Be with the Press, Rather than Against
In the age of SARS, Stay Home Or Cough at Work?
Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring and Bart Jackson was prepared for the June 18, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Escape from the Cube Mentality
Children are sent to play and study in two different
rooms. Both rooms are identical in size and furnishings. In the red
room, the children are more agitated, aware, and alive. They’re even
hungrier. In the room painted green, they doze more frequently and
are more listless. By itself, an interesting study. But in this case,
all the children are blind. Colors work in mysterious ways.
Productivity counts. No one doubts it. When it comes to getting the
latest tool or software to help their staff make better use of their
time, most employers willingly cut the check. But ask the average
employer to invest one dime in enhancing work environment for the
sake of productivity, and the purse snaps shut. Such considerations
often are dismissed as silly and unscientific.
Workplace productivity is the focus of “Learning and Performance:
An Inside View of the Latest Trends and Topics,” on Thursday,
June 19, at 5 p.m. at Summerfield Suites, 4375 Route 1 South. Cost:
$40. Register at 609-279-4818. Sponsored by the Mid-New Jersey chapter
of the American Society for Training and Development (www.ASTD.com,)
the event features two speakers. Bob Zimel, account executive
for Achieve Global, brings back the news from the ASTD International
Conference and Expo, discussing the shift in hot buzz topics from
E-learning to measurements of performance outcome. Jeanette Schwartz,
founder of Creative Concepts Unlimited, presents methods of improving
showroom and work areas.
Sometime in the mid-1980s, the office walls came tumbling down and
the cube farm was born. Everyone hated it as much then as they do
now. “But there actually was a psychological theory behind placing
workers in these waist-high cubicles,” says Schwartz. “Planners
sought to give employees the feeling that they were one of the team
and that everybody was working for the good of the group. The cube
fails miserably on two counts. First, spiritually, Americans do not
enjoy envisioning themselves as one of the masses; for some odd reason
they prefer to think of themselves as individuals. Secondly, cube
farms are so noisy that you cannot hear yourself talk, let along think.
So workers don’t think.
Correcting cubes and design flaws in everything from factory floors
to display showrooms has been Schwartz’s calling for the past two
decades. Born in Manhattan, she grew up in the Adirondacks, where
she became addicted to ideal environments. After majoring in international
business at New York University and marketing at Fashion Institute
of Technology, she designed home furnishings for J.C. Penney and other
companies. Finally, after years of merchandising and witnessing the
subtle, if not surprising, effects of ergonomics, Feng Shui, color
therapy, and environmental factors, Schwartz decided to expand her
services. In l983, she founded Monmouth Junction-based Creative Concepts
Unlimited on 119 Sandhill Road, a consulting business centered on
creating more efficient workspaces.
There is nothing mystical about arranging a showroom or work area,
insists Schwartz. It is a matter of acknowledging certain scientific
facts and opting to work with them, rather than defy them.
Showroom circular. In the Western Hemisphere, gravitycirculates bodies of water — and of homo sapiens — to theright. Museum curators know this, and typically arrange extended exhibitsto lead patrons in that direction. Thus in the ideal display room,goods are placed in a clockwise circle, leading the customer around,ending with the most expensive auto or dress. The wise salespersonleads his customer in a flowing, clockwise circle, rather than jerkinghim from item to item or standing between client and the product.Cube office flaws. Office designers have three choicesfor creating group work spaces: individual desks grouped in a largeopen area; low-height cubicles; and offices with floor-to-ceilingseparations. The low-height cubicles, despite their overwhelming popularity,engender low self esteem — and higher levels of noise than anopen room.Additionally, Schwartz points out, they create more subtle, but noless real, problems for the worker. People have more nerve endingsalong their spines than anywhere else. Remember that rush of bloodwhen somebody last sneaked up on you from behind? Frequently, cubiclesplace an employee’s back to an open door. He feels distracted andthreatened all day. And the co-worker coming to call is greeted bythe seemingly inattentive backside of the person he came to see.So why not place the door opening to the worker’s side? This createsanother interesting problem, Schwartz notes. The movement of passersbycatches the ever-alert eye of the hunting-gathering homo sapiens anddraws it away from the inert letters on his screen or paper. “Butworst of all,” says Schwartz, “the cubicles are so small andso pre-fixed that the individual has no control over the arrangementof his work area.” He must contort himself rather than adjusthis tools.Cube remedies. The small cube office, low or high, appearsto be here to stay, at least until designers try to blend humanityand profit into their floor plans. But there are some simple solutions.The woes of an exposed employee backside can be ameliorated by placingmirrors judiciously in front of him. Small, but well aimed, theserear