According to Kentaro Toyama, the W.K. Kellogg Associate Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and self-described “recovering technoholic,” technology isn’t the panacea it’s cracked up to be.

“Technology works best in organizations that are run well to begin with. (…) The technology industry itself has perpetuated the idea that technology will solve the world’s problems. (…) Everyone wants to believe the work they do is good for society. But a lot of people in the industry have drunk a little too much of their own marketing Kool-Aid.”

What is often ignored is that people are a necessary ingredient for the Kool-Aid to actually work.

The tech eco-system forgets a lesson driven home by Bill Gates in the 1995 book The Road Ahead.

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

Aetna Insurance found this out when they first equipped their claims processors with their own terminals connected to the mainframe (before the advent of personal computers).

The effort was considered ground-breaking and was touted as a way to streamline the claims process.

It failed miserably, because the process itself wasn’t redesigned.

In short, claims had multiple steps with approval required at each. Because the process stayed the same, i.e., claims stalled in electronic form when someone in the approval process was on jury duty or out sick just as they did in the paper version.

Once people redesigned the process the desired efficiencies were reaped well beyond expectations.

Technology is a tool, not a silver bullet; the only real silver bullets are found within the human mind.

Ultimately the right thing is for us to find the optimal use of technology — not to eliminate it, but also not to assume that it can replace human skills.

Flickr image credit: Jason Rogers

The most recent act of executive ultra-stupidity brought down not only Brian Dunn, Best Buy’s CEO, but also Richard Schulze, its founder who was CEO for 40 years and Chairman for ten.

All over what was, according to Dunn and the 29-year-old woman subordinate, a platonic friendship, albeit one with some very tasty perks for the gal.

Schulze is out because he learned about it last December, but didn’t mention it to his board, HR or ethics officer. (Hell of a way to cap 50-plus years of amazing success.)

The report cited the effects of the relationship, including disruption in the workplace, damaged employee morale and perceived favoritism that undermined the employee’s supervisor’s attempts to manage her.

“Further, the C.E.O.’s relationship with this employee led some employees to question senior management’s commitment to company policy and the ethical principles the company champions,” the report said. “During interviews, some employees said that they felt that the rules appeared to apply to every employee except the C.E.O.,” it said.

When will they learn?

When will ‘but me’ be exorcised from executive/management thinking?

When will management learn the importance of walking their talk and that the higher the position the more important that becomes?

Three questions, but just one five-letter answer—never.

Image credit: unkown

An engineer friend sent the following story because he knows I’m an evangelist for KISS** and this is such a great example of it.

A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line; otherwise you will have disgruntled customers at all points.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop; someone would walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.

A few weeks later the CEO checked the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” he thought, but before closely checking other statistics.

To his consternation, the number of defects picked up by the scales after the first three weeks of production use was zero, where as it should have been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report.

He filed a bug report and after investigating the engineers came back saying the report was correct; the scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were filled.

Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory to see for himself the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.

A few feet before the scale there was a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

When the CEO asked a production worker about it he got this response, “One of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang.”

While I agree that this is a great example of KISS it also highlights another piece of management idiocy.

How many times have you seen a similar story play out not only in manufacturing, but also in development, marketing, finance, sales and especially administrative areas?

How much money is spent every year on expensive consultants and external specialists while the actual workers are never asked for solutions?

Why haven’t more bosses learned that solutions can come from anywhere and listen to all their people?

Of course, workers’ solutions wouldn’t be described in multisyllabic words in bound in custom folders on heavy bond and presented in a darkened room using impressive power point slides by ego-stroking consultants.

Mostly, they would just work.

** (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

Flickr image credit: L Gnome

There’s a lot of talk about “thought leaders,” but it seems that a lot of what is presented as new are old ideas redressed in current language.

That’s not always bad, because there is an enormous amount of classic management and leadership information that works but is ignored because it sounds old-fashioned.

Change the language and voilà—people listen.

The MIX, AKA, Management Innovation Exchange, is different.

I read through a number of them preparatory to posting my own hack on Option Sanity™ and found some truly original ideas; if leadership is your thing start by checking out the eight finalists in the leadership category.

Sure, not all were original and some was based on common worker wisdom, but presented in this forum won it more credibility than it probably had—after all, if management listened to workers they wouldn’t need nearly as many consultants.

I hope you’ll bookmark the site, share it with your network, contribute yourself and treat it as the resource it is. The search function works well, so dig in, tweak as needed and put the ideas and approaches you find to work in your organization.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Yesterday was Boss’ Day and it reminded me of The Top Five Things To Remember If You’re A CEO cards my company gives out.

Although the handout says “CEO,” the content is applicable at every level of management—right down to team leader.

I thought I would share these five “if you remember nothing else” points, because doing them consistantly will change you and your group more than you can imagine.

