It has been said experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. That may or may not actually also apply to sales experience. If you go into sales and find you like it or are good at it, you probably won’t want to leave sales. In this instance you can get both what you want and experience. It has the potential to be lucrative with its commissions and compensation structures. Sales is the most quantitative of the business disciplines, meaning you know and everyone else knows when you have done well. Even if you decide that sales is not your preferred discipline, spending some time in sales and getting that experience can take your career in a number of different directions, and I think all of them are good. Good sales people are a rare and valuable commodity. It is the sales team that starts the business process by getting an order for a good or service. A sales vice-president in one of my earlier business assignments had a plaque outside his office door. At the time I thought it was interesting. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was truly accurate. It read:
“Nothing happens until something gets sold.”
Some of the other business disciplines may have some issues with the sales team. There will be those functions that will be at odds with sales. The finance team will be forever contending with sales over prices and margins associated with the sale. The legal and contracts teams will never be satisfied with the conditions of the sale. Operations will have to deal with delivery and implementation schedules that will be difficult to meet. It is a rare event when sales consummates a deal where everyone is happy with the margins, terms and schedules of the deal.
There will also be those functions that will state that it was their contributions to the sales process that were the true reason for the success. The support functions will say that without their groundwork and efforts sales would not have been able to get the order. Marketing will posit that it is in no small part attributable to their research, positioning and programs that there was any sales success. The development and engineering organizations will always state that it is due to the quality and elegance of the product design and function that sales is successful since the product is so good it almost sells itself. It is not a rare event, in fact it is a very common occurrence for any number of different non-sales groups to step forward and congratulate each other for their roles in a successful sale.
The first question to ask is why do you want to get into sales? There are those who consider sales the home of the peddlers and politicians of the business world. Those peddlers and politicians are the types of people who do not rapidly garner the respect of many of the other business disciplines. There are also those that consider sales the engine of the organization and recognize its role in driving the organization forward. It has been my experience that there are usually more detractors of sales than there are proponents of sales. You need to get used to that idea.
Spending time in sales will provide you with the perspective of what it actually takes to deal head up with the competition in an effort to get a customer to give you money. Too many times there have been senior management who matriculate to the top of the organization from a financial or engineering or product oriented experience set. You can usually tell these types of senior managers because they will usually do one of two things when it comes to sales: They will fully turn sales loose to manage their own business because they don’t understand the sales process, or they will try to fully or overly control sales because they feel they do fully understand sales (without having had sales experience) and hence want to dictate the sales process for the organization. Neither of these approaches usually works very well.
Getting into sales may not be an easy objective to accomplish. I am not aware of any undergraduate or graduate business degrees that are available in “Sales”. There is marketing, finance, etcetera, even human resources, but not sales. I think that fact in itself, that you cannot get a business degree in sales speaks volumes about the relative view of sales in the pantheon of business disciplines. So knowing this, how do you get into sales?
I don’t think there is any specific or defined method to getting into sales, other than setting sales as your goal and looking at how others have gotten into sales. Depending on the type of business, there will usually be a location or discipline within the organization that sales goes to recruit new sales team members. It may have been the support group, the operations team or even the training organization, but there will usually be a team that is considered the sales training ground. While you may not be able to get directly into sales from wherever you are, you should be able to make the step into the interim group that then enables the next step into sales.
Once into sales, how long do you stay there? If you are good at it you may want to focus your career on sales. The money can be great and the responsibilities will be well defined. While it may be possible to be a leader in the sales organization, there are relatively few business leaders who have come from the sales discipline. While good customer skills are a requisite for both sales and senior management positions, the incremental financial, product and business functional knowledge required to lead a business are not usually associated with sales team members.
So if you are not going to remain in sales, and you also know that it is difficult to become a business leader from the sales discipline, why am I recommending getting some sales experience? Sales is the recognized front end of the business process. It is crucial to generating the top line revenue for the business. The best way to generate a good bottom line is to generate a healthy top line. Experiencing sales from the sales side of the equation will help the business leader understand what sales must contend with from forces both internal and external to the organization. It will also help the leader to understand that sales people are not just peddlers and politicians, selling products that are already so good that they almost sell themselves.
