All posts by Steve

Activities, Competition, Goals, Management Style

Free Time

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What do you do with your free time? I don’t mean play golf, or spend time with the family. I mean your free time in the office. I know we are all busy and that the demands that have been placed on us require more and more of our focus, but we all have some free time. What do you do when you get off the call, or finish the meeting and don’t have anything scheduled on your daily calendar?




Some surveys suggest that one of the main things we do is go check our email. Not our business / professional email, our personal email. Other surveys also suggest that we go and surf the web to help us “decompress”. Do you leave your office to search out someone / a friend for a little social discussion and activity?




The world, not just the market continues to get more competitive. There are many qualified and talented individuals in many disciplines in the work environment. How can you start to set yourself apart?




The approach that I am taking for myself and my team is to try and re-vector my “free time” toward learning, training and certification. I used to look at people who put all sorts of letters and acronyms after their names with a little bemusement. The truth be told, I still do. I think its great to have the training and certification, but I also think that you need to be self confident enough to not have to continuously display it every time you electronically sign a document.




But I do think the idea that it is desirable to have that training, knowledge and certification to back up your capabilities and talents is starting to grow, and has value. Almost every professional discipline now has some sort of training / certification capability. Sales, HR, Engineering, Design, Project Management and many others all seem to have certifications available. Most of the “training” or course work required to get these certifications / pass the tests in most instances can be done without actually having to sign up and take classes. You just have to read, study and learn.




Reading, studying and learning sounds like something most of us can do in our free time. It probably also will provide us more personal value than checking to see how much new spam we have in our personal mailbox. I like the idea of using free time to set yourself apart and at the same time increase your value to your business.




I am a little frustrated with myself that I didn’t figure this out sooner……

Communication, Efficiency, Task Completion

More on Communications…Not More Communications

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We have all been in the position where we have a great deal of information to disseminate to a significant number of people. What do we do? We write the “Mother of all Memos” – MoaM, (please pardon the allusion to a wayward military comment in the coining of a new communications phrase) and then put it to a distribution that rivals Santa’s Naughty / Nice list. We now have all the information communicated to all the people. Our job is done here, right? I don’t think so.




On the surface this may seem to be the best way for us to communicate, but it reality it isn’t. It may be efficient for the sender (one memo typed and sent) but is it efficient communications? 




Efficient communications is providing the appropriate information to the appropriate audience, at the right time. That means only the information that is needed then, not all the information you have. Does everyone on that massive distribution list need to know everything that is contained in the body of the MoaM? Better yet, will everyone on that distribution list even read the entire memo in an effort to glean the specific pieces of information that they need from it? We would all like to think that everything that we write (including this Blog article) is of such importance that everyone will read it in its entirety, print it out, high-light it, then annotate it and keep it close by where they can often refer to it.




Right.




Efficient communications would call for us to create several shorter memos, with significantly shorter distribution lists where the information in each memo is appropriate for the specific audience and does not contain information that is not needed by that audience. It may be a little more work on the sender’s part but it will more efficiently communicate the information…and it will probably also cut down on the enormous number of the dreaded one-line “reply all” message chains that invariably follow the use of the MoaM.




Effective communications is providing the right information in the right format for the appropriate audience. This means sending emails, right? In the past this has certainly been the case, but is really the most effective method?




As matrix organizations, teaming and collaboration have proliferated, specific communities of interest have been created. Communications capabilities have also been developed in this area. Where email is a One-to-Many, or a Many-to-Many form of communications, new capabilities such as SharePoint (my apologies to both my Mac and PC friends for using a Microsoft example) allows an accessible network location to be created where there is now a Many-to-One communications structure (many people accessing a single information location). This new(er) type of communications format might provide a more effective way to provide the right information to the right audience.




For me the only issue that arises with the creation of SharePoints for communication and information exchange is that it is not a “Push” form of communications. Email allows us the “Push” the information out to the desired recipients and participants. Once it is sent we are reasonbly sure that the desired recipients have it. SharePoint usually requires the desired participants to access the site and “Pull” the information down from it.




