If You Want Them to Like You, Expect Them to Hate You.
As a manager, new in my profession, I began my first days with the impression that having my team “like” me was important. I sought consensus in my decisions and all but asked permission of my team to guide them down a given path.
As a father, new in my appointment, I began my first years with both trepidation and uncertainty of action. I loved my daughter more than life itself, but was unsure of when to push, when to pull, and when to let well enough alone.
As a manager, I struggled with my team’s performance; each individual was highly talented, but the sum of my team’s parts were certainly weaker than each stood individually. For many months I struggled with the why. As a father, my angst-ridden decisions played out in many arguments with my wife just as my need for consensus was crippling my ability to manage.
And then I realized my team was ineffective because of my ineffectiveness as a leader; I wanted my team to like me so much I thought their approval was of the utmost importance.
I finally grasped that my fathering skills were crippled not because of my lack of love for my daughter – but because I didn’t love her enough to say, “No,” when it mattered most.
As a manager and father, my objective was not to be a friend, but to be a leader, a mentor, and servant. I could not, nor can not, exist on an equal plane with those I would lead, mentor or serve – not because I am greater or lesser than a single individual, but because I cannot afford myself the luxury of caring whether I am liked.
As a leader, I must stand apart from them to offer them perspective when they are unable to see what they need alone. As a mentor, I am there to offer guidance and support when their mind and spirit are thirsting for answers. As a servant, I am there to do those things they are unable to do for themselves – humbly and willingly.
It is this realization, in both leadership and fatherhood, that now sets me apart from - while aligning me most closely with - those whom I care for most, would sacrifice myself for, and have grown to respect immensely.
What sets you apart as a leader?
Image courtesy of Ground Zero.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Stressed Out? Unplug and Sweat It Out!
Most of the loyal readers of this blog are most likely urban professionals, sometimes called desk jockeys, or otherwise living in a profession typically termed as white-collar. We spend our days either out meeting and greeting clients, in meeting rooms trying to figure out why we are there, or click-clacking on the keyboard in front of us.
As we get dressed in our nice slacks or cinch up our new tie, we go through our day in a generally sedentary manner. Sure we move, sure go walk around, but in general we do not expend more calories than we take in.
Now I bet you are begrudgingly thinking just about now, “I don’t need another lecture on weight or diet.”
You would be right! You don’t.
Instead, I want you to take a few moments at the end of your day and observe if your shoulders have slowly climbed to your ears. Take a breather in your day and gauge whether you are using your full lung capacity. Take a look at yourself and see if you are furrowing your brow. Get up and walk around the office, and toss a ball - see how that makes you feel.
I bet you are like most people, unconsciously amassing stress throughout your day and week. What do you do about relieving it?
Try expending some energy for a change if you aren’t:
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Do you work out before or after work at least 2-3 days a week?
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Do you get out in your yard and work up a good sweat?
If I might share with you there are times I allow my workout routine to suffer because of work- or life-related excuses. I find I am much more susceptible to encumber unnecessary stress when I allow this to happen. I often don’t allow myself enough time to sleep, and tend to have only moderately healthy diet. As such, stress finds me even more easily when I find excuses not to work out - either in the gym or the yard.
It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but I really find the more I sweat the better I feel. Outside of that, physical labor can really help you stay humble and in touch with feeling like you have completed something in earnest.
How about you? How do you avoid stress?
Image courtesy of Bug-a-Lug.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Your First Mistakes Could Lead To A Second Wind
How many of you are presently a manager? How many of you have managed, or would like to be a manager someday?
How many of you are presently a leader? How many of you have lead or would like to be a leader someday?
Interesting difference isn’t there? – The weight of each word carries distinctly different emotional overtones for you, I would suspect:
Manager.
Leader.
While some may be thrust into positions of authority, the accompanying respect does not find its way to the surface quite so easily. Often you must earn the respect of those given to your care with blood, sweat and tears. It is this ability to seek out how to earn and instill an intrinsic trust for all that look to you which defines you as their leader.
In looking to my past, I replay my first attempts in building a team. They were abysmal attempts to manage through my lack of confidence in my own sense of direction. I did not have the appropriate level of relationship with my team members, I attempted to lead by consensus rather than seek counsel from my experts and make a ruling, and made poor decisions regarding team fit.
The net result was that I frustrated high capacity performers and brought them into an organization at which they bristled. Ultimately, my missteps lead to the natural reciprocal - a poorly performing group, frustrated team members, and lots of wasted time and effort.
Lessons learned are sometimes hard-won. These most certainly were, but I will cringingly recall those days as mortar to again cement my resolve to serve my team, but expect no less from them return. There is no silver bullet to being an effective manager or admired leader. But when you stumble through your first round of mistakes, you may just find your second wind.
