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Archive for December, 2006

What To Do When You Get Really Mad

Friday, December 8th, 2006

How angry do you become when you ask your team or colleague for X and get X — 4, or X + 1. or even Y? How often have you lost, or almost lost it, because of the response you received during a meeting?

What is the only perfect response you can make when something happens and you’re ready to blow your top?

You’ve heard the answer all your life—when you’re angry, shut up/stay quiet/ don’t say anything; don’t “look” anything, either, until you’ve calmed down. Smart advice, but hard to follow.

Many managers don’t even realize when they go into “screaming mode,” because they don’t actually scream—they drip sarcasm, leak contempt, stream scorn or fire off zingers; they belittle and role their eyes. Most don’t realize the long-term damage that they do to their people; others just don’t care—their attitude is that stuff happens, get over it!

What neither type seems to realize is that, over time, one of three things happen,

  • people grow inured to their tantrums,
  • are damaged by them (people do stay in abusive relationships),
  • or leave the company.

To change this,

  • you must first acknowledge to yourself that you do it and that you want to change it; then
  • whenever you feel yourself getting angry smile, nod and leave by saying that you have to make a call, use the bathroom, whatever innocuous excuse best fits the situation;
  • go somewhere private, blow off steam if necessary, but calm down;
  • schedule a time to resume the discussion; then
  • simulate the least amount of anger (if any) needed to get your point across.

It’ll take people time to trust the “new” you, but it’s worth it. In the office, it will pay off in higher productivity and less turnover. You and your people will suffer less from stress, and you, personally, will have more energy, enjoy higher quality sleep, and see improvement in all your relationships.

Good writing fast—an oxymoron

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

As you’ve probably guessed, I love the written word, both as a reader and a writer. I love clear, concise presentation and have little-to-no tolerance for over-written text that needs eight paragraphs (or pages) to say what could be said in one.

I believe that

  • all readers are intelligent in their own way;
  • you need to write for your audience;
  • readers will reread something that they don’t understand;
  • convoluted, opaque, confusing, or boring writing can ruin careers and relationships; and, finally, that
  • speed is not the Holy Grail of communication.

I am not alone. B-schools and corporations recognize just how much damage poor/careless writing has/is causing and are working to change it.

Here’s one of the best (worst?) examples I’ve seen lately, written by a manager in a Fortune 500 company to describe his job, “It is my job to ensure proper process deployment activities take place to support process institutionalization and sustainment. Business process management is the core deliverable of my role, which requires that I identify process competency gaps and fill those gaps.”

This from a Director of Training—can you imagine being in one of his classes?

Some marketing pros are fighting back against long, dense, boring web content. Gerry McGovern considers content a “…hugely undervalued asset” and thinks around 90% of most site content is “filler”—probably why I hate reading websites.

What does all this mean to you as a manager?

That you and your group/department/company need to objectively evaluate writing skills and then work to improve/develop them as needed. You’ll also need to find a way to convince your textaholics that speed (in writing) kills—and that’s not going to be easy.

Change and progress

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

I write a lot about change—changing what you do, how you do it, and, most often, how you think about it, which, in turn, leads to changes in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™.

Having been involved my entire career, one way or another, with people who are changing I’ve two theories that I’d like to share.

We don’t always recognize our own change: Think of change as an unending scale starting at zero. Let’s say you consider yourself a 12 in X and want to change enough to self-rank at 17. In all probability, you’re starting point is closer to 15 and your goal of 17 will actually be closer to 20 or 21. In other words, your conscious perception of where you are lags the actuality.

This is neither good nor bad, it’s just the way our minds work. However, knowing that can help us avoid beating ourselves up for not changing faster.

“Progress” is a subjective concept: Change typically leads to some kind of growth; that, in turn, moves you to a different space, which you term progress, expecting others to see it the same way—and therein lies the problem. Progress, by popular usage, is considered positive. We err by assuming that “they” will see our change-induced progress in that light.

For a simple, widly seen example, think about the growth/open space debates.

The growth crowd sees building malls, homes, etc., as important and cite many lucid arguments in it’s favor.

The open space people think that more land should be set aside for parks, wilderness, recreation, etc., and it, too, has excellent argumenst in its favor.

Both factions consider their view “positive” and both use the term “progress” to describe it.

We humans are subjective creatures, living life within the confines of our own heads. We need to stay aware of that and constantly seek input so we can see ourselves more objectively. Objective viewing doesn’t mean we’ll change, it just moves us a bit closer to being able to see ouselves as others see us.

Engage your people

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

Before we engage…

In still another blow for unwired freedom, I’d like to salute media guy Jerry Kolber for his psychic and emotional strength in a back to the future switch from Blackberry to phone. Way to go, Jerry!

****************************************

Now to engaging…

How many times have you heard people in an organization (whether team, executives or somewhere in-between) say should have, as in “We should have…” or “My boss should have…?”

What if you could harness the creativity behind those thoughts to improve performance—the company’s; the group’s; the individual’s; your own?

The idea is to take that attitude and make it a constructive function to foster corporate/personal growth and motivation, since the more comprehensive the view of their job and company the more creative people will become.

Drawing in all your people, no matter their level, encourages them to see a larger picture, juices creativity, surfaces ideas from unlikely sources and enhances their sense of ownership.

Improvement happens because how they think is the basis for how they perform.

For this to work, you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think.

If your MAP makes you the type of manager to whom this appeals then encourage your people to ask

  • “Why did she do that?”
  • “What can I learn from his decision?”
  • “What would I have done differently?”
  • Later ask, “Would it have worked?”

