Tag Archives: management 101

Lehman Brothers, Leadership and Business Bankruptcy

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Leadership and Business Bankruptcy

Bennigan’s, Mrs. Fields and Lehman Brothers. Not really three names you’d ever expect to see in the same sentence, but all three have one thing in common: they all declared bankruptcy in 2008 and substandard leadership is to blame.

Lehman Brothers is certainly the most shocking name on this list. A 158-year old company, Lehman Brothers should have been able to withstand anything. They withstood the Great Depression and two World Wars didn’t they? Economic conditions that would have sunk most companies had no long-term effects on the sturdy Lehman Brothers.

Then came the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Something as truly innocuous as a housing slump was able to cause the collapse of a company started before the Civil War.

How Does A 158-Year Old Company Declare Bankruptcy?

Well, it seems it’s not very hard to do. All you need is egocentric leadership making millions in the short-term without having any regard for the future or (as maybe the case for Lehman) leaders who are asleep at the wheel.

Henry Lehman, Emanuel Lehman and Mayer Lehman founded the company in Montgomery, Alabama in 1850 as a general store that would soon start trading in cotton. Lehman Brothers would eventually grow into one of the most respected and revered names in financial services in the world.

This past weekend, they announced that they could no longer survive and Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. Clearly CEO Richard Fuld, Jr., who had been with Lehman for nearly forty years, was the not the servant steward that companies need in their top office.


Whether ego or greed or simple inattention to the risks of the new economy, Fuld, his management team and Lehman’s Board of Directors failed Lehman’s shareholders (the real owners of the company) and destroyed one of the best names in global finance.

We would be remiss if we failed to provide you with the names of all of those responsible for the failure of this great institution. Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman founded the company, and these men and women failed to provide true leadership and they, in effect, destroyed it:

Lehman Brothers Senior Management:

  • Richard S. Fuld, Jr. – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
  • Riccardo Banchetti – Co-Chief Executive Officer, Europe and the Middle East
  • Jasjit S. Bhattal – Chief Executive Officer, Asia-Pacific
  • Gerald A. Donini – Global Head of Equities
  • Eric Felder – Global Co-Head of Fixed Income
  • Scott J. Freidheim – Co-Chief Administrative Officer
  • Michael Gelband – Global Head of Capital Markets
  • David Goldfarb – Chief Strategy Officer
  • Alex Kirk – Global Head of Principal Investing
  • Hyung S. Lee – Global Co-Head of Fixed Income
  • Stephen M. Lessing – Head of Client Relationship Management
  • Ian T. Lowitt – Chief Financial Officer and Co-Chief Administrative Officer
  • Herbert H. McDade III – President and Chief Operating Officer
  • Hugh E. McGee III – Global Head of Investment Banking
  • Christian Meissner – Co-Chief Executive Officer, Europe and the Middle East
  • Thomas A. Russo – Vice Chairman/Chief Legal Officer
  • George H. Walker – Global Head of Investment Management

Lehman Brothers Board of Directors:

  • Richard S. Fuld, Jr.
  • Michael L. Ainslie
  • John F. Akers
  • Roger S. Berlind
  • Thomas H. Cruikshank
  • Marsha Johnson Evans
  • Sir Christopher Gent
  • Jerry A. Grundhofer
  • Roland A. Hernandez
  • Henry Kaufman
  • John D. Macomber

The sad fact for American business is that all of these senior managers made millions from Lehman shareholders, and they’ll surely land in new roles with other companies despite their record of poor leadership in the face of economic changes.

More disturbing is the fact that the members of the Board of Directors will probably escape unscathed in this mess. Their role and goal is to protect the shareholder. That’s simply not possible when you serve on multiple boards or continue to operate your own company while serving.

Nothing will change with these absentee boards until we take business failures more seriously – and that includes prison time for directors who so miserably fail to protect shareholders.

The Biggest Lehman Joke

I think the biggest joke bestowed on shareholders can be found on the Lehman website where you can view an ironic page entitled Sustainability (also take time to read the Mission Statement). Here’s a link to the Sustainability page that should work for the next few days. In case Lehman has already taken down this embarrassingly ironic page, here’s the verbiage:

Sustainability

We believe that Lehman Brothers has a role to play in delivering environmental and social solutions. Our vision is to build partnerships and value for our clients through environmental and social opportunities, be one of the most responsible investment banks, and contribute to superior returns for our shareholders.

