It's that time of year again...
Instead of vowing to lose weight, or exercise more, I've decided to take on a real challenge - to adopt the same attitude Randy Pausch had for the last year of his life.
He's an inspiration.
And if you haven't see Randy's last lecture...
This week our company may have to bid farewell to a good customer of 25 years.
We don't want to. He's making us.
We believe we make some of the best products in our industry. (We're number 1, by long shot in all our markets). For one of our products, the "industry life expectancy" is about 15 years. No one services their product beyond that timeframe (except us, if we can still obtain original parts).
Our customer has been using our product for a decade longer than that.
Fact is, that it's time to replace, not to repair. The original replacement parts for the device were discontinued by our vendor almost ten years ago. There are no original replacement parts in existance.
In these trying economic times, our intrepid customer has found a third party supplier who will manufacture replacement parts (but for some strange reason won't install them). Instead he suggests that WE install 3rd party parts in OUR equipment.
For many reasons, this isn't a good idea.
1. We don't want to assume ANY liability for untested parts made by someone else.
2. We know the 3rd party vendor's quality on other parts (and they are inferior to ours).
3. They could potentially cause a cascade failure of other components.
4. We don't want to put our good reputation at risk.
5. Probably the best reason of all - we don't think the 3rd party parts will work and the customer could be throwing good money away.
It's like a patient arriving at the hospital with an artificial heart he purchased somewhere and asking YOU (the surgeon) to install it, so he can save some money.
Not very likely.
No logical argument will work. Our customer feels that he is being let down or worse yet, "forced" into making a replacement purchase - all because a third party competitor, unrealistically got his hopes up.
And so, it is with heavy heart that we say goodbye to our good customer - at least for now.
After he learns his lesson with our competition, I'm pretty sure, he'll be back.
It's now time to develop next year's business plan. For many of us whose fiscal year coincides with the calendar year, the planning process begins in October and takes many weeks of negotiation before finally being agreed to.
This year is especially challenging. With the U.S. and World Economy in the tank, you can already hear the excuses from around the company.
"Next year, we'll be lucky to match this year's sales". And, if the naysayers win the argument, it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Because you'll be playing defense. You'll try not to lose orders to the competition, instead of winning orders. The "poor economy" excuse will be your emotional safety net. Your team will start rationalizing results against even poorer performers. We may suck - but not as badly as (insert competitor's name here).
In trying times, business leaders need to take a lesson from Sea Captains. In rough weather, experienced Mariners turn their ships into the waves. They take adversity head on. To do otherwise could result in being broadsided by a wave and risk capsizing the vessel.
This year we aren't making plans to protect this year's sales, we're making plans to grow them.
Our captain is steering the ship into the waves.
We're focusing on our opportunities around the world. We're adding to our sales team. We're improving our sales processes. We're mining for gold within our tremendous customer database. We're finding ways to improve and cement our relationships with key customers and partners.
We have all hands on deck.
And we'll survive the storm.
A friend of mine recently blogged about John Kotter's new book in which he discusses urgency in business. How do you get people to act with a sense of urgency?
I've also heard it described as "lighting a fire under someone".
That's a pretty apt description.
There are three conditions that must be present to start a fire. You need a combustible material, a source of ignition and oxygen.
In business, the combustible material is the talented employee who isn't listened to (or who doesn't speak up). The employee who knows what is wrong and knows what to do to fix the situation - but doesn't feel that they have a voice. They are frustrated that their efforts are being compromised by poor process or ineffective execution of the current process. They clearly see an opportunity to improve, but feel powerless to affect change. They are a tinderbox of great ideas.
The "spark" (ignition source) is the observant manager who identifies the employee and the opportunity - who listens to the idea and puts the wheels in motion to help bring the opportunity to life. Provide the tools to help effect change and empower the employee to get it done. The "spark" could be a small capital investment in equipment, tools or additional manpower. Give a motivated employee the tools to help effect change they believe in and watch what happens. Allow them to own the idea and to make it a success.
The final ingredient is oxygen. Think of this as providing "breathing space" to your employee to work their idea. Allow them to make some mistakes, adapt and succeed. Resist the temptation to jump in and "be a manager". Coach, mentor, encourage, suggest, but don't do. Allow your employee to succeed on their own terms.
Once your fire is lit, watch how brightly it burns.
And start looking for your next tinderbox.
Thanks to Gene Wright who led me to this Robert Scoble and David Allen interview on Getting Things Done.
We've recently had some measure of success implementing a SharePoint intranet and I recognize that without planning it, we've managed to implement several of the steps that Dave Allen espouses to Getting Things Done.
Enjoy.
This is a question worth asking yourself periodically.
From time to time we're all guilty of getting into a rut at work - slogging through paperwork, handling routine requests. In most companies, what we do is necessary, but are we essential?
Essential implies belonging to the very nature of a thing and therefore being incapable of removal without destroying the thing itself or its character
What are you bringing to your job that no one else could? Attitude? Efficiency? Ideas? Execution? How vital are you to your company?
Would your fellow employees vote you to the company All Star team?
Better to ask (and answer) this question for yourself, than have someone ask it for you.
Thanks to Seth Godin for posting a link to this video, which illustrates the problems of "group think" in larger companies. Not unlike Dilbert cartoons, this video parody struck a little too close to home.
It's what happens when the journey becomes the destination - when work activity trumps results.
Enjoy.
I've been spending more and more of my time recently looking at reducing process waste.
Once you begin looking for waste, you begin to see it everywhere.
It's like buying a new car. You only notice how many other people are driving YOUR model after you've taken delivery!
In my search for waste (process improvement) I'm involved in departmental projects throughout the company. And I've discovered that my I.T. department is not immune.
If I could magically undo some of our previous practices, I'd start by reducing the I.T. peripheral "clutter".
No more dual monitors.
No more personal printers.
No more PC speakers.
Fewer docking stations.
