The SMART Goals Acronym, BHAGs, and Other Silliness

“My goal now:  to be the all-being ruler of time, space and dimension….  And then, I want to go to Europe.” – Steve Martin

For the low price of about $5000, you can spend the weekend with some screaming hucksters (who you would run far away from in a normal social setting), who will guide you to the perfect collection of personal and professional goals that will change your life, and provide the happiness that has always alluded you.  Your registration also includes a coffee mug, and a handsome leather portfolio for all your hand written notes.

It seems that the SMART acronym (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-phased) is not the stuff of which great goals are based.  You can also dispense with BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) made famous by Jim Collins.  Nope, the only way to achieve greatness is to pay your $5000, and lose a weekend of your time.

I’m thinking about advertising on the same forum a one-hour seminar on how to avoid rip-offs, but only charging $2500.  I would assume I would be marketing to the same clientele.

Don’t get me wrong – I think goals are important.  However, I don’t believe their commodification is necessary.  You can write your goals in whatever format you wish on the back of a napkin, and get everything out of it your would by paying your $5000.  The reason most goals fail to be achieved is because people lack the discipline to follow up on their goals – not because of how they are written.

I do believe everyone should have goals, and I do believe you should write them down.  The SMART acronym can help you write higher quality goals, and Jim Collin’s idea of BHAGs can help you to write something inspired.  If you don’t buy into either of these, write them as you see fit – just write them.

Changing Corporate Culture — the show about nothing

In January of 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded on take-off killing all seven crew, and grounding the American space program for two years.  Of the exhaustive investigations that took place (that led to a significant number of changes for NASA, and how they conducted their business), perhaps the most important change was that for the first time, talking about changing corporate culture was fair game.

The engineers and investigators determined the technical causes of the explosion, but when they dug deeper to understand why those technical issues were not addressed in advance, they ended up in the uncomfortable place of changing corporate culture.  It turns out NASA had a culture whereby many qualified people knew there was a significant risk of disaster, but none chose to voice those concerns, even if they would have been listened to.

I call this an “uncomfortable” conclusion because highly technical people in any organization want to discuss things they can see, touch and/or count.  Changing corporate culture is something that nebulous and messy.  It’s difficult to define, impossible to measure, and probably the most important element of performance in an organization — as NASA found out the hard way.

So how do you go about changing corporate culture?

You don’t.

Much like Jerry Seinfeld dominated television with a show about nothing, organizations need to get about doing what they do.  I was recently in the NBC store in New York, more than a decade after Seinfeld left the air, and discovered that a significant portion of the wares were dedicated to Seinfeld’s “nothing”.  The Soup Nazi, Vandalay Industries, and Kramer’s hair all testify to the enduring quality of Seinfeld’s “nothing”.

Changing corporate culture is a lot like the show about nothing.  What people do, how they interact with each other, how they manage conflict, what gets rewarded, who gets promoted, how success is measured and a score of other things all add up to your corporate culture.

The silliest thing you can do is to declare a change in corporate culture to some virtue you read about at some other company.  The culture you have now is a product of the things above.  If you want to change your corporate culture, you need to address those things.

And don’t think it will happen in a hurry.  It will be a decade more before Seinfeld is replaced at the NBC store.

A Guide to Ace Your Annual Performance Review

In many organizations, Annual Performance Reviews are about as popular as Ike at the Tina Turner Fan Club meeting.  They are done sporadically, if at all, and they typically have very little impact on organizational performance.

The last big multi-national corporate organization I worked for as an employee had a fascinating “system” for the annual performance review.  I would suggest it’s very typical to what is seen in other companies, so in the interests of demystifying the whole process, here is a list of definitions and translations to sort out some of the vernacular that accompanies the annual performance review:

Annual: In the case of the annual performance review, “annual” means maybe once every 18 to 24 months, or maybe never at all.

Performance Review Meeting: This is where both manager and employee avoid eye contact and share some awkward small talk before the boss launches into his/her diatribe of the last year in review.  Similar to a bad sitcom in format.

Coaching: This is the organizational equivalent of Batman.  You might see it late at night after a signal (usually a corporate memo) has been flashed, but if you see it at all, it will be in a poor light, and you’ll never be sure if it happened or not.

Developmental Opportunities: These are the things you will get fired for, if you don’t fix them.  If there were no employment laws, they would revert to what they used to be called: threats.

Pay for Performance: Managers who get along well with people, take the amount of discretionary salary dollars they have, and divide by the number of direct reports they have.  Managers who don’t care how well they get along with people give it to the people they like the most.  In the rarest of cases, there is a good measurement system in place that everyone understands, and it truly is pay for performance.  It is about as common as spotting a unicorn at the fall carnival.