Lehman Brothers Sustainability Principles

o        Transparency and accountability – We will report regularly on the implementation of these principles

o        Operations – We will aim to minimize negative environmental and social impacts of our operations

o        Employees – We will engage with employees on environmental and social issues impacting our operations and business and encourage the development of innovative solutions

o        Assessing risk – We will assess the environmental and social risks posed by our operations and business. We will engage with clients on critical issues (such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water scarcity)

o        Delivering opportunity – We will seek opportunities across our business that deliver commercial, environmental and social benefit

o        Market-based solutions – We believe that market-based solutions can deliver commercially feasible environmental and social benefit. We will apply our knowledge and understanding of financial markets to develop and implement innovative environmental and social market-based solutions

o        Investments – We will build our knowledge of how environmental and social issues impact business performance into advising clients, investing on clients’ behalf and deploying our own capital

o        Thought leadership – We will conduct research and analysis on key environmental and social issues and make the results publicly available. We will engage in public policy dialogues to contribute to the development of effective policies

o        Governance – These principles are approved and owned by our Executive Committee. The Executive Committee will oversee and receive regular reports on implementation and performance

Well, we’re glad Lehman Brothers cared about sustaining the environment and society, we just wish they could have SUSTAINED THE COMAPANY.

(That would be really funny if this business failure was not so tragic.)

 

Leadership Lessons from the Airline Industry – Delta Bats .500

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Leadership Lessons from Delta Air Lines

 

The editors of AskTheManager fly virtually every airline that caters to business travelers (i.e., the big ones), but we really seem to love Delta for some reason.

 

Delta is not always the cheapest, the friendliest or even the most convenient, but as one of the editors stated so ineloquently, “Delta is the tallest midget in the room.”

 

Delta made two changes in late 2007/early 2008 that provide great lessons in leadership. One was a terrific move and the other, not so much. (It’s important to note that more often than not, you can learn more from a poor leadership example than from a good one.)

 

Delta – A Swing And A Miss

 

We’ll start with the lesson where Delta stubbed their toe. If you’ve flown Delta in the last eight months, you’ve probably noticed the red signs on long stands that detail the Delta “Breezeway.” (As a Delta Platinum flyer, TheManager is on a Delta flight every week.)

 

These signs designate that one side is meant for the loading of travelers who are members of their mileage program (Delta SkyMiles) and one side is designated for everyone else. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.

 

Although it has been more than 250 days since Delta launched their Breezeway program, gate agents at virtually every airport apply their own rules to the Delta Breezeway. (Perhaps, they would all benefit from reading the Delta press release that attempts to explain the Breezeway. You can read that article by clicking here. If you work for Delta, I beg you to read it.)

 

The confusion that frequent travelers relay to me when I’m flying is all the same, “I’m not sure when I’m supposed to use it. In some airports they have the Breezeway open when they call for First Class, in others, they still tell you to wait for your zone.”

 

So Where’s The Leadership Lesson?

 

It seems that the Breezeway was an idea cooked up at the Atlanta headquarters and that all of the resources for the project went toward printing and mounting the great “Breezeway” signage in all of the airports. Perhaps Delta could have rolled this out more slowly and used some of their budget to educate the gate attendants in each city on the proper use of the Breezeway.

 

Flight attendants have confidentially told me that more passengers complain about varying Breezeway rules than anything else – and this is eight months after the rollout.

 

While consistency has improved slightly since its inception, Delta management stubbed their collective toes big time on this one. Instead of making the breezeway something that would attract more frequent flyers as a value add, they alienated most of us as we and the Delta front line employees scratched our heads over what in the heck the Breezeway stood for.

 


But Delta Management Did Something Good Too, Right?

 

Oh yes, Delta management hit a home run in 2008 with the release of their new safety video. A safety video? Yes, a safety video.

 

Instead of trying to be as stale as the peanuts on other airlines, some genius in Delta management understood THE GOAL of the safety video. (Of course, all of you know the goal is to make sure that we all get to our destination safely, though it seemed airlines assumed the goal of the safety video was to put the passengers to sleep so that they don’t want the free soft drinks and coffee.)

 

The guy or gal at Delta who dreamed up their new safety video has done something that no other airline has ever accomplished – they succeeded in getting more than 75% of the passengers to watch the entire thing.

 

For full disclosure, it is important to note that since the new video was released, I’ve seen it more than 30 times and I’ve watched it end to end every time. I, like my fellow passengers, am mesmerized by it.

 

The lesson here is this: let’s all stop doing things for the sake of doing them, and let’s understand WHY we’re doing them in the first place. Delta did just that with their new video and it worked – people are watching and paying attention. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself:

 

 

By the way, all of the uniformed crew members in the video are reportedly Delta employees, including the luscious lead flight attendant and the little guy with the shiny teeth.

