Archive for 2010

As 2010 draws to a snowy close I reflect on the completion of my third year in business and I ask myself “What have I learned?”

Quite a lot really…

There is abundant opportunity…

I never really “got” this. But now I do. Life really isn’t a zero sum game at any level. It’s just that sometimes it can seem that way if we set low goals and miss them, do the wrong things, fail to do enough of the right things, target the wrong markets, and go about our business fearfully and defensively. Then it’s a struggle.

But with clarity, focus, confidence, real personal productivity and a laser like focus on what we need, it comes to us, once we know what it looks like.

We’ve got to love what we do…

This is about values. If we spend huge amounts of time doing stuff that doesn’t accord tightly with our values we’re running on the wrong fuel. Values drive behaviour and behaviour drives results.

I finally realised my one core value that isn’t banal is that I believe the greatest thing on earth is human potential and I will do what I can do make sure more of it is realised. This has been hugely clarifying for me. I guess I kind of knew it, but sitting down in a darkened room and homing in on my one core value has really helped me. I now do more of the right stuff and I have cut out a lot of the stuff that was not value-driven. Relief! It’s like being let out of jail.

We have everything we need…

It’s all here. Centuries of human endeavour, experience, knowledge. And all the people around us right now. Here’s a great question to ask someone. It gets a positive and valuable response 95 times out of a hundred. “Can you help me with……?” Try it.

If you boil a kettle it boils at a hundred degrees. Every time. If you do the things that people have done before you will get their results. This is not weird. It would be weird if it was not so.

The past is gone…

Good and bad. To relive it is a choice. Not a destiny. We are all conditioned to an almost frightening extent. But the conditioning process is not over. We are alive to conditioning now…right now. And we can do it to ourselves. And it doesn’t take long. Some people say 21 days to recondition ourselves in any area. I think that’s about right.

Our future is unwritten…

But it will be written. We can write it. We should write it. Because if we don’t someone else will. If we don’t have our own plan, we will be a part of someone else’s plan. Stark choice.

Our brain is beyond fantastic…

But it isn’t user friendly and it doesn’t come with a manual. We need to manage ourselves first and foremost, before we try to manage anything else. Deal with fear.  Change the level of fear attributed to an action. As Jim Rohn said “we are destined to suffer from one of two pains – the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” Learn to fear regret with a vengeance. As a child fears monsters. Then the fear of discipline seems trivial. And procrastination and all the other stuff that hold us back are revealed to be just mice wearing monster suits.

We need to sharpen the saw…

I am amazed at how the people I consider to be successful switch off all the screens and take the time out to reflect on what they’ve done, to plan, to spend really good time with their families and come back renewed, refreshed, sharper than before, ready for the next chapter.

And so, to that end, I shall disappear for the first week in January to sharpen my saw. All being well with the weather, I shall be back with your next Pearl on 10^th January.

I wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Call it what you will – Management Team, Leadership Team, Senior Team, Business Team. You name it.

If there’s two or more of you in your organisation, division, department etc, you need to be having a regular meeting to manage and lead.

That’s what you’re there for, right?

Here’s what to do –

1. Meet for at least one day, and preferably two days, every quarter, or better still every two months. Get out of the office. Stay over at least for one night. Have dinner and drinks. You are in a senior position and you need the time be a team. This is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Yes, it costs money, but not nearly as much as it costs when you don’t have these meetings. That costs real money.

2. Have a standing agenda. It might look like this –

• Review minutes and actions of last meeting – led by Boss, 30 minutes.

You need to agree that the minutes are a fair reflection of what went on. Then you review the actions agreed at the meeting. Failure to complete an action should be such a rarity that when it does occur it’s actually slightly shocking. And the failure should not be a surprise to the boss, as the reason for failure should have been communicated to the boss beforehand. The reason must be genuine – things may have changed, it may not have been possible to achieve the goal for external reasons. Maybe something else has to happen first. These are good reasons.