Performance Appraisal Documents: This is a template that bears little resemblance to your actual job, written by someone in HR who has never worked in the core business.

Performance Review Meeting Preparation: This describes the immediate 30 seconds prior to the meeting starting

The Sandwich Method of Feedback: This is where poorly trained managers slip some “constructive” feedback in between two compliments.  For example, “Nice shoes; you’ve got some significant improvement to make on your analytical skills, but I like your socks.  Also known as the “Sh*t Filled Twinkie” method.

Performance Management Philosophy: This is the same affliction that causes writers of annual reports to declare, “Employees are our most important asset” without the implied disclaimer, “unless they cost us money, or otherwise inconvenience us.”

Seek the Employees View: This is the final 30 seconds of the meeting where the employee is expected to thank the supervisor for the constructive feedback, and declare his/her intentions to act on it.  Only trouble-makers would disagree with the feedback.  Under no circumstances should an employee ever speak his mind here.

I hope this translation helps.  For ideas on how to cope with, and ultimately succeed at your Annual Performance Review, download this week’s podcast.

Avoid Procrastination — and Coffee Shops

Back when I was in University, I elevated procrastination to an elegant form of art.  Around the time every semester when I was supposed to be producing term papers, I would find just about any excuse not to do them.  I would do the requisite scheduling of time to get them done, and lock myself in either the school library or my bedroom so something would get done.

As it turns out, I would have been better off going to the pub (where at least I would have had some fun) because those long lock-down periods produced either:
a)    a thorough reading of the complete poetry works of Ezra Pound (more fun than managerial economics) when I was locked in the library

b)   the cleanest bedroom ever, if I was relegated to home.

Luckily, twenty-five years later I’m starting to understand procrastination for what it is: a total and complete lack of discipline.  Dr. Piers Steel recently wrote a book called The Procrastination Equation to help further understanding of this systemic problem.  According to Steel, procrastination affects 95% of the population (I assume the other 5% are buddhist monks who spent upwards of 20 hours per day in meditation).

Dr. Steel spent about 10 years researching procrastination for his book.  He probably could have gotten the research done in five years, if he was more disciplined, but I’m sure his room was as clean as mine was as a university student.  Interestingly, he tags coffee shops as a huge enabler of procrastination.  Add to this ubiquitous internet, television, video games and other people, and it’s remarkable we don’t all live in a catatonic state that Captain Christopher Pike found himself in in the original Star Trek series.

On this week’s podcast, Jed and I talk about why you might find yourself procrastinating, and what you might do about it.  Here’s a hint:  Nike had it right – Just Do It.

I’ve also pasted in a video clip below that’s a bit longer than normal.  It will be perfect if you’re putting something off, and you want a 3-minute reprieve from actually doing something.  We know we have a loyal following at Wily Manager, and if we can’t help you with your challenges, we’d like to enable you having fun while you wallow in them.

Now… I better get back to my writing – before I head over to the coffee shop.

Bad Bosses? Not to criticize, but you’re stupid!

Larry was my boss back when I had a real job – the kind of job where you show up every day (in body, at least), work as part of a cog in a huge corporate wheel, and try to attach meaning to mundane tasks.

The world was black and white for Larry:  if he thought you were a hard worker, he could be charming and funny.  If he didn’t like the way you worked, your life at work quickly descended into a living hell.  In the core skills and talents of the business we were in, there was probably no one stronger than Larry.

Larry did many things right as a leader;  he was not burdened by the need to have people like him, he got lots done, he was an excellent teacher, and he consistently produced the desired results.

As you can imagine, he also did a number of things wrong.  His treatment of people he didn’t like would clearly fall under the definition of harassment if it happened today.  I still remember the day when he repeatedly shouted at one of his direct reports (in front of many others), “You’re stupid!  You’re a stupid, stupid man!”

No one knows how many potentially good people he chased out of the business because his first impression of them wasn’t good.  And his volatile demeanor often took a minor incident and exaggerated it into a major crisis that required more time and energy by all involved to finally get resolved.