 

Young Managers – How Do They Lead Older Subordinates?

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Effect Of Generational Differences On Young Managers

How does understanding generational differences affect the success of new managers? More and more managers are (and will be) younger than their team members. What must a “younger” manager consider when leading “older” team members? – Andy in Ohio

Great questions, Andy. As someone who has been on both ends of this situation (I have both led teammates older than me and I have been subordinate to someone much younger), I can tell you that the best advice is no advice.

No Advice For The Young Manager?

That’s right, the best thing for a young manager who must lead someone of a previous generation to do is to do nothing different. This is not to say that you treat everyone the same, you do not – real leaders know that they must lead each individual as that person desires to be led. And the best leaders understand the goal and they keep it foremost in their minds (without regard to the age, religion or sex of their charges).

Specifically, your first question about understanding the generational differences and its affect on the success of a new manager assumes that new managers must understand how their charges were led in the 1980s in order to be led successfully today.

This is a misconception that many new managers have. People are people, and just because someone is 20 years your senior does not mean they do not wish for understanding, personal pride and appreciation. Deliver your team honest leadership where you are the support and they are the superstars, and their age becomes irrelevant.


Younger managers fail with older teammates when their management style is void of respect for others. This is not a generational difference – although older subordinates will be less tolerant of disrespect – eventually, everyone who reports to a disrespectful manager will become disenfranchised.

So, Leadership Is About Respect?

That’s right – leadership is about people and all people want respect. They desire this alongside understanding pride and appreciation – but they’ll give up all of these to be respected and valued by their leaders.

Understanding this, a young manager need not get hung up about the age of his or her subordinates, he or she must just do what they know is right for their company and their people, and let the chips fall where they may. If the old folks (like TheManager) fail to get it, then fire us – just make sure you checked your ego at the door, provided us with support and led with respect.

So, what must a “younger” manager consider when leading “older” team members? Only this: your subordinates expect to be led, and they expect to be led by you, so forget their age and forget your age and lead them.

 



The Traps New Managers Fall Into

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The New Manager Traps

Help, I’m lost. I’ve been a manger for exactly 34 days and I feel like I’m drowning. The biggest issues I have are my time (there’s not enough) and my people (I am now responsible for the lives and livelihoods of 19 people). Any advice? Alan in San Diego, CA

Alan, I feel your pain. When I look back on my early roles as a manager, I remember facing the same issues. You can bring all the business and leadership knowledge available to your new job, but when you’re a first time manager who cares, you can easily get lost in the minutiae and feel overwhelmed with a responsibility for your people.

Let’s tackle these two problems in reverse order.

New Manager Trap #1 – Feeling Responsible For Your Team

Not all new managers face this problem. Many, those who wouldn’t help an old lady across the street, probably have no idea that anyone ever feels responsible for their team. They simply couldn’t care less about the health and welfare of their teammates, subordinates or supervisors. They’re so caught up in themselves, and so busy admiring the title on their business cards, they don’t have time to worry about others.

The other type of new manager is the kind of person (like I was) who brings home the stray cat from the alley and feeds it – feeling great and believing they are doing good.

If I could undo one thing from my early days as a manager, it would be to stop being such a softie.

Stray Cats Are Stray Cats For A Reason

If you’ve ever brought an alley cat home, you know that they basically tear up all your furniture, scratch the hell out of you, and eventually poop everywhere in the house. Caring too much and forgetting what’s important to you – and what’s best for your company – is a major reason that many new managers fail to reach their goals.

This analogy is not meant to say that your subordinates will poop all over the place, but it is meant to illustrate that new managers should keep their priorities straight, especially in the beginning.

You are not responsible for the lives and livelihoods of your charges. Provided they are all legally eligible to work in your state, they are 100% responsible for themselves. As hard as that might sound, it’s important to understand that right away.

Provide the goals, and the tools to reach those goals, then train everyone to use the tools. For the 10-20% who never seem to deliver, be prepared to help them find other employment (i.e., terminate them).

You Are Responsible To Your Team

Your company hired or promoted you not because they wanted someone to provide welfare to their employees, but because they wanted someone to get the most out of that resource known as labor. Your job is to deliver on your goals. In this quest, you will often be required to balance productivity against employee welfare.

Unless you’re managing a sweatshop, your employees are free to leave anytime they choose. Knowing this, you need to feel similarly. That is, you need to be prepared to let someone go when it makes great business sense. Not everyone can be a Delta pilot or a doctor, someone has clean the septic systems for rural America.