Remember, the only position-based change is the scope and that’s easy to tweak.

1. Foremost, you are guardian of the big picture. You must clearly identify the goals of the company, then work with your people to turn them into specifics. Get their buy-in by making sure they understand how their goals, the company’s, and others’ interact. The biggest rewards at all levels should go to those who understand the company’s goals, and ethically do whatever is necessary to achieve them—especially when it takes precedence over their personal goals.
2. You set the tone of the organization. If you’re political, secretive, nitpicking, or querulous, that is how your organization will be. No matter what — your people will do as you do, not as you say.
3. People produce best if they know, and help determine, the range of their control. The parameters should be clearly defined and inviolate. Their decisions inside those parameters are final, decisions outside them require approval. Through discussion of their performance, the parameters will grow or shrink. Your company’s strength will increase in direct proportion to your people’s growth, so make those parameters as broad as possible.
4. Never criticize an employee in the presence of others. Praise in public, criticize in private.
5. Every successful company must have a competitive edge. Enhance your people’s ability to do their jobs by clearly defining and communicating what it is.

Flickr image credit: Kumar Appaiah

This post was published first on Technorati

For more than a decade at RampUp Solutions and for the last five years at MAPping Company Success I’ve coached and written about what managers need to do to motivate and engage their teams and what employees really want from their managers. Others have been saying similar stuff for far longer.

We’ve been telling them what is most important to employees, i.e., clear communications on everything, including where the team is going and why, support and opportunities to grow, etc.

Nothing you haven’t heard before, but mostly anecdotal—no hard science to support it, so we end up preaching to the choir, not converting the non-believers.

Like Google.

Google employees deal in facts and stats, stuff that can be munched, crunched and analyzed, and have little use for anything else.

So it’s logical that when the company decided it needed to improve its management skills it turned to analytics to provide the answers.

“So, as only a data-mining giant like Google can do, it began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.”

And guess what?

The data supported the same results that those of us without data have been saying for years.

But Google took it a step further and prioritized the list based on hard numbers.

And of eight core employee preferences do you know what came in dead last?

Technical skill and technical skill had been Google’s main criteria for promotion.

This finally brings us to my main point, which, this time, is supported by statistical research.

“Technical skill” covers far more ground than most people think. It refers to any hard science (math, engineering, chemistry, etc.), but also to soft sciences (psychology, social science, etc.), sales, finance, the arts—just about anything in which humans develop expertise.

The lesson here is that technical superiority does not predict success in a management/leadership role.

Managerial success is based on a person’s ability to connect in a meaningful way to those she manages and provide what each one needs to produce and grow.

Not new information, but now that it’s backed by hard science and with Google as the role model the choir just got a whole lot larger.

Flickr image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/warrantedarrest/74688743/

I used to have six aquariums, the smallest was a 25 gallon, six inch deep room divider and the largest was 100 galleons.

One day I moved a small, about four inches, black ghost knifefish from the 25 gallon tank to the 100 gallon aquarium. Over the next year it grew to about 11 inches.

This happened because fish grow based on the concentration of a chemical they secrete into the water. Nature stops growth when the concentration indicates that the environment won’t support them further.

Human beings grow similarly—they will grow as long as the environment they are in supports their growth.

Curiosity, investigation, discussion, dissent and debate are the chemicals humans secrete, but the most important is curiosity.

Limit curiosity and you limit growth; shut it down and growth stops cold.

This applies just as much to parenting as it does to managing or “leading.”

Just think what would happen if each of us worked to encourage unlimited curiosity, investigation, discussion, dissent and debate in our own little corner of the world.

Think of the growth that would be unleashed; the happiness that would be generated; and the difference between that world and our present one.

Image credit: Derek Ramsey on Wikipedia

In my ongoing effort not to offend I am wracking my brain to think of a polite way to say this, but I’ll try.

Ahem. The amount of idiocy masquerading as brilliant management advice pales in comparison only to what is offered in the name of leadership. (How’s that for diplomatic?)

These are the supposedly silver bullets that will solve all difficulties and turn around any problem, not to mention making your organization run perfectly. (And if you believe that I have a great deal on a bridge for your front yard.)

What they are is dumb, stupid and dimwitted, in spite of being preached by high profile CEOs, consultants and various pundits.

But it seems as if I’m not the only person who is fed up with the management/leadership solutions du jour, although some have been around for decades.

BNET had three posts that cover the idiocy pretty completely.

The first is The 5 Dumbest Management Concepts of All Time, which are

1. Downsizing
2. Leadership
3. Human Resources
4. Empowerment
5. Business Warfare

The second is The 8 Stupidest Management Fads of All Time, which are

1. Six Sigma
2. Business Process Reengineering
3. Matrix Management
4. Management by Consensus
5. Core Competency
6. Management By Objectives
7. The Search for Excellence
8. Management by God

The third is 5 Dimwitted Leadership Strategies, which are

1. Command and Control
2. Bottom Line Be All End All
3. Tradition and Prescription
4. The Black Hole
5. The Lone Ranger

And since we are on the subject of dumb, stupid and dimwitted check out the review of a new book that takes a different look at leadership. I can’t add my two cents, since I haven’t read it, but the review is hilarious.