It’s a small difference, but in the hectic world in which we are all now working, it is just another activity that we must take the initiative on to accomplish. Emails come to us. They require an action. Even if you choose to do nothing, it was an active decision to do nothing based on the email. If we must go to a location to find out what we must / need to do, it might just be easier to not go, and as a result not have to make a decision regarding what does or doesn’t need to get done.




Now the decision to do / not do anything can be based upon whether or not we have decided to go get the information to act on, not what the information is itself may be.




It used to be just writing a big, long memo and sending it to everyone. Now we need to look at what is efficient (what information for which audience), and what is effective (what format “Push/Pull”, for which audience) will be the best to achieve the objectives.



On the other hand, it might not be such a bad idea to just pick up the phone and call……

Activities, Self Analysis, Time Management

Clock Your Time

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I recently read “The Sales Messenger” by Mary Anne (Wihbey) Davis. I don’t normally read books like this and I am a bit out of the habit. I guess I will have to get back in the habit.




The Sales Messenger touched on a topic (one of many actually) that had aspects of both the concept of “the difference between activity and work” and “the choice of what to do and what not to do”. I found this very interesting in our current times where we are all asked to do more with less. The key here was choosing work that resulted in progress, and then performing it, instead of activities that kept us busy.




This is probably pretty simple, right? Surely everything that we are doing is associated with generating progress toward our professional objectives and goals. After all, we are all so busy at the office. The point was that we are all so busy, but when we really get down to examining what we are doing, I think that we will find out like those individuals profiled in “The Sales Messenger” that we are probably doing a lot of activities that don’t necessarily result in progress.




The idea that was proposed was that we should all create a tracking log of our time. We should note how many minutes (or hours) of each day or week are spent on which specific tasks we have been given, or chosen to do. Then we need to go through, or better yet, have someone help us go through the professional value that we derive from each task. This is the key. We have to be honest in the value assessmants.




If what we are doing is not directly helping us achieve our goals, or is not efficiently achieving that purpose, it is a candidate for an activity that should either be discontinued or changed. A prime example of this was provided in the form of “Networking”. We have all networked. We are all familiar with its concept. The example provided was in using networking to generate sales leads.




If you are spending time networking to generate sales leads, you need to quantify both the time you spend networking (time card) and the number of sales leads you have developed in each networking period, and assess if this is the most efficient use of your time. If it is, obviously you should keep at it. If it is not, you then need to decide to either stop doing that activity and free up the time to do something more productive, or change how you network.




Either way it comes down to clocking your time on the tasks you are performing, and then measuring the value that you get from each task.  I think we will all find that there are things that we are doing at our jobs that have little to no relationship to the work we need to accomplish. Sometimes it is hard for us to sort this out on our own.




I thought the simple idea of specifically clocking our time spent on each function, and then basically doing a micro – cost / benefit analysis on how that time was spent, was one of the best and most effective ways I have seen to help identify how we can devote more time to making progress and reduce our time spent on activities that are clogging up our already too busy days.

Alternatives, Conflict Management, Relationship

What Would You Do ? (Part 2)

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A little while ago a friend of mine called me and asked me the following question:

“A past business associate of mine is out looking for a job and has put me down as a reference. While I know times are hard and I do want to be supportive of him, he was not in my opinion a very good employee. On one hand I don’t want to give him a bad recommendation and potentially ruin his chance at a position, but on the other hand I do not want to give a report or recommendation that is not the truth. What should I do?”

This is a situation for our current times. With so much continued upheaval in the job market, I am sure that we all know multiple numbers of people who either are, or have been looking for new positions. I am also reasonably certain that although we many know multiple people who are searching for a new job, we might not be as willing or prepared to vouch for or recommend some of them as we may be for others.

So that brings up the question: What would you do if someone put you down as a reference, and you did not feel comfortable in providing a positive recommendation?

Do you respond to the person by saying that you would not feel comfortable being a reference for them? This would inevitably lead to having to explain why you would not want to provide the reference input. It might lead to hard feelings and someone who in the future might feel they have reason or position to cause you professional issues in the future. Who can truly say they know where they will be working, or who they will be reporting to in the future?

