Category Archives: Management Training

Managment Training for every level of Leader — from junior assistant manager to CEO — we all need leadership advice, direction and assistance.

Leaders Don’t Get Too Caught Up In The Details

Posted on by
2

 

Low Hanging Fruit and the Cost of Perfection

Imagine a small airplane flying low over a crowd at a baseball game. The door of the plane opens and a smiling man appears with a large sack. He turns the sack over just as the plane flies over the bleachers and millions of dollars in various denominations begin to flutter down to the amazed crowd below. The plane makes a dozen more passes, and each time the man empties sacks of bills onto the crowd.

Now imagine you are in this crowd and you see hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives and ones all floating toward your waiting hands. As the bills come within reach, you feel compelled to collect only the fives and ones because you know they’ll be easy to spend and they’ll work in most vending machines. Additionally, you decide to straighten each bill as it reaches your hand and you arrange all bills in sequential order by serial number and denomination as you collect them.

Of course, these decisions hinder your ability to gather the maximum amount of money, but you really want to make sure these dollars are perfectly displayed in your wallet once the money shower subsides.


Crazy? Probably, but managers in businesses of all shapes and sizes make similar decisions every day. While rationale people would grab every bill just as fast as possible, managers locked into some strange quest for flawlessness worry too much about perfection and not enough about the goal – costing their companies millions in actual losses and even more in lost productivity.

 

Leaders Grab the Low Hanging Fruit

 

Often in sales we talk about Low Hanging Fruit (LHF). This overused phrase refers to the sales that are so easy to make you just have to walk up to the great sales tree, reach up and pick the customer of your choice. This phrase is so hackneyed and misunderstood that it nearly cracked the Top Ten in our list of the 25 Most Annoying Business Phrases of All Time.

 

The concept of LHF in sales came about because inexperienced salespeople would often pass up the sure thing only to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to close a sale that would eventually yield them less commission. In leadership, LHF refers to the opportunities that take little effort. These opportunities are often not glamorous, causing unfocused managers to chase shinier objects (leaving the LHF to rot on the vine).

 

Leaders, of course, maintain the goal in the forefront of their minds. This keeps them focused and allows them the wisdom to grab the Low Hanging Fruit; and to avoid the traps of shiny objects and the ill-advised pursuit of perfection. Leaders do what is best for the company and not just what feels best at the time or makes them appear to be in control.

 

Perfection is a Joke, and it Costs Too Much

 

I once worked with someone who was put in charge of overseeing the migration of the company’s website from provider X to provider Z. While X had done a fine job with the site, the company just felt it was time to change. No biggie, this happens. Unfortunately, my colleague got so caught up in how every page of the new website looked (she argued for weeks about shades of blue that were indistinguishable to the naked eye), that the designers at provider Z left out major functionality that would have converted twice as many visitors. Additionally, the new website performed poorly with search engines like Google because my colleague was too busy picking just the right images to notice that the content was incorrect.

 

A leader who was focused on the goal would have known that search visibility and conversion were the primary objectives of the website, and that there were no secondary objectives. This leader would have looked at the opportunity to build the site correctly as Low Hanging Fruit and would never have been caught up in unimportant details like Cornflower blue v. Dodger blue.

 

The Devil is in the Details

 

In today’s business world there is no room for perfection. Those lucky enough to still have a job are likely carrying the weight of several laid-off coworkers. True leaders understand this and do everything they can to maximize the ROI of their activities and decisions. They do not get caught up in colors or sequential bill stacking when the future of the company is at stake. As bad as it may sound to the dilettante managers, leaders understand that good enough is sometimes good enough.

 

Some People Should Be Allowed To Quit – Coughlin’s Law Can Always Take Over

Posted on by
Reply

Coughlin’s Law: Bury the Dead

People leave, let’s get over it. Gone are the days when a man arrives for work in the factory two days after his high school graduation and leaves forty years later with a gold watch. The American career path hasn’t included this scenario since before Lyndon Johnson took office. Over the last 40 years, American workers and American businesses have had an arrangement: Every man for himself.