“I didn’t get round to it” or “I’ve been really busy” are bad reasons. They are thinly veiled code for “I don’t respect my colleagues or my boss. I make promises that I don’t keep. I cannot manage myself and I suspect I’m probably not really a senior manager.”

• Operational Review – led by Operations Managers – 60 minutes each.

Operations are what turn your strategy into results. So you may have a few operations that matter – marketing, selling, R&D, various projects, manufacturing, logistics etc. This part of the meeting is, in the case of manufacturing, about how many blue widgets you said you’d make, how many you made, an explanation of the difference if there is one, and a heads up on any looming issues.

• Strategic Issues – led by X – 2 hours

You may need to discuss something strategic. For example, a capital expenditure proposal. Or a change to strategy. Or a competitive issue. Or just some great idea you’ve had.

• HR Issues – led by X – 60 minutes.

Take some time out to discuss those pesky people that work in the organisation. How’s the management development programme coming along? Who’s a star? Who’s struggling? Who needs a free transfer to Accrington Stanley?

• Any Other Business (AOB)

Like it says – anything else you need to discuss.

Also, notice each agenda item has a nominated lead and a time slot.

3. The boss should get the agenda out two weeks beforehand. Some agenda items, e.g. the strategic issues, may merit a pre-meeting paper to be written and circulated. The boss should make this clear when the agenda is circulated and the papers should be made available by the nominated author at least one week before the meeting.

4. During the meeting, have a scribe – someone to take the minutes. This is not onerous. It’s a brief note of key points, decisions and actions (what is to be done, by whom, by when). Minutes should be circulated within 24 hours of the meeting closing.

5. These Management Team meetings should be scheduled 12 months in advance. They are NEVER cancelled. EVER. If you’re on the senior team you attend. You do NOT take your holiday when a Management Meeting is scheduled unless you are either a) psychotically passive aggressive and/or b) this is your non-verbal way of saying “I want out”.

These meetings are mission critical. The Management Team steers the ship. Does the thinking. Takes the plaudits. And the rap. It’s leadership at the end of the day.

We’re talking about maybe 8 days a year. Three to four percent of the working days. In this time your team will develop the trust it needs. You will get over your fear of conflict so that you can genuinely commit to action and accept real accountability for your actions. Then, and only then, will you really perform.

I have spent probably far too much of my life in meetings. It’s very much how we live in organisations. Whether it’s a client meeting, a supplier meeting or an internal meeting (which come in many flavours: one-to-one, small groups, large groups, one hour, one day, three day conference with 300 people). We spend a lot of time doing this.

It’s essential – teams do more than individuals ever can. But the opportunities for massive time wasting, partial brain atrophy and pins and needles in the bum are legion. Plus all that bad food. Don’t these people know sausage rolls should be WARM.

So, how to make sure you always have a worthwhile meeting?

Firstly, define what it is you want to learn. Maybe it’s an update from a colleague, or a subordinate. Maybe it’s understanding a new piece of technology in your marketplace. Or how the competitors are getting on. How the boss feels about something. Or a chance to get to someone who is hard to get to.

If there is not sufficient learning to be had from the meeting that merits the time involved don’t go, or go for a portion of the meeting.

Secondly, be clear on what you will contribute. And then contribute it. At the right time. And in the right forum. A few concise, well crafted words at the right time will stand you apart from the hesitators, repeaters and deviators that come out of the woodwork for most meetings.

Again, if you cannot contribute, ask yourself if you should be going to the meeting at all.

Thirdly, if you do go to the meeting, make sure there is an output, an action plan. Learning and contributing are good, but these need to lead to action – for you and those you interact with. There needs to be a new course of action coming out of the meeting.

Consider the three elements above in the context of your agenda. That’s right – your agenda. The meeting organiser may have her own agenda, but you don’t need to play. Certainly you must not be disruptive, or try to take over, unless you are the boss and a bad one at that. More subtly, simply prosecute your own agenda quietly but with purpose. No one else need know you came to the meeting with your own list of objectives.