No more projectors.
We've all heard the arguments FOR all this stuff. I need dual monitors for productivity enhancement. Really? How many more sales will you be delivering if I get you that second monitor? Will you be completing projects faster? How much faster? Will you communicate better? How will we measure this?
Once the first dual monitor shows up, its not productivity that spawns the next one and the next one. It's generally a status issue.
The same holds for personal printers. While everyone knows that printers are idle 99% of the time, it seems like everyone has to have one sitting on their desk. God forbid we should have to walk 30 feet to a high speed network printer!
Consider the walk a printing deterrent. Consider it part of the company health plan.
Sometimes the argument is that we need a personal printer for "sensitive" documents.
Print sensitive documents? As soon as a document is printed, you've virtually given up all security control, unless you immediately shred it or lock it away somewhere. Printing is about the LEAST secure activity you can do. Better to leave the document hidden or password protected on the network than to print it! And think of the waste!
1. Unique printer cartridges require you to keep a wide variety in stock or risk continually ordering unique replacements.
2. It means having to "learn" the quirks of several dozen printer types.
3. It means supplying paper. Filing paper. Shredding paper. Discarding paper. Waste. Waste. Waste.
4. Filing storage (cabinets, floor space, key control, archiving process, off site storage, archival rotation and destruction).
And don't get me started on PC speakers.
There are few things more annoying than listening to a cubemate's latest YouTube selection. These days we can all purchase headphones for less money and greater privacy!
Docking stations do serve a useful purpose - if the laptop travels frequently. But in many cases, docking stations are installed in case a person has to travel. A quick walk around our facility at the end of a workday will demonstrate the point. Laptops sitting in docking stations. Or docking stations allocated to people who seldom travel. And in our company if you have a personal PC at home, you don't need to take your laptop from work to get secure access to your business files.
I'm not immune to wasteful practices. We recently had a projector bulb fail. If you've ever had to replace one, you know they can be expensive - around $350. And they never seem to last as long as the manufacturer says they should. One of my guys asked me to consider a large flat screen TV/monitor. I prefer the resolution better. They install neatly on a wall and they have a longer life than projectors seem to. Larger up front investment (maybe) but better value over the life of the device.
I used to work for a manager who could tell how efficiently a company was run by the cleanliness and organisation of the warehouse. A neat and quiet warehouse indicated to him, that operations were well organized and efficient.
I take the same measure by walking around the office area and counting PC and network peripherals.
(Full disclosure: I may be a freak of nature. My desk is completely empty except for one small pile of papers (mostly handwritten notes to myself) and my laptop.
No docking station. No additional monitor. No personal printer. No in/out box).
It wasn't always that way for me. In previous positions I was comforted by the piles of paper, the unread industry magazines, the overflowing in box. It wasn't necessary. it was just a habit.
It's amazing how execution can improve when you strip away the "peripheral creature comforts".
And you'll enjoy the cost savings too.
I had the priviledge of speaking to a friend's MBA class recently. Here's the presentation I gave.
Ancient civilizations passed along tribal knowledge in a variety of ways - through storytelling, apprenticeships, rites of passage.
Some documented their history and beliefs in hieroglyphs or cave drawings or in sculpture.
Rituals were extremely important.
In ancient times, sharing knowledge was essential for survival.
In modern times, it seems we've lost the habit of sharing. Perhaps we don't see it as essential to our survival anymore.
After all, if we want food, we go to the grocery store. Want it prepared? Go to the Drive Thru at McDonalds. If we need shelter, we rent an apartment or buy a house. Need transportation? There are a dozen car dealerships within 10 miles.
The price we pay for convenience, is that we've lost our skills at capturing tribal knowledge. Skills learned within business tend to stay in our heads. We aren't taught on the job anymore, we learn on the job. The wisdom of the skilled craftsman isn't shared like it once was.
And we're all the worse for it. As our population ages, many businesses are facing the growing threat of losing their "tribal knowledge". The most experienced employees, who have long contributed to the company's success through their individual contributions, have never bothered to share their knowledge with others. In some companies, sharing meant losing power, leverage or stature and so it was actually discouraged.
So how do we go about capturing our tribal knowledge?
Start by starting. Recognize the need. Conceptualize the business benefits. Make it a priority. Implement a sharing tool and develop a sharing culture. Position sharing as a win/win strategy rather than a zero sum game.
Corporate intranets have tried to serve this purpose, but many fall short. Intranets are used like the Yellow Pages. They're there if you need them. But many times they're like a one way street - a reference tool. True collaboration requires that everyone contribute to communal knowledge. Effective intranets facilitate a two way dialogue. Ideas are gleaned from every corner of the company and are surfaced for discussion and evaluation by all.
For some, this is a painful endeavor. Documenting ideas, participating in discussion boards, blogging are all time consuming efforts. It is so much easier to pick up the phone and tell someone your opinion. But the problem with this is the fact that you're telling someONE. This process is inefficient and in larger organizations, one to one communication is never captured in the collective conscience.
Here are a few suggestions to try to engage your team in capturing tribal knowledge.
Provide an intranet where everyone can contribute. Co-locate access to business applications, reporting tools, news and discussion.
Position your intranet as the "Town Square" - the intersection of all your company's activities - work, play, recognition (parades), initiatives and news.
Encourage people to visit. Where you used to communicate via mass email, instead, write a blog post and email the link. Instead of printing and distributing reports. Create a framework where project participants update tasks and projects in real time. Then make it easy for anyone in the company to be easily informed (custom email alerts, RSS feeds etc).
Develop rich, plentiful, interesting and essential content.
Avoid, where possible, content approval management routines. This places publishing burden on some individuals and discourages the capturing of spontaneous ideas.
Nurture, coax, encourage. You're trying to create a new corporate habit. It will take some time.
But the journey will be worth it!
Are you a Starter or a Closer?
