Category Archives: Business Situations

Ever wonder how you should handle a particular business situation? Everything in Business Situations is indexed to help you find the assistance you need quickly and conveniently. Leadership Development, Management Training and Business Ethics (among other topics) are covered in this category.

Proper Filenames are Critical to Proper Business Etiquette

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Sometimes You Have to be a Prick to Those Outside of Your Company

 

I just received the March 2009 purchase report from one of our company’s 50+ vendors who provide such recaps. This particular vendor chose to name the file MyCompanyMarch.xls. By “MyCompanyMarch,” I mean he put the name of my company and the month in the filename… and nothing else. I could scream. What in the world was he thinking? Clearly, he was not.

 

Imagine if all of the vendors we dealt with used the same filename nomenclature as this self-centered simpleton. If that were the case, I’d have more than fifty files on my laptop all named MyCompanyMarch.xls. Now imagine if we’d been doing business with these fifty-odd companies for a number of years; I could potentially have hundreds of files all named MyCompanyMarch.xls. Suppose I needed to find the March 2006 recap from Vendor Z; could I easily locate this file? Of course it would be cumbersome, because this vendor wasn’t thinking of the audience when he named his file, just himself.

 

Yeah, But the Vendor Can Find the File

 

When this vendor peruses through his files, he’ll easily spot the one he sent me this week. The data will be at his fingertips and he can look like a hero to anyone who asks him to retrieve it. He named the file for himself, not me. Of course, if he plans to keep his job longer than 12 months he should add the year to his filenames. Though I doubt he’ll still be employed next April. On the off chance he is, I wonder if his March 2010 recap to me will be named MyCompanyMarch2010.xls. Probably not; it’s likely that someone this unthinking will never bother to change the way they do something as meaningless as naming files.

 

(Of course, naming files is not meaningless. I just wrote that to see if you were paying attention.)


 

Using Proper Filenames is Critical to Maintaining a Free Society

 

Filenames on your computer, whether they are monthly recaps for your customers or your resume for a prospective employer, should reflect not only what you want to know about the file, but more importantly, what the intended audience wants to know about the file. Here are some examples of bad filenames (all of which I have received) and better alternatives:

 

  • Bad filename: MyResume.doc. Good filename: Smith.John.Resume.doc.
  • Bad filename: CustomerNameMonth.xls. Good filename: VendorName.CustomerName.Description.MMYYYY.xls (for example: AcmeWidgets.WidgetRetailer.OrderHistory.032009.xls).
  • Bad filename: CustomerNameProposal.ppt. Good filename VendorName.CustomerName.Proposal.MMYYY.ppt.

 

Is There a Leadership Lesson Here?

 

Not everything on AskTheManager.com comes with a leadership lesson. Sometimes, we just like to rant. Though it’s a little bit of stretch, we do think there is something leaders can learn from this.

 

Jimmy Dugan was a good leader. Despite his alcoholism and apathy, he was able to get the most out of his team. And although his team lost the AAPGL Championship (of course he was missing his best player, Dottie Hinson), his leadership helped turn a bunch of girls into accomplished ballplayers… not an easy task, even in a fictional world.

 

The next time you’re faced with a vendor, an applicant or a prospective vendor-partner who provides you with a file that includes an inconsiderate or idiotic filename, you need to take a deep breath and a page out of Jimmy Dugan’s book. I suggest using Jimmy’s words of wisdom that he provided to right fielder Evelyn Gardner: “Start using your head. That’s the lump that’s three feet above your ass.”

 

Sometimes you have to be a prick.

Madoff Accountant Friehling Could Be More Culpable Than Madoff

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If You Want the Swindlers, Get Their Accountants

“If you want the Mafia, get their lawyers,” explains Mitchell McDeere, formerly of Bendini, Lambert and Locke.

I think we’re missing the real villains in the Bernard Madoff affair. Madoff, in case you’ve been under a rock for the last few months, is the 70-year old investment fund head who just pled guilty to bilking investors out of $65 billion. (In reality, Madoff only bilked them out of the $17 billion they invested with him, not the $48 billion in imaginary profits.)

Without rehashing all of the details, suffice it to say that Bernard Madoff will be spending the rest of his life in prison – right where he belongs.

Let’s Not Stop at People Named Madoff

The swindled investors, understandably, want to squeeze the life out of everyone remotely related to Madoff. Besides Bernard Madoff, they want Ruth Madoff (Bernie’s wife and former employee). They want Mark and Andrew Madoff (Bernie’s sons and former employees). They want their pound of flesh from anyone whose name rhymes with Madoff. Though they’re missing the real villains.

The criminals they should be most angry with include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the SEC employees who failed to investigate reports of the fraud… and Madoff’s accountant. (We’ll save our contempt for the SEC’s handling of this mess for a later post; today we’re focused on the accountant.)

No one seemed to care this past week when David G. Friehling, Madoff’s 49-year old accountant, turned himself in to authorities to face criminal charges for his role in helping Madoff get away with the biggest investment fraud in history.




If the allegations against Friehling are true, in many ways his activity is even more vile and despicable than Madoff’s. If the charges are true, he is the most culpable of all in my opinion. Friehling, you see, was tasked with auditing Madoff’s business dealings and certifying the results. Specifically, Friehling has been charged with falsely certifying that he had prepared Madoff’s audit statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Those statements were sent to the SEC and to Madoff’s clients.

