Management Craft

Blog Out

I have been wondering lately if I should switch aggregators because mine is computer based, not browser based. I use Net News Wire and it is only installed on my main iMac desktop. So when I travel, the posts get stacked up.

I have been thinking about going to a browser based aggregator so that I can keep up when I travel. But the thought of trying to figure that all out when I have over 100 feeds in my aggregator has kept me from making any changes.

I am rethinking this - sometimes it is good to take a break. Over the last week, while cramming to get Hip and Sage close to done, I have not opened the program. The blog posts are just piling up but because the program is closed I am not taunted by the little red indicator that there are new posts.

Out of sight out of mind.

It has been a good break.

And now I am afraid to open it. I have far too many feeds, I need to reduce the number of blogs I try to keep up with. But they all are like warm puppies to me - I love them all.

OK, here goes. I just started it up. It's loading now. The little red light is on.

I have 591 posts to read - that's not as bad as I had expected.

Which aggregator do you use and how happy are you with it? I should probably change.

Just closed it again. Red light off. Ignorance is bliss. You did not see me and we did not have this conversation. Aggregator? What aggregator?

Too Gruesome for a Business Book?

Just putting the finishing touches on Hip and Sage, and I thought I would ask your opinion. Is the following paragraph too gruesome for inclusion in a business book? It is the opening paragraph of an essay I am including in the book called, Tragically Hip (a funny look at the perils of going overboard with technology):

Sally was found in her fifth-floor condo face down on her computer keyboard. An orange Goddard College hooded sweatshirt and blue levis covered – like a pillow case covers a straw - her sucked in decomposing body. A pair of $300 Bose headphones were stuck to her red curly hair and ears. Her computer screen – still on - was filled with dozens of unanswered pop up IM windows and her Skype menu indicated that she had missed 47 calls. The coroner guessed that she had been dead for weeks. A few days prior, the police received an anonymous phone call from someone who was worried that screen name BikerChic64 from Seattle, WA, might be in some kind of trouble. Detectives worked with computer technicians at the King County Crime Scene Unit to determine BikerChic64’s identity and address. 

Communicate

An overused term if there ever was one, the word communicate can mean many different things. At work, inadequate communication gets blamed for cultural ills and project failures. Managers attend 99 dollar one-day training sessions billed to teach communication skills. Communication is included on many performance evaluation forms, although the definition of what communication is varies on these forms and is often absent and left up to each manager and subordinate to figure out.

We could declare that communication is any message we impart  - in any medium (verbal, email, signs, books, etc). Using this definition, a leader who sends out lots of messages, talks a lot at meetings, and buys and hands out flavor-of-the-month management books like candy canes at Christmas would be considered a big communicator. Don’t scoff, this is a common strategy in organizations – send more email messages! Fill the in-boxes!

I don’t favor this definition of communication because it focuses solely on the act of sending information out and does not address how messages ought to be received. This is 50-yard line communication, to use a football metaphor, because while you might have taken your message down your side of the field, you have not penetrated into the other person’s territory and you are only half way to your goal.

I like to hold communication to a higher standard and assert that it is not communication unless and until the message is received by receiving party as it is intended by the sender. Using this definition, an email is only communication if the person reading it understands the information and interprets the tone and tenor as the author had intended. If you send a vague message, it’s not communication. If you send a message written in the wrong language for the receiver, it is not communication. If you write a ten-page report that no one reads or comprehends, you have not communicated. If you send an email that ruffles a few feathers because the receiver thought you were angry when you were not, you have not communicated.

Using this definition of communication, how many of your messages sent are received as communication?

Land Your Dream Job

Love this quote from Randy Komisar, Harvard Business Review March-April 2000

If you want to land the job of your dream – even if you want to become a CEO – rid yourself of raw ambition. Avoid promotions that make perfect sense. Accept work based on Friendship alone. Trust your gut. Then watch what happens; prosperity of the heart, soul, and – yes – the wallet.

Rid yourself of raw ambition. Hmmm. I wonder how many of us know how ambition shows up in our lives and daily actions and decisions.

Developing Great Managers

I found out through an email today that I have another book available. This is utterly ridiculous, but I had completely forgotten about it! And I really like this one, too. I have not gotten my copies from my publisher yet and you know what they say, "out of sight, out of mind." Funny, this person - who endorsed my book - got his copy from my publisher before I got mine. Hmmm.....

It's called:

 

Developing Great Managers: 20 "Power Hour" Conversations that Build Skills Fast

My regular readers know I am a fan of informal training. I like training to become a part of the day, I like development to happen at every staff meeting. This book offers 20 informal developmental conversations that trainers, coaches and managers can start using today. Includes a CD with reprintable handouts. Copy and go.

No PowerPoint presentations!
Each Power Hour has a one-page handout - one page only.
No PowerPoint presentations! Oh, wrote that already.

