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Jul 22 2017

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 8 – Hearing (and acting upon) Negative Feedback is Part of the Job

Ooof, it’s hard to take feedback, isn’t it? As a layperson, you might be subject to ~~negative~~ constructive feedback from your boss. You should, in my opinion, seek that sort of feedback. All ☀️ sunshine☀️ and 🍭 lollipops 🍭 comments feel good but aren’t that useful. Constructive feedback from your boss,, assuming it’s legitimate, provides specific information that you can act upon to improve your productivity.

But often that attitude changes when you become a manager. For some, being given a management position appears to endorse an inner feeling of superiority. “Hey, I’m something special and I must be doing all things perfectly for me to be given this position!” For others, they may have not developed the skill of properly managing upward feedback. In either case, not seeking and not being receptive to subordinate feedback can be career limiting.

(Note: I say “can” because there are plenty who have made a very successful career by only “managing up” and not caring much what their subordinates think. But for this article, let’s assume you want to be a servant leader)

Let me make this clear, you desperately need feedback from your staff. Without it, you’re plodding along, unaware that trouble is brewing and that often means it will rear up at the worst possible time, such as during a full staff meeting, when one of your staff members asks publicly about something you were unaware or unreceptive about. (another note: in such a situation, your boss should know better than to endorse such feedback publicly and instead just receive it and promise to look into it).
Here are some basic thoughts about the feedback you receive:

A) Is it Legitimate?
The most challenging part of hearing feedback is whether it is legitimate. You have to consider whether it represents something that could be possibly true. In nearly all cases, I think you’ll find that such feedback will have at least a shred of truth linked to it. A small percentage will be feedback that is based on improper perception or a misunderstanding, but one could argue that this still makes it legitimate. The perception of issues is as strong as the existence. So you treat all feedback initially as being true.

B) How You Should Comport Yourself When Receiving It
Here’s a good guideline: pretend your staff person is you, and you are presenting this feedback to your boss. How would you want your boss to treat you? This is a good yardstick for many things you will say and do as a manager of people. Treat yourself as the third person and consider what you would prefer.

In general, listen. Receive the feedback. Take notes. Be receptive. Repeat what you are hearing to make sure you understand. These are basic listening techniques.
A couple of general rules:

Find a private place to receive feedback. You want the provider to feel comfortable speaking freely and you may not want others to eavesdrop.
If the feedback is about something dangerous (“Janie’s got a gun!”) or something unethical (“Bill stole a computer”) or a violation of HR policies (“Jordan had porn up on his laptop”) you need to act upon this information right away – which often means contacting security or human resources.
You don’t have to offer immediate feedback, whether acceptance or repudiation. You should use good judgment in this case, but I’ve found that taking the feedback, giving yourself time to think and explore the information you received, and then scheduling a follow-up is usually the better tact. Blurting out “that’s not true!” or “the hell you say!” is not appropriate usually.
You may be receiving confidential or private information. Don’t blab to others about what you’ve heard.
If the feedback is about you, before you reject it, ask yourself if there’s any chance it is true (whether in reality or by perception). Nearly in all cases, you should be able to find the possibility that the feedback is reasonably valid. And in general, you should again just listen and take notes rather than argue.

Bottom line is that if you wish to keep receiving feedback from your staff, you have to create an environment that is professional and receptive, even if you find out some of the feedback is not legitimate. Blasting back at a staff member providing input will inevitably be shared with others in your group and presto, you now have a reputation.

C) Closure
In some cases, you may not be able to provide closure. It may be that it’s information that requires follow-up or a timeline to receive additional feedback before you can determine legitimacy. Let the person know whether you expect to be able to address their feedback in a short time or that it will take longer.

In many cases, beyond a verbal closure, you’ll want to provide an email/written closure – especially for serious circumstances. This both provides the individual with well written (hopefully!) feedback and provides you a paper trail should this discussion take an awkward turn.

D) Formal versus Informal
You’ll want to have both formal and informal communication paths for feedback from your staff.

