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The Loop of Virtue!

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Developing talent, Management, Shared values

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Mobius

Think of an action movie where our hero is inside a large unfamiliar building trying to find and free a hostage. Meanwhile, there is a super-geek outside (with an amazing array of integrated systems, btw) guiding her through a maze of hallways, elevator shafts, and HVAC ducts as she karate-chops her way toward the prize and past the bad guys. That is, until her earpiece fails. Agghh!

In an earlier post I wrote how workers need feedback from management (coaches) in order to understand their current performance and how to improve it. Without feedback, our hero may eventually achieve the objective but the level of risk is too high and it certainly isn’t sustainable. Yes, she needs to be free to apply her expertise, improvise, and follow through but she also needs someone on the outside to add perspective and context and ensure she gets timely, relevant, and actionable information.

A feedback system must be integrated into the management/worker relationship and it doesn’t have to be complex to be effective. Workers don’t want to be in a “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you,” situation. Give them the information they need, tell them how they’re doing compared to others and other groups, and give them the chance to develop new knowledge to do their work. Here’s a loop you can adopt today.

ANNUALLY

  • Formally assess performance from the prior year.
  • Discuss the current company business plans for context and purpose.
  • Revise the job description together.
  • Ask the worker to set goals that you will review, discuss, and finalize together.

QUARTERLY

  • Assess progress against goals from the prior quarter.
  • Revise and adjust.
  • Create and sequence goals for the current quarter.

MONTHLY or WEEKLY

  • Meet 1:1 periodically (frequency based on the need of the worker and the work).
  • Revise and adjust.

DAILY/FREQUENTLY

Nowadays I don’t hear about management-by-walking-around. MBWA is a powerful management tool that creates a dialogue. It shouldn’t be a “Caught you being good/bad” thing but, rather, a sign of a persistent and productive relationship with an endless loop of information, knowledge, and ideas.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

The Golden Rule

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Management, Shared values

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trust1

Ethics, or moral principles, can be defined as, “Accepted rules of conduct by an individual or group.” We’ve heard the Golden Rule which urges, “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone believes in that. At its core, ethics urge us to do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing so each individual, and group, may improve.

Ethics exist in businesses too. Conducting business in an ethical way improves both individuals and groups—and, in turn, improves the way customers, suppliers, partners, and others see us. A super-simple ethical test is to ask these questions:

  • Is it legal?
  • Is it fair?
  • Is it right?

Shaping your business decisions by the answers to these questions increases the trust of employees, customers, and partners alike and directly strengthens brands.

Values can be defined as, “Principles, standards, ideals, or judgments of worth, held by an individual or group that have a certain weight in the choice of action.” When we have a choice to make—especially a difficult one—we consider what is most important to us. For example, when buying a car if we value safety over cost we might select the side airbags. If, on the other hand, we value ecology over luxury we might buy a hybrid instead of an SUV. If we value self-reliance it may shape how soon, or if, we ask others for help. If we value teamwork we may start our projects involving others from the outset, rather than bringing them in half way along, etc.

So, my question is this. If you happen to agree—and I doubt I’m provoking much controversy—when was the last time you specifically probed job candidates to understand their business ethics and personal or business values? Or, when you formed the strategy for your business, did you spell out the values that will guide you? When was your last “All hands” meeting where ethics and values were discussed?

Just sayin’…

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Perfect Pitch

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Innovation

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Tuning fork

I’ve been researching how modest startups in Silicon Valley pitch their ventures. It doesn’t take long to discover the ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs to speed pitch their ideas in group settings. Here are my early takeaways on effective presentations.

DURATION. You can literally pitch several times a week in the Valley. There is a wide range of event management styles so, depending on the event, you might only get 30 seconds when you were promised 1 or 2 minutes. Just be prepared.

NARRATIVE. Your story needs a beginning, middle, and end. Open strongly and finish with a flourish.

EMOTION. Make sure you coat your pitch with emotion even if 90% of your content is left-brained.