Human Resources
Human Resources – the name of the organization that can strike fear in the heart of the business leader, individual contributor and job seeker alike. People only go talk to HR when they have a problem. People only get called by HR when they are in trouble. It is HR who identifies the talented individuals that would be beneficial employees through their talent acquisition responsibilities and it is HR who administers the lay-offs and exits those employees who are deemed to no longer be sufficiently beneficial to the company. It is quite possible that HR is the single most misunderstood organization in the company. Now why would you suppose that would be? Their name should say it all – Human Resources. They are supposed to be a resource for us humans right? Not so fast. On August 10, 1949 the Department of Defense came into being for the United States Government. Okay, so what, you might ask. Prior to that date the military enterprise for the United States was referred to as the Department of War. It was decided shortly after World War II that the government would try to avoid the word “war” pecause of its perceived negative connotation by the population, hence the change of the name to defense. Personally I think this is some pretty spiffy marketing on behalf of the government. This group did not make “defense” on other countries or peoples. They made “war” on them. They continued to perform the same functions after the name change that they performed before it. Despite having defense in the name, there did not appear to be a lot of defending going on. Which brings me back to Human Resources. Like the Department of Defense, and contrary to their name, Human Resources is not entirely about the humans that make up the organization. That would be only half the equation or less when it comes to describing their role. If you look at the roles that HR plays in the organization you would think that their name would more appropriately be Corporate Resources, or CR. Despite what people may think, or what their name might indicate, HR is there to look after the best interests of the corporation. That doesn’t mean that HR cannot or will not help people. They will, as long as it does not conflict with the interests of the corporation. If it is in the best interest of the company HR will absolutely be the individual employee’s advocate. For example, if someone has been discriminated against, HR will help them. Why is that? Some would argue that it is their moral responsibility. That may be partially true, but that is not the total reason. The full reason is that if the corporation does not adequately respond to complaints and charges by its employees regarding improper conduct either by the company or other individual employees in the company, the corporation will actually be in deeper trouble from a legal standpoint than if they did respond and took action. Rules have been put in place regarding how a corporation may conduct itself. This can include rules regarding both corporate and employee conduct, legal and safety responsibilities, fairness in hiring and firing practices, and a host of other topics regarding how employees may interact with each other while working at the company, as well as how they and the company as an entity may interact. It is HR’s primary responsibility to properly enforce these rules. If it is shown that HR did not fully or properly enforce these rules, the corporation can be at greater risk than if they were enforced. This puts HR in something of a precarious position. They must be an advocate for the employee with the issue, but they must continue to look out for the best interest of the company. If there ever is a question of which interest set is the most important, I would suggest you examine who is compensating HR to make sure of to whom their allegiance is. As another example I’ll look at that most unpleasant of business activities, the lay-off. If the business leadership has done their job appropriately well, most lay-offs will be avoided. When the leadership has failed and a lay-off is called for in order to reduce the size of the company, who gets involved? Human resources. They will administer the lay-off on behalf of the corporation to make sure that it is handled as humanely and correctly as possible. They will make sure that no specific employee demographic associated with age or gender or race, or anything else has been discriminated against during this lay-off. Are they doing this for the benefit of the employees? To some extent yes. Are they doing it for the benefit of the corporation so that the company does not find itself the defendant in an improper dismissal law suit? Absolutely. Even with all that in mind, that does not mean that HR will not help the individual. I have found HR to in general be populated with good people who do genuinely want to do a good job for both the people they work with as well as the company they work for. As I noted above they are charged with finding the most talented individuals to become employees of the company through their talent acquisition responsibilities. If you have an issue or a question they will want to listen and help you not only because they have to, but because they want to as well. In many instances HR finds itself trying to be the conscience of the corporate management in trying to translate quantitative corporate performance metrics and actions into qualitative human terms that can be accepted and implemented by the employees. Understand that it takes a special sort of person to be responsible for listening to and responding to each individual’s issues and complaints in an organization. In today’s litigious world, it is almost to the point where if an individual feels they have been discriminated against, then they have. It is a time where it may be improper to repeat a joke that you have heard on the public airwaves of the radio in the office, as someone could potentially find it offensive in some way and complain about the environment that it has created. Remember, accepted societal norms for social behavior may not be acceptable to each individual in the office, and it is HR’s responsibility to sort them out. Human resources takes both its corporate responsibilities as well as its employee advocacy seriously. Despite the fact that HR is paid by the corporation, and is responsible for looking after the corporation’s best interests, they will still do all they can for the individual employees. Just remember that they are doing it both because they want to for the employee and because they have to, for the company. As Juliet told Romeo, “What’s in a name?” When it comes to the Department of War and the Department of Defense there is probably not a whole lot of difference with the possible exception of some good public relations work. It is a good idea to remember the same public relations spin may be at work when looking at the Human Resource department in your organization, and understanding their Corporate responsibilities. They are the acknowledged company advocate of the individual employee and they usually do take that responsibility very seriously, but they are there primarily to protect the company from both itself and the improper behaviors of its employees as well.