Friehling Could Be Twice the Criminal Madoff Is

We know Madoff is a criminal; and we hate him because he violated a fiduciary duty he had to his clients. He is a disgusting human being who should feel the full force of the law against him. However, if Friehling is found guilty, he deserves more punishment than Madoff for two reasons: 1) He violated not only a fiduciary duty to Madoff’s victims, but a regulatory duty as well; and 2) We need to do whatever we can to prevent another Madoff situation in the future.

Friehling’s firm was Madoff’s accountant and sole auditor for at least 17 years. In that time, Madoff made billions, while Friehling merely made millions. The kind of greed that drove Madoff will not be easily swayed by a few perp walks and 10 years in jail. (As I mentioned, Madoff is 70 years old, so he’s probably got ten years left.) Anyone wishing to follow in Madoff’s footsteps might be willing to trade billions today for a possible, though not probable, jail sentence down the road.

If You Want the Swindlers, Get Their Accountants

We’re back to the concept introduced by Mitch McDeere… Without a CPA to certify the fraud, you cannot defraud at the level of Bernard Madoff; although the government doesn’t seem to understand this. (Much like FBI Agent Wayne Tarrance had trouble understanding the concept when McDeere first introduced it to him.)

Friehling is the only person besides Madoff to be charged in the fraud so far; though he was released after his arraignment on bail of $2.5 million. At 49 years old, he poses a much greater flight risk than Madoff… Friehling, you see, has something to lose: The rest of his adult life. He faces a maximum sentence of 105 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Not enough, I say, if the charges are true.

Friehling has been charged with securities fraud, aiding and abetting investment adviser fraud, and four counts of filing false audit reports with the SEC. And while both Madoff and Friehling deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison (if the allegations against Friehling are true), a greater example should be made of Friehling. His perp walks should be longer, his prison cell should be scarier and more bleak, and his name should become as well known as Madoff or Ponzi.

The same government that was asleep at the wheel during Madoff’s rise, should do everything in it’s power to prevent future Madoffs – and this means getting their accountants, and getting them good.

 

Salespeople Need More Leadership, Not More Technology

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Too Much Technology…

When working to help an underperforming business unit (in my real job) grow their revenues, I always discover instances where the unit has purchased some widget, gadget or other magic bullet designed to help them sell more.

Although well-meaning, the manager who made this purchase generally believed against all his or her own better judgment and experience that this solution would enjoy high adoption and utilization, and would deliver the desired results with little or no work required. Given a warm welcome by the sales team, this manager was certain that the worm would soon turn, and that the good times were just around the corner.

… Not Enough Reality

Usually between six hours and six months of the initial purchase, the manager believes they were taken. The widget does not perform as demonstrated. Their team is not selling any more (and maybe selling less) as a result of adding this technology and expense. What gives?

The truth is that while there are certainly technologies that have made a salesman’s job easier; sales still requires people to do work. Products that still involve salesmanship – cars, real estate, personal services, home repair – also require that those gifted with salesmanship work to leverage technology to their advantage.

Generally, these overbought and underutilized tools are CRM-related. CRM, it seems, is the greatest underutilized business technology “in use” today. In fact, we once discovered that one of our business units was paying for eight different, yet overlapping, CRM tools… and none of them was helping drive any incremental business.

CRM Does Not Mean What You Think

Twenty years ago, great salesmen used 3X5 cards and small plastic boxes as their CRM tools. They organized their prospects and were tenacious at follow up. They used these boxes and their day-timers to remind them to send letters and birthday cards, and to remember the names of a customer’s wife and children. Today, we expect technology to take the place of this tenacity – we expect that technology can replace people and process.

While a great CRM tool might help an organized person stay organized, it offers nothing for the disorganized. Likewise, CRM falls well short of getting lazy salespeople to care, or the sales laggards to do something (anything!). More often than not, bad salespeople spend an inordinate amount of time trying to game the system. (If they just used this time for good, rather than evil, they’d be superstars.)

Because of this, CRM tools are the biggest rip-off in business today. Too many business owners and business leaders have spent too much to equip their teams with expensive tools to manage customer databases, only to have the great procrastinators (salespeople) destroy real progress by failing to complete even very simple steps. I am convinced that you could take away any underperforming business unit’s CRM tools and provide that same sales team with index cards and pens, with the end result being better sales numbers than are realized today.

While the acronym CRM (which stands for Customer Relationship Management) is meant to describe the means a company or salesperson uses to manage their customer relationships, the onslaught of underutilized tools led us to coin the memorable (if not a bit hokey) phrase “Crutches Require Muscle” so those purchasing new CRM software would understand that assembly is required and magic bullets are not included.


As sales leaders, our goal has to be to make certain that everyone and anyone on the sales side understands that you cannot successfully manage customer relationships without work – hard, sometimes tedious work.

Crutches Require Muscle: Two Real Life Examples

Next week, my family will have an invisible fence installed in our home. We own a couple of small dogs, and these little buggers have figured out how to burrow under our traditional fence. After coming home too many times to notes on our door that read “Your dogs got out again. We have them at our house,” we’ve decided to spend a few bucks on shock collars and electric barriers to keep our pets (and neighbors) safe.