And the bigger and longer the meeting the better. Because the meeting is the whole event – including the breaks, lunch, maybe dinner and the bar afterwards if it’s that sort of do.

What will you learn? Maybe from a coffee break chat with a targeted individual?

What will you contribute? Your contribution doesn’t have to be in open forum in front of everyone. It could be a well honed viewpoint given to a more senior person, again, maybe at lunch. Avoid talking for talking’s sake. Choose your targets.

What actions do you want others to leave with? Pretty much depends on your contribution. Is it compelling enough to merit action? How good are your influencing skills? Are you approaching your target in the right way?

It is quite possible that 299 people out of the 300 that attend a three day conference on the blue widget market at an airport hotel in Nordwestupperholtensteinburg will leave feeling frustrated and bored.

But not you.

If you have learned what you set out to learn, contributed well and appropriately, and have a few actions in place with key people, you will probably have been the most productive person there. You will not feel frustrated and bored. You will have made progress. And the numb bum will wear off, eventually.

Martin Seligman became President of the American Psychological Association in 1996. He made a bit of an impact straight away by telling his fellow psychologists that through their focus on illness they were missing an important point.

He suggested that if they focused on what was right with people and learn how to help people to stay that way, many psychological issues would either never occur or would disappear – prevention being better than cure.

It’s amazing how many professions get this wrong – if you’re 7 years old and a great creative writer, but cannot tell the time, your teacher may focus on the fact that you cannot tell the time, as if it is likely you will grow into an adult who cannot tell the time.

Almost all managers focus on the poor performers and not the star performers. They assume the high performers have little more to give. But surely it will be more rewarding to focus on those who are talented right out the box, rather than trying to drag those who are below average up to the average?

Some industries do get it right – top flight sports teams get it right. They do not focus on trying to raise the game of those who are below average. They let them go and they focus on the best – helping them to raise their game. This is leadership.

Jo Owen touches on this area in the recently published 2^nd edition to his book How To Lead.

He interviewed 700 leaders and came up with the rather obvious conclusion that successful leaders are more positive that the rest. Now to me, “positive” is a state of mind that drives “positive” actions. This is not to be confused with wild optimism.

Owen suggests 7 areas where you can assess how positive you are -

1. Focus on strengths, not weaknesses.

You cannot succeed by dealing with your weaknesses. Successful leaders focus on their own strengths and find others who have as strengths the leader’s weaknesses. Symbiotic or what? We are all animals after all.

2. Manage your feelings.

Emotional intelligence. If you are upset or angry – accept the emotion but then choose how to react to it. Do not be angry or upset. Feel the emotion, do not be the emotion. Chose how to be. Be engaged. Be positive.

3. Visualise

Visualise success. Focus on the goal and how to get there.  Can you articulate in simple words where you’re going? Clarity of purpose. And ambition. But don’t be scared…it is better to aim for 100 and hit 80 than aim for 40 because that’s what you normally get, and then actually hit 40. Only you will know if your goal is really challenging, and if it is, and you miss by a bit, that’s OK. The real problem is those who aim for 40, or, even worse, those who do not aim at all.

4. Do something worthwhile – which may or may not be in work.

If you are not doing something worthwhile, where you feel real purpose, you will struggle to remain positive. Leadership is not for everyone, and that’s OK. But maybe you are a leader – just not where you are right now.

5. Move to action

Do not conduct a post-mortem on the past. It’s gone. Do not have a victim mentality – don’t blame others for your past misfortunes.

6. Wear the mask of leadership

No matter how you feel and sometime you will feel like a bag of nails…no one wants to know, not really. Sorry about that. When they ask you how you are, they want you to say “great”.

7. Take control

Even with your back against the wall you will have something you can do; something within your sphere of control; a lever you can pull. Do not worry about the things you cannot control. Stay focused on what you can do. And do it.