Starters
1. Arrive at work with no set goals for the day. You would like to get something done, but don't have a plan.
2. Spend most days adjusting to the time demands of others. Your agenda is set for you, not by you.
3. Typically have many tasks in progress at any one time. And they're ALL important.
4. Prefer to do things yourself, rather than delegate them, because others wouldn't do as good a job as you would (if you had the time).
5. Intentions are noble, but deadlines are frequently missed.
6. Always find the time to begin a new task, but can't find the time to complete an existing one.
7. Have difficulty saying "No" to others' demands.
8. Are more of a "go with the flow" person than someone who "makes waves".
9. Hold the belief that if you're putting in 40 (or more) hours of work, you're doing your job.
10. Tend to do more "gathering of information and reporting" than "doing".
11. Count meetings as "work" - even if they don't accomplish anything.
12. Spend a portion of every day explaining to others why something isn't done yet.
13. Tend to be an individual problem solver and tend to "reinvent the wheel".
14. Starters try to eat the whole elephant in one sitting. You see large projects as daunting, difficult and have difficulty breaking a project into smaller manageable tasks.
Closers
1. Arrive at work knowing exactly what needs to get done.
2. Are in control of their daily schedule - will refuse (or counter-propose) meetings if they jeopardize a deadline.
3. Are focused on a few important tasks and have the discipline to defer less important tasks.
4. Can effectively delegate tasks and get things accomplished with their team. They understand that even if the task might not be (initially) done to their standards, that providing a learning opportunity to a junior member of the team will both advance the completion of the task and better prepare your team for the next one.
5. Deadlines are personal. Making and meeting a commitment is very important to you. Your reputation is on the line.
6. Are comfortable with prioritizing and helping others understand the difference between important projects and urgent projects.
7. Can gracefully say No to a request (or Yes, but not until Task A,B and C are completed).
8. You measure your job performance in terms of tasks and projects completed, rather than time spent.
9. You understand that by focusing on completing Project tasks on time, that the overall Project deadlines (milestones) manage themselves.
10. You are selfish with your time. If you're invited to a meeting that doesn't have a specific objective you ask the organizer for the meeting objective or don't attend. Not all meetings are bad. Just the ones that don't accomplish anything.
11. You're focused on the future but working in the present. (How do I get this task finished to get on with the next one?)
12. You want to get to the answer quickly. Don't have a problem in asking for expert advice if it moves the project forward. It's the answer that's important, not who provides it.
13. You view projects as the sum of their tasks.
There's a great old fashioned word that sums up what many managers look for in their employees.
This noun is rarely (if ever) mentioned in the halls of Business Schools. It never appears in best selling business books. It doesn't appear in the pages of Forbes or on any of the financial news networks.
The word is so old, that arguably it is out of style. And that word is: gumption.
For those of you not old enough to know what it means;
n. Informal.
1. Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.
2. Guts; spunk.
3. Common sense.
Perhaps it's time to reintroduce the word into our business lexicon. I want to work with people who have gumption. I like initiative, courage, common sense - that sense of individual vitality that for the most part is missing from many organizations.
And yet, aren't the people who are most valued withn your company those that have gumption?
But we don't talk about it much. We chose words like leadership (evoking images of George Washington in the bow of a boat crossing the Delaware River) or of Braveheart leading his followers into battle. For most, leadership seems daunting, unattainable - too lofty an ambition. And so, many of our employees don't aspire to be leaders.
Perhaps our organizational development efforts would have better results if we stopped trying to create leaders and started to encourage gumption.
Because gumption is within anyone's grasp.
I am working with several business teams at the moment.
I am not a subject matter expert. In fact I know very little about the topics at hand. And part of my job is to help these teams function more effectively. Even though I don't know much about the subject matter, I do have two very powerful weapons on my side.
Ignorance and enthusiasm.
I'm not pushing any agenda. I'm not encumbered by "why the way things are" (or aren't). I hold no bias against any of the individuals on the team. I simply want to know more about the topic and how we're trying to get better.
And so I ask questions. LOTS of questions. And I listen to the answers. And I observe how the team interacts. And generally, I'm impressed. In fact, most times I discover a talented group of people who can be performing at a higher level. They just don't realize how good they can be, nor do they know how to get there.
But I see it.
And that feeds my second secret weapon.
Enthusiasm.
I'm typically a "glass 3/4 full" guy. I look at why we will be successful - not come up with the reasons we won't be. The reason is simple survial. If you think you'll fail, you will. Don't even begin. Will there be challenges? roadblocks? bumps in the road? Sure there will. But we'll work through them.
We will make mistakes? YES.
But we'll learn from them.
My favorite phrases (and they almost ALWAYS come up during initial team meetings) is; "The company doesn't do that." "Or the company won't allow us to try that".
To which I reply; "WE ARE THE COMPANY!"
The only thing holding us back is US.
As long as we view "the company" as an invisible deterrent, we feel powerless. Once we realize that WE are empowered to address issues, it can unleash pent up creativity, energy, encourage change and achieve some amazing results.
I was out for dinner with friends last night. Sid spent some time talking about his former boss who had just moved on to another company. His work experience over the past two years has been frustrating. Sid has well over twenty years experience in HR - mostly within the Organizational Development space.
He was hired for his experience.
He was hired for his expertise.
And in two years, his boss never once asked the question: "What do you think?"
I'm sure the irony was lost on his boss. Organizational Development is designed to improve the performance of individuals across the organization. Much of the time it means finding a way to allow everyone to contribute at a higher level. It means nurturing individuals' commitment to people, projects, strategies, operations, customers...
And all that starts by asking the question: "What do you think?".
Because until you're willing to ask the question (and listen to the answer), you're not going to organizationally develop anything.
Engagement begins with engaging.
Until you're ready to give people resonsibilities instead of defining jobs, you're not ready for Organization Development. Don't even start.