Do you accept and provide a less than glowing reference and potential derail an employment opportunity?

Do you accept and provide a less than fully truthful positive reference?

It’s at times like this that I remember what my dad has told me in the past: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

My recommendation to my friend was that if he did not want to directly respond “no” to the request, (which would probably be the proper response) then he should not to respond at all to either the request to be a reference or the request for reference input by whomever his name had been provided to. Let his inaccessibility and silence be his comment. Normally both the reference requestor and the reference input requesting entity should get the message.

People who have something positive to say about someone are normally accessible. Those who don’t have something good to say normally aren’t accessible.

I would say this course of action is the professional equivalent of the “pocket veto”. A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver in United States federal lawmaking that allows the President to indirectly veto a bill. If the president does not want to go on the record as being against a bill, he can hold it with no response until congress adjourns. His “no response” in effect kills the bill without having to take the active measure of vetoing it.

Given the situation that my friend outlined, this was my suggestion. What would you do?

Communication, Employees, Leadership

What Would You Do?

The other day a friend of mine told me that he had been given notice that he was being laid off from his company. He worked in a medium/small sized technology equipment company. As we all know the economy has not been such that any of us can take our current employment for granted. We all know that it can in fact come to an end either when we do or don’t expect it.


 


We had lunch and started the planning process on where he might look for a position and how he should present himself. I put him in contact with some of the networking groups that I had been associated with in the past as well as gave his resume a fairly aggressive review. For a sales guy, he did not seem to have enough “sales” activities on it. I made some changes and I also put him on to a person who was something of a resume “guru” to help him restructure it going forward.


 


He then started to tell me the story of how he got laid off. He was not caught off guard. He was probably far from surprised. But it also provided the grist for the ethical question that his manager faced, and that I am posing here.


 


Secrets are hard to keep in any company, let alone a smaller one. As decisions of this type get made they have a tendency to filter down at least in deed, if not in fact. If management knows they are going to be making a change, they start planning for it. As the plans become apparent, so does the precipitating action. This is the situation that my friend faced.


 


He did the right thing. He called his manager. He asked the question. Should he be prepared for an employment event? This was a man that he had known and been friends with for more than 20 years. His manager and friend told him “no”.


 


3 days later his manager called him in and notified him of the company’s decision to make a change and of his severance.


 


When he asked “Why didn’t you tell me when I asked 3 days ago?” his manager responded by saying that he had been instructed by management not to tell him until the official notification date, “… and besides, what difference does 3 days make?”


 


This brings up the question: What would you do if you were in the manager’s position?


 


Would you too rigorously obey the corporate directive? Would you disobey the directive and provide the direct and honest information to a friend and colleague of 20 years? Would you try to find some middle ground where you don’t directly disobey the corporate directive, but do obliquely confirm that the notification is going to happen?


 


I can not, and do not speak for my friend. If I were in his position I would believe that a 20 year relationship may have been irreparably damaged. I don’t count myself as lucky as to say that I have so many friends that I could take the losing of one in such circumstances lightly.


 


I can not and do not speak for the manager. I have been in his position. In today’s business world we all have varying levels of concern regarding or employments and our future employments. Do we truly fear for our own positions at such a level as to alter our behaviors to such an extent? I will say that having been there, that open, direct and honest responses and communication in these situations has always, always been the best approach. If a decision has been made, I would respond as such. If it is still pending, then that should be communicated as well.


 


Yes, this approach has gotten me in a little trouble in the past, but it has always proved to be the proper course when dealing with these types of employment situations. The company knows what it is going to do with respect to the employee in question. It has probably known for some time. It is the trouble I would prefer to have when confronted by an employee who asks “Am I on the list for the coming lay-off?” instead of having to respond to “Why didn’t you tell me when I asked?”


 


To me a direct question deserves a direct response, even if it is a response that is not desired, or even feared. If you really don’t want to know, then don’t ask. If you do want to know, accept the response, good or bad, in the same way as the question was posed.


 


That’s just me. What would you do?