Formal

Set up periodic staff meetings that have a good chunk of the meeting related to receiving feedback or Q&A. You don’t want it to become mob rule, but having a place where people can comfortably provide feedback is useful.
Set up meetings with groups of your staff in a casual place to get specific feedback. Mix and match the group so that you have people from various disciplines and with various personalities. Don’t pull together a group of all introverts, or all extroverts. I called mine “Fireside Chats with Bill” – though we didn’t actually have a fireplace in our cafe.
Set up a Comments Box where staff can write anonymous feedback and place it in this box – and remember to check it (!)
Perform a periodic “climate survey” where you ask questions that can be used to determine staff sentiment.

Informal

Sometimes you can rely on your Administrative Assistant to be your “ears on the ground” and alert you to brewing trouble. It takes an Assistant who is close to staff and isn’t perceived as a shill.
Use peers you have in other departments to listen for scuttlebutt. Return the favor, of course.

E) Destructive Feedback
There are going to be times, hopefully very infrequently, where you’ll hear feedback from someone simply trying to be destructive to the department, a project, a team member, or you. This is the most difficult feedback to manage appropriately for two reasons: 1) it’s very hard to listen patiently to severely stilted, personal, and negative feedback, 2) you may not be able to address this person’s concerns or make them stop providing inappropriate feedback.

Part of this can be managed by making sure the hiring process weeds out such staff people. In a future article, I will discuss my “no jackasses” policy related to hiring the right kinds of staff people.

Assuming this person made it through your “no jackasses” policy (or was inherited), you may not be able to assuage this person’s concerns. If this person is unable to accept that their feedback is either not actionable or illegitimate, and/or this person attempts subversive behavior, you may need to work through your Human Resources department to correct this behavior or ultimately release this resource.

If the person shouts or loses their temper, you have to quickly decide whether you cut that session short or whether you make an attempt at calming the person down. These days, you also have to be aware of whether violence upon you is impending. In such cases, it’s best to capitulate in order to defuse the situation, and then head on down to HR (or Security) for assistance. Obviously, do not get into an altercation with your staff member, whether physical or verbal.

F) Feedback That Cannot Be Acted Upon
You may receive feedback that you cannot act upon or resolve. It may be general feedback that would require much more senior authority than you to address. It may be feedback that is legitimate but cannot be resolved due to workplace policies. It may be feedback about you that, to address, would force you to deviate from what you believe is the right behavior or policy.
In any of these cases, and others, you should be able to document the feedback and let the person know that you cannot (or are prohibited from) addressing the request. You have to count on this person to be reasonable and empathetic (reminder, “no jackasses”).

If you’re a person that never accepts feedback, then it will be very difficult to appear that you want it.

If you receive suggestions that need to be mitigated at a higher level than you, do a follow-up with your senior management if the suggestions are appropriate. Let the requester know the progress.

G) Public Dissemination of Feedback
There may be some suggestions or feedback that you receive that you should or could share publicly with your staff. This could be during a staff meeting or via email. Make sure you get approval from the provider to share this information (perhaps anonymously) with others before you do. Sharing suggestions reinforce that you’re receptive to such things. You may even receive personal feedback that you can share with the group, for example:

“Recently someone suggested that the strict working hours I’ve been enforcing have been causing stress to those folks that have long distances to commute. I can see where inadvertently this is the case and thus have agreed to allow people an extra 30 minutes to arrive in the morning.”

Sometimes you can read suggestions out loud, but be prepared to hear some stiff feedback or unexpected notes. In either case, keep a sense of humor.

Summary
Everyone wants their feedback heard, and so do you. When you approach your boss with suggestions, you’d prefer she/he is receptive and supportive. You should be the same way with your staff. Lead by example, be humble, and make them know that your job as a manager is to give them the tools and support that are necessary to do the job, and then get out-of-the-way.

Will R Wills 2 Comments

Jul 19 2017

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 7 – Answering Email is Not Productivity!