Because giving people responsibilities, means giving them a say. It means allowing them the freedom to achieve, to excel (and to fail and to learn and to grow).
Seth Godin's blog today is about Marketing. No big surprise, that's what he does. Today he talks about "the four words". Here's an excerpt.
As I read this, I wondered aloud whether there was any difference in this approach to Marketing and a thoughtful approach to Leadership.Four words:
Make big promises; overdeliver.
If you can define great marketing in fewer words than that, you win.
"Big promises": treating people with respect, improving self-esteem, delivering results, contacting as often as you say you will but not more, including side effects in your planning, delivering joy, meeting spec, being on time, connecting people to one another, delivering consistency, offering value and on and on. Caring.
In the last couple of weeks I've had a chance to reacquaint myself with a couple of great local I.T. vendors. They're helping us craft a Disaster Recovery strategy.
For larger companies this is relatively easy. Just throw gobs of money, time and resources at the problem and away you go. It's actually easier to justify DR in a larger business environment than in a smaller one - even though the predictable outcome of NOT having a recovery plan is the same. (I've had to do both.)
For privately held firms or smaller public firms, "DR on a budget" is a lofty challenge. Duplicating a server rack at another site is expensive. Having all your applications hosted at a 3rd party data center is expensive. There has to be a better alternative.
This week, a couple of local vendors are really stepping up. Our shop is thinking about virtualizing our servers - both for the daily benefit of leveraging unused processing power and because we can take a "snapshot" of the virtualized servers to shorten recovery time in the event of a disaster.
Virtualizing servers effectively separates applications from hardware, allowing the applications to be easily transported and recovered into another virtualized environment very quickly.
Think of it this way.
Circa 1950, every office Manager had their own secretary to do typing. One Manager. One secretary. Sometimes the secretary was overwhelmed with work and sometimes there was no work to do. Then someone came up with a different idea.
By introducing "typing pools", a group of secretaries were organized to handle the typing needs of a group of Managers. In this way, no single secretary got overwhelmed with work.
Server virtualization works the same way. Most servers are responsible for one main application or service. By pooling processing power across applications, we can make better use of our servers.
Well, once we get our servers virtualized, we benefit on a daily basis. But, in the event of a disaster, where can we recover? We're all set to go. We have snapshot tape backups of our virtual servers in hand.
Now what?
Well, it turns out that there are NOT a whole lot of great options for small business. If we want to recover our data at a hosted site, we need to rent the site as if we were using it every day. This option is way too expensive (or we'd already be doing it).
So the way I see it, we've just uncovered a business opportunity for our vendors. And to our vendors' credit, they see it too. So now, they're trying to figure out how they might host DR services for small business. The idea would be to setup a series of virtual servers in their data center, then contract to several companies for the same recovery space to cover their equipment costs. And voila! An affordable DR solution for smaller businesses.
Companies like SunGuard and IBM have been doing this for years for big companies. Now it's time that someone offered the same protection for smaller business - at prices that smaller businesses can afford.
The lesson here, is that some customers simply invite their vendors into the office to be beaten up on price. Smarter customers take a look for opportunities where both customer and vendor can be better together.
There are almost always win/win outcomes, if everyone is willing to look for them.
I am continually amazed at how often people fail to demonstrate the ability to "get stuff done".
Some call it a failure of leadership. Some say it's due to a lack of organization. Or maybe it's simply poor implementation skills. Or a lack of a coherent strategic vision.
Truth is, it could be any (or all) of these things.
I am not an expert, but I have learned a few things over the years.
The first, is. If you have ten #1 priorities, you don't have any priorities at all. You simply have a list. And the problem with an unprioritized big list, is that it allows those responsible for the list to "touch" each task, without ever moving any single one forward significantly. The "overhead" it takes to juggle ten initiatives soaks up valuable time you could be spending on completing a task.
So, prioritize. If necessary, trim the list to a few key items. The rest can wait. Truth is, you're not making much progress on them anyway, so where's the harm?
The second rule is to assign ownership to each task. If a "team" is responsible for the completion of a task, no ONE person owns the outcome. And so each team member gains comfort in the thought that a lack of progress is probably someone else's fault.
Thirdly, ask yourself, "Have I engaged the right resources?" For example, if you're undertaking a revamp of your Job Costing processes, do you include shop floor supervisors who collect and assign labor costs? Is purchasing involved? Receiving? Accounting? Do you need someone from payroll to verify that labor hours assigned to jobs balance to payroll hours? Identifying all the process "touch points" and securing the involvement of expertise from all areas, is a basic requirement to move forward in any substantive way.
Fourth, "paint the picture". Help your team understand why this initiative is a priority. Paint the picture of what the future process might look like - what the business benefits of improvement are. Establish buy-in from the team. Remember that these people already have full time jobs. Just because they're on your team doesn't mean you have their support or buy-in. At the end of the day, each participant should be able to understand "what's in it for me?"
Fifth, parse the project. Large change initiatives are scary and daunting. If you can break up your project into manageable and easily understood milestones, you improve team understanding of each task and can easily measure progress. I always think of the old joke: How do you eat an elephant? (Answer: One bite at a time.)
Sixth. Spend your time executing the tasks, not managing the project. Use tools that allow for simple collaboration and project updating (SharePoint, Basecamp, Google Docs) - whatever works for you. This will allow you less time in meeting updates and more time to address issues and make decisions.
Careful observers of these rules will have, by now, understood the "magic" of getting things done. Design your project by providing answers to the questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How?
How often have you called a large service organization, only to be greeted by an automated system, which declares that your call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes, before connecting you to a real live human being?
I think it happens all the time.
I have a question.
If my call is being monitored for quality assurance, how come the service is so crappy?
I think that this recording must be a standard feature on big call center phone switches. You can turn it on and try to make believe you're serious about providing a great customer service experience.
Or you can actually provide the great customer service experience.
Your customers know the difference. Do you?
