Humor, Self Analysis

The Uniform

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I guess I may be somewhat “old school” when it comes to what I wear to the office. I can’t seem to get past the idea that the office is where I work and practice my profession. I still think of the office as the place of business and I feel like I perform better when I have my business uniform and game face on. I can remember back when that meant that you wore business attire to the place of business. I am in no way advocating that we all revert to wearing suits and ties as our business uniforms to the office, but I do think we need to rethink what we do wear to the office.

I think the only way to approach this topic is to be a little bit tongue in cheek, and attempt to inject a little humor into the discussion about it. I don’t want to sound or be judgmental. Different people have different tastes in attire. I am sure there must have been many good reasons for some of the outfits that are now to be seen in the office. However I do believe that as business professionals, working for the most part in office environments where customers can and do have a tendency to visit, that we should try to be attired at least as professionally as the average department store sales associate.


I understand the idea of casual attire and how being more comfortable may improve productivity and employee satisfaction, and I to some extent I agree with these concepts. I think the key attribute to remember here is that it is not just “casual attire”; it is “Business casual attire”. You are not at home, or shopping, or running errands, or even working in the yard. You are in a place of business, your business.

It is in the spirit of this approach that I will try to give a few examples and suggestions regarding some of the office attire I have been witness to, and some possible suggestions:

  • Tee shirts. I have never seen anyone working in a department store wearing a tee shirt. People who work at gas stations and McDonald restaurants do not wear tee shirts to work.  Unless you are a professional body builder, or report to Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” I can’t see that a tee shirt of any color, regardless of how clean and well ironed it is or how funny the comment stenciled across the front and/or back of it is, would be acceptable attire in the office. I take that back. I guess a tee shirt would be acceptable if they are worn underneath your professional office attire shirt. I think a pretty good rule of thumb here is that if it doesn’t have a collar, don’t wear it to the office.

  • Men’s Sandals. Let’s face a fact here guys. At the admitted risk of sounding somewhat sexist, most men do not have especially attractive feet. Particularly when they are hanging out the bottom of a long pair of pants. Now I have seen some men who have either been told, or perhaps have the self awareness regarding the attractiveness of their feet that have covered them up with socks when they decide to wear their sandals to the office. Really? Long pants, socks and sandals? I understand that sandals are comfortable. I have a pair or two myself. If comfort is the key, you need to go out and buy a comfortable pair of adult shoes. A reasonable rule here is that open toed foot attire is generally neither a professional nor a good idea for men in the office.

  • Baseball Caps. Yes, baseball caps. Unless you are a professional baseball player, or Larry the Cable Guy, you should probably not wear a baseball cap to your office. With today’s new hair styles it doesn’t seem to really matter if you are having a bad hair day or not, so there is no reason to cover it up with a baseball cap.

  • Sneakers, running shoes, or athletic shoes. I know it must sound as though I have some sort of a foot fetish. I don’t. I believe this type of foot attire is only acceptable if you work in an environment where it can reasonably be expected that either a basketball game or a marathon race will spontaneously erupt, and as part of your job description you will be required to either play point guard on the basketball team, or be the rabbit that sets the pace for the first several laps of the race. Otherwise plan on wearing a casual dress shoes.

  • Blue jeans. Yes, they are comfortable. Yes, they are ubiquitous. No, I personally do not think they belong in the office. When you go to the dentist or the doctor’s office are they wearing blue jeans? How would you feel if you walked into the doctor or the dentist’s office and they were wearing blue jeans? When was the last time you saw a sales associate at a department store wearing blue jeans? There are some environments where jeans may be an acceptable type of attire (lab environments, maintenance, etc.) but the office environment is probably not one of them.