Stop feeling like you need to protect your team from the realities of business. You don’t. You should be their support mechanism, not their patsy. There is a difference.

Whenever I hire or promote a first time manager, I like to give them a few weeks to get their feet wet, learn their team’s dynamics, and see how they handle the issue of responsibility. If they seem like the type that would bring home the stray cat, I let them get scratched up pretty bad before I offer any advice in this area.

After three to four weeks, they’re begging for guidance on how they can balance the lives and livelihoods of their subordinates and still meet the company’s objectives. The short answer is that you very often cannot do both. Instead of feeling responsible for your team, you should feel responsible for your goals.




The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too

I often quote the late, great Ted Knight from Caddyshack: “The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny.” And guess what? It does. The world is made up of billions of people doing millions of different jobs, and if you ever feel like you have to keep a poor performer employed because you feel sorry for them, you’re doing a disservice to your company, to yourself and to the poor performer.

Often, losing their current job for poor performance is the best thing that ever happened to them.

New Manager Trap #2 – There’s Never Enough Time

For fear that the answer to this question is already too long, let me just cut to the chase here. I have seen scores of new managers fail because they believed everything needed to be perfect. Everything.

Nothing is ever perfect. I often say that if my workday was 24 hours long and my workweek was 30 days long, I would still need more time to do it right. This is a fact of life for managers. There is never enough time, and there never will be enough time.

There’s a great book called All You Can Do Is All You Can Do, But All You Can Do Is Enough that really details the need to do your best, and to be satisfied with the results. While this book is out of print, you can still buy a used copy on Amazon.com for a few bucks.

When we see new managers who feel that there’s never enough time to do their jobs, they are either striving for perfection or working on those things that are out of their control (or both). Either way, All You Can Do can help you work on the things you can control and forget the things you can’t.

I also often recommend Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s the number one leadership book ranked on our site for a reason. It can absolutely help you work on the important issues, as well as help you focus on your circle of control rather than your circle of concern.

Stop Being A Perfectionist

I am a perfectionist at heart. I often spend too much time at work and not enough time with my kids. I understand this and I’ve come to accept it. However, I also understand that my company, my customers and my subordinates would all still be very well served if I worked only 40 hours each week. I can’t help it.

It’s important to note that I never, ever complain about not having enough hours in the day. I understand that all I can do is all I can do, but all I can do is enough. If it weren’t, I never would have been given the responsibility I have today. Alan, you need to understand this, as well.

In the strive for perfection, be careful if you begin to believe that perfection is the only suitable outcome of every endeavor. More often than not, good enough really is good enough.

(Are you are manager who has a problem or an issue like Alan’s? Leave a reply below or send us an email at the bottom of the About page, and we’ll do our best to give you a response in 48 hours.)

The First Time Manager Dilemma, How Do You Gain Respect?

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How Does A Young Manager Gain Respect?

I am a young, newly promoted sales manager who stepped into what feels like a mine trap. I have been appointed to a brand new store filled with employees who lack professionalism and seem to be all out for themselves. I am the youngest associate to ever be promoted into a management position for our company and I feel like I have to make a name for myself by showing that I can make something of this responsibility that’s been given to me. My employees are all older than me, so trying to establish myself as someone that they can count on seems like a major task. Clearly, many of them have an issue working under someone who is younger than themselves. Not to mention the very first day, when our regional manager came to welcome me to the store, the associates were poorly dressed, not occupying themselves with their job whatsoever, and just sitting at our podiums talking amongst themselves. There is obvious work to be done, and I would really like to smother these bad habits before they become the norm. AngelCakes in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

AC, you’ve got your work cut out for you. I wish I could say the next three to six months were going to be easy, but they’re not.

The best advice I can give to you, and any young manager taking over in their first leadership roll, is this: be firm; be fair; and stick to your guns.

The truth is, that no matter how old you are, you want to be led. You want someone, anyone, to provide a vision and a direction that will help you get through your day. Luckily for you, you have salespeople to direct. It might actually be worse if these were front line, union welders or truckers with little regard for their career paths and the protection of a union.

Establish Some Ground Rules

Start right now and establish ground rules. Don’t worry about the feelings of your charges – you owe it to your company to maximize your resources, including labor – the good ones will accept you and the bad ones will terminate themselves.