Recruiters
Headhunters – dependent on your current employment condition the word can either strike fear, or hope in the heart of a business leader. If things are going well in your current role, and progress is being made you can be concerned about headhunters coming in and taking some of your team members for other opportunities. If things are not going so good, or if you have decided that it is time for you to find another opportunity, then headhunters are a good thing. And true to the probability of the jelly side of the sandwich falling jelly side down on the carpet (directly proportional to the price of the carpet) it seems that recruiters are never really around when you want or need them, but always seem to be there when you don’t. Up until the time we actually start working we have been on a program that has definite goals, and definite time lines for our own progression. We have twelve years of elementary through high school, then we graduate and start on college. We have a nominal 4 years (maybe more) where again we graduate. We have achieved our goals. We may go on to graduate school, but even then we have a goal and a relative time frame. In business we are not so fortunate to have such a well defined plan for progression. In fact if times get particularly hard, we can be asked to leave our current business roles and have to start the progression over. One of the best definitions of “luck” that I have heard was by Randy Pausch in his Last Lecture”. Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon Institute who provided some significant and insightful observations in a lecture he gave after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In it he described luck as “when opportunity meets preparation”. I think that definition is also applicable to some extent when it comes to the management of our own careers. Very few of us go into a position with a true plan as to what we are going to do next. We know what we are going to do now, (it’s in the job description we just signed up for) but we really don’t know what we are going to do next. We spend our time preparing and gathering experience for our next assignment, but we are never quite sure when or where it will be. We are always looking for the next opportunity. In times of economic expansion and growth companies also tend to grow and expand. This creates opportunities for individual growth and expansion as well. People are changing companies to take advantage of the opportunities, as well as leaders are being promoted from within their organizations to fill the new roles. In more difficult economic times companies tend to remain at current levels or even contract. While there will still be opportunities, they will not be as prevalent or pervasive as growth is much slower or in some cases non-existent. In any event, this is where recruiters or headhunters come in. They make their living by matching those people with the proper preparation with those companies who have the opportunities. Theirs is a high velocity world. If they are not making the connections and matching the prepared with the opportunity they are not making money. Theirs is a time and effort role. They normally don’t get a large salary. They get paid for the completion of the placement regardless of the time and effort that it took them to complete it. This is the equivalent of working for sales commission only. If you didn’t sell, you didn’t get paid. It would probably inspire you to work harder at completing your assigned task as well. They are judgmental because they have to be. If they judge you to be unprepared for the opportunity they are trying to fill, it doesn’t mean they don’t like you. It just means that if they are going to get paid they need to find somebody who is in their opinion better prepared to fill that role. This can be frustrating if you feel they have judged you improperly. Get used to it. It is the way it works. It is usually hard to create a professional relationship with a recruiter because they are so focused on the opportunities that they are trying to fill now. If they do not feel that you are a fit now, they will need to move on and talk to someone else who is. They will however take your information and keep it. That way in the future if they have an opportunity that matches your preparation, they can and will reach out to you. You can probably maintain contact, but I wouldn’t call it a relationship. As time passes and you progress in your business or industry it is quite probable that recruiters will reach out to you. As I progressed they did in fact reach out and contact me as well. I was fortunate in that early on in my career I got to participate in an economic and industry boom that provided many opportunities internal to the company I was working for. As such I did not pay a great deal of attention to the recruiters that contacted me. This was a mistake. Some recruiters knew of me but did not have my information in their files. I should have made better contact with them, even if I did not think I was going to need or use them. After every boom there is invariably a more difficult economic time that follows. While I may have been known to recruiters I was not on their radar screen as a particularly interested party. It was my turn to try and reach out to them. I still had all my preparation but I was now in search of the opportunity, not the opportunity being in search of me. Without having your information in their files all of your search efforts were be hit or miss. If they had an opportunity when I reached out to them, great. If they didn’t, it was only then that my information was showing up in their files Recruiters are not rude, but if they do not currently have an opportunity that matches your preparation set, they will not try to help you. Their business is not to help you find a position. Their business is to find the right person for the positions they have at that time. As I said, they are judgmental. If they don’t think you are a fit, they will move on. They have to. Regardless of how well you think you may be able to perform in that position they will continue to look for someone whose preparation better matches the opportunity. Recruiters provide a vital function in that they try to provide the connection between your professional experience and preparation and a company’s opportunity. They live in a very quantitative world. If they are successful, or lucky, in having someone’s preparation meet their current opportunity, then they get paid. They are not there to particularly help you. You don’t pay them anything. It is the company with the unfilled opportunity that pays them, but only after they have filled it. If you do not fit the opportunity, they will not try to make you fit it. They will try to find someone else who does better fit it. If you are interested in an opportunity that a recruiter has approached you about, say so. If not, then say so as well. Respect their time as you would want them to respect yours. With the advent of the internet and the plethora of job boards with all the opportunity postings it is easy to dismiss recruiters. I think this is also a mistake. Business is conducted between people. Whether it is the business of your current role or the business of finding your next role it will be the people and relationships that you know and have that will be far more important that the internet and the job boards.
Even if you are relatively happy with your current role and responsibilities, it is probably difficult to say what you next role and responsibility set will be. If and when a recruiter calls, understand what their role and incentive is. Even if the opportunity they are working on does not interest you, make the contact and provide your information. The next opportunity that they are working on could be the perfect one for your next career step. There may also come a time when you may want to be reaching out to them and it will be best to already have the contact in place.