I don’t really know what the guidelines for office attire are, or what they should be. I have only rendered my opinion on some the items that I have seen in the past on a relatively regular basis. The idea here is that as I have said, the office is a place of business. Some behaviors and some attire that may be acceptable in other places may not be acceptable in the office. People can truly wear whatever they like to the office as long as it is within the rules as spelled out by the appropriate organization. I try to be a professional when I am in the office. I can’t help but feel that dressing a little more professionally helps to put me in that mind set as well. The only comment I can really make along this line is that when you are choosing your uniform of the day for the office, ask yourself if you have ever seen your reporting superior wearing similar types of attire. If the answer is “no” then you might want to think twice before putting it on and going into the office.

Conflict Management, Employees, Leadership. Communication

Difficult Conversations

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When was the last time you held a difficult conversation? I am not talking about having an argument. Anybody can have an argument. Arguments are usually unproductive for the participants and rarely provide a beneficial value to the business. I am referring to having a civilized conversation with someone about a potentially unpleasant or difficult business topic. In the business world difficult or unpleasant conversations normally revolve around what you feel may be improper conduct, low performance or lack of goal attainment. These conversations can be positioned in a number of ways depending on who you are talking to and what the objective of the conversation is. Whether you are trying to provide guidelines as to what future performance or behaviors are acceptable and expected, informing someone that past performance or behaviors were not acceptable, or explaining to an executive that micro-management is unproductive and that they need to delegate more responsibility, a business leader must be prepared to deal with difficult performance or behavior issues, as well as being prepared to recognize and encourage the desirable ones.



I think that we would all prefer to avoid conflict or unpleasant situations. Unfortunately as business leaders we are responsible to make decisions that may be unpopular, enforce standards of performance and behavior, as well as make sure the consequences associated with behaviors and performance are enacted. If leaders fail to address issues directly with individuals and teams, or fail render appropriate consequences, they run the risk of allowing the entire business to become demoralized.




I would like to believe that positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors and outcomes would be sufficient incentive for all individuals and teams. I have however found that this is not necessarily the case in all situations. If there are positive reinforcements for good performance, there must also be difficult conversations associated with those factors and areas that need improvement. I have found a key here is to make sure to separate the behavior / conduct / performance in question from the person you are having the difficult conversation with. A negative reaction or review cannot be seen as a personal attack. Staying simple, direct and factual have always worked best for me in these situations.




On the other side of the coin I have also been associated with managers who not only did not shy away from difficult conversations, but could best be described as too aggressive and confrontational when it came to addressing a team member’s performance improvement requirements. If the team begins to feel that the negative feedback and consequences outweigh the positive reinforcements, they can again as a group begin to feel disenfranchised in the organization and their performance will also suffer.




For me difficult conversations seem to come in variations of two general approaches. The first approach is to focus on what sort of future performance state is acceptable. In this way the focus is on what is desirable going forward, whether it is a behavior, performance or goal. The person you are talking with may not have achieved, behaved or performed in the past, but you are making sure they know what is expected in the future. This approach seems to work best when there are definable or measurable standards that people must be held accountable to.




The second approach to difficult conversations is a little more tenuous, at least for me. This is the approach where you are focusing on what is unacceptable about the past state. I have had to use this approach when team members or colleagues have conducted themselves in manners that while not adversely affecting their business performance, could be seen as detrimental to the team. The idea here is that it is impossible to tell everyone what they must do for the team to operate at its highest levels. Sometimes you need to make sure that it is clear what they must not do. Instead of saying what is desirable in the future, you are saying what is undesirable about the past. 




Either way, it is important for the leader to quickly, clearly and professionally address the negative issues associated with the individual and team performance. I think we would all much prefer to only have to recognize good performance and to provide positive reinforcement. However, if we don’t have the difficult conversation when it is called for, we run the eventual risk of fewer and fewer opportunities to recognize good performance.

Communication

Reread

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In today’s world of immediate electronic communications we seem to have forgotten how important the written word still is. The mechanics of writing have not changed. We still send written correspondence. We just send it over the electronic media instead of in paper format. We have become almost entirely dependent on the various “spell checker” programs associated with our electronic communications to make sure we don’t commit any writing errors. We seem to be almost to the point where we are no longer paying attention to the structure and grammar of our documents. If there are no highlighted or underlined words and phrases calling our attention to them, then the document must be correct, right?