Naturally Selected: The Evolutionary Science of Leadership is a peculiar, sometimes interesting, sort of pseudoscientific, and often baffling explanation of how evolution has created a subspecies of men who grow tall, remarry constantly, and make oodles of money. If it’s true, it might one day give Upper East Side divorce lawyers the same clout The Origin of Species gave biology teachers.

Image credit: MykReeve on flickr

Every year I spend time with clients helping them understand the kind of planning they need to do now in order to be on the road to success the following year; I also like to share an outline of the process with you.

You have to have a plan
Anyone leading a company, even a company of one, needs to know

• what you want to do, and
• how you’re going to do it.

This brings you to the crux of the matter—how do you plan for a sustainable business?

Choose your approach

• SOP (seat of the pants): Used frequently throughout business history, and extensively in the late Nineties. The CEO (top dog) discusses her desires 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 these two are frequently reversed).

• PBO (operating plan w/budgets and objectives): Requires more thought and effort, but is the approach of choice for well-run companies. It requires the
  • creation of a viable operating plan to achieve the objectives; and a
  • detailed budget by which to implement it.

SOP, in all its glorious variations, spells chaos (which can be accomplished with no help from me), so we’ll focus on PBO.

What’s PBO?

Three interlocked pieces—each critical to success.

1. A budget that states

• how much is available to spend during the upcoming year and
• who is responsible for spending it.

2. The specific objectives that the company needs to accomplish during the year,

• financial, e.g.,
  • increase revenues 10%
  • increase services to 25% of revenues; and the
• quantified managerial, e.g.,
  • raise productivity 8%
  • reduce turnover 15%

3. A description of how the company plans to achieve the objectives in order to move forward on accomplishing the company’s long-term twin goals of profitability and success.

The end result is a detailed business roadmap for the coming year.

Where’s the rocket science?
The three parts are interrelated and must be tightly linked, so changing one affects all.

That’s it. Simple, right? Unfortunately, many executives treat them as separate entities wreaking havoc on their subordinates. They don’t get, or don’t care, that it’s a domino effect and that when one changes they all must change.

Which are you?

• The boss who can’t be bothered to do the hard work and make the tough decisions and doesn’t worry about jerking his people around because ‘they’ll get over it’; or
• the boss who believes that with a good plan, known objectives and a viable budget all the managers—executives to the lowliest supervisor—will buy-in and execute intelligently throughout the year?

As always, it’s your choice.

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/914885

Once dismissed as smoke and mirrors or touchy-feely nonsense, corporate culture is not recognized as the key to success. Not just the success of the company as a whole, but sub-cultures define the success of each team as you moved down the corporate ladder.

Culture drives success more than money; culture attracts talented people and, more often than not, cultural change is responsible for their leaving.

Culture is now recognized as a necessary part of a company’s overall strategy; leaders and managers who ignore workers’ focus on culture do so at their own peril.

“Companies that will perform well will nurture the factors that make their employees feel happier and engaged at work, more connected to overall results, and more motivated to make a strong contribution,” said Eileen Habelow, PhD., Randstad’s senior vice president of organizational development. “Going forward, companies can’t ignore culture. Rather, it should be addressed as a critical component of their overall business strategy.”

No where is talk cheaper than when it comes to corporate culture. Trust and authenticity, critical to any good culture are lost when positional leaders don’t walk the cultural talk.

“You can clearly identify what makes organizations successful and what is expected, when you look at how the leadership acts and what they value. That is even more important than performance management.”

What’s important when it comes to culture? Do generations really differ in what they want in culture? Various studies describe similar desires from all age groups—the difference seems more in their patience for achieving what they want. The top craving across groups is having the flexibility to balance their life and work.

It has been long said that the new generations have different needs but I can safely say as a leading executive recruitment professional, that most candidates I’ve met over the past few years, no matter what age, have very similar personal desires and needs.

Finally, the big question that always comes up: does a focus on culture pay off? And if so, how well?

There have been multiple studies over the last decade proving a resounding ‘yes’ to the question. One of the most recent comes from Raj Sisodia, author of Firms of Endearment, who offers up compelling statistics.

The publicly traded FoE companies studied returned 750% over 10 years while the S&P overall provided a 128% return. What is even more telling is that over the last 5 years, these same companies provided their investors 205% return, when the S&P lost 13%.

Wow! If those numbers don’t get your attention your people would be wise to leave and if your boss doesn’t get it you should find one who does.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/