Your Record
Bill Parcells is a name that every football fan should know. His nickname is the “Big Tuna”. I have no idea how he got that name but it has to be one of the best nicknames ever. He is also thought of as one of the great football coaches of recent times. He has won Super Bowls. He has turned around or built dynasties out of several football teams. In short, he seems to be a pretty good leader who has a record of demonstrated success over an extended period of time. Like many sports managers, coaches and personalities he is also the source of several great quotes. At one point in his career he had been brought in to a franchise that had been suffering through a period of extended poor performance. They were a once proud franchise that had been going through and extended period of losing records. He started the process of making changes. He made the incremental changes associated with how the team trained, and how the coaches coached. This was expected. He also started making changes in personnel on the team. This was also expected but to a much lesser extent. The quarterback is arguably the most important leadership position on the team. The quarterback for the team was an established star who had been in the league for several years. He had been a high draft choice coming out of college and had been traded for by the previous coaching regime. He had a strong arm and could make all the throws. He had been around and knew how to read defenses. His only weakness was that he was not the most mobile of quarterbacks. The television announcers occasionally likened his mobility to that of “statuary”. Defenses knew this and attacked him accordingly. In the first year of Parcells tenure with this team, things started to improve. The team started to win more games, but still ended up with a losing record. After the season the press was interviewing the quarterback. He stated that he had achieved many of his goals and then uttered the most favored statement of teams with losing records:
“We are better than our record showed.”
Then it came time for the press to interview Parcells. They asked him what he thought of his quarterback’s statement that they were better than their losing record would indicate. It was his turn to utter an immortal phrase. He said that the team was NOT better than its losing record would indicate. The team had a losing record and that showed how good they were. They were a losing team. If they were a better team they would have won more games and the record would show that.
He said that a team is as good as its record. Nothing else mattered.
As the team leader Parcells sent the message to his team. If the team goals were not met, no equivocation would be accepted. No “achieved” reviews would be ratings would be provided to the on field leader of a losing team. The team did not win enough games. Its performance and hence the performance of its on field leader did not meet expectations. He was very direct and honest with his rating of “needs improvement”.
I am a big believer in data, metrics and records. Like Parcells said, you are as good as your record. If the data and the metrics show that you did not achieve your goals, then you didn’t. If you are the leader of the team then your judgment and your example matters. If you indicate that you are willing to disregard the team’s record and actual performance when it comes time to assess your individual leader’s performance, then you are communicating that you do not hold yourself or them accountable for the performance.
While there are several aspects of leadership that can be considered qualitative, the record of the performance of the business is not one of them. Like the won – loss record of a football team, it is numeric. It is a metric. It is data. Individual accolades and measurements are good, but if you are the leader of the team and the team did not achieve its goals then there is an issue.
The following year the star quarterback was replaced. Despite his individual performance being good, he was not able to elevate and lead the rest of the team to a better team performance. It seemed that Parcells decided he needed someone that could lead and elevate the performance of the entire team, and not be so judgmental on his own individual performance.
I have stated in the past that performance rating criteria need to be commensurate with the ability of the individual to affect the performance that they are rated on. An offensive lineman cannot directly affect the teams won – loss record other than his individual performance on how well he blocks or how many times he allows the quarterback to get sacked. If he is a great individual lineman who does his job, blocks well and protects the quarterback then he has met or exceeded his goals for performance, almost regardless of what the team’s record would indicate. The quarterback is however the on field leader. He touches the ball on just about every play. If he has a great year completing passes, but the team continues to lose is he a great quarterback? Like it or not, as the on-field team leader he will have to shoulder the majority of the responsibility for the teams record. It goes with the position.
The individual metrics would indicate that he is a good player. The team performance would indicate that he is not a good leader. When the quarterback in question seemed to put his own performance above that of the team, it appeared that coach Parcells decided he was not the on-field leader that he needed. When the quarterback said they were better than the record indicated, it could be construed as he was saying he was better than the record indicated.
I appreciate what the Big Tuna said and did. He made the incremental changes needed in the way the team practiced and prepared for a game, but he also made the personnel changes both in his leadership positions as well as the other team positions that were required for both a winning culture and a team culture approach to performance. The team in question continued to improve and did reach the playoffs quickly after he instituted these changes.
And as Parcells noted, they continued to be as good as their record indicated.
Charts
Sometimes it’s the little things that set me off. I have mentioned many times that I am so old school business that at this point I am probably an anachronism. I believe in clarity. I believe in definition. I believe in simplicity. In today’s world of ever increasing complexity and confusion the ability to bring clarity and focus to an issue is the sign of a leader. This is business. We are not trying to understand the tabulated data associated with the new types of matter that have recently been observed at the Large Hadron Collider, nor are we supposed to be analyzing Mendlebrot patterns and images associated with understanding chaos theory as it applies to structures found in nature. Unfortunately it seems we are drifting in this direction when it comes to reviewing our business performance.
Periodically good businesses review how they are doing with various sales, financial and operational reviews. The standard form of communicating information in the business world in these types of reviews is the PowerPoint chart. PowerPoint charts are an excellent medium for communicating information and images. Images are more quickly comprehended and better retained than written verbiage by the viewer. Since we usually have only a limited time for these reviews, we tend to use PowerPoint charts as the medium for review in them.