view reflectors afford the individual casual and constant chancesto check the doorway.Lighting can enhance focus and provide some personal choice in workarea. The key here is to combat all the oscillating light of the computerscreen and the oscillating light of the fluorescent lights overhead.”Your screen puts out alternating electric current which fluctuates6,000 times per second,” says Schwartz. “Our bodies operateon direct current. This alternating current causes incredible tensionand mineral depletion. When the United Nations installed devices tocounter this, health improved dramatically.” She feels the bestlighting is pure daylight and should be brought into the work areaby whatever means.The personal cube. “I am the last person in the worldto encourage filling an office with a whole lot of unconnected trinkets,”says Schwartz. “But you do need some reminders of why you arethere.” Remember how gravity draws us northerners from the leftto the right? Schwartz suggests we arrange our offices along thisline. Begin with yourself. Place the picture that best depicts youressence to your left. Then moving right, go beyond yourself. Put outphotos of your family, your friends, your projects, and your avocations.Further right, place your awards and achievements. This arrangementleads from you from yourself to your purpose.Oh, how many rubber trolls do you really need to represent your essence?Schwartz suggests live (not fake) plants instead.The above ideas are being adopted by a number of businesses. Theyfind workplace enhancement productive, logical, and even scientific.However, Schwartz has to be careful not to tell many of these leadersthat they are adopting the Oriental methods of Feng Shui or that theyare using color, aroma, or plant therapy. She wouldn’t want them tothink that they are getting soft or silly. Best that they just adoptthese ideas one at a time, and see absenteeism go down and profitsgo up. Never mind where the solutions came from.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageSpreading the WordRemember Elisha Gray, William Gray, Joseph Henry, JohannReis, Michael Faraday, or Russian inventor Patrov? Unless you area collector of arcane industrial trivia, you will not recall thatthese gentlemen, who, along with one other, all invented a workingtelephone, and did so at about the same time. However, you may befamiliar with that one other fellow who targeted Queen Victoria andgot her to wire Buckingham Palace with his invention for all the worldto envy. Today, everybody knows good old Alexander Bell and the multi-billiondollar company built on his invention. He advertised as preciselyas he invented.Those seeking to avoid the dust bin of arcane industrial trivia maywant to glean some tips from David Levine’s free “Advertisingand Profit Building Workshop,” on Wednesday, June 25, at 6 p.m.at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick. Call 732-828-4300. Affiliatedwith Action International, business coach Levine handles sales, marketing,advertising, and financial needs for scores of clients from his HighlandPark offices. An admitted generalist, Levine explains that his seminarcovers a wide spectrum of business aspects depending on audience,and is aimed at benefiting both business owners and executives.Levine says he is a consultant who comes to his clients offering neitherpre-designed umbrellas, nor flood insurance, but merely the question,”Where is it raining?” Born in Manhattan, he earned a bachelor’sdegree in banking and finance and an M.B.A. in marketing and financeM.B.A. from New York University. After five years as a financial analystfor Dun & Bradstreet, Levine shifted to marketing strategies. He spentthe next 25 years working for Young & Rubicam and other advertisingand marketing firms. He is now one of 500 business coaches affiliatedwith Australia-based Action International (www.Action-International.com).As Alexander Graham Bell’s competitors proved, building a better anythingdoes not ensure a beaten path to your door. And for Levine, sheerquantitative advertising holds no more likely a solution. Before ownersrush to action, he asks them to ask some very basic business questionsabout their companies.What trade are you in? The railroad companies of thiscountry went broke, says Levine, because they answered this first,most important question wrong. They thought of themselves as beingin the railroad business, and fell down under competition from long-rangetrucking and air freight. If they had answered that they were in thetransportation business, their companies might have enjoyed quiteanother outcome.”UPS is a great leveler,” says Levine. Somewhere around theglobe someone else can probably replicate your field fairly closely.Thus, each firm has to establish what is called a unique selling proposition.From there an exact target audience can be set up for your advertisements.How do you see ads? “All too many business leadersenvision advertising as a write off,” says Levine. They plunkdown their money for the business sign, the fliers, the radio andTV spots, and just glumly figure that’s what it costs to get the wordout. Levine tries to convince clients to see advertising as a specific,limited investment, netting a definite return. This requires morethan a change in attitude. It entails a precise method of ad investing.Business owners who invest $500 to get their coupon in the Clippermagazine must establish an exact method of knowing how many customers— both first-time customers and repeat customers — this $500has