For some reason, the most senior leaders of my company just don’t understand this.

We recently had an executive announce he was moving on; he no longer felt like there was a “fit” for him in our organization. He held no ill will for the company, but recent changes just made it difficult for him to continue in his capacity. In reality, he was doing what was best for him and the company. Besides, his employment was always, by law, considered to be “at-will.”

Our senior leadership was immediately filled with a strange hatred for this “traitor.” Like Bo Schembechler uttering that “a Michigan Man will coach Michigan” when then Michigan basketball coach Bill Frieder was talking to Arizona State in 1989, and Bo swiftly fired him (assistant coach Steve Fisher took over and won the national championship that season), our senior leadership began to treat this previously invaluable executive as some sort of leper. He became persona non grata overnight.

There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree. – Dave Mason

The Company Owes You Nothing

It’s important to note that my company’s leadership has eliminated more than one thousand jobs over the last fifteen months amid the current recession. This doesn’t make them villains; they did this in the best interest of the shareholders. This, you see, is their duty.


The one thousand plus newly unemployed soles may not like it, but the company owed them nothing. There was no contract between the parties that guaranteed a lifetime of employment. There couldn’t be; not if we want businesses to succeed and create jobs and pay taxes. (It’s important to note that nearly every one of those who were laid off received severance packages better than that which they were due. The company did right by these employees.)

You Owe the Company Nothing

Just as your at-will employment can be terminated by the company for no cause, you have the right to walk when you want. You owe them nothing. The minute you begin to think differently, it’s time for you to consider a career change.

While on the payroll – and especially when you’re in a leadership position – you owe your company your best efforts, which include leading with integrity. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that your integrity is critical to delivering great leadership. A duplicitous heart lacks integrity, and you have to be dedicated to your company’s well-being if you expect to be taken seriously as a leader.

That said, the minute you’re ready to go, you need to go, and you need not look back. It’s just sad that the alleged mature leaders in your company will likely treat you as someone taking part in some strange industrial espionage ritual.

Why Can’t Life Imitate Art?

Bryan Brown’s Doug Coughlin said it best in 1988’s Cocktail: “Coughlin’s Law: Bury the dead. They stink up the joint.” Companies and leaders need to figure this out and get over the natural turnover that occurs in American business today. People leave, it doesn’t make them the enemy. It does, however, make you look like an ass when you overreact to it.

Why We Don’t Have Leaders in the Public Sector

Posted on by
Reply

Leadership Lessons from the Public Sector

There are reasons some people are lifelong public servants and others work in the real world. Whether it’s the military, public education, a state legislature or a municipal government: a job void of profit responsibility is generally void of any true accountability. Without accountability, leadership can become unnecessary and the skill set (if it ever existed) will atrophy.

As we wrote in a recent post about school administrators, the people in these roles “are generally not great leaders… 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.”

Examples of this abound and we never have to look very far to reinforce this belief. Occasionally, some move by one of these leadership amateurs so shocks our conscience that we feel compelled to comment… much like a recent decision by management at an Atlanta-area county office that actually made us cringe.

Layoffs Happen

Last Friday in DeKalb County (GA), workers in the planning and development office were told there were significant layoffs coming and that they would have to wait until Monday to learn their fate.




Nothing strange here, right? Layoffs are happening all over America in the private sector, so it seems natural that these would eventually reach those working in a cash-strapped county office. The differences, however, between this layoff and those that are occurring in the real world are the communication skills and compassion shown by DeKalb County’s managers.

The 100+ employees in this office were told to return any county equipment and pack up their belongings and leave… without being notified if they were included in the layoff or not. You see, their managers wanted everyone out first, and then they would tell the lucky few (19 to be exact) to return with their things and resume their duties.

WTF?

(Excuse the texting in the middle of a post, but WTF? does not mean Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; and its use is appropriate in this case.)