Tell them exactly what they can expect from you and what you expect from them. Explain the rewards for complying and the punishment for disobedience. I know it’s harsh to see a word like “disobedience” in a leadership development post, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

Be prepared to, indeed, break some eggs. Decide right now who is worthy of keeping and who needs to go. Give everyone the same chance, but prepare for the loss of those that simply do not want to succeed under any circumstances. Remember that this is not a popularity contest and put your ego in check.

Make sure they understand that you would love for this to be a happy and productive workplace, but short of that, it will at least be productive. Make sure they understand that the ball is in their court. They can all earn more money, get promoted or achieve whatever cachet they seek, provided they allow you to help make them successful.

You Are The Support, They Are The Superstars

Tell them early and often that they are the real heroes of your store, and that you are only there to support them. Then, be prepared to live it.




Your only goal, both stated and actual, is to make them successful. If they succeed, you succeed – though no one is going to succeed if they treat the entire day like one long coffee break. (This is where the ground rules come in.)

What they wear, how they act and how much they sell are all part of the expectations you set early on. If they live up to their part of the bargain, then you will live up to your part – you’ll help them get promoted, you’ll help them close a sale or two, and you’ll go to bat for them when it’s time for raises.

Has This Approach Ever Worked?

At 16, I was promoted to the manager of concessions at our local minor league baseball stadium. I had worked the previous summer in the concessions group, and took over as manager in my second year. (This means that I am celebrating my 30th year in management.)

My crew consisted of 30+ teenagers and senior citizens, all of whom were older than me. To make matters worse, my 19-year old sister and my 18-year old best friend also worked for me.

To make a very long story very short, I was not a great first-time leader, though by the end of the season we had reduced labor costs and increased sales to a level not previously seen by the ball club. Had I not decided to be a lifeguard the next summer, I would have earned a nice raise and would probably still be working in baseball.

During the course of the season, I fired both my sister and my best friend. Because both firings were clearly warranted, I only suffered about 3 weeks of angry stares from the two of them. However, the respect I gained from the rest of the team by setting expectations and getting rid of the two people considered to be the greatest troublemakers was immeasurable. (Once someone sees you fire your own sister, they pretty much tow the line.)

Have Fun

The best part about that summer in the minor leagues is that by the end of the season we all had fun.

There is an old saying that “sales cures all ills.” Like many old sayings, this one is true. You will be amazed at how a little success can go a long way toward invigorating your team to want more. It’s like blood to a shark; they will begin a feeding frenzy for success that you will be unable to stop.

So, AC, my advice to you is this (I like bullet points):

  • Deliver the ground rules
  • Set the expectations (for you and them)
  • Live the vision (which includes awarding punishment, when warranted)
  • Have fun

The last bullet point will happen all by itself if you succeed on the first three.

Good selling!

(Note from TheManager: To read a related series about the first steps a new manager should take, please follow this link.)

Business Writing – The Most Common Typos in Email Today

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Whatever Happened to Good Business Writing?

 

(To read the first article in this series, please follow this link.)

 

(To read the Twelve Worst Business Email Etiquette Mistakes of All Time, as determined by the editors of AskTheManager.com, follow this link.)

 

…

 

As promised in yesterday’s post, here is the list of my favorite typos, grammatical errors and other business email faux pas I’ve collected over the years.

 

If you have too much time on your hands, and you’d like to see all of the most common mistakes in the English language, check out Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage.

 

The Best Bad Email of All Time

 

The worst email I ever received was a response to my request for a price quote on a new car from a local dealer. It was obvious that the salesman didn’t know how to operate his CRM tool very well, and that whoever set up the system never attended a business writing class:

 

Dear (enter customer name),

my name is (enter salesperson name) and I bring you good news we have the (enter Make) (enter Model) your looking for. I understand that buying a car is stressful and my job is too make sure you get all the help you need too make a informed choice. their are many options available for the (enter Make) (enter Model) you wants and I want too be sure you tell me all the things your looking four. Please call me right away at (enter salesperson phone number) so than we can set up appointment.

 

sincerely

(enter salesperson name)

(enter salesperson title)

(enter dealership name)

 

I received this exactly as it shows above including the parentheses, and I still have it to this day. Needless to say, I didn’t buy a car from him.

 

The Most Annoying Business Email Habits Ever

 

Surely there are hundreds of annoying business email habits out there, but the following four really tend to annoy me. What is most irritating about them, is that there is a distinct lack of forethought and professionalism exhibited in each:

 

Blank Subject Lines – I don’t know about you, but I like to file many emails for later reference. When someone sends me an important business email with nothing in the subject line, I am required to forward it to myself with a descriptive subject so that when I file it I can easily retrieve it. I understand this could just be an oversight for many, but I know a few chronic abusers who routinely forget to include a subject and they seem oblivious to the need.