Such was the case with my last Blog posting on Silence. In it I was trying to draw together several comments from several different people on the use and sometimes necessity of remaining silent during the course of a discussion. Sometimes I personally have a hard time doing this, as hard as that may be to believe. Regardless of that, the point I am making here is that I violated my own rule about rereading what I had written before I posted it. I didn’t reread it. I have been doing this for a while so I just wrote it and posted it.




When I went back to my Blog a day or two later and reread the article, I was embarrassed. True there were no misspelled words, but there were a number of writing errors where it was obvious that I had changed my commentary idea, and I had not gone back and adjusted my diction for continuity and agreement. I had to take down the article and rewrite several sections before reposting it. In the world of written communications you are what you write, and I didn’t want to be a poorly written Blog post.




In a world that continues to be increasingly dominated by Twitter and Texting, we seem to have lost sight of the fact that how well we write contributes a significant portion to how we are perceived for what we have written. The content of the message is important, but the ability to put it into a coherent written format is important as well. How many of us have been the recipient of an important document only to find that writing errors as simple as subject and verb tense agreement, run on sentences, or words while not improperly spelled were improperly applied (such as “the wind blue…”) were contained within the document? What was your reaction to these diction and grammatical errors, and how did it make you feel about the importance of the document?




When I write something that I will sign my name to, I want it to reflect my best effort to communicate information about that topic. I want not only the information, but also the format to be as clear and concise as possible. When I read documents that contain writing, diction and grammatical errors, I can’t help but feel that the author did not put out their best efforts in its creation. It is true that the informational part message has been communicated, but what other messages get communicated to the reader with sloppy writing mechanics?




I admit that it is a little thing, but I can’t help but believe that I am not the only one that notices little things. Sometimes it is the little things that say a lot about us. While I can’t guarantee that I have caught all the mistakes in this posting, I can say that I have reread it at least a few times before posting it to make sure that it is as free of many of the writing errors that I see in many of the documents I receive as I can make it.

Humor, Leadership. Communication

Silence

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It has taken me a long time to learn how to be quiet. Sometimes I still forget what I have learned. I believe that to be a good leader you need to have strong goals, convictions and opinions. It is those things that help drive you on to achievement. What I wrongly supposed was that in having those leadership traits that you needed to express them verbally in the public forum.

Having goals, convictions and opinions have normally in the course of business brought me into various levels of conflict and contention with others who may not have the same opinion set. How and where the conflict was handled has contributed significantly to how I have been perceived in the organization.
 

Public forums, conference calls, etc. are best used for building the consensus. Conflict here has a tendency to polarize the group and slow progress for all. If there is a disagreement, I have found that I will try to take it off line and address it privately. That way a solution to an issue can be presented to the group, instead of just presenting an issue. As hard as it may be for the people who know me to believe, I am trying to apply the word of Will Rogers when it comes to conflict in public forums. Will had the great phrase:

“Never miss a good opportunity to shut up.”

I have been working on it. I think it is working. However, in these efforts I am also reminded of the story told by Ron White, a standup comedian from here in Texas. Ron tells the story of having a few too many drinks and subsequently being arrested. During the arresting process the police officer started to read him his rights. As we all know the first right is the right to remain silent. Ron White’s comment in this case was:

“I had the right to remain silent. I just didn’t have the ability to remain silent”

Being silent doesn’t mean that you concur or agree with all that is discussed. For me being silent, while difficult, affords me time to examine questions from multiple directions instead of just the first one that comes to mind. I have learned that if I disagree, instead of presenting what can be construed as an open challenge in the forum, that I can get far more done, even in the course of a disagreement, in a less public setting.

I should note that silence should not be the rule in all public business forums. If that were the case conference calls would be pretty quiet and very short. Constructive comments and suggestions for alternatives need to be made. It is the unproductive conflict that should be reduced. As I have said it has taken me a while to learn the difference between the two.