The company did invest in Larry by sending him off to corporate charm school, where he learned to soften his feedback:

“Not to criticize, but you’re stupid”

When I went on to leadership roles, Larry was a role model for me – both for what he did well, and by serving as a warning beacon for things he didn’t get right.  Here are some lessons I learned from Larry, that still guide me today:

  • If you want a lot of friends, or have a high need for the approval of others, you need to stay in an individual contributor’s role.
  • You always need to treat people with respect.  It doesn’t mean, however, that you don’t hold them accountable.
  • You need to be absolutely clear about your expectations, and then dole out both positive and negative consequences when things go right/wrong.  Leaders who think they can over-acknowledge good performance, and not deal with poor performance, are weak and will fail.
  • What you do is far more powerful than what you say.
  • Leadership is hard work

Larry retired many years ago, yet his impact on me (and a great many others) is still felt.  I’m sure if I asked Larry, he would have absolutely no idea how profound his influence was on me or anyone else.

So one final lesson from Larry: As a leader, you have a significant impact on people’s lives… perhaps for decades to come.

The Power of Persuasion — How Great Ideas Die

“Selling” is not a bad word – it is an essential business skill.  It’s easy to see how some people would think that influencing others is somehow underhanded or unethical:

“Yep… this one’s got really low miles.  Only driven to church on Sunday by a little old lady from Pasadena”

In reality, many great ideas die an agonizing death because they have not been properly sold.  There also seems to be an inverse correlation between our technical ability, and our willingness to sell.  In other words, probably the more technically skilled you are in your area, the less likely you are to want to sell your idea.  (With all due respect to the Engineers out there.)

Here’s an ugly truth:  marketing is everything.  Think of the examples in consumer goods:

  • 8-tracks were far superior in quality to cassettes or records.
  • BetaMax was most certainly better than VHS
  • Apple’s Mac has long been superior to any PC.

So if these are any indication, great products and great ideas require great marketing if they are to be adopted.

So what do you do?

First – you have to value the idea of selling your ideas.  You need to tell a story about how your idea is going to enhance pleasure, or reduce pain.

Second – Put together a marketing plan.  Depending on what you’re doing, it might only be half a page long, but have some idea about what story you are going to tell, to whom, and via what media.

Third – Check out our podcast this week to hear more about Influencing Others

Finally – remember that we are all “in sales”.  If you live in a society of more than one person, you will be constantly trying to lobby people to your way of thinking about one thing or another.  The sooner we all get comfortable with this reality, the sooner the good ideas will at least seem to “sell themselves”.

The Project Post Mortem: A Good Investment

Every few years I’ll do a job or a project for a governmental organization.  Given that I spend about 90% of my time dealing with private sector organizations, I always have to recalibrate when I enter a public sector organization.  Most often in government, I experience generally hard-working people frustrated by a bureaucracy resulting in precious little actually being accomplished.

The public sector usually attracts people who are generally risk averse, and as a result, the idea of taking action without perfect information, or allowing oneself to make mistakes and then swiftly correcting them is a hard sell.  I seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time just urging people to hurry up and move to action.

In some cases, my problem in private sector organizations is exactly the opposite.  Getting people to slow down for just an hour or two to evaluate and document their performance is often branded as heresy.  In the case of doing some form of “look-back” after a project or initiative, public sector organizations tend to do a much better job.

There are probably a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which is that public spending is subject to much closer scrutiny, and by a wider variety of interest groups.  Nevertheless, private sector organizations would be well advised to take a look at how their cousins in the public sector evaluate and document lessons learned from projects and initiatives.

Most often, the reason given for failing to do a post mortem is, “we don’t have time, besides… everything went well.”  When things go very well on a project or initiative is the most important time to do a post mortem.  Do you know why things went better than expected?  Can you repeat that performance again, or was it just good luck?

To spend an hour or two properly debriefing a project or initiative may be the best investment an organization can make.

Why Most Leadership Development Activities are a Waste of Time

It all starts off with noble intentions and great expectations.  Organizations invest thousands to send a manager off to some Leadership Development Training, with high hopes of getting a return on their investment, and of seeing some measurable change in managerial performance.

The normal result is a large invoice for the training and related costs, and a new PowerPoint slide hung on the wall, with some convoluted model or diagram that’s supposed to change our lives, and solve all organizational ills.

How do managers and organizations get is so wrong?

They have the right idea, but they make the same mistake that any of us that has ever been on a diet before has made.  We think that some temporary action, and new package on an old bit of knowledge will make a difference.  Here’s a blinding flash of the obvious:  if you want to lose weight, eat more veggies, eat less of everything else, and try to exercise more.  Most importantly, make these changes habits rather than a temporary intervention.

Organizational and Leadership Development is no different.  Figure out what behaviours you want your managers to display, and take action to make those behaviours into habits.  This is incredibly easy conceptually, but much harder in practice.  You need to look at your reward systems, development systems and processes.  Part of your answer may include training, but only then as part of the solution.

