Management Tips for You

IS YOUR ORGANIZATION TAKING CARE OF ITS FUTURE?

2019-03-16T09:49:00.003-04:00

IS YOUR ORGANIZATION TAKING CARE OF ITS FUTURE? 

It is not a secret, we all know that the level of energy your company invests in planning on a day to day basis does influence the predictability to drive long-term results.

Look at Nike, Apple, Starbucks. What do they have in common? They all master the art of strategic planning. Some of them have built a 15 year strategic plan! They are clearly spending significant effort in shaping the future of their companies vs being reactive to the market and adjust themselves as they go. Their strategic plan is clearly defined and attached rock solid to their business plan.

Easy to say right? Agree that the reality of many companies is different as they are struggling to make their numbers and meet their targets. Those may say: Yes but how do I change our mindset so that we find the right balance between REACTING & PLANNING?

I think that it is matter of instilling momentum by taking one little step at the time. One of my CEO used to tell me: Remember it is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Great advice.

SHAPING UP THE FUTURE: Do Nike, Starbucks and Apple wait to perform their strategic planning & budgeting in the last quarter of the year to produce the forecasts for the next year? No for sure.

All starts with the vision and strategies. Make sure that you invest significant time in product and services strategy and in developing a roadmap that will be well articulated. It should be an on-going process as opposed to a quarterly or yearly type of activity. 

When building your strategies,  consider to strategies that will enable you to build up your revenues progressively as opposed to big chunks of revenues depending on big product launch. When possible breakdown does product strategies and consider to adapt your product or services delivery model in a way that your clients will see constant evolutions and value. 

SIMULATING THE FUTURE: To come back to our Planner Gurus Nike, Apple and Starbucks: Do you think that they are managing their revenue forecasts with a span of only 1 to 3 months? Of course not. 

They make sure that they see as far as possible and adjust the level of accuracy of their planning and forecasts as they get further from today’s date. I usually see a 12 to 18 months rolling forecast at my clients but it depends of the industry. 

The key here is to attach the revenue chain from product strategy, roadmap, sales, delivery, support while building a revenue simulation model that will enable to refine the assumptions as you go. Some people are not confortable using assumptions but it is much better than being able to forecast or estimate the future state. Right?

Summary:


Tie your strategic, business and operational plans together. Attach your revenue chain. 
Find the balance between business plan execution and planning. 
Change the mindset gradually one action at the time. 
Develop a cristal clear product or services roadmap that ties into the company strategy.
Consider to build a product or services roadmap that will deliver constant and progressive value the the clients (as opposed to bing chunks delivered later)
Develop a forecast simulation model that will provide a 12-28 month rolling forecast (at minimum)

 hashtag#StrategicPlanning #Budgeting  #Forecasting #Vision #Future #Simulation #Rollingforecast

hashtag

2018-12-17T20:25:00.000-05:00

Lessons learned from 6 months of “AGILITY”

Few months ago, we made a conscious decision in my program to use an agile framework to tackle one project within our portfolio. The agile road for that project has been certainly challenging and stuffed with surprises. It took a lot of creativity and “agility” to manoeuvre this project in our traditional environment.

There is so much to say about this experiment that my leaders could “write a book” on all the adventures and chapters we faced within the last months.

Here are some reflexion of what worked well and what could have been done differently.

First, agility is a mindset...

and not meant to be used in a systematic and rigid manner.

It is an inspiration, especially for companies that are at early stages of agility, like my client’s. Few things we could have done differently to foster further the agility spirit :

Appoint the right Scrum Master: Appoint a “non doctrinal” scrum master with change management and coaching skills. For beginners like my client, they needed someone to old their hand to take the first step into agility. Forget about reaching level 5 of agility, they first needed to set foundation and do a first step into agility. It turned out that our scum was very knowledgeable but had unrealistic expectations about level of agility we could reach in this first experience of agility. Scrum has to dose properly the agility to the level of maturity of he company. ONE STEP AT A TIME.
Train and coach your team on Agility: Invest more time in agile training and coaching for our project team members. Most of our project resources had never worked in an agile project previously... it took time and significant effort to onboard and align all players. This created a lot of inefficiencies at early stage of the project and prevented us to have greater results on initial sprints.
Don’t get caught in a battle of “agility religion”. Remember, it’s a spirit and needs to fit to the stage your company is. Everyone can have its point of view on agility and tell you, well real agility should be done this way or that way... Do what is right for you. Adapt based on what makes the most sense to you and your team.

Second, it is ok to take an hybrid approach...

fixed scope and fixed timeline does not qualify for “agile projects”. Our project had a predefined set of features (must haves non negotiable) that needed to be deployed by X date. It did not mean that we could not use agility, it just meant that we needed to adapt the delivery approach and shape it up to what we needed. Elements that worked well In our hybride approach:

We did the inventory of all user stories and than developed the critical path to be able to better plan sprints. Elements/ features on the critical path were retained for first version of software, others were pushed to a later release. We than were able to perform a ROM, develop a roadmap by sprint and than adjusted our capacity based on the mix of resources we needed.
We however had to do the exercise twice as we did not succeed in developing a clear non-functional critical path initially. This should have been done properly the first time at beginning of the project and fined tuned after. We should have captured all non-functional stories and integrate them as well in Jira and should have linked them to our functional critical.. which we did late and obviously created signifiant issues.
Our project sprints were set for durations of 2 weeks at the time. Ceremonies such as sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint closing were implemented and followed rigorously. We used JIRA to manage the stories, used other tools such impediment board to facilitate project.

Third, report progress in a meaningful way for the business...

Reporting progress on an agile mode is definitively different than tradition milestone progress reporting. Don’t get too technical with burn down charts or point consumption charts in reporting progress to steering committee. Business want to know

What will be delivered? What features? Show a demo at the end of each sprint to the business
Where you are in those deliveries?
When they will be able to use it?
Do you have any risks or issues and what are the actions?

On our end, I think we could have improved this aspect. It is a new product we are developing and I feel that steering committee members had still a vague understanding of what they could expect even with demos and several meeting on the new BI plateforme. We could have invested more time in preparing the business to the upcoming change.

Those are the key elements but as I mentioned, there has been many learning points. Really enjoyed working with my vendors and business teams on this project. Together, we were able to adjust and bring to the table the best “dosage” of agile to our project.

Contact me if you wish to exchange further on your project.

Mylene

How to turn your life around in 5 easy steps

2016-01-04T20:12:00.004-05:00

Happy New year everyone! I hope that 2016 will be fulfilled with great challenges and lots of happy moments!

Who would have said, we are already in 2016. I remember watching "Back to the Future II" thinking that October 21st 2015 would be SO far away! And yet, we are already here. I am 43 years old and I am writing down my wishes every year since I am 20.

At 21, when I completed my bachelor degree, my wishes were very specific. I wrote down in my journal: 100,000$ income. At the time, it seemed huge and unrealistic but kept on visualizing that 100,000$ salary mark. At the time, I was working on a 31,000$ salary as a project manager at a telemarketing firm and just could not wait to get to the next level. Than I joined a business consulting firm (Arthur Anderson, who became Deloitte Consulting) and was making 55,000$. My next move was than to join a multinational, this is when I reached the 100,000$ mark. But, that is not the end. I than adjusted my wish to 150,000$ salary. So be it. I started my own business consultant company and started making what I was wishing for and more. The funny thing is that is it was made without breaking my head. This is only to tell you that what ever you ask for, YOU CAN AND YOU WILL GET MY FRIEND.

5 easy tips to turn your dreams into reality:

1) WRITE IT DOWN
The first step is to right down what you want. Select precise words that will define very well what you want. Do not focus on what you actually do not want. For example; do not write; I do not want to be poor anymore, I do not want to be alone... Write instead, I want to have much more money than I can think of spending, I am with the ones I love... Write down your WANT list in a journal that you will keep next to your bed. Look at it every night before going to bed. Add comments as you go throughout the year.

2) COLLECT PICTURES TO HELP YOU VISUALIZE
Make it personal. You can also collect pictures of what you want. Put the pictures in the book you keep beside your bed but also, put pictures in your house. Where you brush your teeth or in your car. Put it somewhere you can see it. The more you will see those pictures (like a blank check of 1,000,000$), the more your dream will become part of your reality.

3) VISUALIZE YOUR DREAM
How does it actually feel? Visualize yourself with your dream achieved. Focus on your state of mind and your emotions. Go through the whole scenario. You receive an award? You sign in front of 40,000$? You are entering the arena with your team as a soccer player and people scream your name? You are talking in front of a thousands of people? You are playing with your kids in a park and you hear them laughing? You hug your spouse while waking up in the morning? Whatever it is that you are dreaming of, let it become real in your mind.

4) TAKE ACTION
Do a little something everyday that will contribute to your dream. You do not have to break your head too much. Just dedicate a little 15 minutes everyday into an action that will help you achieve your goal. Even the guy that won the loterie had to purchase his ticket! You got to have a plan to get where you want. Never seen someone doing nothing and achieve a lifetime goal. You got to get your actions into place to get where you want and yes it takes your energy and time. It is part of converting a dream into reality.

5) KEEP ON TRYING
Do not accept failure, just keep on trying. If a method does not work, just try something else. Do not waster your energy on talking about failures, just do it and keep on moving.

Step up for yourself, learn to say NO at work

2014-03-17T10:08:00.002-04:00

"FEAR is the only reason why we tend to say YES to our boss. Sometimes, we are so afraid of standing up for ourselves in fear that our boss will fire us! It's time to take control, put the fear aout of the way and start managing our own career and talents."