While leaders in the private sector are often (rightfully) accused of being less compassionate than their public sector counterparts, employee relations as practiced by DeKalb County went the way of the three-martini lunch in the real world. Thankfully, the fear of lawsuits or bad public relations helps to keep this behavior out of the for-profit companies. When it happens in the public sector, we have little recourse but to strongly denounce it.

Okay, We Denounced It

We didn’t raise this example to simply call attention to the lousy leadership provided by government entities in the Atlanta area. Rather, we believed this instance was simply another glaring illustration of how the lack of a profit motive coupled with a promotional system based on tenure (instead of ability or merit) leads to poor leadership, morale and employee effectiveness. (If you’ve ever had to get your driver license renewed, you know exactly what we mean.)

Leaders need accountability, goals and responsibilities – complete with consequences – in order to grow and deliver value to their organizations. Where we fail to provide these to our middle managers, you can argue we end up operating like a government agency.

What About the 100 People Carrying Boxes Filled with Desk Chachki?

DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis stepped in and said he was dissatisfied with how the process was being managed and ordered a delay of the layoffs. (We’re not sure why a county needs a CEO, but we’re glad someone with authority in the county has a little common sense.) The delay, however, will be a short one. Plans are in the works to save more jobs, but DeKalb’s planning and development office will deservedly lose more than half its current workforce… they’ll just do it with a little more dignity.

Uplifted in the Down Economy – Guest Article by Bill Curran

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t know about the best of times but these sure feel like the worst of them. It’s as close to Dickens’s London as I dare want to see us go. Dickens would have been hard pressed to pen an economic/social setting as ugly as the one we find ourselves in today. Eventually, we will tire of being reminded of just how tough things have become. Maybe I have reached the depths of despair and have hit a plateau. I am in search of finding something positive and, in a small way, I did early on Saturday morning. A great example of customer focus and personal leadership were about to appear in the most unlikely of settings…and then repeat itself twenty-four hours later!

It’s cold and cloudy and my son Dan and I are navigating Rte. 24 South heading to another hockey rink. The news on the radio is thoroughly negative as story after story describes the hellish business conditions the likes of which only my elderly parents seem to recall. Even sports radio piles on, railing about ticket price pressure in a recession. It’s all quite depressing. I retreat to an oldies CD and make my way onto Rte 104 in Bridgewater. Although I don’t drink coffee, I am a quasi regular at Dunkin Donuts and as any self respectful hockey parent can attest, a stop at DD is part of the game day ritual. I open my window at the drive-through and am staring through the outdoor menu board, still half asleep. The cold wind is biting as I wait to hear the tinny voice of the invisible employee going through the motions.

What happens next startles me. I am lifted from my funk by an energetic, enthusiastic, and pleasant voice wishing me a good morning and “welcome to Dunkin Donuts!” What catches my attention is that the voice does not sound robotic nor like a teenager who wishes she were still in bed rather than laboriously taking order after order from grumpy consumers. She has, dare I say, passion. I can feel it! My son, Dan, is a bantam in youth hockey. He’s fifteen, also half asleep, and convinced I was put on this earth to embarrass him. “Did you hear her?!” I whack him on the shoulder to get his attention. He rolls his eyes as he knows a mini-lecture is coming his way.

I work in both the corporate and academic sectors and my work (passion) revolves around leadership and customer-focus. I help organizations develop their leadership bench strength. Its hard work but the results are worth it. As a student of the topic, I am always looking for examples in my daily life. They are called leadership moments. The wrong behavior is easy to spot but positive role models seem more elusive. However, every now and then you hit the jackpot. Most people miss these seemingly inconsequential moments that brush past each and every day. We think of leadership with a capital L and think of moments of what I call ‘Churchillian’ proportions. Most leadership moments won’t determine the fate of the free world but they do define the person…and the company. If you’re paying close attention, you might just find one of these leadership moments in the drive-through!