Activities, Meetings

Stop Multi-Tasking

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Despite the number of stories that are on the news at night telling us that the economy is starting to slowly improve, and that the economists are starting to see the beginnings of job growth, it seems we are all plagued by the same mantra at the office: We need to do more. It still seems that staffing levels are precariously low, and that the demands for more production and productivity are still as high as ever, if not higher. This has given rise to the new office buzz word, Multi-Tasking.




Please don’t get me wrong. I am not supporting the idea that everyone should be doing only one thing at a time, all the time, but it seems we have gone to the limit and beyond when it gets to the point when we are asking (or are being asked) to attend multiple calls or meetings at the same time and we accept.




How many of you have been in the middle of what you believe is a very important conference call and the crucial question has been posed, and you wait for the subject matter expert to respond, and you wait, and you wait and you wait. And finally someone realizes that they are the one everyone is waiting for, and they come on the line and say….




“I’m sorry, would you please repeat the question?”




They were doing something else. They could have been on another call. They could have someone else in their office. They could have been playing solitaire on their computer. It doesn’t matter.




They weren’t paying attention to the conference call that they had agreed to attend.




When I have mentioned this phenomenon to friends they are quick to defend the offender (in some cases themselves) with the statement that due to the number of meetings that they are requested / directed / ordered to attend that they must behave this way. I counter with the simple question:




Would you behave, or conduct business in this way if the meeting were in person, or was with a customer, or with your boss?




Invariably the answer is no, of course not. But it seems that it is acceptable for everyone else.




Two things concern me here. The first is in regard to the behaviors that we are fostering in business. It seems that it has almost become some sort method to feel indispensable by noting the number of calls, meetings and conferences that we have simultaneously. It seems that some feel compelled by the requirements of their job / boss to do this, but with others, I am not so sure.




The point here is that I think we need to change the statement from “We need to do more”, to “We need to do New”. By this I mean as we are requested to take on and perform new tasks, we must be willing to examine our own work load, and get rid of older tasks that may no longer be as useful as they once were, or may not be as useful as the new tasks we have been asked to take on. We each have a limited availability and we need to decide how we can best apply that limited availability.




We need to learn that sometimes we must say “no” when it comes to the ever increasing number of requests for our time. I have previously writing an article on the Value of “No”, and I think it is starting to apply more than ever.




My second concern is that we now seem to be trying to do our jobs without paying our full attention to any one thing that we are doing. Perhaps this is the reason that it seems that the number of people on any one conference call keeps growing. Is it possible that 30 people on a call paying attention half the time are as good as 15 people on a call paying full attention? I don’t think so.




We all have many projects or topics that we are working on at any one time. That is the reality of the world. My view is that when we try to work on two (or more) at the same time, just as when we try to be on two phone calls, or attend two meetings at the same time, we do not do justice to either of them, and we end up with an inferior output from them as a result.




We need to be fully engaged in whatever we are working on, whether it is a meeting, a call or a project, while we are working on it. If there is another demand, then we need to stop and get fully engaged on the new topic. If we try and stay engaged on one topic, while trying to engage on a new topic, we should expect to continue to hear, or sometimes to ask:




“I’m sorry, would you please repeat that?”

Character, Problem Solving, Risk

Phishing Victim…..Me?

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I enjoy writing my blog. I really enjoy getting comments. That means that someone has read my Blog, and thought enough about it to take the time and write a comment. I put an effort into thinking about topics to write on and for the most part it appeared that the people that wrote comments did also. That was until recently.

In the last few months I started to get a significant number of comments. At first I thought this was pretty neat. We all like a little recognition and this increase in comments seemed to indicate that I might be getting some.

Not…

Upon closer inspection of this newfound number of comments I noticed that they all seemed to be based from “Russian” servers. This is only an assumption, but it is based on the URL nomenclature of the site that generating the comment. Russian? Really? Could I really be generating a following in Russia?

Still something about this seemed “Phishy”. So I decided that I would Google one of the more reasonable sounding sights to see if they truly existed. It generated another Blog site. I then decided to go to one of this more reputable sounding site. I went, I saw, and I read. No big deal.