Because if you are really monitoring the calls, and reps aren't able to answer customer questions, you may be inadvertently saying "We're monitoring our customer service. And this is the best we can do".
So try turning off the feature. Sit beside your reps and coach them. Spend time with your new call center reps and demonstrate your company's service standards.
Set the bar high.
Sometimes using less technology yields better results.
It was only recently that I've come to notice the herding instincts of paper.
Almost as soon as it comes through the network or desktop printer, it seems to search out others of it's kind.
Printing on paper, is just usually the first step in a long process of non value adding activities that seem to attach themselves to that innocent, first piece of printed paper.
Once it's printed, then
So much non value adding activity surrounds EACH piece of printed paper, that one wonders why we haven't tried harder to achieve the "paperless office".
Are our customers really willing to pay for all of this? I don't think so.
I think the reason is, I.T. guys like myself, push paperless technology, rather than making a case that printing paper launches a series of non-value adding activities that are really expensive in aggregate.
What we failed to do, was make the cost benefits case.
Businesses understand costs pretty well. And if they are to change behaviors (like printing), there had better be a good reason for it.
Want to go paperless? Try demonstrating the herding nature of paper to your company.
When you search Google for images using the keyword "Agility", Google returns tons of pictures like the one at the left.
Lots of dogs running through obstacle courses. The other general image is of athletes running a tire drill.
What the search doesn't return are pictures of businesses or processes.
Perhaps it's difficult to convey the concept of an agile process or an agile business in an image.
Or perhaps, examples are difficult to find.
I'm currently doing some work for a family owned manufacturing company who want to investigate lean manufacturing. Like every business that has contemplated change, the potential rewards (less waste, faster processes, less process cost) will be challenged by past success (always been profitable) and a stable long term workforce, who have always done things the same way.
It's a classic struggle - one that EVERY company goes through.
Judging by the fully booked schedules of the Lean Process consulting companies, our company is not alone in the desire to be lean.
(Aside: If you're a consulting company who claims to be an expert in Lean Processes and can't find a way to return a customer call, perhaps your processes need improving?)
The journey will be exciting, scary and hopefully beneficial. Over the course of the next few months I'll document our progress, challenges and successes and perhaps we can share learning experiences along the way.
Can you imagine working at a company, where one of the products you sell, is a book written by employees about what their customer service culture means to them?
Sounds outlandish!
Sounds like online shoe retailer, Zappos.
Tip of the hat to 37signals blog for including a link to a summary of Zappo's presentation at the SXSW conference. And if you want to see the accompanying slideshow, click here.
Great lessons in E-Commerce, outlandish Customer Service, the importance of hiring into and ingraining company culture and treating customer service like an investment instead of an expense.
Good education has got to be good entertainment
Michael Lee Stallard has written a great manifesto entitled: The Connection Culture - A New Source of Competitive Advantage. available on the ChangeThis website.
Read it this weekend.
I'm not kidding.
He talks about three core values that are essential to the human connection; Vision, Value, Voice.
I've seen teams come together in amazing ways when these values are present. Hopefully Stallard's observations will ring true for you too.
Jim Heskitt has a post on HBR's Working Knowledge entitled "Where Will Management Innovation Take Us?" It discusses some of the concepts in Gary Hamel's new book entitled; The Future of Management.
He argues that Management Innovation, to date, has been an oxymoron (my words not his), but that its time has come.
He argues for the transition from a command and control model, to a nimble, team based, single purpose focused model where innovation is in everyone's job description.
I think innovation starts and ends with the org chart.
Modern businesses are comprised of jobs, feeding heirarchical reporting structures. Very neat. Very organized. Well documented job descriptions, complete with lists of required tasks to be performed. Easy to measure individual performance (against a pre-defined task list). The focus is on task management. We measure people in the same way we monitor a manufacturing process - throughput.
There's no place for innovation within this structure.
BUT, give a person a role (with responsibilities) instead of a job (with a set of tasks to be performed, wrapped in pre-defined boundaries) and watch what happens.
No longer does the company have to spend countless hours "supervising" the tasks of subordinates. They need only measure employee impact. Is the role being performed or not? The position tasks become the domain of the individual within the role. (S)he is the master (or mistress) of their domain. They are set free to innovate, to try new things, to experiment, to fail, to learn, to adapt, to grow in their role.
As a manager in this new age setting, you set direction, maintain singleness of purpose, encourage innovation and coach the team (without providing the answers).
You "set free" unprecedented innovation within the ranks.
All this comes at a cost, of course. Working in an environment of responsibilities vs tasks involves a huge leap of faith and comfort with change. But after all, isn't that at the core of innovation?
The major roadblock to Management Innovation is embodied in a phrase I once heard from a leader in a multi-billion dollar organization. He said: "I don't mind change, as long as we don't have to do anything differently."
That says it all.
After spending some time with Google Sites, here's a suggestion for Google. Start a premium YouTube channel.
Why not allow private YouTube channels using the same privacy logic as you do for Google sites - based upon a common email domain or by specific invitation?
I think this would open your service up to companies, who simply don't have the resources to setup their own video servers, nor want the muss and fuss of managing, cataloging and publishing the content.
You folks have a user friendly framework already setup. You have a huge base of users who are comfortable with the technology. It's time to help spread this creativity to the workplace. Imagine a private company site with playlists entitled:
Employee Life at XYX Company: with an introductory video welcoming new employees to the company, providing a virtual tour, outlining the HR Policies and any Safety rules.
XYX Training Playlist: Where you could go for training on systems, processes or professional development.
Product (or Service) Overview: Where your products or services are explained.
News: Short videos of what is happening at your company, including financial reporting, major project updates or milestones.
And get this. Companies might even PAY for it!
Just an idea.
John Quelch of Harvard Business School, has recently written a brief entitled, Marketing Your Way Through a Recession. You can find it here.