The research today equating strong organizational performance and leadership is compelling. The bottom-line differentiator between great places to work and the rest of the pack is something called employee engagement. It is the degree to which an employee feels connected to the mission of the business and is reflected in his/her output. Workers have up to 25% of discretionary effort that they choose to give…or not. Great managers treat their people differently. They give the employee the sense that their job and effort matters and they’re darn good at saluting that effort and making the workplace fun. They tap into that twenty-five percent and it pays off. It’s the difference between employee compliance and commitment. Not only does the business profit, the environment is a breeding ground for future leaders or, in this case, store managers.

The voice behind the sign at Dunkin Donuts in Bridgewater was a sixteen year old high school student trying to earn some cash but she has decided to go the extra mile and deliver service with a smile – even if I couldn’t see her face. She is highly engaged. These people believe that one person can make a difference and her enthusiasm made my day. When I got to the window, I asked the young woman if she took my order. She said no and pointed, “It was Kelly.” I asked her to come to the window. My son is slinking down as far as the car’s front seat will let him. I yelled out, “Kelly, you are so good. I love your energy and customer focus. I wish everyone gave it like you!” I received my drink from the other employee and got my change. I hesitated then offered the dollar bill from the change and yelled, ‘Give this to Kelly…a tip!” Everyone but Dan laughed. Ok, I’m not the last of the big spenders but I felt the need to reward a kid who brings energy to the workplace and it was a spontaneous gesture on my part. As we left and Dan started to sit up again, I tried to provide my son with a teachable moment, “If she keeps that spirit and energy up with customers, she’ll go places. I guarantee it.”

As luck or fate would have it, I found myself in Brockton the next night at…yes…another hockey rink. My neighbor and I dropped our boys at the door and dutifully headed back to the Dunkin Donuts around the corner. Along the way, I told him of my customer delight encounter of the previous day. We entered the store and found ourselves to be the only customers. The young lady behind the counter greeted us by saying, ‘Hi. May I help you?” I jokingly responded, ‘How did you know?” We laughed. I described what I wanted. “I’ll take a medium hot chocolate with whipped cream in a tall cup.”

A voice from around the corner said, “You like whipped cream?” I said, ‘I love whipped cream!” She filled my order and placed the cup and the closed lid in front of me. She decided to put her own signature to her work by placing a small mountain of whipped cream complete with a chocolate syrup design on top of the cup’s lid. I yelled, ‘Holy cow. It’s a work of art!” Two Dunkin Donuts in two days by two teenagers who, incredibly, get it when it comes to dealing with customers. There may be no odds for this. Working the window or the counter is not easy stuff. It is perfectly fine to perform the task at hand and do no more. It isn’t expected. But when someone goes above and beyond in this kind of setting, you are witnessing leadership in action. It’s what is known in customer service circles as WOW moments.

I told this story to several people at the rink and I suspect they thought my drink was spiked. For a few short moments I forgot all about the troubled economy and other world maladies and relished poetry in motion by a couple of teenagers. I was happy. I was uplifted. In an uncertain age where folks are keeping their heads down as a form of survival, these two chose to use their positions as a medium for shouting out their zest for life. There was no supervisor peering over their shoulders making sure policy was being adhered to but I suspect these two stores had strong managers, i.e. leaders. They decided to make their work an opportunity to express themselves to customers in a positive light thus allowing their employer to be viewed in a very positive light as well…no additional charge. Companies would and should die for this kind of behavior. Someone once said, “Leadership is doing the right thing when no one else is watching.” They served as terrific role models to young and older employees alike.

One person can make a difference. In this case…two did. Savvy employees don’t do just enough to get by. They bring their A game each and every day. They don’t hunker down and hope to survive. They stand tall…and stand out. To hell with this down economy. It, too, shall pass. There is hope yet for the future. These two employees are helping to lead the way. I’m off to the rink and in search of another Dunkin service-leadership moment.