That’s when it started. The next day I got notification from my site hosting service that they had complied with my wish to have my domain changed. My domain changed? Who requested that?

I then went to my site to see what this all meant. What is meant was my site was no longer where I had bookmarked it. My site had been hijacked.

I then called (not emailed, not IM’ed, called) my hosting provider and asked what was going on. They said that they had complied with my email request to relocate my site to another domain/server. This was obviously news to me.

After verifying (via security questions and the like) that I was in fact who I said I was, and that the site in question was indeed mine, we started down the road to reclaiming my site. After the appropriate programming magic was accomplished, we started back-tracking what had happened.

It appears that by even going to the supposedly acceptable site of one of my commenter’s I had somehow enabled them to get into my hosting account through the information I had left (like they leave at my site) at their site. They then hacked my account and hijacked my site.

This was again, and interesting and somewhat unsettling experience. But the greater question to me is: Why would someone want my site? There is not a significant amount of traffic there (from internet standards), nor are there any secrets. I guess I will have to be vigilant and watch for any issues that may arrive at a later date. In the mean time, I would ask and suggest that all who receive any of these strange / anomalous emails or comments to beware.

Decision Making, Leadership, Performance

Information…or Punishment

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Business and project reviews are good opportunities for leaders to get a view into the business on how it is performing. They need to be scheduled often enough so that topics and trends can be identified before they become issues, and not so often that they become onerous and drain time and resources away from the business in preparing for them.




How often should you have them? Monthly? Every two Months? Quarterly? I think that it depends on the actual cycle time of the business. By cycle time I mean the amount of time that must pass before the results of an action can be recognized in the business’s financial reports. Hi-tech business cycle times are normally on the order of months.




However, we have all been in organizations where managers have uttered the immortal phrase “We will have weekly reviews on this issue until it is resolved…” It is good to let the team know which topic is a high priority and what is not, but a leader should not take this approach for several reasons.




If you are truly committed to this approach you have to be prepared to attend every one of these reviews. As soon as you fail to attend, or send a delegate, you are communicating to the team that the issue is no longer as high a priority to you. The team will also take that into account as they set and work their own priorities.




The other aspect of this action is, what are you trying to achieve? If you understand your business’s cycle time, and you know it is longer than the periodicity of the reviews, what do you hope to gain, or learn from the more frequent reviews?  It is in this area that information transfer becomes perceived as a punishment. You are in effect telling your team that you did not like the information that they provided you, and that you will hold repeated reviews until they provide you the information that you do like.




A better approach is to take and assign action items at the initial review. The action items can and should be specific and should have response and delivery objectives that are well in advance of the next regularly scheduled review. That way changes and actions can be taken quickly, feedback can be obtained in advance of the next review, and enough time can be provided to recognize the financial impact of the changes. In this way you can communicate the priority of a topic, the actions that you feel need to be taken, assign time lines and monitor progress, without turning what should be a useful communication session into a perceived ordeal and punishment.




Remember, if you are perceived as punishing people for bringing you what you feel is bad news, they will stop bringing you the issues. By taking the action item approach you can encourage the early discussion of potential issues and help work to avoid them. The team will appreciate the leadership.

Challenge, Change Management, Leadership

Significance

Are you significant? Are you relevant? I don’t mean these questions in some sort of cosmic, or existential sort of way. I am sure that to yourself, your family and friends, you are. At least I hope you are. I mean are you significant and / or relevant on the professional level to you individually, and also on the greater level to the business you create or lead.


 


Let’s say you lead an organization that is responsible for $25 Million in revenue. If the entire revenue of the business is $25 Million, then you are obviously extremely significant. If the entire revenue of the business is $1 Billion, then potentially, at only 2.5% of total revenues, you may not be very significant.


 


On the other hand, if the total earnings for the 1$ Billion business is only $10 Million, and your $25 Million revenue organization is responsible for $10 Million in earnings, you could be very significant, depending on the earnings and losses of the other organizations within the business. As you can see, there may be no hard and fast rules regarding significance and relevance for a business.


