Archive for May, 2008

Leaders are always looking at ways to create growth and increase productivity. They try to select the most efficient infrastructure, the most powerful software systems, and the most talented employees. When done, the expected return is rapid growth, however one defines growth.

One area that is constantly overlooked is the function of the phone when it comes to productivity. In this day and age, I still find employees that are paid to think, using handsets. Give me a break. You can’t type well with a handset. Unless you believe a crick in the neck is a good thing. You can’t look through files easily, you can’t move freely. The combined issue is these little things impact the bigger picture.

If you can’t type while you talk on the phone, you’re not putting notes into your CRM and in turn, your company suffers. One such statistic is that one can get a 23.5% productivity jump while using a headset. This study was a banking organization and even if done incorrectly, I can tell you personally, I would never, never, never live without one.

“Companies are rarely criticized for the things that they fail to try. But they are, many times, criticized for things they tried and failed at.”

It’s what happens when those on the sidelines, who often don’t try anything, love to chime in.

Love it.

In some cases, the price you pay is a huge indicator of what type of service you’re going to receive. In other’si there’s no difference.

Just yesterday my Plantronics H-81 Tri-star headset, after 12 years, died!!!! Yes, 12 years. Without hesitation I new I needed a quick replacement so my first reaction was to view my options at plantronics.com. I had several I liked and I knew compatibility would be an issue.

I figured it best to talk to a live person or do a live chat. Plantronics was closed when I did the search so I decided to wait until morning to make the calls. While packaging up the old system, I found the name of the original company that I purchased the product from.

I called them first. Unfortunately they had stopped selling phone systems. They referred me to another company to help me with the purchase.

Tracy and I started with a few questions that basically told me that many of the systems I’d like to purchase are compatible with our office phone system. She then quoted me a price of $293.00. Then by accident, when she asked me to pick up my phone system, I hit the receiver and lost the connection.

I waited for 10 minutes and she never called me back, even though she had my number.

I tried her number, and as call-center technology works, I ended up with another individual. At the same time, I did a quick Google of the product to see the comparisons between the two products up for grabs, and I saw 3 others with prices ranging from $89 to $212. A 30% difference. I thought there was nothing for me to lose making the extra call given the $100 in savings. Besides, the vendor even mentioned if I purchased the phone, I’d get another Bluetooth phone for use with my TREO. A Plantronics promo.

I called and the individual on the other end of the phone was by far the most knowledgeable of all the calls I had made. It was not that he was cheap. It’s that his model for doing business was different. The difference enabled technology to minimize staff and to deliver resources over the phone that helped others make choices.

Credit Card in hand, I made the purchase.

Allan then asked who I looked at as a prospective vendor and what prices were they offering. The approach to competitive intelligence most likely is keeping their phones ringing given that Google searches are an easy research fix.

The irony was that I was about to pay more and get less. The company, and I say the company on purpose, did not market at all the Bluetooth extra phone from Plantronics and yet, I did ask about the exact same ear piece.

When corporate or organizational cultures become stale or conservative and you want to get individuals to start following your lead in the new direction, try this.

Take on one project and then do it so well, delivering a WSP-Wildly Successful Project that everyone has to take notice. Increase retention by 40%. Secure the biggest deal in history. Launch a product that hits #1 in days. Hire a great talent from a competitor that everyone has wanted.

What happens when you create such a WSP is that others may be jealous and find fault, but they can’t ignore that you’ve got the leadership skills and persistance to make something happen.

Here’s a real-life example.

Several years ago 5 people on a phone line decided to start the New York chapter of the National Speakers Association. At the start of the conversation, I had no interest in helping out, yet when I hung up the phone, I had been nominated to be the chapter’s first president. I could not believe what happened. Over the next few months I created a strategy, decided on the strategy of the tactics, and then built a full blown tactical plan.

The team then started to implement.

Within months we had subscribers signing up even though we were just a small chapter at the time. The largest chapter at that time was in the west with over 225 members.

Fast forward and on the day of being chartered we were 532 subscribers’ large covering 5 continents. We were the largest and fastest growing in the WORLD.

Others wanted to work with me because people want to work with others that are successful because they believe that individual will get them where they want to go.

IN the case of a WSP, you challenge the status quo. Raise the bar, Show others by example that a time to market does not have to be 6 months; it can be 2 months and be killer. That you don’t need 30 people to do what 3 can do.

The key is doing it and not just talking about making change.

Often those in leadership positions tie their successes to the initiatives they’ve identified. They put their hearts and souls into making these agenda items work and even with due diligence, mistakes are made. The challenge becomes how do those around this person help to alter the path in a better direction?

Simple: give the person who’s made the commitment a way out without making it blatant.