Each one of us are born with specific talents and we are expected to use them wisely. I've seen too many times extremely talented individuals being somehow abused at work at different levels. Unfortunately sometimes leaders act as if they own your talent, they ask more and and more and pushes your own limits an inch at the time. Then you realize months or years after that you give more than you receive and that you are not meeting all your Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. You thought that giving more would fill in your self-actualisation need at work but it is not enough.

If you feel that way, hang on with me and try to shift your mind for a moment. You see, you own your talents and you have to perceive your work as if you deliver added value services. You offer services to your boss or employers in exchange of time that you are paid for. You have a contract with your employer. A contract by essence needs to benefit both parties and needs to be fair. If you feel that your employer benefits somehow more than you do, you are most probably delivering more added value services than you should. Your work contract/agreement is unbalanced.

Let's take an example. In our example, one unit of work is equivalent to one hour of added value services. If you deliver 60 units of added value work are only paid for 40, your hourly rate is reducing significantly while your employees cashes in the number of added value work for a cheaper rate. I have worked a big part of my career delivering large amounts of value added units but always made sure that I could get appreciation or compensation somehow from my employer. I always loved my work and did not really worry about how many value added units I would produce but at the same time always needed to feel that You are probably providing too much value and throughput for what you are paid for. It is a question of finding the balance. The contract needs to be fair and you should start to say no and to negotiate with your employer. You want to work for a company that sees your value and is willing to pay you for it or willing to provide you the right level of recognition that will make it work.

In the last 25 years, I have worked for all kinds of different bosses of course. How you deal with your talent will depend what type of boss you have. Despite the different types of personalities and leaders, I found that there is basically two types of bosses:

The first one is a true listener (Let's do it all together folks); he seeks the feedback of his team and listens to what people have to say. If he just pretends to listen and does not do anything about the information received, then he is not a true listener. True listeners are usually people manager, they truly believe that their team brings value to the table not only by doing but by participating to the development of ideas and in problem solving. Those bosses are successful and people want to work for them and help them even more.
The second type is a looner (I'll do it the way I want when I want); he thinks that he knows everything and uses his team to deliver his vision (not more not less). He dictates what and how things need to be done and does not expect his team to have ideas or to go beyond what is being asked for. Those bosses are usually unsuccessful in the long run and they tend to have difficulty to build a strong team around them. They do not understand the power and concept of MOTIVATION and multiplication of brain power.

Now, if you work for a boss who listens, whom has an opened mind and reaches for your ideas and opinion, than there is no reason for you to say YES to everything!!! You are so lucky! You have the opportunity to work for someone that has an opened mind! In this case, you need to discipline yourself to say NO. You do not need to wash him away when you want to say no! You just need to propose OTHER OPTIONS that could be explored with him to find a solution to the problem! Please stop saying YES to everything and learn to propose solutions or alternatives. Express yourself and find a ground where you are both confortable. The reality is that those types of boss do not expect you to say yes to everything they say! They expect you to bring new ideas on the table! So why say YES???????? You might lose your job in the long run if you do not learn to say NO with a listener because they expect you to speak your mind and will be disappointed if you are not straight forward and transparent with them. It comes back to taking the control of your career, of your talents and the services that you provide in your area of specialty.

If you work for the second type; honestly, you shall start looking for other opportunities that are there for you. Even if you stand up to them, they will reject your ideas. Usually those leaders have big ego's and you can't expect them to change overnight. And it is true, if you do not do as you are told in this case, conflicts will start and you will eventually be pushed away by this boss. If you want to stand up for yourself although, you shall not accept to be diminished as you will soon start to lack confidence in you. You want to get out of this context and find a boss that is a listener. Be free, manage your own skills et and career. Your career is all yours. Why be unhappy in a situation where there is inequity in your employee-employer contract? We should all work for someone that stimulates us and elevate our spirit. Life is too short.

Here are some idea on how to say NO on typical questions:

"Can you do extra hours tonight to finish this report?" - Boss

I would love to but need to know if I could buy few hours from you. I had important plans tonight and I would appreciate if I could work those extra hours, early tomorrow morning instead so that I have a fresh mind and can complete the work with very high quality.

"Here's what we need to do, do it now" - Boss

You know that there is a better way to do it that will add more value? Say, OK I understand your plan, it is a good idea. I am wondering if I could share with you an idea that would perhaps add on this one and could save time/ money and bring some additional value.

You have other questions? Share with me other questions that you have difficulty to say no, I will get you some ideas

Thanks!

Starting your own business in 3 simple steps

2014-03-04T20:12:00.001-05:00

Change your life in 3 simple steps

Well, if you are reading this blog, you are most probably looking for ways to transform your life. Are you tired to make somebody else richer and richer everyday? Do you feel that sometimes your boss pushes your limits and acts like if he "owns" your brain 40 hours a week?

I strongly believe that each one of us have a specific mission to accomplish in life. I also strongly believe that "work" when done with deep passion and love is the key to happiness. Why be or remain unhappy while a simple decision to do what you love can transform your life forever? Live your dream. Life is precious and we shall ensure everyday that our actions are aligned to our aspirations and to our passions.

I started my own business 8 years ago after I had my first child. My deepest motivation in work has always been to help companies become better in this world. I love people and love to coach them and show them pictures of how they could transform their own environments. I took a decision back in November 5th 2004, to do what I love the most and I did it. Here are 3 simple steps you need to follow to start your own business and be successful:

STEP 1) MAKE A FIRM DECISION TO CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY -- THE WHY

This is the most crucial point, once you past this stage, the two other steps are very very easy! Starting your own business is a decision. Actually, you don't even need to know what your business will be about at this stage, you just need to be very clear on WHY you want to start your own business. You need to want this more than anything, it needs to be crisp and clear to you why you need to do this. You can do anything if you believe you can do this. Life will bring you what you need. Have trust in life. Know what you are worth and do not let anybody else let you down. Deciding to control your destiny is the smartest decision you'll ever make. Envision yourself being successful with your business, visualize yourself happy, free, confident and successful. Determine what success means for you, whatever it is. Identify your success criterias.

STEP 2) SHOP FOR A BUSINESS IDEA - THE WHAT

Don't take a year to start up your company. Many mistake that too many people do is that they wait for the perfect business plan, for the perfect timing, for the perfect product… But starting a business is far from being perfect, you will hit some bumps down the road for sure. You need to know the best businesses started with nothing in their pocket, in a living room. The owners learned and experimented as they went. There are plenty of ideas on internet on what to do. At the end of the day, being successful in business means that you are offering a product or a service that people NEED and/or WANT!!!! You need to find a product that has a great NICHE and a product or service that meets your passion. The product or service needs to be inspiring for you!!! Before you get into a business, assess its potential cost/benefits. You want to ideally to have a business that provides you recurrent income. ALso, no questions about it --- you need to LOOOOOOOOVE what you do or else your days are going to be very very very long! Don't you agree?

STEP 3) TAKE ACTION - THE HOW

Again, start small. Don't wait to have perfection. Make a quick business plan 30-60-90 days where you will build your business step by step (the same way that you brought it to life). Start smart, make a proof of concept or a pilot before you go too far. Make sure that you will have a good margin. Set up your company. Don't get lost in details or in too much planning. DO IT. Move take actions! Measure your results, be realistic! Adjust!!!!

The power of INTUITION in business

2012-11-24T08:45:00.003-05:00

Did you recently experience simultaneous conflictual feelings towards a person or towards a situation? (Often referred to mixed feeling)

Think of your last week, it could have been a tiny situation in a day and yet that situation changed your state of mind for a moment. For example, you had a mixed feeling while and/or after:

Coming in at work feeling some tention in the air;
shaking the hand of someone;
assessing a business deal;
meeting someone new (a potential new employer, partner, client, employee...);
discussing some issues or new ideas with a someone or a group;
reading an e-mail, articles or documentations containing annoucements, a new idea, a new solution, a new issue...;
participating to a meeting or conference.

Mixed feelings or INTUITION are revealing important information about a situation. I believe that INTUITION is our sixth sense. It can actually be very POWERFUL and USEFUL in business. A survey in 2006 conducted by PR WEEK indicated that 62% of CEO's that rely heavily on gut feeling or intuition. http://www.ehow.com/info_8361792_use-intuition-business-decision.html

Are you listening to your intuition?

Let's do something fun for a minute. take a sheet and a pen. Do two columns, write "INTUITION" on the left colomn and "BLACK OUT" on the right column. The INTUITION column will be for you to write situations where you actually followed your guts. The right one will be situations where you did not follow you gut feeling consciously. Think of good and "bad" decisions you made. Note the year of each situation. Write at least five elements of each column.

What are the outcomes?

So, how did it go?

Was it easy for you to identify situations where you had mixed feelings? Are you sensitive to your INTUITION?

Is it possible most of your "bad" decisions where made even if you had mixed feelings? (Their is no "bad" decisions - just learning experiences)

Is it possible that you listen more your INTUITION today vs in the past? In the beggining of your career?

In which situations do you find yourself NOT listening to your INTUITION?

How can you read better your INTUITION?

The only way you can read better your INTUITION is to take time for yourself to see how you really feel about a decision, about someone you just met. If it does NOT make you feel good, you need to digg in why. Don't let others decide or influence you if you are the decidor. Ask for advice but know that you are the one making the decision. If it does not FEEL right, no matter if you need a decision now to happen, it is better to say no and continue to search for solution.

Often, we are too focused on the timeline of our decision and give up a bit on the quality of the decision.

Your gut feeling, INTUITION will help you a lot... If you use it.

Boost your business with LOVE & HAPPINESS

2012-11-14T19:42:00.005-05:00

Feel to check your company at the local medical clinic?

What are the symptoms?