Because this is the first time we’ve ever had to purchase something like this, we sent price quote requests (via email) to seven local invisible fence companies who operated websites. These seven are using technology (the Internet, email and CRM) to their advantage, we figured, so we expected quick and complete responses.

Long story short, we received three automatic responses (43%) to our inquiries and only one of the original seven (14%) bothered to personally follow up with a price. We heard nothing from four companies (57%). This is pathetic, of course, because these seven companies are spending thousands each year on technology designed to capture more business, yet only one of the seven bothered to add people and process to the mix in an attempt to gain our business. The other six likely believe that their websites and CRM tools are magic bullets designed to deliver millions into their bank accounts with little or no work.

Can you guess which of the seven companies is installing our invisible fence next week?

Sylvan Learning Centers Need to Learn Something Themselves

CRM real life example number two: On a recent Thursday afternoon, one of our sons (we have three) brought home a mid-term “D” in English. We were shocked, scared and mortified for two reasons: 1) none of our sons has ever delivered anything below a B+; and 2) the boy speaks English, doesn’t he?

In our momentary horror, we were convinced that the best thing for this likely slacker was for him to get professional help (clearly his teachers, and especially his parents, were doing a poor job). We immediately sought an afterschool tutoring program that could release this young man from the dark side and make him our son once again.

A quick Google search yielded a sponsored link to Sylvan Learning Centers – hey, I’ve heard of them – so I submitted an online request to have my local Sylvan office contact me with pricing and other information. I was clearly desperate in my initial plea. Not surprisingly, the CRM tool used by Sylvan immediately fired off an automatic response that gave me confidence: My boy will read again, I cried. Here is the reassuring auto-response I received:

Thank you for your spending time with Sylvan’s website today. Whether your child needs to improve a report card, get ahead in math, end homework struggles or prepare for college, Sylvan can help.

Please keep this e-mail for your records; below is the contact information for your local Sylvan Learning Center:

Your local Sylvan is located at: (followed by the local center’s various contact info)

Visit your local Sylvan’s website often; you’ll find information about news and events, hours of operation and if they offer live, online tutoring from the comfort of home. You may want to even bookmark it!

Thank you again for visiting Sylvan’s website. We look forward to serving your family in the near future.

Your friends at Sylvan Learning®.

Awkward first sentence aside, I was convinced that my son was not going to have to ride the short bus after all.

Sylvan is on the Case

I heard nothing from my local Sylvan center the next day (Friday), though I was not concerned. Surely, they are so busy turning around the lives of so many children that they’re just a little behind in checking their emails.

At exactly 1:29 AM Saturday morning I received the following email (names and locations changed to protect the guilty):

I’m John Doe, Center Director from your Anytown center. Thank you for contacting us regarding your child’s learning needs. Your recent inquiry has been marked for our immediate attention, and one of my staff members will be contacting you shortly. If you have a preferred method for contacting you, please reply to this email with your preferred contact information. We look forward to talking with you soon.

Wishing you and your student success,

John Doe

Center Director

I was starting to get concerned, because they certainly must think we are all a family of morons if they believe they can fool us into thinking someone is sitting at our local Sylvan center sending out emails just after the bars close.

Although I responded to this email with very specific needs, no one on Mr. Doe’s staff ever bothered to respond, though I did receive the following automatic email on the following Monday afternoon:

I hope one of my staff members from Anytown Sylvan center was able to resolve your questions or concerns. Please reply to this email if you still have outstanding items you would like to discuss, and we will contact you as soon as possible. Thank you for your interest in Sylvan.

Wishing you and your student success,

John Doe

Center Director

I responded to this email immediately, and have yet to hear anything from them. It’s now been over a month.

As frustrating as this process was, it forced me to help my son with his English, and he is now back to a solid B – not great, but also not summer school material.

How to Guarantee Utilization

How much revenue could Sylvan have realized from my family over the next 10 years? If they were successful in helping this son with his English grades, would we not use them to help our other sons improve something? In my estimation, this local Sylvan center lost a minimum of $10,000. If you multiply that by the hundreds of other potential customers with similar experiences you begin to get into some real money.

The issues in these two real life examples are not caused by bad CRM tools, rather these instances point to a sales leadership void within these organizations. Without leadership, these organizations have too much technology. Case in point: if none of these businesses attempted to employ CRM tools, I would have been forced to call them, and chances are they might have answered the phone.

What can a leader do to guarantee utilization of tools designed to help an organization close more sales and drive more revenue? Accountability.

It’s a cliché, but your team will truly respect what you inspect. (By the way, we generally hate sayings like this, because people assume they’re true simply because they rhyme. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” could have just as easily been “if you killed your ex-wife, you’re gonna do life.”) Inspecting the daily inputs and outputs of your salespeople, and then holding them accountable for employing the designated processes for prospecting and managing customer relationships, can change everything virtually overnight.

The truth is that most salespeople are lazy. They expend more energy avoiding work than they would have to use if they just completed tasks as designed.

Salespeople need more leadership, not more technology.

 

A Snow Decision is No Decision When the Decision Comes Too Late

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Leadership Lessons from Snow Days in Georgia

(My apologies as I get a little local here, but this stuff really ticks me off.)