I find that the amount of time that I spend answering emails continues to grow, and has continued to grow since the introduction of that platform in 1972. Thanks, Ray Tomlinson. I’ll email you my personal thanks. And if I find where you live… Heck, before starting to writing this article I spent the previous hour reading, answering, and forwarding work emails.

Who hasn’t felt the satisfaction of emptying their inbox by rifling through and responding (REPLY ALL!) or forwarding emails and then deleting them from your inbox. Or felt the stress of opening emails and seeing 200 new ones.

Emailing is not productivity.

I sometimes wish that sending and replying to emails was accompanied by physically poking the recipient (or sender) in the eye. In this way, you (or they) would be keenly aware of the pain you (or they) were inflicting by simply flinging emails out to others. And answering emails rarely is an end to a workflow. Emails beget emails beget emails beget… (Proverbs: 110: 1-16)

Emails are used as replacements for meetings, and too many meetings is something I ranted about in the previous article. And emails have come to replace the phone or face-to-face conversations. I’ve experienced my next-door cubicle neighbor sending me an email that could have been solved with a five-minute visit. Things are in a sad state of affairs.

So I mulled and mulled and tried to come up with some ways to avert email overload.

I recalled once where I inadvertently deleted all my emails from my inbox and you know what? Nothing bad happened. The people who needed something from me simply re-emailed or (or, [gasp!] called me).

Things I Have Tried
To help, here are some actions we took related to email overload that I and my team have tried over the years to varied success:

We tried “no email” mornings where the management team agreed that between 8:30 am and 11:30 am, we were not going to send each other emails.
We introduced a mechanism with subject line pre-fixes that provided information on the content of that email without you having to open it. For example:
1. “AR” means “Action is required of you”
2. “PF” means “Print and File”
3. “NRN” means “No response necessary”
4. “FYI” means, well, “NRN”, but “NRN” was a strong suggestion NOT to respond
We had an email etiquette class to remind people how and when to write emails.

All of these provided a modicum of relief, but because we could not control what others did relate to the email we were still inundated.

Suggestions
So to wrap up this short article, here are some suggestions and guidelines that I think you ought to strongly consider:

Peel off people from emails that are not key or are not expected to provide input. There have been countless times in endless email “chains” where I’m CC’d and dragged along in the wake of the conversation. Some parts of the conversation are just “yep” or one sentence that continues to pull me along like a minnow in a paper eddy. Just drop people off, especially executives from the To: and CC:.
If you’re CC’d – avoid the temptation to respond. Technically, as a cc:’d recipient, the intent should be to advise you rather than gather your feedback.
Keep your emails very short. No more than one paragraph. Writing long emails simply forces people to speed read and skip potentially vital content. Tighten and re-tighten the language. Less is more, more or less.
Do not send inflammatory emails. Emails, like regrets, are forever. And you don’t want to leave evidence of your unstable personality for all to read at some future performance review session.
As a corollary to the previous item, if you do find the need to send a strong email, don’t send it and instead save it for an hour (or a day if possible). Read it again at that time and you may find that a) things have changed and thus there is no need for your email, b) things have changed for the better and your email now seems silly, c) you really should not have sent that email at all, d) you don’t really care about the topic as much as you really thought at the time. Ambivalence is a strong and often rewarding emotion.
Immediately unsubscribe from junk emails. Hit the “Junk” and then the “Block” buttons on your toolbar on spam emails.
Setup rules by the recipient to move emails from less important people (or informational emails) to a separate folder — that you probably then will never visit. Then set up rules that periodically empty out these folders.
Before sending any email, pick up the phone and call the person. You may get your answer right away. [Note: the worst is when someone emails you and then picks up the phone to discuss the email they just sent you. “Justifiable homicide” comes to mind.]
Proofread your emails. So many times I have received emails that appeared to be written by someone who didn’t understand verb tense, punctuation, correct forms of possessiveness, oh, the English language, etc.

What have you done to help assuage the tidal wave of emails? Email me and let me know: willrwills@gmail.com.