Excel spreadsheets are good also. Since we use numbers in our measurements and metrics they fit well in the spreadsheet format where they can more easily be manipulated. So what do we do? We embed Excel spreadsheets in our PowerPoint Charts. We also need a few bullet points on the chart to explain certain items and draw attention to specific points that we want to make. We must now make the Spreadsheet smaller to accommodate the added information of the bullet points, which must all be contained on the chart.
Because the spreadsheet is tabulated data and we know that management does not want to have to read the tabulated data we do two additional things to the chart. We color code the cells on the spreadsheet so that management can just look at the color Red, Yellow, Green, and understand if it is a good number or a bad number, sometimes without having to actually understand the number or what it means. We also add at least one pie chart or candle chart to the slide to graphically represent the now color coded numbers on the spreadsheet that have been explained by the bullets on the slide, since we know that images are better understood and retained.
We can now move on to the second slide in the deck.
And so the chart deck grows. There are now charts on topics that are required to be covered by management, charts explaining the charts that are required to be covered, topics that are not required but are being covered because the presenter wants to cover them, charts explaining these charts, and then there are the “backup” charts that are there just in case there is a question that can be easily covered by one of these charts.
Team members are invariably only allocated about half the time they would require to present the number of charts that have been created for the purpose of the review. Instead of removing charts, and summarizing some of the information from the deck, what normally happens is that charts are consolidated. Two charts, or in some instances as many as four charts are reduced in size and put on a single chart. The number of charts in the deck has successfully been reduced. The amount of information in the deck has been retained. There is now no possibility that the team member will be able to present the reduced number of charts within the allotted time. The probability of audience comprehension has also been reduced due to the quantity and complexity of the charts.
Now reviews take too long because of the amount and complexity of the information that is trying to be captured in each single chart. The value of the review is diminished because the comprehension level of the review audience has been reduced due to the complicated formats and quantity of information on each chart. A communication format that is designed to communicate simple images and information that can be quickly understood and processed has been turned into a multimedia structure that has lost much of its value due to the complexity that has been added.
PowerPoint charts are supposed to be simple. By necessity that means that they need to be communicating summary information. PowerPoint charts are a structure well suited for providing a few specific details, not all of the details. They are designed to help communicate through the use of images, a few simple images. If there are too many images on a chart, none of them get well retained by the viewer and they will all lose their value.
Normal writing as it appears on the printed page is usually ten to twelve point font. This is too small for a chart. You are not writing a document, you are creating a chart. If you find you have to reduce the font on your chart to this level to accommodate all the information you want to provide on the chart there is a problem. Either reduce the amount and detail of the content, or put it on a separate chart so people can read it more easily. I have been told a good rule of thumb is no more than five to six bullet points of eight to ten words maximum. Any more than that and you are getting too verbose for PowerPoint.
Finally, if you cannot present your topic in approximately twenty charts, with twenty five as a maximum, you have a problem. You are either wanting or trying to present way too much information. It is a review. I have seen multi-billion dollar business units presented concisely in twenty charts. It can be done. You need to know and understand the detail of what you are reviewing. The audience does not. They want a summary of what you know. If there are questions, or more detail is desired, they will ask.
We need to simplify our charts. It will help simplify our messages. Simple messages help us focus on the issues. When we focus on the issues we have a tendency to solve them. While complex slides may initially look impressive, more complexity is usually not the answer to any question.
Office Decor
I have mentioned several times that I am a proponent of walking around the office. It gives you an opportunity to observe firsthand what is going on and the level of activity and it makes you visible and approachable to the team. On these walks I have had the opportunity to both observe and enter multiple offices and cubes. I understand that many people consider their office to be their second home, but we all need to remember that the office is a place where business is conducted and that any office customizations or decorations should reflect this. It’s hard to walk around any office and not see at least a few cubes adorned with a few cartoons and clippings from the ubiquitous “Dilbert” publications. Yes, Scott Adams (Dilbert’s creator) is a genius. Yes, we all can identify with several of the characters depicted. The topics and dialog are scarily close to what we have all experienced in the past. I get it. I think they are great too. Dilbert pokes fun at companies and their management with an accuracy that is both hard to believe and hilarious. I don’t think you should be posting them on the outside wall of your cube or office. The point is that like it or not, believe it or not, where you work does reflect on you and the type of work that people would expect from you. I have been in several senior leaders offices. There were no Dilbert cartoons displayed. There was usually a plant or two, but it was not a jungle, and they were well kept. There was a picture or two but they were usually either of an artistic nature or of family. There were usually a few management books on the shelves and a few documents on the desk. It was lived in, uncluttered and comfortable, but also orderly and clean. It displayed professionalism, balance and confidence, all traits that are desirable in a leader.
At home do you have a wall where you post cartoons and comics that continuously poke fun at your domestic management? I am married and my wife has a very good sense of humor. She would have to have one if she has been able to put up with me for as long as she has. I recognize this. Even knowing this, I do not go and take every domestic based cartoon that I find humorous, and that might poke fun at her or her position in the household and post it outside the front door to our house. I don’t post them on the inside walls, or even on the refrigerator. I know better than to continuously press my luck in that way.