I continue to work on channeling my inner Will Rogers in not missing the opportunity to shut up, in those instances when in the past I would have been like Ron White and not had the ability to remain silent. It’s difficult, but I think it is just as important to the leader as having the convictions and opinions that drive us forward, and cause the conflict.

Organizations, Responsibilities, Team Building

Friction and Clarity

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There is always going to be a certain amount of friction in an organization. When people are involved, differing viewpoints, approaches and personalities will always cause some amount of both business and inter-personal issues. I have found that unless the inter-personal issues are of such a significant nature that they affect the organizations ability to function, they are best left to the individuals to sort out. You can’t make individuals like each other, but they can learn to respect each other in the organization. The business issues between people in the organization, on the other hand, are topics that can usually be cleared up quickly, and in many cases avoided altogether.



In my experience, most of the conflict or friction in an organization has arisen due to a lack of clarity. Most organizations seem to function best when there is a clear and consistent set of goals, well defined organizational and individual responsibilities, and an acknowledged decision making structure. If the business is experiencing any significant amount of organizational or individual squabbling, or a slower level of progress toward the desired goals and objectives, it may be a reasonable assumption to go and look at the clarity of these organizational definitions.




Unclear, or worse, differing goals and objectives will sap an organizations strength and impede its progress. If people are not working toward the same accepted goals friction and conflict cannot help but occur. If one group is working on the volume of sales and the other is focused on the profitability of sales there will be conflict. If one group is focused on technology and design, and the other is focused on costs and manufacturability there will be friction. The idea here is that if organizations are solely focused on only one aspect of the overall goal, valuable time and effort will be lost trying to resolve these goal oriented differences. Making sure that the organizations goals are aligned, and just as importantly aligning the metrics and compensation that are associated with them can reduce the time and effort lost to this type of issue.




Unclear organizational or individual responsibilities arise from a lack of clarity in each organizations definition and role. If one organization has responsibility for price (based on cost and margin), a second one has responsibility for cost (affecting both price and margin) and a third has responsibility for margin (based on price and cost) there is going to be conflict. Can price solely dictate what margins and/or what costs must be? Can costs be the prime criteria associated with the business without understanding and responding to market based influences? Can you strictly look at margins in isolation of costs and price? Again while making sure each individual and each organization functions are well defined, it is also important to make sure that individual and each organization role is are well defined with respect to the other organizations and individuals that they must work and interact with.

The answer is that obviously all these organizations must work together, but then who will decide the issues that arise from differing and sometimes overlapping responsibilities and objectives? If sales wants a very low price for a capability that operations indicates that capability has a very high cost, resulting in what may be unacceptable margins, how does the impasse get resolved. In addition to clear goal alignment and responsibility definitions there needs to be clarity around the acknowledged decision making structure. If it is a decentralized structure there needs to be consistent guidelines detailing the various scopes and spans of control for the decision makers. If it is a hierarchical structure of the decision spans multiple business groups there needs to be a clear and quick escalation process to get decisions made quickly and all organizations back focused on the goal at hand.

It seems that too many times these business issues that cause friction can find their way into the interpersonal issues category and seem to sit and languish. The result can be a sort of perpetual squabbling between people and organizations, and a much slower pace of progress than is possible and needed. By bringing a little more clarity to the business and reinforcing what the various goals, responsibilities and decision making processes are for each of the organizations and how they must work together, you may be able to reduce the causes of business friction in the organization. With that source of issues reduced, you may even be able to help reduce the number of interpersonal issues as well.

Trust

“Trust” in the Matrix

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Matrixed organizations continue to be a significant organizational structure for businesses today. They are designed to enable rapid adaptation to the manifold issues currently existing in the business environment. The idea is that without the fixed hierarchical organizational structures there will be less corporate inertia / momentum and greater receptivity to change when it is needed. In a matrixed organization groups work together in a less hierarchical structure where each group focuses on their area of functional excellence and then combine it with the other groups to create the best solution for the business. One of the key aspects of the matrix structure is that each group must trust the other groups to be focused on the business’ best interest and not each individual group’s best interest.