It snowed in Georgia yesterday; this is news. Some towns, like Athens, received as much as six inches of snow. Gwinnett County, Georgia (north of Atlanta) got a little more than an inch. To anyone living in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia or Buffalo this wouldn’t be considered anything more than a dusting. To Georgia, this is a major event. This is big news.

As my kids played in an inch-and-a-half of the white stuff yesterday, they continued to ask if school was going to be canceled on Monday. This was 6:30 PM Sunday – and over an hour had passed since the last flake fell in our yard – of course the schools would be open. The roads were clear and the great melting had already begun. Certainly there would be school on Monday.

When we sat down to dinner at 7:30 the kids scanned the local television channels; searching for signs that the Gwinnett County Public Schools would be shuttered in the face of this massive storm.

After dinner, they were surfing the Web for any indication that they could stay up late tonight and sleep in tomorrow. No such luck: the Gwinnet County Schools had announced that they were going to brave the elements and open their doors in the morning. By 9:00 PM the situation remained unchanged. School was on and they were bound for bed. Sure, forecasters expected temperatures to drop below freezing overnight, but school was a go, and these kids were going.

Great Leaders are known for being Great Decision Makers

I hate to break it to you, but the people running our public schools (the district administrators) are generally not great leaders. More often than not they are former educators with so many college degrees that their email signatures take four lines. That’s the problem with administrators: most of them have spent their entire lives in the education system and not a minute in the real world. They’ve never had to live by a P&L or make real personnel decisions. They spend our tax dollars like Monopoly money, and they do all of this with no real accountability.




If they were truly great leaders, they wouldn’t be educators. As noble as the teaching profession is meant to be, our education system is filled with people too afraid to face the business world; too afraid to chase dreams; too afraid to take even minimal risk. A teaching degree is the safest college degree one can achieve. A degree in education is one of the few degree programs (like medicine and law) with a guaranteed title waiting for you on the other end. “In four years, I’ll be a teacher.” “In six years, I’ll be a lawyer.” “In eight years, I’ll be a doctor.”

Deciding to become an educator, like deciding to become a doctor or a lawyer, is safe. Unlike doctors and lawyers, teachers never really put much on the line after college. They move into a union job with no real chance of ever being fired; regardless of their level of incompetence. And, if they’re really incompetent, they can aspire for management.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become administrators.

Great Leaders consider all the Stakeholders

Okay, back to the Great Georgia Blizzard of 2009 as the local news stations are just dying to call it. When we went to bed last night, there was no chance school was to be canceled. We made our plans for today based on this knowledge and drifted off to sleep.

5:30 AM comes fast sometimes, and this morning was no different. Rushing around the house as usual, I woke my oldest son and told him to start getting ready. (His bus arrives just after six.)

After showering and shaving (though not in that order), I turned on the TV for background noise as I got dressed. While the local anchors were marveling over the white stuff as if it was an alien sighting, I heard something that shocked me.

“We repeat: Fulton County, DeKalb County and Gwinnett County Schools are closed today…” they exclaimed.

While I knew my kids would be thrilled, I wondered how this would affect families with two working parents. The businesses in and around Gwinnett County, you see, are open today. Had the bureaucrats of the Gwinnett County School District made this decision while it was still snowing more than twelve hours ago, parents could have made plans to take care of their homebound children. Now many of them will be stuck with tough a decision: do they miss work, or do they leave their kids home alone?

Great Leadership is about Looking Ahead

While we can debate all day about whether or not school should have been canceled in the wake of a storm that “dumped” a miniscule amount of snow, the real issue lies in the fact that J. Alvin Wilbanks, the Gwinnett County Schools superintendent, and his team waited to announce the school closings until well after every student and parent in the district had gone to bed. We single out Wilbanks, a lifelong educator and student who does not have any school-age children, because he is in charge. He actually holds the title of CEO for the Gwinnett County Public Schools, so like all CEOs; the buck should stop with him.

The argument from the school bureaucrats is that the roads became icy overnight; forcing the school closures in the name of safety. Noble reason, indeed; and one with which we probably agree, if not for the timing.

For us, this begs the question: In all the years Wilbanks was in school, teaching school, and administering schools, did he never learn that temperatures generally drop overnight? Was it a shock to Wilbanks’ staff to learn that water freezes when the thermometer drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Did no one consider that the melting snow at 6:30 PM Sunday would turn to ice by 5:30 AM Monday? Didn’t anyone bother to check the Weather Channel?

The drop from 34 degrees last evening to 25 this morning was no surprise; it was accurately predicted. Had Wilbanks or his team bothered to look ahead and consider all of the data, the working parents of Gwinnett County would have had plenty of time to make proper arrangements for their children.

As unsafe as it might have been to run the buses this morning, it is equally unsafe to have hundreds of kids home alone today. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that unlike the Great Georgia Blizzard of 2009, nothing newsworthy happens to the children fending for themselves in big empty houses.

Top Ten Resume Tips for Managers

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The Top 10 Resume Tips for Out-of-Work Leaders

One of our loyal readers sent us an email this week that included their resume. As has likely happened to someone you know, this manager got caught up in the current economic turmoil and their position was eliminated. No notice. No severance. No clear prospects.