Update 7/20 –

The inclusion of the email address at the end was an attempt at irony. My thanks to the readers who said “hey, you know that you included your email address, right?” Yes, I do.
Another annoying thing was suggested by a reader. Let’s call him Peter. That would be:

Having a long email chain forwarded to you simply with “FYI”, forcing you to read the entire chain – and then finding out you were already on the TO: or CC: anyway! Ugh!!

Will R Wills 2 Comments

Jun 9 2017

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.

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!

willrwills 0 Comments

Jun 8 2017

Apple WWDC 2017 – Quick Take Day 3

I’m actually in the middle of Day 4 but didn’t get a chance to update this last night. I’m sitting at lunch with 1,200 of my closest friends, enjoying a chipotle chicken wrap and a Coke.
Some useful information about WWDC:

Food is supplied. There’s breakfast, which includes donuts, coffee, fruit juices, and fruit. There’s coffee intermittently throughout the day. There’s lunch that usually is a few sandwiches, chips, a cookie, and a drink. Each night there’s an optional evening event that provides entertainment and at least finger foods.
San Jose at this time of year is either bright, cool, and sunny or overcast, cool, and rainy.
If you can’t stay in the city itself (which is very walkable), stay North of the city so that in the morning when you drive in, you’re not heading toward SFO (where all the other traffic is heading) and in the evening the exact opposite is true, which is good, too. Also note that there’s parking right at the San Jose Convention Center, which maxes out at $20/day – but is very convenient.
Bring a backpack to carry your materials around.
Note that ALL of the sessions are available online afterward to all Apple developers. While there’s excitement about seeing the presentations, you should pick and choose the ones that you really want to interact with.
The Labs (by appointment or walk-in) are the most useful as you get to discuss ideas and issues with Apple engineers.
You are free to go and come as you please, just wear your badge.
The wristband that you are required to keep on, and that apparently cannot be taken off without destroying it (I haven’t tried), gets pretty dirty after sleeping and showering with it for a few days.

There is a lot of exciting stuff coming in iOS 11, a major upgrade to the O/S. The machine learning capabilities built into the platform is simple to leverage programmatically. The ARKit for Augment Reality is shockingly powerful and usable across all platforms. Some of the AR demos they did were jawdropping, and in fact, they wrote code on stage and executed it to show how easy it is to include AR support (and Machine Learning and…). In fact, the “watch as I write the code right now” parts is the most engaging for me.

Apple is doing a nice job of laying the groundwork for future applications and making sure all of their platforms work seamlessly together.

It’s not lost on me that the major challenge of Android is the huge diversity of screen sizes and device capabilities. It must make it difficult to write a common app for that platform. Steve Cook reminded us that 83% of iOS users are already on the latest release of iOS.

This is a quick take, so that’s it for Day 3. As noted, I’m in Day 4 so I’ll write that up tonight (or tomorrow morning) with overall notes about the conference.

willrwills 0 Comments

Jun 7 2017

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.

willrwills 0 Comments

Jun 7 2017

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.

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.

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

Old Scratch and Sniff sadly addicted to opiates…

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

Which I described as:

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.

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.

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May 12 2017

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.

Side 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.

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May 5 2017

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.

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:

Say nothing, and on the day of the closing simply arrive early and lock the doors?
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

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May 5 2017

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:

“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

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May 3 2017

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 2 – How to Get Feedback

Alright, now you’re on the right track. You have decided that feedback is essential to your success. And you’re title/position is anything from an entry-level staff member to a C-level member of executive leadership. Good for you!

