Resistance is Futile

Wily Manager is a resource for managers at all levels of organizations.  We also encourage aspiring new leaders to engage with us to.  Every now and then I get some hate-mail that makes it clear that some non-managerial types hang out on the website too.  I’m guessing they visit so they can make themselves more angry and bitter than they already are because they are boring, ugly, and have no friends.

The hate mail I get is when I speak truth to managers.  Often times, these truths come at the expense of well-regarded intellectuals who have done lots of research about business, but have never really participated in one (other than the job they had as an intern during their undergraduate studies).

Here’s one of those truths:

“People will naturally resist change”

Of course, the gurus will tell you that people don’t resist change.  They say people will get on board if you take the time to explain the benefits, why the change is being made, and what’s in it for them.  That is exquisite BS.

The best is example is the metric system.  The metric system is much easier and nearly universal in its use.  Yet, the few hold-outs in the world cling to the old Imperial System like Linus to his blanket.

Here’s another uncomfortable truth:

“If you want to overcome resistance to change, you need to make the pain of staying the same greater than the pain of changing.”

The gurus would hate this truth.  They would contend that you hold people’s hands, sit in a circle, and sing campfire songs, and people will change.  They won’t.

Don’t coddle people through change – yes, you need to explain to them what is changing, why it’s changing, and what the benefits are.  You need to tell them several times.  But then you need to make the pain of staying the same greater than the pain of changing.

If you doubt me, here’s a third truth:

“Resistance is futile.  Your own distinctiveness will be added to our own – prepare to be assimilated.”

 

Be the Master of Your Email Domain

Regular consumers of the Wily Manager website and podcasts will know we make the occasional Seinfeld reference when making our point.  In the spirit of the 1992 Emmy Award winning episode, “The Contest”, we submit our list of ways in which dealing with email is a lot like being the “Master of Your Domain”:

  • The ridiculous amount of time you spend doing it, is something you really should keep to yourself.
  • It’s something you know everyone else is doing, but you’re never really sure.
  • If you don’t exercise caution and discretion, it can be really embarrassing.
  • It’s all about you… and really has nothing to do with anyone else.
  • It can make you go blind.

There are five more reasons that I chose not to publish, because many people visit our website from their workplace, and I’d rather not have it get caught up in a firewall.

For those that have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, I’m hoping the video clip below helps, and if not, you should google:  “Seinfeld:  The Contest”.  It’s even on Wikipedia.

Are you master of your domain? Cause, “I’m out.  I’m out of the contest.”

I gotta go answer some email now.

Cross Cultural Conflict

A few years ago, I did a project with a company that was a joint venture between a British Company, an American Company, and a Canadian one.  It was in the Utility sector, so you would assume that very similar parent companies, from very similar countries would have no problem integrating their cultures.  This was an excellent example of why one should never assume.

The United States and Canada are both former colonies of the UK, and all three countries share a language (with respect to the one-third of Canadians who are French speakers).  How different could they be?

On Managing Conflict:

  • Americans argue hard for their viewpoint, and ultimately get along at the end of the day
  • The British are much more reserved and polite, but will express dissent.
  • Canadians avoid conflict at all costs – often to their detriment

 

On Working Hours:

  • Americans work 12 hours a day, and rarely take more than a few days off in a row
  • The British work hard on a daily basis.  They also have 8 weeks vacation (holiday) per year, and take a minimum of two weeks off at a time.
  • Canadians are about half way in between the two, unless there’s a hockey game on TV, in which case they go home early.

 

On Dealing with Governments (we were constantly moving people between the three countries)

  • The American Government was a nightmare to work with.  They constantly change immigration rules, and won’t provide any reasons or justifications for doing so.
  • The British Government was consistent, although highly bureaucratic and cumbersome in its process.
  • The Canadian Government was consistent with its expressed goal of making it easy for skilled people to enter and work in that country.

 

On Language

  • Americans speak “Microsoft English” – the easiest and most identifiable form of the language.
  • The British contingent from England spelled some things differently, but otherwise communicated well.  The Scottish contingent constantly baffled all the rest of us with their use of the language.
  • The Canadians sounded like the Americans; spelled like the British; and threw in some French spellings just to throw everyone else off.