This is all obvious stuff.

If you find yourself getting any of this wrong today, pull yourself up.

Why?

Well think of the alternative – ignore your strengths and try to eliminate your weaknesses; be at the mercy of your emotions;  have no idea what success looks like; spend the prime of your life on stuff you don’t find worthwhile; dwell on the past; moan; focus on what you cannot do and don’t do it.

Yuk!

They say the smart guys know all the answers. This is true. But the really smart guys know all the questions.

You don’t need any management consultants to help you in your company. Be your own trusted advisor. Ask yourself these simple questions –

1. What can we do?

This is about core competencies. What can your organisation do in its sleep? What’s it been doing for years? What do you excel at? Be honest. Richard Branson’s core competence is the assessment, selection and execution of business ideas. Nothing to do with planes. Or music.

2. What’s happening in our market?

Is it expanding or contracting? Is it profitable? Is it cyclical? Where are prices going? Costs?

But you must segment your market. A segment is a part of the market that buys in the same way. Think airport parking – there’s executive parking at £30/day, all the way through to offsite parking at £20 a week for the happy holidaymaker. I reckon at Manchester airport there’s at least 5 segments of airport parking. Each segment will pay different amounts for different services. And broadly, the mass market segment (mass = many people) generates low margin per person, but there’s lots of them. The niche market (£30/day execs) generates high profits per person, but there’s fewer of them. And the costs to service them are different.

So, what is happening in your market? – by segment.

3. What does our competition look like?

Again, segment-wise. What’s your USP, by segment. Focus on underserved segments. Who isn’t getting what they need? Ryanair saw a mass market for low cost airfares all around Europe. In fact what they probably saw was Southwest Airlines doing it in the States. So they copied them. Fair enough.

4. What are the economics of our market from our customer’s viewpoint?

Well before Ryanair you got all sorts of stuff bundled in that you wouldn’t have paid for if they’d been offered to you separately – bad coffee, bad wine, bad sandwich. Now, you can pretty much avoid all additional costs if you want to (although being charged for unavoidable services, like check-in, simply annoys).

5. What are the economics from our perspective?

For Ryanair it’s maximising the asset utilisation of the fleet (i.e. keeping the planes in the air as close to 24/7 as possible) and driving costs down (which is why “Glasgow Airport” is in fact at Prestwick Airport, because the latter’s landing charges are lower. ) Also, what are the effects of scale across your value chain? For that matter, what is your value chain?

Keep asking yourself these questions until you convince yourself you know the real, insightful answers. It is often just one new insight that changes the game, and not just in big companies. I had a client who was selling a software product face-to-face. The product price was £50. This doesn’t work. A new distribution model was needed. Now it works. Simple? Yes – when you see it.

Nobody built PCs to order before Dell. But think of the advantages – customers feel they get an exclusive service (to an extent). They get to buy exactly what they want (and probably end up buying more than they need). Dell do not put the value-adding bit in (assembly) until the cash from the customer is in the bank and they never end up with the perennial problem faced by technology hardware businesses – masses of obsolete stock.

Go on. Spend a day as your own management consultant. Could be the most profitable day you ever have.

What do your staff really need from you? This has been researched many times over and the answers never really change.

Well, this is what staff want:

1. You to show an interest in their career. That’s right, their career. They want to know that in return for their exceptional efforts you will help them get to where they want to get to. After all, they’re helping you to get to where you want to get to. Fair deal? I think so.

2. You are honest with them and they trust you. Honesty isn’t just about not telling lies. It’s about being fully open and in a timely manner. This is not just about the bigger business situation. It’s also about dealing with their occasional poor performance immediately and effectively – not letting it fester until it’s getting too late to do anything about it. Dishonesty includes truth avoidance and telling partial truths.