The CEO of a $1B company (and CEOs of several other companies I know) tied his future leadership development to books such as Who Moved My Cheese, Good to Great, etc. A year or two later, individuals in the management teams noted that the books had good ideas yet no real meat as to how to create this transformation.

The end result was a team unsure of what to do next. Do you confront the CEO? When the employees tried, nothing worked. This is partly because their words have been interpreted by the CEO as a direct on assault with no way out.

You may be thinking that a great CEO would let go and move on. That’s not always the case. Too much is tied into their beliefs and perceived beliefs of others.

By giving alternatives, such as suggesting to combine their theory to another more workable theory, the CEO now has the ability to give it a try. The end result is down the road everyone is progressing. That in itself can be a huge improvement, since the name of the game progress.

If you’ve given your employees these types of tactics.  Get a new job!

The CEO of a large hospital group confided in a long-term colleague of his accounting department that within the next two weeks he’d be firing the CFO of the company. Having worked together in a previous job, the employee knew she had the opportunity right at her fingertips to slide into the new position, so she followed up with suggestions on how the financial department could be improved.

Grabbing the opportunity, she mentioned she had some ideas for the CEO. Given the relationship, he asked her what she suggested.

“I believe that we need more teamwork in the department. Also the software needs to be more current as there are several new packages on the market. A reorganization of roles also would be useful to make the group more productive. I also believe the layout could be more functional and enhance the output of the unit.”

She definitely believed she was on the right track.

Two weeks later, someone else was asked to fill the role.

So, what went wrong?

Everything she mentioned only created more work for the CEO. These were just ideas. Nothing more.

Say that you were presented with a choice: the above-mentioned woman, or the person I’ll describe below. The scene is the same except for new dialogue.

Employee: “(Insert name) given that you’re going to be making some changes, I have a few ideas of my own that I’d like to add for you to consider.’
CEO: “Sure, what do you have in mind?”
Employee: “Well, I can’t give you all the information right now just because I’ve been working on a few ideas for a few months now and I have some at home and some at my desk. What I’ve been doing is looking at improvement areas and over the past few months, and I’ve come up with a plan including having talked to vendor to get pricing on software, laid out a more streamlined work flow process, gathered information on a new organizational structure layout and a few other suggestions. What I’d like to do is set up a time for us to meet where I could lay out the plans. Could we meet tomorrow for about 90 minutes for me to explain what I’ve been thinking?”

See the difference? The first person gave a laundry list of ideas that needed attention. The second person showed that the groundwork was already in progress to solve the current challenges.

Remember, you’re paid to think! This means outlining such initiatives on paper, with numbers, with CPM charts and specifics. Otherwise you’re not part of the solution.

Just today I had a conversation with an individual who asked me how he could get others to follow his ideas so that he and his staff can grow the business. I asked him to explain exactly what he had in mind. He had lots of ideas, just no way of selling them.

After explaining the difference in the between great solutions and great solutions with a sound plan, I then went on to explain that if he picked the top 6 people we identified in the business and presented such a case, with real hard facts, he’d be on his way to further growing the billion-dollar business.

There are several reasons for this. The first being that everyone would listen to someone who’s developed a comprehensive plan. Mind you he’s part of the executive team of this business and not an outsider. The second is that even if there are errors, the team would at least have a starting point, and if the ideas were sound, they could start improving the directives. Third, guaranteed no one else in the room will have done what he had done.

This approach gives you an advantage, even if ultimately your ideas are not taken verbatim. I liken it to editing someone else’s work. It’s usually a lot easier to edit something than to start from scratch, even if you find many things you don’t like about what they’ve written. For some reason the brain likes to fix or rework, and if you’re pitching ideas, the more complete they are (including a plan), the easier it is for others to “bite” onto your ideas.

The shift in approach is huge and the returns will be significant.

Taking a break from the everyday routine, from the hustle and bustle of life, from the pressures you feel can’t survive without you…can be one of the best things you can do for yourself and your business. As you read through this blog, think of the things you do every day that prevent you from gaining a fresh perspective and further enriching your life both on and off the job.

A great little DVD arrived at my office packaged in a Wired Managize from Shell Films not long ago. Besides being a PR piece, the “true” story is designed to display Shell as being innovative, that ideas come often from getting away from the challenge you’re facing, and to share some of the challenges that oil companies are up against

Whether the story is true or semi true or if you believe oil companies are bad or good is not what I see in the clip. It’s that as thinkers in an organization, it’s important for individuals in key positions to get away once in a while.

In the story, Jaap van Vallegooigen created a Snake Well technology where instead of an oil rig only drilling down, the drill has the ablity to be maneuvered under the surface, thereby enabling the drilling of wells all around an oil platform. The result is one platform with increased life capacity. Without the platform, there would need to be several platforms which would be cost prohibitive and environmentally an issue.