 

On the Metric System

  • The United States is the only country in the world that still uses the outdated and cumbersome Imperial Measurement system.
  • The British were very frustrated when they hopped in their Audis and BMWs that the speed limit was 65mph, rather than 110 kph.
  • The Canadians were baffled that 32 degrees was miserably cold, rather than miserably hot.

 

On “Entitlement Mentality”

  • Americans don’t feel much entitlement, but rather feel the individual is responsible for his/her own circumstances.
  • The British have some Entitlement Mentality – particularly when it came to the private American health care system. (“I have to pay for this!?!?”)
  • The Canadians had a bad case of entitlement mentality.  Perhaps it was because most of the people working there had been government employees before the utility was privatized.

 

In the end, we managed to make this company work, but don’t ever underestimate cross-cultural issues even in seemingly similar cultures.

Firing People is Underrated as a Motivational Tool

Firing people is really under rated as a motivation tool – hear me out.

It’s not about punishment and intimidation – those things only work for short periods of time.  AND — as soon as you turn your back, people go back to what they were doing before.  It’s also not very nice.

Rather – by removing a consistent poor performer, you do that person’s peers (the rest of your team) a tremendous service.  If there are six people working on a team, and I am consistently not pulling my weight, then the impact of my non-performance is far more tangible on my peers than it would be to my boss.

This lesson was delivered home to me back when I had a real job as a manager – one that required me to occasionally fire people.  One member of our team constantly called in sick on short notice – a behavior that significantly, and negatively impacted his co-workers.  A bunch of us ended up working late because this person had called in sick, and we decided to go for a beer after work.\

We walked in to a local pub about 9pm, and saw our absent co-worker dancing on top of speaker.  It was quite obvious he’d been there for some time.  Apparently this fellow wasn’t very smart either – he chose to go partying at a place a block from work.

It was an easy decision to fire him, but what happened next surprised me.  Several of his peers thanked me getting rid of the guy, and one even challenged me on what took me so long!

I’m not suggesting you fire the bottom 10% of performers every month.  I am suggesting you provide crystal-clear expectations, do everything you can to help people be successful, and when the occasional person chooses to consistently betray his team and not perform, that you do not hesitate to remove that person.

Channel your “inner-Trump”.  Your team will thank you for it.

 

 

 

Multi-Tasking Rush: The Recreational Drug of Choice

I often wonder when I see two people walking down the street side by side, talking on their mobile phones whether they are talking to each other.  It seems quite possible to me that the cell-phone has become such an extension of our bodies, that this somehow feels more natural to talk to each other through technology than it does face to face.

Or maybe people simply feel they can get in some exercise, have a visit with a walking companion and return some telephone calls all at the same time.  Now that’s multi-tasking!

It’s also horribly inefficient, and incredibly rude, but we seem to conveniently overlook these things.  Somewhere along the line we decided that an iPhone can override a few million years of evolution that up until a few years ago had still only minimally developed our ability to do more than one thing at once.

It’s kind of a rush to try, though, isn’t it?  It feels really good to be driving down the road, talking on the phone, listening to the radio, and screaming at the guy in the Audi that just cut you off.

Or the guy I heard in the men’s room returning a telephone call from the toilet.  Just for fun, I went and flushed all the vacant toilets, and did some fake vomiting so the sound effects would be complete for whomever he was conversing with.

The “Multitasking Rush” is, in short, the same euphoria one gets when using drugs.  Far be it from me to lecture people about how they get their kicks, but I would suggest that Multitasking, like all other recreational drugs should be used carefully and sparingly.

 

 

 

Fast Track to Alignment: Ignore Head Office

Many moons ago, I was an Operations Manager for a big, global company.  My part of the empire was very small, but I was still subject to much of the silliness that comes with being part of a huge organization.

