The Unrivaled Leader : Part 6 – Stop Scheduling @!&#!** Meetings!

The title should be enough guidance on this topic.  This is as bad as sending too many emails.  Just stop.  STOP!

Literally, using the correct definition of the word literally, I can say that too many of my workdays are non-stop meetings from the moment I walk into the moment I leave for the day.  If I hadn’t blocked off some time for lunch, I would be meeting through lunch.   And in fact, sometimes people put meetings through my lunch.  And when I’m out of the office (on business or PTO), meetings are scheduled that I am asked to dial into.  There’s no escaping meetings!

The result of so many meetings?

  • I’m unprepared for meetings.
  • Meetings run over so I’m late to meeting+1 all the way to meeting+n.  People in these meetings are irritated at me for being late.
  • I end the day exhausted and feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything.
  • I end up taking real work home so that I can complete my deliverables, in preparation for the next day of meetings.
  • My PTO is ruined because I have to tell my family to head out on their own while I take this 30 min call, which ends up being an hour or more.
  • My business trip or training is ruined because I have to duck out at some very crucial session time to take a 30-minute meeting.

And if you think having an agenda ready for each meeting will decrease the number of meetings that are scheduled, you’re wrong.  Agenda’s don’t take much to pull together.

And maybe you think that challenging people on meetings will cause them to reschedule or cancel them?  No.  Often the challenge is responded to with a name drop:  “Well, VP Mr/s. Smith needs this meeting and this is the only week they are available and you’re not available this other time so…”.  And then, often, VP Mr/s. Smith doesn’t even show up for the meeting, or shows up and is unprepared.

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When I See My Calendar

This is a problem all the way up the chain, and frankly, I’ve found that while everyone complains about this, rarely does anyone do anything about it.  Oh sure, they might schedule meetings to deal with the plethora (would you say we have a plethora of meetings?) of meetings.

And worse yet, the trend now is to not even check if your calendar is free for a meeting. Often I receive meetings on top of (or overlapping) existing meetings on top of…  I had one day where I had four meetings at the exact same time.  Professional courtesy is gone, I suppose, but this is just regular human courtesy, or perhaps laziness.

Has no one any workable advice on how to avoid meetings?
I care about you, and so I’m going to help you reduce the number of meetings you are invited to.   And I don’t want anything in return!  I’m the Buddha of “better work habits”! I’m the Jesus of “just giving you more time”.  I’m the Mohammed of “making your work life easier”.  I’m the…eh, Jim and Tammy Bakker of … not sure where I was going with that.

Below are some of the things that have worked for me.  Some are obvious, and maybe some are not.  Try out different ones at different times.

Top 10 Ways to Reduce the Number of Meetings

  1. Decline meetings.  Yes, just decline them. You have work to do that’s more important than that meeting. Just hit the “Decline” option and provide a comment that says you have some deliverables to work on.  Your declining (or declination? dejection? ) will often lead to other meeting invitees seeing this and declining the meetings themselves and being able to use you as an excuse why:  “well, Bill can’t make it so we need him there and I’ll wait until he’s available”.  Remember, you can use this technique, too.   But, this is especially easy if you have some reasonable rank in the organization.  If you’re a layperson and decline the CEO’s meeting request, you could have a lot of time in your future with no meetings.
  2. Decline but propose a new time. This is the kinder version of #1 above.  If the meeting has some merit, but you are otherwise indisposed, propose a time that works better for you.
  3. Set a cap on meetings, and then follow #1 or #2 above.   45-hour workweek.  Two hours of meetings a day is 10 hours.  10 hours of meetings per week is almost a quarter (that’s 25%!) of your week.  That’s a lot of time in meetings.  So put a cap at 2 meetings per day, or 10 meetings per week, and stick to it.  If someone places a meeting on your calendar and you’re over your limit, decide which other meetings should be declined.
  4. Have a no-meeting day.  Just take a day off every week and block off that time as “Busy”.  Decline meetings that are placed on that day.  This doesn’t eliminate people who just drop meetings haphazardly on your calendar, but it does help.
  5. Add random fake meetings to your calendar. Yes.  Take the time, or have your admin take the time to create a spate of fake meetings with realistic-sounding names.  One time my admin created such a realistic name that I thought it was a real meeting and started stressing.  Imagine my relief when it turned out to be a fake meeting.  We high-fives! Just plop a couple of hour meetings each day across the week.
  6. Fake PTO.  Alright, maybe not fake, but go ahead and block off time in the future to take a vacation from work.  If you’re like me, you have to do this so far in advance anyway because you’re already booked up for the next two months.  Put “Hold for PTO” out on your calendar, mark the day off and wait.  If you end up taking the day off, then that’s a good thing because you get some time to relax and regenerate.  If you end up not taking the day off (but you really should, people!), then you have a reasonably unfettered day to complete your work.  Note that if you overuse this, people will ignore these blockages and put meetings on your calendar anyway.
  7. Setup no-meeting mornings. As an alternative to marking a whole day off, mark off your mornings only (9 am to noon).  Studies show that you’re most alert in the morning so use that time to do difficult or important work.  You want to be a hero, and you are a manager (or above)? Create a policy for your department that is “no meeting mornings”.  That positive energy will carry long after you have to stop doing this because some other department complains because their manager won’t do the same, wah.
  8. Convert your meetings to stand-ups. Take a page our of agile development and host stand up meetings in place of using a room or going off-site.  This does a couple of things:  1) these meetings are usually shorter because no one wants to stand up for long, 2) thus these meetings are more curt and specific, 3) you and your team look trendy and high-tech. Look at you with your team doing that stand up thing!
  9. Let your admin control your calendar and tell her #1 – 8 above.  The only thing attending to many meetings is stressing over how to manage all these meetings and decide which ones to decline.  If you’re the lucky person who has an assistant, as that person to follow my rules above.  First, you’ll relieve your stress because you’re not having to do this.  Second, usually, your admin will care just a little less about hurting other people’s feelings and will end up declining a heck of a lot of meetings.  A good assistant is one that will stand up to others on your behalf.  But you have to stand up for them as well.
  10. Work from home. If you’re lucky enough to be afforded this option, do it.  It’s difficult to set up meetings with people who telecommute.  Yes, you can Skype or Hangout it, but that’s not usually used for real meetings.  And yes, often you have to come in for real meetings, but out of sight is out of mind, and just by being out of the office you’ll not be invited to so many meetings.