Bill Curran is a senior leadership consultant. He has served in a variety of leadership development roles at companies such as PerkinElmer, EG&G, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Sensata Technologies and Marshalls. He has extensive adjunct faculty experience in leadership and organizational behavior at Boston College, Stonehill, Babson, and UMass-Boston. He’s also an unpaid chauffer to many hockey rinks throughout New England! He can be reached at www.BillCurranAssociates.com or at billcur@comcast.net

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss – Dealing with Your New Boss

Posted on by
Reply

How Do You Deal With a New Boss?

One of our regular readers – and someone who asked our advice very early on in the legacy that has become AskTheManager.com – AngelCakes from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan recently provided us with both an update on her management career and a new dilemma.

When we first heard from AC, she had just been promoted to a supervisory position in a retail shop and was facing substantial apathy and even antipathy from her charges. Not being one to quit in the face of such adversity, she turned to the Web for answers and stumbled upon AskTheManager.com. Desperate for advice, she gave us a shot at helping her cope with her new situation. (To read the advice we provided AC about her dilemma as a new manager, see our August 14 post.)

Back for more abuse, AC sent us the following this week:

I just wanted to send you the next challenge in the never-ending life that is retail management. But not without a little update first. Let me first add that the childishness of my store is no more. The resources that you gave me have left a huge impression in my memory and I practice what you preach every day. My staff has converted themselves into a well-oiled machine. They seek out the greater good and the bigger picture and that’s when everyone gets along the worlds a better place. The store itself has been running at full speed with a 25% increase in sales year-to-date (which is fantastic considering how “financially unstable” the world claims to be). All has been calm on the home front, and I have felt nothing but enthusiastic about the future and our successes and I strive to push the bar every day.
Until now I have not come to this mountain and I think that it is going to be my biggest challenge to date: Welcome the New Regional!

Most recently there has been a major rift in the tide at my supervisors’ level and they transferred my previous regional supervisor to the east coast, hired outside of the company a man with 35 years experience in the jewelry business, and made him the new regional supervisor. Needless to say the practices that my new regional demonstrates compared to my old one are dramatic and have everyone running for the hills and looking for new jobs. Demanding? Yes. Extremely high expectations? Yes. Respect and value for his new employees? No.

His reputation goes without saying that his employees are just numbers: that they are a dime a dozen and are expendable. He is overseeing every little thing that we as managers are doing, including hiring our own staff. I can understand his obsessive nature over sales and trying to make a good impression to his superiors, but he has taken almost any freedom that we have and are starting to find resentment in him because of it. Tomorrow he is flying in to oversee my hiring of a manager from another company to work for our store that I was extremely excited about until he said that I wasn’t allowed to hire him until “he met him first.” I feel like he is doing my job for me instead of letting me do the job that I was entrusted with. I also feel that he is hovering over my shoulder too much and that it is putting unnecessary pressure on me and my staff. Instead of over-boasting like every other manager is doing to catch his attention, how can I address the situation with my new boss and still make a good impression and respect his position? – AngelCakes, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Well AC, in the immortal words of The Who: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. While Roger Daltrey and gang weren’t thinking of the retail clothing business when they wrote that song, it fits the advice we have for you on how to deal with your latest issues.

Let us pause, however, to congratulate you on making the most of a bad situation. Given your quick and successful transition from frustrated newbie to seasoned leader means you are no quitter. Your most recent description of your team’s dynamics would make Patrick Lencioni proud. I wish we could take the credit for the transformation you’ve made, but the fact remains that all the advice in the world is meaningless without execution. And you clearly executed (a 25% sales increase is phenomenal in any economy). Nice job, AC!

Now, back to your current dilemma…

The ABCs of Job Satisfaction

When you write about the others who are “running for the hills” because of the new regional supervisor, we are not surprised. Beyond the obvious issue that some of these might be immature managers who simply cannot deal with change, it sounds like your new regional manager is clearly violating the ABCs of Job Satisfaction.