3.You have a vision of where you’re going and how to get there and this is communicated well. It’s about organisational purpose and direction. It’s also about having a plan for teach staff member that shows that as a part of the organisation’s journey to the sunlit uplands there is a plan to develop and improve each of them as well. There must be a win-win. “We’re paying you to do the job” is not management or leadership.

4. You provide worthwhile work. Your staff need meaning in their jobs. Not all can have glamorous roles, but you must help them to see how their part plays a role in the journey to the sunlit uplands.

5. You recognise them. People need recognition. When they deserve it they need to receive it. Praise generates enthusiasm. Chastisement generates a sense of avoidance which leads to a sense of what the rules are which leads to a compliance mindset. An enthusiastic team versus a compliant team? Choose one.

In a nutshell your staff want to feel cared for, trusted, purposeful, worthwhile and recognised. That shouldn’t be too difficult should it? They are human beings after all – not resource units.

Here’s what they don’t ask for –

Money – often a demotivator in fact. Because they (and you) cannot win with money. There is always someone who got more and that sends a message that they are not as valuable as the person with more. It invites comparison with others and that’s a game few can win.

Soft stuff – flexi-time, a gym, free canteen, marble foyer – never mentioned. I remember many years ago the CEO of ICI saying that “we’re not in the crèche business”. And this was in ICI, an organisation that elevated paternalism to a fetish. Well, he was right. We weren’t in the crèche business.

The soft stuff is just fluff. It’s nice, of course, but does it make someone feel better about a manager who doesn’t care about their career, doesn’t trust them, has no sense of direction, provides worthless work and offers no praise? Nope.

Remember what management actually is. It’s the ability to get things done through other people. These other people have said what they want. Spending time, real time, on delivering the five points above is a critical management task and is time well spent. It’s a high-payoff activity. Much better to do these simple things than spend time on useless nonsense; the ultimate useless nonsense of course being the need to deal with poor performance that has directly resulted from your inattention to the needs of your people.

Apart from the occasional bad apple, you get the staff you deserve.

Death by Powerpoint has entered the language. It’s a shame really because it makes people self-conscious about using PP and even more self conscious about presenting in general.

Here are eight quick steps to help you structure your presentations for effectiveness. They will help increase your confidence as well.

1. What’s the desired outcome..?

What are you trying to achieve? Is it simply information transfer? Or are you trying to initiate debate and reach a consensual conclusion? Or maybe even trying to persuade the listeners to your point of view.

What’s your call to action? What do you want the audience to do after listening to you? Surely not – “well thanks for that Mark, we’ll discuss it internally and get back to you…”

2. Identify the audience…

Who are you speaking to? Remember – most of them may be unimportant – not as people, but in terms of you achieving your desired outcome. Who are the decision makers? What do they already think they know?

3. Is a presentation the best way to communicate? This step is a reality check. Surprisingly, a presentation is often not the best means of communication. Maybe write a paper instead? Unless you need the audience to debate the issue, or to have the facility to ask the presenter questions, you don’t need a presenter and you don’t need a presentation.

4. Collect Your Information…

What do you need to put in the presentation to achieve your desired outcome? Use that and that only. This is not a brain dump. I used to work with a man whose mind was like a fact retrieval system – he would listen for keywords in your question and when he heard one he had data on, he would give you all the data he had…control-alt-delete…

5. Select a structure for your presentation.

This is an old one, but here’s the best structure: tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you’ve told them. That’s it.

The middle bit – the telling them – do it in chunks. The audience will stay more engaged if you talk for 30 minutes on three discrete chunks – one after the other, 10 minutes each, rather than if you ramble for 30 minutes covering all three points at the same time.

A point on endings – tell them what you’ve told them. This is fine if you’ve been conveying information. But if you’ve been doing more, you need to put more into the ending. If you’ve been trying to solve a problem or renew effort or if you’ve been trying to generate agreement, and have managed it, issue a challenge, a call to action – “Go back to your offices and pick up those phones!”