My point here is that while there are many good, funny, humorous, or situational correct business cartoons out there, are you sure that you are sending the message that you want to send by displaying them where you specifically conduct business? By using them to make your tacit comments about your company or management, you are also making a comment about yourself that may not be perceived in the most professional of terms.
Having been in uncounted offices and cubes throughout my career I’ll try to describe and comment on a few of the various office decors that have stood out in my mind:
Having a professional looking office will not guarantee you leadership opportunities or business success. However, having one that is overly cluttered or decorated, or displays social or political cartoons or commentary will definitely not help you. I understand and agree with everyone’s right to assert their individuality and to have it reflected in the décor of their office. Just remember that businesses are looking for people with character, not people who are characters.
What do you think your office says about you?
The earliest written form of communication is generally accepted as Cuneiform, the pressing of triangular shaped marks into clay tablets, and it dates as far back as the thirtieth century BC. It was developed and used by the Sumerians, and was used primarily to keep track of their business dealings. We know this because we have found pieces of these clay tablets and deciphered them. Who would have thought that we would be reading someone’s five thousand year old inter-office memo today? It just goes to show you that even then you needed to be careful about what you committed to writing. Up until relatively recently we committed our written communications to some sort of physical media, in most cases paper, as Sumerian clay was relatively messy and somewhat cumbersome to deal with. We created an entire set of businesses and industries associated with our paper mail communications. Some prospered and grew – the US Postal Service. Some grew and then somewhat quickly died. We can look at the Pony express as an example on one end of the mail continuum and any company that made enterprise postage meter systems at the other end of it. You must assume that people, other than those for whom the communication is intended will in all probability also see the communication. The simple fact is that because it is so easy to forward Email, almost all Email gets forwarded. Information gets shared. Administrative assistants have access to executives Email accounts and will manage their Emails for them. Mistakes happen. Very little of our written communications should continue to be considered proprietary going forward. While we may have the image of the piece of paper on our screen, and while this may make us think of and associate that proprietary mail process and federal offense of the past, we need to realize it no longer applies. We need to plan on the fact that people other than the people to whom the Mail is addressed will see the information. That brings me to Instant Messaging. That is the on-line service that allows you to exchange messages in almost real time with someone. That should be secure, right? After all there are only the acknowledged participants in the IM session, correct? Not so fast. Email has changed the way we conduct business. It has sped up and improved many aspects of business. However we seem to continue to use and regard our electronic communications capabilities with the same sense of proprietary security that we regarded previous mail systems. I have seen too many times either through inattention, or by specific direction, Email information that gets shared that was not intended for sharing. Since I don’t think there is a way to stop the sharing, that means that we all need to be a little more aware of what write in our Emails.
We created a great many laws associated with our paper communications. It became a federal offense to open someone else’s Mail. You didn’t read other people’s mail and other people did not read yours. In short, what you wrote to someone else on paper and sealed in an envelope was a private communication between you and that person only. If you wanted to keep a copy of your correspondence, you trotted over to the copier machine and made a copy before you sent it. It was this way for so long that it was almost a given cultural base-line as to how a person’s written communications were treated.
Now let’s fast forward to the Email and Instant Messaging (IM) world of today. For Emails we no longer have a physical media or piece of paper that we commit our communications to. We have an image of a piece of paper on our screen. We can fill it with whatever information we please and send it to as many recipients as we choose, and we can do it almost immediately. If we have private or proprietary information to exchange we can limit the number of recipients and mark it with such Sensitivity settings as “Personal”, “Private” and “Confidential”. That should mean that only the person that we sent it to should see it, right?
In the age of open communications on corporate Email systems you should assume that every piece of communications that you send is going to be read by more people than just the person (people) it was intended for, regardless of how personal or proprietary. Moreover, you need to realize that once sent all documents will reside in relatively non-volatile memory until they are actually actively purged or more likely till they are archived onto a truly non-volatile memory device (CD?) for storage and possible retrieval at a later date. That means once written, it will probably exist in one form or another forever.
I wonder if people five thousand years in the future will be excavating our CD and data depositories, reading our Emails, and thinking about them in the same way we think about Sumerian clay tablets. Remember clay tablets were state of the art five thousand years ago. I don’t know how long plastic CDs are supposed to last but I expect that it is longer than clay tablets.
Has anyone heard of a “Print Screen” command? There is a command button over on the upper right side of the keyboard that is labeled “Print Screen”. This is the button that can be pushed in order to capture an image of what is currently displayed on the screen as a file. This file can then be saved, or treated like any other file you may have. What do you attach to Emails? You attach files to Emails. That is correct. I have received Emails with copies of IM session communications attached, as part of their “documentation”. I am sure that the other person in the IM session did not expect me or anyone else to be a party to that conversation.
After all, I bet the person that wrote the five thousand year old message in Cuneiform on the clay tablet didn’t expect to have all of us reading it either.