Are You SOP Or OBO?

Monday, December 4th, 2006

No matter the size of your company, you need a staffing plan. Just you? You still need one. Here’s why.

A staffing plan requires that you know what people you need and when you need them.

That means you must know what you want, what you need to do and how you are going to do it.

The two main approaches to ascertaining this information are described below:

  • SOP (seat of the pants): Used frequently throughout business history, and extensively in the late Nineties. In this approach the desires of the CEO (top dog) are discussed over lunch with other (hopefully) senior staff members. Separately, each manager prepares a budget, including headcount for his department based on
    • what he thinks is needed to accomplish what the head honcho says she wants and
    • increasing his own leverage within the company (although his actual priorities frequently reverse these).
  • OBO (operating plan w/ budgets and objectives): Definitely the road less traveled, although the road of preference for sustainable success. It requires the
    • identification of the specific annual objectives to achieve the company’s long term goals;
    • creation of a viable operating plan to achieve those objectives; and a
    • detailed financial plan by which to implement it.

While a staffing plan is the end result of SOP, it is a by-product of OBO—the actual end result being a detailed business roadmap for the year.

Although there are many variations, the SOP needs no further explanation, so we’ll focus on the OBO.

The OBO is composed of three interlocked plans

  1. A description of the financial (increase revenues 10%, increase services to 25% of revenues, etc.) and quantified managerial (raise productivity 8%, reduce turnover 15%, etc.) targets the company is committed to achieving for the year.
  2. A budget that states how much is to be spent that year and who is responsible for spending it.
  3. The objectives (not always financial) defining the targets of the company for the year and assuring that the company achieves its long term twin goals of profitability and success.

Unfortunately, many companies either don’t or refuse to recognize that the above three parts are interrelated and must be tightly linked. They treat them as separate entities where any one of them may be both planned and changed without impacting the other two. Too often, a CEO or vice president will demand a reduction in a manager’s budget without recognizing (or admitting) the inherent domino effect:

  • If the budget for an objective is eliminated,
  • the objective must also be eliminated.
  • If the objective is eliminated, the operating plan which depends on that objec­tive cannot be met.

The interlinking isn’t rocket science, but cause and effect, e.g., business is down > budget is reduced > people are laid off > objectives must change.

Worse, many, especially smaller companies, prefer using the SOP approach for the simple reason that developing these plans places constraints on aspirations and requires the CEO and her team to make hard choices. It’s work! It takes time!

Why bother? In short, because it means that all your managers (from executives down to the lowliest supervisor) can be relied on to execute the Operating Plan intelligently and without further direction.

How? By following the steps below (using common sense to modify them to fit your company) you get buy-in from every manager in the company, a statement of objectives incorporating the commitments of them all, and a budget which reflects the agreed spending level for every person with any kind of budget responsibility. (Remember, the further down you push budgetary responsibility the faster your people will grow.) The process ensures that all managers are completely informed of, and in total agreement with, their budgets, their objectives, and the Operating Plan.

Steps to take:

  1. The CEO lists the top-level financial and managerial targets of the company.
  2. The CFO then creates an income statement based on the CEO’s targets.
  3. The two are distributed to the senior staff.
  4. Each VP analyses the part for which she is responsible and decides what she will have to do to accomplish it, i.e., additional headcount, cooperation from other departments, etc.
  5. The senior staff negotiates their inter-related needs.
  6. The result of this negotiating process creates separate departmental budgets and may modify the original target objectives.
  7. VPs may add departmental objectives to portion of the trial plan, e.g., a new computerized software release tracking system in engineering.
  8. The result is a trial operating plan and budget.
  9. The VPs then take the trial plan and budget to their own staff and repeat the negotiating process with their direct reports who then do it with theirs, etc.
  10. The result is the first Detailed Budget and Operating Plan.
  11. At this point the CEO may have to reconsider her initial ideas about what goals can be achieved at an acceptable level of expense.

Any change requires a revision of the plan and a repeat of the above steps—and multiple revisions are not unusual. Also usual are passionate discourse and heated discussions before a completely acceptable operating plan is produced.

The next big question is, who gets to see it? Although rarely done, the smartest companies make the overall Operating Plan and Objectives available to all knowledge workers via the company intranet.

Why? Because employees at all levels are happier (read: productive and innovative) when they know that their company knows what it’s doing, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there.

Additionally, it enables management to execute the plan without detailed day-to-day supervision because the trade-offs have already been worked out and empowers lower levels of management through their inclusion.

Finally, and one of the most important side benefits to the process, micro-managers and those who believe that workers are all peons to be shoved around according to the manager’s whims will either change or go away.

Fun with a high ROI

Friday, December 1st, 2006

Want a great way to spark innovation, motivate your people to learn new skills and improve your own performance?

Start a business fantasy camp for them.

How?

Bring together all the people (senior, junior, admin, etc.) from a particular project or department and offer them the opportunity to manage it.

They can work independently or with a partner.

Just like fantasy baseball they choose the team, lay out the schedule, modifying it as needed.

Your contribution is to make absolutely sure that they have all pertinent information including goals, requirements, budgets, deadlines, benchmarks, etc.

Arrange a schedule to share approaches and ideas and brainstorm solutions to the various challenges, problems and situations that each approach generates.

Use the results to fine-tune the real project.

Always credit the solutions and improvements correctly both up (your boss) and down (co-workers) the line.

This is not something to do on a past project or a pretend department; it must be either current or upcoming, i.e., real and really matter.

Not only will the results amaze you, but also some of the very unexpected sources from which they come.

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