You could have said that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, but that would have been overly-kind.  There were departments at global headquarters that out and out competed with each other.  The loss-control guys would send out a memo, only to be contradicted by the HR group.  Of course, none of them did this knowingly – they were simply so big, that they had no idea what the other support group was doing.

This is what happens when companies face operational issues, and rather than invest in frontline managers to teach them to deal with the complexities of the business, they suck control of everything short of turning the key in the front door back far away from the core business.

The result:  total and complete misalignment.  Frontline managers and the employees doing the actual work that makes money are being continually pulled in all directions, and end up flying like a moth to the brightest light depending on which support department issued an email directive that day.

I made the decision to leave this organization, about a year before my ultimate departure.  I still loved the business, I just didn’t like working for a large, bureaucratic company that had centralized all control and decision-making.

I can honestly say, I was at my most effective in this last year.  I still wanted the business to be successful, and I cared deeply about the people I worked with.  What made me (and my operation) effective and successful in this last year is that I stopped listening to head office.  I did what I thought was in the best interests of the business, and largely ignored my instructions from head office.

The result?  They didn’t notice I was not complying with the multiple and competing directives.  They did notice our numbers were in the top ten percent in the company.

Remember you heard it here first – the fastest way to aligning your business, and ultimately generating better results is to ignore your head office.  Of course, it could also be the most direct route to getting fired, too.

Let’s be careful out there.

 

 

 

 

Are You an Imposter? Don’t Flatter Yourself

This week we’re talking about Imposters here at Wily Manager, so I thought I’d do a bit of research on great imposters of note to see if there was anything instructional for the occasional manager that finds herself with a case of Imposter Syndrome.

As I researched famous imposters, there were four names that kept coming up:

  • Charles Ponzi (after which any crooked finance scheme since has been named).
  • Frank Abagnale Jr. (the guy portrayed by Leo Dicaprio in Catch me if You Can)
  • Milli Vanilli (the duo who won a Grammy in the 90s, only to be discovered later as lip-syncers
  • George Bush Jr.  (The 43rd President of the United States)

Most of the managers I’ve talked to who suspect they have a case of Imposter Syndrome are worried because they don’t do stand-up presentations very well.  Or maybe they’re put in charge of a department where they don’t have the technical expertise.

When you compare these managerial challenges to the accomplishments of the list above, you don’t have anything to worry about.  You’re not even in the same league as these guys.  So don’t flatter yourself!

Based on the infamous list above, an imposter is someone who goes out of his way to deceive people; a person who pretends to be someone he is not, and does so with flash.  True imposters have an over-abundance of self-confidence – something most managers with Imposter Syndrome do not.

So… if you’re going to be an imposter, do it with some flair.  Can you take down a whole country’s economy?  Can you start a war?  Can you separate old age pensioners from their life’s savings?  Can you disgrace an entire industry?

If not, you probably don’t have what it takes to be an imposter, so you’ll have to try to find some other way allow your insecurities to manifest themselves.

If it’s any comfort be aware that everyone has some insecurity.  Many years ago when Johnny Carson was the host of the Tonight Show, a heart monitor was put on him to test his anxiety level right before the show started.

As it turns out, even the mighty Carson suffered some anxiety and self-doubt:  his heart rate doubled right before the curtain came up.

If Johnny Carson can be a bit nervous, surely you can too.  And don’t call me Shirley.

 

The Wily Guide to 2012

It’s that time of year again.  Yep, that right, it’s the time of year when everyone reflects on the year in review, and makes silly predictions for the upcoming year.  This happens mostly because people don’t want to do any real work or thinking in the last two weeks of the year.  Not to be outdone, we offer here:

  • A Wily Manager Review of 2011
  • How and why we started Wily Manager
  • Trends we see in 2012
  • Wily Manager in 2012
  • A special offer – If you couldn’t care less about the other stuff, you’ll want to scroll to the bottom of the page for this.

