Category Archives: Communication

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?

It’s Not “What”

We have all attended senior management “all hands” meetings. These are invariably the meetings where senior management fulfills its obligation to try and communicate with the rest of the business. These meetings have the potential to really inspire the team. The reality is that they usually do not.

All hands meetings are usually appreciated for the attempt by management to communicate to the team. It has been a while since any of us has been graded on effort alone. We get reviewed on results. They can also be easily interpreted as management fulfilling its obligation to meet its self measured object to “communicate” with the team.

Much of the issue lies in the content presented to the team in the all hands communication session. There is usually a review of the group’s performance. This is good. Everyone wants to know where the team stands with respect to its goals or targets, and how it is doing with respect to previous periods. This provides the team with an overall frame of reference for their performance and position.

What follows is normally a review of “what” is to be done next. What the next goal is. What is yet to be done. What needs to be improved. When I hear this sort of information I am reminded of the satires of war movies where the general addresses the soldiers preparing for battle and tells them.

”Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take that hill. When we’re done there, we’re going to take the next hill. After that we’re going to take the next hill. When we get up on top of that hill, we’re going to look around and see if there are any other hills we want to take….”

Objectives are great. Now everyone knows “What” the team is going to do. Everyone probably had a good idea of what they were going to do next before the meeting. The team now wants to hear How they are going to achieve the goal. Which resources are to be used. Who will have leadership responsibilities. In short, they want to hear a high level review of the “The Plan”.

An all hands meeting where you do not communicate the organizational strategy or plan is almost akin to telling your organization that you don’t have a plan, even if you do. I have stated in the past that if you provide your team a blank page (no information) chances are that you will not like the story that they will write on it. That is the case here.

The individual members of the team need to at least understand the high level aspects of the team strategy, so they can internalize them and create their own individual strategies and goals that support and contribute to the team goals. By providing more than just a “what” is needed, and including a little more of “why” its needed and “how” we propose to get it, you can turn an all hands meeting back into a much more useful management tool.

Great Expectations

A colleague of mine had been working with a difficult customer for some time. He was making good progress with the customer and their issues. Late on a Thursday he sent me a request for support with a customer deliverable for the following Monday morning at 7:00 AM. This request would require essentially a one business day turnaround, or the team to work over the weekend.

 
Now sometimes a customer request should and does require the weekend work. After a little discussion with my friend it was determined that his request was a “nice to have” not a “have to have” capability for the customer. I then asked why we wanted a “nice to have” deliverable in a “have to have” time frame. He responded by saying he was trying to show our responsiveness to the customer.

 
I explained that my concerns were multiple: I didn’t know if we could scope the work (estimate the time effort and complexity of the request), and implement properly it within the time frames he was trying to set. I also told him I thought that there was a significant risk that our demonstration of responsiveness could backfire on him. He asked how.

 
Customer satisfaction is based (in my opinion) on economic expectation theory. Simply stated that means if you set your customer’s expectations at a specific level, and then meet those expectations, your customer will be satisfied with your performance. In this instance I pointed out that if he set the customers expectations for receiving this incremental functionality (nice to have) in an achievable time frame, and we in fact were not able to deliver it in the desired interval, we would not have met the customers expectations. This would have turned a potential opportunity to build customer trust and relationship into a negative experience for the customer.

 
It would not have mattered that we were trying to do something for the customer that might have been above and beyond the requirements of the contract. What would have mattered is that we would have committed to providing something to the customer within a certain time frame and then not delivered on it. The point here was that when you commit to providing something, even something you are not contractually required to provide, it becomes an expected deliverable and is viewed as such by the customer.

 
What we instead did in this instance was commit to providing the desired incremental functionality for the Monday a week later than my friend wanted. This provided us with the time required to properly scope and perform the desired tasks. We ended up providing it on the Thursday of the week that my friend wanted (not the Monday) and were able to be perceived by the customer as both providing incremental functionality and providing it ahead of our commitment – a two for one on the customer satisfaction score card. More over we were able to set a reasonable expectation by the customer and then meet it.

Are They Really Buying?

In a previous post I noted that customers associate value with that which they pay for. That means, in my opinion, that if you give a customer something for free, the customer will not really recognize it as valued. I would like to address the concept of customer value, when it comes to sales. I will relate a story to illustrate my point.

