of points, and no hard correlation of points-to-objectives — I’m already strategizing to game the system and claim full points no matter how many objectives I actually achieve. Broken system, loose rules, break the rules, set new rules: learn to love the broken system, love the one you’re with.

Second reason I’m happy, and second way to love the one you’re with:  my current job is my dream job. Here’s how this works.  Under the theory that if you don’t define yourself others will define you, I’m going to define my current job in ways that establish me as working on, known for, an expert in, etc., my dream job.

The thing I’ve been craving to do is to have a leadership role in the communications field.  This is problematic for several reasons, the first being that there is zero up, down or lateral movement going on at my company right now — as with many firms these days.  Even more problematic is that leadership roles in the communications department and my current pay grade totally don’t jive.  I’m over-paygraded for a leadership role in that field. (People with director and VP titles in small agencies come to our communications department as individual contributors, manager titles at best, sometimes even specialist titles.) Finally, I have no direct experience in that field and I know I often over-romanticize what’s on the other side of the fence.

But thinking about my goals for 2009, I relized: I’m already doing much of what I think my fantasy job is all about. I am managing director-, possibly up to VP-level leaders. I am doing complex, cross-functional communication and change management with a huge group of stakeholders. I am developing strategy, then seeing it executed. For the applications & projects I own, I am steering them for the future.  I have a nice balance of extremely strategic and precise, tactical actions.

So I am going to talk about my work in ways that establish me as deputy-chief (I think my boss gets to be chief) strategist for EBI from the business side, and EBI communications director.  And I am going to talk about strengths & weaknesses in ways that support this. Establish goals in a way that supports this. Take on new work only if it supports this. Help my boss continue to position me, market me and brand me as chief strategist and communications director.

Two titles I’ve always wanted!

It’s an evolutionary process, but I’m very inspired and now firmly believe that anyone can evolve their current situation into their dream situaion — without a lot of fancy interviewing, jumping-ship, or etc.  My formula (and I didn’t realize this was a formula; hindsight is 20-20) is this:

• Consistently outperform in current role
• Consistently build deep, sustained relationships with boss, peers, clients
• Build trust and get known as a reliable expert and learner
• Fill gaps no one else fills. In my case it’s a sophisticated level of communication, and successfully guiding teams through confusion/ambiguity.
• Talk about the type of experiences I want, not just the job or title I want. In my case, for a couple of years I’ve been a broken record talking about managing people, communications, strategy development, managing complex virtual teams/stakeholders and the ability to execute a few very tangible deliverables.

Since I’m trusted, fill gaps and am known for delivering outcomes, it’s been easier for my leadership to keep attaching me to new work & open opportunities that match the type of experiences I’m looking for.

So since I don’t have the title I want yet, and moving to the communicaions department may not be the best/easiest/smartest/possible move, I will now just:

• Behave as though I already have the title I want
• Behave as though my current job is my dream job, to the point of describing what I do in the terms of my dream job.

I apologize if this all is total Duh to you but I suddenly put it all together today and I’m very inspired to create my own reality right now.

Do any of you create your own career reality like this?

Top 15 Things I Love About My Job

Gee, I’ve been feeling & blogging somewhat a Negative Nancy lately.  Let’s review what I LOVE about my job, for a change!

1. I’m trusted.  My boss told me outright recently to design any kind of flexible/split location/time-shifted schedule I want and that he doesn’t care about face time at all because I’m conscientious and I drive outcomes.
2. People think I add value. Clients have told me they’re glad I’m back from leave because I think strategically, ensure details aren’t dropped, am a powerfully calming influence, provide leadership, and drive outcomes.
3. I love my company culture.  It’s fun, it moves fast, people are nice, people are trendy, the company communication is always on-brand, the internal behavior of the company is just as groovy as the external behavior of the company.
4. Awesome 401k investment options.
5. Healthcare benefits suck. BUT they suck way less than the health care benefits at many of my friends’ firms, including the local health care insurance firm. So perhaps a more correct statement is that healthcare benefits in the USA, in general, suck and yet my firm’s are decent, considering.
6. I like working downtown.  There are a lot of good restaurants for lunch, and shopping is handy.
7. The F50C gives a lot of money to charity.
8. I’m turning out to really like my two+ mile round trip walk every day, to/from daycare, in the skyways.  It is a good stress reliever, mild cardio benefit, and I get to listen to This American Life podcast.
9. We used to be business-casual, and now we’re all SUIT UP.  And it turns out I love wearing a suit every day. It’s a no-brainer uniform that takes all the thinking and all the stupidity out of looking sharp and on-brand every day.
10. If I tell my boss I’m bored, he will fix that for me.
11. If I tell my boss I’m failing, he will help me.
12. Systemically, reviews & performance compensation are mostly merit-based. Instead of who-you-know- or how-much-you-kiss-ass-based.
13. I am still learning a lot. I really believe I am learning things that will help me in my future ventures.
14. When I tell people where I work, they always say, “Oh my god I love that place!”
15. Once, the recently ex-CEO of Carlson Companies even said that to me. No shit!

Can you name 15 things you love about YOUR job?