Wily Manager in 2011

We’ve been dabbling at our web and media presence for a couple of years, but it really came together in 2011:

  • 7000+ people a month listening to the 75+ podcasts posted on iTunes.  Please comment – particularly if you have nice things to say.
  • 6000+ visits to the Wily Manager website a month.  We very much appreciate your feedback here as well.
  • We launched our YouTube Channel
  • Visitors from 60+ countries around the world visit our website, and download the podcast.  Special thanks go out to those from our top five audience countries:
    • USA
    • India
    • UK
    • Canada
    • Australia & New Zealand (Extra special thanks here – because the number of audience members is far higher than the population of these two beautiful South Pacific Paradises should warrant.)
  • We got busted this year.  Yep… we got our first call from a lawyer concerned about some of the information on our site.  It’s an indicator that we’re attracting attention – even if it is sometimes from unwanted places.

How We Started

In working with our clients, we found the following things:

  • In most organizations managers are left to sink or swim on their own.
  • Most managers feel like babysitters many days.
  • We see many of the same issues again and again in different organizations.
  • Managers are under significant time constraints.

So we thought we’d put something together to address these conditions:

  • Something that is informative, but fun
  • Something that is easy to use and understand.  We love Harvard Business School’s website, and encourage you to visit it.  When you want something quick and easy, then Wily Manager is the place to be.
  • Something that removes complexity from managers’ daily lives.
  • Something that uses different media that could really work for many managers

Hence, Wily Manager was born.

Trends we see in 2012

The content police say we have to provide something in the way of original content.  As such, here are the trends we see for 2012.

  1. Managers will continue to feel like babysitters.  Call it the burden of leadership, but managers will continue to be both rewarded and frustrated by the ongoing care and feeding of those that report through to them.  The secret is to manage and lead differently to make this easier.
  2. Everyone will be an “International” Manager.  Even if you don’t manage across borders, it is likely that your team will have one or more members that come from another culture.  As such, we are all “International” managers now.
  3. Demographic issues will continue to plague UK, Canada, Australia, and even the US.  In these countries, the baby boom phenomena means that the majority of the workforce is over 50 or under 30.  This presents it’s own unique leadership challenges, and it’s a condition that’s not going away anytime soon.
  4. More conservative risk management.  We thought we were through the economic mess – but guess what?  It’s back, and even if it’s not as bad as people think it might be, there is very little change you will be awash in resources (capital, human or other) this coming year.
  5. Mayan apocalypse prophecies.  This is the year it all ends – on the winter solstice of 2012.  OK… maybe you don’t buy in to 2012 thing, but you should be ready for whatever unpredictable events are in store for us.  You can’t plan for every contingency, but you can continually improve to be better, cheaper, faster and more agile.  If you do these things well, you’ll be ready for anything… even the Mayan apocalypse.

Wily Manager in 2012

  • We want to add more virtual tools to the ones we already have:
    • FastStart
    • Leadership Boot Camp
    • Conflict Dynamics Profile

We would also greatly value your feedback as to what types of tools are going to be the most useful to you.

  • Increased interaction amongst our members.  Thank you to all those who reach out to us by email, or on iTunes, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In or on the Wily Manager website.  We will work in 2012 to encourage further interaction with us, but also to facilitate interaction amongst Wily Manager members.  We want to create an online community of managers.
  • A tropical retreat.  Yep… we’re going tropical.  Details will follow, but we encourage you to join us in November of 2012 for a Wily Manager in person week-long meeting hosted by Jed & Bob.

A Special Offer

We want to get our numbers up for the end of the year, so between now and December 31st, we’re offering the following deal:

Wily Manager Annual Memberships are 50% off (or $49) for the balance of 2011.  Become a Member now for half price.

  • Access to the web tools we mention during our podcasts
  • Full length versions of podcasts and accompanying podcast notes
  • Seamless navigation around the 800+ pages of content
  • Access to all topic-bundles

All the best for the holidays, and see you all in 2012.

Jed & Bob

How to Destroy Trust and Alienate People

There are certain things I trust.  I trust the sun to rise in the morning.  I trust the lady who does my dry cleaning to always wish me a “more-nice day”.  I trust that Justin Beiber is past his 15 minutes.  I also trust that the word “trust” is a loaded word.