BUZZ AND HYPE. There’s a strong aversion to buzzwords and superlatives. Use plain language. Go here for more on this. If you just can’t help yourself, the jargon you do use better be correct and in the right context.

THEIR MONEY. Remember, an investor considers whether to move their money from somewhere and reallocate it to you. Never underestimate how interested they are in their money. Explain how you’ll be able to scale up to a business big enough they’ll care about.

WHAT/WHY/WHO. Clearly describe what your company does, why you’re doing it, and who you serve. Don’t get so wound up that your audience, while seeing your obvious passion, can’t figure out the problem you’re solving. If your product is new be sure to describe or demo how it works.

REPLACES/IMPROVES/COMPETITION. Describe what you’re replacing or improving. Even if your idea is easy to understand, use examples or anecdotes to create a clear picture. If your idea seems like a stretch—or if it’s old—expect to hear about it on the spot.

BUSINESS MODEL/SPECIAL. What makes you special/different/unique and how do you earn your money and manage your costs? In longer presentations, you’ll need to describe your finances to date and 3-5 years ahead.

$ OPPORTUNITY/SCALE. Know your total market size and the size of the segment you address. If you already have customers, talk about them. How will you acquire new customers and at what cost?

SITUATION/TEAM. Nothing you want to do is going to be easy. Who’s on your team and what’s in their track record to suggest you can make it happen? Where are you in your development cycle right now and what/when are your next few milestones?

THE ASK. Be clear about what you want. If it’s $1M, fine. If you’re just looking for a co-founder, make that clear too.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Boss vs. Coach (Round 1 Goes to…)

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Management

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Vince Lombardi

Sports metaphors are so tempting. They are almost unavoidable when trying to explain how a particular something in business is much like something in sports. Who among us hasn’t heard, “Home court advantage,” “Slam dunk,” or “Break your duck”?

And, why is it that college and professional coaches are so often used as examples for business leaders to follow; and what explains the popularity of consultants calling themselves “coaches”? I think the reason is partly explained by the very nature of knowledge work.

You see, knowledge workers, e.g., scientists, software programmers, marketers, engineers, et al. are experts. They are unresponsive, or at least respond adversely, to being controlled, directed, and disciplined. The nature of their work requires three things for them to perform at a high level and to be effective: Meaningful work, feedback, and continuous learning. Of these, feedback, which needs to be timely, relevant, and actionable is the fastest way to help a knowledge worker improve her performance. When management provides knowledge workers with information, perspective, actual vs. projected performance, etc. it is acting much more like a coach than a hard-nosed task master trying to direct the action using rewards and punishments.

In sports, it is easy to see the way coaches give feedback to their players—experts in their own right—and the impact that feedback has on the individual or team. The coaching is often televised right there on the sidelines and the results are just as immediate. So, next time you’re thinking about how to elevate the performance of your team remember why coaching is a better perspective for you. Give your people the information they need, tell them how they’re doing compared to others and other groups, and give them the chance to develop new knowledge to do their work.

After all, it’s not like you have the time, or ability, to run out on the field, hike yourself the ball, fall back, make a difficult throw—and then go catch your own pass. You need players for that—and they need a coach.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

R.I.P. Customer Experience

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Customers

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rip

Customer experience is dead! I’m not talking about businesses that only give lip service to creating a valuable experience for their customers. Or about those that put their own interests ahead of their customers’ or even those that treat customers as transactions instead of individuals. Although, as I’m sure you’ve experienced, all of this is often true.

What’s on my mind is something our greatest living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, points out here. Apparently, each of us has an experiencing self and a remembering self. The experiencing self is the one who lives in the present moment—the one who is reading this sentence. The remembering self is the one who is in charge of memories—and it’s the one who is the boss with a B. Kahneman observes, our memories are all we get to keep from experiencing life so our only perspective is that of the remembering self. But its power doesn’t stop there. The remembering self also makes the decisions about which future experiences we’ll choose. The way it does that is by evaluating our future experience options and then simply selecting the one that’s likely to produce the best memory.

