wolske/pmba

Employee Engagement

2007-11-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the Gallup Management Journal has put together a hierarchy of engagement which I had not seen before: The questions are incredibly helpful -- the checklist of qualities on the left can be a bit ambiguous and you might agree with some of the higher level ones even if the lower level qualities are not satisfied. The questions, on the other hand, are pretty straight-forward -- if you're asking the question then those qualities are where you need to focus. Whole article: Where Employee Engagement Happens [note: this blog has been on an unofficial hiatus, but the goal is at least one or two posts per week through the end of the year. we'll see where it goes from there.]

Pioneers and Innovation

2006-10-02T12:16:00.000-04:00

... they do it for free, for the love of the pursuit. And that's important because

when you try to make a profit from your innovation, you stop innovating too soon. You take the short payout because it's too hard to stick around for the later one.

An excellent insight from Seth.

Tags: innovation, entrepreneurship

BrandYou

2006-09-12T16:35:00.000-04:00

Free Agents Have Job Security -- Do you?

Be Happy Now

2006-09-12T11:09:00.000-04:00

For so many of us, the life we want is just barely out of reach. We can see it. It's just a couple "if only's" away. We tell ourselves, "If only _____, then I'd be happy. I could relax." And so we pursue what we feel is missing - confident in the knowledge that while we're not happy right now, we will be soon. But then we achieve what we're after and yet something still feels missing. New "if only's" pop up to replace the old ones. We're caught in a race with a moving finish line. Contentment is more elusive than we had originally thought. Eventually, if we want to be happy, we must come to grips with an important fact. That we've been fooling ourselves. Contentment, it turns out, is not a destination. Rather, it's a manner of traveling. And if we can't feel it today, we won't find it tomorrow.

Ten steps to help you Be Happy Now, at Fast Company.

Tags: happiness, coaching

Happy Labor Day

2006-09-02T14:13:00.000-04:00

Millions of Americans want to go it alone; count me in.

Yakabod :: Technology for Togetherness

2006-09-01T14:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I spent some time with Scott Ryser, founder and CEO of Yakabod, at their office in downtown Frederick. I had stumbled on their web site several weeks ago and was blown away by their core values (seriously -- more on that later).

What they do is help organizations get their knowledge together, simplify their work, and solve real business problems. Rather than a mass-produced product, they have the technology platform and building blocks to create a customized solution for their customers. It's the relationship between pieces of knowledge and data that provides real value, and their focus in on helping clients unlock the secrets in those relationships.

I hope I got all that right, because to tell you the truth we talked very little about their product or projects (I can't believe I forgot to ask for a demo while I was there...) What we did talk about was doing things right and for the right reasons. I asked him about some of his experiences with starting up a business, dealing with employees, how business was going and how the future looked for them. Good To Great and Topgrading came through as recurring themes...

And I asked specifically about the core values. The first of their core values is Grace, specifically:

Every person is created of God. Therefore, as a company we treat every person with respect.
Every person has unique talents from God. Therefore, as a company we treat every role as nobility.
God's design for you is perfect, but everyone makes choices that are not [perfect]. Therefore, we will nurture a culture in which grace prevails.

When I read that on their website, it seemed that Yakabod was different from any profit-seeking organization I have worked with. When I asked him about it in person, I think I was expecting him to launch into a sermon about grace, but he didn't. My interpretation was that if you operate according to such principles it will be evident in your actions, and there is less need to talk about it. It also left me with the impression that there is no need for Yakabod to be unique regarding grace in business -- we can all do it. In fact, we probably all do in many small ways, so how can we get a grace-culture to reach critical mass? Imagine what your organization would be like if grace was an observable force... (and congrats if you work where it already has).

A public thanks to Scott for taking the time to meet with me, and I'll have to schedule another meeting so I can get a demo of the technology (possibly post a review over at /tech?).

[some blog entries by Scott and others at Yakabod]

Tags: principles, values, grace, knowledge management, bespoke technology

Action Technology

2006-08-31T12:51:00.000-04:00

Could this be the next wave after Information Technology? If so, remember you heard it here first...

Or so I thought. Turns out there are several companies named Action Technology, Action Technology, and Action Technologies, Inc ("Powering Knowledge-Worker Productivity"); the last of which seems to embody more of what Sig was thinking with thingamy...

