Diligentia

!!!! We're Moving!!!!!

2007-11-10T22:29:00.001-05:00

I am going to stop posting here.

I am moving the blog to mikelally.typepad.com

Go there.

Now.

I will tell you why.

In the Beginning...There Was Tom Peters

2007-10-16T11:12:00.000-04:00

Lots of things going on. I just accepted a new position with another company. Big changes. Before I get into that (in another post), I want to revisit Tom Peters and his book, The Brand You 50. This is where it all began. Taking control of your life and your career. Breaking free of the shackles of being a drone and letting your career happen TO you.

Published in 1999, 8 years ago!, this has been one of Tom's raging mantras.

The New Job Security:

- Craft (your marketable skill)

- Distinction (memorable achievements)

- Networking Skills (word of mouth collegial support)

Brand You's Lead!

They take charge of their own lives. They know that they are:

- Skills dependent

- Distinction dependent

- Network/Rolodex dependent (Linkedin/Facebook dependent!)

- Project (WOW! Projects) dependent

- Growth dependent

- Leaders!

As I have mentioned in other posts, I think I am just starting to really get this - "grok" it. I've taken a new job. It will help me further develop my skills. It will engage me in a different industry. It will engage me in a different part of a client's business (organizational development). There is plenty of opportunity for achievement (launching a new practice inside an established firm). I will expand my network. I will grow. I will continue to lead. I have taken charge.

I've done a lot of these things in the past. I've lead. I have grown my tool set. I have built a great network. But this move is a big move for me. I have taken the wheel. I am not letting my career happen to me - I am making my career happen.

Facebook the New LinkedIn?

2007-09-25T09:11:00.000-04:00

Oy. Now I need a Facebook profile? According to Neil Patel, yes. I caught the Use Facebook as a Marketing Tool link from Lifehacker. This took me to Patel's Quick Sprout blog and the full post: Build a Facebook Profile You Can Be Proud Of.

Facebook has opened itself up to the masses. Now anyone can have a Facebook page. Previously, you could only get in if you had a college email address. (Which doesn't make sense but I read it on the webbernet so it must be true.) The principal is essentially the same as building out your LinkedIn profile.

The name of the game, ultimately, is personal branding. The number 1 marketing method for building your brand in your Google page rank. If Facebook is uber-popular and will help move me ahead of Mike Lally, the actor, I am all for it. Patel gives some helpful hints: Build your profile...the more complete the profile, the more chances you have getting connected to others with similar interests/backgrounds.

Next, you need to interact. Just like LinkedIn. You have to work it! Search for people you know. Find the connections. Grow your network organically. I AM against just random linkages. GENUINELY get to know people BEFORE you add them.

Lastly, and again, just like LinkedIn and your resume, keep your profile up to date. Know your accomplishments and PUBLISH THEM FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!

So....here it is...my Facebook page.

48 Days to the Work You Love

2007-09-22T11:35:00.001-04:00

More on personal branding. I mentioned in my last post that I was deconstructing myself. I pick up this book to help.

There is a quote from Tom Peters somewhere that if he gets one idea out of a $20 book, the ROI is incredible.

This is one of those books. This book is H-E-A-V-Y on the religious overtones. I don't judge and those parts are easy to skip over.

This book looks at goal-setting and life balancing. It asks you to look inward and "know thyself". It provides some decent tips along the way.

The author, Dan Miller, lays out 7 Areas For Achievement in your life. They are:

Financial
Physical
Personal Development
Family
Spiritual
Social
Career

For more on this I really suggest you look at Rick Houcek. I met him a few years ago. He talks about the same thing...balance and goal-setting. He's an intense guy.

Digression - in the Social section, Miller provides a list of 6 Ways to make people like you - that he lifts from Dale Carnegie. (I don't know about "making" people like you, but these couldn't hurt):

Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Then he gets into understanding your personal brand. In order to understand your brand you need to understand three areas: your personality traits, your values, dreams, and passions, and skills and abilities. You need to take a very hard and detailed personal inventory to understand you values/dreams/passions and your skills/abilities. There are plenty of personality tests out there (more on those in a later post).

Miller takes a pretty common point about your plain-old-looks-like-everyone-else's resume and tweaks it in a way that bears repeating:

Your resume is your sales tool for where you want to go. Don't let it be just a snapshot of where you have been.

Where you want to GO. I like that.

He continues...

If you want to redirect your career path, you can begin the process with a well-designed resume. Remember, if your resume is just a chronological history of what you've done, it will pigeonhole you into continuing to do what you've always done. You can redirect in major ways by identifying 'area of competence' that would have applications in new companies, industries, and professions.

Along with goal-setting and branding, Miller provides interviewing tips. I liked his section on the always tough "Tell me a little about yourself" question. I think I am a pretty good interviewee. I hate this question. Miller helps and it really goes hand in hand with your branding. If you really lock in on your brand, this question will answer itself. He advises:

Remember, your answer to any question should be no more than 2 minutes in length. On this particular one, you might spend 15 seconds on your personal background, 1 minute on your career highlights, a few seconds on your strongest professional achievements, and then conclude by explaining why you are looking for a new opportunity.

I recommend video-taping yourself. It is BRUTAL. But it is effective. Get yourself a timer. Script out your answer, record it, time it. Edit it as needed. Pay attention to your body language as you speak. I don't know about the 2 minute rule either.

You need your elevator-speech (we really need a new term for that) and this will come as you come to understand your brand. Take the 2 minute version and chop it to 1 minute. Then to 30 seconds. It is OK to have multiple versions - long, medium, short.

Maybe I was unfair in the beginning of this post. There is a good amount of value in this book. I was really turned off by all the "Bibleing". Miller tosses around Scripture like - I don't know, I can't think of a good metaphor. But all in all, this is a good starting point for someone looking to know themselves better.

More on Branding Yourself

2007-09-20T18:19:00.000-04:00

It has been ten years since Tom Peters first interjected the concept of personal branding into the workplace lexicon. Very few people get it. I think I am just beginning to get it. I keep learning. I evolve. Someday I too will be a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Today has been a day of convergence around Personal Branding. I read a great article from Joe Calloway at The CEO Refresher called Your Brand is Everything. Calloway does a good job of cutting through the marketing-speak and laying out what a brand really IS:

Your brand is owned by your customers, the people you work with, and anyone else who has an impression of you. Your brand is other people's perception of what it is like to do business with you, work with you, or be with you.

Take a minute and let that sink in.

You create your brand with every breath, every action, every decision and how all of those elements drive your customer's experience. Calloway advises that the way to build a strong brand is simple: keep your promises and create great experiences for others.

Then, the mind-blower: you don't have just one brand. You have MULTIPLE brands. "You literally have as many brands as you have customers and people who have an impression of you." Holy cow. How many people did you talk to today? How many did you email? IM? All of them walked away with a perception of YOU - your BRAND.

The customer gets to decide your brand. He then goes on to talk about customer experiences. One I particularly LOVE:

Everyone at the dry cleaners knows my name. I spend about thirty dollars a week with them. My company spends tens of thousands of dollars every year with you and yet I feel like you have no idea who I am.

I LOVE THAT STATEMENT. And it is TRUE.

Tomorrow I will drop off my own dry cleaning and be greeted by a "Good morning, Mr. Lally!" And it is genuine. I've been going there for years. It is not because they HAVE to do it. It is a part of them. As soon as I get to the office, I have a meeting with a technology vendor who is coming to talk about a migration plan to a new platform. I've been chasing them all week on a problem we are having with the existing platform. The sales person doesn't know that I am going to be managing the relationship going forward. And I am not a happy camper.

Flip over to Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist blog. She has a great post today on Three Steps to Building Your Brand. I've really enjoyed this blog. The link is to the full Yahoo Finance article. She points to a definition by Dan Schwabel (who has actually commented on Diligentia!) in his Personal Branding Wiki.

The wiki definition of a personal brand is labeled a PROCESS of "identifying and articulating their unique value proposition...and leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal."

But where to begin? Penelope and Dan provide some tips. Dan says to begin with an "inventory of personal core competencies, natural constituencies, expertise and demonstrated abilities." Good but I am just a simple farmer. That is a bit too wordy for me. I like Penelope's version better:

Know what you are good at.
Know what people think of you.
Meet the right people.

One of the big tricks to career success is to find out what you do better than almost everyone else, and then let people know that's what you do.

Knowing what people think of you is a tough one. Getting honest feedback is not easy. She points to a great article from The Prometheus Institute on Five Tips to Increase Your Likeability. I would also point you to Marshall Goldsmith's book - What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

How to be likeable:

Be positive. As my mother-in-law says: "Quit your crab-applin'." She's right. Attitude is everything.
Control your insecurities. Breathe. Accept who you are and if you don't like it, change it. Or sit down and be quiet.
Provide Value. Get in the game. Get some social skills. You may be brilliant but if you can't stand to be around other humans, no one is going to care. Learn how to fake it if you must.
Eliminate all judgements. This means "treating everyone with the respect you would give to a 120-year-old man and the understanding you would give toward your sever-year-old cousin."
Become a person of conviction. As the song says....respect yourself.

Be a hammer. "Specialists have the best careers."

As I mentioned, I have been working on this. I have been going through a process of deconstructing myself. Stripping ME down and putting myself back together again starting at the core.

I will start posting about my efforts to develop the Brand Me.

My Go Bag

2007-08-30T10:02:00.000-04:00

Lifehacker, my favorite website has been running a series called Show Us Your Go Bag.

Last weekend, I emptied out the contents of mine, took a picture and submitted. Click here to see my bag! (And a description of its contents).

Rethinking the Off-Shore Model

2007-08-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

I was talking with a colleague the other day. We got into a discussion on outsourcing. We did not get into a heavy debate on the socio-economic-political ramifications. The discussion centered on cost to the outsourcer and the outsourcee.

The discussion turned to India. "How can you compete?" my colleague asked. I think it is getting easier to compete. This article from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4218(you have to register) talks to the changing economic situations in India.

The rupee is beginning to appreciate against the dollar. The author thinks the rupee can reach 15 to the dollar in the next 20 years. For the life of me I can't find where the rupee is trading today. Trust me, it is a lot more than 15:1.

If your business model has you competing on cost - suddenly you are finding that the cost difference is not such a slam-dunk as it has been for the last 5-7 years. As costs rise because of the stronger rupee, you become less profitable. Your competitive advantage erodes.

The author points India to the Japanese of the 1980's when the yen strengthened against the dollar:

For product lines where they made the highest margins, such as the Lexus, they continued production in Japan. However, for lower-priced models -- where their profit margins were lower and would have been eroded further by the rising yen
-- they moved production to the U.S. They protected their margins on non-premium products by moving production -- and therefore shifting costs -- into dollar-denominated areas.

Indian outsourcers will be forced to raise their prices to meet their costs. They will also have to look for other areas of competitive advantage. They will have to "change the mix of activities carried out in India versus other countries."

The author also feels that the Indian companies will further evolve and become global companies that are just based in India.

You have to compete on value.

MBA In a Page

2007-08-27T12:48:00.000-04:00

Read Guy Kawasaki's blog today and read this post.

I thought I had linked to the Management Methods Management Models Management Theories page from valuebasedmanagement.net in my link bar. Apparently, I have not. I have corrected.

I do LOVE the quote from Kawasaki in regard to this site:

You can use the page as a test: Anyone who knows all these theories is someone you shouldn’t hire.

Love it! You should probably set a percentage though. Although I am SURE there are people out there that could rattle off every single item on this page. Freaks. We should set the bar at +/- 25% - 30%?

It IS a handy reference tool.

Good Manners is Good Management

2007-08-18T08:33:00.000-04:00

I came across this book while reading a Knowledge @ Wharton article/review. I highly recommend reading the article. If you are like me, it will make you run out and buy the book.

The author of the book, Marshall Goldsmith, is a veteran executive coach. He is ranked highly by Forbes and the Wall Street Journal for his work as a coach. His book is a best seller on multiple charts.

This book is elegant in its simplicity. There is no cheese moving here. The K@W review makes a comparison to the Who Moved My Cheese phenomenon. (I remember walking into a staffing agency one day. They were trying to land me as a client. They had a whole area devoted to that book. Banners, inflatable cheese. Sigh.)

As the article says:

...at a certain professional level, neither intelligence nor skill accounts for the fact that some people continue to advance while others plateau. What differentiates the one from the other...has nothing to do with one's abilities, experience and training - and everything to do with behavior.

The focus is on emotional intelligence. It might even be more basic than that. It is about basic etiquette. Miss Manners for corporate executives. Goldsmith lists 20 habits that hold us back from the top. He then dives into methods and techniques for going about how to improve. Goldsmith calls the 20 - "transactional flaws". They are:

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations - when it matters, when it doesn't, and when it's totally beside the point.

2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.

3. Passing judgement: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.

4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.

5. Starting with "No," "But," or "However": The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, "I'm right. You're wrong."

6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we're smarter than they think we are.

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.

8. Negativity, or "Let me explain why that won't work": The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren't asked.

9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.

11. Claiming credit that we don't deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.

12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.

13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.

14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.

15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we're wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for our colleagues.

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.

20. An excessive need to be "me": Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they're who we are.

Bonus 21: Goal Obsession: The force at play when we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that we do it at the expense of a larger mission.

I just went through leadership training at work. This book would have been an excellent take away. The training really focused on the practice of "mindfulness". Being aware of yourself and your environment. Not getting caught up. The book has helped me in a couple of ways - and I expect it to continue to be valuable to me throughout my career.

First, it is helping me be more mindful of how I act and present myself to my teams. Second, it is helping me continue to define what I am looking for out of my "path". Lastly, I find Goldsmith completely compelling. I WANT to change. I WANT to improve myself. I WANT to do better.

I will close with a quote from the K@W article:

The beauty of Goldsmith's approach lies not just in the simplicity of his insights, but also in the clarity of his advice. Because it is our behavior that holds us back, he argues, we can change our future by changing how we act. The key to a better future comes from learning to listen to what others have to tell us about our behavior.

You DID learn everything you need to know in kindergarten. So true. So true.

More on Being a Hammer

2007-07-25T18:36:00.000-04:00

From Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist comes another post on being better at self-promotion. She also dives into why it is important to be an expert in whatever it is that you do. Differentiate yourself. Own a niche.

Back in November, she had a great post about taking the risk of specializing. She talked about being a typecast Hollywood actor. Are you the guy in the PG movie that everyone is rooting for to get the girl? Or are you the guy in the rated R movie that no one is quite sure about yet? (Sorry, reminded me of one of my favorite movies.)

I've been debating this subject with myself since October 2005. My friend Harry Joiner from Marketing Headhunter gave me the save advice. Be a hammer. Specialize. I've been slow to adopt. For the longest time I have held on to the idea that I LIKE being a jack of all trades. I LIKE being good (just "good") at a variety of things.

I am starting to see where being the utility infielder is not such a good thing. It is hard to find a roster spot for the utility player. Especially towards the end of the season. If you are going into the playoffs, you will know what your weaknesses are and will trade to bolster them.

I'm in this jack of all trades role now. I don't have a job description. The position on the piece of paper they handed me during the interview process quickly dissolved as the goals of the business rapidly changed. The business had new needs. My manager had different goals and needs. I could fill those. Start up a new call center? You bet. Been there. Done it. I'm your man. Then the business needs shifted again. Need someone that can teach themselves how to run a next-generation switch from Aspect? I'm in. Send me to a training class for a week, give me the manuals and let me at it. Then...manage a telemarketing vendor? Hey! I WAS a telemarketing vendor.

Now...like I said, I am beginning to understand Harry and Penelope. Be a hammer. Specialize. Make sure people know the ONE THING you are good at - too many options CONFUSE people. They get to a place where they don't know exactly how to fit you - the round peg - into their square box. I'm learning.

I Finally Write a Review for Meg's Book - "Confessions of an Introvert"

2007-07-14T17:01:00.000-04:00

First off, I have to apologize to Meg. I had promised her MONTHS ago that I would write a review for her book: Confessions of an Introvert: The Shy Girl's Guide to Career, Networking and Getting the Most Out of Life. The funny thing is that I don't know why I didn't write the review. I took NOTES! I had several index cards full of thoughts and referencing quotes.

She asked me last week (oh the shame!) if I could post something to Amazon. I had one of those moments where I just KNEW I had already done it. I looked through the posts here and found a couple of references to Meg and her book. But no actual review.

So click the link above and check it out.

Eight Tips for Perpetual Career Management

2007-07-06T13:12:00.000-04:00

Another post from TheLadders.com. This also come via e-newsletter. The link doesn't capture the piece from the newsletter. Follow the link above and it will take you to the authors' website. In the meantime, they offer some solid advice on managing your personal brand (Thanks Mr. Peters!) Brand management is a full-time gig. It is not something you do when you need to start looking for a new job.

1. Document your accomplishments. You should be doing this ALL OF THE TIME. I tell my direct reports that they need to do this because I am NOT going to remember all of it. And while I do a pretty good job of noting when the kick butt on something, I am human. I don't catch everything. If you want a raise or a new job, show me this document. And use the C-A-R approach. (See my last post.)

