business as i see it

it’s easy to measure one’s proficiency in a technical skill (how many widgets you build, how many lines of code you’ve written), and it’s easy to count training courses and seminars to show how you’ve been ‘growing’ as a person and learning new things.  we know how to find experts.  we look for collegiate degrees.  we look for years of experience in a given field.  they may not exactly be great means of quantifying an ‘expert’ but they’re certainly given weight by many people.

but how do you measure leadership?
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i was in a training session recently with a few folks who had some concerns with the proposed new method of doing things.  their main complaint, and one that i’ve heard from many others, was: “this is just another place i have to do work.  i already have to check 4 web sites, and my email, and my voicemail — including my voicemail at home — and my txt messages…”

on the surface, it seems like a valid complaint.  who wants to check 5 web sites, and all the rest, rather than the previous 4?  but the problem isn’t really the amount of work you have to do, it’s that you have a problem managing your time.

no one says you have to answer every email as soon as it enters your inbox, or that you have to answer your phone and txt messages.  that’s a choice that you’ve made.  instead of looking at the amount of work you have to do — or the number of sites or information/communications channels that you have to monitor — start looking at the way you organize your day.

• manage your inbox.  microsoft outlook gives you the ability to create rules for incoming messages, so why not use some?  parse your incoming messages into certain folders, or create and make use of categories — then, once your messages clean themselves up automatically, create a schedule.  only answer “project team” emails a handful of times each day.  answer “corporate communications” emails once a week.  answer “daily status” emails once a day.  whatever you choose, stick to the schedule unless there’s an urgent need.  email is not real-time; spoiler: it was never intended to be!
• screen your phone calls.  utilize your voicemail… heavily.  client calling?  don’t answer it.  boss calling?  don’t answer that either.  ”WHAT?!  are you crazy?”  no, i’m not — here’s why:  you should always have a plan when talking on the phone with someone.  because you don’t have visual communication, your words are all you have, and you need to make sure that you know what you’re talking about.  the client has a question, and your boss needs a status; this is vital information to have before engaging in a conversation with them so that you can prepare.  not only do you seem more intelligent, but you’ll also spend less time on the phone.  unless you know why the person is calling, let your voicemail answer, and — again — create a schedule for checking your voicemail.  check every day before lunch (people hate to chat when they’re on the way out the door in 15 minutes for qdoba) and sometime in the afternoon.  but whatever you do always remember, return every call every day because people hate silence.
• make information work for you.  in a world of RSS feeds and yammer, information comes to you if you let it.  if you’re checking 4 web sites a day for work, why not use an RSS reader or add RSS feeds to outlook instead?  you don’t need to be checking a site if there’s no new information, so don’t.  using tools like blogs and micro-blogs such as yammer and twitter (if adopted by your project team) can help you collect information in the same place, categorize it, and push notifications.  information will come to you if you do your part to build a platform that will support it.

the points above can be simplified into two simple rules: 1) automate what you can, and 2) create a schedule for dealing with that which you can’t.  if you’re feeling overwhelmed, chances are you don’t have a work problem — you just have a time management problem.

it’s not easy to do.  it takes complete buy-in and discipline, but if you can master your schedule you’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish.

oh, hold on a second… i’m getting a phone call…

image by foreverdigital, flickr artist

i’m not sure exactly what my favorite part of hockey is.  as a goaltender (in my younger years), i have to admit that few things that get me going more than a glove save on a 2-on-1 breakaway.  i can still appreciate a fine dangle, however.

i can tell you with conviction, however, that one of the best moments is the celebration when a player scores a goal.  the unbridled passion, the camaraderie, everything great about the sport of hockey comes through in one moment shared by 5 players on the ice (sometimes more).  it’s one single moment that embodies all of what hockey is about.

teamwork.

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this really is consulting 101 stuff here, but it’s also important to point out since it’s the new year and people are undoubtedly going to make resolutions that they end up giving up on in the end.  listen up, because this is important…

when you set goals, you want to make them SMART:

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• relevant
• time-bound*

example of a really bad goal: “lose weight this year.” first of all, losing weight is a stupid goal to begin with.  most people don’t realize that muscle weighs more than fat does, and working out might cause you to actually gain weight.  you should be looking for a better resolution.

example of a really good goal: “run in four 5k events for charity this year.” it’s specific, not just a random notion of weight loss.  it’s measurable because you can mark off events as the days pass through the year;  make it one run each quarter.  it’s certainly attainable.  asking yourself to run 4 marathons might not be, but a 5k is much more manageable and takes less time to train to.  it’s not an ‘always on’ kind of goal and allows yourself some wiggle room.  it’s relevant because your overall mission is to be healthier.  your soul will feel better too because you’re doing it all for charity.  and that asterisk i placed above is the most important for making goals… although i don’t necessarily see it in the same way as the textbooks do.  instead of time-bound i say to make that T in SMART stand for ‘tell everybody you know’.  telling other people puts that goal up-front and center.  you can’t hide from it because you just might have someone say to you in june, “hey, i thought you were running those 5k things.  what happened to that?”

so when it comes down to business, are you making SMART goals for your organization?  for yourself?  for your career?

it’s a new year, and there are no excuses.  come up with smart goals, write them down, and make sure you’re taking steps towards getting them every day.  start with something specific, measure your progress, make sure it’s feasible, ensure that it’s in keeping with your overall mission, and tell everybody about it.  you haven’t failed in the past because you weren’t good enough; it’s because you weren’t reaching for the right goals.