Image courtesy of Rodrigo Soldon.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Doing More With Less Can Be Your Loss
No doubt in today’s business climate, everyone is being asked to do more with less. I spend time chatting with neighbors about their industries, talking with other bloggers about what they are seeing, seeking advice from other industry colleagues, and especially paying attention to my client’s pain points.
The consensus is, everyone is under fire to do the same job with less headcount, and some cases being tasked with growth on top of that, The current business climate dictates we must be creative in our approach to tackling typical staffing. Traditional market pressures are trending towards substantiating a business’s existence on less revenue, so most are left with the dour prospect of reducing overhead.
Let’s face it - some industries, like IT, have been under fire for years to increase productivity and reduce headcount. But with the driving forces telling us to do more with less, where does less become your loss?
Project Management 101:
In project management, most know about the project management triangle, which describes that all projects abide by 3 constraints:
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Time: The time available to complete the project.
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Cost: The allotted budget available to complete the project.
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Scope: Defines what must be done to complete the project and attain the project’s end result.
A side of the triangle cannot be altered without impacting the remaining two sides. As illustrated in the image above, a fourth constraint is now observed by many project managers, that of quality. In essence, this constraint separates “quality” from “performance” aspects since quality could be impacted from any or all of the sides of the project management triangle.
These three constraints are often competing constraints: increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope, and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope.
- wikipedia 2009
While all of us reading this article can sit here and rationalize one thing or another about why, businesses are meanwhile filling your desk inbox to the brim, your e-mail inbox is overflowing, and your smartphone is barking at you telling you there is not enough memory left to complete another task.
Invariably you must make the choice about what your priorities are by use of what I term as a decision rubric, apply focused time management techniques, and challenge yourself to not only have a strong “No,” but an even stronger “Yes.”
Ultimately, the workload doesn’t appear to be getting any lighter from where I stand, so how do you deliver superior results, on time, and under budget?
That’s a trick question; don’t even try… if you are part of a team, ask for help and don’t be afraid to delegate. If you are flying solo, pick and choose where you spend your time wisely. After all, doing more with less can often land you with a deficiency in one or more of the legs of the PM Triangle…
… and when that happens, more with less will turn into your loss, your company’s loss, and your client’s loss.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Don’t Break It Trying To Fix It.
We tinker with things all the time, trying to make them just a little better. The same thing goes for processes in a company. Someone, somewhere, sees something they think is broken - or might be done just a little bit better - and they try to fix it. As noble as this may seem, it often results in a further fracture of the business process.
You see, broken is a relative term. If you drop a glass on the floor and it shatters, it is most certainly broken. But in a company’s process, it’s not quite so easy to see exactly what is broken. The interpretation is often that the process must be broken just like the glass - in a dozen pieces. But more often than not the focus falls on the pieces of the glass scattered across the floor rather than why the glass was dropped in the first place, and most importantly, how to prevent this in the future.
We are not all automatons. People slip, and most certainly when dealing with emotion and perception, our decisions are often biased in some shape, form or fashion. More often than not, the cure offered does not necessarily match all the symptoms.
You missed your turn:
In our zeal to help make our business processes more efficient, more cost-effective, more customer-focused we run the risk of upsetting the proverbial applecart.
A few months ago I ran a study of our customers, looking at both call metrics as well as speaking with our customer care representatives. Even with an average response time of 28 seconds, some calls were remaining on hold up to 15 minutes. For our group, this was not desirable, so we sought ways to impact this without adjusting headcount.
I made the call to force customers to leave a message after 7-8 minutes on hold out of respect for their time, and even offered the option to dial “0″ to reach the operator. I was focused on the glass laying in a few pieces on the floor - not why customers stayed on hold.
I received several frustrated calls, and waited things out about 2 weeks. Often times, customers don’t like change, so I wanted to wait out the changes to ensure our care team was communicating the new process and allowing for an adjustment period - convinced I was making the decision to help our customers help themselves.
The frustrated comments didn’t stop, so I took the opportunity to speak with the most frustrated of the callers to ascertain where the frustration was occurring. What I found was a “hand-palm” moment.
The reason customers had been choosing to stay on hold was simple: They wanted to talk with someone live. Our company had always focused on placing live people closer to our customers, but with various economic constraints coupled with dramatically increased call volumes and complexity of calls the downward pressure dictated apply technology smartly.
Instead of forwarding the voicemail jail, I dropped the threshold to forward directly back to our reception desk when our customer care team could reach the caller within 5 minutes. I am proud to say, this only happens 6% of the time, but those 6% of our customers now at least receive the courtesy of talking to someone after 5 minutes giving them the power of choice.
I was focused upon the glass fragments scattered on the floor, not why the glass had been dropped. So when you are tempted to improve a business process, ensure you don’t break it in the process of your repair. It’s easy to misread the symptoms and make the wrong call. If you do, be adult enough to admit it and make corrections in your course, but that’s advice for another post.