While on the surface most people believe that salary is the greatest indicator of job satisfaction, the truth is that Autonomy, Benefit and Challenge (the AskTheManager.com ABCs of Job Satisfaction) are greater predictors of one’s contentment with one’s employment than any other factors. Let’s discuss these in reverse order.

Challenge

Without some level of challenge, any job can become boring and commonplace. As humans, we need varying degrees of intellectual and/or competitive challenges on our jobs to keep us stimulated and engaged.

The challenges created by your new boss, unfortunately, do not equate to the kind of challenging work environment that’s been known to arouse creativity and motivate individuals. In fact, by taking away your ability to make certain decisions, he has effectively removed many of the most challenging aspects of a manager’s job.

Benefit

When we speak about the benefit of your job, we’re not talking about dental coverage. Instead, we are referring to your ability to understand and connect your efforts with the benefit enjoyed by your company. A sales manager, for example, can easily see the results of her efforts; although a factory worker who is tasked with attaching widget X1298TWHQ to gadget G7JJN23 cannot. The factory worker is but a cog, while the sales manager is driving noticeable value. Additionally, the sales manager enjoys a more clearly defined report card; one that displays for all to see the level of benefit enjoyed by the company because of her efforts.

Lucky for you, your new boss won’t be able to effectively remove your ability to see the benefit of what you deliver. Of course, he could make life so miserable that you become passive-aggressive and end up not wanting to drive value.

Autonomy

The level of autonomy granted any employee is the single greatest indicator of job satisfaction. Simply put: where a worker feels like they are the master of their own domain, that worker is less likely to be unhappy with their job. Once our work is second-guessed by our supervisors (or once we have to ask permission for everything) we are ready to jump ship. It’s amazing how quickly this can alter one’s perception of their workplace: Take away someone’s autonomy and you take away their freedom.

This is where your new boss is having the most negative impact on your job satisfaction; and the primary reason you are uneasy and your peers are exiting faster than rats departing a sinking ship. By removing your ability to make decisions he is also removing your commitment to success. Sadly, it was this commitment to success that brought you this far.


Okay, But How Do I Deal With Him?

AC, (by our interpretation of your message) you are seeking both the return of your autonomy and some level of respect from your new supervisor. Let’s deal with the latter, first.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

We’re going to assume that you and your old boss shared some healthy level of mutual respect, and that both of you were highly competent professionals (and both of you knew this fact about the other). We’re also going to assume that your old boss was generous in his/her granting of autonomy. Your old boss granted this autonomy because of your competence and his/her respect of you.

So what’s changed?

You are still highly competent; though your new boss either doesn’t know it or doesn’t care. Don’t worry – if he wants to succeed and grow with your company – he soon will. Gaining his respect, of course, will require a little more work.

First, no matter how distasteful it may be, you must respect him. You have to go out of your way to see the good in what he’s trying to accomplish and genuinely respect him. Respecting him requires that you suppress negative feelings, live (temporarily) with his micromanagement style and, in effect, kill him with kindness. Distrustful managers (it’s an understatement to say that your current supervisor is distrustful) have a difficult time respecting even those they consider competent. They will often, however, respect those who respect them.

Second, admire him without becoming a sycophant. Find a way to like the guy without kissing his ass. Distrustful managers especially have a difficult time respecting those they consider brownnosers.

In other words, treat your new boss the same as the old boss: with respect and admiration. (Even if this fails to sway the guy, you’ll find working with him will become more tolerable due to a psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance – you’ll actually be forced to like the guy by your subconscious mind.)

What if Nothing Works?

Although we seem to be batting 1.000 with our advice to you AC, we have been known to be wrong before. If showing genuine respect and admiration for this micromanager fails to make him give you some leeway and focus his overbearing style on less fortunate managers, you needn’t panic. These situations are generally very short-lived. They may seem like an eternity when you’re trapped in the middle, but rest assured that no one can successfully micromanage multiple locations over the long term.