I understand some of the above is a bit extreme.  You need to decide what will work best for your organization.  Maybe you soften some of them up.  For example, you don’t want a reputation for adding fake meetings to your calendars: “Oh look, here comes Mr. I’m so busy I have to lie about my meetings guy!” But if you call them “work times” rather than “fake”, then you’re just being more productive with the valuable time your organization provides!  That is so nice of you and should earn you an award.

Alright, give it a shot. Help address this blight on productivity right away!  Have any other ideas that worked for you?  Let me know in the comments!

Apple WWDC 2017 Quick Take – Day 2

As expected, Day 1 was followed by Day 2.  However, Day 2 was markedly different and very informative, not to mention exciting.

Michelle Obama

Day 2 started with “A Conversation with Michelle Obama”, where the former first lady was interviewed by Apple’s Lisa Jackson.  Without going into a lot of details, it was a very good interview. You may not like her husband’s politics, but her message is spot on.  Very encouraging about technology, especially female technologists.  Some funny comments on pictures of her and the former POTUS.  I live-tweeted the whole thing if you’re interested in hearing her (@willrwills).

Sessions and Labs

The rest of the day was comprised of sessions throughout the day at scheduled times, along with labs on various topics.

Speaking of labs, you have to request a reservation to attend a lab.  And you can’t acquire the reservation until the day of, starting at 7 am.  Well-hell, I logged in at 7 am and went searching for labs and they were all full within minutes! I was able to schedule one at noon with an Application Engineer.

From a session perspective, you have to pick and choose because they overlap.  For me, I attended:

  • What’s New in Cocoa Touch – which covered new UI elements in iOS 11, including drag and drop, changes to certain screen layouts, etc.
  • Introducing Drag and Drop – this will be an amazing feature for folks with iPads.  You can drag all sorts of things from app to app very easily.  Makes assembling documents and mix-media emails very easy.
  • What’s new in Swift 4.0 – a good overview of Swift 4.  Some cool things in there, including auto-refactoring and simplification of Strings.
  • Introducing MusicKit – Apple makes it easy for app developers to access people’s music libraries and Apple Music.
  • Updating your App for iOS 11 – a good rundown of layout changes and help functions that make programming that much easier.
  • Introducing ARKit – a run down and some amazing demos of built-in Augment Reality functionality

At 6:30 pm they screened a new movie called Planet of the Apps.  I did not stay for that as it was in a nearby theater and the line stretched around the block.  Finally, there was a “Music in the Plaza” starting at 8 pm.  I skipped that as well as it focused on live music (good!) and micro-brewery beers (ick, I don’t drink beer much) – PLUS, it started at 8 pm (11 pm circadian time), and didn’t want to stay that late.  Of course, it’s 1:20 am now, east-coast time,  and I’m writing this entry!  Fool!

Summary

The technical sessions were very very good.  They placed engineers on stage to describe the various new technologies.  These guys and gals were very smart, and amazingly effective presenters.  They also brought up Xcode and showed live how to code some of the new features.  They ran the new code live and it worked very well.

