by Matt on January 8th, 2012
I’ve got a secret!
Remember secrets, maybe when you were a kid in the school yard, some information that someone had but no one was really sure whether there was anything to it. Yes there were whispers and maybe laughter and furtive glances protecting the secret.
It was affirmed by the cry: “Don’t tell anybody!”
People have secrets. Companies have secrets.We know this as lawyers and client confidentiality protects those secrets, but what I am talking about is secret information in your workplace.
Do you know of any secrets?
If you review your employment agreement, you will most likely see sections of it that mention “Nondisclosure” and “Confidentiality.” Someone explained that certain things were “proprietary” to the company and that it could not be shared.
Keeping a secret is hard work, it was when you were a child– being cajoled or interrogated by people trying to get the secret out of you — and today in business it is just as hard. But what if your secret isn’t a secret at all?
What makes something a secret? How is something confidential?
It takes an effort by the company to maintain a secret. By and large there is not a lotof attention given to the practices and procedures necessary to maintain your secret. Many people come to me wising to honor their employment agreement and see such terms as “confidentiality” and “proprietary” and want to abide by it, but in fact the company they worked for did not keep anything a secret. There were no procedures, passwords, security systems or anything that hinted that a customer list or anything else for that matter was a secret.
At the same time we advise companies who have secrets that need assistance in producing the effort to protect their information as secret.
Companies especially smaller ones that may have printed an employment agreement form off the Internet are vulnerable here. Review your company secrets this year as the economy heats up and employees look elsewhere employers may lose some valuable competitive advantages.
by Matt on January 8th, 2012
Happy New Year!
In the season of Bowl Games and NFL Playoffs, you just cannot underestimate the power of football in the United States.
And put it in Pennsylvania or Texas or Florida or Georgia and you have a super-powerfully influential sport.
For university’s in the football business you just have to understand that graduation rates may fall for athletes, academic standards may be hurt in the US New and World report annual rankings but the overall student body will love it. With painted faces walking around campus with no shirts on or bikini tops in frozen weather it is an iconic American vision on the college campus today not to mention alumni and television dollars pouring into their … company… uh college.
Those of us that attended schools that don’t have a big football program are envious but like my neighbor up the street who made up for it by adopting Michigan as his preferred college football program (he flies the Michigan banner on his barn) we survive and pick a team and follow them anyway.
Penn State was one of those teams for many people until yet another sex scandal hit another major Pennsylvania institution ( the Archdiocese of Philadelphia the other) much to former Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s chagrin.
So the business law point of all this has to be yet another situation where institutions are dwarfed by personalities in them. This is not unusual in a entrepreneurially minded country just as Bill Gates dominated Microsoft and the late Steve Jobs dominated Apple Computer Co., the power of personality in our age transcends some organizations.
So how is this managed?
When the person, the founder or the iconic football coach messes up so royally that a double standard is used to confront the problem — like let’s ignore it– the institution is fatally wounded. It leads to severe damage whether your PR firm thinks so or not you should investigate it because in all likelihood it is happening in your organization.
Is there someone who is such a royal pain in the ass that people begin to create new systems to deal with them?
Are incompetent people protected?
What of succession planning and delegation of authority to mentor new leaders in a positive way so that an institution does not become so reliant on the image of the iconic [fill in the blank] partner, founder, engineer etc that the entire company sits in wait for change to come but it doesn’t until the New York Times is at your door?
Whether we believe it or not many companies especially smaller, close corporations and family businesses have the same succession strategy as North Korea!
So try to resolve to avoid the Joe Paterno problem and look towards modern techniques to evaluate the state of your company with key employees.
A little effort now that may be slightly painful is better than the implosion that occurs when you look the other way just ask Joe Paterno!