If you are a manager, train managers, or coach managers, or love reading about management, check it out. If the training that your training department offers is boring, get them a copy.

Thanks. My cat Paris, who refuses to eat anything but premium food, thanks you, too.

Boring books - better on CD

I have been experimenting with listening to audio books for books I cannot get through in written form. I am a pretty shallow reader. I find it tough to get through books that lack action and intrigue.

For pleasure books, the answer is simple - pick better books!

But there are several classic books that we all should read and should digest and should learn from. Case in point - the little book on writing, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. This tiny book is the standard for learning how to write. I have tried and failed to read it a million times. Maybe two million times.

And then I found it on Audible in audio form! It is read by Frank McCourt, and his Irish accent makes for a more interesting listener experience. I imagine we are sharing a dark and tan at the pub, talking about punctuation. Perhaps we will take a break now and then to play a friendly game of darts.

I downloaded the audio book, burned it on CDs, and have been playing them in my car on the way to meetings and appointments. It works! I am getting more out of the little book than I ever could reading it with my two eyes.

Want to improve your writing? Check out the The Elements of Style at Audible here.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book and CD: "brevity is a by-product of vigor."

Whoa - such a great wee sentence! I would love to be told my writing is vigorous.

I shudder to think what I have been missing by not getting into this little gem before now.

The Small Stuff Sweats Us

The post title is obviously a play on words from the best selling book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I got to thinking that, although I agree with the premise and advice of DSTSS, I also acknowledge the BIG power that SMALL things have on our days (the Butterfly Effect is at work for good and bad!).

So to get focused, you need to blast through some of the smaller things that are clogging up your brain cells and triggering your guilt mechanisms that say, "Lisa, why haven't you taken care of me?"

Multiply by 20 or 30 or 100 and it will seem like you have Sybil and her eight sisters and their multiple personalities inside your head talking at once.

In my focus book, I talk about using small bits of time to get big things done. The BIG things are often in the form of getting a mental monkeys off your back. Or getting one of the voices to stop chattering.

If each day, you obliterate a small list of these small things on your list, the big things will be able to have a stronger voice and better access to more of your brain cells.

One List That Manager's Need

I like this post from Managing with Aloha Coaching called, The 1 List that Every Manager Must Work With. In it, my pal Rosa stresses several great points about how managers ought to focus how they spend their time. Here is a snippet:

This may seem obvious, but in my investigations of trip-ups that have occurred, I am amazed at how many times a manager did follow up, but never reported back to the person they’d made their commitment to. Their reputation and credibility has gotten marred by a bad assumption that “the results will speak for themselves.”

The three focus areas Rosa suggests are at the foundation of personal excellence. Personal excellence comes from:

• Being able to utilize your strengths to contribute to your organization
• Focusing on doing those things that matter most - daily (Rosa's list hits here)
• Getting better at both of these things

The Right Decision Every Time

I was doing some research and came across a piece I wrote up for a project a couple years ago with the folks over at 800CEOREAD. For the piece I interviewed nine authors, Luda Kopeikina was one. Luda wrote the book, The Right Decision Every Time: How to Reach Perfect Clarity on Tough Decisions. The piece offers a lot of good thoughts on decision making, so check it out.

The Clarity State

A good decision can save a company and a poor one can cause it to sink. Everyday, managers and leaders make decisions and each one changes the company in at least a small way. Some of us agonize over decisions, whereas others make them quickly with ease. I have met managers with excellent judgment and have known some with a few loose screws. Training courses suggest we use cumbersome decision trees and root cause analysis. While these methods are useful, they do not address the mental game of decision-making.

Luda Kopeikina is fascinated by the dynamics of decisions. Why are some leaders able to make better decisions than others? What makes decisions easy or difficult? The results of her research and insights are detailed in, The Right Decision Every Time: How to Reach Perfect Clarity on Tough Decisions. To research for this book, she spoke to over 100 CEOs from companies of various sizes and industries. When I spoke with Luda, I was struck by her wisdom, wit, and warmth. She has been a sought after leader, expert, and consultant for many years, including stints as a VP at GE under Welch and a CEO; her extensive experience shows through in her suggestions.

I found Luda’s comments about the differences between mature leaders (in terms of both years and experiences) and those with less seasoning very fascinating. She found that mature leaders have more mental control than junior leaders. She measured physical focus by hooking the CEOs she interviewed to a computer program. The mature leaders were focused and calm even when they had major meetings or urgent issues to resolve later in the day. Luda also found successful and mature leaders to be very reflective. They evaluate their decisions and learned from them. They believed that learning from the past is the best way to pursue mastery.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Luda’s research was how she chose to define a correct decision. A correct decision occurs when the decision maker is totally congruent with the decision. Luda chose not to measure whether a decision is correct by the outcome because we can’t control the consequences, we can only control how well we look at the problem or opportunity. She found that mature leaders, those who made more successful decisions, wholeheartedly agreed with her definition. Less experienced leaders tended to define decisions by their outcomes. I thought about how I measure the success of my decisions and can see that my perspective has changed as I have developed. Luda is correct; what is most important is how well we approach, analyze, and evaluate decisions. We will never know all the information, so it is critical that we make the best use of the collective intelligence that surrounds us. In the end, we need to feel good about our decisions.