Image courtesy of Duke LeNoir.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
MPS: What’s in a Name?
I’m beginning to agree with Steve Reynolds (LYRA). I am reading article after article, and having conversations that are beginning to dominate my day about managed print services, or MPS. While I thoroughly enjoy the strategy and semantics debate as much as the next guy, something is starting to get under my skin…
The definition of MPS… everyone has to define it! Why? More importantly why does that matter to you? Does it offer you comfort to label things in such a way? I read articles debating whether cost-per-copy (CPC) programs are really MPS, if MPS is the next “it” thing, or if you know what MPS really even is?
Is it getting a little noisy in here?
Are you frustrated and confused as to your next step? Are you still trying to get a grip on just what to do, or how to make what you have work better?
The good news is that you are not alone. Welcome to the business of running a business. Folks, the cut and dry of MPS is that it can be just about any program or process whereby you drive down costs and/or offer increased transparency to your clients in an output strategy.
Well, if it’s that simple then why can’t I figure it out?
Good question, and I’m glad you asked. The reason is most companies, even really big ones, often suck at follow-through and commitment. Copier dealers, or “document output solutions providers” (said in a deep and booming voice) are notoriously short-sale focused. It’s the emotional high of closing that first deal or landing the big deal that gets your heart thumping.
But let me bring you back to an important point: documents are the vehicle in which information travels in and through your business. In thinking of strategy, you do have to be considerate of just what processes you will be touching with your go-to-market strategy. In other words that sale surely feels great, but don’t fall victim to feature-blindness - or the tendency to shove features on a client’s workflow that are not appropriate simply to make a sale.
In a nutshell…
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to help your clients, and you don’t necessarily need to subscribe to the latest, franchised buzzword to make it all work. However, you do have to have a program or process that makes sense to your business and to which you adhere. As the great football coaches like to say, “Let’s get back to basics.”
Image courtesy of OrangeAcid.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Does M-P-S Spell H-Y-P-E?
At the recent 2009 Managed Print Services (MPS) conference, Steve Reynolds (LYRA) offered an interesting perspective on the state of the industry. “MPS is a buzzword – A shiny new wrapper for the same old stuff.”
Think back:
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- In 2003 it was “Office Document Assessment” (it isn’t now?).
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- In 2005, it was “Security” (didn’t I just read this yesterday?).
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- In 2006, it was “software development environments” (wait, that’s my key differentiator, right?).
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- In 2007, it was “Green” (and arguably still might be).
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- In 2008 and 2009, it is MPS…
… gee, have I been using a bunch of buzzwords?
While many in this industry are angling for a way in which to ride the proverbial wave of awareness, this strategy still remains a solid offering to help customers gain ultimate control of their scattered fleets of output devices – ultimately leading to the holy grail of true content management.
But I just can’t help thinking the term itself has become the hallmark of someone wishing to give away a “complimentary” document assessment to reveal obvious security holes in your output fleet that my custom designed user interface will eliminate, all while saving more trees! I mean why just choose one buzzword, right?
Image courtesy of Matahina.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
5 Things To Know Before You Are Downsized
In January 2009 I was laid off from a great job. It was not my first layoff, and I knew it could happen to anyone. However, I really thought that I would get more warning, and when I woke up on January 5th I felt confident that I would end the day gainfully employed. I was dead wrong.
I was doing many things right, such as maintaining my network and collecting documentation of accomplishments. Even so, I spent all of January and most of February spinning my wheels. The simple reason for this lack of progress was my own mindset. Like losing a loved one, losing a job unexpectedly requires a mourning process. I think I subconsciously fought denial even though I was fully cognizant of my reality.
If you do find yourself unemployed, these five points will help you gain traction and find employment quickly:
The 1-2-3’s of Managed Print Services (MPS)
MPS, which is an acronym that stands Managed Print Services. That one little acronym is perhaps being uttered by more so-called “industry experts” and newly minted “MPS consultants.” How intriguing is this concept?
Not really very intriguing, except to say that manufacturers, channel providers, dealers, and even some customers seem to be figuring out for the first time they can apply an age-old technique that IT has been applying for nearly two decades, and manufacturing has been applying for perhaps a century or more…
What is this tried and true concept, you ask? Why, it’s simple: consolidation, standardization, and governance - also known as paying attention to your business’s operational costs. Sorry to deflate your ego, folks.
When I left the US Marine Corps in 2001, I took a position at a manufacturing division of a global corporation. When I arrived, I saw printers everywhere. It was like someone had instituted a printer breeding program. I went to work, under the mandate to contribute what I could to the manufacturing floor’s goals to rollout Lean-Sigma (a combination of Lean and Six Sigma manufacturing techniques).