2. Google yourself. Figure out what you need to do to boost your profile. It's not easy. (Yes, yes. I should be posting more. I know. But I am also competing with an actor/poet with the same name.)

3. When you are updating your accomplishment document, update your resume and your linkedin profile.

4. (I skipped one) - Work the social networking sites. You need to be on linkedin. If you're not. You're doomed. Unless you are amazingly connected. Talk to people. Don't reach out after you just got booted out the door. Figure out ways to help people in your network. We all need good karma.

5. Join professional associations. Take on leadership roles. See number 4 above.

6. Always be refining. See steps 1 through 5 above.

I know the article listed 8 tips. I pulled the best 6.

Show Me Your C-A-R!

2007-07-06T13:03:00.001-04:00

I subscribe to the e-newsletter from The Ladders.com This week they had two stories which i have passed on to friends and thought I should share.

Do You Have a Good CAR? by Abby Locke provides useful advice on how to present your accomplishments on your resume or LinkedIn profile. She recommends using the C-A-R format. Challenge. Action Steps. Result. Don't just list the result. In order for a hiring manager to take notice you have to help them.

You have to provide context. Growing revenue 15% last year doesn't mean anything. What if the year before revenue was up 60%. That would mean you are a slacker. Go with something like:

Generated 3% revenue increase on a stalled $15mm lead generation program in 2006. Trending to a 19% increase in 2007. Defined processes, improved marketing collateral, and implemented technology improvements to the lead management system.

I am sure the author would have me tighten that up a bit, but it accomplishes what she recommends. It provides context. The lead gen program was stalled in 2005. I achieved a modest bump in 2006 and have really turned on the gas in 2007. (Cross your fingers that the trend holds - which it should.)

Focus on the Customer

2007-07-05T14:43:00.000-04:00

I know it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted. I will try to do better. I lost focus. I am trying to correct that.

"Focusing on the Customer..." is the latest interview from the McKinsey Quarterly. You need to register to view the article. The piece focuses on Merrill Lynch (where I landed my first job that didn't involve delivering newspapers or replenishing gallon jugs of milk) and their efforts to drive quality of service by combining IT and customer operations.

I like this approach. I like it a lot. I am not a technology zealot. I do not think that technology is the answer to all problems. If anything, I am on the opposite side of that fence. I am not a Luddite, don't get me wrong. But technology can do more harm than good. Especially when the stakeholders put all of their bets on it.

Merrill has combined these two business units under one leader, Diane Schueneman. She seems to have her eyes on the prize...she understands that the customer does not care about whatever product the suits put together. The customer cares about quality of service and the overall customer experience.

So the whole reason to combine technology and operations rests on the customer's needs. And to deliver against those needs requires the best operational processes and the best technology. But you can't start with one and graft on the other.

I've seen this happen many times in my career. The technology investment was so overwhelmingly great at one point that fear of change sets in - no one has the courage to stand up and admit that the best course of action is to stop what we're doing and start over. Instead, we patch. We duct tape. We MacGuyver. We make it work. But is that the best thing for the customer?

Schueneman goes on to identify what her team found:

...if you really want to satisfy customers, let's make sure that human beings aren't touching processes and slowing them down.

I love it. Technology should help. Not be a hindrance. Ponder that for a minute. Maybe a couple of minutes.

Review of 3-D Negotiation Published

2007-01-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

I just had my third book review published in The CEO Refresher! I was hoping to be on a more prolific pace. Hopefully in 2007, I will increase my once-per-year pace. I reviewed 3-D Negotiation by David Lax and James Sebenius.

Loved the book. I referred to it as The Art of War for negotiation. I love The Art of War. It is a book that I go back to periodically. I thumb through it. I open to a random page and read. I expect I will be doing the same with 3-D Negotiation.

I have had the opportunity to use some of the approaches detailed in the book. I can attest that they work. It is a "game-changing" approach to negotiation. It takes everything you know about negotiation theory and turns it on its ear. I highly recommend this book if you are involved in buying, selling, trading or bartering anything.

Tips for Sales Managers from Marketing Headhunter

2006-11-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

I'm catching up on my reading during this Holiday week here in the States. Harry talks about understanding the difference between revenue and profit. He provides some very specific tips on how to boost your bottom line profit numbers.

If you are a sales manager who is looking for new career opportunities, please take a look at your accomplishments in light of these suggestions.
To what extent have you improved your employer's profitability by helping it get its arms around its costs?
Have you developed and implemented any systems to track revenues, costs per sale, and net profits?
Have you partnered with your customers to lean-up the value chain?

When I joined my current employer, I took over a $16mm piece of business. We tracked revenue. That was it. Since taking over, and fighting though and around a development group that has bigger priorities we have laid in some new and knowledge-generating reporting. We look at conversion rate now. The first thing we learned is that there is a lot of "spray and pray". Lots of random, unqualified leads. We begun an immediate continuous improvement effort on that.

Secondly, we now look at the aging of the leads. Guess what...if a lead is open past 90 days, it ain't gonna close. Ever. More effeciencies gained there. No more effort wasted in trying to contact people. And then we tie it back to conversion rate.

Next up for us is churn. My revenue number gets adjusted month to month. But it is difficult to get at a good churn number. These measures (and a few others that we have implemented helped to "lean up the value chain". After that: cost per lead and cost per sale. We are building a nice name for ourselves. This group was once the convenient whipping-boy between marketing and the field. No longer. We are advocates for both groups.

After a half-year of operations center closings and announcements for more, we are at break-even from 2005. I'll take it. Since the second quarter, we were struggling. We turned it around by managing it.

What Great Managers Do

2006-11-21T14:33:00.000-05:00

I am just getting around to writing about an article from the March 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review by Marcus Buckingham. It is adapted from his book The One Thing You Need to Know which is on my reading list. This article hits on a number of areas that I have been involved with over the last few months.

I’ve been reflecting on managing people lately. I’ve been involved in a startup call center in Flordia. We are also deploying a new phone switch which allows us to make outbound “telemarketing” calls. I’ve been “managing” that whole process. It is similar to herding cats. I’ve spent time working, hands-on with the agents, trying to teach them how to “sell”. I’ve been working with the supervisors, trying to show them what they should be looking for and how to correct it once they find it. I’ve been working with upper management, trying to educate them on outbound dialing.

Great managers find that thing that makes each person a unique and beautiful snowflake…and then exploits it. (In the nicest sense of the word.) This is the opposite of what leaders do: they find the common thread between everyone/thing…and exploit it.

Managers capitalize on each person’s uniqueness. This is critical to success for three reasons.

It saves time. Divvying up tasks to those that have special talents is much better than everyone breaking rocks. Someone needs to haul them away. Someone WANTS to haul them away versus breaking the rocks. Find that person.
Once you show yourself to be the best rock-breaker, you have a reputation to uphold. Production lifts. There is no going back. We did this with the startup. The team of a dozen people was averaging 5 sales per night. I spent a week with them, on the floor, in their faces (nicely). When I left, they were averaging 35-40 sales per night. Collectively, as they were devouring the pizza I bought them on my last night, they realized what they had done: they had set the bar for themselves.
It builds a sense of team. The rock-breaker and the rock-hauler have to work together or the breaker (who loves breaking rocks) will end up having to haul her own rocks (which she hates).

Buckingham provides a few tips for identifying strengths in your team members. He advises two simple questions: first, what was the best day you’ve had in the last 3 months? Second, what was the worst? Get at the root cause of both. Understand the driving factors behind each of the answers.

Buckingham quotes Albert Bandura (“the father of social learning theory”) on some insights into motivation indicators:

…self-assurance (labeled “self-efficacy” by cognitive psychologists), not self awareness, is the strongest predictor of a person’s ability to set high goals, to persist in the face of obstacles, to bounce back when reversals occur, and, ultimately, to achieve the goals they set. By contrast, self-awareness has not been shown to be a predictor of any of these outcomes, and in some cases, it appears to retard them.

Buckingham then talks about how to trigger good performance. Recognition. Ah yes, the simplest thing of all, yet always the most difficult. The simple act of saying, “nice job” is consistently viewed as a Herculean task. But even “thank you” is not enough. The author urges us to get deeper. How you recognize an employee? To whom you recognize an employee? Both are critical to keep encouraging high-level performance.

Back to my outbound team. A simple act to build a team dynamic that I use is the simple ringing of a bell. A simple, bell that you would find in a dry-cleaner or motel. Get a sale, ring the bell in front of your peers. Its one of those common denominator things. The team does not sit together for several reasons. But most of them are in the same general area. One night, I noticed a woman had 5 sales. She wasn’t getting up to walk across the center to ring the bell. She was a seasoned pro and didn’t need me high five-ing her when I heard her do something well. I did make it a point to walk by her though and hold up five fingers with a big smile. Apparently, her son works on the team as well. He came up to me the next day and told me how excited his mother was that I recognized her. He said he hadn’t seen her like that in a long time. I recognized her. But just to her.

Finally, the author talks briefly about adult learning styles. There are 3 styles of adult learning: analyzing (pulling it apart, examining it, and piecing it back together), doing (simple trial and error) and watching (needing to see it in action and assimilate it). I spent some time crafting a short training class for these folks. They were all new (6 weeks) to our company, our products, our territories. They were new to the concept of “sales”. They were scared of the term “telemarketing”. (Which is a term I hate to use anyway…we’re calling customers whose contracts have expired or will expire).

I took what I knew and slapped together a powerpoint deck. It took me two one-hour classes to realize that maybe one in ten were actually extracting any value from my training. Half-way through the second class, I had them go out on the floor, take their seats and begin dialing. Then we watched. Those that were panicking, we pulled and had them sit with someone. The buddy system. Those that needed time to digest we’re given it. It worked a lot better. I gave the third class my handout and left them at their seats. They caught on the quickest.

Two weeks later, I am getting questions via email about things in my presentation. They have had time to pull it apart. They have had time to assimilate it. Now they are reading for the advanced class.

This article served as a great reminder. Everyone is different. Everyone responds differently. Everyone is motivated differently. Everyone learns differently. I don’t know about unique and beautiful snowflakes (I used that line from “Fight Club” on one of my team members who is an excellent performer but has issues with authority. She will tell you the sky is green just to argue with you.) though.

The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service

2006-11-12T08:46:00.000-05:00

I love a good year-end list. This one comes from crmlowdown. (I feel I have to confess that I did not find this article on my own. They had to send it to me.)

I would put Home Depot at the top of the Worst list. I cannot wait for the Lowe's to open a couple of miles away. We just remodeled our downstairs bathroom. (In some places, this is called a "powder room".) Not tub or shower, just sink or toilet.

Mrs. Diligentia decided that it was time to move away from the 1977 harvest gold sink and toilet; the vinyl floor with the suspicious smell; and the country wall-paper. Off to Home Depot. Ceramic tile, cement backer board, tools, grout, thinset, vanity-sink combo, mirror, medicine cabinet, toilet (that will let you flush a bucket of golf balls), moulding, paint (two kinds) and assorted nails, screws etc. (We got the new light fixture at Lowe's).

As we are purchasing, they hand us a coupon good for a substantial amount of money off our combined purchase. We don't see the coupon until the next morning. (We closed the HD on a Friday night). Back to the store to redeem the coupon. Receipts in hand. They tell us we have to bring all the stuff BACK.

Less than 12 hours had gone by and some of the same employees were there. This is service? I am counting the days until the Lowe's opens. I stare at the brick around my fireplace, flush with my new ability to install ceramic tile, waiting patiently. I stand in the middle of my basement, thinking that we should tear out the carpet and put bamboo down in time for my kid to start having friends over.

Sorry, Home Depot, you blew it.

Shaking Hands for Dummies

2006-10-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

Lifehacker struck a nerve with me yesterday. Great post and commentary thread on the customer of shaking hands [Give a Good Handshake]. I was motivated to post a comment! I have been a long-time reader/fan of Lifehacker but this was the first topic that got me riled up enough to post.

I commented about the "look-away" when shaking hands with someone. I HATE (and you should never say "hate") the look-away.

Hate it.

Hate.

When you shake someone's hand: LOOK.....AT.....THEM!

Even if you have to pretend that you are even remotely interested in them. DO IT! It will make you a better person. People will think better of you. And follow the other tips commented in the post. Clean hand. DRY hand. Strong/confident/firm hand. ONE hand. No homie-brauheim. No limp duchess-style. And be an equal-opportunity hand-shaker. Women get the same grip. And women, I'm not telling you to shake hands like a man. But all the same rules apply to YOU as well.

Are Leadership/Management Skills Portable?

2006-08-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

The May 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review has an article titled Are Leaders Portable? by Groysberg, McLean and Nohria. They studied a bunch of ex-GE trained/indoctrinated (I'm not saying that in a bad way) managers and their ability to produce results once they moved on to fairer hunting grounds.

They break the managers' skills and experiences down to what they refer to as the Model of Human Capital. It is the HBR, they can't just call them "skills". There are five of them:

General management skills
Strategic skills
Industry skills/experience
Relationship skills
Company-specific skills/experience

General management skills involve the ability to find and use financial, technical and people resouces. It also includes basic leadership and decision making ability. These are all portable according to the authors but new skills must be acquired when the manager moves into a more senior role.

Strategic skills (cutting costs, driving growth, etc), gained from situational experience are highly portable but ONLY to companies experiencing similar situations. Cost cutters will do well cutting costs in other organizations.

Industry skills are defined as the "technical, regulatory, customer or supplier knowledge unique to an industry." These skills are portable within an industry. But performance will wane if say, a telecom manager tries to run a company in the medical industry. Makes sense.

Relationship skills are key. Managers in their survey, that could bring colleagues along with them, did much better. If you can't bring your people with you, make sure you can build relationships and social capital in a hurry.

Company-specific capital includes knowledge of the ways a particular company does business. Its culture. Its processes. Its mores. Etc. This is the least portable of the five but "CEOs...are uniquely positioned to capitalize on this knowledge by implementing familiar systems and processes."

This article has allowed me to reflect on my own career path. When I look at my own experience and the skills I have developed along the path, I see the insights from this article. I have always had a common thread of "customer service" and I have been fortunate to translate that across three industries: financial services, high tech and telecom. I have had the ability to bring along people that I trust and am familiar with in prior work situations. I expect that to happen again in my current role. It is just easier to bring in people that you know. Know their work ethic. Know their abilities. And can tell what they will do.

I have also been fortunate to develop strategic skills as well. I am good in a turnaround. I am good in a startup. Both are very similar yet different in many ways as well. I have gone from startup to turnaround to startup to a hybrid in my current role. Launching a new 500 seat site is more like a startup than business as usual.

Hiring for the Customer Experience

2006-08-28T20:04:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in a hotel room in Brentwood, TN (outside of Nashville). I am in town for some training. It gives me a break from bringing up a 500+ seat customer contact center in DeLand, FL that has me commuting 3 out of every 4 weeks to Daytona Beach.

It's giving me some time to catch up on reading. I am not in the thick of the battle. I miss it to be honest. It is hard for me to sit for 7 hours in a room while someone talks at me. Made even harder because I am hooked on the rush of 13 hour go! go! go! days.

But I just finished reading an article in the lastest Fast Company about Danny Meyer, who owns 4 of the top 20 restaurants in NYC. He talks about hospitality versus service. Which is a theme for this edition of the magazine. No links because it is not online yet.

You must NAIL service before you can even start thinking about the customer experience. This is something I am heavily interested in...we are at a turning point in the 100+ year history of the company I work for...we are opening a new call center. We have the opportunity to build it RIGHT from the ground up.

Meyer talks about what he looks for in new hires. There are, of course, the technical skills. But then he talks about emotional skill sets. And he breaks them down into 5 areas:

A natural warmth and optimism. (You either feel it from someone or you don't.)
Intelligence and curiosity. Passion about something.
Work ethic. ("You would be surprised at how many people show up late for an interview, or don't shave.")
Empathy.
Integrity and self-awareness. ("...somebody who is thoughtful about who they are and where things fit into their lives. If they are not accountable to themselves, it's unlikely they'll be accountable to the people they are working with.")

I've probably interviewed at least 200 people in the last couple of months. I am not surprised about people showing up late for interviews, or in flip flops, or with thongs showing, etc. I am not surprised about integrity. Who accepts a job offer and then doesn't show up on the first day? (We have a 20% no show rate. We haven't cracked the code yet on how to identify this type of person. We use a testing suite that gets at attitudes toward work. We keep setting the criteria higher. )

Push Play to Polka

2006-08-08T06:28:00.000-04:00

Seth Godin's latest ChangeThis manifesto is an attack on the status quo. I hate the status quo so Godin works for me. He has a section about products and quality. He demands MORE! $18 CDs are ridiculous!

He recommends we lose the shackles and attempt greatness. He asks us to make some assumptions:

1. Hard drive space is free.
2. WiFi-like connections are everywhere.
3. Connection speeds are ten to one hundred times faster.
4. Everyone has a digital camera.
5. Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny.
6. The number of new products introduced everyday is five times greater than it is now.
7. Wal-Mart's sales are three times as big.
8. Any manufactured product more than five years old in design sells at commodity pricing.
9. The retirement age is five years higher than it is now.
10. Your current profession is either obsolete or totally different.