I was able to take pics of the screens and take notes.  The presentations were often interrupted by cheers and claps as they either introduced new functionality via API’s (Augmented Reality support, for example) or made certain programming aspects much much simpler (handling Unicode in Swift strings).

The engineer that I scheduled time with went way over our time as I asked him about various aspects of app development.  He was knowledgeable and patient.

Beta versions of applications and tools are now available.

It’s clear that Apple knows how to do these conferences.  Tomorrow, it’s more sessions and… I’m looking forward to them!  I’ve collected tons of notes and pics and will be writing this up for staff at work that could not be here.

Personal

I hadn’t been to a true technology conference like this in many years.  About 6 months ago I decided to learn how to write iOS apps.  I watched plenty of videos from MIT and Apple University until I was comfortable with the language.  And then most recently I created a free-standing app (in the App Store) with a unique angle for audience participation at live music shows.  This included writing both the client-side (Swift 3.1 and Xcode) and the server-side (Amazon EC2 Linux C++).

At this conference, I knew pretty much all the terminology and was able to spend time talking to some much younger developers than I about various coding and tool challenges.  It was invigorating.  My real-work had taken me so far in the direction of administration and management that I had forgotten how FUN it is to create something yourself from scratch.

I found myself smiling as Apple unveiled a bunch of incredible new features and API’s – and am looking forward to downloading the BETA tools and trying out the various new items – especially AR!

In my career, staying technical and being able to talk tech with my developers was the key to my success.  Recent developments may provide me this opportunity again.

Apple WWDC 2017 Quick Take – Day 1

I’m a day behind writing my quick takes.  I’ve tried to stay on east-coast time, without a lot of luck.  It’s going to be quite the adjustment to my circadian clock when I return home, not to mention my midichlorians. The drowsiness will be strong with this one.

Conference Logistics

The conference was moved to San Jose this year.  Usually, it’s over in SFO.  All presentations and sessions are in the San Jose Conference Center.  San Jose is just south of San Francisco.

In general, the conference is made up of presentations and labs.  Some of the presentations are keynotes and others are product updates.  The labs last the entire day.  You must enroll for each lab on the day of the lab, starting at 7 am.  However, as I found, they fill up insanely fast.

Each day you are provided pastries, fruit, and coffee for “breakfast”, and a lunch consisting of a wrap (or salad or sandwich), some chips, drinks, fruit, and a cookie or brownie.

Each night there are evening events, including food, music, and even a movie.  There’s a large bash on the “last” day, which happens to be Thursday despite the conference running to Friday.
Attendance I believe was estimated at around 6,000 people.

Sunday

I flew in Sunday night because the opening session was 10:00 am and it’s near impossible to fly East Coast to San Jose and get there in time for such an early session.  On the other hand, I left as late as possible Sunday so I effectively was in my hotel around 2 am (my local body time) when I hit the sack.

I found out very late that I was attending this conference so hotels were pretty much booked.  I’m staying out near the San Jose airport – which is fine because my flight out on Friday is like 5 am or something.  What did work out well is that I’m north of San Jose so driving to the conference I’m driving against traffic (i.e. no traffic) as most people in the morning are heading into SFO.  The same goes for the evening drive back to the hotel.
Thus far I’ve found a lot of great Asian food near the hotel (thanks Yelp!).
Registration is Sunday all day, which is important as you will read later.  Having arrived so late, I was unable to register until Monday.

Monday – Day 1

Monday was about calculating how early I needed to leave the room to get to the conference two hours before the 10 am the main session with Tim Cook.  It was a 22-minute drive from the hotel so I left around 7:30 am for the Convention Center.

Once I got there around 8 am I did find parking at the Convention Center ($20/day!).  I walked down and found a very long line into the WWDC already in place.  I then was told that I had to get into yet another comparably long line first to register.

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The line to get into WWDC
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Similarly Long Line to Registration

The good news is that the weather was nice and so waiting in line was not so bad.  Also, make sure you use the restroom before getting in line.  I did not and thus I had a grimace on my face the whole time.

My main worry is that I would not get in.  I later would find out that everyone basically gets in.  If you want to sit near the front and look Tim Cook in the face, you’re going to have to a) register on Sunday and b) arrive very very early Monday and wait.  But if you’re okay being farther back (and there are plenty of large displays with closeups of the stage), then you can arrive around 9:15 am.  Still, registering Sunday is probably a good idea – you will cut your line waiting in half.

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More waiting for registration…
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The goal!  Registration!

Registering provided me with a wrist band that the attendant said “do not remove it”, a nice black denim jacket, and some WWDC pins.

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My Official WWDC17 Denim jacket!
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My “Permanent” Wrist Band
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WWDC 2017 Pins

Once registered, I went back into the original line, but by this time the front door had opened and a lot of people had been allowed in.  The entrance to the center had drug (bomb?) sniffing dogs and a modicum of security.  They scanned my bag quickly and I didn’t have to go through a metal detector.