brought to their door and how much they spent. Was it worth theinvestment?Phone transactions should involve pre-training and scripting to elicitmeasurement of ad effectiveness. Levine offers one caveat here: customersare notoriously inaccurate in telling you how they heard of your product.Web tracking, coupons with marked numbers, and radio ads where thecustomer mentions a set phrase all provide exact information. Butdon’t place too much faith in a verbal reference.How good is my target? Henry David Thoreau once remarkedthat in the end most men hit what they aim at. After you have definedyour unique selling proposition, are the folks on your list reallyworth your time and money? Defining ad list quality can be a tediousjob, but it plugs several holes in your ad budget.How much help? There’s a long-standing myth that onlythe big players can have access to a full board of experts. It’s allright for John Paul Getty to boast of how he surrounded himself withmen smarter than himself, but how can the small business person afforda brain trust? Levine insists that you do not have to purchase allyour expertise. There is no reason why even a small business shouldnot have a board including expert legal, finance, production, andmarketing veterans.Levine labels himself a generalist, because in the final analysis,that’s what those who run and coach businesses must be. On a successfulship, the captain may make or delegate all the decisions, but inputcomes from every crew member.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageMid-Year Economic RoundupThe National Association of Industrial and Office Properties(NJ-NAIOP) hosts its second annual Mid-Year Economic Roundup on Wednesday,June 25, at 5:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick. Cost:$120. Call 201-998-1421 or visit www.njnaiop.org.James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning& Policy at Rutgers, moderates a panel discussion. Speakers for theevening include Jeffrey Kelter, CEO of Keystone Property Trust,who focuses on the perspective of the owner and landlord. CarmenBowser, managing director of mortgage and real estate investmentsof Teachers Insurance & Equity Association, College Retirement EquitiesFund, discusses the state of the capital markets. Andrew Merin,executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey givesan overview of current investment trends.Among the issues on the table are the trend in capital flows to coreand opportunistic assets; prospects for the near and long term; andthe performance of the various real estate sectors. Panelists alsodiscuss the factors accounting for New Jersey’s expanding industrialmarket; the challenges facing the office and industrial market; themarket’s response to the existing and future challenges; and the impactof the war in Iraq on the market.Top Of PageBe with the Press, Rather than AgainstPublic relations is a challenge in any environment.Throw in covert drug enforcement, war, and nation building, and thejob of projecting a positive image, while at the same time protectingsensitive information, becomes a verbal minefield. It is ColonelJeffrey Douglass’s job to traverse that minefield on behalf ofhis employer, the United States Marine Corps.Douglass gives the keynote address at the NJ CAMA Annual Conferenceon Thursday, June 26, at 8:30 a.m. at the Sarnoff Corporation. Otherspeakers at the day-long event include Seymour Chwast, co-founderof Pushpin Studios; Nick Wreden, author of Fusion Branding;and Jeffery Winsor, strategic alliance manager of Hewlett Packard’sIndigo Division. Cost: $95. Call 609-799-4900.Douglass, a 1975 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, has beenwith the Marine Corps — on and off — for 28 years. He hasalso worked on Wall Street as an E.F. Hutton financial advisor, helpedto pilot the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry through the Clintonhealthcare reform years, and served as vice president of marketingfor two corporations.His first stint with the Marines came right after he graduated fromcollege, shortly after the war in Vietnam ended. He went off activeduty in 1979, but remained a reservist. He explains that Marine Corpsreservists can return to active duty, sometimes for short periodsof time. With healthcare reform on the back burner, and pharmaceuticalcompanies breathing easier, he found himself between jobs in the mid-1990sand called up the Marines, asking for 30 days of active duty. He plannedto use the time, in part, to ponder his next move, but the Corps askedhim to stay on in its public affairs division, and he decided to doso.Marine recruiting ads pitch adventure, and Douglass has had his shareduring the past 10 years. He was stationed in Bosnia when that countrywas rebuilding after war and in tiny Caribbean islands from whichthe United States is seeking to stop the flow of illegal drugs. Everywherehe goes, it is his job to feed information to the press without jeopardizinghis organization’s mission or people. While the situations he dealswith are not those typically faced by corporations and small businesses,his tips for dealing with the press and for getting publicity forprojects apply to any businesses.Reporters are people too. In 1995, Douglass was takinga television crew from ABC in Atlanta on a tour of marijuana fieldson a Caribbean island when a surveillance crew’s helicopter crashed.He told the news crew about the crash, and told the reporters thathe would take them to the site, but asked them not to speak to thecrew, none of whom