Now what?

Welcome to the Machine

2006-08-08T05:58:00.000-04:00

I've been crazy-go-nuts with work. I'm sitting in a hotel room in Daytona Beach, FL at the moment. We are bringing up a new center in a nearby community. I am on the Monday through Friday commuting plan. I'm not finding a lot of time to read/research/etc career/management/leadership related material. I'm either pre-gaming on the flight down, reading something for fun to try to clear my brain of the cobwebs, or post-gaming on the way home.

Seth Godin has a new manifesto posted at ChangeThis. Two pieces jump out at me. He talks about "cogs".

Since you were five, schools and society have been teaching you to be a cog in the machine of our economy. To do what you're told, to sit in straight lines, and to get the work done.

Seth joins the Thomas Friedman train. He is also on the path of Rajesh Setty who tells us we need to be distinguishing ourselves. Friedman tells us [see commentary]that we need to be constantly improving/increasing our skill sets. We need to be "special", or "specialized", or "anchored" or just super-adaptable. Otherwise...we are just cogs in the giant machine.

Godin goes on to define cogs further:

1. Cog labor is a lowest-common-denominator activity.
2. If cog labor gets expensive, companies now automate it.
3. If a company can't afford to automate, they move the work somewhere where it's cheaper.
4. If the competition moves, companies figure out how to measure and semi-automate their cog labor to make it cheaper still.

And then here is something to ponder. Read it, let it sink in, process it, put it in your brain as you drift off to sleep and when you are good and terrified...start doing something about it...

The end result is that it's essentially impossible to become successful or well-off doing a job that is described and measured by someone else.

Sleep tight.

Dungeons and Dragons and Self Awareness

2006-06-21T09:14:00.000-04:00

Read a post on Lifehack.org yesterday that resonated with me. I must confess that I am a gamer. I have been a gamer since I can remember. I will be a gamer when I die. All kinds of games. Role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, strategic games like Risk, card games like Crazy-8s that I play with my 5-year old. I had an Atari. I play computer games. I have a modded PS2 where I log hours playing Madden. I find games immensely cathartic. They are a way to clear my head. They are a way to help me process the big stuff in the background while I decide to blitz with the outside linebacker on 3rd down or go on a magic item hunt in Diablo 2.

I also find that games help me stay creative. I find myself dipping into my old dungeon mastering skill set when I am trying to come up with a new story for my aforementioned 5-year old. Creativity is a critical skill to possess in today's world. Sometimes you need that +5 Godly sword to tackle a particularly tricky business situation.

The lifehack post takes a quick look at applying role-playing game methodology to understanding your own skill sets and determining what you need to develop.

How would you characterize your capabilities? ...What kind of character are you? How do you stack up against other people in the same game? What capabilities, skills, or equipment could you further develop to build your success rate with your current game?

Think about who and where you are. Determine where you want to go. Build your skills and find the equipment to help you get there.

Meg Quoted in Career Journal!

2006-06-06T19:05:00.000-04:00

My friend, Meg Wier, has been quoted in an article on careerjournal.com. Meg recently wrote and published "Confessions of an Introvert: The Shy Girl's Guide to Career, Networking and Getting the Most Out of Life". I've promised to write a review for her 6 months ago. I am sure she has disowned me.

Meg gives great advice on networking in the article. Go check out the book as well. I'll write a review soon!

Holistic Career Progression

2006-04-23T09:59:00.000-04:00

I am four months into my new position as sales/marketing/change/project ninja/pirate. I am behind schedule if I follow Watkins' First 90 Days. But I am building relationships, peeling back the onion and affecting change. Watkins seeks quick wins. I haven't seen or recognized the opportunity for quick wins. Everything is big. Everything I am working on is strategic. My natural tendency (dominant, aggressive) is to crave action and get those wins. They will come. Some projects are ready to be unvieled soon. And one is a project that I inheirited that I am building the business case against implementing.

I am working on two talent-related intiatives. I am examining our hiring process(es), compensation structures, and on-boarding/initial training processes. This has given me some time to reflect on my own career progression. It is time to develop the next stages.

My friend, Harry talks about a holisitic approach to business orientation being a Top 5 Trait when looking for a marketing candidate in a post over at Marketing Headhunter.com . This is something I believe in. Once I get a handle on marketing and sales in my current role (2-3 years from now), it will be time to start looking for the next opportunity.

I just finished reading a McKinsey Quarterly article that addresses talent management inside organizations. Making a Market In Talent provided valuable insights for me as I begin to transition away from line management to professional management.

Companies focus the greater part of their efforts on helping managers move up the line-management hierarchy and become better general managers. They usually spend less time developing people who have the talent required to cultivate distinctive client relationships, to tailor products for distribution channels, or to negotiate superior contracts with suppliers. The rewards of line management motivate talented people to seek line opportunities over professional ones.

Blammo! That hit me like a ton of bricks. I seek the transition from line management to professional management.

Sarah E. Needleman in Working With Executive Recruiters When Your Goal is the CEO Suite supports this holistic approach. In her CareerJournal.com article, she speaks to the qualifications she looks for when recruiting CEO candidates for her clients.

I want to see that they have run a significant profit-and-loss operation and that they have measurable achievements as leaders. I want to see that they have created significant change in an organization's approach to business and the results that followed.

She also wants to see a wide-range of functional responsibilities from finance, to product developent, to marketing and sales.

Beyond Code Review Published in The CEO Refresher

2006-04-01T18:03:00.000-05:00

I recently had another book review published in The CEO Refresher! I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to review my friend, Rajesh Setty's book: Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps

Rajesh published a manifesto at ChangeThis and turned it into a book. We struck up a relationship, he sent me the book and I found it to be most valuable. Read the review at the CEO Refresher.

See Rajesh's link to the review on his blog: Life Beyond Code.

As I caution in the review, don't get too wrapped up in the IT focus. If you're tired of being just another drone in toiling away in your veal fattening pen day after day, you should start with Beyond Code.

Tell Me About Yourself

2006-02-26T07:35:00.000-05:00

Great article over at CareerJournal.com on what is often the first question in the interview process: tell me about yourself. Written by Arlene Hirsch, this article provides an indispensible roadmap to navigating this first set of treacherous rapids in an interview.

Hirsch provides many solid tips and points out the potential danger spots.

As I type this, this article is helpful beyond the interview process. Everyone needs their personal elevator speech. Everyone that wants to de-commoditize themselves and build their personal brand. This article will help you tell the person asking the question what they want to know.

Bullet points from the article:

Start with the end in sight
Take time to establish rapport
Sketch the big picture
FOCUS!
Showcase your communication skills
Highlight the benefits you will bring to the employer
Spotlight the positive
Provide details
Disclose personal details CAUTIOUSLY
Finish Strong.

I have already started using this article with my new team. When I first arrived, I sat down with everyone individually. My intent was to learn more about them both professionally and personally. Each one of them gave me a step by step travelogue of their work history. I stumped each of them with the question: "what are you KNOWN for?"

Along with understanding their personal branding, we will develop the TEAM brand. Clearly defining OUR collective value proposition. This article has provided a great foundation for that journey.

Leading Large-Scale Change

2006-02-12T13:58:00.000-05:00

Jonathan Byrnes writes another great piece on managing change for HBS: Working Knowledge. Leading Large-Scale Change is particularly relevant for me in my new role.

As I previously mentioned, I joined a telecom company as a National Strategic Sales and Marketing Manager. I have responsibilities for four National "regions", each with call center, repair, collections, etc groups. I belong to a group that has strategic oversight over all the regions. I have several responsibilities but most of them roll up to changing the way we do business. In order to survive we must make the change from being "just the phone company" to becoming a full-service, total telecommunications provider. We want to be in every channel you use to communicate. Phone, tv, wireless, voip, and the list goes on.

When a company experiences a widening gap between what worked in the past and what is needed in the future, its market share declines, and sooner or later its financial performance degrades as well. The natural reaction is to work harder at doing the things that brought success in the past. Unfortunately, this usually does not help, and the organization gets increasingly dispirited.

Luckily, our leadership team IS searching for new ways to do things. It is not business as usual. We have a long road ahead of us. The first step, according to Byrnes, is for top management to convince the managers underneath them that the changes are going to allow the company to prosper over the long run. Byrnes uses a great choice of words here: change must be explicit.

Explicit. Not flavor of the month. Change must be dramatic.

For large-scale renewing change to be successful, it has to be comprehensive and bold. Managers will resist the change unless they see that it will make a major difference in the company's prospects. Unless the change is large enough, the managers will backslide.

Top management must be "relentless and unwavering" in leading and communicating the change process. They must constantly paint the picture of the end-state, or as Byrnes calls it: "what success looks like".

Don't misunderstand dramatic change though. You can implement big, bold change and still do it in incremental steps. He uses the example of climbing a mountain. You can use base-camps to phase in the adjustment period, break off manageable chunks and realign as you go. He makes a great point:

In most change situations, as in many ascents, the best specific ascent route will not be clear until the next base camp is reached.

I'll have more on Byrnes' thoughts on leading change. He has written a few articles on the subject. Since it is pertinently relevant to what I am trying to accomplish in my new role, I am studying hard.

Meg Wrote a Book!

2006-01-24T21:07:00.000-05:00

My friend, Meghan (Meg) Wier, wrote a book! Confessions of an Introvert: The Shy Girl's Guide to Career, Networking and Getting the Most Out of Life has just made its way to Amazon! Apparently, she mentions me, albeit indirectly, in this book. It is apparently under the section about people who have had a profound influence on her life.

I'm joking. I do believe I am in the book. I don't know because I have yet to receive my complementary copy. As soon as I do, I will post a comprehensive analysis. Meg is good people though. She's given me great advice and marketing help over the years. If you find yourself becoming a wallflower during networking events, this is the book for you!

Meg walked up to me one day at a job fair in a local mall and demanded a job. I gave her a reporting analyst position where she crunched numbers all day. It seemed like the appropriate position for someone with a background in graphic design and marketing. :) I think she still holds that against me.

The World is Flat

2006-01-16T08:26:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Thomas Friedman's bestselling, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century and I am afraid...very, very afraid. This is a MUST read. Now. You can go download an article he wrote for the New York Times called "It's a Flat World, After All" which is a 6-page summary of the book but it won't have the same impact as the book.

The Top 10 Forces That Flattened the World:

1. 11/9/89 - The Berlin Wall came down. Setting off a chain reaction that reaches China. 6 months later, Microsoft releases Windows 3.0. People, other than scientists, can connect PCs to telephones and send emails and view content via the likes of CompuServe and AOL.

2. 8/9/95 - Netscape goes public. This IPO tiggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment (billions!) in fiber-optic cable. Then the bubble burst leaving the banks owning a lot of fiber which they were happy to sell for pennies on the dollar.

3. Work Flow Software - As the walls went down and the PC, Windows and Netscape enabled people to connect with other people as never before. We found ourselves needing programmers to develop new applications. We needed to get everyone's applications talking to each other. XML and SOAP allowed application to application interaction which is the foundation for web-enabled work-flow.

4. Open-Sourcing - Linux.

5. Outsourcing Y2K - businesses wanted to fix the Y2K problem quickly and cheaply. They turned to India. Then the e-commerce push came. Both HUGE opportunities for India. They delivered mission-critical, high-quality products. By the time the dot-com bubble burst, India had developed a great reputation. With companies forced to cut IT budgets, India was there to do the work that needed to get done cheaper AND better.

6. Offshoring - In a range of industries. Not just call centers. China arrives on the scene once they joined the WTO in 2001.

7. Supply-Chaining - Wal-Mart's basic method of buying directly from the manufacturer to get the deepest discounts possible. They got the manufacturer's to cut their costs; they worked the supply chain with those manufacturers to further reduce cost and friction; and constantly improve Information Systems so it knew EXACTLY what it's customers were buying and could feed that info to all the manufacturers.

8. In-courcing - FedEx/UPS provide the means to develop and support a complex global supply chain for the little guy. Small companies can now act big. They can sell in places never before possible. You've seen the commercials.

9. In-forming - Google. Yahoo. Search engines. It the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain of information, knowledge and entertainment. It is about SELF-collaboration.

10. The Steroids. Digital, mobile, personal, virtual. All analog content is being digitized. And it can be manipulated quickly, and sent anywhere wirelessly.

Triple Convergence

1. Around the year 2000, all these flatteners started to converge and work together to create a new, flatter, global playing field. As this happend, both businesses and individuals began to adopt new habits, skills and processes to exploit it. They moved from largely vertical means of creating value (command and control) to more horizontal ones (connect and collaborate).

2. This merger of the new playing field with the new WAYS of doing business was the second convergence. This continued the flattening process.

3. While this was going on severl BILLION new people walked on the the field of play. They were from China, India, the former Soviet Union, South and Central America.

All of this doesn't just affect people and companies. It will and is effecting how countries organize their economies and geo-politics.

How will America compete? This book is scary enough until you hit this point. We are WAY behind in education. You have to constantly upgrade your skills. How do you become "untouchable":

Workers who are "special" - Peyton Manning, Bill Gates, Bruce Springsteen. These jobs can never be outsourced.
Workers who are "specialized" - knowledge workers who are specialized and have a niche. Their skills are always in high demand.
Workers who are "anchored" - barber, waitress, doctors (sometimes). Their jobs have to be done in specific locations.
Workers who are "really adaptable" - they constantly acquire new skills, knowledge and expertise that allow them to constantly create new value.

We are BEHIND. Friedman points to three gaps we are currently facing. The ambition gap, the numbers gap in the lack of scientists and engineers we are producing, and, finally, an education gap. The longer American kids stay in school, the worse they perform.

As he says..."this is not a test. This is the beginning of a crisis..."

How to Win Friends and Influence People

2006-01-15T23:44:00.000-05:00

Lifehacker points to an site which provides a nice summary of Dale Carnegie's MONSTER business/relationship book: How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Solid, basic advice for anyone at any time. I don't know what happened to my copy of this book but it needs to be a permanent fixture in your library if you are serious about making some kind of statement. Don't look at it as a "sales" book. Look at it as a networking book or a relationship building book.

Technorati Tags: relationships, sales, networking, leadership, motivation
Are you LinkedIn?

Jonathan Byrnes Live!

2006-01-10T10:41:00.000-05:00

The latest edition of HBS Working Knowledge came out yesterday. With that comes the latest "Bottom Line" column from Jonathan Byrnes on Managing Change. Regular readers know that I have become a HUGE fan of his column/work.

Byrnes also announced the launching of his personal site. It collects his columns back to 2002! Woot! I was hoping that it would list his course materials from his classes at MIT. MIT has a site called OpenCourseWare where they list online classes curriculae, notes, reading lists, etc. Well worth a look on its own.

I've linked to the site over on the right -->.

Technorati Tags: management, Jonathan Byrnes, change management
Are you LinkedIn?

Relationships, Networking and a Correction

2006-01-03T13:11:00.000-05:00

For the last year or so, I have been working at a startup customer management outsourcer. Emphasis on the startup aspects. Today, I agreed to an offer from a local telecom company. This decision was largely a financial one. In short, I needed the money. My family just could not survive at the salary I was bringing to the table.

This decision was a hard one for two reasons. First, I put all of my energy into this company. I have a long standing relationship with one of the owners. We are a small shop and we all have become very close. The second reason is that I had received another job offer. After struggling, scratching and clawing, and coming as close to giving up....and I mean REALLY looking into that abyss....I received 2 offers within a 24-hour period.

After a year of networking, countless resume re-writes and versions, a personal marketing plan (thanks Hannah!), targeted lists, and using linkedin.com to meet all sorts of people, BOTH of these jobs came down to long term relationships I have had with people from a previous position. One came from the guy that gave me my first call center/technology/IT opportunity connecting me with a head hunter. A guy I do not spend anywhere near the amount of time with that I should. The other offer came because a guy that used to work for me took a position and thought I would be a good fit for other challenges they were facing.

It is ALL about the relationships. I don't know if the size of your network matters. I've spent a lot of time, effort and energy in working and developing my personal "network". I'm pretty proud of the number of connections I have on linkedin. But at the end of the day, it came down to two people that are invested in me. And I in them.

Now...I also have to correct my post about how commerce seems to stop somewhere around Thanksgiving. [link] I had a TON of activity in December. A third company I had been working with started to get going. I ultimately opted to not follow through with them. It was a cultural thing. I was apparently wrong and bought into the business lore. Things definitely happened. Oh, and don't worry....I'll still be posting.

UPDATE: I spoke with Harry Joiner from MarketingHeadhunter.com today. I was reminded that Harry played a big role in my job hunt. Harry took time out of his busy life to provide me with mentoring and advice on positioning myself. Be a hammer! Thanks, Harry. I owe you.

Technorati Tags: relationship building, social networking, career, job hunting,
Are you LinkedIn?