We did some work with PepsiCo, who are generally well recognized as very competent at Leadership Development Activity.  Their development model calls for 10% Leadership Training, with the balance of development activities taking other forms such as coaching, job-shadowing, special assignments, and secondments.

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely believe that quality leadership is the stargate to better production, increased quality, improved safety, and better cost control.  I just think that organizations that attempt to bridge their leadership quality gaps via training are taking the easy way out, and burning shareholder money to boot.

Just like most of us don’t need another diet book, but rather the discipline to use one of the 44 we already own, leaders don’t need another day in a classroom – they need help making habits out of the things they learned last time.

The 80/20 Rule and the Office Martyr

As a society, we’ve decided that many behaviours that were acceptable only a few decades ago, are now completely out of the question.  A careful viewing of any episode of Mad Men will confirm how much has changed in a relatively short time.  Gone are the days of getting completely plastered at lunch, and then driving back to the office to finish up your day.  Same goes for smoking, recreational drug use, gambling, gluttony, and virtually all other forms of excessive, self-destructive behaviour.

There is one glaring exception: workoholism.  I am often bombarded on Monday mornings with tales of alleged heroism about how someone successfully avoided their family all weekend, so they could work right through to finish some insignificant office project.  The same people will drone on about how they get to the office before 7.00am, and work past 6.00pm on a regular basis.

Here’s a newsflash: this is something to be embarrassed about, not something one brags about. Not many people entertain people at the water cooler boasting about their other self destructive vices:

“I spent the weekend gambling away my kids’ tuition money!”

“I ate 12 boxes of Krispy-Kreme’s in one sitting on Saturday.  Then I purged, and did it again.”

“I’m pretty sure my eating disorder is serious enough now to warrant medical attention”

All of these sound as ridiculous to me as, “I work 80 hours per week on a regular basis”.  Congratulations – you’re completely dysfunctional, and probably need to see a mental health professional – top speed.

Workoholism is the working professional’s last and only chance to be a martyr.  These martyrs think the tales of their self-perceived heroics will place them in higher standing amongst their peers and boss.  It doesn’t – the only thing your organization cares about is what you get done.  Think of how many times in your working life you’ve seen the obsessively hard worker be passed over by someone else, who works significantly less, but gets way more done.

There are only two situations that I could envision someone working an 80 hour week:

1)   The exceptional project, event or occurrence that will quickly pass to return to a more reasonable way of working, or

2)   You are a farmer – in which case you have my gratitude and respect.

The rest of you need to wake up and realize this self-destructive behaviour for what it is.  For thoughts on how to get out of workoholic trap, visit our site this week, where we talk about the 80/20 rule, and how to apply it.

Solutions to Office Layout Disgruntlement

We’ve heard many managers compare their jobs to that of baby-sitter.  The only difference being when the kids upset you, you can send them to their room, and the snacks and TV-watching options are better for the baby-sitter.

It is true that managers of people get dragged into all kinds of trivia, and much of it should be ignored.  There seems to be no more emotional issue than that of the office layout.  Several years ago, people were mourning the loss of office walls, as many organizations transitioned to cube-farms.  Now people fight over the size and location of their workstation.

Unfortunately, most managers have very little time/patience/control over the office configuration, so the best they might be able to do is offer some advice to disgruntled cube-dwellers as to how to cope with the physical office reality.  Here are some ideas:

Define Your Office Boundaries. This worked for Les Nessman at WKRP, and it can work for you.  Don’t acknowledge anyone unless they knock at your pretend door, and certainly don’t put up with people walking through your pretend walls.  You might even want to suspend wall paintings from the ceiling to line up with your pretend walls.

Engage in Closed Office Behaviour.  Make loud personal telephone calls.  If you feel the need for a nap, close your pretend door and sleep like you would at home (unless you sleep in the nude).  Need to pick your nose?  You’re in the privacy of your own office – go for it.  If someone tries to talk to you through a pretend wall, look towards the pretend door, and shout, “I can’t hear you.  Would you like to come in here?”

There’s No Place Like Home. Most people spend more conscious hours in their workplace than they do in their homes.  You need to make the place comfortable.  Buy a portable fridge to put under your desk, as well as some small kitchen appliances (start with a toaster, blender, and espresso machine).  You probably don’t control much in your work-place, so make your 8 X 8 part of the empire a castle.

Of course with this new-found freedom, you will also have to respect and ignore others engaging in the same behaviour if the illusion is to be complete.  Here’s a YouTube clip on office layout that outlines the perils of being too interested in what’s happening one row over on the cubefarm.

« Previous Page
Next Page »