Often, people think that the only way to lose or violate trust is to do something very clearly wrong or dishonest.  It is actually much easier than that to destroy trust.  Trust is quite simply, managing expectations in others, and then delivering on those expectations.

This is how it goes horribly wrong for politicians – large segments of the population demand that politicians lie to them during a campaign.  Any political candidate that dare speak an uncomfortable truth, will be marginalized immediately.  Then once elected, the disconnect between the expectations that have been set, and those that are delivered becomes patently obvious, and the public feels betrayed.

Just so you don’t end up being viewed like a politician, here are five ways to quickly destroy trust:

Say one thing and do another.  Much like the politician above, this is the fastest way to ensure that no one will trust you.

Try to please all the people all the time. Life is a series of trade-offs – particularly for people in positions of leadership.  As a leader, there should be some contingent of your followers that should be marginally pissed-off at all times – because it is impossible to keep everybody happy.

Pander to your audience. Targeting whomever you are communicating to is a good idea.  However, if you find yourself targeting to such a degree that your message is fundamentally different amongst different stakeholders, you’re going to alienate someone (if not everyone).

Fail to tackle difficult issues. Every leader bears the burden of dealing with difficult issues.  They will not magically disappear or solve themselves – in fact, an issue ignored is most often one that grows out of control.

Under-value giving credit, and over-value assigning blame.  Leaders need to be humble – give away credit when things go well, and step up and accept more than your share of blame when things go poorly.  You gain a whole bunch of trust by doing so.

 

Managing Measurement by Best Seller

Performance metrics often provide an excellent illustration of how a really good idea can be made difficult and useless by poor implementation.  It’s a lot like watching your favourite sports franchise consistently snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Usually it goes down like this:  someone in some position of authority will read the first fifteen pages of a book about measurement.  Without reading the following 250 pages, he concludes that his organization needs to get everyone on the measurement bandwagon.  Then he strikes a committee, or hires a consultant to go forth and make this happen.

Fast forward in time six months, and a significant portion of everyone’s work week becomes dedicated to counting the number of paper clips they have consumed since last week, and calculating the annual impact of that paper clip consumption.  They then have a meeting to discuss how to reduce paper clip consumption, thereby reducing annual operating costs by $48.50, or roughly 1/100th the cost of the first meeting about paper clip consumption.

OK… that might be a bit harsh.  But here are some actual examples of performance metrics gone horribly wrong:

  • The technology company that measured sales success exclusively on dollar volume at the end of each quarter.  THE RESULT:  A whole bunch of clients went somewhere else because they were tired of being sold things they really didn’t need.
  • The grocery retailer that measured check-stand effectiveness by calculating the frequency of cashiers using customers’ names.  THE RESULT:  the customers went to stores where they measure how much time was spent waiting in line – something the customer actually cares about.
  • The restaurant owner that attempted to reduce cost by reducing the number of paper napkins provided to each customer.  THE RESULT:  I don’t know… probably sticky fingers and dirty tables – this one just seemed really silly to me
  • The lumber manufacturer that measured how much fibre it recovered from each log, as opposed to how much money they made on different dimensions of lumber.  THE RESULT:  Very few wood-chips, but a yard full of garden stakes that no one would buy (and a whole bunch of trees unnecessarily harvested)

Some people will tell you all that matters at the end of the day is how much money you make.  Not true – if you focus exclusively on this, you are in a never-ending cycle of sub-optimized decisions that forbid any long term success.  Most obviously, if you ignore safety while focusing exclusively on how much money is make, it is only a matter of time before you injure or kill someone, which beside being ethically reprehensible, is very expensive.

Here’s the bottom line about measurement:  The great thing about measuring performance is that people will adjust their behaviors to affect the outcome of the measure.  Unfortunately, the really scary thing about measuring performance is that people will adjust their behaviors to affect the outcome of the measure.

So measurement (like other recreational drugs) should be used cautiously and in moderation.  Second, you should never have only one number you are tracking.  And finally, you need to understand why numbers are trending the way they are, as opposed to (over)reacting to one data point.

Let’s be careful out there.

 

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