In my attempt to make these posts direct and useful, without further ado, here are some specific ideas about where and how to gain feedback –

Always end the conversation with “what can I do better for you?” The job of an effective manager is to communicate a strategy or direction to staff members, provide the necessary tools and/or guidance to reach that ultimate goal, and – get the heck out of the way. But before getting out of the way, keep tabs on performance by ending discussions with questions about what YOU can do for the staff person. Don’t make every interaction a coaching session. What you really want is your staff to coach you.
Schedule one-on-one’s with people across your organization, as time permits. And when you meet, don’t discuss project status. Ask the person questions about how they are feeling, their stress level, their notions about whether the job is engaging or not, where they want to be in three to five years, what you can do to help them be successful (see #1 above). Keep it casual and interactive during the engagement. And don’t force the discussion to meet any particular time frame: don’t cut it off at thirty minutes but also don’t stretch it out to thirty-minutes. Get to a point where it feels like you’re wrapping up, and then wrap it up! Take notes if need be.
Setup “Fireside Chats” with groups of your staff members. When I used to do this, I’d have my assistant set up groups of four or five to meet with, and pick a cross-section of people who may have varying opinions. She’d then schedule monthly Fireside Chats, each with a different group. If one of the people selected for a group was generally a “complainer”, we’d also invite someone who was more positive as well. This keeps the group from moving in too extreme in any particular direction. That being said, you could also do the exact opposite and say, invite-only people who are concerned or unhappy. It’s challenging, but it allows you to receive feedback directly on the cause of concern. It also could make the group more comfortable because they are speaking in a like-minded way. Caution: if you do this, you want to make sure each person doesn’t simply build on the other’s input to create an artificial angry mob. Make sure you diffuse discussions because people are shouting – or stop the meeting and reconvene using one-on-one’s, should this occur. During these chats (and you can call them Fireside Chats because it sounds friendly), if you have the option, supply fountain drinks or light snacks. You want people to be comfortable in speaking to you and open up about their concerns. And everyone likes free food and drinks!
If specific people come up in the discussions, ask that the group speak more generally and then speak to you later to provide more specific information. After all, if someone on your team is causing problems, you want to know so that you can independently verify what’s going on.

Finally, take notes. Spend time listening, NOT speaking or defending – no matter how direct the feedback is. Ask probing questions. Bring out comments from members of the group who are not saying anything. At the end, review the notes/action items you took. You’re not promising you can address every concern, but in my experience, most of the concerns will be fairly straightforward to resolve.
End all staff meetings / stand up meetings with an “open floor”. Set aside fifteen minutes or more at the end of the meeting to take any questions about anything. Ask if the staff has heard any good rumors. If you have managers and staff reporting to you, remind your managers before the meeting that this is about staff feedback and not theirs. If you have managers who want to provide feedback, use a one-on-one, or get all the managers together without staff and ask for their direct feedback.
Note: if you have managers that may intimidate your staff to not speak, first, don’t invite your managers, and soon thereafter, change their behavior or move the offending manager out of the organization.
Install a suggestion box. There’s no shame in having a simple way for people to provide input. Make sure paper and a pencil are nearby and check it periodically. And take the time to acknowledge any suggestions you do receive – especially those that you cannot practically address.
If you are the leader of an organization, create and distribute a “climate survey”. Make sure the survey is not too lengthy. Search for samples on the Internet and give people time to complete their surveys. Include open-ended questions where staff and management can supply unstructured feedback.
Don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation casually when you run into someone in the hall. Listen to me: if you have a large team, it does not matter if you have forgotten the staff person’s name. Just say “I’m sorry, I just don’t recall your name” It won’t be taken as hard as you think. BUT, if you forget their name repeatedly, then I suggest you practice some memory games. In this hallway conversation, ask honestly how things are going. Or ask about a specific project or something noteworthy that occurred in your organization. Make it a casual two to give minute “hello!” and part with “good speaking to you”. This makes your staff comfortable in seeking you out to provide feedback.

I’ve always used the story that I want my staff to be comfortable saying “hello” when they see me out of the building, or at a store or restaurant. I use Target as an example as in “if I see you in Target, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable to say hello – or try to avoid running into me.”

Next: How to TAKE feedback

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Category Archives: Writing

Michelle Obama

Sessions and Labs

Summary

Personal

Conference Logistics

Sunday

Monday – Day 1

Opening Keynote

Platforms State of the Union

Bottom Line

“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.”

Next: How to TAKE feedback