were injured.There is always an investigation of such crashes, and Douglass saysthat unguarded statements by a crew member could end his career. Herecounts saying to the press, “I’ll make you a deal. “I’lltake you to have a look, if you’ll give me time.” He promised picturesright away and full information soon; the reporters were satisfied.In another instance, Douglass took reporters into remote hills towatch U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents (DEA) at work. He asked them notto show any faces in the photos they took, because doing so couldput the agents’ lives at risk. The reporters complied with no protest.Douglass says he has never seen a single example of a reporter whowas unwilling to go along with a such a request.Reporters are people you need to know. In the case ofthe helicopter crash, Douglass was dealing with a reporter who wasa friend. The two had entertained one another and shared meals. Suchrelationships help to ensure cooperation when sensitive situationsarise.Spokespeople need training. The employee sent out to explainan oil spill or an uprising at an overseas facility is often a youngsterfresh out of college, Douglass observes. This is not all bad. “They’rethe people who have all the energy,” he says with a laugh. Butoften the spokesman is both young and unprepared, a state of affairsthat can be deadly for him, as well as for the reputation of the companyhe is representing. “There could be a hostile press, cholera,snakes, terrorists, filthy water,” says Douglass, detailing asample of the possible dangers.Before dispatching an associate assistant to the junior vice presidentof communications to the jungle, do research. “Seek as many informationresources as possible,” advises Douglass. “The Departmentof State and the embassy staff know the safe roads,” he says.”They know where to find drinkable water.” Most countrieswant American businesses operating on their land to do well, and willbe helpful.The Associated Press (AP) and similar global news organizations canbe helpful, too. Question to ask include what kind of cell phonesget the best signals, what power current is available, what kind ofpublic transportation is available, and whether there are places tofill prescriptions.Spokespeople may need to take five. When a crisis is bignews, says Douglass, it is not unusual for a spokesperson to alightfrom a cab, possibly covered with mud, and almost definitely exhausted,only to have microphones and cameras shoved in his face. His adviceis to calmly announce the need for a brief period of time to prepareto speak with press. Find a hotel room, grab a shower, and maybe acat nap, and then give a statement and take questions.Information may need to be withheld. The best way to dealwith the press is to be candid. Let reporters know that they willget all the information the organization is free to release, but thatsome parts of the story may have to be kept back, at least for a while.Douglass compares a relationship with the press to a businesspartnership. “The more you communicate,” he says, “thebetter the relationship.”Top Of PageIn the age of SARS, Stay Home Or Cough at Work?Worker exposure to SARS and other infectious diseasescontinues to present dilemmas for employers. On that subject, JohnSarno, executive director of the Employers Association of New Jersey,had some advice for association members in the May Newsletter (609-393-7100,www.eanj.org). Sarno’s instruction on the legal implicationsof illness could apply to any communicable disease:”There is no definite answer on what steps employers should takewhen an employee returns from one of the areas that have been identifiedby the CDC. If an employee admits to being exposed to SARS or exhibitssymptoms, then the employer would have a reasonable belief based on`objective evidence’ that the employee will pose a direct threat dueto a medical condition. Under this circumstance, the employer wouldbe `reasonable’ in requiring the employee to stay home for 7 to 10days, which is considered by medical experts to be the incubationperiod for SARS.”The more difficult situation is when the employee has not `knowingly’been exposed to SARS, nor does the employee have any identifiablesymptoms. Under these circumstances, requiring employees to stay homemay be `unreasonable’ and a violation of employees’ rights under variouslaws. If an employer decides to require an employee to stay out, inorder to reduce some of the liability, it would be a good course ofaction to make this a paid leave. In this way, the employee wouldhave less to complain about and would have no monetary damages.”Perhaps a more modest cautionary measure would be to requirethe returning employee to obtain medical clearance before startingwork, but even then, the employer must have a reasonable belief thatan employee `may cause a direct threat.’ In similar situations, a`reasonable belief’ may be based on observations of the individualor on some reliable knowledge that an employee has a communicabledisease. Whether an employer can draw a reasonable belief from theCDC’s travel alert is unclear.”Finally, if an employer is truly concerned about the possibilityof the spread of SARS, they should institute a written policy on communicablediseases, which would include the obligation on the part of the employeeto report their exposure to such diseases, and that they should stayhome during the period of incubation and illness, and whether thisperiod will be paid or unpaid.”Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