Add his suggestions to the 20 tactics I previously wrote about and let me know if we've missed any obvious ones.
I spent some time this past weekend, with Google Sites, the new FREE service from Google that enables Team sharing and collaboration. I've long been a huge supporter of tools that enable teams to collaborate and so I had to give Sites a try.
Now I'm not highly technical. I don't code with HTML. And I had no trouble creating a sample company intranet site and also a Customer Site for a service business.
I was easily able to embed and use all the other Google tools (Docs, Calendars, Email, Picassa slideshow, Presentations, iGoogle gadgets) as well as the Sites tools (Filing Cabinet, Announcements, Dashboard and Lists.)
Here's a screenshot of the sample customer service site I created.
Now I've only spent a couple of days with the application but I can see that it will begin to level the playing field for small to mid-sized businesses who simply don't have access to the I.T. resources that their larger competitors do.
With Sites, companies with 10-300 employees could really support improved communication and collaboration.
And they could also use the tool to get closer to their customers.
Sites offer you the opportunity to create a variety of sites under a single account. So I created a sample company intranet and then created a sample customer service site, where my fictitious company could track and communicate issues resolution, share documents, push announcements and even IM with customer contacts.
All in all, my time was well spent.
If you're involved in a small business, or work within a team setting, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you checked this out.
I've begun to play with Grand Central - a new telephone contact service and recent Google acquisition. They are being promoted through Blogger.
In case you haven't heard of it, Grand Central is a web service that allows you to utilize a "storefront" phone number, with which to communicate with friends, family, colleagues and customers.
The service is FREE.
Once you sign up, you are assigned a Grand Central telephone number. It's THIS number that you advertise to the general public. Calls made to your Grand Central number can automatically be forwarded to any of your personal phone numbers (cell, home, business) or can be forwarded directly into voicemail.
None of your private numbers is ever revealed to potential callers.
And best of all, your voicemails are automatically captured at Grand Central for you. When voicemails are received, you can be alerted via email or SMS. Or you can pick them up via phone.
Voicemails can be saved or forwarded via email. You can even record calls on the fly and save the content as you would a voicemail.
One of the features I'm testing is the WebCall button. It's a piece of HTML code that you can embed on your website, that allows internet users to place a call to your Grand Central number. It's a great way to encourage website visitors to make direct contact.
By simply clicking on the button, the visitor is prompted to enter their phone number and Grand Central does the rest - connecting the call to whichever personal number to specified or by allowing a prospect or customer to leave a voicemail (your choice).
If you conduct business via a blog style website, you can easily solicit verbal feedback to posts and post the voicemails (as you would comments) on your website.
You can easily import existing Outlook or vCard contacts into Grand Central to automatically label messages from known contacts as they are saved in your voicemail box. Once your contacts have been setup, you can configure Grand Central to handle each contact differently. You can choose to have important customers automatically forwarded to your cell phone. Friends and family could be directed to your home phone.
Unknown callers could be immediately directed into voicemail to be called back later, added to a spam folder or permanently blocked. You can even have Grand Central play a "this number has been disconnected" message, under circumstances you configure!
So far, the service has been very intuitive to setup and use. I'm certain that over the next few days, I'll discover great new ways to use the service.
As I do, I'll let you know.
Many would argue that the I.T. function became more effective after the development of Steering Teams - regular participation by company leaders discussing and debating technology policies and systems development.
The more involved senior leaders are with an initiative, department or function the more commitment, understanding and the sharper the strategic focus. It's all about alignment, expectations and buy-in. And regular exposure to the I.T. function helps foster that.
So why don't we do the same thing with Organizational Development? For many HR departments, the O.D. team is comprised of hybrid "skunkworks" HR people who don't administer policy, explain benefits or manage compensation..
They're out there in the lines of business, working as missionaries, trying to develop momentum behind the principles of succession planning, employee development and nurturing great employee performance.
But these plans seem to be developed within the bowels of HR - then sold to various constituencies within the organization. They act (and are treated) as service providers rather than partners.
Unfortunately for us all, OD efforts are often times seen as the "project of the week" instead of an ongoing (and critical) business process.
It's a battle of O.D. vs. corporate A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder).
From an I.T. perspective, I think we could benefit from a much higher degree of collaboration between I.T. and the O.D. folks. After all, achieving the benefits of systems deployment is almost entirely dependent on how well our employees understand our processes and use the systems. The O.D. team can make a big difference in system acceptance, change management, training and individual performance improvement.
But we aren't at the table.
Because there IS no table.
I'd rather dovetail I.T. user training and performance improvement within a corporate framework/strategy rather than do it independently. We aren't great communicators. We aren't great trainers. We could use your help to improve our performance.
Perhaps we could begin with an O.D. steering team?
Until then, let's have lunch.
The unreadable image above is a snapshot of the Computing Scene Investigation we undertook at one company. Company and site names (which appeared down the left hand side of the spreadsheet) have been removed to protect the innocent.
We actually printed out the spreadsheet on a very large scale color plotter and it covered an entire wall of my office.
What you're looking at is an Application Map. The sites (were) listed down the left side and all the business processes are listed across the top of the spreadsheet. Each cell within the spreadsheet identified the application that supported each business process at a specific site.
Different applications are identified by different colors. The "application color legend" appears at the bottom of the chart.
At first glance, it looks as if someone threw confetti at a wall. And this version shows the application landscape AFTER a substantial ERP implementation (the light blue color).
Think about this for a second.. 34 different applications requiring, maintenance, support, training, interoperability, data mining, security, backup and recovery planning over a mix of centralized and distributed computing platforms.
Now let me give you one more piece of information. Each plant performed essentially the same function.
If you were to do some psychological forensics by staring at this diagram for a while, what would you determine?
1. Clearly, each site's I.T. solutions were historically chosen and managed locally.
2. The variety of applications - even within the same function might lead you to believe that the sites didn't talk to one another.