image by syamastro, flickr artist

blog.  wiki.  ms excel file.  ms project plan.  ms sharepoint page.  basecamp project.

they’re all tools.  while people may prefer one tool over another, whichever tool it is will not take hold unless the culture there supports it.

i see a lot of proposed changes to current work streams and business processes fail because — even with support from leadership — the user base rejects those changes.  there could be a few reasons why:

• it’s not simple.  if the change is convoluted, adding extra steps to the workflow process or time to complete tasks, people are going to reject it – even if they agree in principle that the proposed new method is “right”
• they don’t understand it.  if you make a change that people don’t understand the reasoning behind, they will have a hard time accepting and implementing it.  #1 sign that you made boo-boos?  hearing employees say, “uh.. why are we doing this again?”
• it doesn’t fit.  if your changes contradict the way you do business, it’s only going to lead to confusion and frustration, and ultimately it will be abandoned.

if you’ve tried making changes to the way your team or organization does work in the past and failed, check the process again.  look at what you’re trying to do, and see what your people think about it.  when new tools don’t take hold, don’t discredit their use.

it’s the culture, stupid!

keep the tools and fix the culture.

my parents just bought a new house, and by new i mean old.  in philadelphia, every house is old — many of which have not been renovated since the 60s.  so the weekend before thanksgiving, i went up to philly to take care of some errands and, while there, to check out the house and paint the upstairs bedrooms for my parents.

not bad, right?  wrong.

the new house has popcorn ceilings with … sparkles? in it.  and both the downstairs as well as the back room upstairs have floor to ceiling mirrors which one can only assume is to ‘make the room look larger’.  to me, it all makes the room look ‘horrible’.  but such was the style back in the day (…i suppose).

there’s a slight problem, however: namely the fact that it’s now the future and such designs are way outdated, look bad, and worse yet are hard to change.  painting the ceilings was not fun.  first, the popcorn soaks up all the paint so you end up using far more than you would have used on a normal, flat surface.  second, it falls apart on you.  i know this too well.  my brother and myself both had paint covered pieces of the ceiling fall off and into our mouths.  (yes, it would have made sense to have a mask on, but we didn’t exactly have an OSHA approved setup.)  the mirrors?  they’re still up there.  it would have cost too much money to have them removed, and then you have to worry about what’s behind those mirrors once you do take them down.  beyond the cost to remove them, you may incur even more costs in fixing whatever is behind the mirrors.  it’s not an agile design for the interior of a house.

much like designing a house, you may want to be careful when you are making design choices for your organization.  you will be tempted to put a lot of processes in place and begin to adopt “industry best practices” from competitors in your marketplace.  i say to exercise caution because the more processes you have, by definition, the less agile your organization is.  processes reduce your ability to make changes, and therefore your ability to innovate.

don’t get me wrong – some processes are important.  you do still need a ceiling, and you certainly need walls.  before you go making choices, however, think about the future.  are you making the same choices based on what everyone else sees as the newest fad, or trend?  are you making decisions that are restricting your organization’s ability to adapt to changes?  are you going to be stuck with popcorn on the ceiling that’s hard to change and mirrors on the walls that are expensive to get rid of?

don’t let “this old house” turn into “this old organization.”  always plan for the future.

image by oliver widder, creator of geek and poke

people don’t fully understand social media, and part of it is our own fault — the social media mavens.  i don’t think we do a well enough job of explaining it to everyone.

most people aren’t very fond of change, because change is unpredictable.  am i going to be better, or worse off?  will i be able to adapt?  can i make the necessary changes in me to succeed in this new environment?

the problem with social media, though, is that it’s really not a change from one thing to this other.  in the end, we’re all still communicating.  how we communicate — the tools we use — do (as everything) evolve over time, however.  but it’s certainly not anything to be frightened over.

we need to find better ways to communicate the benefits of social media to yesterday’s enterprise 1.0 stalwarts.  how do you get someone who is so loyal to the old way of doing things to change?

i think it’s in the metaphors.

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“anything you say can and will be held against you…”

those are some important words of warning to heed if you’re being arrested… or a consultant.

as client-facing staff, it’s hard to balance honesty, integrity, and some good old-fashioned self preservation.  during the meeting i referenced in my previous post, a senior associate shared with me a lesson that i learned all too well earlier this evening on the day this post was authored: give the least amount of information you can, then move on.

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image by csitscenter, flickr collection

i was in a meeting recently with a senior associate in my firm, and spent the vast amount of the 4 hours we had together furiously taking notes.  unfortunately i couldn’t write as fast as he was talking, so i ended up not capturing all of the information that was there for the taking.  for the most part, the vast majority of the time was spent discussing our earned value management capabilities at booz allen.  we did talk some about business in general and building capabilities that can grow and expand, and it was from this discussion that my largest, boldest, “even used a highlighter on it” note came from.  he said something to me that made a lot of sense:

always plan on success.

it’s a great quote.  you may mistakingly take it as an inspirational message, but that’s not at all what he intended.  it was actually meant to scare us, and remind us that we need to be prepared to succeed.  to be successful in business, it’s not enough to have a good idea.  even having passion and being a hard worker isn’t enough.  when you’re trying to stand up or start up something brand new, you have to have certain things in place to handle the change in environment.  nothing can kill a good idea quite like being unprepared to succeed.  if you aren’t ready to expand with the business, you’ll undoubtedly experience growing pains – much like wearing a shoe that’s two sizes too small.

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