Since it’s too late to council our reader to adopt the absolutely necessary survival trait known as networking, we thought we’d dissect his resume (confidentially) and deliver him (and you) our Top 10 Resume Tips:

  1. Filename – Quick, take a look at the resume on your computer. Is it called “myresume.doc,” “SalesManagerResume.doc,” or simply “resume.doc?” Do you have any sense of your audience? I can guarantee that the hiring manager doesn’t want to download 50 resumes all titled “myresume.doc.” Believe it or not, it becomes hard to find the one you’re looking for when all the files are called the same thing. Additionally, when you name your resume file based on job title (like SalesManagerResume.doc), the hiring manager knows you’re probably fibbing a little because you likely have other versions that you send to other job openings (like OpsManagerResume.doc). There’s only one recommended filename structure for all resumes and here it is: Lastname.Firstname.Resume.doc. Your resume file will stand out because of its clarity to, and consideration for, the hiring manager.
  2. Software – Two words: Microsoft Word. Okay folks? While using some cheap Word knockoff is probably fine for an entry-level salesperson resume, your manager resume will look absolutely bush league if it arrives via any format other than Word. If you simply cannot afford the $80 to buy Microsoft Word, then create your resume in Word Perfect or Open Office or whatever other word processing software you can get your hands on, and “print” the document as a PDF. There are literally thousands of free PDF creators available. Start by looking here.


  3. Borrow Liberally – Why reinvent the wheel? Smart leaders are efficient and they don’t waste precious hours recreating what has already been invented elsewhere. Go online, search for resume samples, then start reading and lifting those phrases and sentences that best describe you and your abilities. Don’t lie – integrity matters – but certainly be smart enough to let someone else articulate what you really want to say about your experiences. Better yet, use your last $12 and buy a book with sample resumes and better resume tips than you’ll ever get from some crummy management blog. We highly recommend Jay Block’s 101 Best Resumes.
  4. Cover Letter – Yes, you include one. Again, if you’re applying for an entry-level gig, this is less important. The higher up you go, however, the more critical it is to have a great cover letter. Use the same tips we delivered here for your resume that you use for your cover letter. And just like that great resume, we recommend if you want a great cover letter you should invest a few bucks in a good book. Not surprisingly, we recommend Block’s 101 Best Cover Letters. If your cover letter is included in the body of an email, please remember to avoid our common email typos detailed here.
  5. Watch Your Formatting, and Check Spelling and Grammar – Yikes, we’re embarrassed to even have to write that, but we counted no less than four glaring typos and half a dozen grammatical errors in this manager’s resume. Ouch. Hard to hire someone to lead others when they appear to be unable to manage themselves. When we speak about formatting, we’re referring to how your resume lays out on a page. If you find yourself using tabs and spaces to format your paragraphs then STOP. While your resume might look great on your screen, it will likely open up as a jumbled mess on the other end. The reason this occurs is because you cannot guarantee that the hiring manager is using the same version of Word that you are using. Additionally, if you use an odd font because it looks cool, that font could be very well rendered as Courier on the other end, screwing up your beautiful formatting. The bottom line: format properly and use a standard font. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, hire a professional resume service. It might be the best $200 you ever invested.
  6. Aim High – While it’s often true that companies who are hiring leaders want to get more than they pay for, it’s especially true in a down economy. If your resume aims too low, that’s where you’ll surely end up. If you aim high, both with your resume objectives (yes, you include these) and with your description of past duties, you stand a much better chance of landing high. Be sure to make yourself and your ambitions sound as important as possible – keeping everything accurate, of course.
  7. Titles Matter More than Responsibilities – It’s sad, but true. If you were a VP at your last job, chances are you’ll be a VP on your next job. If your title was manager, you’ll likely be a manager when you land your next gig. We’re giving you this little piece of advice not to have you lie on your resume, but rather to make sure you clearly express your title in words that relay the importance of the position. Quick tip: Adding words like “division” can make a title seem more important, while allowing you to keep your integrity. For example, if you were a manager in the widgets group at ABC Company, you could list your title one of two ways: Manager, ABC Company or Widgets Division Manager, ABC Company. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather hire the latter than the former.
  8. Quantify Your Accomplishments – You didn’t “grow sales” at your last job, you “improved operating revenue by 33%.” You didn’t “cut costs,” you “discovered and enacted operational efficiencies that led to a 17% decrease in year-over-year operating expenses.” Numbers are easy to understand and will help your accomplishments stand out.
  9. Use Commanding Language – As you can read in Tip #8, there are both weak and strong ways to say anything. Use a thesaurus (quick tip: In Microsoft Word you can right-click on any word and see synonyms) to ensure you use the most powerful terms you can to describe your accomplishments. (We’re not going to bore you with a list of weak and strong words – you are a leader, after all.)
  10. References Available Upon Request – Never, ever include references on your resume if you are vying for a leadership position. Lists of references unnecessarily lengthen your resume. Additionally, you stand the chance of alienating your audience if one of your references is disliked by the hiring manager. In case you do happen to know Jack Welch – and he wants to vouch for you – ask him to write a brief letter (or, better yet, you write a letter on his behalf and ask him to sign it). You can always include these letters with your cover letter and resume.

While there are thousands of other great resume tips we could share, too many of them are too granular for a site like AskTheManager. If you can get these Top 10 Resume Tips down, you’ll be well on your way toward finding a great new career.