 

Subject Lines that Include Only My Company’s Name – I know who I work for, so when you’re sending me an email, I suggest you include your company’s name and not mine. Imagine how my email files would look if every email arrived with the same subject. This one could be worse than omitting the subject line, because it shows the sender actually thought about what to include for the subject.

 

Reply to All – The inadvertent clicking of this option in an email response has created some of the funniest messages I’ve ever read. Just in the past two weeks, I’ve been copied on messages not intended for my eyes when someone at another company accidentally hit “Reply to All,” though they only intended to send it internally to someone in their company. You gain great insight into the people you’re dealing with when you see what they really think about you.

 

What annoys me with the “Reply to All” button is when someone refuses to use it. I have been on countless important email strings that were interrupted because some numbskull hit “Reply” instead of “Reply to All” and then sent their message. Listen up, offenders, start using the “Reply to All” when you intend to send your words of wonder to everyone copied on the original message. Get it?

 

The Use of Stationery – Forgive the sexist overtones here, but this seems to be a faux pas committed solely by women. Ladies, when you use the stationery features of Microsoft Outlook, you transmit very pretty emails that make us all long for the days before the Internet.

 

However, you seem to forget that business stationery back in the day rarely included watermarked bunnies on a pink background. Additionally, when any of us attempts to respond to or forward these beautiful emails, your stationery takes over our response, often requiring we adjust the color of our text while destroying the layout of our email signatures.

 

Quick business tip: never, ever use the stationery features of any email program for your business emails. The rest of us thank you in advance.

 

The Worst Word Confusions of All Time

 

These aren’t typos, though many will argue they are. Typos, as I’ll show in the next section, are true fat-fingering instances that even a rudimentary spell checking program could detect.

 

The following mistakes are the result of a combination of laziness and low IQ, and by no means do they encompass all of the common grammatical errors we see in business writing today. 

 

There, Their and They’re – Look them up. One belongs there, one is their choice and they’re all different.

 

Loose and Lose – I come unglued when someone warns me that we are about to loose something if we don’t act now. Frankly, if we loose it, that’s our choice. I’m really more concerned about what we lose.

 

Affect and Effect – These are probably the most commonly confused words in the English language. I recommend that every time you wish to use one or the other, and you are not certain which is which, you check out an online resource like the University of Kansas website. One quick tip I use: affect is most often a verb, and effect is most often a noun.

 

To, Too and Two – These really don’t even belong on the list, because even a first grader knows the difference. If you find yourself using to incorrectly too often, you really should reference one or two grammar resources for help.


 

i.e. and e.g. – These are both abbreviations of Latin terms and only one is misused – primarily because almost no one knows how to use e.g.

 

i.e. is the Latin abbreviation for id est, which means “that is.” In business writing, I often see users include i.e. to mean “for example.” If you don’t believe me, check the greatest online dictionary in the world, i.e., Dictionary.com.

 

e.g. is the Latin abbreviation for exempli gratia, which means “for example.” I never see e.g. in business writing, unless I’m the one doing the writing. I think if we’re going to use Latin abbreviations, we should understand what we’re doing. I know of a few good online resources that can help you understand what different words, phrases and abbreviations mean, e.g., Dictionary.com.

 

A Few Great Business Typos

 

Typographical errors are great, because they are usually the result of the overanxious, fat-fingering apathetic who fails to proofread. (Grammatical errors, on the other hand, show a poor grasp of the English language – most likely the result of leaving school in the fifth grade.) What you see below are some terrific typos I’ve encountered over the years:

 

Combining Words – More ignorance than typographical, the Web has made this such a cool practice through the combination of words in domain names (e.g. AskTheManager, WordPress, etc.) that many feel compelled to create their own words by combining two words often found next to each other. Everytime I see this I want to scream, but every time is always, always two words. Amazingly, this mistake is so common it shows up on more than 51 million sites on the Web.

 

Mixing the Order of Letters – One of the greatest letter mix ups of all time is typing Interent when you mean Internet. “Interent” actually seems to me like it should be a real word, like it means something was definitely intended. Interestingly, there are over 1.5 million websites that screwed this up for all of us to see. Follow this link to see these Interent-savvy websites.

 

Omitting Letters – I often see this typo when someone wants my company to move forwar with somethin or they just want to get my atention. Luckily, most spell checkers will complete these words for you. When they don’t, and you post them to the web, you join the other 914,000 websites that left off one of the Ts in attention. To view these masters of marketing, follow this link.