The Success of John Schuerholz

2005-12-29T15:39:00.000-05:00

Ah....who is John Schuerholz you might be asking....fair enough. Schuerholz is the general manager of the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. He has been the GM for 15 years and has enjoyed a dominating run. 1 World Series win, 4 World Series appearances (National League pennants), and 8 Eastern Division championships. That's impressive.

I've fallen a bit behind in my blog reading and posting. "Some of the Top 10 Reasons Why John Schuerholz' Team Keeps Kicking Axe" was posted in November in Management By Baseball. I highly recommend this site to anyone that likes baseball, management and analytics. This article outlines Schuerholz' success over the years and tries to provide some insight into why, in this era of business school GMs, he has been so successful.

Jeff Angus, gives us 4 reasons:

Schuerholz had a diverse set of experiences and jobs before he entered baseball - He had many different kinds of jobs which introduced him to different types of co-workers, clients, customers and managers. He adapted to all of them. Often.

Schuerholz gathered knowledge of methods in all his work - He learned to adapt to many different types of situations. Learned.

I can promise you that if you had to choose between an MBA without this kind of job experience, or the opposite, an aspiring manager who wants to be successful with dynamic competition is significantly better off with the background Schuerholz has.

Schuerholz is not a Methods Bigot - Again...he adapts. He adapts his methodologies. He recognizes the value the new crop of young GMs bring to the game. (Let's not forget that he himself might have been the prototype for this phenomenae. He was pretty young himself.) He adjusts. He incorporates.

Schuerholz is not afraid of internal competition - He is not intimated by talented people on his staff.

Great read about a great manager. Go check it out.

Technorati Tags: management, baseball, adaptability, Atlanta Braves, John Schuerholz
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Middle Management Excellence

2005-12-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

Another great article from Jonathan Byrnes from Harvard Working Knowledge. Link to Byrnes' "The Bottom Line" articles. Here he looks at the most important thing a CEO can do to max out a company's performance:

The answer is to creatively, aggressively, and systematically build the capabilities of the company's middle management team: the vps, directors and managers.

All major strategic intiatives are carried out by the middle. Secondly, a strong middle will produce outstanding operational results. This will reduce the need for the top levels to manage at lower levels. [Link to Managing at the Right Level] A strong middle will also proactively innovate.

Byrnes gives you the 3 nuggets to focus on in order to create middle management excellence. I'm a big fan of the 2-3 takeaway rule. Book, training, academic course and Byrnes even throws in Broadway musical...there should be 2 to 3 juicy nuggets [songs in Byrnes' case] that you should take with you.

Managing at the Right Level - [link to commentary] at each level, managers should increasingly learn and practice change management and leadership so they are masterful by the time they reach the VP level.

Coordinated Profitability Management - the middle must coordinate amongst themselves to understand which parts of the business are profitable and which parts are not. Byrnes recommends conducting a profitability analysis [Link] which should provide insights into where the company can increase current profitability and reposition for the future.

Managing as Teaching - if you find yourself constantly being pulled into day-to-day issues, the underlying problem is that you most likely have not succeeded in teaching your managers to manage. A vp, according to Byrnes should be at most 50 percent manager and 50 percent developer of managers.

He closes with a one line maniefesto for all managers. According to Byrnes:

The highest calling in management is teaching your managers to manage.

Middle management excellece, resting on managing at the right level, coordinated profitability management and managing as teaching, CAN be systematically developed and constantly improved. It is the ultimate point of leverage for ALL corporate performance.

I'm REALLY starting to like Byrnes a lot. At the beginning of this post, I linked to his list of articles from Working Knowledge. Required reading at this point, my friends.

Technorati Tags: management, Jonathan Byrnes, profitability management
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Cash Flow 101

2005-12-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

Great post from 37signals that I picked up from Lifehacker. Great and relevant for a number of reasons. Cash flow is the killer of small business. I would say it is probably the killer of all business but I won't bog down there.

When I was running large technical support programs and developing entry level technicians into future leaders I stressed financials. I tried to explain that technical skills were nice, but if you really want to add value, learn how a business operates. In other words....follow the money.

We're still in startup/growth mode at the outsource service provider I currently run. Cash flow is key. Getting paid on time is probably THE most crucial aspect of our business. Payroll WILL be late if our clients do not pay on time. Sometimes we take daily trips down Cash Flow Lane to understand where the money is going. And believe me. It GOES.

I also use the same approach with my business development teams as I did with the technicians. In order to thirve you MUST understand your prospects' business. Understanding their cash flow, if you can get down to that level, gets you established as a trusted business advisor. See Sales and Marketing in the Third Age for more on this subject.

Great article. Read it. Know it. Live it.

For more...check out CEO Tools by Kraig Kramers. He is a TEC speaker. I met him a couple of years ago and this book provides awesome tools for helping you run your business.

Technorati Tags: management, finance, cash flow
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Diligentia Featured in the CEO Refresher

2005-12-03T08:18:00.000-05:00

I am very pleased to announce that the CEO Refresher has published a book review I wrote.

Secrets of Special Ops Leadership was written by Dr. William Cohen, Major General, USAFR, Ret. PLEASE go check out the review and give Rick (the publisher) lots of hits.

I am incredibly excited to be a part of the CEO Refresher team. I anticipate that this will be the first of many reviews. I already have another book on the way. I have been a long-time reader of the Refresher and jumped at the chance to join such an elite group.

Technorati Tags: management, leadership, teams, military leadership, special forces
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Here Comes Santa Claus...

2005-11-29T07:59:00.000-05:00

It happened again yesterday.

On the phone with a prospect yesterday working towards a solution, everything is going well, we're open with each other, we're sharing, he likes us, we like him, "when are you ready to make a decision on this?" we ask using our newfound position as "trusted business advisor".

"Well...December is a busy month," says the prospect.

I've been thinking a lot about this...this....phenomenon of American business. I assume that businesses in other countries do not suffer from this malaise that sets upon us somewhere around the Monday before Thanksgiving and doesn't lift until sometime in late January.

Why is December a busy month? Is it any busier than any other month? Why not March? March has the onset of Spring, St. Patrick's Day, and the Easter holidays.

Budget is a possible explanation. People have either exhausted their budget for the calendar year, they are building their budgets for the next year or a combination of both. I don't believe it is as simple as a money issue.

Vacations are another possible explanation. But research is stating we don't take enough vacation. And I estimate that everyone who takes vacation is going to take it at roughly the same time. I'll grant you 7 days +/- a day or two for those 3 people out there that take their entire two weeks at the end of the year.

No, my friends, budget time and vacation days are not the root. They are excuses. This is a leadership problem. This is a decision-making problem. Decisions are made by committee. I think we need a Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (yes, I know I am dating myself) to send Marlin and Jim Fowler out into the corporate wilds. Marlin can sit safely in the Land Rover while Jim wrestles gatekeepers to find the elusive person with single decision making authority!

Is anyone else familiar with this phenomenon? Discuss!

Technorati Tags: business, sales, business development, leadership
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Sales and Marketing in the Third Age

2005-11-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

Great article by Jeff Thull on recognizing trends in sales process/sales management and guidance on how to succeed in what he calls the "Era 3" stage in the evolution of the sales organization.

Let's jump right to Era 3....where business problems are more and more complex as are the solutions. Nothing is out of the box anymore. Era 3 is also rife with choice. The sales person's job is to analyze the customer's business and become a "trusted business advisor". To be successful, an Era 3 Salesperson (E3SP) needs to roll up their sleeves, live the customer's processes, figure out root cause problem areas and then solve for those unique problems. She has to go BEYOND the expertise of the customer as Thull says. The solution process is a collaboration. Their should be an on-going dialog. Theories must be tested and thoughts confirmed.

The E3SP must understand how to translate the value of her product or service. How will it solve the unique and complex business problems of the customer. You can't sell features and benefits anymore. You have to help the customer understand the root of his business process issues and SHOW him how you are going to solve for it.

So, how do you sell value? According to Thull, you must understand the 3 levels of value: Product, Process and Performance. Let's break them down:

Level 1 - Product: The salesperson is working with purchasing and maybe (maybe) operations regarding pricing and characteristics of the product. "The customer perceives that the value derived from the product is....available from multiple suppliers."

Level 2 - Process: The salesperson is working with operations and other relevant departments impacted by process problems we are solving for. The focus is on the process. This level is about productivity increases.

Level 3 - Performance: You are selling to VITO (very important top officer). You and your offering are working at the enterprise level. You are a strategic partner. Its about competitive advantage at this point.

When you operate at Level 3, your customer realizes that you provide a value leverage that no one else is. Your relationship is so; well, valuable to him that he sees a very high risk in switching to a competitor.

Make sure your sales team is engaging in conversations with your customers. Building relationships. Listening. Diagnosing processes and problems. Relating the problems other customers experienced. "Are you having similar problems?"

Make sure your sales team is talking to the right person. If you're talking to Angie in purchasing...well, you're dead. You're done. You are a commodity my friend. You are not a valued and trusted business partner.

At the end of the day:

You must think for your customers, creating revenue-building solutions that they don't have the time or the wherewithal to come up with and/or implement for themselves. And because the salesperson is the face of your company, he or she must be in the thick of the action, tirelessly working on behalf of those customers.

Technorati Tags: management, sales, marketing, Jeff Thull, Selling to VITO
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Peter Drucker - Tireless Chronicler of American Business

2005-11-22T14:12:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. I am late to lament the loss of Peter Drucker. The man who gave birth to the field/study of "management" passed away on November 11th. He was 95 years old and left a legacy of theory and practice for us to consider as long as there are people doing work and someone taking note of their performance. He is arguably one of the most influential business leaders of all time. Perhaps even the top.

Link to the Wharton tribute/obituary. The article solicits thoughts from Wharton professors regarding Drucker's influence on management theory and practice. Something I didn't know was that of the 30 books he published, Drucker wrote a book on Japanese painting and two novels. Jerry Wind calls him a "true renaissance person". Wind goes on to say:

In his writing he bridged management as well as social and behavioral science, clearly demonstrating that no management problem can be addressed effectively from the narrow confines of a single discipline.

Drucker coined the term "knowledge worker"; he was a champion of managers getting out of the way of their employees and letting their expertise shine; and some consider him the father of marketing as well. He is quoted in this article as having said that "the role of business is to create a customer." His writings over the last 60+ years still ring true. He is a down to basics theorist. Simple yet not simplistic as one of the professors said. His teachings still ring true.

If there were ever a Saint of Management, I would have a little Peter Drucker figurine glued to the top of my computer monitor to watch over me as I reviewed spreadsheets and coached my teams.

Technorati Tags: management, Peter Drucker, Drucker

Seek Profit Not Revenue

2005-11-07T10:43:00.000-05:00

Another great article from the CEO Refresher from Michael W. McLaughlin. When to Walk Away From a Sale: Nine Pivotal Questions goes beyong B.A.N.T. (budget, authority, need, timeline). This is the advanced course on qualifying your sales leads. Strap in because these are the hard questions. The ones that will make you break out in a sweat. The ones you aren't asking today. The one's that if you did ask you would be spending MUCH less time writing proposals for prospects that go nowhere.

1. Don't Use the Proposal Process to Define the Project. If the prospect can't articulate the goals, feel free to put on your consultant hat and help them frame the business problem. Don't start drafting proposals that they can hand off to someone else to implement.

2. Is This Bob's Super Secret Project? Does Bob have approval AND funding from higher up the mountain? Even if Bob is CEO, does the Board say he is good to go. If not, this isn't a real project. You can help Bob get approval for his project and make sure you are there when he pitches to his boss. Don't invest too much though....because the project still isn't real.

3. What is the decision making process? How will a winner be picked? Every prospect will tell you they have a process. Dart throwing is not a process. You say they don't have a process? Here's an opportunity for you to become a trusted business advisor and help them create one. Beware the apples to apples comparison. Fruits are not created equal for a reason. Your niche approach SHOULD NOT stack up against the competition. I mean that in a positive way. Wait....you do have a niche, right? If your offering is a commodity why are you reading this?

4. Who signs the checks? Figure out who this person is and engage with them immediately. Yes, you may have to ask your contact who the real decision maker is for the project. Proceed without knowing at your own risk. Use diplomacy. Position yourself as helping the prospect. While you are at it, find all the people influencing the decision. Talk to them. Get them to buy in.

5. Who is doing the work now? Is there an incumbent? Is the prospect out shopping for competitive bids to drive the incumbent's price down? You may want to know that before you start drafting proposals and generally wasting time chasing something no one is ever going to get. Yes. Prospects will deceive you.

6. Can your company deliver? You may not really WANT this project. As the author says,

Not all revenue is good revenue...

7. What are the opportunity costs? This goes with number 6. Are the projects in your pipeline more valuable than the new project? I understand that many of us don't have this luxury.

8. Why did the client call you? McLaughlin has this as number 8. I think it should be number 1. See number 5. Are you there because the prospect's boss wants 3 vendors to compare? Or are you there because your marketing is working and your message resonated? What does the prospect know about you? What they DON'T say is as important as what they do say. Listen between the lines.

9. Do you buy it? Trust your instincts. Weigh all the factors you are gathering. Is the project "real"? What are the politics on the prospect side? What probability of successful closure do you think exists? Weigh the risk-rewards.

This is a great set of questions to get you beyond B.A.N.T. This will let you dive deeper into your clients and help you through the discover and qualification process and get you to a winning proposal. McLaughlin wrote a book with Jay Levinson (Guerilla Marketing) focused on consultants but this list applies to anyone marketing or selling any kind of product or service.

Technorati Tags: marketing, sales, process, lead qualification, CEO Refresher

Apologies to My Two Email Subscribers

2005-11-03T10:18:00.001-05:00

I switched from bloglet to feedblitz for email notifications. Sorry about that. Trying to consolidate everything down to as few interfaces as possible. I am trying to use this blog as a marketing and networking tool. And not necessarily in that order. So far so good. Sorry for any inconvenience. Feedblitz *should* import your records but I can't see where I can verify.

More on Hammering - Boxing Lessons

2005-11-03T09:43:00.000-05:00

Raj Setty of 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself fame touches on boxing in a post from earlier this week. (I posted a comment - but you have to register.) Earlier, I wrote about our tendency to fit people in neat and tidy boxes. I talked about hiring managers but Raj talks to the fact that we all do this. Every day. You meet someone new and they begin telling you about themselves, our monkey brains almost immediately begin chattering away at us searching through the boxes in our brains to "fit" this person. We seek to find the relatioship points. What aspects of my life does this person intersect? Better yet, what aspects of this person's life can I help? The important thing is to differentiate yourself. Be a hammer.

Technorati Tags: Life Beyond Code, 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself, Change This

PocketMod (I Love the Internet)

2005-10-25T15:34:00.000-04:00

Lifehacker flipped me to PocketMod. The ultimate is simplicity. Click on the upper right hand corner of the first page to "Create a PocketMod". This is for those of you that don't want to carry a laptop, a pda, a notebook or even a Hipster PDA is just too much for you. This is Getting Things Done origami!

This is going to be great for my daughter. 8 pages of DOTS! She's 4 and loves the game. I am not a GTD disciple. I am, however, fairly organized. I love my moleskine. Prior to that I have been a huge proponent of the index card. My wife has mocked me for years about my obsession with index cards. BUT THEY WORK! The PocketMod is big batch of convergence for me. Origami. Organization. Cool templates. And the genius of the Internet hive mind. I can't wait to see other templates they come up with.

Technorati Tags: HipsterPDA, PocketMod, GTD, Lifehacker

Lend a Hand(Shake)

2005-10-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

FCnow, the blog for Fast Company magazine had an entry on shaking hands today. I posted a comment and effectively (I think) recycled a post I made last January on interviewing and making a first impression. See "Uncle Mike's Old School Guide to Interviewing" here.

Be A Hammer

2005-10-11T10:08:00.000-04:00

Great link from Lifehacker today on how to apply for a job. It is really a link from craigslist. But I have to credit where I first saw it. Good article on resume and cover letter writing and a general approach. This is relevant to diligentia because I am going through a change of life or midlife crisis of sorts. Perspective is relative. Trying to determine what I want to be when I grow up, etc.

Had a great conversation with Harry aka Marketing Headhunter last week. He is sherpa-ing me through the "who am I" part of the journey. I've been doing a jack of all trades, master of none kind of thing for awhile. I have a varied array of skills sets. The problem is that when I start talking about them or putting them down on paper in the format of a resume, it comes out as noise.

And I am really just starting to wake up to that fact. I'm learning that a lot of people doing the hiring (of personnel or outsource vendors) don't really know what they are doing or dont have the time or dont think they have the time. They have a list of criteria worded in a very specific way and they set about trying to find someone that matches that criteria perfectly. They have a box of a certain size and they try to fit you in that box. If you don't fit, you're done. Discarded. Removed from the deck. It does NOT matter if you can fit in 10 different kinds of boxes.

Harry's advice. Be a hammer. Solve a specific problem for a specific market.

YOU have to be the one to control the box. So HELP these decision makers. Don't be a screwdriver when they need a hammer. Be a hammer when they need a hammer. The craigslist posting talks to all of this. Be specific. Tailor your responses.