While we don’t often ask for advice from our readers, we’d love for you to share your resume tips with others by posting a comment below.

The Nerds are Taking Over – What The Terminator can Teach Us About Leadership

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Skynet is Here, and the Nerds are at the Controls

(Terminator fans can probably skip the next two paragraphs, as they’re just an explanation of the havoc we can expect in our not-too-distant future.)

Skynet, for the uninformed, is a computer-based defense system, created by nerds working for the U.S. military in the 1990s. Long story short, Skynet was put in control of all of the U.S. military’s weapons and given the task of protecting Americans from all threats. Skynet was such a powerful computer program that it “learned” at an exponential rate until it became self-aware.

Skynet, which was basically created to remove the possibility of human error in the event of an enemy attack, eventually turned on the very humans it was designed to protect (it deemed them a threat when they tried to shut it down), and it decided to terminate all humans to protect its own existence.

Can You Even Spell IT?

Welcome to 2009, where instead of Cyberdyne Systems’ Skynet program, we have our various corporate IT departments protecting us from ourselves. (IT, by the way, is short for Information Technology. An oxymoron really, since no one involved with technology is ever very forthcoming with any information.)

At my company this week, our self-aware IT department blocked our regional employees from accessing our own consumer-facing websites because they were “uncategorized.” Never mind that it is the IT department’s job to categorize these sites, or that these websites have been live and accessible for ten years.

This team also blocked employees in our corporate office from accessing our advertising agency’s demo site (where we login to view details of the current marketing programs and make changes to artwork, etc.). The violation here, you ask? Not sure, though the following menacing message appeared on everyone’s screen who attempted to access the website:

“This site is blocked by Corporate Policy.

Reason for restriction: Administrative Custom List Settings”

Aha! The three big threats to our internal network security are clearly computer worms, malicious viruses and “Administrative Custom List Settings.”

While I find this just a little bit humorous today, I was not laughing during the seven hours Thursday while I jumped through hoop after hoop to get the website lifted from the banned domains’ list.




Better Safe than Sorry

Of course, the nerd-driven event this week that clearly proved to be a sign that Skynet is upon us and is exponentially becoming self-aware, happened when one of our vendors (finally) disclosed that they had been “scrubbing” our customer email lists and destroying those that were equated with “domains that have suspicious registration and DNS configuration settings.” While I have no idea what that means in English, suffice it to say that this vendor, without direction from us, had been purging our records of valid customer email addresses because they didn’t like the way the email addresses smelled.

This vendor has potentially cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars all in the name of “data integrity.” The CEO of this company had the nerve to claim that it is better to be safe, than to be sorry.

Really? That’s what you’re going with here? No one asked you to protect us; and as it turns out, you were protecting us from nothing.

When we examined the recent email addresses they had purged (they kept a record of what they deleted in the past week), we found no malicious threats, no spammers and no breach to our data integrity. What we did discover were valid email addresses for real customers who were scheduled to be removed permanently from our database (like the hundreds or thousands before them).

The Tail Wagging the Dog

Prior to the anointment of the IT staff as Lord and Protector in the business world, we had the Admin Nazis. Those large women with cafeteria lady arms or the small, pale men who could stifle the joy of any young salesman’s first big sale with a simple and curt “paperwork’s not right; order’s rejected.”

I’m starting to miss the good old days where anyone in an administrative function believed the world revolved around them. When I was starting out in business, it was woe unto anyone on the operations side who tried to circumvent or curtail the self-important authority of an Admin Nazi. They could be very vindictive and selective in their enforcement of proper paperwork, you see.  

Back then we complained that the tail was wagging the dog; and we just lived with it because we could. As bad as the Admin Nazis were, they just made our lives suck; they didn’t actually control them.

If You’re Not Selling, then You’re Support

The only cure for the productivity-killing Admin Nazi was great leadership. Great leaders have a way of weighing inter-departmental priorities against the goal, and finding a solution that, although it doesn’t always please everyone, makes the most sense over both the short and long terms. They put administrators in their place by asking them to administrate and support the efforts of those who drive the real value for the company: those who touch our customers.

While great leadership was able to overcome the threat of the Admin Nazi in the past, it turns out that great leaders are often the ones who are allowing IT to build their version of Skynet at your company in the present. Because support for this over-protectionism comes from the top, trying to wrestle control from a nerd with network administrative rights is going to be a whole lot harder than getting Marge to accept a customer contract without the Ts crossed.

By the way, this is not the tail wagging the dog; this is the flea wagging the dog’s owner.

Your CEO is oblivious to what the real threats are or what they mean to your business, so she is forced to listen to the CIO’s version of reality. Chief Information Officers, it seems, are mostly frustrated former nerds with larger offices and tons of control.

Their power initially grew from a lack of knowledge and fear; although they gain more muscle every time some knucklehead in a cubicle downloads malware while registering for a free iPhone. Forget that the CIO’s team should have proactively ensured there were adequate protections against malicious computer code in the first place; it only takes a few hours of network outage for the CEO to give up a little more of her power to the CIO. It’s better to be safe than sorry, they’ll say.

I’ll Be Back

Cybernetic organisms aside, it’s time that leaders start asking tough questions of their CIOs and other IT department heads before we allow the nerds to give the computers all the control.