Business Cards
The following Blog Article is one I posted at http://businesscardtobusiness.com/blog as a “Guest Blogger” on 10/29/2012. I am reposting it here just in case anyone may have missed it. When was the last time you actually read a business card? In the US we have a tendency to swap cards at a meeting, casually glance at the card we have received and then tuck it in our pocket so that we can be sure to add it to the rubber band bound deck of business cards we keep in our desk drawer at the office. In some parts of the world a business card is presented with both hands, face up and oriented so that the person receiving the card can immediately read it. If you are presented a business card in such a manner and don’t take the time to read the card with the intensity associated with reading the latest Pulitzer prize winning novel, then don’t expect a fully successful meeting. You may have insulted the person who presented you the card. I once received a card from a lady with a picture of her head on the back. Nothing else, just her smiling face. I asked her why she did that. She said she wanted people to remember her card. I don’t remember her name, what she did, why we met, or who she worked for, but I do remember her card. In returning to my earlier foreign business card example, businessmen in some parts of the world treat their own and each other’s business cards with respect. They are used as an integral part of conducting business meetings. Here in the US we now seem content to utilize our business cards for not much else other than to drop them in a bowl at the cash register where we eat lunch in the hopes that it may be drawn and we receive a free lunch next week. Maybe the reason for the proliferation of all the new business card colors, sizes and formats is not so much for business purposes, but really for no other reason than to increase the chances of those cards being drawn for the free lunch.
When it comes to business cards I guess I can best be described as strictly “old school”. It seems with ever increasing regularity I am getting what I would describe as “new age” business cards. I think the only thing missing from some of them are pyramids or crystals, in the attempt to grab my attention and differentiate one business card from another. I understand the idea but I find it more humorous than professional, and hence more forgettable, which I think is the opposite of the business cards intent.
This process may delay the actual start of a meeting by as much as ten seconds, but I like it, think it is well worth the time and would like to see it more in the US. It demonstrates respect for the information that the person has provided you to start the meeting and by extension the information that they will provide you during the meeting.
Like I said old school.
Increasingly it seems I am getting business cards that remind me of miniature birthday cards. They now come in all sorts of colors. I think this is done in the hopes that by presenting a colorful business, it will make the presenter more memorable. I don’t remember who gives me a colorful business card. I just remember the color. He gave me a red card, or she gave me a blue one. I don’t think that was the objective, but it is the result. They now also appear to come in oversized or even folded formats. This is especially disruptive to my business card filing system as the rubber bands have a tendency to cut in and dog-ear the edges of these cards.
It is the content of the business card that is important.
The company name and logo should clearly prominent across the top of the card. If I forget your name, chances are I will remember the company and search for the card in that manner. If I can’t easily locate the company name on the card it will probably not see the light of day again.
Utilize a landscape as opposed to a portrait orientation to the business card. I have a tendency to hurt my neck as I try to turn my head sideways when I try to read improperly oriented cards. I guess I could just rotate the card ninety degrees, but that would be a little too weird for me.
Put your name in a little larger and bold font. I want to be able to locate it quickly. Put your title and area of responsibility directly below your name so that they can easily be associated. Remember to keep your title short. It would appear that people want to believe that the longer and more detailed their title, the more important they sound. This is the opposite of what is the case. The really important people seem to have titles that are one to three words long. If your title has to be reread multiple times to decipher what it is that you actually do, the chances are that your business card will be dismissed, not remembered.
The back of the business card presents an interesting situation. Simple, clean and blank is always good. I am finding myself coming around to the idea of the corporate web site or URL on the back is good as well, and even perhaps an email address. If you deal in multilingual markets, having all the business card information in the language of the market on the reverse side of a business card is very good as well.
Superfluous information, catch phrases or other personal customizations detract from the card far more than they help.
I guess it worked, sort of.
Why Reorganize?
I have heard a number of reasons why a business needed to reorganize, but in reality I can think of only two reasons that are a business should go through a reorganization. Reorganizations are inevitably messy, become somewhat political in nature and distract the entire organization from its primary goals; providing value to the customers and in return of that, providing value to the business owners. There may be several other different names for the reasons to reorganize, but for me they return to these two basic reasons; you reorganize your business to better match your customers’ business model, or you reorganize to cut costs and try to improve profitability. Sun Tzu in his book The Art of War stated that war is not to be undertaken lightly as it will cost the state that goes to war its resources, its people and the time and attention that it could place on other more beneficial and constructive projects. The same could very easily be said about reorganizing a business. When a business decides to engage in a cost cutting reorganization, the focus needs to be two-fold. What work is going to be stopped or removed from the organization, and what functions are going to be retained or enhanced? When you are cost cutting you are removing expense – and people – from the organization. Some of the work that those people were doing can and will be absorbed by others within the organization, but a significant portion of it will not. The key will be to clearly define the work and roles that are no longer providing the required value to the business and to focus on them.
Reorganizations cost businesses resources and money in their creation and execution. They cost businesses people, both those that are directly affected by the changes as well as those who decide to leave based on the incremental uncertainty that has been injected into the business. Reorganizations also cost the business the opportunities that are missed both in the market and within the business while the organization’s focus is on the creation of a new internal structure.