 


There may however be some indications about an organization’s significance and relevance to the business. What is the revenue trend? Is it up, down or flat? Upward revenue trending businesses are naturally more relevant as business growth is always a focus. What is the earnings trend in both real dollars and as a percentage of revenue? Of the two, real dollars are usually more important, but businesses like to see both earnings dollars and percentage of revenue on an upward trend.


 


As you can see, significance and relevance in business is usually measured with a number, and the number usually has a “$” sign in front of it.


 


Now there are some “significant” businesses that may not meet this acid test. These are organizations that are usually deemed either “strategic” or “investment” organizations. That means that the business is putting resources into these organizations with the expectation that they will become significant and relevant quickly. Usually very quickly.


 


With the increased demand for and the decreased supply of resources (money, time, people) in the business, strategic and investment organizations are becoming rarer, and those that do exist are having greater demands for more significant performance faster. As the owners of the business (Stockholders, either private or public) demand better performance, so must this be translated into increased demands on each of the business’s organizations for increased and faster improvements in their performance.


 


Now with all this in place, what do you do when you find yourself in an organization that seems to be neither Relevant nor Strategic to the business?


There are several paths that can be taken in this instance. The choice can depend on personal preference and personality, assessment of the overall business, and the willingness of the individual and organization to accept change. I won’t go into great detail here. I will leave that to the next Blog article, but the basic responses to being in an irrelevant or non-strategic organization are:



  • Move to a new organization that meets the requirements of either a Relevant or Strategic organization.

  • Accept the organizations status within the business and work to make it successful within the bounds and expectations associated with that status.

  • Make the changes required to make the existing organization relevant. This can include changes to products, people and processes. This would include making the required changes needed to make the organization relevant on either the Revenue or Earnings level, or moving it into a strategic role.


I have always tried to be a change agent within the organizations that I have been associated with, so you can suspect what choices I have made in the past. I will look at those options, and others in the next article.

Achievement, Compensation, Goals, Incentives

No Corporate Goals

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With the beginning of the year comes the phrase that
while maybe not striking fear in the heart of a leader, will definitely elicit
a wince, or two. It’s time for annual reviews for the previous year, and the
setting of individual objectives for the New Year. This event normally ranks
right up there with root canal on the fun scale for a leader.

Despite my poking a little fun at how the process mat
be perceived, it is a very important process for the successful business. Set
the goals too low and you bog the business down because goals are achieved to
easily or to early. Set the goals too high and you run the risk of the team not
giving a full effort for a goal that is seen as impossible to achieve.

Another aspect of goal setting that is often
overlooked is that of materiality. We have all been recipients of the dreaded
“corporate” objective. That is the overall corporate Revenue, or Profitability
goal. While this may be a suitable goal for a division or business leader, at some
point in the hierarchy it does become meaningless.

Goals are only useful if the individual that the goal
is set for as the ability to achieve or affect the achievement of that goal.
Many will argue that everyone in the corporation has the ability to affect the
achievement of the corporate goal. This is where the idea of materiality comes
in. The entry level specialists may be able to contribute to the corporate goal
achievement, but their “rating” on this objective will be largely dependent on
the work and decisions of those managers and leaders above them.

“Corporate” goals bring down the performance of your
highest performers and mask and bring up the performance of those on the lower
end of the scale. An example would be if the performance of the leader (and
team) of a higher performing smaller division, would fail to get a bonus or an
appropriate review based on not achieving a corporate “objective” because a
larger, poorer performing division brought the overall corporate performance
down.

It seems to have long been held that if the entire
corporation did not achieve their goals then no one in the corporation could be
said to have full achieved their goals. In reality in this situation there are
always those that have achieved or exceeded their goals. It is just that their
performance has been masked by another group that has not. In this case the
higher performers have been lumped in with the lower performers, with little
opportunity for financial differentiation between them.

So, as the Novocain from the
root canal wears off, and the inevitability of having to set the individual
goals for the members of the team looms large, remember; Try not to set the
goals too low or too high, and make sure that the individual can in fact
achieve, or affect the achievement of the goal. In many instances this will
mean No Corporate Goals.