3. You might expect that business processes, system security and segregation of duties would be varied and difficult to enforce, both within a site and across the enterprise.
4. Reporting to Head office would be done with a myriad of different reports, which would need to be collated and re-summarized at the Corporate offices.
5. The reporting processes would be cumbersome, slow and likely not entirely accurate (apples to apples).
6. The entire infrastructure would be expensive to maintain and slow to change.
7. No shared services.
8. The company would not likely be positioned to compete in the 21st Century.
9. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance would be a challenge.
10. Autonomy and site performance trumps overall corporate performance.
11. Very little information (customer, vendor, business processes) shared across sites.
Since I was new to the company, I had asked for an application map. None existed. It took us several weeks to put the pieces of the puzzle together. No one had ever looked at the business process support systems in this way before.
But when you do, it can tell you an awful lot about the company.
Just for fun, why not ask your I.T. folks if thay have an application map of your business processes. If they don't, you may not be able to easily understand I.T. consolidation opportunities and achieve potential cost reductions, flexibility and the ability to improve the speed of change.
If they have one, take a look at it and perform your own CSI forensics.
It'll tell you a lot about how your company operates and where your big I.T. opportunities are.
As promised, here's Part 2 from yesterday's post.
Here's 18 things your business wants I.T. to know. I hope both posts become a conversation starter if your I.T. and business relationships are falling short of expectations.
1. Sometimes dealing with you folks is like trying to communicate in a foreign language. Please get rid of the acronyms and speak in terms we can understand.
2. When we request a new application or enhancement, you're always too busy. If we had a better idea of what was on your plate and when the projects were going to be completed, we could do a better job of helping prioritize.
3. We need to work together to better train our employees on our applications. User manuals are NOT getting the job done.
4. We need you involved until we achieve original business benefits expectations from our projects. Simply delivering the enhancement or system isn't enough.
5. We don't have confidence in our systems. Sometimes they go down, then come back up, without explanation. We don't know why it happened, nor what you're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again.
6. You don't measure your performance in ways that are meaningful to US.
7. If we're short with you at Helpdesk, please understand that we're frustrated that some technical issue is preventing us from getting our jobs done and serving our customers. And there's nothing more important than serving our customers.
8. If the same problems occur over and over again, you can understand our lack of confidence in your abilities.
9. It would be helpful if you could let us know well in advance when systems will be down and why.
10. When you've fixed a Helpdesk problem, will you please let us know? Sometimes we're waiting for a solution that has already been delivered without our knowledge!
11. Can we please agree on a common process to evaluate and prioritize I.T. projects? What we have in place at the moment isn't working.
12. Why did we do that last system upgrade? It seems like we had to retrain all our people without any real benefits! We need to discuss this before you simply proceed with it.
13. People are suspicious of what they don't understand. The better you can explain what you do (and why) the more comfortable we will be.
14. We're willing to do whatever it takes to perform better. If you have some ideas, speak up!
15. Please don't close Helpdesk tickets until WE say the problem has been resolved!
16. Why do you always blame convoluded I.T. processes on Sarbanes-Oxley? What is Sarbanes-Oxley and why should we care?
17. Our business spends a lot of time refining business processes, trying to make them lean. Do you do that? If not, why not?
18. if you want to understand how to better serve internal customers, just ask! Provide Helpdesk surveys, Training surveys and Post-Project Forensic surveys and report back what you're doing to improve results the next time. Demonstrate your continuous improvement process.
What would you add to the list?
While anyone can accomplish the same for themselves with any free RSS Reader, the fact is that many people either don't have the time or the inclination to do it for themselves.
The benefit to the blogs that he's selected for inclusion in the Alltop framework is simple - more eyeballs. By aggregating the best blogs around selected topics, each will benefit from proximity to excellence within it's category.
The idea was inspired by PopURLs, and it's very clean design was executed by Electric Pulp.
I expect that this site, like Guy's previous project Trumors, will be a success. He's removing the barriers to readership, by building the reading lists for the readers. You don't need to understand RSS or how to use a Reader. No need to organize blogs within topic. No need to spend the time to discover the most popular blogs. Users just need to know how to click on an article.
Chances are, as people discover Alltop, they'll become addicted to the various blogs featured within.
This is an idea worth adapting for Corporate use.
In my experience, the value of RSS is not being leveraged effectively within most businesses. We still rely on printed reports, or emailed presentations and time consuming update/status meetings and conference calls. Getting information is still a challenge, requiring time and effort.
Imagine a world where your company intranet was a simple interface like Alltop. Imagine headings like;
Strategy - featuring internal blog feeds on market development, sales and marketing efforts, geographic expansion or acquisitions
Talent - fed by Job opening blog (or application) and your Corporate YouTube training channel
Execution - fed by your Lean Processes Blog, 5S efforts, Process Improvement project blogs or RSS capable Project Management applications etc
Ideas & Innovation - an assembly of thought leaders blogs (hint: check out Alltop's EGOs section).
Competition - fed by pre-defined Google Alerts for your industry and direct competition as well as RSS feeds from industry related publications.
Our Priorities - internal blogs which detail progress on the most important tasks your company is undertaking.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
Create several blogs within your organization's network. Find a couple of early adopters. Get them started publishing and show them how their efforts are seamlessly published to the company via your new Alltop style intranet.
Guy - if you could donate an open source version of Alltop for internal Corporate use, you'd likely make America a far more efficient place to work. Until that happens, I.T. people, get started on your own version!
With a looming recession on the horizon, what can your business do differently to survive the economic slowdown?
Here are twenty things you could try. All of these suggestions could work very well during good times, it's just that we seem a little more motivated as the threat increases to our bottom line.
Obviously this isn't a complete list and applicability and circumstances differ in every company.
Here they are (in no particular order.)
1. Re-evaluate employee performance. When times are booming, average and yes, sometimes below average performance is overlooked. When times get tight, you really need to get more done with fewer people.