Because the stores he supervises are scattered across a large area, he will not be able to maintain control over every aspect of every store. He will either cede control to competent, respectful leaders like you or he will implode and be driven from company by his inevitable failure.

What is Your Goal?

The bottom line for you is to ask yourself “what are my goals?” Once you understand your short- and long-term career objectives, ask yourself if you are more likely to attain these by staying and fighting through the current unpleasantness or if you will be better off somewhere else. Because your last supervisor seemed like an enlightened leader, it is likely that your company rewards that sort of behavior, and equally probable that your current supervisor will either change or wither. Of course, if you choose to stay and your last supervisor was more the exception than the rule in your company, you could be in for a very unsatisfactory time.

Either way, just being curious and seeking advice from others tells us that you’ll be an effective leader no matter where you choose to serve next.

Proper Filenames are Critical to Proper Business Etiquette

Posted on by
Reply

 

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.

The Tazie Effect – Turning Life’s Defining Moments Into Personal and Professional Greatness

Posted on by
Reply

TheManager’s Leadership Book Review

In what may become a regular feature of AskTheManager.com, we tackle the sometimes thankless task of reviewing the work of a published author. While you could argue that we’ve provided book reviews in the past with our Ten Best Leadership Books or our Ten Best Decision Making Books lists, this time it’s different… this time it’s about a single book: whether we love it or hate it, you’ll know where we stand.

The Tazie Effect, by Heather Whittaker

The first thing you realize when you are about to crack open The Tazie Effect is its incredible lack of girth. Just 66 pages separate the beginning of the first chapter and the end of the last – and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Too often leadership books are written for the glorification of the writer, not the education of the reader. The Tazie Effect focuses concisely on nine specific areas where leaders can develop their craft. More pages would be unnecessary.

Written with the belief that we can learn much about leadership from a six-pound blind dog who is called, among other things, Tazie Roo, The Tazie Effect attempts to weave solid leadership advice with examples about how this pooch lives her life. This, unfortunately, is where the book barks up the wrong tree. (Fortunately, this is the only place where it falters.) The connections between this little dog and the leadership advice doled out by Ms. Whittaker are tenuous at best. At worst, those who don’t love dogs the way the author does might be turned off by the amount of attention paid to and credit given this pup. In some ways it’s like the tail wagging the dog.




Stop Dogging this Book!

Okay, now let me throw the author a bone… Once I got past the precious Tazie Roo’s inability to teach me real leadership skills and simply read the material provided, I was impressed. Ms. Whittaker is clearly a gifted leader and a gifted writer, and her book deserves the attention it will surely receive.

Whittaker weaves in real world (human) leadership examples very well and provides lessons that any leader – young or old – can easily understand and incorporate into their work lives. Her words are well chosen and the advice she provides is solid. The Tazie Effect is void of unnecessary magic bullets, tips or tricks, and instead focuses on long term, life changing principles in the simplest form.

While The Tazie Effect is not the next One Minute Manager, I can see the value organizations will likely place on this book as a housebreaking tool for new managers and as a reinforcement of the skill sets of their senior leaders. (You can’t, obviously, teach an old dog new tricks.) It also seems likely that progressive companies could build their leadership development programs around its concepts, using the book as a cornerstone of their efforts.

The Recommendation

If you are a canine-loving leader who can’t resist speaking baby talk every time you come face-to-face with a four-legged friend, then this book is definitely for you. If you’re like most managers in the American workplace, and you’re more concerned about what happens to you than to some little dog, then this book is… still for you.

Let’s face it, with so much psychobabble BS passing itself off as leadership development; it’s nice to find a quick, effective read that meets the needs of its intended audience – even if they’re not all dog lovers. With that, I can confidently and doggedly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their leadership skills.

(To order The Tazie Effect, visit Amazon.com.)

Salespeople Need More Leadership, Not More Technology

Posted on by
3

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.