[Note from the editor: Welcome to our new RSS subscribers. Thanks for signing up. Feel free to post a comment and introduce yourselves. - Mike]

Technorati Tags: hiring, resume, marketing, Lifehacker

25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself

2005-09-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Finally just got through reading Rajesh Setty's 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself manifesto on Change This. He positions this towards technology professionals but it will apply to anyone. EVERYTHING is becoming commoditized. This is a big foundation point of the start-up I am attempting to help launch. Add value. Don't just sit in a cube. Here are the highlights:

1. Care As If It Is Your Own. Take Care of people: customers, clients, teammates, peers.
3. Build Strong Relationships. Relationships sustain ONLY when there is mutual value.
5. Set the Right Expectations. "Underpromise and overdeliver."
6. Ask for Help. There is more help than you need out there. Be ready to give when it is your turn.
7. Celebrate Small Victories.
8. Set Higher Standards. Michael Jordan described the secret to his success as demanding more from himself that anybody else would or ever will.
9. Know Your Values. Get introspective. It SHOULD take a long time to figure these out. If you are honest with yourself and not copying something you read off a website.
10. Pursue Right Memberships. They can payoff big time.
11. Help People Help Themselves. Teach them to fish, don't just hand it to them.
12. Be a Reader. All leaders are readers. I think Tom Peters talks about the payoff from being able to extract just 1 idea from every book.
13. Plan By Outcomes. Not by activities. What do you want to ACCOMPLISH this week?
14. Think Long-Term.
15. Embrace Uncertainty With Ease. There are no guarantees in life. None. Deal with it.
16/18. Ask the Right Questions/Be Relevant. Pay attention. Listen. Look for signs that the person you are talking to is disengaging from you.
19. Get Back on Your Feet Fast! Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Once more into the breach.
20. Lead a Volunteer Effort. Its not enough to just volunteer.
21. Balance Innovation and Continuous Improvement. Setty and I take the same line. Peters wants us to forget CI. I advocate balance.
22. Learn to Sell. EVERYONE sells. Get over yourself. Lose the stigma of being a "salesperson". Your not selling used cars. Your selling a product or service. Your selling yourself. Not selling OUT. Selling your UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION. If not, you're just another number if another veal fattening pen.
23. Learn Systems Thinking. Understand the system as a whole and the mutual interaction of the underlying parts of the system. The effect of changing one part needs to be understood. Oh...by the way...EVERYTHING is a system.
24. Influence the Influencers. Figure out who they are in the group you are talking to and talk to them directly. They move things. Go back to 16, 18 and 22. Rinse. Repeat.

New Links

2005-09-21T11:26:00.000-04:00

Just added a couple of links to diligentia: D*I*Y Planner which got its start from 43 Folders and Lifehacker. Slacker Manager has a relevant, for me, post today on how to fast track yourself. I've been reading SM for awhile now. Check for his post on his "Murse" or man-purse as he calls it. It makes me feel a little self conscious. I brought the Murse to Rochester, NY (where diligentia is published)!

It started as a messenger bag which was a necessity while I was living in Boston. I commuted for an hour each way via subway and bus. I needed something to stash my Walkman (! Cassettes ! Which I painstakingly made myself, copy tracks from LPs!), tapes, papers, books I was reading, etc. Once I moved to Western, NY land of limited public transportation, I opted to keep the bag. It has since morphed into a bag from Lands End which is a cross between a map bag, messenger bag and DJ bag. I still keep a ton of stuff in it. A mini first aid kit, assorted pens, highlighters and mini tools (screwdriver and mini-Leatherman), an empty Altoids case which holds a usb drive and a compact flash card, assorted cds (data and music), my moleskine for work and my personal moleskine, index cards, my NASA calculator, sometimes my palmpilot which i have really gotten away from using and other related junk.

Death by Meeting

2005-09-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

Just got through reading Patrick Lencioni's Death by Meeting. I've been meaning to read some of his books for awhile now. Picked this up at my local library. Loved it. A quick, easy and informative read. He conveys his message in the form of a story, a fable, as he calls it. It works surprisingly well.

I hate meetings. They suck the life out of everyone. It doesn't need to be this way. Agenda's are NOT the answer! I'll cut to the chase with relevant links:

The Meetings structures - the types of meetings.
The Tactical Meeting Guide - how to do it.

This is one of those read it, know it, live it kind of things.

Stop the madness! Put an end to bad meetings!

Technorati Tags: meetings, Lencioni, Death By Meeting

The Essence of Leadership

2005-09-12T09:04:00.000-04:00

The latest Working Knowledge has an article on leadership by Jonathan Byrnes. I'm always a fan of insights into leadership. I am always on the never-ending quest for the best definition of leadership I can find. This presents problems when someone asks me to define a leader versus a manager. This article attempts to bridge the gap a little.

Byrnes talks about a few things: ambidextrous leadership; leading paradigmatic change; (this is Harrr-vahhhhd people, it just can't be called "change", we must use "paradigmatic" in front of it at all times); the 8 essential characteristics of paradigmatic change and then asks the age old question of are leaders born or created.

Ambidextrous leadership involves the capacity to execute within the current business model (in the article he used "business paradigm") or "the way we do business" [today] while reflecting on the model and finding ways to improve it and manage that change process to a beneficial outcome.

In order to implement change, especially wholesale changes in the way you do business, not, for example, changing the brand of copier paper you use, you need eight characterisitics according to Byrnes:

Capacity for passion. You must WANT to make things better. You need passion to get you through the grinder that is change management.
Perspective. You have to be able to detach and view what you are doing while you are doing it. I think Jim Collins refers to this as the balcony and the dancefloor. You have to be able to step off the floor and view things from above (the balcony) every once in awhile.
Creativity. You need innovation and creativity to visualize new and more effective ways of doing things. Assuming you have achieved enlightenment while sitting in the balcony.
Organization skills. You must be able to translate your vision into a step-by-step PLAN. No plan means you are just wandering around. Your people will not let go of the old on their own. You have to GUIDE them.
Teamwork. duh.
Persistence. Passion gets you started. Persistence gets you through.
Open-mindedness. A good leader needs a high level of tolerance for ambiguity. Sometimes you have to make it up as you go. But if you have a good plan, this is OK.
Integrity. Being genuine. Being motivated by your deeply held values to make your company and your team better off. This is where passion, persistence and teamwork come from.

Byrnes closes with the born or bred question. He does make a good point earlier on:

Can you be a good leader without being a good manager? In my experience, the best leaders are also great managers, and the best managers have strong leadership capabilities. To be successful, you must have both a passion for improving your organization and the capability to drive your efforts through to completion.

Byrnes takes the safe way out, which is good and is what I believe. Natural leaders have important CORE abilities. But Caesar just didn't wake up one day as Caesar. He trained. He studied. He learned. He developed. Most likely he learned how to convert his vision into an action plan.

The rank and file CAN develop their leadership skills by working at it as well. They have to learn to be ambidextrous. They have to be excellent at the day-to-day. They have to go beyond that and determine if they have the heart and the desire to be uncomfortable for prolonged periods of time while conceptualizing and leading the change.

Marketing to the Right Customer Type

2005-08-18T09:59:00.000-04:00

Read an article from MarketingProfs.com about winning the budget battle with your CFO. There is a good digression in the middle of the article about understanding the different types of customers you may have and the revenue objectives you should (or should not) have for each type. Each industry is different, each company is different. Your mileage WILL vary. The important element is that all customers represent different revenue opportunities. You have to do the work to analyze which customers you have.

Who are your marketing dollars targeting? And why?

Existing customers - present 3 primary marketing opportunities:

Maintenance - do your customers provide a recurring revenue stream? (do you require a licensing or other kind of contractual fee?) As a marketer to these type of customers, you want to market just enough to reduce churn but no so much that you will erode your margins.

Loyalty - how are you preventing your customers from switching to a competitor? How do you keep your customers choosing YOUR products and services? Continued, on-going marketing can drive increasing loyalty and wallet share.

Up/Cross Selling - Whatever. Upsell. Cross-sell. Same difference. How you take exisiting customers from being a one item purchase and getting them to get the matching jacket to the pants they just bought or using analytics to INFORM the customer that other customers JUST LIKE THEM are buying a pair of shoes that complement the pants PERFECTLY. Increase your share of wallet this way.

Marketing to reduce churn and/or "save" a customer - customers have many choices available to them. They WILL want to switch once in awhile. Here's where you, as Marketing person have to get out your calculators and sharpen your pencils. How much was this customer worth? Do you want this customer as a customer? Sometimes the answer is no. I know this may come as a shcck to some. I am a heretic. Deal with it.

Marketing to Acquire New Customers - new customers are NOT the same as existing customers. There is a customer life cycle. It may be minutes long, it may be LIFETIMES long. What is your average customer life cycle? I digress. If you are a business needing growth, you MUST turn to marketing. In a highly commoditized, high churn business, new customer acquisition MUST exceed the amount of customer churn in order to deliver growth. Marketing is about math. Its not about being the guy or girl that comes up with the idea of guys in chicken masks thrashing out to fried chicken sticks.

Marketing to increase brand and start/advance the sales cycle - Brand awareness is a critical part of the sales cycle. You have a "touch" a customer x number of times before they are ready to buy (on high ticket items). (Everyone argues about the number of times). Marketings job is to deliver REVENUE OPPORTUNITES. I love that concept...revenue opportunities. Its an investment in future sales.

Experimental marketing - This is your Vegas bankroll. Trying out different approaches, different channels is important. You never know what will resonate with your customers until you TRY. Are you allocating some of your budget to blogging, podcasting, etc? You are MEASURING effectiveness, right?

Technorati Tags: marketing, customer, acquisition, loyalty, churn

"The Turnaround" on CNN

2005-08-07T16:36:00.000-04:00

I've been turned on to an interesting show on CNN called "The Turnaround". The show takes a small business owner with a struggling business and pairs he or she up with a mentor from a similar field/industry. Usually at a much larger scale. This week, for example, a small general contractor was paired up with a multi-billion dollar home builder.

With the exception of the Kathy Ireland show, this has been a great series. The mentor usually brings his crew along to break down various aspects of the business. Usually, the big themes are marketing related. Are you priced right? Are your materials professionally done and up to date? What kind of analysis are you doing on your data? Are you even collecting data? Do you know your customers? How well? Are you surveying them? What does the survey look like?

The pareto rule plays a big part in this series. Each mentor usually makes the business owner understand the 80% of revenue comes from 20% of the customers. Niche! Big on selling to the niche! Big on making people PAY for your expertise/quality/level of service, etc. All things that we are ALL about here at diligentia.

I recommend using your Tivo on this one though. A LOT of filler. Lead-in and lead-out bumper filler material. Lot of re-capping that is not necessary. If you tivo, you only really have to watch about 25 minutes of show. Go check it out.

Technorati Tags: The Turnaround, CNN TV, marketing, small business

I Think The Top of My Head Just Blew Off

2005-07-29T11:04:00.000-04:00

Harry over at Marketing Headhunter linked to a site that delivers a COMPREHENSIVE page of links on "management methods, models and theories." [Link to 12manage.com.] 12manage is an MBA-level management education portal that summarizes over 300 business methods and models while "applying scientific rigor while testing practical relevance." I ripped that last sentence from Harry. Sorry. How many different ways can you say it though? The site is hard on the eyes because it attempts to jam these 300 links into one page view. I will post a warning: BEWARE! You could get lost for days in there.

For those of you just wanting to dip your toes in the pool, I would recommend QuickMBA. No where near as comprehensive as 12manage but displayed and organized into tasty bite-sized nuggets.

Technorati Tags: managment, MBA

New Link and RSS Feed

2005-07-28T13:42:00.000-04:00

Podcasting is next! :) Yesterday I got Diligentia hooked up with Feedburner. You can now subsribe to us with your favorite RSS reader. I also put a link over on the left to friend and colleague Meg Wier and her Ramblings of an Insomniac blog which focuses on her experience with search engine optimization (SEO). Which is a fascinating brand of sorcery if you ask me.

S.M.A.R.T.

2005-07-19T12:13:00.000-04:00

I only learned about S.M.A.R.T. goals a few years ago. I'm not really a huge acronym/mneumonics guy but I find I use this one quite often. It would be fair to say that I use this every day. Every time I get in front of a client. Every time I sit down with someone on my team. Every time I go through a strategic session with my partners. We make sure our goals our S.M.A.R.T.

Lifehacker linked to an article/posting from Goal Setting Guide. S.M.A.R.T. - Specific - Measurable - Attainable/Achievable - Realistic - Timely.

Specific - keep it simple. Keep it focused, no rambling. CLEARLY define what you are going to do. What, why, and how are the questions that should be answered in this section of your goal. What do you ultimately what to accomplish? How are you going to get there.

Measurable - ahhh...my favorite part. What gets measured gets done. If you aren't going to measure it people, don't bother doing it. If you are just starting out using S.M.A.R.T. keep things simple. You can get fancy later by adding progress points into the goal. (Have a quarter of the lawn mowed by Monday, half by Tuesday, etc.) Don't feel pressured to go nutty with this though. Make sure that you have your measuring criteria CLEARLY defined BEFORE you start out towards your goal. According to the Goal Setting Guide:

When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goals.

Well...that and it can also show you where you are failing miserably and point to the specific points of derailment. Don't let that deter you though. Figure out where it went bad, fix it, redefine the goal (if needed) and hit it.

Achievable - Don't pad your goals. At the former company, we used S.M.A.R.T. goals except everyone padded. They didn't stretch. I naturally didn't pad and struggled mightily to achieve the goals I set for my crew. A goal needs to stretch you where you will have to COMMIT to it. If you have been producing 20 widgets a day for the last 20 years, don't come in with "21" as your goal. Come in with 30! And tell me how you're going to get there!

Realistic - doable. Not easy. See above. From the site:

It means that the learning curve is not a vertical slope; that the skills needed to do the work are available; that the project fits with the overall strategy and goals of the organization. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn't break them.

Timely - every goal MUST have a timeframe. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target. No timeframe means you are not COMMITTED to the goal. No time limit means no urgency.

Read it, know it, live it.

The 5 Customer Satisfaction Questions You Will Ever Need

2005-07-11T10:53:00.000-04:00

The latest copy of the Mun's Report [link will expire but can be accessed if you register] from the Help Desk Institute has a great piece on choosing customer satisfaction (csat) questions to measure the performance of your service team. You ARE measuring the performance of your team from the eyes of your customers (end-users), right? HDI has been surveying various companies that provide service and support (tech support, help desk, other forms of customer or end-user facing service) to determine best practices.

The idea of a csat process is to determine the performance level of your service team. Are you meeting your customer's expectations? Are you failing to meet them which could and usually does mean your customers will dump you and find someone who will? Or...are you providing too much service which is just added cost for you?

The questions (in order of importance):

1. Courtesy of the Analyst - Your customer deserves and and expects to be treated in a courteous/professional manner. If you are scoring poorly here you need to make sure you have communicated the absolute importance of service and satisfied customers to your team. You may also need to specifically train customer service skills. I know this sounds odd, but people simply do NOT have a service mentality. Make sure you are hiring service oriented people as well.

2. Skills and Knowledge of the Analyst - While a courteous analyst is nice, it won't make a bit of difference if that analyst can't solve the customer's problem. Your customers want confidence in the analyst's skills and knowledge to resolve the issue at hand. This is the best way to measure your team's skill and knowledge level. (You do know their basic skill level, right? You benchmarked during the hiring and training process, right? You assessed them before they came on board and after they completed your training, right?). Weaknesses here go back to the hiring and training process. Don't have the money to implement a knowledge-base? Build a wiki. Find a way to get to best practices among your team. Everyone should be solving things roughly the same way. I personally hate scripting, but troubleshooting and solving problems doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation if you do it properly.

3. Quality of the Resolution - Again, courteous and (seemingly) knowledgable agents are good, if doens't matter if they don't actually SOLVE problems. Customers calling back to fix the same problem over and over again is a customer that is going to churn on you.

4. Timeliness of the Resolution - Time is money! Fix your customer's problem the first time they call. Two things happen if you don't: you drive up your total cost per incident (you are measuring cost per ticket/incident/case, right?) and you irritate your customer's...see churn above. This is a process problem. Break it down step by step. No step is too small. Trouble lies in the handoffs.

5. Overall Experience - This is really the weighted average of the first 4. Keep in mind that customers will weigh each of the above differently. If you have a low score (bottom two boxes out of 5), CALL THAT CUSTOMER AND BEG THEM TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU CAN DO BETTER!

6. Additional Feedback - always, always, always allow your customer to give you open ended feedback. Let them vent. Not only will they tell you what is wrong (and right if you are lucky) they will tell you how to FIX IT.

Feel free to add an additional targeted question if you must. But this is a great approach.

Situational Value Systems

2005-07-08T12:40:00.000-04:00

The July 2005 issue of Business 2.0 has an article about Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management which is a book written by Bill Swanson, CEO of Raytheon. This book is unavailable in stores but you can get it direct from Raytheon. (Link.) "The CEO's Secret Handbook" lays out a couple of the tips/hints/ideas. One particularly jumps out at me. The rule reminds me of a friend and colleague (Jenn S.) because we have discussed the subject many times. It started with her telling me one day that she realized I was always nice to waiters/waitresses.