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Old Scratch and Sniff sadly addicted to opiates…

By the way, the makeup of the crowd was interesting –

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The Crowd

Which I described as:
Makeup Tweet
Anyway, I made it past security and was put into a very long line, just inside.  It literally took another 40 minutes to be allowed to enter the main room.

Here’s a nice thing.  Since it was just me, I was able to wander up near the front where staffers with blue signs were pointing out single seats.  So despite arriving very late, I was able to get a decent seat.

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My View – not Bad!

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The Staffer with the Green “Seat Available” Sign

Opening Keynote

Cook’s keynote was as expected – lots of excitement and shouting as he entered the room. He speaks very well and really commands the crowd.  In his keynote, he said that there were 6 major announcements today.  I know that most in the crowd expected number 6 to be a new iPhone.

So we patiently waited as he described some top-to-bottom rewrites of major tools (Xcode), iOS 11 with a bunch of neat features, the new Max OS called High Sierra (followed by a giggle in the room), new iMacs (including a crazy-powerful, dark grey machine with like 1.21 gigawatts of something or rather), a new iPad Pro that sits between the large and small one, some amazing drag-and-drop that’s part of iOS 11 for iPad Pros and finally number 6, which was a new…

Home Pod?

There was a thud when he announced this, followed by murmurs that sounded like “how about the iPhone 8?” repeatedly whispered.
Home Pod is basically an Alexa, but for Apple.  On the plus side, it seems to have some kickass speaker technology that blows the doors off Alexa and Google Home.  It includes a Siri interface and can act in place of Apple TV for Apple Home Kit integration.  But it’s not a new iPhone and so a bit of excitement left the room at that point.

Platforms State of the Union

Once the opening session completed, there was a bit of a break, and then the second session which was the Platforms State of the Union.  This took us through all the various platforms, including ARKit, MusicKit, UIKit, Swift, Xcode, and all the core technologies.   This session lasted until about 4 pm, followed by “hands-on” time in various labs on the new devices and software and then an evening event (food and drinks in San Pedro square).

Bottom Line

An interestingly slow start to the conference.  Yes, some neat things were announced, but it looks like for the June Apple announcements, it’s all about shoring up their technologies. They took major tools like Xcode and rewrote them from the bottom up.  They introduced the latest in Apple’s open-source programming language Swift 4.0.

You can look up all the products and updates announced, I won’t include those here.

If this wasn’t Apple, I think I would have totally amazed.  As it was, I was impressed, but like others wasn’t sure why I felt let down.  I think after years of shocking us with new technology, this one was about streamlining and improving performance.  Frankly, it may actually be a good thing.  Running at 100mph can produce shocking innovations, but if you never take the time to go back and fill in the missing pieces, you’ll end up with flashy-unstable-garbage.

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 5 – How to Interview

In the support of brevity, I will now provide some basic guidelines for interviewing and hiring that have worked well for me.  This again is based on both great successes and disturbing horror stories related to interviewing applicants.

One thing to keep in mind is that this whole notion of Human Resources giving you 90-days of a probationary period in which you can release a new hire for “no reason” is pure bunk.  I’ve had little success in trying to accomplish this probationary release process.  In the end, handling new hire performance issues ends up being no different from doing the same for tenured staff.  Thus, hiring the right person is key, unless you like spending months documenting and reviewing performance issues.

Infrequently in my career, I’ve wished that I could just “fire” someone on the spot.  No, not a “you’re fired” because someone pushed my buttons.  Rather, in the case of a mediocre performer who is able to just bubble up high enough to get off of various warnings and probationary statuses.  I have also come across staff that can game the system and works their way around the various liability concerns Human Resources wraps around performance management.  I understand why HR does this, but it’s still frustrating.  The same is true for someone who slowly destroys your culture.  There is a need to be able to say “you there, get out” with a modicum of HR documentation required.

And that’s why it’s important to get the hiring process right.
The key parts of the interview:

Your preparation – this is tantamount, and important, too!

Don’t show up at the interview not having read the applicant’s cover letter and resume.

It’s very obvious to me when someone is scanning my resume for the first time.  Schedule 15 minutes prior to the interview to read the resume and jot some questions.  You can even have a standard set of questions you start with within all interviews.  If you’re on a panel, share those questions with others on the panel.  This way they are aware of where you’re going with the questions and can make sure they don’t go the same place or can provide supporting questions.