2. Re-organize activities. Is your company filled with under utilized specialists? Could some positions be combined or tasks be reallocated so that the work previously done by 4 people could be done by three or two? Do your processes require many approvals to complete? Are they all really necessary? Do approvals add control or get in the way?
3. Prioritize. Does your company have a dozen different projects underway? If so, at least half of them will be "pet projects" - whose benefits, if ever realized will end up under the "nice to haves" column. Focus resources and your attention on the "must have" projects and get them done faster.
4. Play offense not defense. You can't "hide in your shell" and wish your way through a recession. What are some things you could be working on now, that will put you in a strategic advantage when the economy improves? Take advantage of your competition, if they've decided to "wilt". A compelling mission can keep everyone focused during dark economic days.
5. If business gets slow, perhaps now is the time to think about re-investing in your employees. Think about professional development courses or certifications (if you can afford it). Better to improve the calibre of your players when they aren't 100% distracted with daily business activities.
6. Make a list of things you should stop doing, and kill initiatives which are delivering questionable (or unmeasurable) value.
7. Improve a process. Pick a poor process and use lean principles to elinimate waste (inventory, time, rework, QA, approvals, transit/travel time, defects). What you should be left with are activities that your customers are willing to pay for! Focus on customer facing processes first (order taking, quotes, returns, service calls).
8. Cross-train. The more flexible your workforce, the better you're able to cope with surges in activities.
9. 5S your workplace.
10. Conduct an inventory cycle count when business is slow.
11. Bring the auditors in "off-cycle" when you can afford to spend time with them, making the audit process less of a burden.
12. Brainstorm how your company will be remarkable. (So different from your competition, that people will be talking about you!)
13. Think about deploying technology strategies that allow people to spend less time in meetings and more time doing projects, tasks. Building an intranet organized by department or line of business fed by RSS feeds, will eliminte those communication meetings that suck up so much time. Try cheap, intuitive, web-based 3rd party project management tools (like Basecamp) to enable groups to communicate better, manage group task lists and auto-communicate progress.
14. Find faster, more effective ways to train employees, customers, suppliers, by learning to use video, instead of replicating one on one meetings, classroom training or worse yet, writing another user manual that no one will read.
15. Visit key customers and suppliers. During tough economic times they may be more receptive to different ways of doing business, new products or services or partnering to reduce friction within your supply chain.
16. Think about that major system upgrade. Your vendors will likely have higher caliber resources available during tough economic times and pricing will never be better. Also, the internal resources needed to really embrace the new system, may be more available now than during booming economic times. You may be able to negotiate deferred payments or beneficial financing during downturns. Better to work out the process and transaction kinks during a slower business cycle.
17. If you're unfamiliar with Web2.0 marketing concepts, buy a Seth Godin book and start a company blog. Show off your company passion for what you do. Demonstrate how you'll make your customers better (or happier or whatever). Provide free value adding information. Begin to establish or reinforce a bond with your customers. Be authentic. (Or if you can't do that, just Don't be Fake!)
18. Find a way to stand out from the crowd. EST yourself. BiggEST, fastEST, coolEST, bEST, cheapEST, hottEST, spicyEST, easiEST, fatEST, thinEST, brightEST, sharpEST or most expensive (costliEST?) in the world. If you have a product or service that stands out, chances are people will start talking. And when people start talking, the word spreads and when the word spreads you begin to draw crowds. And within those crowds, the most passionate people will open their wallets.
19. Experiment like never before. Try lots of new things. Fail often and learn from your mistakes.
20. Find a way to empower your workforce. Ask them for ideas. Listen to them. Tobasco sold more hot sauce when a factory worker suggested making the bottle opening a little bigger! Great ideas are everywhere, waiting to be discovered and developed.
Have I missed some obvious ones? Feel free to add to the list!
I've spent a good deal of my working life in I.T..
And if there's one thing that has helped me maintain my sanity and enthusiasm, it's that I try not to take criticism personally. I've developed a thick skin.
And I really never had a choice.
Because the alternative, is not very productive. It leads to an "us vs. them", mentality - describing internal customers as "stupid users" and mentally excusing ourselves from addressing the issue at hand.
Hey - they should RTFM (Read the F**king Manual) if they want the answer! Or I covered that question in training! What are they? Stupid? This is an easy attitude to adopt and unchecked, it can spread quickly, kill morale and poison the department's reputation within the company.
The I.T. leadership challenge is in redefining success. Success ISN'T, turning the system on. Training success ISN'T completing the user manual.
Success is reaching the company's business performance objectives - enabling your fellow employees to effectively use your systems to achieve process excellence. If they can't do that at present, YOUR JOB IS NOT YET DONE.
Seth Godin nails this concept in todays blog entry.
If you can change the discussion from us vs. them, to "How can we (I.T. AND our internal customers) execute better?", the entire dynamic changes, for the better.
It forces you to think more creatively. If no one reads the user manual, it won't be an effective training tool. Okay, perhaps we should spend out time figuring out a type of training that people will want to use. How about trying video? Let's show people what the process looks like. Let's show people how to do the transactions. Let's show people the critical steps in each process.
Let's post the videos on our intanet so new employees can learn the same lessons. Let's ask for training delivery feedback from our employees. Let's adapt.
Let's make our infrastrucutre more bulletproof and self-healing. Instead of telling users to backup their systems, why don't we have their systems do it automatically? Instead of expecting our users to remember 20 different system passwords and to change them monthly, why don't we implement single signon?
When we are told of an application error or a hardware glitch, let's make sure we not only solve the problem, but address the source of the problem, so over time, we don't have to fix the same issue over and over again.
The I.T. journey from internal adversary to corporate partner begins with a thick skin and a refocused definition of what our jobs are really about.
The sad truth is: If your internal customers tell you that you suck, they're generally right.