6. Prepare a script…

Not a transcript, unless you’ve got an autocue, but maybe notes or prompt cards. Number them, and don’t leave them in the office. The script allows you to rehearse and check your timing.

And remember – communication occurs on three levels – visual (images), auditory (sounds) and kinaesthetic (feelings).

Which are you? Here’s the test –

Please close your eyes and imagine relaxing on a beautiful sandy beach.

Take particular note of the first thing that comes to mind…is it an image, a sound or a feeling. That’s your answer.

Try to communicate in all three ways (you can usually only get to kinaesthetic through visual and auditory unless you’ve got a huge budget).

7. Design and create your visual aids…

Let’s assume we are using Powerpoint. Pictures are best. If you use words – make it very few. No sentences. And make each slide consumable in 6 seconds or less. Why? Because when you flip the slide up your audience will process it and whilst doing so they will not be listening to you…

8. Rehearse…

Out loud; in front of a test audience; alone. Whatever works for you. I rehearse lying on my bed, eyes shut and silently. Works every time.

This allows you to check your timing and it builds confidence and makes the real event seem like a re-run.

Don’t overdo it though…I wouldn’t rehearse the day before and certainly not on the day itself.

I hope there’s something in here that helped you. Why not leave a comment?

Hello,

I’m taking a few days off with the family as it’s half-term, but wanted to get you something anyway.

I’m picking up new readers everyday for this blog through Twitter and I almost never tweet!

I have set a goal to understand and test Twitter for it’s ability to help me market my business.

I found a great video from the wonderful people at Hubspot that has helped me enormously.

I thought you might like to see it too. Go to the link at the bottom of this post.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

Mark

get the video HERE

I was looking for a picture to describe management – all of it. A bit of a tall order I know. But I Googled around a bit and here’s something that caught my eye.

I really like this management skills pyramid. (Thanks to F John Reh over at http://management.about.com/)

It starts at Level 1 – basically getting through the day…

…by planning, organising, directing and controlling. Taking care of business. The ultimate definition of management – doing things right.

Moving onto Level 2 – developing your staff…

…motivation, training and coaching, fostering staff involvement. I prefer inspire over motivate. You cannot motivate anyone, but you can inspire them. However it’s all good stuff. Helping staff to grow so that they can allow you to step up to the next stage…

Then Level 3 – improving yourself…

…time management and self-management. Two favourites of mine. Because they are the facilitators of greatness. And so it seems in this model, because they facilitate…

Level 4 – Leadership…

…you are no longer a caterpillar…you are a butterfly. Doing the right things.

Here’s a pdf of the Pyramid

If you can delegate a task, delegate it. Delegation is essential to your personal productivity. And it helps the delegatee learn and grow, and they become more useful to you in the process.

Here’s how to delegate…

1. Decide what it is you want to delegate.

It’s best if you can continue to delegate the task on a permanent basis. Then you can make that task part of the delegatee’s job, and no longer part of yours.  Also, leave your ego behind. You are NOT the only person in the world that can do the delegated task. And don’t delegate horrible tasks. If you’ve got some horrible tasks, find a way to get rid of them.

2. Clarify the results you want.

Be specific and put a timescale on completion. Give the necessary resources. If appropriate, tell others what you’ve done so that if they normally assist you, they can now assist the delegatee.

3. Delegate the result you want, not the method.

Give the delegate space to do things her way. It’s a common mistake to delegate both the task and the method. This is suffocating.

4. Be patient.

The delegate will not be as skilled as you are straight away, but they will learn. Coach them. Trust them. Don’t micromanage them.

5. Recognition.

Recognise them when the task is over and say thank you.

In my experience, people in organisations usually work at far too low a level. Almost everyone is capable of performing at a much higher level and would enjoy the chance to do so. It’s your role as a manager to help your staff reach their potential.

With effective delegation, you can raise your game and your team’s game – it’s a win-win, and it’s one of the major elements of effective personal and organisational productivity.

What can you delegate right now?