Question: which do you think is stronger -
1) Weak machine + human + better process, or
2) Strong human + machine + inferior process?
Follow up question: would it be immature of me to e-mail to everyone who ever used “process” as an excuse not to get something done, or used schedule/cost/quality as an excuse when setting aside process when they just covering up their lack of forethought and discipline?
I can now stop writing about what socks to wear to work. Lifehack.org has put out a fashion guide for grown up men that I can endorse. It’s almost like they did the research and know what they’re talking about.
Besides that most facilitators can’t help unintentionally squashing brain-storming sessions by being too personally attached to the outcome, it turns out brainstorming isn’t always the best way to solve a problem.
Brainstorming alone is best when the problem is neither trivial nor overly complicated.
You can regain control of your time & calendar by creating appointments where you’re the only one invited.
When I discovered this trick, I actually finished work on presentations, analysis, proposals, scheduling, or just to get my e-mail to zero when I needed to. I made my deliverables, and the most important issues didn’t get missed. Setting boundaries around your time is extremely effective at cutting down on background noise. The alternative was working 60 hour weeks.
This article makes a similar case for adding buffer to your schedule on a macro level.
I was reading an article about why people skills matter in a recession when I came across this little tidbit:
“I just got rid of the difficult ones and told the rest what I wanted them to do. It’s very simple. The recession is great for me because I can act exactly as I want — I don’t have to bother with complicated people management.”
Show of hands: how many think this is going to come back and bite her in the behind?
I remember during the last tech bubble getting paid an $8,000 bonus just to not quit. If you’re an a-hole, you’re going to pay for it sooner or later.
Posted in hiring and firing, leadership, relationships
Tagged people skills, recession
Having a peer network is a great idea that I encourage everyone to steal.
In my transition from being a project manager to being a business execution specialist, I networked with many in the personal and business coaching profession. That’s how I found my current job, and probably how I’ll find my next one. I still keep in touch and get together with my project management circle, and now I have a “coaching” circle as well.
Besides providing invaluable networking opportunities, a peer group also helps you get better at what you do. It’s a sounding board, a sympathetic ear, help you make decision, point you to education resources, and even give advice if that’s what you’re looking for.
It can also be as formal or informal as you like. My project management group is a loose confederation of like-minded peers who have all worked together. It started as a few of us going for beer on a Friday afternoon. We still like to get together for a beer or two once or twice a year to catch up on friendships and industry gossip. Anybody is welcome to join us.
My coaching circle is by invitation only, and meets once a quarter in a borrowed boardroom. It has an agenda, and presentations, and minutes. It’s really more of a professional self-development group.
The point is this: Find a group of industry peers that you can sit down and speak frankly and openly with outside of work. Your peer group doesn’t have to be strictly about “coaching”. You’ll find that many of your friends, peers, and associates are facing the same challenges as you. You won’t be able to solve all the worlds’ problems over a beer, but sometimes knowing you’re not alone is really what you need.
Posted in coaching, continous learning, self improvement
Tagged education, peer coaching, peer group, self-development
Results.com made me an offer to work with a fantastic group of international business execution specialist here in Calgary. An offer I couldn’t, and didn’t, refuse. It’s been keeping me busy the last two weeks.
Results.com works with open-minded, ambitious owners who want to grow their business. If your company has fifteen or more employees, and you want to take it to the next level (or even figure out how to stop working sixteen hour days), then give us a call. We can help.
My apologies for being lax on posts the last two weeks. I’d set myself the goal of publishing something original twice a week, and I’ve been able to meet that standards for the last few months. In the meantime I’ll try to publish once a week, and continue to pass on those interesting snippets I come across.
Hey, I got my first piece of mail asking a question. Very cool.
Hi Bernie,
Hope you are doing well..
How can you challenge the status quo without burning bridges or creating any negative relationship ? I’d appreciate your insight to this topic.. thanks in advance..
VS
Great question, VS. Thanks!
This is a relationship building exercise. If you deliver, when it comes time to push you’ll have influence. It would be nice if all we had to do to earn credibility & influence was to deliver on our responsibilities. It’s a necessary but insufficient requirement.
To take it to the next level you need to know who to influence, when to influence them, and what levers you have to pull. You have to put the energy into identifying, establishing, and managing the relationships. See my subject index for several articles on managing relationships and building influence, which I add to continually.
