4. Beyond the Law: Holistic Employee Management

"When I came out of law school," Don Phin tells audiences in his seminar and workshop presentations, "I figured I could be a hero by helping poor, victimized workers fight back against their villainous, abusive bosses. Grinding into the wee hours of the night is expected when you are playing the hero role. And sure, I made a lot of companies burn up a lot of money in legal fees and put six-figure settlements in my clients' pockets. But then one day the reality hit me: many of these clients blew the money within three years, just as lottery winners do. Is that what all my sacrificing was for?"

When Don Phin began easing out of his lucrative but high-stress employment litigation practice in favor of a new career as a legal consultant to management, his first instinct was to offer advice on how to avoid lawyers and head off litigation—to show employers how to fight back against the kinds of complaints he had been filing on behalf of his employee clients for more than a decade.

Talking with hundreds of executives and managers in public speaking appearances and writing his first book, Lawsuit Free!, Phin realized that the current fear-based approach to employment conflicts left a lot to be desired. The standard lawyerly advice ("Cover your ass—and get it in writing") wasn't all that helpful in cultivating enthusiastic employees instead of disgruntled ones.

Phin's philosophy evolved and grew more positive as he put more distance between himself and courts of law. In his second book, Building Powerful Employment Relationships!, he wrote, "The most critical component for today's business success is personnel management. It is the one constant in a sea of change. The failure of this relationship results in turnover, disloyalty, unproductivity and lawsuits. The mastery of it results in profitability and joy."

Easy to say, but what does mastery of personnel management really mean? Reflecting back from the turn of the new century, Don Phin realized that many workplace policies and procedures had been designed 50 years ago, or more, when management's goal was to control employees. ""Do what we tell you to do and we'll punish you when you don't. Please don't think for yourself because that's more dangerous than it could ever be helpful." Managers didn't care whether or not the employee felt good, Phin says. They only cared whether they could get workers to work hard from 9:00 'til whenever.

"But guess what," Phin says. "Now it's a new century and the whole notion of Control is Dead. Gone. Poof. Forgetaboutit! What has taken its place? The 'Birth of Feeling.' That's right, the New Age is here. The Age of the Cultural Creatives. The Age of Aquarius. It's here alright - whether we like it or not!

To be successful today, we have to create management systems that allow managers to empower the workplace and become more inclusive in the process. We can't simply tell somebody what his or her performance should be and then attempt to control that performance. We have to enlighten them to the needs of the organization and help them to 'own' and become responsible for their performance."

Strange words from a man who spent much of his adult life suing bosses for a living. Yet times change, and Don Phin is changing with them. His latest book, Victims, Villains and Heroes: Managing Emotions in the Workplace,is co-authored with Loy Young. "All the world is a stage, including the workplace," say Phin and Young. "The drama we play is 'Goodness Triumphs Over Evil.' In this drama there are only three emotional roles available--victim, villain or hero. We adopt these roles in life and at work because it is how we have learned to survive. We play out these roles both internally and externally in our relationships, the latter of course being a reflection of the former. Or, as I like to say, 'what comes to you comes from you.'"

In his workshops, Phin explains that it is the natural tendency of victims to blame others for their circumstances. "They would rather throw a pity party and wallow in their feelings than do anything about their circumstances. Because employees have traditionally been cast in the victim role, we have set up elaborate systems based on this emotional position." Such systems, he says, include performance evaluations, sick pay and disciplinary notices.

"We have to understand that unless we address their emotional energy, employees will continue to play their victim role and blame others for their circumstances, with disastrous outcomes for employer and employee alike. We can't continue to create systems that force management to 'micro-manage' the victim mentality. In order to be successful today, we have to create management systems that empower people in the workplace and allow them to become their own hero in the process. We can't simply tell somebody what his or her performance should be and then attempt to control that performance. We have to enlighten them to the needs of the organization and help them to 'own' their performance."

"As managers," Phin says, "we have to watch the emotional compulsion to want to do too much for other people because we 'care so much.' If you try too hard, you will be in the other person's emotional space. As a result they will feel unsafe and either fight your efforts or flee from them. It is a sure road to burnout and failed relationships."