Like Swanson, I told her that:

A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter - or to others - is not a nice person. (This rule NEVER fails.)

I put the emphasis on the never but it is true. Swanson refers to this type of person as one that has situational value systems. These are people that can turn their charm on and off. You all know people that do this. You all know someone that is an absolute ass to anyone in a position of serving the public. These people will never make great leaders.

"There's a consistency in leadership that's greater than mere situational awareness."

Small-Unit Leadership, 101

2005-06-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

Another article from the Marines. I think I am starting to obsess. This one comes from the Help Desk Institute. This article compiles sage Marine Corp advice from First Sgt. Paul Berry. I'll highlight a couple of them here and apply them to the cubicle wars:

Its OK to allow Marines to take their blouse off if it is hot. Berry goes on to say "Don't worry SgtMajor, they won't do it in the rear." I hate dress codes. I hate having to talk to people about dress codes. I AM torn between dressing professionally and business casual. But, business casual it is. And you know what, I know I won't have to get in front of a client today, so I am wearing flip flops. Anarchy is not prevailing. Obviously, you don't want people running around topless in your particular cube farm. But if nothing crucial is happening and the troops want to wear shorts why is it such a big deal?
Promote your Marines on time if you can. I've worked for a number of places that consistently drag their feet on promotions. Part of the problem is that they did not have a structured plan for graduating people from level to level. Or even had levels. But most of the problem is that upper management just didn't graps how much a simple grade change could mean to someone.
Dig holes; dig many of them. Build your defenses. Protect yourselves. Grow slowly and consistently. Set your foundations.
No one has too much rank to dig. This is my favorite piece of advice. I worked for a small company (12 full time people). I had a guy working for me as a team leader. He was young and inexperienced. That should not matter. One day the toilet in the men's room was in need of plunging. He came into my office in a huff telling me the situation. Shocked that I had hired such a person I nevertheless pointed him to the maintenance closet containing the plunger. He refused. He was walked out the door. I plunged the toilet. No one has too much rank to plunge a toilet.

Remember: decentralizing your management structure is one of the key principles of the Marines. Managers must always remain responsible but smart managers delegate, pushing authority down to the lowest practical levels.

Berry also mentions that you should use your snipers. But I can't really find any practical application of that in the business world. Well...none that I can print.

Managing at the Right Level

2005-05-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

You may have to register to link to the article. I recently let a position where I found myself managing down the chain and getting myself involved in managing scenarios that should have been handled by my team. Jonathan Byrnes relates that this is a fairly common scene.

The problem is that promoted managers rarely get trained how to manage at higher levels. I would agree that the problem perpetuates itself. In my situation, I was so insanely micro-managed that I simply HAD to jump down one and two levels to ensure that everything was done according to the specifics of MY manager. Which is really just no way to go through life.

The author goes on to give some good definitions of the various levels of management (manager, director, and vp):

Managers oversee and operate functional areas within departments. They are responsible for efficient execution and process improvements and the generally operate in a short time frame.

Directors run departments. They are responsible for the development and efficiency of their staff. They are also responsible for restructuring their deparments for "quantum improvements" and working with the directors of other departments to jointly improve the company's performance. The time frame is usually medium-term.

Vice Presidents are responsible for the FUTURE. They should spend their time working with their counterparts to develop and oversee programs of renewing change. This involves gauging and understanding profitability patterns, market opportunities and company effectiveness, as well as evaluating, adapting and adopting best practices from other companies. VPs should NOT be focused on managing the company as it is TODAY, but rather focusing on creating a fundamentally new and better company.

There is a danger to managing too low. You run the risk of missing management-process problems. The solution is to drain the swamp so that the stumps appear. To drain the swamp, managers must refocus their attention to the correct level. Once this happens, lasting improvements should follow.

Great. How do you do this, you ask. Measure. Measure. Measure. First, have your managers list the components of their jobs and estimate the time they spend on each. THEN, have them keep time logs (which everyone hates and are a huge pain but they DO generate trending data...usable trending data) for about a week. This creates a snapshot and usually presents a very clear picture of how someone is spending their time. It works. I've used it.

Next, conduct an assessment. A compare and contrast. What portion of the job components are the managers actually performing? What can be assigned to subordinates? What is NOT getting done but should be?

Do jobs need to be redefined? Redesign the standard, bland job descriptions that no one is obviously paying any attention. When you redesign, make sure you create and allow for a balance between managing stasis and creating change and innovating.

Once you have done all this, make sure you TRAIN your new managers for their new roles. At the very least, make sure your new hires understand the critical change in focus. More importantly, have you changed your OWN perspective? As a manager moves up, she has to shift focus from managing the current company to creating the future company. And, as always, don't make this a one time thing where you bring in a consultant and then never implement. Or you do all the assessments, redesign jobs and then revert back to the status-quo. You have to perform periodic checkups to make sure you remain on track.

Leadership and Management Theory Defined

2005-05-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

I went back and reviewed this article and my post. This isnt a great article. There are good elements but on the whole, the attempt tends to scatter once you get past the table comparing a leader to a manager. Consequently, this post is all over the place as I attempt to tie the fragmented ends together.

This article comes from one of my favorite stops on the Net, The CEO Refresher. And it just so happens that it is written by a Marine, LtCol Mark V. Eberhard. Continuing the Marine Corps trend here at Diligentia. The article breaks down definitions of managers and leaders, compares and contrasts them, talks about different leadership theories, power in leadership roles and the emergence of management theory. I decided to re-write this post to clear up this article a little bit. The transition from the compare and contrast into theory and history is awkward. On the whole, the first half of this article will serve as a great starting point or primer for anyone interested in understanding the difference between leadership and management.

Managers bring order and consistency in drawing up formal plans, forming structures and monitoring results; authority of position gains compliance.
Leaders establish direction by developing a vision and inspiring people to
follow.

There is a great line in this article that states that leadership is not a trait but a PROCESS where an individual influences a group of people towards a common goal. A process. I really like that. A process that occurs within the context of a group.

At this point, I would have suggested a Part II or at least a better transition into Leadership Theory and definitions of power. How is that power achieved? Is it earned or handed to a new leader? Does a group pick its leader or is she forced upon the group?

The article then attempts to break down Path-Goal Theory versus Fiedler's Contingency Theory. Path-Goal suggests that a leader's job is to help his team reach their goals by directing, guiding, and coaching them along the way. Show them the goal, tell them they can achieve it, and help them along the way. The problem with Path-Goal is that is often leads the team to become dependent on the leader.

Fiedler came along and noted that effective leadership depends on a match between the leader's style and the demands of the situation. Situations vary. Level of trust between leader and member of the team. Task structure is determined when requirements are clear and choices of action are limited, and results are measurable (I say this is path-goal). And Position power is the power of the leader to alter the team and reward/punish them. All three of these affect the situation. This theory posits that for every situation there is a perfect leader. Well...that's great but what do you do is there is a mismatch?

Trait Leadership is based on the great man theory...leaders are born, not made. You can drop Julius Caesar or Napolean along any timeline and they will still be Caesar or Napolean. All of this has basically led to behaviorist theories. The leader's ACTIONS are most important. It is what she does rather than her attributes. Good leaders have good interpersonal skills, are cooperative and inspire people to work for them through their behaviors.

The article then attempts to transition into what motivates leaders. It forgets about managers completely in the history of theory section. But there is some good stuff here. Maybe three different articles in a series on the history of leadership study. The article gives a pretty lengthy definition of power leadership. There are two types. The first is personalized power where the leader seeks power only to further their own interests. The second is a socialized power motive where the leader uses his power for the sake of others.

For these leaders, there are several motivations. These people are motivated by drive and achievement. The put forth high energy and persistence into achieving goals and they find joy in accomplishments. They have the desire to achieve success through their own efforts and take responsibility for their actions. They are willing to take moderate risks, receive 360 degree feedback, introduce innovative solutions, set goals and plan how those goals will be reached. They are also motivated by a strong work ethic. They are tenacious and therefore better at overcoming obstacles. These leaders have strong intellectual ability and knowledge of the business or team task. It is important for the leader to provide expertise in the field that will be a source of competitive advantage. A leader must be creative in finding original and imaginative solutions to complex problems. Insight into people and situations is yet another characteristic.

Which leads to a brief discussion on the importance of Emotional Intelligence. Too brief. You can sort of see what the author was trying to do. In a not so subtle way, he was trying to impose his beliefs on what makes a good leader. He should have written an article on EI and compared that to leaders subscribing to the socialized power motive. But he didnt. What makes a good leader? Again...it depends on the circumstances. A good trauma doctor is not the same as a good construction engineer leading a skyscraper project. A good marine lieutenant will excel in battle conditions and military ops but might not be a good school teacher. I get it. We need leaders that are motivated by the greater good.

The Clear Leader and 12 Questions That Matter

2005-04-01T14:36:00.000-05:00

I don't subscribe to any one particular flavor of management guru. I love Tom Peters. But I am not a brain-washed follower by any means. I like a helping of Jim Collins. I have a solid foundation built on Sun Tzu. To that end, I am forever reading, researching, seeking. The problem is that everything that is worth anything has already been said. It is more a question of hacking your way through the jungle of guru-speak and the "next greatest trend" to find the tried and true methods.

Along with the reading is the printing out and ripping of pages from magazines, the highlighting, the circling, the underlining, the notes in the margins. Years ago, Fast Company produced a list of the 12 Questions That Matter. I know they did, because I have used them before in team building exercises. For the life of me I can't find it, it's in a binder...somewhere. So I can't credit the author.

In the recent issue of FC (#92/March 2005) there is an article by Bill Breen profiling Marcus Buckingham and his soon to be published book" The One Thing You Need to Know.... (and the title proceeds to fill up two lines on a printed page which seems like a bit of overkill). Buckingham outlines the core concepts that mark superior leadership.

1. Leaders are Compelled by the Future - A leader's job is to rally people toward a better future/common goal. Leader's are COMPELLED to change the present because the present simply isn't good enough. They succeed only when they find a way to make people excited by and confident in what comes next.

2. Turn Anxiety into Confidence. Leaders must engage our fear of the unknown and turn it into spiritedness. To do this, a leader must turn fear into confidence. The surest way to do this is by being CLEAR - to define the future state in such vivid terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the antidote to anxiety.

3. Be Clear About Why You're Going to Win. As a leader, your job is to make people more confident about the future you're dragging them into. You have to tell them why they are going to win. Why will they beat their competitors? Why will they overcome the hurdles in their path?

4. Keep Your Core Score. Here's a key performance indicator: number of engaged employees. See the 12 Questions below. The higher the score, the more engaged your people are, the more engaged the more obstacles they will overcome, motivation begets performance.

5. If You Want to Be Clear, Act. Action leads to impact. No one cares about your core values or your mission statement. We will watch what you do and form our opinions and base our faith and confidence (TRUST) in you on those actions. Action talks, bullshit walks. There are two types of action we respond to: symbolic and systemic.

Symbolic Action - is a representation of what the future can look like. It grabs our attention; it gives us something new and vivid on which to focus.

Systemic Action - changes behavior. For a leader it is important to disrupt routines. It makes people realize that the world is going to be different because they're doing different things. The future becomes clearer and our of that clarity comes confidence.

On to the Q12. Here are the 12 Questions That Matter:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?
Do I have the materials and equipment that I need in order to do my work right?
At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
At work, do my opinions seem to count?
Does the mission or purpose of my company make me feel that my job is important?
Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
Do I have a best friend at work?
In the past 6 months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
This past year, have I had the opportunities at work to learn and grow?

I am a fan of employee satisfaction surveys. They take time to develop though. You have to be consistent in rolling them out. You have to be very clear in communicating your intent. You have to share the findings. You have to share the actions you plan to take to correct problem areas. You must be c-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-t. You must be patient. It takes a bit of time to build trust.

You could deploy this survey using the 5-scale or the 3-scale. In a 5-scale, you can look at Strongly Disagree-Disagree-Neutral-Agree-Disagree. Only the top two boxes matter. That is why I can say go with a 3-scale: Disagree-Sometimes-Agree. And then only count the "agrees". Just seems simplier and eliminates ambiguity.

I like the Q12 process. I like the idea of an engaged employee. Someone that is IN TO their job/role. Someone that comes to work to kick some butt. Someone that comes ready to play every day. I am going to use this scale the next time around. As I sit here typing, I am thinking that I orgininally saw the Q12 in relation to Mike Abrashoff (google him).

The article goes on to quote that the U.S. working population is 26% engaged, 55% not engaged and 19% actively disengaged. Once you measure, you can then set to work getting those people engaged and I would argue, in some cases, out the door. Sometimes, people, its just not a good fit. But the people you need to look at the most are your supervisors and middle managers.

Without a robust relationship with a manager who sets clear expectations, knows you, trusts you, and invests in you, you're less likely to stay and perform.

Watch those managers and supervisors. The number one reason why people leave a company is not money, not overall compensation, its because their immediate supervisor is a horrible person. Help them become leaders. Teach them have to develop people.

100 Ways To Help You Succeed/Make Money

2005-03-24T11:11:00.000-05:00

I am a Tom Peters fan. I LIKE the fact that he admits when he was wrong. He adapts. He overcomes. He changes with the times. He doesn't waffle though. His theories are tried and true. He tends to stay away from the trendy. Its common-sense guru guidance. This latest collection appeared on ChangeThis one month ago. Tom oftens repeats himself. It is an attempt to hammer ideas home. If you've read Re-Imagine! you have seen most of this before. Here are some of the standouts for me:

#15 You must be able to answer the question: WHAT'S THE DREAM?
Plan. Vision. Brand statement. Animating idea. Beliefs. These are important. None as important as the DREAM. Are you clear on the dream? Is the dream clear? Has it become blurred by too many "clever distractions"? Then you must go out and CONNECT. Convey the dream. One person at a time.

#28 Remarkagle Point of View/R.POV8!. If you can't describe your position in 8 words or less, you don't have a position. Tom stole that from Seth Godin. He goes on to quote Jerry Garcia:

You do not merely want to be the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.

The query that must never be far from your consciousness: IS WHAT I'M UP TO REMARKABLY DIFFERENT, AND CAN IT BE CAPTURED IN SIMPLE, COMPELLING LANGUAGE?

#32 Mimic Lord Nelson. 13 Lessons from Nelson: Britannia's God of War:

Simple scheme.
Noble purpose!
Engage others.
Find great talent, let it soar!
Lead by Love!
Trust your gut, not the focus group: Seize the Moment!
Vigor!
Master your craft.
Work harder than the next person.
Show the way, walk the talk, exude confidence! Start a Passion Epidemic!
Change the rules: Create your own game!
Shake off the pain, get back up off the ground, the timing may well be right tomorrow!
By hook or by crook, quash your fear of failure, savor your quirkiness and participate fully in the fray!

#33 Out-Read 'Em!
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from Father Philip Franciscini [not sure on the spelling]. He was my highschool freshman Latin teacher. He is the only man I recall actually fearing. On the last day of school that year, he told us to read something every day. Even if it was a comic book. Tom agrees: Read! Read Wide! Read Deep! Read Often! Surprise yourself with your reading picks! Out-READ the competition! Take notes! Summarize! Share with others what you read! Create/Join a Reading Salon! Cultivate a learning-curiousity ADDICTION!

Across the Interview Table

2005-03-05T07:34:00.000-05:00

Lifehacker picked up an entry from Management Craft on questions the interview-ee should ask during an interview process. Mostly from Lisa Haneberg's Management Craft. "How to Interview Potential Employers" is a nice guide to the advanced class on the interview process. Hopefully, you've already read "Uncle Mike's Old School Guide to Interviewing" and "The 25 Most Difficult Interview Questions." The interview is not a one way process. You should be there to work with the hiring manager to determine if you are a good fit for the company. Help them through this process. You need to find out about the company, more than you can find through Google. You need to find out about the person you will work for and the people you will work with. You will also need to find out about the specific job. To those ends:

About the hiring manager:

Do you like your job? (WATCH how they answer, read the signs).
What are your career goals? (Where is this person going? Are they done? Is there room for movement once you get in the door and prove your value?
Of which accomplishment are you most proud?
How do you tend to manage people? What are your hot buttons? What stresses you out?
What is turnover like in the department? Why do people leave the department? (Again, pay attention to the body language. People usually leave because of the supervisor. Do they blow off this question?)
Describe the work culture. What type of person is most likely to succeed/fail? How many people have you promoted? (This goes hand in hand with the turnover question. A good manager gets his people promoted up and out of his/her team.)

About the company:

You have done your homework on the company and its industry, right? (You should know the company's history, its product/service evolutions, its performance, its market, its competitors, its customers, its current and future challenges.)
Is the company meeting its current goals? Why?
Who does the company feel are its main competitors? Is this company the only one that provides such a unique offering? (Jerry Garcia said that you should try to be the only one that does what you do.)
What is the company doing to adapt to changes in the industry, the world, etc?