As Luda interviewed and observed leaders, she began to see a state of being that enabled them to make decisions with ease. She calls this the “Clarity State”. Here’s a brief excerpt from The Right Decision Every Time:

“The key to reaching clarity is the ability to focus your physical, mental and emotional resources at will on a certain issue. With such focus, you can identify the right choice faster, more easily, and with greater certainty and internal alignment. It is a practice that can be acquired. This book presents the elements of this practice. The objective of this book is to present techniques that enable you to reach clarity on difficult, strategic decisions with greater effectiveness, thus increasing your decision-making mastery level. This is the book that I wish I could have read at the beginning of my career.”

The “Clarity State” then, is a measurable state of mental, physical, and emotional coherence that focuses our inner resources. Luda’s suggestions include how to reach a “Clarity State” and how to combine this level of awareness with sound decision-making principles to make the right decisions. Using her process, Luda reports that 93% of CEOs made clear choices, resolving current decision situations within an hour and a half after focusing on them. This is impressive as some of these decisions had been pending for weeks or months.

Characteristics of the “Clarity State”:

•    Things become clear and fall into place.
•    Emotional relaxation.
•    Mentally focused.
•    A feeling of contentment.

When we see clearly and align our thinking with our decisions, we are more productive and determined. We are also able to communicate our decisions more clearly. People can sense our clarity and assuredness; thus, they become more likely to support and enroll in the change. In her book, Luda offers several techniques for getting into and maintaining the “Clarity State”. Many middle managers do not allow for the time and energy needed to enter the Clarity State. They remain exhausted which hinders their ability to make the best decisions. Here is a brief list of the “Death Habits” familiar to most managers. Luda says that these habits get in the way of decision making and clarity:

•    Death Habit #1 - Multitasking: “In the current business environment, where there is more work in each job position than can be handled, we are taught to multitask. Conventional wisdom says, ‘Never lose a moment-if you are talking on the phone, scan your e-mails at the same time.’ The result is that we never have time to focus! This habit is in sharp contrast to the behavior that peak performers in sports train to achieve. Successful athletes know that when every physical and mental resource is focused, your power to perform multiplies tremendously. In order to outperform others, you have to learn to focus your resources!”

•    Death Habit #2 - Be Competitive: “Do not misunderstand me. Competing with yourself is a great habit-pushing yourself to excel at your job, learn new skills faster, develop new competencies, or whatever challenges you want to conquer is a habit worth nurturing. Few people during their lifetime exhaust the resources hidden within them. There are deep wells of strength in each of us that are never used. Learning to tap into this inner power is a worthy pursuit. But the way people understand the conventional wisdom is ‘Be competitive with others.’ In such an interpretation, the measures of progress become outside metrics—an assessment of your performance by others, comparing your status with the status of your coworkers, and so on. The problem is that these outside measures are usually outside of your control. Striving to measure your progress by outside metrics undoubtedly creates stress and negative emotions, such as anxiety and worry. The more you strive to deliver results according to outside metrics, the more stress and pain you create in your life.”

•    Death Habit #3 - Work All the Time and Do More: “We are becoming a nation of workaholics. With the advances of cell phones and the Internet, our work is with us all the time— at the dinner table, at the outing with the kids on the beach, and so on. If we let it, our workload can consume us, proliferate stress, and, as a result, lead to continuous operation at a lower brain capacity. You need to save some mental, physical, and emotional resources to regenerate, think, and strategize for the future.”

Whoa! I think most managers would say their days are defined by multitasking and working too much. Many companies strive to create a competitive environment where success is defined by the number of hours worked and the amount of effort expended. I think Luda is making an excellent point that it is time to challenge the current status quo and question whether this is the best, correct, or proper way to work. Her research clearly shows that the best leaders don’t get caught up in this business craziness.

These things get in the way of our focus and clarity--both of which are crucial for decision making. I asked Luda about the biggest barriers to sound decision making. She offered these five common obstacles:

1.    Lack of a clear objective – not knowing what you are trying to accomplish.
2.    Lack of clear constraints – parameters related to the decision are not established.
3.    Difficulty in dealing with emotions.
4.    Lack of a clear perspective – unable to define the right context for the decision.
5.    Difficulty of select among options – reducing complexity.

Of these barriers, a lack of a clear perspective and  objective were the most common and troublesome.