The Technical Portion – this should be pretty clear.  In this case, you want to verify that the person knows the technical skills they portrayed in their resume and that you will require on the job.  You should be able to ask very specific questions regarding technology, such as “so how does a web service work?”  But be specific.  And don’t resume-spew.  That is, don’t spend the time showing off just how much you know.

commentSide Note: For many years, I used a technical test that I wrote myself which was wide and shallow (just like me!).  It had a large number of questions across many IT disciplines (SQL, C programming, web programming, object-oriented programming).  The applicant was forced to take it in pen on paper.  The grading was not to pass/fail.  While we did look for correct answers, we gave credit in areas where the person showed creativity or at least understood the concept.  Applicants hated that test.  I had my own team take it and they all fared very well.  It was very useful because it gave us a unique view into the problem-solving technique of each applicant.  We even had some that refused to take the test and thus we bade them farewell.  We EVEN had a headhunting organization try to steal a copy of the test because it was intimidating their applicants so much.

What doesn’t work well is having the applicant face a panel of technical staff members who then grill this person on all sorts of discrete information.  It’s glee-filling for the technical interviewers but borderline abusive for the applicant.  Unless the position is very, very technical, I would avoid a panel technical interview and instead do something one on one.

Also, don’t press the applicant with trick questions or questions so pathological that one would never use such a skill in the real job.

I was once asked how to fill an array of 256 unique random integers using a single C statement.  I was able to come up with a way, but not the way they were looking for.  Frankly, if any of my developers wrote code like that, I would have chased them around the department with a stick.  Useless questions that made me question the competence of my interviewers are not appropriate.

The “What If You Were A Tree?” Question – this is a classic.  You ask someone some odd question to see how they answer it.  Avoid this technique.  It’s a cliché.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – Actually, this is one of my favorite techniques.  The questions revolve around “describe a time when something went really well” and then “describe a time when something went very badly”.

First, if they cannot come up with a disaster in their career,  and this is not an entry-level position, then there’s a problem.  It’s the same problem if they cannot come up with something that went really well!  Maybe even a worse problem.

Listen for how the applicant describes the situation.

Do they say “I” and “me” a lot?  Was the good situation all about him/her and the bad all about the failures of others?  Press for details.  Was there any recognition after the good event?  Was there a price to pay for the bad event?  What was the root cause of the failure?  How was it mitigated going forward?  What could they have done differently?

This is a solid type of question you should ask at each interview.

That annoying tick – this one is simple.  Think back to when you were dating someone and how on the first one or two dates, some particular habit was cute.  For example, being called “babe”.  Then think about how after fifteen dates, you cringed each time your significant other said “babe”, often thirty or forty times each day.  Little habits that come up during an interview will be unbelievably irritating and not so endearing months later.
Other “affectations” to look for include:

  • Lots of sarcasm or joking. Some joking is fine, but you don’t want to hire a clown or someone insulting.
  • Lots of talking.  Simple questions that turn into long-winded expositions that wander here and there.
  • A lot of “me” talk, as in describing in great detail the wonderful traits they have, the amazing places they’ve been, the totally desirable lifestyle they lead, and so on.
  • Not answering questions.  Listen to the answer.  Are they answering the question you asked?  If not, interrupt them and pose the question again.
  • Too loud / too soft.  Does the applicant speak so quietly that you have to strain to hear or are they very loud?  If those sorts of things matter, think about passing on this applicant.
  • They only speak to the males (females) on the interview panel.  Odd behavior, something to keep an eye on.  Is there some sexism going on?
  • They don’t seem to know anything about your organization (outside applicants).  Really?  They never took the time to Google information on your organization?  To me, that smacks of being unprepared.  Ask directly “did you research our organization prior to coming to the interview?”  If they say “yes”, ask them some specific questions.  Do they know what the job entails?  Ask them to describe what they think the position is responsible for.
  • They speak very poorly of their previous position.  Not a good technique and shows a lack of professionalism.
  • They can’t come up with any reasonable things that they could improve upon.  When you hear things like “I’m too smart for my own good” or “I work way too hard”, that’s a fluff answer.  Press for something substantial.
  • Very specific, pointed questions (or uncomfortable questions) about you or the organization.  Again, a bad sign that this person has no tact.

What’s this on your ray-zoom-meh? (Resume) – worrisome things to look for on the resume:

  • Job hopping.  Did they spend one year or 18 months at the least four jobs?  Why?  Ask them to explain.  Are they chasing money?  Do you want to invest time and training and have them skip out?
  • Breaks in their employment times.  What happened those four years between these two jobs?
  • No jobs recently.  This one is tough because, if this is an older applicant or someone who maybe took a sabbatical, it may be okay that they haven’t worked for a few years.  But check it out.
  • Generic information.  Look for specifics.  How much did they actually contribute to the bottom line?
  • The Slasher.  Is the resume peppered with this person coming into a job and slashing costs?  Is that what you want?   Maybe you do.  But you can’t save your way to success, so maybe you should look for things that show growth in revenue rather than slashing of costs.
  • Prison Time. Why and why did they include this on their resume?