While matrixed organizations have many positive attributes I have found that “trust” while needed for optimal performance is a difficult commodity to maintain.



People invariably like to feel that they are getting the full set of inputs when they are asked to participate in a matrixed organization project. Operations want to make sure that they are getting the full customer story from sales. Sales want to make sure that delivery is not padding the costs, and so on. The result is each group in the matrixed organization starts to create their own sub-group that will be responsible for making sure the other groups are in fact doing their jobs. This is both expensive and inefficient.




Because there is no clearly defined Responsibility – Authority relationship structure in a matrixed organization, all aspects of the organization will have a tendency to evolve to the position that they have the responsibility to oversee and assure that the other departments are performing their tasks appropriately. They don’t trust the rest of the organization. This can occur because they are attributing their own untrustworthy characteristics to other groups, or they have in fact observed the improper behaviors, or any number of other reasons.




Regardless of what has caused it, when the matrixed organization loses trust between its component organizations, progress slows down.
 



Agreements are slower to be reached because each group must now verify the work of the others. Multiple reviews must now be held as each group vets the others work. The situation gives rise to new centralized functions whose only responsibility is to gather information and provide reports on the work and progress of the component groups. More and more time ends up being spent reporting and defending the work that has been done, and less and less time gets spent doing new work.



As difficult as it may be to do in this situation, members of matrixed organizations need to believe in the competency and appropriate business behaviors of their co-workers, just as they should demand that their co-workers should believe and trust in their competencies and behaviors. This will mean that everyone must fight the urge to continually revisit and review the contributions of the component groups. It also means that when multiple requests come in for multiple reviews, they will need to be refused.




I am not saying that all input should be accepted at face value. Henry Kissinger coined the great phrase “Trust but Ratify”, and that should be the case here. However, once a review has been held, it will be time to move on. Progress is not made in or during reviews. Progress is made outside of reviews.




In order to make progress, get the business moving faster, and achieve the desired goals, all members of the matrixed organization need to spend a little more time trusting each other to do their job and a lot less time questioning, reviewing, and verifying that each other are in fact doing their job.

Creativity, Risk

Editors

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We are all knowledge workers. That means that we make our living and provide our value-add to our businesses based on how well we process the information we receive and what intellectual output we provide. The long and the short of it is that we think about the issues that are presented to us, and we create solutions for them.



As a kid I was pretty creative with the ideas that I could come up with. This caused my parents some significant heartburn on more than one occasion. I would like to think that I have not entirely lost that creativity but rather that I have learned to channel it a little better. I think in today’s business environment that we need to continue to try and create new solutions to both the new and the old issues that we face. We cannot continue to do things the same way we have been doing them and expect the situation to improve.



Unfortunately the current business environment has itself created an aversion to the risk associated with solution creation.




Creativity and new ideas require that we endure some amount of risk. The problem here is that the perceived up-side reward for risking and creating a new solution seems to be far outweighed by the down-side penalties that would occur for the solution being unsuccessful. It seems our current business incentive set is much more to try and avoid failure as opposed to that of creating success.



The result again seems to be a decrease in the number of people either creating or willing to create new solutions, and an increase in the number of people who while not willing to create, are willing to review and edit anybody else’s solution.




Editors can and do serve an important role in the solution process. They invariably look for the holes in the solution, or for scenarios that might not have been considered or addressed. The result of their involvement can be a stronger overall final solution product.




But they are not creators.




The editor doesn’t write the Pulitzer Prize winning book, or direct the Oscar award winning movie. They may have helped make it better, but they didn’t create it. It was someone else’s idea and vision. It was created and then presented to the editor to review. They had no real ownership, or risk, associated with the final product. Their name did not appear on the book cover, or in the opening credits of the movie.