 

Adding Letters – The uneducated masses who add letters sometimes believe these words are spelled with that extra T, L or M; though more often than not, they simply get ahead of themselves when they really should ommit the extra letter. Check out the more than 470,000 websites that contain an extra M they should have ommitted when you follow this link.

 

Fat-Fingering – This typo occurs when you meant to type one letter, but your sausage-like digits hit numerous keys at once, resulting in something like thjis. Not surprisingly, these are incredibly common in business writing and on the Web. Follow this link to see the more than 60,000 websites that prove thjis is true.

 

Mistyping – As unbelievable as it sounds, TheManager has actually committed this egregious error at least once in the past. Recently, I posted an article on Leadership, though I entered the page title as Keadership. No excuses, but the K and the L are very close together on my laptop, and there are no spell checkers available on the page title form in WordPress.

 

Once I noticed the error, I fixed it, but Google had already cached the page, so every time I see my indexed pages, I am reminded of this glaring typo. Of course, I’m not alone – more than 700 others writing about Leadership also caught the K by mistake. Follow this link to see these geniuses of Keadership. 

 

The Solution

 

While we all have access to spelling and grammar checkers in nearly every program where we create emails or other documents, the real answer is we need to start caring about what we write. We need to care enough to set up automatic spell checking, to look up words at Dictionary.com, to keep reference guides like Alicia Abell’s Business Grammar, Style & Usage handy, and to proofread before we publish or send.

 

Unfortunately, this will not change anytime soon. Typos have become so common that a whole industry exists selling misspellings of common domain names. Of course, if you’re thinking of buying Googel.com, Yahooo.com or Amazom.com, you’re too late, they’re already owned by the websites that Web surfers intended to type in the first place.

 

Business Writing – The Death of Grammar and Punctuation

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Whatever Happened to Good Business Writing?

 

I’m embarrassed (for the sender) to report that I received the following email from someone trying to sell my company their product:

 

Subject: revolusionarry new interent product

 

Dear prospective buyer,

 

Do you strive too ensure you’re team are always there most producive? Are you tired of not having axes to rapports on a more time sensitive plan  what about managning those who are far from the home office? Do you loose sleep over this or does this keep you up an night?

 

I won’t bother with the next one hundred seventy-six words of this tragic attempt at a sales pitch, but suffice it to say that it didn’t get any better. And no, we didn’t buy their “revolusionarry new interent product,” which clearly wasn’t a spelling and grammar checker for emails.

 

Whatever happened to good business writing? Strike that. Whatever happened to below average business writing? It seems we are producing a generation of idiots incapable of stringing six words together to form a sentence.

 

For managers only concerned with the here and now, there’s no need to read further, you won’t understand the urgency. However, for those who feel compelled, as TheManager does, to release upon society effective future leaders, we need to find a way to solve this mess.

 

In some ways, this could be the most important issue facing managers today: how do you prepare your charges for the next level. The inability to articulate ones thoughts in-writing could mean the difference between an entry level management position and the CEO office.

 

Are your current subordinates serving in the last position they’ll ever hold with your company, or do you feel they could someday replace you? (By the way, if you feel like none of them could ever replace you, you should quit immediately – you’re not delivering what your company needs.)

 

You have to admit it – all of us have received an email or business letter that absolutely made us cringe. When I receive these, three questions come to mind: 1) Has it always been this way? 2) What caused this? And 3) What, if anything, can we do to change it?

 

Has It Always Been This Way?

 

In short, no. Prior to the advent of email and text messaging, those with no written communication skills left such endeavors to capable secretarial employees. Today, we feel that because we can, we should.

 

Stop right there. Just because we are capable of something is never a good reason to do something. Sending incoherent text messages between friends is fine, but please don’t attempt email communication unless you are semi-skilled at writing. You don’t even need to know how to spell, you just need to know how to express your thoughts.

 

This is not the fault of technology.  Users who believe that because they’ve mastered the ability to login, they can do anything, fail to use the available technology (like spell checking) to their advantage. While I applaud their “never say die” attitude, I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to mention that those who screw up a business email look absolutely foolish to the educated and semi-educated masses.

 

Why shouldn’t we blame technology? It’s simple: technology only removed the paper and the pen; people still provide the ignorance.




 

What Caused This?

 

The reasons for the pandemic level of poor written communication skills we see today are not solely created by the ignorant. Truth be told, the ignorant are almost blameless in all this – they are, in fact, ignorant.