Too Friendly – does the applicant act “too familiar”?  Are they touching your hand or shoulder too much?  Do they act like they’ve known you previously?  Are they too informal?  Do they kiddingly tease you or comment on how nice looking you are? All bad omens.  Steer clear of these people.
Closing the Interview – it’s very important to cut the interview somewhat short.  There are few interviews that deserve to be more than an hour in length, especially first interviews.  For an hour interview, use the last fifteen minutes for the applicant’s questions.

Also, make sure up front that the applicant knows how long the interview should take.

Take note of the types of questions they ask.

It’s okay if they don’t have questions.  In fact, I prefer that I’m not met with a litany of questions from the applicant, especially if this is one in a series of interviews.

If the interview is not going well and this is clearly not the right person, cut the interview short.  There are few things more painful than trying to drag out an interview where both parties are clear that this is not a good fit.  It’s far more professional to say something like “honestly, it looks like this is not the right position for you – let’s wrap this up and save the time for some future position that you may be more qualified for”.

After the interview – take your notes and staple them to the applicant’s resume and hold onto both for some time.   When you get back to your desk, make note of the positives and negatives and write down whether you think this person should be considered for the position.  This is important so that when you review these notes later (sometimes much later), it reminds you what the outcome was.

In some cases, you may be required to provide HR with your recommendation.  Don’t send them your notes.  Summarize them and include your final disposition.  Provide clear and exact information on the decision you made.

The Unrivaled Leader: Part 4 – Don’t Bullshit

This is a simple idea that seems to evade even the most competent people, especially as people move up through the ranks.  It’s the idea that your superior ability or intellect gives you the superpower of being able to deceive without detection.

“If you think no one on your staff will pick up on the fact that you are misleading them, either by commission or omission,  you need to reconsider your strategy.”

What does it say about you if you’ve assembled a team that is not bright enough to pick up on being misled?  What will happen when they figure out that you’ve been less than honest?  Will it ever be possible to regain their trust after you are caught in misdirection?

I’m not advocating spewing every little bit of confidential information to your staff.  That would be very poor judgment and even poorer management.  When faced with delivering bad news – news that you may not know the details or may not be able to share the details about due to confidentiality, you have to find a balance between misleading and having the integrity to treat your staff with respect.

If you’ve treated your staff respectfully along the way, truly behaved as a servant leader, made sure to listen and act upon feedback, you might be surprised just how your staff will be to go through the most difficult times at your side.  It’s the fact that you are a respectable, empathetic, approaching, kind leader that makes it possible to deliver very bad news and still have the support of your team.  Trust me.

People like to hear reality, and your staff is looking to you to provide them with the possible opportunities for success even if that means they need to find that success in another organization or in another capacity.

Anecdote #1 – Years ago I worked at an organization that was ultimately acquired by a larger organization that produced the exact same software that we did.  Now, you can imagine the feeling in the department: that soon we’d be merged and as a result, we’d all lose our jobs.  So I approached my manager and asked him whether we had anything to fear or whether he could share any details about the impact of this merger on our department.

“No no”, he said, “everything will be great.  We’ll merge the teams and we’ll merge the products and have an even better offering to the market.
So I pressed him again – do I need to maybe update my resume and keep an eye out for a job, just in case?

“No No No”, he reassured again, “Just sit tight. All will be well and we’ll be in a better place soon.”
A month later, we were all called into a “kickoff meeting”.  HR walked in and laid us all off.

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I approached my manager and asked him why he could not even give me some idea that there was a chance we’d be let go.  In fact, it was pretty obvious to everyone (see my note about having a smart staff) that we likely would be let go, but his reassurances made us trust that we’d be okay.
His response was that he was just doing his job.

If the opportunity arises, would I ever work for him again?  Nope.  Did he poison me to this organization?  Yep.

So what was he supposed to do?  Was he supposed to tell us that we’re all losing our jobs?  Of course not.  Well, He could have suggested that the future was uncertain, but that the worst that would have happened would be we’d be paid a severance based on tenure.  He could have reinforced that it’s always good to keep your resume updated.  He could have done something other than telling us everything would be fine, which was a lie.

Anecdote #2 – A number of years ago I was pursuing my MBA at the University of Central Florida (go Knights!)  One of my business classes posed a thought question.  Here’s the short version:

“You manage a Wal-Mart that will be closing in 6 months.  Another larger store will be opening in the next town, but none of your staff will be moved to that other store.  You need your staff to keep working until the smaller store closes, and then they will all be released.  Do you:

  1. Say nothing, and on the day of the closing simply arrive early and lock the doors?
  2. Tell your staff the situation, and work with staff on job placement opportunities and/or lobby regional management for some “stay on board” compensation?