Decisions are not made in meetings. Meetings are where decisions are formalized. Decisions get made before the meeting. Managers who don’t understand this dynamic are often taken by surprise. You’ll be able to find them because they’re the ones whining about “playing politics”. If you want influence then get in front of the decision.
Make sure the change you want to see implemented lines up with the values and vision of your company. Change is your CEO’s job. She’s responsible for nursing the vision of where your company is gong to be in twenty years. If your change supports where your business is going it’s that much easier to make that change. If it’s doesn’t, you may want to consider if it’s worth burning your influence capital over.
You don’t have to choose between staying quiet and lighting a bridge on fire. In your context think about how can you pitch your change at the right people so that they see the advantage to them and the company, and what do you have to prepare to give it the best chance of success.
After giving it your best, sincere effort to a change that you believe is in the best interests of the company, and your energy and effort have fallen on deaf ears, you may have to consider if this company is a good fit for you. Finding a company where your values line up with the real values of the company (not just the ones on that dust-gathering plaque on the wall) feels liberating and easy. Not a daily struggle.
There’s a definition of leadership that I’ve always liked:
Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.
I came across a new one the other day that I also appreciated:
Management deals with complexity, leadership deals with change.
Do you have a definition of leadership that you’d like to share?
Sometime it takes family to really push our buttons. I have a fourteen-year-old daughter who is a wonderful human being, yet she is a fourteen-year-old daughter. Don’t worry, I’ll live, but I’m not sure she will.
I joke, of course, but still when I asked her why she hasn’t taken the recycling out for the last week (sorry, when I ask her what’s holding her back from taking the recycling out the last week), and she starts making excuses, I feel my buttons getting a workout.Especially the big red “Daddy” button on my forehead. I really don’t want to hear why the recycling hasn’t been done. I just want to know when she is going to do it, or if I need to take her to bottle depot to get the bins in the garage emptied.
If you’re getting hints, feedback, or hostility from your boss about a missed deadline, project, or deliverable, the thing near the bottom of the list of what your boss wants to hear is why it didn’t get done. Please go back and read that sentence again, because it’s important. Even if your boss actually says: “Why didn’t you get me those numbers by noon like you said you would?”, they don’t want to know why you didn’t get them the numbers. They want to know
a) when you’re actually going to get them, and
b) if you can’t get the numbers what you need from them, if anything. And maybe next time maybe give them more warning, ok?,
Yet sometimes even our bosses have a bad day, and the feedback they’re giving us isn’t especially helpful or clear. Or they aren’t very good communicators. Or they’re just a shouty, stabby kind of boss who’s constructive criticism isn’t all that constructive. There are a couple of things we can do. And yes, getting yelled at is a form of (bad but still useful) feedback.
First, watch your own emotions. It’s easy to get carried away by somebody else’s excitement, disappointment, or anger. Take a deep breath if you have to, then:
1) Ask yourself if there’s anything you did or might have done that contributed to their current state. Maybe they’re wrong, maybe they’re not.
2) Ask yourself what would make a reasonable person behave that way. Try to put yourself in their shoes, see things from their perspective. E-mail is notorious for flipping our intended meaning, since 90% of the emotional communication is missing from it. Be especially careful and non-confrontational in e-mail communications.
3) Ask yourself what is the right thing to do now. Maybe you can fix this, maybe you need to apologize, maybe you need to come up with a way that this situation won’t happen again. Maybe some of the above, or all the above.
What you’re trying to come away with is two things: you want to keep the relationship intact if possible, and you want to come away with whatever it is you might need to improve.
We hate hearing that we’re not doing things as well as we should, or that we need to do things differently in the future. Giving feedback is just as uncomfortable. The person giving feedback, whether it’s a subordinate, peer, or manager wants the same things we do: to preserve the relationship, and to improve performance.
The person giving feedback may not alway be sure how the recipient is going to react. They may have had bad experiences in the past either getting or giving feedback, just like you. They might not especially like confrontation and are better at trying to avoid it. Yes, this is a manager’s job, but that’s another blog posting.
So when we are getting feedback, it’s up to us to listen to decide for ourselves if there’s any value in what’s being said. Remember the person giving you feedback is extending themselves. They are trying to do you a favour even if it doesn’t feel like it. Only a true friend will tell you when you have spinach stuck in your teeth, but in the end you’ll be happy that they did.
What do you think is an essential skill for good managers? E-mail me bernie@practicalmanagers.com and share!