More on this soon, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. And more about the technical side of thingamy over at /tech.

Tags: action technology, thingamy, IT, erp, not erp

Success is a State of Mind

2006-08-15T18:12:00.000-04:00

I've mocked video-blogging in the past, but this is very cool. Video blogging from the beach in Hawaii.

In this episode, Rox talks about having a positive perspective on events, but more importantly (I think) on how competition can help make any process more exciting and interesting and can lead you to better results in the end.

If it was written in a standard blog, that wouldn't have been worth linking to. But you have to listen to the waves in this video, and the way she's playing with her dog as she walks... I laughed out loud when she pointed out a tree branch to the cameraman (who was obviously walking backwards) -- his response, and the way they worked static web pages into the dialogue was pretty cool.

Beach Walk #11 - Success is a State of Mind [via TP]

Idealized Design and Systems Thinking

2006-08-14T15:53:00.000-04:00

In their book, Idealized Design: How to Solve Tomorrow's Crisis...Today (Wharton School Publishing), authors Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison build upon a simple notion. They argue that, "the way to get to the best outcome is to imagine what the ideal solution would be and then work backward to where you are today." This excerpt, based on Ackoff's experience, shows how the process worked at Bell Labs in the 1950s.

I had the pleasure of hearing this story first-hand from Russ Ackoff during the kickoff of our MBA program. I'm not sure that reading the story or even listening to the audio would have quite the same effect, but the story is still compelling -- basically it is the origin of many of the telecommunications technologies that we take for granted. But when there was no concept of a dial-pad, or even a calculator keypad, these ideas were radically creative. (Article and audio available here - Knowledge@Wharton).

But this isn't just about telecom or high-tech -- Ackoff was persistent that we must apply Systems Thinking to all aspects of business and life.

Common Management Methods

2006-08-14T13:25:00.000-04:00

If you want to lead a team, a company, an army, or a country, the primary problem you face is getting everyone moving in the same direction, which is really just a polite way of saying “getting people to do what you want.”

In the spirit of getting people to do what you want, Joel Spolsky presents the pros and cons of three common management methods:

-- I haven't read the Identity method yet, so please don't give away the ending...

Joel writes insightful and funny stuff about software development and management at Joel on Software.

on the other hand, maybe things aren't so bad

2006-06-29T16:07:00.000-04:00

I had barely begun my journey up the corporate ladder when Work in America was first published, but the authors have gone back to their original methodology and created The New American Workplace to document how worklife has changed over the past 30 years.

In brief, Job Satisfaction is up, Self-Employment is more common and dynamic, and opportunities for women are far greater and more equitable (though there probably still room for improvement). Their predictions that American's would defer retirement (or re-define it) was correct, although not necessarily for all the right reasons: (all quotes from article at Fast Company)

On Retirement: "The thrust toward 'early' retirement calls into doubt the very meaning of 'retirement.'… [R]ecent analysis of census data indicates that older men increasingly do not and will not want to retire at age 65." [1973]

Wow, did we get that right! Americans' deferral of retirement is good news for corporations as we head toward a labor crunch with the aging of the boomer generation. Alas, the willingness of Americans to soldier on is not simply a voluntary response among work-loving men and women who are living longer, healthier lives and want to feel productive. Many workers want to retire, but they are not able to do so "in comfort": Boomers are discovering that the once-prevalent company pension plans that funded their parents' retirements will not be able to pay for theirs. [2006]

And finally, in their current review they admit that they "failed to recognize that the greatest obstacles to high-involvement workplaces are the attitudes and assumptions of top executives. Many are still threatened by the prospect of worker participation. And too many leaders of American corporations still believe they have "no choice" but to match the working conditions and employment practices of their lowest-wage competitors at home and, increasingly, abroad."

Optimistically, "All the evidence shows that workers who participate in decision making, training, profit sharing, and stock ownership are so much more productive than workers who don't enjoy these working conditions that they pay for their own higher salaries and benefits. They also work to keep jobs in America."

Another wake up call for senior management across all industries -- Southwest, Costco, Harley-Davison, UPS, and many others have done it and you can too.

Tags: work life, workplace, retirement, management, pmba

not a good sign

2006-06-28T13:13:00.000-04:00

from management-issues: Leaders don't listen, don't manage and don't have a clear vision. And that article has links to the following:

I hate to come back on such a negative note, but at least I held off on reviewing the book I'm reading: Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction, and Economics. Now that's a fun read.