My leaning would be, as you might expect, #2. I asked my then boss and he said “most definitely #1.  In his words “this is a business and there are no friends in business”.  Ironically, a few years later he was laid off.

To me, a good leader is someone who represents the best in humanity; someone who, when you run into them long since you’ve parted ways, you want to walk up to them and shake her/his hand.  Party of being that boss is to treat your staff with integrity and above all, don’t bullshit them.

Next: Part 5 – How to Interview

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 3 – How to TAKE Feedback

To misquote an old Seinfeld episode where he arrived at a car rental location and they had his reservation but not his car:
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“Anyone can take a reservation! They key is to hold the reservation.”

Anyone can receive feedback.  Heck, just use some of the suggestions in Part 2 and you’ll be getting a whole lot of feedback!   But how do you make this feedback stick?  How do you TAKE it?  What do you do with that feedback?  Well, that’s why we’re here, right?

    • First and foremost, think about how you’d want your boss to behave when he asked you for feedback on her/him?  That should guide your behavior in general, but specifically when listening to feedback.  As you are providing input to your superior, what do you want them to do?  Picture in your mind a session where you’re giving your boss feedback and she/he is behaving exactly as you want them to.  What does that look and sound like? That is a clue as to how you should behave.
    • When receiving feedback, unless it becomes insulting or denigrating, just sit and listen.  Shut up.  Do not offer debate or contradiction.  Let the person and give them your undivided attention.
    • No matter how crazy the feedback is, think yourself “could this possibly be true?”  After all, someone thinks this, so it’s a perception.  And this perception could be held by many.  Just consider the possibility.  Could this possibly be true?
    • Watch your body language.  Don’t sigh, roll your eyes or deflect.  Be respectful and professional.  This is ESPECIALLY true if you’re receiving feedback from a group.  How you behave when receiving feedback immediately paints your staff’s perception of you.   Don’t interrupt and provide your perspective.

Once you have received the feedback:

    • Don’t necessarily attempt to solve the problem at that very moment.  If you can, then that’s great.  Otherwise, take notes and make sure you get back to the person.
    • If you’ve been asked to solve particular problems, make it a priority to do so and report back.  If you are asked to solve things that cannot be solved, report that as well.  Just provide accurate and timely feedback.  Make sure you close out the request.  You’re either going to act upon the feedback or not.  If you’re not, make sure people know why and then move on.
    • Be humble.  Thank the person for the feedback.  They’re going out on a limb and taking the time to educate you on something you may not be perceiving.  It’s a great service that not everyone will partake in.  So many people just quietly grumble or spread bad negative information rather than taking the time to tell you what’s on their mind.  Others are in need of assistance, whether with tools or support.  Others just need someone to listen to their concerns, even if you cannot solve them.
    • In a group setting, if the feedback is hostile, insulting, or tries to “incite a riot” by getting others to join in, you need to diffuse this.   It’s important and completely acceptable to cut the feedback short and ask everyone to please be polite.  Alternatively, you can ask if this can be discussed privately or at a later time (maybe right after the meeting).
    • Be self-deprecating.  Don’t take yourself too seriously or act in shock or get irritated, as if you are beyond reproach.  If the feedback you are receiving is total nonsense, you’ll be able to address that at a separate time.  Don’t be sarcastic or ridicule the person providing the information.

The bottom line is that it’s a service that someone is performing when they bravely provide feedback.  You can’t ask your managers or lower staff to seek and accept feedback if you are not willing to do the same.  Most importantly, there is going to be feedback that is 100% accurate and, if received and acted upon, will improve you as a leader.

Finally, as will be discussed in a later Part, acting in this way – asking for feedback, really listening, and acting on the feedback received – makes you a strong and admired leader, and this will only increase the respect your team will have for you.  By receiving feedback, your staff will be more willing to receive and heed your feedback to them.  It’s a win-win.

Anecdote: A while ago I was part of a focus group that was called together to provide one of my superiors feedback.  That person was at our table, and their job was to ask for feedback and write it down dutifully.  Instead of doing that, this person continued to remark “That’s not true!”  or “Really?  Really?  How can you feel that way?”  If it weren’t for the fact that they were bungling this session to the point of being funny, those of us providing feedback would have been upset.  The message to us was “we don’t really want your feedback”.

But YOU do.
Next: Part 4 – Don’t Bullshit

Trade 30 Minutes for Undivided Attention?

We’ve all noticed that in our digital lives we tend to be forever connected. Certainly, our phones are with us at all times now, as are our wearable’s, glasses, tablets, laptops.  Far too often our focus is on our devices and not what’s going on around us.  This can mean missing seeing a beautiful mountain vista or putting a severe strain on a relationship during dinner.
One area where this digital-fixation is having a significant impact is during business meetings.