Businesses live and die by providing value to their customers. Over time customers and their needs can change. Just as records gave way to CDs, which in turn have given way to MP3s, and “mailing a check” has given way to on-line e-commerce (to use a few consumer products for illustration), businesses have had to adapt to the changes customers have demanded. In the past I have written about business “momentum” as the inertia that has a tendency to keep a business moving in the same direction and doing the same things until a force acts on it to change things. A reorganization would be such a force.
The net result here is that if your customers have changed the way they do business, the types of products they demand, or any other fundamental structures associated with their needs, you will have to modify your business structures to match them in order to be efficient and provide your customers with the maximum value that you can.
The other primary reason to reorganize is to cut costs. Refocusing resources away from outdated or unprofitable markets and products, taking advantage of new streamlining operational techniques, or reacting to fundamental changes in the market or economy are examples of reasons for a cost cutting reorganization.
In either type of reorganization change will be met with some resistance. Those whose roles may be changing will have some aversion to having to learn new roles. Those whose roles and work are no longer seen as providing the desired value to the company will resist being defined in those terms. The longer this situation exists the more disjointed the organization risks becoming.
The key to the reorganizations success will lay both in the final perception of the changes by reorganized group, and the speed at which the changes were affected. If fundamental changes in both the management structure and just as importantly the number of managers – remember, if cost cutting requires less work it also requires fewer managers to manage the work – have been enacted then the team can and will recognize the value of the reorganization. If the changes are enacted in a very timely manner where the opportunity for the business to be distracted from the primary focus of providing value to the customer is minimized, the reorganization will also be much less disruptive and accordingly far more successful.
Reorganizations
Whenever a business enters the fourth quarter of the year, everyone’s attention inevitably turns to the topic that they had already been anticipating for the previous three quarters of the year – the possibility of, potential for, or pending business reorganization. Reorganizations are interesting events in a business. Leaders have a tendency to try and keep the structural changes a secret until they can be fully announced. This tends to be a futile effort on several levels. On the first level, when people are involved, as they must be for a reorganization, information regarding the potential changes is going to get out. When a number of people are involved, or are providing input, someone will talk. If people become aware of pending changes before the full structure is in place, it can cause them to behave in ways detrimental to the current organizational structure in anticipation of the future structure. On the other hand if the number of people involved in the reorganization is held to a minimum, and the information is tightly controlled, the reorganizational changes can be withheld from the business. While this may sound like the preferable situation, in reality the lack of knowledge can cause the organization several issues as well. Instead of focusing on the business and opportunities at hand, the team will have a tendency to become more internally focused on exactly how the reorganization will manifest itself. It can also cause team members to feel somewhat alienated by the fact that they were not involved or consulted regarding potential changes affecting their careers. The best statement that I have heard to describe this situation is: If during a reorganization you present your employees with a blank page regarding information on where they will work and what they will do, you will not like the story that they will write, and neither will they. A fine line must be walked when reorganizing. Enough team involvement to get commitment and assure an intelligent and logical structure is put in place to position the business for future growth. Not so many people involved that the situation becomes unwieldy and proprietary information is too readily available and becomes distracting to the business. Some information needs to be provided to the team in order to minimize the internal speculation and distraction to the organization, but not so much information about future organizations that it begins to affect current business structures and behaviors. The key to maintaining organizational focus during and through a reorganization is going to be the length of time that the reorganization takes to complete. In general, the shorter the amount of time involved the better. Like removing a Band-Aid that needs to be changed, doing it quickly minimizes the discomfort. There will be less time for information to prematurely filter out into the organization and less time for the distraction of the team associated with speculation on the new business structures. Some organizations have tried to break down the reorganizing process into shorter or smaller steps and announce each step as a way to minimize the distraction to the business. The example would be to reorganize one business group (vertically) or one management level (horizontally) and then announce the results in an effort to keep information flowing and minimize business distraction and disruption during an extended reorganization process. Again, time will be of the essence here. Until the final reorganization announcement has been made, and noted as the final announcement, the business team’s focus cannot be fully on the customer and conducting business with them. Speculation on the wisdom of the last step and the potential future structures and moves associated with the next step will continue until the reorganization process is over. Reorganizations are rarely an enjoyable experience for anyone. Those that are doing the reorganizing are making difficult decisions that will affect the careers of the people on the team and the success of the organization in the future, while trying to make sure that current performance objectives are met. Those that are being reorganized are concerned about their careers while at the same time continuing to try and perform their current jobs. The less time that these incremental stresses are applied to either group, the better it will be for the business. If the decision is made to reorganize, the optimal approach is to generate a reorganization plan and execute it as rapidly as possible. That is easy enough to say, but in reality experience has shown that it is difficult to do.
If it has been a good year there is always the possibility of a reorganization in order to move resources from underperforming business units to growing businesses to take advantage of the market conditions. If it has been a fair year for the business there is always the potential for a reorganization in the hopes of kick-starting the business for the next year. If it has been a year of underperformance, or worse another year of underperformance, chances are that a reorganization is not only a probability, it is probably pending.