This knowledge has profound implications for business. It compels us to adjust our attention from creating and marketing “the customer experience,” toward creating what I’m calling, Memory Marketing.

I am creating Memory Marketing to help my clients develop memorable customer experiences. This opens up new perspectives for businesses and gives them new ways to transform their customers into loyal advocates.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Can You Decide?

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Effectiveness, Results

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Question_Mark_Box

Executives make scores of decisions every day. Cumulatively, organizations make hundreds and thousands of decisions daily. How do you ensure the quality of your decision making measures up to your own high standards?

An earlier post explored how divergent opinions must be considered before the best decision can be reached. But your decision-making process must also be explicit if your decisions are to be efficient and effective—and subject to improvement. Drucker’s philosophy is that a specific decision-making process is essential. In summary, he calls for us to:

  • Make as few decisions as necessary. Many issues, when raised, have already been settled. Don’t waste time rehashing old decisions—unless there is new information or the context has changed. Many things that come up are just exceptions to decisions that have already been made. They don’t require new decisions so much as simple problem solving.
  • Before making a decision, establish what the decision must accomplish—including how it is to be measured and how stakeholders must be aligned for it to succeed.
  • Set aside enough time to make good decisions. Fast decisions are often bad ones.
  • Start with what’s right—not what’s acceptable—and realize many good decisions go against the grain and “The same old way.”
  • Convert decisions into action. No decision is a good decision until it has been fully implemented. Otherwise, it is just an intention.

Organizations large and small are prone to drifting. A small nascent organization is just as likely as a corporate behemoth to “fly by the seat of its pants, or rely on gut feel.” Implement a decision making process and you’re less likely to wake up one day with a mess on your hands wondering, “How did we come up with that?”

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

How Confident on a Scale of 1-10?

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Management

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self-confidence image

I recently touched on the notion that most organizations encourage, and even pressure, members to display confidence. To expand, I’d like to summarize some of Daniel Kahneman’s, work in Thinking, Fast And Slow because it has a lot to say to executives. In a nutshell, overconfidence can cause a world of hurt if we misunderstand how it works in decision making vs. how it works in implementing a course of action.

In decision making, overconfidence leads to a host of potential problems. First of all, we forget how little we really know about any given situation and we overestimate how much control we have over our environment. This alone creates a tendency to take more risk than we realize or should. Then, compound it with norms surrounding executive behavior. Imagine how successful Marketing Executive A would be if she were to admit how little she and her team really know about market trends over the next five years. Compare that to Executive B who confidently tells a very coherent and compelling story about how events will unfold over the same timeframe, backing up his story with selected information, imagery, and the swagger to match. Even if both executives were completely aware that each knew very little, still they would usually be penalized for admitting it. Because most organizations prize the stories of overconfident experts it leads them to take much riskier positions than a more thoughtful decision making approach otherwise would; where everyone is heard from and all must support their opinions with facts.

In implementation, however, confidence and optimism are true friends because they increase our resiliency. Even excellent and/or lucky decisions require implementation, and things never seem to go smoothly. We encounter setbacks. Funding comes in fits and starts. We lose or transition key personnel. Competitors react or anticipate our moves.

Confidence and optimism are essential to weather the ups and downs of putting our decisions into action but should be regarded skeptically when making those same decisions.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
www.lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

When Opinions Matter

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Effectiveness, Management

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Steam-engine

Think about the last time you were part of a decision making group and you were kind of the odd one out. Even better, think of a time when you were one of those in the mainstream and felt the decision about to be made was absolutely the correct one.

Think about the last time you were part of a decision making group and you were kind of the odd one out. Even better, think of a time when you were one of those in the mainstream and felt the decision about to be made was absolutely the correct one.