The same goes in business. Organizations today seem to have significant numbers of people who are willing to review and edit any new idea that comes along. For the most part they are willing to tell you what is lacking in the idea, and the many reasons why they think it won’t work.
 



When I have encountered this sort of behavior I have found that there is usually some kernel of truth in the critiques that I have received. I try to look for it and see if I can use it to make my ideas and solutions stronger. I have also found that I have needed to grow a thick skin when dealing with their criticisms. I am still working on that.




My point here is two-fold. The first is that we need to try to get back to our creative roots in looking at how we are dealing with today’s issues in business. We know what the existing solution provides, and if we want to do better, that means we must do something else.




The second point is that the next time someone provides you with one of their ideas or solutions do not become an editor. There are already enough editors around. Look for the value of the idea and try to work from the point of view of what is right with the solution as opposed to what is wrong with it. What can you add to the solution as a co-creator as opposed to identifying the holes in it as an editor.




Creativity in dealing with the many issues that business is facing seems to be in short supply. If you can, look for ways to create new solutions. If you are presented with the opportunity to review and edit someone else’s ideas and solutions, fight the urge to critique and get involved in the proposed solutions creation process.




There is an old saying: “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” I think in business today a more accurate rendition of this phrase is: “If you are not part of the solution, you are probably part of the editorial staff.”

Data, Self Analysis, Strategy

Disbelief

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I think it is a pretty obvious fact that our preconceptions give rise to “blind spots” in the way we look at and manage our businesses. If we believe that we are looking for one type of solution to a problem, it makes it more difficult for us to recognize new or different potential solutions to the same problem. Since we already “know” what the solution is going to be, we have a tendency to discount or disbelieve any facts that may be contrary to our chosen direction and solution.



Our disbelief in our fallibility slows us down. It allows us to cling to outdated or outmoded programs and projects long after their usefulness is gone. It causes us to ignore facts and input that need to be recognized and acted upon quickly. Since we already know what we are looking for and where to find it, we won’t look elsewhere, because the answer can’t be there.




The things we don’t believe are as important to the way we work and run our businesses as the things we do believe in.




I don’t want confuse skepticism with disbelief. A skeptic wants the data verified and looks for corroborating evidence and information before accepting a change to a situation. A disbeliever refuses to accept that the data indicates that a change or shift has occurred that requires a modification to an existing practice. I think a healthy dose of skepticism is a requirement for a good manager. An unwillingness to believe the facts or the analysis they engender when they do not align with what we want or expect can kill a business or opportunity quickly in today’s environment.




There is a fine line between caution and disbelief. When does the data indicate a change or a trend as opposed to an anomaly? If you move too quickly you can move away from current opportunities and practices before their value is fully recognized. This can subject your team and business to what amounts to a whipsawing of changes and reduce both effectiveness and profitability. If you move too slowly you run the risk of staying with a declining situation and then having to chase after the new market imperative.
 



Believing in one solution set does not mean we must disbelieve in all other solution sets. We need to learn that accepting that other solutions may exist to the identified issue. They may not be better than the solution set that has been chosen. On the other hand, then may in fact be better. The idea is not to reject them out of hand.




The business case for every solution needs to be continuously reviewed to make sure that it remains the best solution as time passes and new information is gathered. The data is always the data. It is what you do with the data that demonstrates business acuity. If the data indicates that a change is needed, skepticism and caution may be called for, but disbelief in that data can put the business in jeopardy.



Remember, it was not too long ago that the earth was believed to be the center of the universe. At one time the earth was also believed to be flat. New information and new technologies have continued to change our beliefs. It has also changed what we disbelieve.

Reports, Time Management, Value

Report by Exception

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Have you ever attended an operations review or a monthly review meeting and at the end of it wondered why you were there? As competition continues to grow fiercer, and we are asked to provide more capabilities with fewer resources, we still seem to find the time for review meetings. Whether we are calling the review, or just attending the review we need to be much more aware of one of our most precious business resources, our time.