The staff motivation is at zero?
Turn around is high?
The financial numbers are just wrong?
Objectives keep on being missed?
Work environment is negative?

Is it possible that your company is going through a crisis? Your company is missing Vitamins? Antioxidants? Minerals?

It's time to turn this around!!! Change the MIND SET!

STEPS:

Infuse HAPPINESS everywhere in the company and all around you! Make it CONTAGEOUS!
Make an electro shock in the company! Surprise them, turn things around! Change habits! Surprise them - they have to get out of their comma! Do anything that will catch their full attention!
Now that you have their attention! Have a reality check with them! Make them understand that you are in the same boat! Each one needs to contribute to find solutions! We all have the problems and are all responsible to collectively resolve it! This is what a company is all about TEAM WORK
Make a plan on all angles with them, make sure that you have an organic plan and a plan that covers all angles of the company! This is truly the best time to reinvent yourself as a company! Your collective knowledge is what will save you!!! IT IS SO POWERFUL! It is a super power that we do not use enough typically.
HAVE FUN!!! Make it fun, people are there most if their time mind as well use it in a way that people will be happy to actually come to work! Light up their flamme in them so that they develop themselves and achieve their objectives.

HAPPY medication will boost your company to no end!

How to read beyond the numbers

2012-11-11T16:12:00.001-05:00

Budget, Sales targets, Revenue enhancement, Cost compression, Profit & Loss, EBITDA, Stock value....

I have found that many companies juggle with numbers like if they were in a circus until no end. Numbers get to fall all over the place and become hardly trackable or reconcilable. Numbers are the common ground for communication in a business. Numbers take form of a language in a company, your staff need to be able to understand number and use them as a communication tool as well.

So how do we actually get numbers to make sense again?

If I do a genius plan, will I be able to transform those numbers into reality?

No, not necessarily. In the best intention, companies do assess their SWOT, they build a strategic plans in all aspects of their business (corporate, product or services, sales, marketing, operations, support, financial, HR, etc... All those strategies and plans part of the echo-system of a company are unfortunately NOT а garantее of success... even if all the numbers are aligned in all the plans of the company.

Like many of you, I have seen the strategies, plans and results of many companies from different industries. I have found many times that the best strategies and plans come up at the end to not drive at all with the results. There is often a big GAP between the strategy and plans end the bottom line actual numbers.

So if my plan is not as genius as I thought, what will a company usually do?

Execs typically make changes in the pyramid by appointing a new senior here and there or by calling up an external consultant to figure out what's wrong and why that strategies and plans failed. The new eyes comes in and say,

"let's redo the strategy and plans"

and the story just repeats itself... We hand out to have (again) numbers and measures everywhere!

What else can we do?

Do we really take the time to develop the strategies and plans with the staff?
Statistics show that strategies and plans are built most of the time without our most precious knowledge base~ our employees! Your staff is your diamond! A real treasure, your most precious asset. Too many companies develop the strategies and plans by externals resources or by people that do not have the content and reality of the business.

Are the numbers really understood by the staff and all?

Do we really use the collective knowledge we have as a company?Ensure that the collective knowledge is used and that your plans are built with your stakeholders and staff. The best realistic comprehensive plans are done when knowledge is coming from all stakeholders including your key employees - they are your gogethers, they are the ones really having the hands to make things happen.

Are the strategies and plans developed in silot? Did we integrate the plans?

Are they integrated throughout the revenue cycle?

Did we breakdown the numbers so that they make sense to our team?
How much time do we set on developing the strategies and plans?
Are they validated bottom-up and top-bottom?
Do we have an engagement or comitment from all stakeholders? Do not think that your stakeholders are your exec committee.

In the essence, the objectives, the baseline numbers need to make sense for all parties and need to be REALISTIC. This is the only way that the numbers will actually drive and make sense to all.

The worst unrealistic plans are done by execs when working in stand alone.

So in the end. If you help your employees to read beyond the numbers and involve them in building the strategies and plans, it is a certainty that you will maximize your results and NUMBERS!

What are your thoughts?

How to keep them on board - retention!

2012-01-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

How do you go about attracting, getting on board and keeping your employees?

The flash that comes to me is someone trying to catch a train while it is already at full speed - or someone trying to get out by the roof or hidding so that they can get out at the next stop. Isn't stressfull for a manager to not feel in control of his team? If you were your employees; would you like to feel that everyone is waiting for you, trying to help you to get on the train and making your trip comfortable and fun? Compassion, team work and good conditions are the aspects that will make a difference for your team member. How can you put in place the right conditions?

We certainly can't stop the train but do have the power to offer the right conditions.

In one of my past experience, I unfortunately lost the most important key ingredient of my team! A Program Director working on the most critical program. He had everything we needed with a strong background in Consulting from Anderson with many years of experience. Already within 6 months in his role, he was able to put the project back on track (almost eyes closed for how good he was)! I believe that he did not realize how much value added he created, even if I was telling him all the time. Despite our efforts to keep our program Director, I also respected his decision and strongly believed that I could not make him against his will. I thought I needed to have in this position a leader with strong conviction that he/she could make things happen to achieve the program objectives. It turned out that the next Program Director never performed like the previous one. I was SO WRONG! Then I started to ask the real questions that I should have asked since the beggining:
- Why did the first Program Director was not engaged?
- Why did he get on the train and run away?
- Did I offer the right conditions for him to succeed?

I was finally getting somewhere! I touched the root cause of the problem! I took for granted that our conditions were right for the program director because the conditions were simply fitted for me at the time.

Very few people will stay in the wrong conditions for them even if the final destination is very promising.

Would you?

Offering the right conditions

Understanding the success factors
I took the time to meet with each one of my team members. It took couple of weeks but it was important for me to observe, listen and hear what team members had to say. You'll agree with me that they are the ones living with the challenges on a day to day basis. We have to recognize that they are are most precious contributors. They are the ones working very hard to achieve the set objectives. We owe them to ensure that they are as much confortable as possible and have a great stimulating environment. We need to pamper them. I always found that the easiest way to connect with them is to listen. I gathered 100's of ideas from them to make the Program Delivery more smoother and easier! 80% of the best ideas do come from your team. Can you imagine the impact on their work conditions if we make their life easier on a day to day? They are truly amazing!

Culture
Second point or observation is that the program director was a consultant. In our company, the culture and policies unfortunately do not allow consultants to be decision makers. The assignment was meant to be temporary as we were hoping that this individual would accept a permanent job afterwhile. It was so hard for him to make his place, he was wrongly judged internally by many team members and yet, the clients loved him because he would deliver with the best possible result and client driven approach!!! The reality: he could not manage/control his own workpackages and was constantly challenging the competency center. Not a good condition for a result driven individual! I decided given the culture of the company to hire a permanent resource in this position after he left.

Accountability
When I got into this organization, the teams were organized in a weak matrix structure. There was one competency center and a separate PMO group to manage the delivery of the project. This created a lack of focus on the contract delivery objectives and created distorsion between the priorities on the day to day competency center activities and priorities of project. Since we are a project driven division and since each program is large enough to support dedicated teams, we decided to create teams by Programs where the Programs Managers could have the entire control on their program delivery. We moved from a weak matrix structure to a stong matrix. This was a big quick win and we could observe short term benefits.

Leadership
We ensured that the right leaders were put in the right position. We had so much talent in this team and needed to ensure that our key players could find a way to develop their expertise and be in a leading role (when suited). In the past, we had very few leaders and were appointed to roles that did not suit them perfectly. We promoted leaders within the teams. This created a natural healthy synergy between the functional teams and facilitated the team work.

What are the other conditions you need to put in place? What about team work? Collaboration?

Tips to get someone on board

1) Communicate the conditions you are offering, get feedback, adjust if necessary. Have an open discussion

2) Clearly communicate what is expected from him/her. I prepared a clear roles and responsibility description so that the new program director could relate to what is exactly expected from him. Since this is a large program, I also prepared a RACIE to clarify some specific areas of accountability, especially between the managers. A clear description of roles and resp is key. Make it clear when you are transferring progressively some roles and responsibilities throughout a 30 day period for example. Identify exactly what responsibility is being transferred when. For example, she will start to lead the steering committee week 4, the program committee week 3, the project reviews week 2...

2) Day 1 of her arrival, I had him meet with HR and my leaders. The senior directors booked time in their scehdule to welcome him, to make him meet the employees, to sit down and explain the specific business processes of the company, to get him started on his computer and logistics

3) Day 2, he spent the day with me as I was the one doing the transition with her. I provided him an overview of the project portfolio, of his contract context and history, of his team strength and weaknesses, of the clients team, of the governance structure, of the program strategy, plan and progress, of the program key issues and related action plan, of the program risks and current mitigation measures... I gave him key documents to read

4) Day 3, I pre-scheduled one on one meetings with his employees so that he could make a first contact with them.

5) Then he completely mapped my schedule as I would transfer the knowledge to him specifically as we go.

6) I asked him to produce a 30/60/90 day plan so that he would have the liberty to take over his new role completely with a sense of ownership

What else did you do in similar situations? Please share

Boost your business value

2012-01-27T10:06:00.000-05:00

Since I can remember, I have always been interested in the mechanics of things, in the process of creating an idea, a game, a good or a service.

We will look together in this article how a BUSINESS FRAMEWORK can boost your BUSINESS VALUE.

My best friend and I used to do lots of experiences and special projects that may not make sense today. But the essence of all that was that we were trying to figure out how things were made and how to make it better. I am far from being an inventor but I am really passionate about the big idea of how things work together. I believe that somehow, everything is all interconnected. Look at the dynamic of how a car works, all the pieces have a specific function that contributes to another. The same concept applies to the human body, to nature, to a family dynamic and even to a business and an organization.