Brand You - Cash Cow or Rising Star?

2006-06-23T14:52:00.000-04:00

Seth Godin has posted about his friend Doug. Doug has done very well for himself, he has held about seven different jobs in 14 years with his company, and is highly respected in his organization.

Seth told him he needs to quit.

Doug needs to leave for a very simple reason. He's been branded. Everyone at the company has an expectation of who Doug is and what he can do. Working your way up from the mailroom sounds sexy, but in fact, it's entirely unlikely. Doug has hit a plateau. He's not going to be challenged, pushed or promoted to president. Doug, regardless of what he could actually accomplish, has stopped evolving -- at least in the eyes of the people who matter.

If he leaves and joins another company, he gets to reinvent himself. No one in the new company will remember young Doug from 10 years ago. No, they'll treat Doug as the new Doug, the Doug with endless upside and little past.

I'm on the fence with regards to Doug. I think it's true that in a new position, a Doug with endless upside potential could be exciting. But the truth is, it takes a lot of effort to re-launch a brand, and it sounds like he's worked hard enough to justify reaping the rewards.

If this is such a great idea for Doug, why wouldn't Seth take his own advice and walk away from his marketing-guru/author/lecturer brand? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't walk away from it either -- there is still plenty of life left it.

Maybe that's what it comes down to -- evaluate your personal brand against the old BCG matrix. I think Seth's point is that you want to be sure your brand and your career isn't a Dog, and I completely agree. It sounds like Doug has been a Star and is a now a Cash Cow. Using his brand capital to invest in new projects can bring him back up to a Star periodically or temporarily, but he probably can't pull that trick out of his hat too many more times (Seth's main point, I think). But he probably has time to milk the Cash Cow position before sliding into the Dog pound.

I guess in this analysis, Seth's brand is in the Cash Cow quadrant as well. Purple Cash Cow, of course. I get the feeling that would drive him nuts. I don't want to see Seth quit, not by a long shot, but I wonder how he would react if someone told him he needed to re-brand.

Tags: seth godin, Brand You, career branding, cash cow, rising star, pmba

haven't you figured out your life's purpose YET?

2006-06-22T01:30:00.000-04:00

Finding purpose: don't let it get you down

you know, the thing I take comfort in is this: I don't think anybody over the age of 60 will tell you that they figured out their life's purpose when they were in their early 20's. OK, maybe a small percentage, but I'm guessing the majority did not figure out their life's purpose until they were married (if they chose to marry), had kids (again, if that was their choice), and been stuck in a few dead-end jobs. Ghandi didn't really get things going in India until he was 47 (ok ok, he had started with the civil rights movement in South Africa in his 20's, but come on... that was Ghandi!)

for those of you seeking your life's purpose, here are a few tips from management-issues:

don't let it get you down
find it in the quiet spaces
find it outside of your own needs
find it in what gives you joy
find it in the small things

more here. and Patricia Soldati ends off with this:

A light, curious heart will attract your purpose to you. Didn't find it today? No problem…perhaps tomorrow. One thing's for sure, it will come. Each of you has a reason for being on this earth. No exceptions.

Tags: mission, purpose, values, pmba

what is your Prevailing Management Philosophy?

2006-06-22T01:07:00.000-04:00

management-issues discusses the need to have a Prevailing Management Philosophy:

Whether people watch you fall or rise is down to your Prevailing Management Philosophy.

So, what is the PMP's purpose? What does it look like? How do you get one?

The PMP is needed to help you make quick and useful decisions based on your chosen management style and to act as a rudder towards fulfilling your ambitions. It will ensure that you are always in control when the unexpected happens.

Your PMP is the third thing, after a short-term and long-term plan, that you can turn to when things happen that are not accounted for in the short-term and long-term plan...

Think of your PMP like a management religion. It is an arc that covers all possibilities, with a specific start and end point not written in specifics but in philosophy. You can't anticipate a divorce, but you can have a rationale that deals with what is more important, work or family. [...]

Think of your PMP like your 10 Commandments. Something that aids decision making in a few short easily remembered phrases. However, this religion is just about what you want, your strengths and your ambitions - your personal management morality handbook. Its purpose is to serve you in times of doubt to act decisively and confidently.

OK, OK, I'm thinking about my PMP already... now to codify it.