In 9 months I sold a package past our management team (for the partner of choice) that entailed 20 desktop laser printers, 20 network attached devices of varying sizes, in-sourcing most on-demand color needs, and deploying e-forms to replace aging line printers for a legacy ERP system.
I estimated we saved $56,000 in the first year, alone - even though it was hard to get exact numbers because of such poor records of the “before” landscape.
The 3 Steps:
While you might want to argue this was a standard cost-per-copy (CPC) arrangement, I might beg to differ. But in the critic’s defense - there just weren’t nearly as many technology tools then as there are today, so some of the real time monitoring and just-in-time (JIT) options were just hard to integrate.
But I adhered to the 3 steps: consolidation, standardization, and governance.
1. Consolidation:
We were paying to many vendors, and had no real idea of our costs. I called in several so-called experts, and to my surprise only one returned for a second visit. That’s when the work began. I wasn’t an executive, but I was hired to manage their IT resources and I found this was one of the quickest ways to bring costs back in line.
2. Standardization:
I followed the recommendation of the consultant who worked with me and moved to a few model families based upon needs. The devices were not as modular across lines as they are today, so I knew finding common ground was the only way I could maintain sanity as a single-person IT shop. However, I was the one that forced the issue of a single driver across the enterprise. This made training easier, and kept everyone on the same page.
3. Governance:
I had to ensure both me and my partner of choice managed the solution, and so it was my job to hold them accountable and their job to keep me on track. Additionally, I received the dubious honor of watching all billing activity, and boy do I wish some of the tools available today were available back then. This was the one Achilles heel in my entire strategy, if I must be candid. But how was I to hold anyone accountable and ensure results if I did not manage and measure our baselines consistently.
The Take-Away:
So you see, managed print services is not such a new concept. Look back, and you will see IT and manufacturing have been looking at ways to streamline platform support and production techniques for years. Neither are strangers to these ideas, but for some reason this is novel for this industry as if they have the corner on the market of driving down business costs.
But set aside the marketing hoopla for just a moment, and turn your attention to the clients… When I look back towards the management team I supported in 2001-2003, I noticed they weren’t paying attention to this area of their business. Why was that?
In a single word - Education.
That’s where we are at folks. You aren’t creating something revolutionary here, but you are educating your clients on the evolution occurring and how to drill out unseen costs in their organizations. Now the question is whether you can be prescriptive to your client’s needs when they don’t even think they are sick?
Imaged courtesy of on1stsite.
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
Will Your Team Bring You Home?
Times are tough and many are struggling with disappearing 401k portfolios, shrinking wages, or even outright unemployment. Times are tough - no doubt, and even I am not immune to it. While today may have been another hit I’ve got to take on the chin, everyone seems see signs of a recovery in their future.
Is this hopeless optimism or simply an subconscious wisdom that things will return to an upright position?
Last year, I wrote an article about surviving in tough times entitled “4 Keys to Success You Need to Survive.” Things like Honesty, Vision, Will, and Communication are all key to survival in tough times, but I saw something this past week that simply amazed me.
This past week, our company, like many others, have been dealing with the tougher economic conditions, underscoring that no one is immune to bad times. Sharp Corporation, our parent corporation, announced losses for the first time in more than five decades. According to AOL Money & Finance:
Sharp expects to post a net loss of 130 billion yen ($1.3 billion), worse than the 100 billion yen loss it had projected in February. … Sharp has said it will cut 1,500 contract workers in Japan by the end of March, and its directors will forgo bonus pay in June and accept pay cuts of up to 50 percent. It had closed some panel production lines for mobile phones in response to the slowdown, which worsened last year.
Rippling throughout the organization, pay decreases found their way to our doorstep an ocean away and in a very ungracious manner.
However, today our branch president stood before us, looking us in the eye and delivered the news with an honesty and candor denoting his trust in our team to handle the news in stride. And we did.
While it was somber news, what I saw amazed me; it started small and built to a crescendo:
A service technician spoke of how his neighbor did not have a job and he was thankful to still be employed. A billing coordinator was thankful to have a pay decrease rather than loose a member of the team. A service manager looked at his team and thanked them for being their when the chips were down. An entire sales team asked how much it would take them in sales to offset their teammates losses in new sales.
You don’t see this everyday. You can’t buy loyalty like this. Not since the United States Marine Corps have I seen loyalty to a team such as this. Staring adversity and hard times in the face, this team asked what more they could do for the teammate standing next to them rather than scurry away and sulk.
We used to have a saying in the Marine Corps, “It’s not the Corps that takes care of Marines, it’s that Marine standing shoulder to shoulder with you that will bring you home.” When the chips are down and you are looking at troubled times do you have a team that will bring you home?
Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.
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ChangeForge... a catalyst to affect the paradigm by Ken Stewart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.changeforge.com. -
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