About the gig:

Define success for this position.
Where have those in the past failed? Why?
If they were successful, where are they now? Were they promoted? Moved to other projects, etc?
Discuss and understand the evolution of the position.
How will success be measured for the person in this position? Not the same as the first question. Defining and measuring are TWO completely separate elements.
Describe a typical day/week. What is the lunch/break ritual? Do people run for the exits? Do they eat at their desks? Does everyone commune in the break room?
How many people are working at 7pm, 9pm, 11pm? (Assuming a 9-5 day). Why are they doing this? If the answer is high, there is a staffing problem. Is it temporary?
Define meetings. Type, frequency, attendees, length of each. I am a big fan of Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni. Meetings should always help, never hurt.
How is communication handled? Email? Voice mail?

If you are lucky enough to meet with someone that would be a peer, that is, someone that also works for the hiring manager (and you should ask if you can meet with such a person and probably be very concerned depending on the level of the position, if you aren't meeting with more than one person):

What is it like to work fir the hiring manager?
Ask your work environment questions from above?
What do they like most/least about her work?
What is turnover like? (it never hurts to doublecheck)
What type of person has found success in this position? Why?
Is it fun?

Be sure not to flip open your pleather legal pad holder that you thought you needed to have because everyone else has one and start ripping off these questions one after the other. The hiring process is a dialogue. Talk. Communicate. Most importantly, try to remember, no matter how desperate you may be, that just because a company is willing to hire you doesn't mean that you want the job. Take it from someone who knows.

Components of a Good Business Case

2005-02-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time writing proposals for projects we want to conduct for various clients. Much of the proposal process, if not all of it, revolves around building your "case" for the project. Most of the clients I see want to engage in a pure ROI discussion which is disconcerting because it is difficult to calculate ROI on a value-based proposition. But that is a post for another time. Today, I thought I would break down what I feel goes into a good business case or proposal.

There are three main reasons for creating a business case:

To demonstrate the strategic alignment and sense of urgency of the project in question. (Does this project make sense?)
To define the scope of the proposed project.
To show the financial and operational benefits associated with the proposed project.

There are also some secondary reasons. A good business case should help:

Identify risks inherent to the project and strategies for managing them.
Identify and understand rejected alternative solutions.
Target resource requirements (other than cash outlay) needed to accomplish the project.

A good business case or proposal should serve as the foundation for an implementation plan or roadmap.

Discalimer: every business case is differnt. Customize to fit your specific scenario. Your mileage may vary. A solid business case should contain the following elements:

Executive Summary - Provide the operational and financial highlights of the business case.
Introduction - Explain motivation for proposed project.
Solution Description - Identify the proposed actions along with scope and time frames
Benefits Discussion - Identify the expected financial and operational benefits. Do not forget to include on-going benefits. (Size, certainty, and timing.) I would recommend using ranges for benefit estimates and talk about the probabilities of the range of outcomes.
Costs Discussion - Identifying all costs, in financial and operational terms of the project, both initial and on-going. Due diligence is key. Do not leave anything out. Do not think that you will be able to hold a client hostage after the fact. Unless, of course, you are a big software vendor. Just like in the benefits discussion, ranges are better than absolutes.
Risk Management Discussion - Identify the risks, all of them, associated with the proposed project and approach for managing these risks.
Value Creation Discussion - Identify, in financial terms, the value created by the proposed solution.
Alternative Solutions Discussion - Provide the description, benefits, costs, risks, and valuation of alternatives to the proposed solution.
Value Measurement Plan - Identifying the approach to tracking and measuring the value created by the proposed project. This is the hardest part...its the least tangible in the professional services arena. How do you define value? Work with your client.

Again, use what is right for you. Go to the depths that are right for you. But this post gives you good, solid, building blocks for crafting a business case that should differentiate you from your competitors who are hopefully only sending along a pricing sheet.

SWOT Analysis

2005-02-18T10:03:00.000-05:00

Harry Joiner, in "Quantifying the Innovation Value of Technology" links to a great form you can use if you need to perform a SWOT analysis. Link. If you find yourself in the position of having to need to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) in an exisiting, operating business you are most likely, in a word, screwed. SWOT analysis do provide value and this sheet is very handy in providing you a solid base from which to start. Remember, it is a tool. Not a solution. It should serve as a magnifying glass, highlighting linkages you may not have realized existed.

The key to any good analysis resides in digging deep down into root causes. If you are unwilling or most likely, unable to get to the root of your issues, SWOT analyses and strategic sessions of any kind are completely pointless. If the people in the room do not trust each other, you have to solve that problem first. If there is no trust between the participants, if they are all fighting for their own fiefdoms, the strategic analysis is doomed before it begins.

The 25 Most Difficult Interview Questions

2005-02-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

I picked this up from lifehacker.

Disclaimer: The article has been excerpted from "PARTING COMPANY: How to Survive the Loss of a Job and Find Another Successfully" by William J. Morin and James C. Cabrera.

I would have done this article in two parts. One possibly being the 10-12 most difficult informational interview questions which would focus on giving the interviewee a good sense of who you are, where you are in your life and career and where you see yourself going. The second part would focus on 10-12 behavioral interview questions getting at the root of how you work, management style, etc.

I am on an interview thread lately because I have been trying to build a team to service a particular client and also help our company grow. I would love to say that it is just the kids coming out of college that don't have a clue, but the fact of the matter is that I have been relatively disappointed by the sheer lack of due diligence from all demographic segments: young, old, male, female, employed and unemployed. This article could help them.

When you sit down with me to talk, my job is to get inside your head and see if we have a match. Your job is to understand my company, and my needs and then help me understand how you can help me with my pain. If I have to spend precious time educating you (i.e. doing your job, you are taking away from your time to be able to help me understand your abiltiy to help us. It is that simple. It is that complex. Here are the quick tips:

Know yourself. Tell me where you were, where you are, and where you want to be.
Know my company. Know where we are going.
Know my industry. Know where the industry is going.
Have some kind of ambition other than making money.

Read it. Know it. Live it.

Make sure you read my guide to the interview process as well.

America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation

2005-02-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation by Michael MacCambridge. If you are a devout follower of professional football, this is a must read. For everyone else, I recognize that some people will be turned off by the fact that this is a "sports" book or a "football" book. This book is SO much more, so much deeper and more complex than being a simple sports book yet it is written in such an accessible manner.

On the outside, this is a complete and concise history of pro football from the post World War II era and forward. The book really kicks off with the 1958 Colts vs. Giants Championship Game. This book is just so much more than a history of the game. The fates of both football and sports television are so closely tied. Without one we may not have the other. The expansion and growth of the NFL is forever linked to the success of the TV medium.

From a business perspective, America's Game offers guidance across a number of disciplines. The NFL and later the AFL, was made up of a bunch of "squabbling" entrepreneurs. All fighting to maintain their teams, their brands, their "territories" and their cut of the money. This book is a study in their entrepreneurship. It is also a study in leadership as evidenced by the trials and tribulations of a young Pete Rozelle who was named commissioner at the tender age of 33. It is a study in the leadership exhibited by Lamar Hunt who had to get over his personal rivalry with fellow Texan, Tex Schramm to secretly negotiate a truce between the two leagues and, ultimately, unite them. (While Al Davis waged open warfare against the NFL.)

The book chronicles the meticulous management of the NFL brand from marketing by blacking out all home games which increased demand and insured ticket sales did not lose against TV. With the creation of NFL Properities they took control of their merchandising. All the souveneirs became standardized. With NFL Films and the voice of John Facenda, they controlled their brand image and their advertising. Along with communications, etc.

This book is an economic study of a changing , post WWII America. It is at this point that the marketing and advertising geniuses of the universe were created. This is the time when they figured out that we would buy stuff that we didnt need. From bobbleheads to $300 game-worn jerseys.

MacCambridge also provides us with a study of race in America through the eyes of the NFL. It is a sociological/political study of the impact of race relations on sport. The NFL integrated well before Jackie Robinson crossed the line in baseball. It had problems are arguably still has problems with integration.

Lastly, this is a study of the men who have left a lasting imprint on the game. The men who sit in the Great Hall of Valhalla amongst their fellow gods. Men like Lombardi, Halas and Paul Brown. Men like Unitas. Players that will assume their rightful places like Namath who had the hubris to guarantee a win over the dominate NFL from his upstart ALF team. Men like Jim Brown, possibly the greatest running back ever and Sam Huff who does not get the short end of the stick in this saga. Men like Al Davis who still fight for what their believe is right.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is fasicinating and deep on many, many levels.

Uncle Mike's Old School Guide to Interviewing

2005-01-31T10:44:00.000-05:00

I've been in hiring mode lately. Screening candidates through their resumes, phone interviews, one-on-one interviews and group interviews. I don't understand what is happening, but people have just lost sight of some of the most basic and fundamental principles of job hunting. Here are my quick and easy (maybe not) tips to help you get in the door and stay there:

Edit your resume. In fact, have two other people edit your resume. Fix the spelling mistakes, the typos and the really bad grammar. I am not asking you to write a good resume. Just make sure that the one you put in front of me doesnt force me to get my red pen out and channel my inner English teacher. Putting accomplishments instead of duties and tasks on your resume will earn you bonus points. Help me understand what you can do to help me and my business.
Get a real email address. It can be a Yahoo or even a Hotmail address. I do not want to receive emails from HotMamaXXX@yahoo.com though. Get serious. Create a more professional account name. Use HotMama to im your girlfriends. Just don't email me with it. You'll look like a slacker.
Dress professionally. Wear a suit. Men...wear ties. Collect some cans and buy one from Wal-Mart if you must. Borrow one. Even if it is out of style. I'll think you are trying to be "retro". Shoes are a must. No sneakers. No workboots. 18" of snow is not a reason to wear your Eddie Bauer moon boots. You are trying to impress me. Don't roll in here wearing cargo pants and Skechers. You'll look like a slacker.
Get a real handshake. When you shake my hand, give me a nice firm but not a crushing grip. Ladies, do NOT give me the thumb and tips of your fingers. This isn't Victorian England and you are not the Duchess of Webster. When you do shake my hand, LOOK ME IN THE EYE! Do not give me the look away. We are attempting to build a relationship, you and I, and if you can't bring yourself to look at me, then I cannot trust you. I am not that hideous. You may gaze upon me and not turn to stone.
Look at my website. I don't need you to do a comprehensive search for everything ever committed to print about me and my company. But I do expect you to read the "About Us" page on the website. Bonus points if you know a little something about the industry. The first question I am going to ask is: "What do you know about us?" Have an answer.
Have some questions to ask me. Be interested in my pain. When I ask you if you have any questions for me, make something up if you have to. Ask me where I bought my tie. If you don't have questions, you will seem un-interested and I will think you are a slacker.
Write a thank you note. After you meet with someone, send them a note of thanks for their time. You don't even have to reiterate your expertise and tell me how much your skills and experiences relate to my business needs. Even though that helps. Just a simple thank you note.

If you follow these steps, I am not saying that you will land a CEO position out of highschool. I will guarantee you a decent shot at a gig though. Unless of course, you run into a hiring manager that doesn't have a clue either. At which point you are assured of a position.

Taking Care of Business

2005-01-28T08:08:00.000-05:00

Karen, official wife of Diligentia, turned me on to a show on The Learning Channel (TLC) that is so firmly rooted in my demographic, it scares me. The show is called: Taking Care of Business. Based in Manhattan, this reality show targets small business owners (so far we've seen a bed and breakfast, a barber shop, a small coffee shop and a skateboard shop) struggling to stay afloat. Struggling to stay in business. The show offers a team of 4 consultants: a designer, a manager/finance guy, a marketing guy and a former entrepreneur/jack of all. The team deploys to the site and proceeds to offer a makeover. They break down each business into the four components. The show seems to highlight the lack of marketing and design effort that all of these businesses have in common. The other element they seem to fixate on is pricing. All these business are niche-y, unique shops. The best piece of knowledge I've taken away from this show is: There is retail value in expertise.

This show is officially on my Tivo's season pass at this point. We don't miss an episode.

The Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills

2005-01-26T09:04:00.000-05:00

I really like The CEO Refresher. Once a month, I receive an email covering a wide array of management and leadership topics. This month, I particularly enjoyed the article from Ronya Banks, The Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills. Its a short, bulleted primer listing a set of ideals and philosophies to guide you along your path of leadership enlightenment. It is a high-level road map. The ten items are as follows:

Have a clear vision of yourself, others, and the world.
Know and utilize your strengths and gifts.
Live in accordance with your morals and values.
Lead others with inclusiveness and compassion.
Set definitive goals and follow concrete action plans.
Maintain a positive attitude.
Improve communication skills.
Motivate others to greatness.
Be willing to admit and learn from failures and weaknesses.
Continue to educate and improve yourself.

This is a great outline to get anyone started down the path to improving themselves not only as a leader, but as a person.

More Marine Corp Thoughts of Leadership and Management

2005-01-10T10:33:00.000-05:00

From The Ceo Refresher, this article takes a look at the age old discussion of the difference between leadership and managment. I don't recall ever seeing some surmise that the two are inherently different. Sometimes you need a leader. Sometimes you need a manager. Sometimes....you need both.

The Systems Coach: Bill Belichick

2004-10-27T17:00:00.000-04:00

Quick article on New England Patriot's coach, Bill Belichick from the latest issue of the Wharton Leadership Digest. I call him a next-generation or new-model type of professional coach. He is not a "master motivator" like his mentor, Bill Parcells. He is a quiet professional. In this article he gives his five features of his coaching style. See the article for a more in-depth look:

Develop a system
Teach and adjust the system
Instill discipline
Recruit the best within the budget
Support the team

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Nightmare

2004-10-20T05:48:00.000-04:00

Someone got paid a lot of money to design the customer experience nightmare that is the Verizon Wireless store near the Eastview Mall in Victor, NY. Holy COW! I dont know if I can fully capture the exercise in inefficiency and ineffectiveness, not to mention almost sales prevention that we experienced last night.

For pure economics, we need to go down to one phone. Right now we have two physical phones with two separate phone numbers. The plan: Get rid of my phone number and give Karen my phone which is the newer phone. (Or replace it since it wasnt holding a charge). Change the plan into Karen's name only because she gets a corporate discount.

You walk in the door and are immediately STOPPED by a little podium asking you to please sign in! Skippy the Wonder Chimp is there to greet us. He is, in fact, a GREETER, as his name tag states. It really should have said INCOHERENT MUMBLER but I realize I am getting older and maybe my ears dont work as well anymore. It takes 3 or 4 tries but we finally get him to grasp the CONCEPT of what we want to do. He WRITES OUR NAME DOWN ON A PIECE OF PAPER and then tells us we need to see customer service and its a ten minute wait. A quick glance reveals approximate 7-8 Verizon people seemingly milling about. There are several "stations" now. What used to be the main desk where you simply queued up to get service, is now divided into 2 techincal support stations and 3 customer service stations. There is another desk for "sales" and then there is an electronic bill pay station.

Thankfully, it wasnt a ten minute wait. Evan calls us over pretty promptly. I think they even sent Skippy to escort us implying a huddle conversation between whether or not they actually wanted to help us. But I didnt SEE this with my own eyes, so I cant say it happened. Im comfortable that it did though. Evan, looks like a fatter version of Beaker from the Muppet Show. Maybe not, but he did look like a human version of a muppet. I still dont understand why everyone had their coats on in this place, it was hot as only a retail store can be (that's a rant for another day) but they all seemed to be freezing. We lay our needs out to Evan. From the jump his brow is furrowed and he cannot seem to separate the tasks out in order to complete all of our requests. We start by looking at the account. A good plan. Evan either cant read or cant do the math that says our two year contract expired two months ago and ergo, we would not be charged any cancellation fees. I undertand him starting there. I am sure this guy gets ripped all day long by people trying to cancel before learning it will cost them $500. He calls over the manager. (And, yes, I am using that term very loosely). Manager-boy tells him the dope. Evan asks, "But how would I know that from looking at this screen?" And I give Beaker his props because he is right. The manager needs to teach here. Take the 10 seconds to explain it and then you wont have to explain many more times.

More brow furrowing. Finally, in exasperation, Beaker decides this would be a SALES function because we would really be changing our calling plan. Meanwhile, he tells me that I should talk to technical support about my battery not keeping a charge. I ask this because as I mentioned, Karen wants my "newer" phone. But, if a new battery is going to cost more than a new phone, we'd want the new phone. Techincal Support is literally 18" away but act like there is an impregnable invisible shield. She does not look up when we are talking about needing their help. She does not stop whatever it is she is doing (which I suspect was just typing random characters on a keyboard) when I take the side-step over to her, smiling my this-is-a-customer-service-goat-rope-smile to Karen. I stand there, in front of her, still talking to Beaker and Karen for a good five minutes before she acknowledges me. She confirms my thinking that a new phone would be in order and, hey!, we are eligible for $100 off a new phone since our plan expired. So Karen is stoked. But we still have to talk to SALES.