A simple “Why” can work wonders.

Every time anyone in IT appears to be protecting us from ourselves, the leader needs to ask “why?” And when IT answers the question, the leader needs to ask “and why is that important?”

Two questions is more accountability than most IT mangers can handle. They’ll either capitulate or their human-like skin will melt away, revealing their android inner self.

In case the IT manager insists on continuing with their course of action after the leader has asked the two “Why” questions, we recommend they follow up with something like “I’m not sure that’s in our best interest, can you put that request in-writing and give it to my administrative assistant Marge?”

(Marge, you see, misses her old role as an Admin Nazi.)

 

Young Owner, Old Manager: Who Wins in the End?

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Questions… we get Questions

One of our readers, Anant, posted the following after reading our article from August 2008 titled The First Time Manager Dilemma, How Do You Gain Respect?:

hi, i am facing a similar problem as mentioned above with one of my older employees, the only difference is that i am the owner of my company.

Last year i joined my father’s company after finishing my engineering and have started to handle the correspondence and marketing of the company.

Initially i thought because i was a new, they treated me as like a new kid on the block and would probably fade out once i am long enough with the organization.

Most of them did change, apart from our general manager. He still thinks he is an authority over me. I didn’t mind his reactions till the time recently when my father had gone out for an industrial trip. He had asked me to get some work done before he comes, which were like level 1 jobs and could easily be done on the phone/personally meeting, nothing laborious. Its been almost 3 days since i told him and he has still not been able to complete the task. Apart from this whenever i tell him something he looks at me, giving me that expression “why is he telling me? who is he to tell me?”

This behavior of his has actually ticked me off. Kindly give me a solution to handle such kind of employee – Anant, February 8, 2009

Young man (I’m going to assume you’re a young man, as Anant means “bliss” in Hindi and is traditionally a male name), it’s time for you and your GM to face several tough realities:

  1. Every generation gets overtaken by the next;
  2. Youth is the only trait a manager cannot learn;
  3. You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar;
  4. Blood is thicker than water;
  5. Money is thicker than blood; and
  6. Your written communication skills are horrendous.

1. Every Generation Gets Overtaken by the Next

It’s the circle of life my friend: It’s exciting and great when you’re young; and it sucks when you’re old. Your father’s general manager is having a tough time facing this fact… that’s expected. Your job is to make sure that you maximize short and long term profits for your father, not to make the GM feel good about himself.

If he fails to grasp this fact, he should be shown the door.

That said, you and your father’s company might be better served if you followed the advice in point number three, below.




2. Youth is the Only Trait a Manager Cannot Learn

This fact is likely killing your GM from the inside out. It eats at him everyday, and his own fear of being replaced is going to force him to do one of two things: 1) seek other employment (not likely); or 2) go into passive-aggressive mode when dealing with you (highly likely).

Until you came along, the GM was your father’s right-hand man. Today, he sees you as the greatest threat to his existence (see point number one, above). Following the advice given in point number three might help make the situation more tolerable for you (and the GM). If it fails, it’s probably time to show him the door. (Do you see a pattern emerging?)

3. You Can Attract More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

Of course, you can attract the most flies with dog shit, but we’ll forget that for a moment, because it doesn’t really fit with this whole analogy.

I think the best way to introduce this concept is to have the great Dalton (Patrick Swayze) from Road House explain it:

All you have to do is follow three simple rules.

One: never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected.

Two: take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary.

And three: be nice.

…until it’s time to not be nice.

Generally every human can figure out Dalton’s numbers one and two on their own. Dalton’s tip number three, “be nice,” takes some practice.

Anant, if you want to be nice, then it’s time to become “The New Anant.” The New Anant is a guy that loves everyone and everything. He smiles are everyone (especially his GM), and nothing ever gets him down. If you become The New Anant, you are going to be so nice to the general manager that people are going to think the two of you are dating. In fact, your father may become jealous of your relationship with the GM.

Seriously, If you want to get the most out of the general manager, you need to hang on his every word. You should ask his advice on every topic (where it makes sense) and you should strive to make him the hero at every turn. If you do everything in your power to make him look good, he will (usually) work hard to prove you right. At worst, you’ll have made it incredibly hard for him to treat you poorly – his subconscience won’t allow him to be an ass; just as your subconscience will drive you to eventually like and even respect him. (If nothing else, you’ll begin to see the world as he sees it, which will give you great insight into how to manage him better.)

If this fails, show him the door.

4. Blood is Thicker than Water

At the end of the day, you can always tell your father to fire him. After all, you’re blood and he’s just an employee. This strategy is great provided a) you are ready to lead the company as the new general manager; and b) this GM really wasn’t that effective.

5. Money is Thicker than Blood

This is where things get sticky for your dad. If the GM is strong and delivers value for the company – and the two of you cannot get along – then it’s time for Anant to find a new job.

Blood is pretty thick, but money is a whole lot thicker.

Face this reality right away and begin “working” for the GM if he’s any good. If he stinks, refer to number four, above.

6. Your Written Communication Skills are Horrendous

Seriously, Anant, I know you were writing informally when you posted a comment on this blog, but it’s important to always communicate clearly and correctly in business. Business associates (like the GM), subordinates, customers and leaders of other companies will respect you more if your written communication skills are always strong.

