Blog — Page 15

Measure Your Measures

Last time I wrote about measurement in the workplace, I got quite a bit of hate mail. I could tell you the exact quantity and relative quality of that hate mail, but suffice it to say, that people seem to have very definite ideas about how things ought to be measured (or not measured) in their workplace.

So I’ve beefed up my security detail, and put on my protective cup, and I’ll tackle business metrics again – this time for service oriented businesses.

Let me describe the two opposite ends of the continuum on this silly debate. Way over on the far left hand side, are those people who say, “I’m a lawyer (graphic designer, LR negotiator, marketing specialist, etc.), you can’t measure what I do.” Sorry – I can, and I will.

On the extreme right hand side of the scale are those people (mostly consultants, who’ve never actually worked in any of these jobs), who say, “Measuring service businesses is exactly the same as measuring production-based businesses.” You should throw such people out of your office quickly, before any more of their ignorance wears off on your people.

As with many things, the truth lies somewhere between these extremes — in the less comfortable grey area. You can and should measure service business functions, but it often much harder than simply counting widgets.

In some cases, there are very repeatable and transactional things that occur within a service function, that should be counted like widgets. If you work as a recruiter, you should be prepared to disclose how many resumes were screened, how many people were shortlisted, how many interviewed, and your time to fill the position.

You should also have a quality ranking as to how well those positions were filled that will only become clear after some time has passed. For example, how many of your new recruits quit or are terminated within the first 18 months is a quality indicator of the recruiting process. So are the upward mobility of new hires, and their scores on performance appraisals, in the first couple of years after they come onboard

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

So rather than fire-bombing my office, perhaps you could measure the effectiveness of your current measurements – but we’ll leave that for another day.

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

I was out for lunch recently on a weekend with an old family friend. Our lunch, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, overlooking the ocean was repeatedly interrupted by a Blackberry – and not the thorny cane-fruit type. I finally asked if my friend’s wife was eleven months pregnant, and if he was waiting on the call to rush to the hospital.

“No”, he replied without looking up. “We’re well beyond our child-rearing days”.

Apparently, my attempt to diffuse the situation with some sarcastic humor had failed.

Some people find themselves in jobs where they really are on call over a weekend. For the vast majority, however, they voluntarily place themselves on constant standby regardless of their position. They then have the nerve to whine about not getting any time to themselves.

Suck it up, Princess, you’re doing it to yourself.

My friend above is a public school teacher. I have great respect for the work that teachers do, but I’ve got to think that one of the perks of the job has got to be the fact that outside of the occasional basketball game, you are largely left alone on the weekends. Does a public school teacher really need to be monitoring email messages on a Saturday afternoon?

The honest answer is “No”. People, like my friend, end up doing so for a variety of reasons. First, it makes us feel important if we believe we are indispensible. Second is the addictive nature of being continually connected – what if we are the last ones on the block to know that the Joneses are having ice-cream with their apple pie for desert tonight? Third, it fits right in with what we’ve always been taught to do – not to hold your attention on anyone or anything for more than 30 seconds.

The myth of work-life balance is not that it doesn’t exist, but rather that most people do not allow it to exist. It is true that organizations need to reduce explicit and tacit pressure for employees to be connected at all times, but employees have some accountability here too.

The reality is that people love to complain that they work long hours, and never get a break, when in fact a large portion of the dysfunctional behavior is entirely self-imposed. If you want work-life balance, then turn off your phone, and be completely present with whomever or whatever you are dealing with at that moment. Unless you’re on call for the next space shuttle launch, nobody is going to notice anyway.

Improve Morale — Discipline People

So if I read all the management literature correctly, then to improve employee morale, I should hire a concierge, allow people to bring their pets to work, and every day at 3.00pm we should join hands in a circle and sing campfire songs. Personally, I can’t think of anything that would make me start looking for alternative employment faster.

So what does impact morale, and should managers care?

First of all, they should care – just not about concierges and employee sing-alongs. Morale is a key driver of attendance and retention both of which have a clear and immediate impact on costs. Morale also creates and maintains employee discretionary effort — which has a clear and immediate impact on productivity, quality and safety. Besides all of that, it’s just way more fun to work at a place where people are engaged.