The idea was the result of watching his son drink a milk shake out of lab beaker shaped glass canister. When his son could not reach the drink, he turned the straw upside down and used the bendable straw end to reach the sides.

How many ideas have been sitting in front of every parent for years?

As part of the Enterprise Thinking model, I’ve aways discussed the need to get out and try new things in life: see plays, travel, read, learn a new sport, etc. The combined efforts allow the mind to stretch and create opportunitty for innovation.

Too many individuals are so bent on being successful that they limit their own potential. Like any other part of the body, the mind needs time to rest and in doing so becomes recharged.

When you’re paid to think, it’s important that you know what’s necessary to be successful.

This past week, while passing through Laguarda Airport in NYC, the wife of a business owner told me that her husband has not taken a vacation in years….and his two businesses are struggling.

Watch the video

As much as this sounds like a no brainer, too many companies, big and small, make it difficult for prospective buyers to connect with their firm. Just this morning I was looking for a supplier in the Alabama area and on every page they supplied an email hyper link. Given that we use a CRM application, (funky acronym for a software program to manage our contacts), our systems did not work as they expected. The file only allowed us to open Outlook.

We don’t use Outlook.

When we tried to connect on several pages to their contact information, the link was broken. Even when I copied and pasted the “supposed link,” it did not work, either.

The ideal situation would be to give customers and vendors numerous methods to be connected to you and your services. (Avoid cell phone numbers; they can be the kiss of death. You don’t want an important call to go to a cell that may not be attended or during a social time where background noise is inappropriate, when the call should have gone to the business location.)

I always recommend your information be on every site at the bottom of the page just in case a prospect or client/customer (who is searching you out or likes a particular offering) gets an impulse to call.

The Mandarin Oriental, on the KIWI web site, goes even beyond the traditional in that their contact information includes Skype! If you can’t connect to The Mandarin through these means, then you’ve got issues.

What’s interesting is that the Mandarin Oriental website does not offer all the same options and yet, as a hotel that’s internationally known, in an international travelers destination location, they should.

I just received a call from a company that wants to know if I can address the 12 questions or Q12 that the Gallop Organization developed to identify if an employee is engaged or not to the company.

The trouble is they were more concerned about the questions than solving the challenges, given that Gallop did not identify the skills, tools, traits, mechanisms, and procedures necessary to make these things right.

Do you know what is expected of you at work?

Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?

At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?

Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?

Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

At work, do your opinions seem to count?

Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?

Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?

Do you have a best friend at work?

In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?

In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

In essence the questions open up Pandora’s box. Lets review a few questions.

#1 Do you know what is expected of you at work?

What if the individual says, “Yes, I’m pretty sure I know my job.” And the evidence is quite the opposite. Gallop did not explain to those in managment the steps they need to solve this issue or whether they should solve the question at the time the person says they are doing their job.

What if the individual says, “No, in fact my manager sucks at managing and I have no clue what’s going on half the time. In fact the entire team is lost.” What’s next? Do you tell management if you’re not management? What if they say they are lost and they appear to be doing their job well. What do you do with this information?

#2 Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?

In my experience I’ve found that the majority of people don’t know what the right level of material and equipment are for their jobs. For example, I was working with an Executive VP who’s belief was they needed more manpower to fullfill the growth needs of the company. She did not know that there was software out in the marketplace that not only eliminated the need for the new staff but could cut her staff in half.

#3 At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

Again, a subjective question that can be explosive given that studies have shown that the majority of people DON’T like-enjoy what they do at work. Given the options they’d be doing something else.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that these questions, by themselves, are useless. When Gallop makes these comments they should also then identify the tools necessary to fix the challenges, and ways to look at evidence. Otherwise when done you’ll have a pile of challenges to fix on your desk and not enough time to fix them all.

Here’s a tip.

Bad questions generate bad answers and good questions have the chance of generating good answers.

Let’s take #3 and with a slight change I might get a better answer. More specifically, one someone can work with.

At work, what in your job role do you like to do best every day?

Here the individual can give specifics and help management to understand where they might be valuable long term. I like this question better because it gives direction. The other question is a land mine. Too many people believe they’d be great at another job and yet their skills may not fit. They’ve never done the job to know or they might believe they are more talented then they are.

Look at the reality shows and you’ll see how singers think they are great then cry when someone says they can’t sing. Mothers argue about children’s talent and yet it’s easy to see that the kid does not have talent. Omarosa on The Apprentice often thinks she’s right and on the first show she was hated by most of the others for her work ethic, judgment and lack of skills.

Lastly, make up your own mind if you think you should sit down and ask these questions, but more importantly, spend the time figuring out what you’ll ask next or what you’ll do if the answers come back both positive and negative. If you do this, you’ll at least have a chance to pull through this alive.

Remember, you’re paid to think so take the time to do this before jumping in.