The good news is that you already form strong ideas, you just need to put them into a written form properly. Start by writing everything in Microsoft Word first, then running the spelling and grammar checkers before you send any correspondence. Next, you may want to read our posts covering email etiquette. There might be some overall business writing tips you can take from these.

It sounds like you’re well on your way to becoming a great business leader: you’ve clearly identified the major hurdles in your business and you’ve sought advice on how to rectify them – that takes guts and shows your leadership – congratulations. Please keep us posted, we’re dying to know how things work out for you.

 

Leadership Lessons from Corporate America’s Amateur Lobbyists

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Leadership and the Bully Pulpit

Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson) loves the bully pulpit. AutoNation’s Michael Jackson, we’ll call him the “non-gloved-one,” is everywhere these days. Officially, he serves as the CEO of the largest automotive dealer group in the US. Unofficially, he serves as the primary spokesperson for all curmudgeons who are good with a hammer (so they think everything is a nail).

MJ seems like a great guy – the non-gloved-one is well-spoken in an everyman sort of way – he exudes both a confidence and an “awe shucks” humility that seem genuine. Great traits for leaders.

Character (on the surface) does not appear to be his problem – Jackson, you see, is quite the character. Our issues with Mr. Jackson stem from his inability to wean himself off his love of the camera and microphone; and his incredibly narrow sense of how to fix what’s wrong with the economy.

It’s Not All about the Cars, Stupid

Certainly, it’s as prudent for this Michael Jackson to advocate for the auto industry as it is for that other Michael Jackson to advocate for unsupervised slumber parties at Neverland Ranch. We get it – your shareholders benefit if the auto dealers benefit – that’s your job.




To this end, Mr. Jackson is advocating (in a big, big way) for Congress to dramatically raise the gasoline tax at a time when Americans need every penny in their collective pocket. An increase in the gasoline tax? Are you serious?

Let’s put aside whether or not a gasoline tax increase will help his industry (though we think its benefit would be dubious, at best). Raising taxes in a recession would be disastrous for the economy, driving consumers to spend less and hurting the overall economic health of all retailers (including the health of car dealers) even more.

One could argue that part of the woes his industry faces today were directly caused by the very $4 per gallon gasoline he so desperately wishes would return. Jackson’s argument – that his dealers (and manufacturers) will sell more electric and hybrid vehicles with a huge increase in the gasoline tax – is probably a sound assumption… for the short term.

Leadership is more than a Great PowerPoint Presentation

Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Jackson appears to be crisscrossing the country looking for converts. We are not moved.

We cannot buy-in to his assertions that increasing taxes, especially gasoline taxes, is a good idea for what ails car dealers today. Automotive retailers, unfortunately, are selling vehicles today that are built better and last longer than their predecessors. This is really no different that a few years ago, of course. In 2006, when America’s car dealers sold over 16 million new units, consumers felt good about their present and future situations. They were willing to spend $30,000 on a new car even though their current vehicle was running just fine.

Buying a car in 2006 was a discretionary event; ripe with impulses and emotions. Buying a car in 2009 is a necessity event; driven by the need to get from point A to point B. Increasing the tax on gasoline (or raising any tax for that matter) makes any major purchase a necessity event. We will only buy a new car when it becomes necessary for us to do so; and if we purchased one of the 60 million new cars sold in the last four years, we probably don’t need another just yet.

This is why Jackson is advocating a hike in the gas tax. He believes that we’ll be forced to get rid of that 2006 Hummer once and for all. Okay Mike, once we trade in the gas guzzler for a Honda Civic Hybrid out of necessity, then what?

America’s car dealers, especially AutoNation, need Americans to make discretionary purchases to thrive and survive. Discretionary purchases cannot happen without discretionary income. Increasing taxes decreases discretionary spending; decreasing taxes increases discretionary spending. Sorry to break it to you Mike, but it really is that simple.

America Needs Higher Gas Taxes

From national security and environmental perspectives, we would love nothing more than for America to be 100% energy independent. OPEC, and especially the countries that make up OPEC, concern us. America cannot, over the long term, be dependent on “third worlders” for the growth of our economy.

Once our economy stabilizes, it may make sense to raise gasoline taxes. The revenues generated from these taxes could be used to make necessary infrastructure improvements; and the higher price of fuel, as Jackson notes, will drive consumers to purchase more energy-efficient vehicles. It will also drive them to drive less. All good for the environment.

In a recent podcast available on AutomotiveNews.com, Jackson even jokes that he could eventually become a Democrat with his drive for higher taxes. Really? Hey Mike, we’re sorry to inform you that advocating higher taxes probably makes you the Chairman of the Democratic Party today. Interestingly, in this particular podcast Jackson has moved off of his stance of advocating for the immediate tax increases, and has a newly stated goal of increasing these taxes in 2011 or 2012.

Hmm, then why shout from the rooftops for these increases in 2008 and 2009? Wouldn’t Jackson’s shareholders be better served if he lobbied for something that would actually spur economic growth? Perhaps something like a tax decrease?

As much as we like him, we have to tell this Michael Jackson to stick to moon walking and leave the economic decision making to someone (anyone) more qualified. Great leaders know when to use the bully pulpit and when to avoid it. They also understand that just because someone is giving you a microphone, doesn’t mean you should speak.