There are several ways for leaders to impact morale. Perhaps one of the most important is a consistent, fair, and well thought out progressive discipline process. Yep, that’s right… I’m suggesting that progressive discipline and higher employee morale are highly correlated. Here’s why:

When one member of a team consistently doesn’t pull his weight, it is rarely the boss that feels the impact of this. Most often it is that laggard’s peers. By addressing one person’s poor performance, others are both relieved and validated. They are relieved that the discipline will either lead to the person beginning to pull their weight, or that the person will be replaced by someone who will. They are validated by the demonstration that their effort is superior to that of the person receiving the discipline.

The most highly effective workplaces have predictable and clear consequences for both good and poor performance, so it is not good enough for a leader simply to focus on discipline. However, many managers put off uncomfortable discussions about poor performance using the excuse that any intervention will harm morale. In fact, the opposite it true.

Oh No. Now you’ve got to go do it.

Go ahead… discipline someone for poor performance, and improve your team’s morale.

Here’s a Stupid Idea

Mistakes are remarkably underrated, and very few organizations are actually good at making them. When it comes to making mistakes, there are typically two types of organizations:

Those with little or no tolerance for mistakes, so in order to avoid making them, they either don’t make decisions, or they analyze decisions to such a degree that they become paralyzed. I would include most public sector organizations and big utilities in this category.
Those organizations where mistakes get made, and the most important thing is to assign blame. Of course, people in such organizations would not self-identify as being blame-seekers, but it is often cloaked in “holding people accountable”. Accountability is about people delivering on pre-agreed upon requirements. Making mistakes is about taking risks and doing something new

There is a third type of organization that encourages people to take risks in certain areas of the business. Many times those risks do not pan out, but from the ashes of failure a phoenix of innovation and performance rises. This type of organization is exceptionally rare. The best examples are well known: Apple, Virgin. There are others as well, but they are as difficult to find as a trace of dignity in a reality TV star.

I always know I’m in a well run and innovative business when I hear, “Here’s a stupid idea”. A high level of confidence is required is say such a thing, and a high level of trust in your peers to take such risks. So revel in your mistakes, and do so knowing you are in good company.

When Command and Control Works

It seems to me that Command and Control as a management style has gotten a bum rap. You’ve heard the disparaging remarks, “She’s a complete command and control style manager” – implying there is something wrong with that.

I think such comments display a startling lack of understanding of what leaders are required to do in organizations. Command and control is a very useful managerial tool for certain situations.

People love to use fire-fighting as an analogy to describe modern management practice. I would challenge anyone to go find himself a Fire Chief and ask him/her if command and control is a bad idea.

When a building is burning and lives are at stake, the Fire Chief very much relies on command and control as the appropriate management tool for that situation. Can you imagine the fire department showing up at an emergency, and the Fire Chief requesting that everyone break up in study groups, to hold hands and sing camp songs?

“OK – everyone brainstorm ideas for how we should tackle this, and I’ll give a special prize to the group that comes up with the best idea. Make sure everyone participates equally, and remember that everyone’s feedback is valuable. This is an excellent opportunity to reinforce how much we value each other, and I’ll float between the groups to help facilitate.”

Glad it’s not my house on fire. I want the Fire Chief standing on top of chair barking out orders as fast as she can to get the situation under control. I also want the Firefighters to listen carefully to the orders being dispatched, and execute as they’re being instructed to do.

When they are back at the Firehall, and practicing for such emergencies, or doing community outreach, then the Fire Chief would be well advised to pull a different tool out of his box, and to engage his people in a more collaborative style.

The problem for people that disparage command and control is that they confuse this very important managerial style with a lack of respect. Lack of respect is never appropriate, but many times it is a leaders job to tell her direct reports in no uncertain terms what they are required to do. Setting clear expectations, holding people to account for those expectations, and administering the appropriate consequences are what we pay managers to do.

Command and control is one legitimate tool to get this done.

Socrates, Lincoln and ADD

One of the hazards of living in a society that doesn’t value anything remotely old, or any person over 25, is writing about people who lived in different centuries. I’m taking a bit of a risk here… by way of this first sentence, 50% of the reading audience has already ADD’d onto another subject.