 

The real culprits of this assault on the English language are elementary educators and every thinking person who has ever looked the other way when they receive a business communication written with third grade acumen.

 

Education is failing American business. While I could write (and someday, might) volumes of articles on this topic, let’s just be satisfied with the knowledge that our public education system is mostly a bureaucratic pile of bitter old men and women who haven’t challenged a student to really think or try since about 1978.

 

The culprit we can actually do something about is you and me. Because we look the other way when someone (especially someone on our team) creates a written communication that makes us feel embarrassed for them, we are not only contributing to the problem, we are allowing it to grow exponentially.

 

What Can We Do To Change It?

 

Those of us with IQs above 99 should rise up and demand better writing from everyone we deal with in our business and our personal life. There is no reason for us to put up with this. As leaders, we need to demand that everyone on our team can communicate using all media available.

 

When we identify someone with poor written communication skills, we need to act quickly and provide them with the tools to make them seem less foolish to everyone else they contact.

 

Online business writing courses abound, and might be the best path for the chronically impaired. Expect to spend upwards of $200 for a truly quality course that provides ample instructor feedback. While there are a few free courses available online, please remember that you get what you pay for, and free is not always free. The goal of taking a writing course is to make dramatic improvements to one’s written communication skills – I’m sorry, but the free courses won’t get you there.

 

For those whose budgets won’t stand for $200 per employee to improve a whole team’s written communication skills, I highly recommends the following books. (Each book has been handed to at least one of my current or past team members who needed to clean up their business writing.)

 

Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, is perhaps the best book ever written on the proper use of commas, periods, and similar marks that seem to be missing in everyday business writing.

 

Business Grammar, Style and Usage by Alicia Abell, is an absolutely terrific desk reference for anyone who ever writes proposals, letters or even emails for business. TheManager has one next to his computer.

 

New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage by Andrea Sutcliffe, is a bit more formal than the two recommendations above, but provides a more in-depth reference for anyone who wants to improve their writing or the writing of those they supervise.

 

In the past, I’ve provided one of the two style guides and Eats, Shoots and Leaves to my employees, and I’ve always enjoyed noticeable improvements. Certainly, your situation would dictate whether you need one, two or all three of these great books.

 

Whatever you do, do something. A laissez faire attitude toward your own employees’ development is certainly not a best practice of top leaders.

 

Please follow this link for my favorite typos, grammatical errors and other business email faux pas I’ve collected over the years. (And, before you jump on me, faux pas is spelled the same way, whether singular or plural.) J

 

Management by Questioning: Training Sales Managers to Lead in Tough Economic Times

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Management by Questioning…

 

Not the most electrifying title for a post, I know, but an important topic nonetheless.

 

A friend who owns a successful business recently lamented that his sales teams were ineffective selling into the “terrible economy” we’re faced with today. I was surprised, because this man has always done a great job driving revenue and profit growth through the actions of the great teams he assembled. When I asked why he thought this was, he said he really didn’t know, “it seems I spend hours everyday telling my sales managers how to do their job and nothing seems to click,” he shared.

 

Wow! So much has changed for this man and his company since their sales went from slam dunks to half-court prayers. He used to listen and now he tells.

 

How can anyone expect to lead simply by telling?

 

I’m hopeful most of the readers of this leadership development blog already understand that we learn more by listening than we do by speaking. This is really lesson one for management training and should go without saying… so, I’ll go without saying it.

 

My advice to my friend? I gave him the following five simple questions to review individually with his sales managers on a daily basis. Now when he sits down with them he “asks” instead of “tells.”

 

  1. Tell me about your team’s biggest success today?
  2. Who on your team really stood out and what did they do?
  3. Where do we have the greatest opportunity in your market?
  4. What are your goals for tomorrow?
  5. How can I help?

I encouraged him to keep these interactions positive and to refrain from injecting his opinion. If his sales managers ask him questions, I’ve instructed him to turn these around with his own question: “what do you think?”

 

He’s now three months into this routine and after a short period of confusion by the sales managers, they now look forward to these interactions. They’ve turned around their sales and they are growing market share in a very difficult market.

 

This is sales training 101 – salespeople sell with their hearts and their heads, not their backs. You can stand in front of an assembly line worker and “tell” them how to do their jobs all day long, but when you interact with salespeople and sales managers they have to buy in to your vision. By asking them questions in a positive manner, my friend was able to make the sales managers think about their own markets, and work hard to have both a success for today and goals for tomorrow to share with him.

 

He accomplished all this without demanding that they have daily successes and goals, and he also no longer has to tell them anything… he just asks.