 
Several years ago I was dealing with a customer users group. As with every good users group they were in the habit of prioritizing their product enhancement desires and requests and presenting those requests to us at our joint user’s group meetings (which actually occurred twice a year). A specific request for a specific enhancement started to appear regularly at these meetings.

 

As time passed and other issues were dealt with, this request continued to rise in priority on the request list.

Soon it became a point of contention. The customers wanted to know why the feature was not being made available (despite the availability of “work arounds”), and the sales teams wanted to know when they would be able to sell the capability to the obviously pent up demand.

 
It became time to deal with this topic directly. During an open forum meeting with the users group, they were asked how many of them wanted this capability, even though there was a work around. All hands were raised. They were then asked how many of them would be willing to pay for this capability, since incremental development and work would need to be expended by the manufacturer to create it.

Despite the popular concept to the contrary, we were in fact a “For Profit” institution.

Several hands went down. When it was shared with them what the actual price of the capability would be, to cover costs and provide profit and on going support, almost every hand dropped.

There are always those things that are “nice to have”. Those are normal items that customers do not associate value with. If they did, they would probably be categorized as “need to have” instead of “nice to have”. Need to have items can, should and normally will be paid for by the customer in association with the value they bring the customer. Items that are classified more as “wants” instead of “needs” may not.

The quickest way to separate the “wants” from the “needs” is to associate a price with the request. If the customer recognizes the value, there will be a negotiation / agreement. If the customer doesn’t recognize value, you will know very quickly and can then move on to the next topic.

Secrets and Common Knowledge

I heard it once said that the difference between a business secret and common knowledge was that common knowledge was far more difficult to come by. I think to some extent this is probably the case.


 


Whether in sales or business management, as you progress up the ladder you become more of a “knowledge” worker and somewhat less of an implementation worker. By the nature of your expanded role you are entrusted with more information regarding the plans and strategies of the accounts or business (usually both).


 


This is pretty heady stuff. You are entrusted to know things that others are not. The urge is to show off and tell others the things you know. The requirement is to communicate strategies and directions so as to best align the resources to execute on the plans. The need is to do so without “broadcasting” in such a way as to reduce the value of the information by providing it to those who do not need, or should not have it.


 


I have stated in the past that the value of information is in sharing it. The art is being able to select what to share and who to share it with and how to share it in such a way as to be able to achieve your sales and business goals without your proprietary business information becoming “common knowledge”.

When the Going Gets Tough – Communicate


There will always be tough times in business. It is the cycle of things. As leaders we should be working to minimize and avoid them, but sometimes they can’t be avoided. When things get tough, our natural tendency is to keep quiet, keep our head down and work harder. That is not the right response for the business leader facing tough times.

 

When times get tough the business leader needs to go on the communications offensive. You must communicate your issues and your plans to improve the situation, and the progress against those plans to the senior leadership team. It is best not to wait for them to ask. If there are issues and you wait for management to ask you, or worse yet tell you what to do, it will compromise your ability to lead your team.

 

On the other side of things, your team will also recognize when there are issues with the business. You will need to communicate openly and often with them to make sure that they are aware of all aspects of the situation and what their respective roles in it will be going forward. If your team is left with a blank page (no information) the story that they will write will not be the one you want.

 

While open and significant communication may not correct the issues that are driving the hard times, it will significantly contribute to making sure that they do not get worse. People can and will understand that tough times occur. Knowing what is happening and what their roles in it going forward are key aspects of creating and implementing the solution to tough times.

Walk Around

I always learned more about what was happening in the business by walking around the office, than by any other method. Staff meetings were fine. Monthly, and in some cases weekly reports were okay. The best way for me was by walking around.


Walking around the office serves a couple of purposes. Teams invariably like their leaders to be visible. They also like to feel their leaders are approachable. If you are out in the aisles talking to anyone and everyone, not just your direct reports, you are all this and more. You are a visible member of the team.


Engaging the team in their space, not in your office or a conference room, put them more at ease. They seemed to open up more. It was a conversation, not a report. It was more of a peer to peer exchange. It was less of a superior to subordinate interrogation.


It worked.


If you need to know what is happening on a deeper level, don’t call people into your office to ask them. Get up and walk over to their area to see them. Sit down and start a conversation. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn just by walking over.