And there is a queue for them. Never mind that Sales is two people sitting at the Sales Desk staring off into space. Just put that out of your mind. We mill about for a good 20 minutes before it is our turn. Rather than hand us off "warmly" as we say in the biz, we are forced to do the equivalent of hang up and call back later. We look at phones.

Rosie Greer's twin brother finally thanks us for our patience. We're in the store for close to an HOUR at this point. What I didnt process until just now is that as soon as he started talking to us, he dialed a phone number on his speaker phone. This is where it gets hairy. We can take one of the phones off the plan but only the OLD phone number. Yes, the one we have had since cell techology was invented. Because....the newer phone number shows as the primary phone. Never mind that we bought that phone two years ago. No, there is no switching them and then cancelling. I asked.Well...we could but then we wouldnt be eligible for the $100 credit. No, there is no name change and then do everything else. We must do the plan change and THEN mail in a form to change the name which takes about two weeks. Meanwhile, Rosie is still on hold. So, we are going to lose our original phone number but get a new phone. Rosie had to fill out a form AND talk to the Verizon person at the other end of the phone who finally picked up to DO ALL OF THE TRANSACTIONS! Why we needed to actually BE IN THE STORE remains a mystery for the ages. And, of course!, I had to go through the same thing with the woman on the phone.

90 minutes. At the end...Rosie says that the old number will cycle through the system for 48 hours. On Friday, he will look for us to see if it shows up. He will then change the number for us! We thanked him. I was on the verge of weeping. I am leaving a lot out. There was second greeter. Heard him tell a customer that they should drop their phone in water to get a new one. Skippy gave us his thoughts on which phones were subjectively better than others. Rosie did the same thing and I pretty sure he told us the opposite of Skippy. Regardless, the one Skippy liked was sold out. Come on....you saw that coming!

I just can't believe how totally BROKEN this whole experience was from start to finish. This should have taken us ten minutes. It took 90. We should have had one person help us, not the 6 that actually talked to us. The people in the store need to be tied into the same system that they have to call to get the changes/activations made! And that system needs to be flexible enough to do a simple name change. We weren't asking for anything crazy. Its a database. Change the data in the fields! Take down the check in desk. If it is easier to do it online...TELL ME! I will go home and do it and feel better about you. Dont let me jerk around in your store for 90 minutes while you dont make any money off of us! What is the point?!?

Anyway...because our night was ruined I decided to call the cable company and tell them I was switching to satellite. I can get a better deal (more channels and two TiVo's) for $35 LESS than what I am paying now. Uh....why wouldnt I do that? Anyway...cable wouldnt match. They gave me more channels but no extra TiVo for the same price I am paying now. I explained to the nice lady that I was LEAVING as a customer. Didn't phase her.

When The Boss Is A Bully

2004-09-27T21:46:00.000-04:00

Having just left a company that was run by a bully, this article really struck home with me. This article gives excellent advice on how to deal with a middle manager who is a bully. Sadly, there is not a thing one can do if the owner is a bully and you report directly to her. If you find yourself in this situation, run. Run fast. Run far. You will NOT win. I repeat. You will NOT win.

"Battle Ready" by General Tony Zinni and Tom Clancy

2004-09-25T11:04:00.000-04:00

It started with The Guru Red Manifesto. The guys at Guru Red say you only need to read three business books: The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, and Warfighting. The Marine Corps Way is the only thing you need to know to be competitive in modern business. Then there were the two women on CNBC, ex-Marines, starting their own leadership training program in the corporate world (sorry, can't find the link). I'm following this trend of all you ever needed to know the Marine Corps teach us.

"Battle Ready" is not the most compelling read. From Amazon:

Battle Ready follows the evolution of both General Zinni and the Marine Corps, from the cauldron of Vietnam through the operational revolution of the seventies and eighties, to the new realities of the post-Cold War, post-9/11 military-a military with a radically different job and radically different tools for accomplishing it. It is an eye-opening book-a front-row seat to a man, an institution, and a way of both war and peace that together make this an instant classic of military history.

I agree with all of it. Partway through the book, Zinni discusses the Marine Corps Qualities and Values. Here they are:

One: Our first identity as Marines is to be a Marine. The proper designation for each Marine from privates to generals is “Marine”.

Two: Every Marine has to be qualified as a rifleman. Every marine is a fighter. We have no rear area types. All of us are warriors.

Three: We feel strong about our traditions that anyone else. We salute the past. This is not merely ritual or pageantry. It is part of the essence of the Marine Corps. One of the essential subjects every Marine has to know is his Corps’ history; he has to take it in and make it an essential part of himself.

Four: We carry a sense of responsibility for those who went before us, which ends up meaning a lot to Marines who are in combat. We don’t want to let our predecessors down or taint our magnificent heritage.

Five: We make the most detailed and specifically significant demands on our people in terms of iron discipline and precise standards. Yet, we have the greatest tolerance for mavericks and outside-the-box thinkers. This also means we are an institution where people are judged on their performance and not their opinions.

Six: We have a reputation for innovation. We adapt and overcome.

Seven: We aren’t tied down to fixed techniques and doctrines. We have never been hidebound doctrinaires. We are more flexible and adaptable; concepts based rather than doctrine based. That is, we really believe in the individual. We don’t like big proscriptive structures. We really believe that if we educate and train our leaders and our officers to take charge, and give them broad conceptual guidelines, but don’t bind them to these as strict “doctrinal” necessity, they’ll do a better job.

Eight: We are by our nature “expeditionary”. This means several things. It means a high state of readiness; we can go at a moment’s notice. It means our organization, our equipment, our structure are designed to allow us to deploy very efficiently. We don’t take anything we don’t need. We’re lean, we’re slim, we’re streamlined. We don’t need a lot of “stuff” – whether it is equipment or comforts. We can make do with what we have.

It’s a mindset, too, about being ready to go, about being ready to deployed, and about flexibility. Finally, it is how we organize, prepare, and train.

I am really exploring this Marine concept. Its about branding and knowing who you are and what you are capable of doing. It is about a commitment to your people and your "customers". It is about being flexible and adaptable without diluting your brand or your service offerings. It is about learning and growing and improving. It is about NOT losing sight of who you are and what you are about.

71% of Nonprofits Do Not Use A Single, Online Database to Manage Donor and Supporter Relationships

2004-09-23T19:42:00.000-04:00

From RealMarket.com

Nonprofits must track a variety of contact information to effectively manage online activity with regard to donors and volunteers. Yet a recent survey of the nonprofit sector finds that a majority of organizations continue to store this information in several places instead of unifying contacts into a single, online database. Of those surveyed, 46% of the respondents reported that their organizations are using two or more databases to store donor and supporter information for online use, while 25% said they are not currently using a database for this information at all. However, 29% of those surveyed noted that they rely on one online database for this purpose. The informal survey was conducted by Kintera.

I spent two years working in a FOR-profit outsource provider (call center and fulfillment). We worked with higher education, hospital and cultural arts institutions to help them raise funds. This article hits home. I cannot go so far as to say that this market is ripe for the pickings however, with the right contacts and a very SIMPLE customer relationship management tool/application, it could work.

The problem is that the non-profits have trouble with a couple of things. First, they have trouble seeing strategic value of anything. Everything is tactically focused. The need to raise $X THIS year. Next year, five years and 20 years from now do not matter. And why should they, the development officer will most likely be long gone onto her next development position at a slightly larger institution. Second, they seem to refuse to be looking at the changing demographics. There are companies out there providing the data to them. They just keep hammering at the same old methods. Stopping the constantly leaking bucket that is their donor pool.

Improving Retention Between Offer Acceptance and The First Day

2004-08-12T17:32:00.000-04:00

This article offers a great approach to what I would call "finishing" the recruitment process. Attracting and recruiting new talent is often thought of as the whole ball game. Recruitment and the "woo-ing" process should not stop the second the potential hire signs an offer letter. Aramark has put a very compelling process in place which improves overall ROI on recruitment costs.

"Companies Not Well-Positioned to Compete as War for Talent Intensifies, Accenture Research Finds"

2004-07-28T11:49:00.000-04:00

As the economic climate continues to improve, the talent war will flare-up but companies will not be prepared. The Accenture survey report details that companies SAY they want leaders and they want organizations that can adapt to change quickly. Only 8% of those companies say they are meeting those goals. The problem is that companies have been focused on controlling bottom-line costs. The first thing to be cut is training and development. Usually. Lip service is paid to training as a means to improve employees skill-sets and productivity, but few companies follow through. The companies that succeed will and indeed, are shifting their strategy towards growth and they understand that to grow, they need talented leaders at all levels.

New Links

2004-07-27T10:54:00.000-04:00

I added a few new links to the pool. Leader to Leader is a quarterly journal from the Drucker Foundation. Some of the biggest guns of the thought leadership world are referenced. There is a very comprehensive achive as well. War, Chaos and Business talks about the ideas of John Boyd, a strategist that developed "OODA loops" (observe, orient, decide, act). Some of you may know this from Xerox decision making processes as "PDCA" (plan, do, check, act). Site also discusses how Sun Tzu's philosophies can be used in the business world. Keeping with the Sun Tzu theme, to which I am partial, Sonshi is all Sun Tzu, all of the time. There is also a great resource here of other strategy works from: Clausewitz to Machiavelli to Caesar to Vegetius. Check it out.

Michael Hyatt's Power Point Resources

2004-07-23T17:18:00.000-04:00

Power Point is a necessary evil in the business world. The on-going discussion with a project team I am working with is how many do we need as an introductory presentation for our service. I will ALWAYS vote on the l-o-w end. I believe any presentation should be three slides long. Slide 1: who we are. Slide 2: what we do. Slide 3: here is how we will make you PILES of money. If you have to use PowerPoint, learn some graphic design. Some. Not become an expert. Hyatt's list of resources will help any presentation.

On Customer Support

2004-07-17T09:10:00.000-04:00

I will warn everyone now that there will be a tendency to talk about customer service and support, multi-channel management and CRM related topics in this blog. On Customer Support was written by David Kay back in May of this year and published at Line56.com. I just pulled this document out for another project I am working on. The article details four shifts in customer support.

From Product Support to Solution Support - no longer can the support group afford to be isolated from the rest of the product "team" or company. Support, in many cases is the only time you get to talk to your customers. Product development, marketing, sales etc all need to listen. There is also a shift taking place from measuring customer satisfaction ("c-sat") with LOYALTY.
From Reactive Support to Proactive Support - in the past, customers would call for support, give their pedigree information (name, id, etc), open a ticket and then disappear once the problem was solved. The shift is happening where customer information is being gathered and analyzed to identify common threads. The idea is to NOT have a support organization. In this shift, if customer A contacts you with a problem, you can then look at your entire customer base and identify other customers that will or may have the same problem and then proactively contact them to fix it!
From Solving Problems to Improving Products and Knowledge - This means taking the best support agents OFF the phone (solving customer problems) and assigning them to the task of increasing the ORGANIZATION's ability to solve problems. Use these team members to build the knowledge bases. Use them to perform root cause analysis on problems and feed back solutions to all members of the product team, not just support.
From Just-in-Case Training to Just-in-Time Knowledge Transfter - The speed at which new problems develop is making it next to impossible to pull entire teams together for "training"...especially in a 24/7 world. The idea is to relentlessly build the knowledge base to allow front line agents to adapt on the fly.

Kay states:

Rather than making existing processes more efficient, they redefine the value delivered by the support organization away from the negative (fixing broken products) and towards the positive (increasing the value of the customer relationship). This allows the support organization to drive customer loyalty and profitability, taking a leadership role that rightly belongs to the most customer-facing organization in the company.

Huzzah to that! Those of us who have been and still are on the front lines have been saying this for YEARS.

Will RFID Spark the Next Revolution in Retailing?

2004-07-16T08:33:00.000-04:00

The Wharton site requires registration but does not cost anything. RFID is a technology I have been watching. Remember the Tom Peters' rule from below: the technology is useless for the first 5 years. RFID - radio frequency identification tags are starting to generate a buzz. Wal-Mart is laying on a big push. The dream scenario that we have been hearing about for years is that every item in the supermarket will be tagged. We won't have to wait in a checkout line anymore. Nor will we have to use the self-service lines which I can never seem to navigate through and I consider myself a reasonably tech-saavy guy. Scanners will "read" everything in your cart, you will be direct billed to your debit account, and away you go to soccer practice.

The market seems to be letting Wal-Mart and Target work the kinks out of the system. Costs for tags are still too high. Scanning technology isn't where it needs to be yet. But it will be. Forrester analyst Christine Spivey Overby says:

One of the biggest barriers to making RFID work is figuring out how to manage the data.

The amount of data that can be generated from these tags from ALL stops in the supply chain is staggering. The economic impact will be interesting to watch. If I am a large retail store my inventory costs just got cut. I can get very close to just-in-time delivery. As a consumer, my refrigerator will be able to link to the grocery store and have my basic, week to week items ready for me to pick up. I won't have to get out of my car.

I saw a link the other day and didn't save it where there is talk of putting RFID tags into children. Lojack for your kid. Not sure how I feel about that but this isn't the forum for my Big-Brother-Let's-Suspend-The-November-Elections rants.

The Brand You Survival Kit

2004-07-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

I thought it fitting to start this blog out with a link to a Tom Peters' article from the June issue of Fast Company. The article is classic modern-day Peters. Adapt or die. Everybody is a mercenary ("contractor" as the Bush administration calls them) or should at least be thinking and acting like one. He's been on this rampage since 1997. Like CRM and VoIP, it is finally starting to click. I am a disciple. I love his simple six word mission statement: Service Clients, Develop Talent, WOW! Projects. This article is the executive summary of The Brand You 50 and its similar chapters in the recently published Re-Imagine!. In short:

Turn every project into something the recruiter or person doing the hiring is going to get excited about.
You must market yourself. Accomplishments on a resume are NOT ENOUGH.
Don't settle for being a jack of all trades. Master something. But be able to adapt at a breakneck pace.
Loyalty to the "company" is dead. Loyalty to your peers is crucial. Build your Rolodex or your Outlook contacts ported over to your palm pilot.
New technology is useless for the first five years. But you need to know its out there and be ready to use it when it becomes useful.
Constantly re-invent yourself.

First Post

2004-07-08T18:48:00.000-04:00

This is the first post for this blog. Awhile back it hit me that there is a LOT of "management" information out there that would be of use to some people. Unfortunately, the people that need this information the most usually do not have the time to sort through the hundreds of newspapers, journals, magazines, newsletters, and let's not forget websites. We here at Dilgentia.com hope to bring you the best management theories, tips and practices to help you with your careers, your projects, your teams, your bosses and your companies. Bookmark us and come back often.

Diligentia

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In the Beginning...There Was Tom Peters

More on Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook the New LinkedIn?

48 Days to the Work You Love

More on Branding Yourself

My Go Bag

Rethinking the Off-Shore Model

MBA In a Page

Good Manners is Good Management

More on Being a Hammer

I Finally Write a Review for Meg's Book - "Confessions of an Introvert"

Eight Tips for Perpetual Career Management

Show Me Your C-A-R!

Focus on the Customer

Review of 3-D Negotiation Published

Tips for Sales Managers from Marketing Headhunter

What Great Managers Do

The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service

Shaking Hands for Dummies

Are Leadership/Management Skills Portable?

Hiring for the Customer Experience

Push Play to Polka

Welcome to the Machine

Dungeons and Dragons and Self Awareness

Meg Quoted in Career Journal!

Holistic Career Progression

Beyond Code Review Published in The CEO Refresher

Tell Me About Yourself

Leading Large-Scale Change

Meg Wrote a Book!

The World is Flat

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Jonathan Byrnes Live!

Relationships, Networking and a Correction

The Success of John Schuerholz

Middle Management Excellence

Cash Flow 101

Diligentia Featured in the CEO Refresher

Here Comes Santa Claus...

Sales and Marketing in the Third Age

Peter Drucker - Tireless Chronicler of American Business

Seek Profit Not Revenue

Apologies to My Two Email Subscribers

More on Hammering - Boxing Lessons

PocketMod (I Love the Internet)

Lend a Hand(Shake)

Be A Hammer

25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself

New Links

Death by Meeting

The Essence of Leadership

Marketing to the Right Customer Type

"The Turnaround" on CNN

I Think The Top of My Head Just Blew Off

New Link and RSS Feed

S.M.A.R.T.

The 5 Customer Satisfaction Questions You Will Ever Need

Situational Value Systems

Small-Unit Leadership, 101

Managing at the Right Level

Leadership and Management Theory Defined

The Clear Leader and 12 Questions That Matter

100 Ways To Help You Succeed/Make Money

Across the Interview Table

Components of a Good Business Case

SWOT Analysis

The 25 Most Difficult Interview Questions

America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation

Uncle Mike's Old School Guide to Interviewing

Taking Care of Business

The Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills

More Marine Corp Thoughts of Leadership and Management

The Systems Coach: Bill Belichick

Verizon Wireless Customer Service Nightmare

When The Boss Is A Bully

"Battle Ready" by General Tony Zinni and Tom Clancy

71% of Nonprofits Do Not Use A Single, Online Database to Manage Donor and Supporter Relationships

Improving Retention Between Offer Acceptance and The First Day