Limitations to our travel budgets as a result of increased cost consciousness have reduced the number of face to face reviews. In response to this we have seen the significant growth in the number of conference calls with associated NetMeeting or LiveMeeting visual or chart content. The value of the review can still be there, but the cost has been reduced.



As we look at other ways to continue to drive the cost out of the business and efficiency into it, we should start looking at both the content and the needs associated with the review itself.




If the business is on track and performance is within acceptable control boundaries, is a review even necessary? If only part of the business is off plan, does the entire business need to present? Are there other scheduled shorter interval reports that are in place designed to track performance that can be used?



The numbers of people and the associated man-hours spent at reviews are significant, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. The number people and associated man-hours spent preparing for and generating the information and presentations associated with the reviews are enormous.




We need to be rigorous in asking ourselves if each activity we are performing is providing value to the business. If our businesses are on plan, will standard interval activity and financial reports be sufficient? I would think they should be. How much time can be saved and returned to the actual running of the business if just one operations review can be avoided in a business year?




Please do not misunderstand me. I believe in the value of reviews, when they are called for, and have a defined and focused objective. We need to evolve the standard general review away from the usual progress report to management for the entire business, and transform it into a session designed to generate solutions to performance issues for those aspects of the business that are in fact off plan.



Controls and reports within the business should enable issues with performance, or deviations from the plan to be made visible before the review. The purpose of the review then changes from everyone reporting their issues, or lack of issues to reporting on the solution to the issue. Those aspects of the business that are not experiencing issues should not then be required to expend the resources on the creation of review materials. It becomes exception reporting instead of general reporting.




The result should be a shorter meeting with fewer presentations, and a greater focus on the exceptions to expected performance and the solutions to issues instead of the reporting of them. The time and effort that usually is expended on the preparation for the review can be reduced and the time returned to the business for greater value activities.

Leadership, Risk and Return

Initiative

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I think we
have all had the opportunity to relax and talk with our coworkers around the
office. What is interesting is that invariably these impromptu discussions have
a tendency to become complaining sessions regarding the then current set of
ills befalling the company. I remember back to one of these sessions some time
ago where I was doing some of the complaining. What happened as a result of
that “discussion” still affects the way I work today.

After
complaining about a specific problem and my proposed specific solution to it,
one of the people in the group said to me:

“If you have
such a good solution, why don’t you take the initiative and do something about
it?”

I was at a
relatively early stage in my career. I thought their suggestion had merit. I
went ahead and took the risk and proposed an action. I put
together an overview of the issue, what my proposal to address the issue was,
and what the business case and benefit to the company would be. I took it up my
management chain.

I didn’t
think too much more about it until a couple of weeks later when I was asked to
come into a meeting and explain my approach to the issue and why I thought it
would work. I was actually called into a senior management staff meeting.

The toughest
question I had to answer was why I was making a suggestion about an issue that
was outside of my area of responsibility. I responded by saying that I thought
I had a workable answer to the problem. The result of the meeting was that I
was given the challenge of implementing the solution I proposed.

Not every
suggestion that I have made since has been as well received, however several of
them have been. The point is that it pays to take the initiative. Putting a
considered solution proposal together to address an issue is always in order.
We have all learned that no one has the market cornered on good ideas. As I
have moved on in management I have kept the lesson I learned in mind and still
try to practice it.

If you see a
problem and you think you have a good solution to it, go ahead and propose the
solution. Don’t just complain. Don’t say it isn’t your job or it’s not your
responsibility. Understand that it’s okay if you are told “no”, and your
proposal is not acted upon. Taking the initiative on the solving of all types
of problems seems to be the space that we all need to get back into.

The next time you find yourself discussing the problems facing your
company today, remember to take the initiative and step up and propose a
solution. Good suggestions on how to address issues are always appreciated and
they can help establish your ability to help solve some of the issues facing
business today.