Posts Tagged best practices
don’t give them an excuse
bill mccreary image from nhl.com
some nights in hockey — especially if your team has a reputation — referees will blow the whistle a little more than usual. it just happens that other games are merely called tight with little room to interpret the rules. whatever the cause, you never want to have your players cutting ruts to the penalty box.
on the bench during those kinds of games, there’s a common saying that gets passed around among coaches and players: “don’t give them an excuse to put you in the box.” it’s a simple message. even if what would normally not be called an infraction earns you a 2 minute trip to the sin bin, as a player you have to be smarter than that and adapt. you can’t give the referees any excuse to call you for it. keep the sticks down, keep both hands on your stick, and watch the play along the boards.
business can be much the same with clients instead of referees. some might love everything you develop for them or the kinds of services you provide, but others may be insatiable still and find flaws with anything you bring to bear. if you know you’re dealing with the latter, follow the same simple rule: don’t give them an excuse.
don’t give your clients a reason to question the validity of your statements; be sure to practice each and every one of your presentations and always perform the proper amount of due diligence in defining answers to their questions.
don’t give your clients a reason to believe that your products are broken; test, retest, and test some more until you’re absolutely certain that your products or services are programmed properly, or mathematically sound, or have multiple research studies to support them.
don’t give your clients a reason to feel like they can go elsewhere and get the same service; go out of your way to prove your organization’s commitment to them by answering their phone calls promptly, replying to their emails the same day, and generally making them feel like you give a damn about them as customers.
if you’re dealing with a difficult client, don’t complain if they’re bitchy or a hard-ass or they’re calling bad penalties. just don’t give them an excuse to call one in the first place.
practice for your project teams: why don’t we do it?
image by NHLFlyers, official twitter handle of the philadelphia flyers
when your favorite sports team finds issues to work on, they spend more time on it in practice.
powerplay numbers down? you can bet that your favorite hockey team is going to spend more time in the umbrella during practice.
not winning the battles along the boards? eat your wheaties and have yourself a powerbar before you hit the ice, because we’re doing nothing but 2-on-2′s for a solid 15 minutes down in the corners.
sloppy line changes in the second period? get ready to play a lot of dump and chase and listen for your line to be called.
i think we’ve got the individual training down pretty well in industry. we have one day training events to introduce people to new concepts. we have 2 and 3 day seminars to teach solid fundamentals of what makes a good consultant. we have week long “boot camps” for certification training and exams. but what about the rest of your team?
case study: the @zoowithroy brand
i have really been enamored with a certain blog — pardon me — bolg this summer for many reasons, namely the brand its creator has been able to forge using microsoft paint and 140 characters. it really hit me a few weeks ago when fox saturday baseball did a mid-inning exposé on a shirt that an impetuous phillies fan bought from the zoo with roy online store and mailed to colorado rockies manager jim tracy’s office. this national exposure followed after zwr himself already appeared on espn’s first take. talk about local celebrity; in philadelphia circles, zwr isn’t just a celebrity — he’s a folk hero.
i wanted to do a quick and dirty case study on the “i want to go to the zoo with roy halladay” brand to see if we can figure out how all of this national exposure came to a simple bolg that someone created on blogger.com (it has since been moved to its own domain).
solution-based approach vs. problem-based approach
image by flickr artist, Dunechaser
there’s a distinct difference between a solution-based approach and a problem-based approach. let me give you an example of what i mean.
i was watching a show on pbs that was talking about battleground mobility — from the time of egyptian chariots through to today’s modern, technologically advanced tanks. i found the bit about the development of the tank to be quite interesting.
during the first world war, trench warfare had become the status quo. miles and miles of fronts in europe and russia covered in 6ft wide trenches. it made fighting a conventional land battle extremely deadly, and the allies were finding out just how difficult it would be to take down the german war machine. until a technologically curious winston churchill had an idea.
consultants consulting consultants
image by eqqman, flickr artist
it’s pretty easy when you’re working hard on a project to become engrossed in it. all your energy becomes focused on one thing, and one thing only: delivering results.
be careful, though, because you might be delivering the wrong results.
when we get that kind of laser focus sometimes it’s hard to break free from it. ”i have a deadline, i have to get this done, and i have to get it done right now.” so, being the good workers we are, we start to work towards accomplishing that goal. unfortunately, we sometimes go down the wrong path in getting to the finish line. instead of looking at our available options, we pick the one we know will work even if it has consequences. we’re not as efficient anymore. our processes can be improved. our tasks are disjointed. our products don’t provide value.
these things happen, and they happen often. it might start with priorities that all become worthless because every task now has ‘critical’ or ‘high’ importance. it might start with a demanding client who asks you to turn a demo into a fully functional work product within a week. but at the end of the day, it’s just something that happens. that’s why i think — especially for those of us who work as consultants — that it’s so important we don’t forget to turn a consulting eye on ourselves.
what meetings are we having? do they provide value? has the mission of our project team changed? do we still have the same goals in mind as we had 3 months before? 6 months before? 12 months before? does our leadership structure still serve the client well? does it serve the project team members well?
these questions and more are questions that need to be answered, but — perhaps more importantly — they need to drive tangible change. it’s really simple to ask the question (i just did!); it’s a bit more difficult to implement changes based on the answers you get in return.
sometimes you just have to look in the mirror.
knowledge is no substitute for hard work
image by sarahkim, flickr artist
i wrote not too long ago about the keys to an effective presentation. it’s strange how sometimes you don’t listen to your own advice, though, john… seriously.
guilty as charged.
i found myself this week in a situation where i had three briefs to deliver to three different audiences all within the span of a few short hours. it’s hard to ‘get up’ for those kinds of meetings, have a short break in between, and then recapture that tough mental focus again. (oh, and then repeat that once more for the last brief of the day) i was feeling confident, however (i usually do), especially since i was closing it out with the same marketing brief i had given dozens upon dozens of times already. but i should have known better than to take things lightly.
effective presentations start with preparation
image by misssluluu, flickr artist
i was recently in an internal marketing meeting with one of the higher ups in the firm (when you’re a lvl 2, pretty much everyone is “higher up” than you are..), and — not to brag at all, but — i nailed it.
while i had some high esteem leaving the conference room, i thought to myself on the elevator: “gee, i sure hope to god i did nail my presentation; i’ve been giving pretty much the same brief for a year now.” bringing a new capability to market takes a while, and i’ve probably sold my work to both internal and external stakeholders at least once a month since i started working at booz allen last february. that’s certainly no short amount of practice time.
so the other day when i was giving my brief about how we came up with the idea, and how all the different pieces all come together to create a singular picture, about all of the benefits that can come from using this tool, they were the same words that i’ve said a hundred times over. that’s where i think the lesson comes in at:
effective presentations start with preparation.
what if your phone calls were like your social media?
image by hensever, flickr artist
i’ve made this argument before: social media is social. you can’t just broadcast information; you have to listen to what’s coming back at you and respond.
recent conversation at work brought up the notion of pre-planning tweets for a client’s conference — or having pre-approved topics that one could tweet about. while some purists might find fault with that, i don’t.
there’s no problem with pre-planning your tweets because the tweet is just the medium. if you or a client are attending a conference or some kind of convention and you want to make sure that you capture certain topics or information in your tweets — go right ahead and do it. would you make a phone call to a friend or a client without first planning that also?
hint: your work problem is actually a time problem
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…
make SMART goals that work
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.
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