I have heard from many managers who feel frustrated when their senior leaders do not make timely or effective decisions. I asked Luda what advice she would offer to managers in this predicament. Here is her response:

“I don’t think that there is much they can do to convince the boss to make a decision. If the leader is uncomfortable, he or she has not reached clarity. The absence of a decision is a decision. If possible, you can proceed as if the decision has been made. Get the people orchestrated and ready. Most likely it will cause a reaction. You might learn a lot including that you don’t want to work for the boss. Trying to convince the boss will backfire.”

In my experience, every time a senior manager feels pressure to make a decision, he or she ends up becoming more entrenched and uncomfortable. So while we want to be helpful, trying to convince our boss to do something might make our situation worse.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the topics that Luda and I discussed. Her ideas are fresh, but also based on many years of experience and research. I would love to shadow Luda Kopeikina for a day, because I know it would be an amazing learning experience.

Tips from Luda Kopeikina

1.    Leadership is to a very large extent an exercise in self-development. The great leaders that I have met all worked on developing themselves first; everything else came second.

2.    Carefully select your “Master Mind” group. A great leader is not the one who knows every aspect of the job. He or she is the one who can motivate people to get the job done with passion. Carefully select your team, because the caliber of people on your team will determine the magnitude of your success.

3.    Have a clear overarching objective at all times. Over and over again I find managers who are lost in the midst of everyday happenings, emergencies and details. Realize that if you are one of those managers, you are not going anywhere significant. Make sure that you set a clear objective for yourself, your business and your life and always have it in front of you.

4.    Face your fears. Stop worrying and start acting. Fears of failure, criticism, and rejection are just examples of fears that have the power to stop us in our tracks and induce indecision and procrastination. They sap our vitality. Convert this worry energy into planning and acting. In many cases, any decision is much better than no decision.

5.    Develop “Vision Power.” No leader can succeed without a fully developed sense of vision power — the ability to not only imagine the future but also to find the most effective path to get there.

About Luda Kopeikina:

Luda Kopeikina is an experienced business leader, entrepreneur, scholar, and author. She founded Noventra Corporation in 1999 and spent six years at General Electric in various vice presidential positions where she had an opportunity to work with Jack Welch and observe his methods in action. Later she was President and CEO of Celerity Solutions, Inc. Interactive Week's 1998 Executive Worth Survey ranked Luda within the top 20 CEOs of US high-tech public companies for her performance and total return to shareholders. Luda is a Chairwoman of MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida and serves on the Board of Directors of several companies. She is also a prominent business speaker and author. She speaks on topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, clear business decision making and leadership. Luda holds a Master's Degree from MIT's Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow. She also holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science from St. Petersburg University, Russia, and completed a Ph.D. thesis in Computer Science there. In 2004 she was appointed a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Luda’s website is www.ludakopeikina.com.

About the Book:

The Right Decision Every Time: How to Reach Perfect Clarity on Tough Decisions. Published by Prentice Hall, August 2005. ISBN: 0131862626

Lots of things going on - Outbound Link Love

I am a bit behind in letting you know some of the cool things happening with some of my blogging/writing colleagues who write about stuff that might interest you. So in effort to get a wee bit more caught up, here is a new list of things to check out. I regard these folks/sites highly and recommend you check their stuff out:

SOBCon 08 - The Chicago based conference has a new website up with all the details for this year's conference. Terry Starbucker, among others, will be speaking and that's reason enough in my book to go.

My pal Phil Gerbyshak celebrates the 3rd anniversary of his blog, Make it Great! Congratulations, Phil, you do such great work.

My friend Jodee from Fargo has a new version of her book, The 100% Factor coming out - very cool. Check it out here and put her blog in your aggregator. Watch for announcements about this summer's Bigger Small Talk Conference that Jodee organizes. Fargo is a great town and I loved going through there on my motorcycle trip.

Michael Stallard has come out with a new Change This manifesto called, The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage. You can download it for free.

The fine folks at blogged rated Management Craft recently. They gave it an 8.3 out of 10, which they say is "Ggrreeaat!" Check out the other business blog and their ratings. This is a great place to find new blogs to read.

The month of march will be a bit light for me as I am coming down the stretch on the deadline for my latest book, Hip and Sage. Thanks to everyone who has been chatting with me and sharing your ideas and perspectives. Here is an updated version of my definitions for Sageness and Hipness. Tell me what you think!

Our sageness: Our particular strengths, characteristics, goals and priorities, and experiences - manifested as drive, skills, judgment, and knowledge - that have been honed, polished, carved, and seasoned through the years. Our sageness is unique and it may or may not be visible to others or in use contributing to the world

Our hipness: Our ability to communicate, relate, collaborate, and connect with younger generations. In business, our hipness determines how effectively we work with, inspire, and influence younger workers. Hip entrepreneurs are able to enroll, engage, and excite younger customers and business partners.