You see, Socrates and Lincoln were masters of the art of asking questions. A key part of each of their distinct repertoires was to ask questions to guide and persuade people to their way of thinking. Undoubtedly, it was a special skill in their respective times. Now, it is probably an extinct form of communication.

The benefits of guiding conversation by questions are well documented and obvious. What is not as evident is why people don’t bother to use this powerful method of communication.

I’ll go out on the limb here, and suggest it’s because we don’t think we have time.

We live in an instant gratification culture with an overwhelming societal case of Attention Deficit Disorder – communal ADD.

In the course of investigating this phenomena, I turned to the ultimate authority on all things cultural: the TV. I watched a few unscripted TV shows (I won’t call them “Reality TV”, because Star Trek is closer to reality than any of these shows).

It seems effective communication requires us to:

a) Have all the answers, right away. If you don’t know the answer, make something up, and stick to your guns, lest you look weak.

b) If you don’t know the answer, shout louder than the other person to make your (incoherent) point. It doesn’t really matter what they are saying, or even if they are right. What is most important is that you win.

c) You are entitled to an opinion, even if you have absolutely no clue what is being discussed. You are not only entitled, you are obligated to weigh-in with your clueless drivel.

d) Everybody is exceptionally good looking. Ugly people make for bad TV, and are thus completely ignored even if they do have something intelligent to say.

I wonder what questions Socrates would ask about this?

The Art of Asking Good Questions

The art of asking good questions is a key leadership tool that has become more and more difficult to find in use. Join Jed & Bob this week, as they discuss why and how good questions can be effectively used as leadership tool.

Monday’s Tip: Use empowering questions. Empowering questions move people to positive action rather than disempowering questions that seek to assign blame or retribution.

Tuesday’s Tip: Realize that asking questions takes time. While it may be faster to simply tell people the way it is, using questions to guide them to your way of thinking produces a much higher degree of commitment.

Wednesday’s Tip: Use confirming and clarifying questions. Much can be learned by using probing questions to learn more about a situation, or to guide people to consider things they might otherwise not have.

Thursday’s Tip: Use Positive Understanding. When someone throws out an objection, use a question that focuses on the positive part of their statement. For example, if someone tells you they’d like to do something but that it won’t work, ask them a question about how and why they’d like to try it.

Friday’s Tip: Use action questions. “How soon can be get started?” “What can we do about that?” are both questions that move people to action. Use such questions to get things moving with people.

Weasels in the Workplace

There are lots of colloquialisms and metaphors used in business today that are “reaching” to say the least. Sports analogies are very tired, and if I hear one more person talk to me about “low-hanging fruit”, there will be a Bob-shaped hole in the nearest door.

However the word, “weasel” is perfect for the type of behavior it describes in the workplace. To that end, I’ve put together a list of the similarities between a weasel found in nature, and the weasel found in the workplace:

A weasel is a rodent. As such, they are a nuisance that needs to be weeded out and destroyed.
When a weasel is threatened it becomes extremely aggressive, and potentially dangerous.
They are small (in this case of the workplace weasel small-minded), but active predators.
According to Wikipedia, weasels in nature have a reputation for cleverness and guile… not unlike the workplace weasel.
Weasels are considered vermin because they stock poultry and rabbits used for commercial purposes. The workplace weasel also undermines commerce – usually by more insidious means than stocking poultry.
Weasels exist on all continents except Antarctica and Australia. If there are any Wily Manager followers at the research station at Antarctica, I’d love to know if there are any workplace weasels. I lived in Australia for a while, and while they may not have weasels, they have lots of other rodent vermin, which begs the question, “what do the Aussies call their workplace weasels? Actually, I was once told that the Australian equivalent of the office-weasel was called a Kiwi, but after I visited New Zealand, I had to dismiss that as sour grapes on the part of my Aussie-informant.
A group of weasels can be called a boogle, gang, pack, sneak, or confusion. The workplace weasel, when s/he finds a support group, could also be called “sneak” or “confusion” (but I also like boogle).