An organization or company is exactly like a cell, a family. It has an Eco-system where everything departments are tied together. What ties them together are the end to end business processes which support the BUSINESS FRAMEWORK and enables each players to reach the business objectives.

Common success factors I noted from business leaders over the years are the following;

They have a clear vision on how the business needed to be shaped

They have a perfect understanding of their market, opportunities and threats

They have a clear business model focused on their core competences

They have solid business framework implemented where each business unit, departments, individuals could relate to and could understand the Eco-system of the company.

They have effective business processes supporting their operations.

Often, they do have a vision, they understand their business and market, they know what their core competencies BUT... are unable to share and create a clear business framework that can be understood by all.

Very few employees and managers do understand the chain of activity of the revenue cycle which starts with product strategy, development, marketing, sales, contract, service delivery and support... It is so crucial that a BUSINESS FRAMEWORK be documented and communicated to all employees. All processes can easily be linked to the business framework in a second step. You have no idea of how much you can impact your business if you would just have a business framework.

A software company I helped in the past to create its business framework increases significantly the value of their business when it came the time to sell a division. A SIMPLE BUSINESS FRAMEWORK boosted their value of 30%!!!! The fact that the company was able to demonstrate its operating model and had a business framework added tremendous value in the sales process of the division. We are talking about millions of dollars here with a minimal investment that youc an do yourself! ROI is extremely high, plus you really get to improve the operations of your business if you attach your business processes and put in place a continuous improvement philosophy.

How to build the business framework?

focus on your revenue cycle, breakdown the major activities of the revenue chain
build an illustration of your revenue cycle that you can Frame on your walls
under each key activity of the chain, identify the key business process, the key job roles in this area and the key performance indicators
make sure that you have your mission statement written on the business framework, including the values Building a business framework is pretty easy and can be done quickly, make sure that your framework becomes the point of reference in your company. Use it on a day to day basis. Put your BUSINESS FRAMEWORK every where in the company: Board room, kitchen, meeting rooms, manager's office...
Make it grow, put it on your internal website, link each business process in the framework with URLs. Make it fun.
Do training sessions to all your personnel, add the BUSINESS FRAMEWORK in the New Employee Guide!

Your success is directly dependent on how your team does understand their contribution in the bigger scheme if the company and understand how each other interact with each other. That is one critical key for success.

Ask me questions if you need more details, you'll see it is much easier to do than what you think.

How to develop the right solution for your clients?

2012-01-26T23:15:00.001-05:00

In few steps, develop a good solution that fulfills THE needs AND requirements.

"Did you ever made a simple order that went totally wrong?"

The more your solution fits the business needs the better your chances are that your client will be willing to pay for it. Of course, economically, your solution needs to be sold at the right price point that the client is willing to pay for. If you know that the price point is too low right up front, do not invest one penny trying to develop it!

Still today, I see a lot of companies trying to push solutions to clients that THEY THINK will fulfill their needs. Millions of dollars are unfortunately lost in development projects that die before they even have a chance to see the day.

Why? Too many companies do not invest enough in the most important phase of a development project (which is the identification the business needs and development of a business case). They jump right away on the "HOW" and do not spend enough time trying to understand the "WHY" and the "WHAT".

One of my client signed a contract last year in regards to a development project. An assessment was performed by some systems architects prior to the sell and a USE CASE (high level requ's). You have no idea how much effort was put into it, there was so many discussions with product management and with the solution experts. At the end of the day a great document was created on how they thought the solution should work. But NO ONE involved clients to validate the assumptions and the use case! Everything made sense for everyone at a high level. Sales signed a contract with a first client and couple of weeks after the kick-off guess what? Yes, the project has not started yet and major show stoppers were identified by the client already! So we had to put a hold right away on the project to step back and reset the contracts. Please if you are a software company, always, always, always sell a solution architecture phase prior to signing the development contract. How can you sell a license for a new development that you have not scoped properly yet?

Some tips;

Involve your clients to understand the business requirements. You can conduct focus group sessions. Make sure to understand how the requirements will impact the business processes of clients. Try to extrapolate the benefits of the features and potential impacts on the KPI's. Try to be as pragmatic as possible, go as far as documenting the process flows to really think of everything. Document the preliminary assumptions and components that are definitively out of scope versus in scope. GO OR NO GO?

Develop a business case. Calculate ROI, how is it going to cost to develop the features? What is the CTO (Cost of Total Ownership)? How long will it take to make the development and will we be on time to market? What is the customer price point? Is the margin acceptable? What are the risks? What are the sale forecasts expected and customer target? How much will it cost to market? GO OR NO GO?

Developing a solution architecture is like building a puzzle. You first make sure that you have all the pieces you need and then you put your pieces together to build a clear vision from all angles. How will all the pieces integrate together? Which piece touches which piece of the puzzle? Usually a solution architecture diagram is used to illustrate the 'puzzle' as well as each components. Solution architecture document template can be found in internet easily. You want to ensure that you build a technical architecture at the same time that you build your solution architecture. Both dimensions need to work together. For example, you may want to integrate a master file but also need to clearly identify how the master file will be integrated technically (bidirectional interface?, only sending unidirectional info?)...

The solution architecture needs to be enough detailed and documented so that everyone understands what needs to be done to support the business need identified and future state targeted. The solution architecture shall be approved by the client and should be enough detailed to estimate development costs. Client will need to know the development costs before signing the solution architecture. If there are some budget constraints, the solution architecture will be developed with the budget in mind. The you estimate the costs of development with a better level of precision. You also document the assumptions. You will have another GO NO GO to make, is it worth it? Is this development aligned to your product strategy? Does it make sense for the client?;

Do not underestimate the time it will take to validate and approve the solution architecture. The development of the solution architecture can take anytime from 6 weeks to 6 months depending on the complexity of the solution to create and depending on the methodology used to do so.

Ask me more questions if you need!

Make a good first impression!

2012-01-24T18:53:00.001-05:00

How many people did you meet since you started your career? Thousands. Did you have the chance to make a good impression with each one of them?

Imagine if you could make a good impresion only in the first 30 seconds on each of this thousands of people. You need to invest 30 seconds at first. Of course, you'll need to entertain your reputation but hey! 30 seconds to start on the good feet, not bad!

I guess we all have our "weird" experiences. Once, I presented myself to the general manager of an hospital at a press conference and as we shaked our hands as a greeting, we talked at the same time! We then waited two seconds and both started to talk again to say "pardon madamme?". Oh boy, how unconfortable is this?

So I decided it was time to refresh my memory and to re-think about the tricks I had learned years earlier at a Dale Carnegy training. I also read many many books on how to introduce myself and improve my communication skills. The techniques are not that hard, we just need to apply it. It is simple and a sure thing...

In summary, 5 elements that helped me the most;

1- Before you make a move, learn to read physical signs sent by the other individual.

It will tell you within 3 to 5 seconds The mood of the individual and will help you to determine if it is a good time to approach the person and if the case how you should approach the person (if the person is watching his or her watch - they surely have a time preoccupation --- not time start a long conversation make it brief; if they are taking a call - do not disturb him or her; if they are writing an e-mail - do not disturbe as well as they might be resolving a critical issue; if their jaw seems stressed - not time to try to close a deal; if their harms are crossed and person seems closed in; not time either to try to close a deal. Try to open them up first...

2- Know what you will say before you say it;

think about how you will a approach the individual. Know exactly what you will say in advance to open up the conversation. "Good day Tom, how are you today? I seen your speech last month and thought that it was so innovative and fresh! I got also some feedback from so and so whom also thought that you nailed down the tax issue pretty well"... Bring something positive on the table, think of one element positive that could be of high interest for the person you want to speak to. Anything but ALWAYS open with a positive element. The only exception of when the individual has a sick wife, sick kid or family that passed away, in that case open up by expressing your sympathie and remain supportive in your state of mind (feel the pain of the individual of support). It is certainly not the time to try to close a deal or talk too much about business unless the invidual allows you to do so.

3- When shaking hands, if you are the one introducing yourself, I prefer to break the ice if no one is there to intoduce me.

Simply say somthng like "I do not believe that we met before, you are???" If you know the snake and title of the person, you could say, I believe you are Miss Queenton from company Y??? (people are flattered when they feel that they are known, plus it saves them time, why would you want them to present themselves if you already know their names?). I would then continue by asking a question I really do not know about them like " and Miss Queenton, when did you join the corporation?". If the person did come to you first, let them lead the presentation process, stand still and let them do the talk. Be open, smile and look at them in the eyes, they will start talking and present themselves. If they don't simply say "I am Mrs. Queenton from company X, what is your name?" again if you know their names and never got presented before you can certainly say, I believe you are "Mr. Black from Company Z?". ...

4- Talk with a lot of energy and control.

People will analyze your voice tone, your physical posture and what you say. Make sure that you stand still and that your physical posture is perfect. Make sure that that your voice contains lots of energy and is confident. You have to be confident in what you are saying and this will automatically transpose in your voice tone. Finally, select the right things to say and select the right words.

5- Make it all about the other individual and NOT about you.

Some tips, to make the other people elaborate more on a subject that they are talking about, repeat the last words of the last sentence they said with a question intonation... Also, ask open questions (stay away from closed questions that require a yes and no answer)

Have fun, conversation is truly a skill we can develop with time. Remember that the first minute will be the one that the individual will judge you based on the impression he or she will have of you! Be nice at all time, being Grunchy, judgemental or negative will close the door to nice conversations.

How to MAKE TIME for your team?

2012-01-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

It is known... TIME FLIES!

I always try to find ways to make every minute count. I used to say that I wish that there was more time in a day but soon found out that there is never enough time... so if I organise my time better I can truly "enjoy" each moment and stop trying to run after time and having to catch my breath all the time.

As manager or executives, we spend most of our time in communication mode. Statistics show that manager spend about 80% in communications to manage operations; it could be mgt meetings, conference calls, business breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The 20% left is left for the rest (managing employees, catching up with e-mails...).

What if I told you that very few managers conduct periodic meetings with their staff? Is it surprising you? How do they expect to meet objectives if they are not a key actor in the delivery process and if they have no clue on how their team is managing the delivery? We can't just float on the sea with our safety floater and leave our entire team behind struggling in deep sea! It is OUR responsibility to direct them, listen to them and motivate them to ensure that WE (as a team) are all going in the right direction.

Here is how I usually organize my time;

Monday mornings are the meetings to confirm the priorities of the week with teams.

Monday PM to Thursday Nights are open to clients.

Fridays, it is my one on one meetings with each of my direct reports.

In between, the teams always know that they can reach me on my cell at anytime. I am very flexible and I make them feel that it is always ok to call me. Afterall, if they do, it is because they need an advise on something. I end up talking to my direct report almost everyday.

I ask my direct reports to coordinate a meeting every morning between them so that they discuss the progress of deliverables. We use an agile method. Our focus here is to remove or prevent any obstacles to impact the critical path of delivery.

I find the work dynamic to be very healthy this way, the frequent communications and time spent with the teams allows them to be focused on the right priorities. I love my teams and know that they are the ones delivering the goods. I am very greatful to have them and always try to make them understand that they are key to our success.

For me this open and fluid dynamic is a key success factor. We are tighly connected and I make time for my team accordingly. Also, it is always nice to catch up and care about them. A part from work, we need to stay open to listen to their personnal challenges. This helps us to be better execs and managers. We understand better why their performance is sometimes affected.

In summary:

Schedule PERIODIC MEETINGS with your teams: never or rarely cancel those meetings
Be AVAILABLEvia your cell, texting or any other way when team are trying to get to you: make them feel confortable to call you, tell them you will call them back if you can't call them now (but do call them back ASAP)
LISTEN to what they have to say: address the issues they are escalating to you, reassign actions if you can and follow the results
CARE about them truly: know what's going on in their lives, support them when appropriate
APPRECIATION: Tell them how good they are and how happy you are when appropriate. Be thankful to have them.
HAVE FUN with them when possible. Business does not have to be serious 100% of the time. Be happy when ever you interact with them. Take out the negative tension.

And you, how do you make time for your employees?

Effective Business Process Mapping Sessions

2012-01-17T20:48:00.000-05:00

You can conduct successful business process mapping sessions!

The success relies in 3 aspects:

Having an OUTSTANDING preparation
Having a GREAT FACILITATOR that can capture ideas, follow the discussions and can bring people together
Having the RIGHT STAKEHOLDERS around the table

Couple of years ago, my team conducted a process design session with our key project stakeholders. I normally do not participate in such sessions but went to support my new project manager whom was facilitating the session. I was so trilled to participate in the session as many flashbacks came back from the time I worked in consulting at Deloitte. I remembered the awesome feeling when my clients would scream "EUREKA!!!! we got the perfect idea over here!" or "Wow, I never thought of it from that perspective" or "Now I see the big picture and how the dots are all connecting". As my memories came back, I realized how excited I was to be part of the meeting. I sat at the tip of my chair during the session and actively participated in the process and in the discussions. I enjoyed the session almost like a first time a kid discovers the great taste of chocolate!. I can say that I love my work, I love to help my clients reaching the next level.

Prior to the session, we gathered a lot of information on best practices and did a preparation session in which I also participated to ensure that we would "rock" that process definition session.

Before the session:

We broke down the processes we wanted to cover and the priority
We agreed on the level of details we wanted to cover
We agreed on how we actually wanted to document the processes
We drafted the processes upfront in Visio based on our current understanding
The project manager printed each activity box on one sheet and sticked each activity on a large rolled paper bought at the dollar store, she then created a large size flow chart that everyone could see

The day of:

At the beginning of the session, we confirmed objectives and rules.
We revised the flow of activity and were able to unstick boxes when needed to move them around, we also added new sheets when new activity needed to be inserted.
At the end of the session, we were able to have a complete end to end process represented of the wall that everyone agreed on.
Of course our minute taker was updating the Visio file as we went but the process with the giant flow chart allowed the group to work together and stay together in the process development, it created the expected synergy and avoided delays related to the on-line update.

Loved that session, at the end of the session, we achieved the objectives --- Our clients and stakeholders were so proud as well of themselves.

What are your tricks and good tips? Please comment or send us links

What to do with an employee you do not trust?

2012-01-15T11:25:00.000-05:00

TRUST is the essence of an healthy relationship between you and your employees

Without TRUST we entertain doubts and are often reluctant to delegate.

When we have serious doubts on the integrity of a team member, we need to address the situation. A lack of trust can certainly lead to failure and can cause a certain stress to all team members.

Did you ever have an employee that you just could not trust? There was this gut feeling inside of you questioning you about your employees intentions? How did you address it?

It certainly DID happen to me. This was probably one of the worst situation to manage for me. Let me share with you the context and what I have done to fix the issue. I hope that you can apply some tips and ideas immediately to your situation. After all, we all want to have a motivated team with great spirit, we want the best for them and we just can't let it go when we have an employee that can potentially jeopardize the peace of our group.

Many years ago, I nominated a resource to a management position (mistake #1). It certainly was not the best move I've made but hey, it's part of my learning process. This individual was very smart and was a great performer. Over a period of only 4 to 8 weeks after his promotion to a management position, the team's motivation of my whole group went down the toilet. Mind you, this promotion did not get out of a hat, it was wanted and I had the buy-in from my troup. But after a while, people would come to work with long faces and would not tackle issues with the same enthusiasm. I got REALLY worried!

8 Strikes in 4-8 weeks:

The manager talked negatively about some of his own team members while those individuals were not there (strike 1)
The manager talked negatively about our company in front of the client! (strike 2)
The manager reprimanded pretty badly his own resources in front of clients or other team members (strike 3)
The manager was very talkative and never seemed to listen what other people had to say, he was frequently conducting monologues (strike 4)
The manager encouraged rumors internally (strike 5)
The manager seemed happy to talk to everyone at all time but people started to not pay attention to this manager as it did not look sincere (strike 6)
The manager imposed many decisions to clients and resources without taking the input of resources, this increased the frustration internally and was understood by many people as being a lack of trust towards them (strike 7)
The manager was not respectful towards contractuals and really did not value there input and value, consultants were his enemies and needed to act within a certain frame. The reality of our business is that the consultants are extremely precious because they bring knowledge and know-how that the company does not have... (Strike 8)

Result: he completely lost his credibility and very few people wanted to work with him because no one would TRUST HIM!!!

Knowing that he was new in a management role, I quickly started to coach him and to address those points in order to try to bring him where he needed to be. I was very frank and transparent with him and reported the events without saying specially where it came from. I also recommended some correction actions for each point and future behavior to adapt.
To be honest, it turned out that the situation DEGRATED as he continued to drag himself down. Of course the manager felt pointed and felt that he could not continue his POWERTRIP anymore. It was clearly a power trip, it was something to see! the worst part is that he truly thought that he was doing good and that everyone was respecting him. I do not get this and it was truly sad to see. I really seen the potential in this individual and he was just wasting all his talents on a power trip.
So, then, You know what he started to do???? He started to reprimand even more the resources and threaten them if they would talk to anyone but him! IT HAD TO STOP.
I reassigned the manager elsewhere, where he could like before brig high value to the organization without creating all those problems. Who's fault was it? To be honnest, I think that I had a big part of responsibilities in that. I am the one that triggered this somehow by assigning the wrong resource in the wrong position. He has his part too but we are totally both responsible. This was such a good lesson for me.
TIPS:
- Always put trusted people in your circle of direct reports.
- Work with HR early in the process, involve them, do a performance plan if needed
- Be very clear with the individual when situation arise, do not let things go
- Protect your team, open the discussion with them, do not leave them alone
- Lead by example, build trust in people and avoid working with untrusty resources
- be yourself, be transparent

Escalating issues IS NOT a sin!

2012-01-14T13:16:00.072-05:00

Isn't it stressfull when we face an issue that can jeopardize all the work and effort we have been doing?

Yes, it happens... It happens in all good program or projets. In fact, I have never seen a program without any critical risks and/or issues. I have to admit, I LOVE to break my head to find new ways and new solutions. PROBLEM SOLVING is fun and IS stimulating! Problem solving skills is so important and critical everywhere!

If you are like me, while resolving issues, you try to keep the temperature of your soup at the right level so that the water does not overflow... Indeed, I try to resolve as many issues as possible at my level so that I can spear my bosses or stakeholders. Execs hire us because they trust our judgement. They give us a mandate and expect us to be successful. I work hard to avoid escalating issues to the next level but HEY, sometimes it is necessary! What you do not want to happen is this...

When needed, I am not shy to escalate to the next level in a timely manner. I know that when I escalate, it is really because I did everything I could and know that I need help to move on. I do not feel guilty when I escalate, they are there to support us at an exec level and this is why escalation processes exist! I am saying this because I used to be so scared to escalate, I felt like a failure if I had too. I learned that not everything is on my shoulder!

Escalation is not a sin, it is part of a project.

You need to be prepared to face issues that you will not be able to resolve yourself and that will require the participation of your execs for xyz reason. Be ready however to resolve 99% of the issue coming to you. The 1% will be escalated. Would it be great if we could shift our effort from issue resolution to risk mitigation?

Tips

have regular update meetings with the people involved in the escalation process
have a clear escalation process (who escalated what when and how?)
ensure that people involved in the escalation process are AVAILABLE and take actions within given timeframes
If you can't resolve it at your level, push the issue up right away if affects critical path
resolution time is key, don't drag issue, they are often extremely expensive
have a proactive approach, put lots of efforts on risk management this will decrease the number of issues that comes up because you will have prevented them!
use issue resolution techniques, open your hears, be always attentive to news ideas and input from others

Wrong leader, wrong results

2011-03-29T08:44:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I took over this multi million project portfolio. At the time one of the program was simply not delivering as planned despite all the effort and energy that the team was putting.

6 months prior to my arrival, the management of the company hired a consultant to turn this program around. I have to acknowledge that the consultant did a great job in putting in place some of the foundations - but it was just not enough.

The leadership style of that consultant (let's call him Mr. Wrong) was the total opposite of what the team needed. The new leader was very aggressive in his approach and very directive. Departures started to occur, conflicts between managers arised, conflicts with our clients arises... Wrong, wrong, wrong dynamic no? All that distortion prevented the team to mobilised the effort against the real objectives of the program. At the time, the word that started to get around was that we did not have what it took to deliver the contract.

M. Wrong was focusing on short term objectives and did not provide the team a long lasting vision with objectives linked to the program. In addition, the leader did not have excellent people management skills. There was lots of flaws in the leadership style. On one hand we had delivered painfully the first site and were able to calm the press and media and on the other hand, we were still very disorganised and were still very immature in terms of program and project management practices.

I call this type of leadership TEMPORARY CRISIS LEADERSHIP.

Why temporary? because I sincerely do not believe that this type of leadership is a long lasting type of leadership that can bring people to work towards a common vision. This type of leadership is very reactive and not proactive.

Do you feel that the leadership style in your program or project is not the right one? Do not hire the first guy you meet just because he or she has great credentials! Make sure that you hire the right one like cenderilla's perfect shoe fit! If you have doubts or agree that it is the case, you surely need to take action and change the leadership style you got. You cannot change the leadership of someone, it is just the way we are individually. In my case, even if this program if the most important and strategic in my portfolio, I just had to do something quickly to change the leadership style. It is too painful and expensive to keep this leadership style. I can't afford to fail!

Tip:

1) Select the right leadership style for your specific environment - You MUST ensure that the people you select as leader will provide the right leadership at the right time. This will either break or make you project.

Example 1: If you have a high quality product but struggle in the efficiency on how to deliver the product, you need someone that will be able to transform the organization into an effective delivery machine. You will need in this case a very hands-on individual with deep people skills and profound understanding of business processes.

Example 2: If you have a good product, a good team but have external dependencies that affect your delivery. Then you will need a strong negociator, someone that will be able to influence external parties, someone that has a vision and can bring everyone on the same table. This skillset is very different from the first one you will agree with me.

Example 3: If you do not have a good product, you are in much more trouble. You will need someone very strong technically to lead your internal team. You need a visionnary, someone that understands your market, someone that can build a crisp vision of where you need to be in X months and how you need to get there. You need a go-gether, someone that is process driven. Someone that can sell the vision to internal and external teams

Sell your ideas!

2011-02-15T21:07:00.019-05:00

Sometimes the best ideas stay shy and are even killed before they even put an eye outside.

Why? Mostly because the speaker and supporter of the idea failed to market and articulate the idea. What can you do to get what you want - every time?

I use a story board most of the time to convey my messages supported by organised touch points with my stakeholders where I explain repeat my vision and the benefit they will absolutely get from it. It works every time, I do get what I want because of the following. also, I follow the tips below.

1) Believe in your idea/ don't give up! My rule is simple, if I do not believe in an idea, I do not invest one minute of my time even trying to understand why it would make sense. If I do however, that is a totally different story, I jump on the idea like a dog would jump on a bone! If I can see the value in an idea and see how it could impact positively my life, my company or client and that the idea excites me, I will do anything to turn this idea in reality.

2) Build a crisp vision to support your idea: By nature, an idea is a thought standing in the head of an individual. It does not exist in the material word. Therefore, it is very difficult for people to relate as people tend to understand what they can touch and see. It is my role and your role as an 'idea seller' to develop a clear vision around the idea. People need to understand how your idea will impact them. The answer to the question 'WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?' is what people really want to hear. So be prepared. People like drawings and visuals, this helps them to relate and accelerates decision making. Make sure that you have a visual to present so that people understand how life will be when your idea will be implemented.

3) Know your buyers and stakeholders: Who will buy your idea or project idea? Who's the buyer? Your CEO? President? CIO? CFO? Who's influencing decisions? Who how politics work in your organization. Make sure that you involve key stakeholders. Think of your idea as a project... Find a sponsor that can influence your stakeholders. Know the answer to the question What's in it for me, for all types of audiences.

4) Build a story board: A story board is used in consulting to convince or compel to action. I often develop my story board in a power point presentation. I learned this when I was at Deloitte Consulting. The all deck is developed is a way to bring your readers to buy a specific idea or action. Before you prepare your story board think about the best story line - your readers and stakeholders need to follow your story (from the introduction to the conclusion). Your story board needs to be short and sweet, people tend to overkill presentations. Best story boards start with critical facts describing the context and follow with THEREFORE... (with the introduction of your idea). Then you sell your vision (NOT YOUR IDEA DIRECTLY), your sell the benefits that come to the vision (THE WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME) and then you bring your recommendations (idea) and actions/ decision points required.

5) Retro action: Did I ever get a NO when presenting an idea? Of course I did! Never take no for an answer if you truly believe in your idea! Understand why you got a no at this point of time and guess what, if there are really a business case and benefits to your vision, go back to the drawing board and improve the way you articulate your vision! Adjust yourself and try differently again, and again and again if required. Do not expect different results if you keep on doing the same things you are doing... Change until you get it right!

Good luck :)

Motivate your team!

2011-02-15T08:50:00.000-05:00

I disagree with the saying that it is all about MONEY.

Yes, of course, stakeholders are looking forward to maximize business value but as a manager or executive we have to understand that there will never be any value created without human beings...

Having worked in consulting for most of my career, I crossed over many waves of thinking where for example, the resource would be seen like an asset, then like an enabler and finally like a HUMAN BEING and true contributor.

People are the common denominator for success, you could have the best technology out there for you to meet a market requirement and reduce your costs, you could have lean inventory to improve your cash flow, you could have the best warehouse system that enables you to optimize your distribution flow.. but hey... you need people to make the right decisions at the right time. The right people is all what it takes to bring you where you want. And those people are human beings, they have families, desires, passions, ups and downs like you. The human aspect has to be taken into account. It is over the days that employees were considered as "lower" and "less important" than you. They are surely not a number or a punch card. True, it still happens today that employees are not valued accordingly and I truly hope that ALL managers, directors, execs in the next years to come with completely shift that thinking.

Some thoughts:

1) Hire more knowledgeable resources than you: as an executive, your job is to hire the best team on the market. Hire that guys that knows ten times more than you do or that guys that learns like a sponge and set the bar higher for everyone. Think in terms of value added. Do not hire an individual if that individuals does not bring additional value to the team.

2) Remember that diversity is the essence of a team: Make your resources understand that there is no place for a one man show. I believe that the success of the best companies relies on the complementary skill set of individuals. Hire that guys or girl that just came out of school and his brilliant and creative, hire that individual whom travelled all over the world and brings in your company open perspectives, hire that individual that is more rigid and needs a structure to be successful, hire that resource that is ultra focused and result oriented.

3) Your people are the "cream of cream" of your company: Your employees are truly the richness of your company. Be the BEST employer you can be. Encourage high performance and make sure that they understand how important they are to you, your customers and your company.

4) Offer them what they need: Remember that there are different generation needs. 20-30 years old require to be challenged, need significant recognition, they are fast and want responsibility - offer them to travel the world. 30-45 years old need work-life balance, they have often small kids and are sometimes more reluctant to travel, give them nice work-life balance programs like an envelop of X$ a year that they can use for gym, travel, housekeeping... anything they need it for, offer them a management position. 45+ may start a new career, they started their family and are often more seen in a consultant role or executive role, if you want to keep them long term, offer them a retention program with stock units if you are a public company.

5) Really care about them: Be sensitive to their personal and business goals, support them in the achievement of their goals. After all, life is beautiful journey when we learn to work with each other. Celebrate their milestones. Remember that if an individual decides to leave your company to continue his/her own path, you need to support them. Departures from a company should be celebrated as if the resource was coming on board (in most cases).

Your program is public and sensitive to media?

2011-02-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

If your program or project is highly exposed to media and press, you need to be extremely cautious on how you communicate information within your project team and to the clients and need to understand that there is near to NO margin for error, misunderstandings, schedule delays, costs overruns.

Manage media and press as a RISK throughout the duration of the program especially if your project has political components or affects the general public.

Having said that, what can you do that will satisfy your stakeholders and will reduce the media pressure on your project? I will give you my two cents on how you could save your program/project from this horrible stress and destruction iceberg you can face.

- At all time ensure that you have a clear program strategy: Have a crisp definition of your strategy and be ready to communicate it all time. People need to have a direction and to understand how the strategy will be executed. Build a momentum, ensure that your vision, the strategy and plans are communicated clearly. REPEAT, do not assume that people understood just because they were exposed once or twice to the vision, strategy and Plan!!!

- Be on top of issue resolution: Show that you are in control, be proactive, don't wait that issues are escalated! Focus on critical issues and their resolution, work with your stakeholders and team members to prioritize well issues and so that everyone understands the impacts of the issues.

- Work closely with the stakeholders: Ensure that governance is well established, establish clarity in communications, work to get their buy in, involve them in issue resolution and in decision making process. Your relationship with all stakeholders will either help you or kill you, you need to create an environment of trust and a constructive environment where stakeholders will all walk in the same direction than you. Make them understand that they are a key component of the project success.

- Focus on business benefits: the only thing that matters for your clients is to deliver expected benefits, find ways to bring benefits early in the process.

Meet your objectives and goals! Resolve what really matters!

2011-02-12T09:43:00.007-05:00

Reputation takes time to built, seconds to destroy and everything you got to rebuild.

In anyway, the best thing you can do to have success is to continuously keep eyes on what really matters to meet your goals.

There are zillion causes of distractions, make sure that every step you make does have an impact or has a link towards your objective or goal.

The recipee: FOCUS ON WHAT REALLY MATTERS THE MOST FIRST.

I will give you a slice of my own experience to illustrate how important it is to keep eyes on the objective no matter how hard, complex and difficult a situation or context appears. When I took over a multimillion contract a few year ago:

the program had failed to deliver not even 5% of the contract after 24 months,
was late by at least 12 months,
was not organised to succeed,
was not providing any visibility on resource requirement,
did not have a fixed scope & fixed schedule,
prerequisites were not all met and not all understood by customers,
third party involved were not aligned to the master plan,
turn around of staff had been a growing issue and
roles & responsibilities were not clearly defined between client and us
communications between third party's, team and clients were very poor.

The word that got around at that time was that our client did not believe that we could deliver the contract. By defecto, if your client does not believe in you, your competitors and press will be more than happy to point it out to you.

I knew, when I accepted this challenge, that it would not be easy but I believed strongly in the mission of the Program and could only see the end results we needed to accomplished. Well, some of my mentors and friends thought I was crazy. But hey, I believe that nothing happens for nothing and I felt that somehow, even if we were all over the place when I arrived, I believed in the team and thought that they just needed A DIRECTION.

Meanwhile, press, media, competitors and our own clients had serious doubts on our ability to deliver the contract. No matter why, the issues kept on growing and seemed to be bigger than the Everest! What can you say at that point, the program showed confusion, disorganisation and had red health indicators almost everywhere.

Here's what we did :

1) Understanding show stoppers - resolve what really matters!

Prior to my arrival, program issues were not captured systematically, they tended to be hanging around. The program manager would try to resolve issues on the go given orders to team members without documenting any of the solution trails and would react when an issue would be escalated to management. At the time that I arrived, senior executive would receive several calls and several e-mails from our customers in order to seek progress and confidence in the issue resolutions. With all respect to the program manager that was in place, he came with a disorganised environment and had a leadership style that would make things happen but unfortunately not in a pragmatic way. So some issues would be resolved but it felt that there was no proactive effort to resolve issues that kept on building on the plate.

This situation is clearly unacceptable, if you in your organization is unable to have control on issues and do not address them in a proactive and pragmatic way, you will certainly end up in the same shoes we were.

So when I came in, I told the team that we would not be resolving ALL issues at once and told them that we needed to focus on the issues that had the most impacts in our critical path. I believe it's a question on knowing or understanding what really counts and what really matters for you to deliver your project. Do not think you can do it all, start with most complex issues that are impacting your delivery and you will see endless outcomes. So when I came in, we identified 4 critical issues that were blocking our program. Without the resolution of those 4 issues we would not be successful in meeting our contractual obligations. So suddenly all of our effort when from all over the place to concerting the efforts with our client and third party vendor to identify solutions to resolve those 4 issues. For each issue, we of course identified an owner, assessed alternative solutions, came out with the recommended solution, identified actions to get there and target dates. When at our level we agreed between parties on the action plan, we presented the action plan to our executive committee and presented them to our stakeholders (in our program there are about 50 stakeholders as we are delivering our solution to several government sites).

Leadership: Shape your mind

2010-03-23T21:22:00.001-04:00

Your state of mind is key to your leadership

Leadership is not always constructive and can unfortunately be very destructive. We all agree that there are A1's leaders and unfortunately really bad leaders in this world. What do you think differentiates them?

Leadership has always been an area that I tried to understand better when I was at University. At the time some individuals would stand out naturally from a group just by the way they were. Some of them became president of student associations, others would excel in organizing student activities while others seemed to lead gangs and appeared to not do much. Already at the time, I could differentiate different types of leadership.

But what is the secret ingredient of successful "native" leaders?

Leadership is not a concrete notion and it is certainly not something I could learn in a chapter of a book like accounting or economy or stats. So, You'll agree that leadership is not a knowledge that we can infuse in ourselves after a session at school--- it has to do with the way we actually see the world, see the challenges, see others, with our level of energy and with the way that we actually prevent or react to situations. Leadership is a STATE OF MIND.

How could we describe a true leader?

My own definition of a true leader is someone that has the inner POWER to attract and influence others, the power to stimulate and motivate others, someone with a very high level of energy, someone that has the power to move mountains when needed without much apparent effort and the power to drive and direct a team a company in the right direction. They are like our super hero's, a super power that they mastered to use accordingly.

What are the characteristics of a true leader?

One characteristics that seems to come back in all literature is the capacity of the leader to build a clear and consistent VISION and to COMMUNICATE his/her vision at all levels (top-bottom)

Most of the time, true leaders are very PRAGMATIC and have a SIMPLE THINKING. They encourage KISS principle and tend to articulate problems and solutions in a simple manner.

The third element is key, I believe that they have a sense of GRATITUDE and COMPASSION very developed. They are HUMBLE and recognize that PEOPLE (their team) is the key ingredient of their own success. They have RESPECT for others. Actually, it is know that all leaders that influences the world as we know it all had one thing in common: they were all thankful! Einstein used to say thank you hundreds of times to his collaborators! Other known leaders that were thankful; Martin Luther King, Lincoln, Jung and many others.

The fourth one is EMPOWERMENT, they understand that staff need to be empowered. They trust the judgement of their team members and encourage decision making from them. They know how to delegate and are not getting into micro details. Employees feel in control of their work, feel an important contributor and feel valued and important.

Leadership is very POWERFUL if used accordingly.

Some impacts of destructive leadership

STAFF ROTATION: You see a lot of rotation and resignation in key positions around you? 99% chance that the cause is not linked to the individuals leaving. Look upwards, look at the leaders managing those individuals --- What is the leadership style of the manager or director and exec? Are employees valued? Are employees empowered by the leader?

EMPOWERMENT and MICRO-MANAGEMENT Few years ago, I was a consultant for a 60M SAP delivery program? The execs in charge of the project were all over the place and did not empower their teams to make decisions. even the sponsor was challenging his own program director in front of everyone and did not show respect to anyone. Are you surprise if I tell you that the motivation of the all team was lower than ever? We actually had a serious talk with the execs and made them understand how their current attitude was impacting the program and the productivity of the all team, it had to change and it did. I spare you the details here but thank god that we did speak up! As a consultant, I learned to be straight forward even if it is not what the execs want to hear. It did pay off to all of us, including execs.

CONFUSION ON ACCOUNTABILITY; So now that you see how bad lack of empowerment and micro-management impact the dynamic of your team. Imagine if the same execs make you accountable with those conditions. IMPOSSIBLE! How can you actually put someone accountable for the results if in first place they are not empowered and second if you always put your nose (as an exec) in the decision making process? Who can be hold accountable if they have no control?

Imagine a pilot driving an airplane, first he is sitting at the back (not even in the cockpit) while executives are in the cockpit starting the engine and doing everything they need to do (without a proper knowledge) to start the plane. They call the pilot at the last minute and ask him to kick-off the plane without understanding fully what was done previously. The pilot had a hard time to complete the start up routine but did it. Now that the plane is almost at the right altitude, one executive decides to ask the pilot to step back and decides to sit on the pilot chair... This goes on and on and on throughout the flight until someone decides that it's time to get down - oops, there's no more fuel... they are kind of on the middle of the Atlantic! IF YOU HIRE A PILOT, LET HIM FLY ALL THE WAY, GIVE HIM ALL THE INFO HE NEEDS TO FLY AND TRUST HIM!! Do not interfere! As a true leader, don't you want your pilot to get you anywhere you need to with all his heart, judgment and deep motivation?

DISRESPECT; Recently, one of my Ex-director was telling me that his new exec participated in a call with him and a client. The call was disastrous in his perspective and he got out of the call demotivated, discouraged, frustrated, demobilised and angry. WHY? While he had followed every step and recommendations that the new exec gave him to resolve a problem, the same exec got in the call and questioned in front of his client the solution (that he had prescribed) and opened the door to other negotiations. The message that the new exec conveyed to my ex-director unconsciously (or not) is 1) I am better than you are 2) You are not important 3) I am the king and you are my submissive, you better listen to me. Anyway, this was the perception. Imagine the client that was on the line, what did they perceive?

I have so many examples I could share of destructive leadership and feel very sad when I hear or share those types of stories.

At the end of the day? How can we be the best leader we can be?

I truly believe that our employees ARE more important than we are, they are the ones that will MAKE US FAIL OR SUCCEED. They are our biggest assets!!!

We need to be thankful to have them everyday! Appreciate their qualities and straights. Trust their judgement. Put appropriate decision points in their hands!!! They will surprise you! Don't micro-manage! Learn to oversee their work! CHANGE YOUR MINDSET. True leadership is largely associated to a state of Mind.

So rather than thinking that you are the KING on top of your ivory tower, think of yourself as an active, friendly, opened, MENTOR. We are not superior than anyone, we just have a different role to play.

LOVE your team unconditionally, they will love you back!

Be THANKFUL everyday to them, they will be thankful and will give you the moon

You will attract the POWER of true LEADERSHIP

What do you think? Do you think that true leadership is a state of mind?

10 simple tips for effective meetings

2010-03-18T19:19:00.001-04:00

Did you ever came out of a meeting and thinking?

'Why was I invited again?',
'What was said again?',
'What did we talk about?',
'What are my to do's again?' or simply
'What the heck was that meeting about?'

Believe me it happened to me more than once on my side! I do not know about you, but my working type is the one that comes in the office like a tornado, is anxious to make things happen and wants to bring as much as possible value in the day so that I came come out 8h to 9 hours later (MAX!!!!!!). So I'm really not the type of girl you can hang around next to the coffee machine for 15 minutes... I like to have fun but do not appreciate when I feel that I am wasting precious time. So he's some really quick tips I use to make it short and sweet. Main thing is to be ready and have fun.

1) Prepare the agenda

be clear on the objective of the meeting. Take time to prepare your thinking process and ensure that supporting document is distributed for more complex topics. Ask in advance to someone to take minutes (taking decision points and actions are what you really want to have) - limit participants to the only ones that should be there....

2) Send your agenda and supporting material at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.

If people have preparation to make prior to the meeting, let them know a HEAD in advance.

3) Respect people's time

Start at the latest 5 minutes after your meeting starting time. I see too often the chairman of the meeting be late!

4) TAKE TIME TO EXPLAIN THE OBJECTIVE OF THE MEETING - - -

Do not expect that everyone is clear on what you are trying to achieve. Repeat - be concise!

5) When capturing the actions and decisions, be sure that the minute taker captures, the name of the action, the responsible, the target completed date...

Do it electronically! This is you will be able to send out the minutes within the following 24 hours

6) For disruptive talkers during the meeting, park non related topic (MANAGE YOUR MEETING SCOPE)

7) At the end of the meeting, ALWAYS have room for conclusion and recap!!!!!! Always review the main actions so that everyone is clear,

8) Do not let anybody go out of the meeting until you agree on the next step!

9) Be THANKFUL for the time your participants took to come to your meeting

10) Assess your lessons learned to be better the next time.

Hope this helps!

Program Organization in FEW easy steps

2010-03-18T01:32:00.001-04:00

Start your program on the right foot!

WAIT that your Program Director is assigned to the program and ensure that he/she takes over from this point on. Too often, execs make decisions on the program strategy, budget, ressources... and expect the new upcoming Program Director to be accountable to deliver objectives and targets they did not define.

This happens all the time and really puts your program at risk to start with - companies are so in fire when the charter gets signed that they rush into taking many organizational decisions without having the Program Director involved.

This typically leads to a lack of engagement and commitment from the Program Director and from the delivery team. Instead of going too far to launch the program without a Program Director, put all your energy, as an executive, on hiring THE CREAM OF THE CREAM PROGRAM DIRECTOR!!!!!

For large programs (50M+), the program organization activities will not be less than 3 to 6 months in timeframe. Do not underestimate the time it takes to structure accordingly a program or a project. The organization and planning activities are precious and do have a high ROI. On the other hand, do not overspend money in this phase to try to make it perfect. Ensure that the organization is robust without expecting that it will be perfect to the teeth. Incorporate a process to leave room to continuous improvement. Just make sure that your level of investment is just for this phase. The key activities will include usually the following subset of activities after you appoint your program director.

Organizing the Governance, build the committees
Develop the Program Organizational structure
Define your Program Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Organize the finance
Clarify and define Roles and Responsibilities (RACI + Job roles)
Develop the Program Management Framework (Processes, procedures and tools)

Program Governance

You need to define early how the program will be governed to ensure the program success. the different governance entities will be identified:

THE project sponsor,
THE steering committee members (formed of senior executives such as division VPs+ sponsor+Program mgt group) at a minimum
THE working committee members (formed of business directors and managers+program mgt leadership) and
THE program committee (formed of the program management leadership group)

The creation of the governance structure needs to be worked out closely with the project sponsor as he/she will need to approve the governance entity. You will also need to identify the members of the committees / sponsor should confirm with peers in the business the appointments of committee members.

Program Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS is defined in the parallel planning activities that are going on while you start to organize your project. The WBS needs to be thought through early in the process as it is an important input in the organization phase. It helps structuring your project and helps you to build the RACI that we will talk later on (to clarify the roles and responsibilities). The way you structure your WBS is therefore critical - it has to be easy to understand and has to be logical. Just think of it like a bill of material; think of how you would decompose a desk, you decompose it with key component types right?. WBS should not be complicated it should be simple. Do not forget that the WBS will be mapped into your project plan in your planning activities.

Program Organizational structure development
Once your governance entities are defined and you understand your WBS, you can confirm the teams you will need to have in your organization.

Always have the Program Director as the only one reporting to Steering and Sponsor. I found Strong matrix organizations most appropriate for large programs. Ensure in this case that all team members have a hard line to your program director. I am a hold fashion type of manager when it comes time to manage resources. I rarely seem resources extremely happy in a weak matrix organization - it often creates ambiguity. Do not let stakeholders keep a hard line with program resources in the Program Organisational Chart. This brings too much confusion and distraction for nothing. You can Structure your teams by competency or by Work packages what ever makes the most sense. In large programs you could have co-leadership: assign a business leader and an IT leader. do not let IT drive the show alone!

Roles and Responsibilities (RACI + Job roles)

Your RACI is a matrix that will provide an overview of who is Responsible Accountable Consulted and Informed for each of the First/Second levels of your WBS. Typically the first column is the WBS and there is one column by job roles to build the matrix. You need to validate the RACI with the directors and the business so that everyone has a clear understanding and agreement on the roles to be. GET YOUR RACI approved.

Once your RACI is approved, you can build your job roles! It is important to have a Job Description for each of the roles to be filled in the project. Along the way, you might have some replacements or new players and it will be easy for HR to help you out if you already have every roles clearly documented. Also, you will be using the job role summary the project kick-off and to assign resources to the project.

Program Management Framework (Processes, procedures and tools)
This is the part that I love the most! Providing a framework! Standards key framework components for an IT project can be;

Risk Management
Issue Management
Time & Expense Management
Logistics
Document Management
Program and Project Reporting
Resource Management
Purchasing Management
Cost Management
Benefit Management

If your PMO does not already have a framework, you can either ask a consulting firm to get a framework implemented or you can build one from scratch. My thought is that any good consulting firm can provide such a framework with fresh ideas and tools attached to the framework. It is very time consuming to construct from scratch... If you have time and tight budget; go a head and build it internally - - - If you do not have time and have a budget, use a consulting firm.

I like to have a folder by framework component and a separate folder for the project management standard TEMPLATES. I am from KISS school, do not build a 200 page document for your framework - people will just get so lost! Just be to the point! Say what you have to say about the process and that's it! Show few slides on the process in Powerpoint including your flowcharts and have a separate document for specific procedures. If appropriate save your visio file in a third file for people to view when needed.

You might want to look at tools that can facilitate your life and lower your project costs down the road! Assess your needs meticulously, spend money wisely on tools! Don't get Primavera or MsServer if you have few projects. Investiguate your tools - Excel is OK but I am personally not a big fan of it now that we have so many fresh affordable collaborative tools. Look at all the tools offered in the market it changes fast. CONFLUENCE did impress me lately.

Let me know if you have other thoughts or wish you comment, hope this was helpful

Straight Talk - For effective communication

2010-02-28T20:41:00.002-05:00

Decide to be a straight shooter. Tackle and attack issues!

I was in a management meeting on Thursday that we call the Core Team. The Core Team is composed of the four Vice-Presidents involved in the Program, the integration manager, the program manager and myself.

As this is only my third Core meeting since my arrival, I started to dig in the issue log to see that most of the 15 issues remaining were opened last year! We spent the 60 minutes of the meeting basically not making any decisions and just NOT doing the right thing. I came out of the meeting so discouraged as I was trying to understand why decisions were not being taken in that group. The goal in this forum is supposed to be a decision making group! So - I got out of the meeting and asked myself what the 'ironic' smiles I observed in the room meant and why?

I never accepted to work in such an atmosphere so I decided that I should talk to the main VP about my perception. I had to tell the execs that they were to be in big trouble if they could not put an effective decision making process in place. For a large program of that sort, making quick and right decisions are critical!

My approach has always been to be honest with myself and with others, so I really thought that I had NOTHING to loose to talk to the senior VP on the situation. I understand that being transparent after not even 2 weeks can be really not well perceived - - -but I really did not care as I really thought that those meetings were not going anywhere anyway... We always have to pick the right battles and I thought that this one was very important.

So the next day, I asked the VP to organize a call with a director, him and myself to work on another issue. Lucky me!!! while we were waiting for the director to join us for the meeting, he asked me : ''So How do you like it so far?''

This was my lucky day! I did not have to break the ice, I responded spontaneously: ''EXCELLENT, I like the company size, I like working with a national team and really like the complexity that it brings... On that point, even thought I do not have all the understanding of the company's politics and complexity, I think that decision making will be one of our biggest challenge moving forward''

He looked at me for at least 2-3 seconds, he looked surprised but clearly got my point - it felt like finally someone was telling him what it is. He said ''Hmmm, interesting, you know what : I really want us to sit down together and talk about it, I want to hear your recommendations, it is true and we need help in that matter.''

Oh boy, let me tell you that it felt good to know that my message passed through - - - most important is that he acknowledged and wanted me to help him taking action! I was lucky but at the end of the day I gave my shot and tried to deliver a message.

After all, it is for their own good! WE NEED TO SPEAK OUR MINDS!!!

OPEN MIND TALKING SHOWS THAT YOU MIND ABOUT THEM!!!!!!!!