Drucker points out that a decision is a choice among risky alternatives. None of us can tell the future so it’s impossible to be certain in advance—even though most groups and organizations encourage, and even pressure, group members to be confident in their decisions. In fact, in Thinking, Fast And Slow, Daniel Kahneman, speaking on the cognitive bias of overconfidence, writes, “…Doubts about the wisdom of the planned move are gradually suppressed and eventually come to be treated as evidence of flawed loyalty to the team…the suppression of doubt contributes to overconfidence in a group where only supporters of the decision have a voice.”

In The Effective Executive, Drucker offers a way to avoid the overconfidence that infects decision and makes them riskier than they need to be. Paraphrasing, his prescription for what constitutes effective (good) decisions is:

  • Start with opinions, or hypotheses, which must be tested before they can be counted as facts. It’s kind of like the old saying, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” In this case it’s, “If you’re going to bring me an opinion, you’ll be on the hook to test your opinion to prove it as fact.”
  • As a test, the group should ask itself, “What would the facts have to be to make opinion X the correct one?”
  • Be ever vigilant not to commit the sin of confirmation bias and only find facts that support a foregone conclusion.
  • Above all, effective decisions are generated by a clash of divergent opinions—not groupthink.

So, next time you’re in a decision-making meeting maybe the single best thing you could do would be to take one small step and make sure everyone expresses his or her opinion—before the train leaves the station.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
www.lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

The Sad Truth About Multitasking

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Effectiveness

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multitasking

You won’t talk to more than two or three executives before hearing about the need to multitask. Two or three more and you’ll start to get the idea that multitasking is almost considered a moral good.

On the other hand, you won’t need to look very hard to learn that multitasking is a myth. LMGTFY: http://onforb.es/137OyTM. At best, multitasking is the rapid shifting of attention from a single task to another (think: short-order cook) and at worst a quality wrecking ball (think: a student doing homework while talking on the phone, texting, with a chat window open, and little sister nearby who wants to play).

Executives are busy folks. Being busy, important, and in demand all have their own rewards. It’s simply hard to resist when someone absolutely must have your input or the contract will be lost, the sale will fall through, or supply will be disrupted. But, how to choose?

Knowing how to choose is about setting priorities. In fact, not setting priorities leads to the pressure to “multitask” in the first place; there are simply too many opportunities/issues to address and too little time. Drucker observed that either we choose the priorities or the pressures of the business will. Who among us would volunteer to have our priorities determined for us? However, that is exactly what happens when we try to do it all.

Drucker urged us almost 50 years ago to do what today’s science is proving as fact. We can only do one thing at a time. As soon as we start looking for ways to switch from being busy to achieving results, doing one thing at a time not only starts looking very attractive—it’s also lightning fast compared to 20 or 30 half-done projects.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
www.lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Lean Forward

07 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Management

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the-future

Executives are a special class of knowledge worker. Where a particularly talented individual might impact a large circle of coworkers, the executive’s output affects the whole organization.

In Drucker’s thinking an executive can exist anywhere in the organization, not just at the CXO level. For our purposes, let’s imagine a functional manager (Finance, Marketing, R&D, etc.) in a company of any size. These folks are usually super achievers with a lot of talent and, as Kahneman might say, a lot of luck. They come in all personality types, shapes, genders, and sizes but the good ones, maybe only the great ones, can deliver on an executive’s true value:

  • Create direct business results linked to the strategic plan
  • Multiply their impact by working through others in the organization
  • Build the organization’s values and constantly reaffirm them
  • Build and develop tomorrow’s talent
  • Take action to ensure that innovation is a top priority.

I’ve worked with many executives. Too often they are considered successes or failures based on their ability to work inside their organizations. Too seldom were they judged based on their impact on customers, shareholders, and the marketplace.

Regardless, I think it’s fair to say one of biggest challenges for any executive is keeping one foot in the organization as it is (the past) and one foot in the organization as it must become to survive (the future). If you are an executive, lean forward.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
www.lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved