Blog — Page 19

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.

Making Difficult Conversations Easier

How do you tell someone they smell? Or that they need to stop handing out religious pamphlets at work? Maybe an employee dresses inappropriately at work. Perhaps an employee’s spouse calls the workplace several times per day. What about your assistant’s drinking problem?

You could do what some managers do: ignore the behaviour and hope it goes away. Now, hope rarely works as a strategy to solve a problem, but let’s give it a try and see what happens:

They Smell: If you don’t act they’ll keep smelling. If you’re in a retail business, you’ll almost certainly lose customers. If the aroma is only affecting co-workers who have brought the problem to your attention, they will know for sure that you don’t care and/or that you lack the courage to deal with a relatively simple problem.

An employee is pushing an opinion or unwanted material on co-workers. This one is a bit more tricky — you need to balance an individual’s right to speak freely with his coworker’s right to not be harassed at work. This one is a level of degrees, but suffice it to say that if you’ve received complaints, the behaviour is probably already perceived as being too aggressive.

An employee is dressed inappropriately. When I was in university, I worked for a retailer who had a strict dress code. This included a ban on earrings for male employees. This was fine until one of the senior executive’s sons showed up with an earring, and the facility manager would not address it for fear of reprisal. Now, there are a whole bunch of things wrong with this scenario, but needless to say, when the manager displayed his cowardice in this regard, he had a facility full of male employees wearing earrings out of protest within a month. Rightly or wrongly, the dress code fell apart, and the manager lost all credibility.

In these, and in perhaps most cases, it can look (at least at the outset) that it is easier to NOT engage in these difficult conversations. In the short term, it probably is easier. Longer term, you create all kinds of problems for yourself as a manager if you don’t tackle difficult conversations. You erode trust, you lose credibility, and frankly you’re not doing your job as a leader. Consider this one of the “burdens of leadership”.

If you want help with this difficult part of the job, listen to our podcast, and visit our page on Difficult Conversations.

Manage Your Boss — Don’t be a Brown Noser

“If a bulletin came out from head office saying that all managers had to wear a dress, he’d be the first guy in line down at the ladies-wear store” — Rick

Rick was a facility manager I interacted with many years ago who was an excellent upward manager. He also disdained boot-licking as is evidenced in the quote above. Most managers understand the importance of leading and managing well the people that report to them. Unlike Rick however, these same managers have a huge blind spot when it comes to managing their bosses.

Rick was a good manager. He knew his business very well, and he was very even-handed in how he managed people. In some cases, he knew the business better than his bosses, and didn’t hesitate to tell them so:

“I’m not sure who came up with this idea, but they’ve never actually worked in this industry before. I guess I’ll have to read them their fortune, and let them know it will never fly”.

Rick had no problem saying “no” to his bosses. In many cases his boss would thank him for pointing out some of the ridiculous things that somehow made their way out of head office. So how did he do this, and not get himself fired?

First – he picked his battles well. The bigger the organization, the more people there are far away from the perverbial coal-face to think up stupid ideas. You can’t possibly fight all the stupidity, so you need to choose wisely.

Second – he knew what he was talking about. He didn’t offer platitudes and opinions when he opposed his boss. He brought data and evidence. It’s hard to argue with someone who has done his homework

Third – he offered good feedback to his boss as much or more as he offered constructive criticism. He nurtured a “no BS” relationship with his boss, and constantly improved his credibility. When it came time to challenge his boss, his credibility account was built up enough that even when his boss disagreed, he would still listen.

Give it a try – or you could just be an unbelievable brown noser. Apparently that can work too:

Business Training Seminars? Watch Children’s TV

Because I am a freak of nature, I can’t remember what happened yesterday afternoon, but I do remember the name of Marsha Brady’s first boyfriend (Harvey). For the uninitiated, Marsha Brady was the stuck-up, know-it-all character from the early 70s sitcom, The Brady Bunch.

This, along with Gilligan’s Island, Mr. Rogers, The Electric Company (incredibly starring Morgan Freeman, and Rita Moreno), The Partridge Family and Sesame Street, formed the basis of some fundamental lessons that guide me in business and in life to this day.

Here’s what I know:

Gilligan’s Island: In a survival situation, where life and death are at stake, people will still revert back to comfortable roles. Gilligan was always an idiot, Mary-Ann bakes Coconut Cream Pies (when she wasn’t busy getting baked herself – google Dawn Wells), and Ginger could easily manipulate anyone with a Y chromosome to get her own way.

Mr. Rogers: Most importantly, he liked me just the way I am, but also, interestingly the only civil servant (the mail man) had a two-decade old problem balancing his meds.

The Electric Company: Who knew reading could be so much fun? And… always treat those around you with respect. You never know when one of your co-workers is going to win an Oscar, Grammy, or Tony award (see the stars listed above).

The Partridge Family: Sometimes you can fake it till you make it. For evidence ask Susan Dey to sing, or watch Danny Bonaduce strum a bass guitar. For those who don’t know – The Partridge Family managed to knock the Beatles off the number 1 Billboard Chart, even though they were lip-syncing to the work of studio musicians.

Sesame Street: I’m not sure about this one – even as a five-year-old, I had a hard time accepting life-advice from a six-foot tall, ambiguously gay canary. Perhaps the lesson from Sesame Street is that it is always, all about marketing.

Enjoy

Time for an Effective Meeting Intervention

If the last meeting you went to sucked badly, you are in good company. A survey of over 1000 North American managers indicated that on average they spend about 17 hours per week in meetings. Of that considerable portion of their work-week, they deemed that one-third of that time was wasted.

The economic implications of this are staggering. If you multiply 6 hours times the hourly rate of those managers times the number of managers in the economy, you begin to see a number with a whole bunch of zeros behind it. Even in your own organization this calculation could easily total in the millions of dollars every year.

More selfishly, ask yourself what you would do if you had an extra six hours every week. Could you work more reasonable hours? Perhaps you could get to those things you know are important but are constantly displaced by the urgent.

This got us to ask the question, “if meetings are systemically bad, and they cost that much what can be done?”

First of all, do not accept that meetings have to be bad. We all seem resigned that we have to write-off a significant portion of our week to something we know is useless. Demand more of yourself, and of your organization.

Second – be part of the solution. This is your problem to solve. Even if you do not chair the meeting, you can raise questions as to how effective they are. Your complacency will get you into more pointless meetings.

Third – insist on a structure. The engineers and accountants always get a bad rap for being anal retentive. While you may want to avoid such people at cocktail parties, invite them to help fix your meetings. A bit of discipline will exponentially improve the value of your meetings.

Finally – figure out what meetings are costing you. What is the cost to the organization by the time they pay a fully burdened labour cost. What is the cost to you if meetings are causing you to work longer hours and give up your leisure time. Profit-driven organizations are usually good a containing costs when they have to. Get them to contain the cost of their meetings.

Then you’ll have more time to read our blog, and download YouTube clips. Here’s one from John Cleese – for those who love British humour.

Job Descriptions — Probably Poorly Done, Almost Certainly Useless

Do you have a job description? Have you seen it since you were hired into your current position? Does it bear any resemblance to what you actually do every day? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions (much less all 3 of them), you are in the minority. Most organizations either don’t have job descriptions, or have ones that are useless.

There is a good argument to be made that job descriptions are a relic from a time gone by, and that many jobs defy a linear description that is normally seen on a job description. I would argue that the majority of jobs can, and should have job descriptions, but not in the way they are normally done.

If your job description articulates in painstaking detail the activities that you will undertake on a “normal” day, then it officially sucks. Sorry to be the one to bring it up but:

a) Nobody cares how busy you are.

b) Nobody cares what you do.

Of course there are some highly bureaucratic organizations (often governmental organizations) where they do care about these things, but they are the minority.

Well run organizations care what you get done. What did you produce? What are your results? How much value did you create? A good job description will articulate these things – not how many paper clips you will use to file a report.

So I’m drawing a line in the sand today – Job Descriptions are dead. Throw them away. In their place, we will create POSTION OUTCOMES DESCRIPTIONS (PODs). This is not a directive to the HR people out there – they are usually the last to come on board with such changes. This is to every person who wants to make a difference. A well-written POD will facilitate you making a difference at your job.

Write yours today, and get your boss to sign-off on it. Then, when the crap-tasks start sliding across your desk, you have some mechanism by which to question it. In your old Job Description, the crap-task would have fallen under “other duties as assigned”.

Now do you see why you need to do this? There are lots of tools on the Wily Manager website to help you with this. Join the revolution – and let us know how you’re making out.

Want a High Performance Team? Ditch Your Star

Many moons ago, I was a teenage university student, paying my tuition by working the graveyard shift at a grocery store. One of the prime motivators of continuing to study hard year after year was so that I wouldn’t have to continue to work the graveyard shift at a grocery store.

Now that a few decades have elapsed, I have come to realize and appreciate the true value of this experience. When we have assisted clients to implement high performance teams, I am often asked if I have ever been on one of those very special teams. Then I tell the story about being on night-crew during university….

Interestingly, people are always trying to draw the connection between high-performing individuals and high performance teams. When I tell people the link is not as strong as they might like to think, I am often greeted with confusion.

Here’s an ugly little truth: Your star employees are often high-maintenance, and may do more long term damage than good. Everyone knows the employee who can crank out the results, but leaves a wake of broken relationships and collateral damage behind. She may produce a superior level of output for some period of time, but may adversely affect the output of others.

High Performance Teams exist where the interactions between team members are exceptionally functional. A High Performance Team quite likely doesn’t have any stars, but rather group of competent performers who have found their groove in working together. The success of your organization depends upon the number and quality of these B-players.

Back in the 1980s, in the middle of the night at a high-volume grocery retailer, our little team had no stars. It was a group of guys who liked working together, had a very clear idea of what they were supposed to be doing, and relentless peer pressure to get things done properly. Our output was almost double that of any comparable crew – and we had way more fun too.

The prescription for a High Performance Team is easy to understand. Filling that prescription is much more difficult.