All these similarities got me to questioning whether weasel remedies would be similar between the natural and workplace varieties. Here, the parallels are a little more illusive, yet still instructive. For example, you can set traps for weasels. In nature, the bait is usually something to eat. With workplace weasels, it might be a rumored promotion, but sometimes they might respond to good catering.

Suddenly, the song “Pop Goes the Weasel” makes so much more sense to me now.

Personal Responsibility and the Fall of Society

The current silliness around the US Government’s debt ceiling is a classic case of individual members of government completely failing to take any responsibility. For those observers convinced that it’s one party’s fault or the other, you are blinded by partisanship, and not seeing the whole situation clearly.

Perhaps the idea of political parties has passed its “best-before” date.

Originally, the British Parliament (of which many other systems of government have been based upon including the American one), was set up so that a local riding would elect a member to represent it, and then the elected members would all get together, and deal with the business at hand – such as selecting the Prime Minister and other key ministers.

This devolved into parties as people became more apathetic about the political process. Political parties gave all elected official cover from any personal responsibility to their constituents. The current silliness in the United States over the debt ceiling is a prime example. Does any thinking person really believe this has anything to do with anything BUT politics? Any American, regardless of his political stripe, should be deeply offended by what is happening in Washington right now.

There is a whole lot of politicking, and not any responsibility being taken. American society has been living beyond its means since the end of the Second World War, and its like nobody got the memo on this until May. Now it’s a crisis, and no one wants to act

Bad news folks – if you take two or three minutes to add up the numbers, it is indisputable that there are substantial spending cuts required, and significant tax increases needed to fix the problem. Unfortunately, no one in Washington will take the responsibility of telling people a truth they don’t want to hear.

This is what we expect from politicians – as a society, we have completely abandon the idea of personal accountability.

By the way, this situation is not unique to the United States. Because I have lived in a few different countries, I seek out news from my former adopted homes, and am quite aware similar silliness is occurring in Australia, Canada, and the UK.

Only when people re-engage in the political process, will anything change. People lament it is the absence of the voter on election-day, but this is simplistic way of looking at the problem. The Australians have mandatory voting, and still get caught in political silliness. Only when we demand responsibility from our locally elected Members of Parliament, or Congress Members will anything change.

That is, unless the current political problem in the US doesn’t completely destroy the global economy, in which case you should look for a nice plot of land with a long growing season.

Awash in Data

Twenty or so years ago, organizations would hire guys like us to come in and help them define metrics and measures. Often times there were not adequate data collection and storage systems, so we ended up counting a lot of things manually, and then getting our crayons out to hand draw graphs to represent these indicators.

Skip ahead in time a couple of decades, and organizations are still hiring guys like us to help them with the measures and metrics, but now its usually because they have thousands upon thousands of data points, but no ability to turn this data into wisdom, and ultimately better business decisions.

Blame Microsoft. They made it easy to have powerful spreadsheets and databasing capability on every desktop relatively cheaply. Now the guy who runs the janitorial service at the office has a PC with more computing power than the Space Shuttle, and 500 indicators he’s tracking.

We also see it in any professional sport. Did you know that in games that take place on the road, in the Central Time Zone, on odd-numbered days, in the same month as the coach’s birthday, when the starting line-up all had chicken for the dinner the previous night, the team has posted a win 58% of the time?

Now that’s valuable data.

Professional Sports organizations are very fat with cash – they can afford to waste some on useless statistics. Your organization probably can’t.

You need to figure out what results your organization is trying to produce, and then determine the key drivers of those results. For many organizations, the goal is to make money while minimizing various forms of risk. What are the simple key drivers of these things?

When I worked in the Retail Food industry we were very good at making a really simple business far more complicated than it needed to be. It seems to me there are only two drivers of the business that impacted all of the other things we were tracking:

Did we have what the customer wanted on the shelf when s/he wanted it?
Once that customer had everything she wanted in the cart, did we make it as easy as possible for her to part with her money?

There were literally hundreds of other things we were tracking, and some of them were actually valuable; but only these two things really mattered. Only the two things above would impact all the important result indicators.

What are the key drivers in your business?