It’s not uncommon anymore to find attendees lugging  a tablet or laptop to meetings to “take notes”.

As a result, presenters are finding it harder to hold their audiences’ attention.

At a recent work meeting, I had the opportunity to “work the lights” for a few minutes and in doing so, had a vantage point that was behind a whole row of people in attendance. During my time standing, none of the people I was spying on were paying attention to the speaker.  Every single attendee in front of me was busy responding to emails, reading documents, or even updating their Facebook accounts.  It was disappointing.  The poor speaker continued to do his best to engage everyone though no one (except me) was making eye contact with him.  It was waste of his time and a loss for the audience.

At another meeting a few years ago at a customer site, I was presenting information on our software with another colleague when I noticed my audience had their faces glued to their laptops.  As an experiment, I started comparing our software to Metamucil, explaining how it helped with difficult (hard) situations and often reduced the effort the consumer had to spend to complete their tasks.  Other than my co-working snickering, no one else reacted.

After much thought, I think I’ve come up with a workable solution.
In your next 1+ hour meeting, require that people put away their laptops during the meeting.  If they have tablets to take notes, that’s fine, but require that they stay in their note-taking application.  In return, you will agree to shorten the meeting by 30 minutes.  Maybe for thirty-minute meetings, reduce the length by 10 minutes.

This will give attendees time back to return to their desks (or stay put, I suppose) and answer their emails, update social media, or whatever else they need to do.

Are You Naked And Don’t Know It?

In the famous tale by Hans Christian Anderson, an Emperor who cares only about his appearance unwittingly hires two shysters who pretend to sew him fantastic new clothes at great cost, but in reality, produce nothing.  They convince the Emperor that only noble people can see such clothes.  The Emperor, despite not seeing the clothes himself, cannot admit as such and thus he walks around naked. When the Emperor shows his ministers, they are too afraid to say anything.  In fact, everyone is afraid to tell the Emporer the truth until he appears in a parade, naked, and a young child with no such pretenses calls out that the Emperor has no clothes!  This cry, taken up by others in the crowd, reaches the Emperor, who continues to walk down the street, still confident that such common people did not have the upbringing to appreciate his wonderful clothes. In scientific terms, this is known as pluralistic ignorance.

How does a 150-year-old tale apply to you and specifically to management?
During the normal course of business, but most notably during staff and departmental meetings and communique, you might find yourself preaching to your staff certain virtues or practices.  Common examples might be:

  • The importance of honest communication
  • Making sure you ask your staff for direct feedback
  • Suggesting that failures are okay as long as we learn something from them
  • Asking everyone to tighten up on expenses
  • Keeping an open door policy
  • Having the ability to publicly admit that you were wrong
  • Turning back an initiative that appears to be less fruitful (or more painful to your staff) than thought at the onset
  • Recognizing and addressing poor performance
  • The importance of avoiding cronyism, and acting impartially

…and so on.

These are all noble and supportable initiatives and can factor in improving the workplace culture and ratcheting up performance.  In the best case, it can socialize to your staff that you understand the importance of these behaviors.  At the same time, you are also suggesting that you (and your management team) will support the behaviors by participating in them.
But are you?
To find out,

you must ask yourself and others: am I adhering to these guidelines?  Most assuredly your staff and peers will know whether you are or are not.  

The only thing more destructive to culture than not establishing such guidelines is not adhering to them personally.
As a good manager, you can often avoid such dangers by following some basic practices:

  1. Keep an open communication channel down to the most junior staff person.  In fact, your newest recruits (much like the tale above) may be the most honest with you.  Longer-term employees may have been blunted by previous attempts to raise concerns.  Meet regularly with staff in a casual environment.
  2. No matter what feedback you receive, be receptive, take note of it, and later ask yourself “is this possibly true?”  It may not be true, but the perception exists so considering it a truth both reinforces that you are willing to take feedback and provides an opportunity to examine what may be causing this perception.
  3. Be careful not to constantly socialize a litany of best behaviors.  Pick certain key behaviors that you feel are key to the success of the organization and make sure you personally live by them.
  4. If you are in senior management, make sure your managers also live by the same behaviors you are suggesting.  Don’t rely on them to report to you whether they do or do not – meet with their staff periodically.
  5. Establish some sort of recurring survey to receive feedback on the culture, then keep an open mind of the feedback you receive.   Act upon the items that are of most concern.
  6. Make sure you treat your staff with the same respect as you treat your management team.  Do you joke and appear at ease with your management team and then tense up with you speak to staff?  If you’re preaching that we’re all in this together, then you need to treat everyone as part of the “we’re all”.

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If you create a culture of trust where everyone believes that management walks the walk, and acts in the best interest of the individual, and thus collectively of the firm, you will have established a high-trust, resilient and positive culture from top to bottom.
And you will be fully clothed.