Tags: management philosophy, planning, pmba

Presentation Zen 'Methods'

2006-06-08T18:28:00.000-04:00

I was reading Presentation Zen today, I saw several "methods" among the list of his most popular posts:

The "Lessig Method"
The "Godin Method"
The "Kawasaki Method"
The "Takahashi Method"
The "Monta Method"
The "Microsoft Method" Not recommended -- a good study of what not to do
Tom Peters on Presentations Not acknowledged as a method per se, I think the writer dislikes the style but appreciates the substance of Tom's "Presentation Excellence"

I'm not sure what method the following slide would belong to, but it was on his main page and I liked it -- Inspiration is more important than adhering to a certain style.

Tags: pmba, presentations, powerpoint, zen, howto

Enron: Crime and Punishment

2006-06-07T19:42:00.000-04:00

We have had a lot of discussions about Enron in several of my MBA classes, from Accounting and Finance to Ethics. What surprised me this weekend was the claim by our ethics professor, who has toured the federal prisons that hold the worst white-collar criminals and assured us that they are not at all the summer-camp/ClubFed atmosphere that many people think. He said that Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling will almost certainly be killed in prison.

"Really?"

"Oh yes," he replied gravely. I wasn't at all comfortable with that, and was searching for something else to say when a classmate said, "good, they deserve it."

Dumbfounded, I was silent. But I wholly disagree. Skilling and Lay are very flawed, and they have committed some very serious crimes for which they should pay with significant jail time. But I don't believe they should pay with their lives.

Any thoughts?

Tags: enron, lay, skilling, justice, ethics, capital punishment, death penalty

in an economy of intangibles...

2006-05-31T12:26:00.000-04:00

Interesting post by Tom Peters:

The tawdry behavior of Skilling and Lay, and Fannie May execs (revealed in gory detail last week), is inexcusable.

But ...

Legal—as well as illegal—forms of such behaviors are likely to persist, and perhaps increase, as we experience the full-bore arrival of an economy whose basis is almost entirely intangibles. Just as the intellectual property lawyers will be driving Maseratis for the foreseeable future, all of us in enterprise will be wrestling with value-valuations in a world where the great economies have banked their coke ovens, scrapped their material goods—and come to depend on biotech scientists, programmers, experience providers (think Nike, Starbucks—yes Nike, which several years ago Fortune declared a service company, not a manufacturer), and the like.

New rules are needed for new games—and the shakedown cruise will be long and at times painful. (Think about Microsoft's continuing tribulations, now centered on the European Union, and the RIM-Blackberry patent dispute.)

I don't know about the need for "new rules" -- let's not forget that Skilling and Lay were found guilty under the rules in place before Sarbanes-Oxley became law. I believe that even with current regulations, a debacle like Enron could be repeated -- let's not forget that no less than 16 executives and traders went down in this conspiracy, plus their "independent" accountant and four executives of one of their banks. I think the only thing SOX ensures is that the CEO will have signed each financial report indicating that they know the contents, so Mr. Lay would no longer be able to claim he didn't know what was going on.

Maybe he's not talking about new regulation, but new rules to govern ourselves -- but what would those be? Don't invest in companies if you can't understand the accounting transactions? Practice skepticism if the valuation of a company sounds too good to be true? Those sound like old rules to me.

Tags: valuation, market, regulation, Enron, corporate governance

478-PETE

2006-05-25T01:56:00.000-04:00

How to re-invent a commodity business to tell a Purple Cow story.

The firm's name (478 PETE) is the phone number is the story is the guarantee. Of course Pete's not going to rip you off. He'd have to quit his great job at Metro-North to hide from you. Of course he's local, he's even got the exchange!

Bingo. Pete's set for life.

As told by Seth.

Feeling Groovy

2006-05-25T01:51:00.000-04:00

"Slow down, you move too fast,
you've got to make the morning last
Just kickin' down the cobble-stones,
lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy..."
-- Simon and Garfunkel

[Where is he going with this?]

Benton suggests you slow down your demeanor—words and actions. As you enter the office of a recruiter or a new boss, don’t rush over to the chair or meeting table, shake their hand, and spew out a string of clever ideas and observations. A sense of high energy may come across as nervousness, even fear. There are certain stereotypical characteristics that leaders possess. Embrace them. [link]

If there is one thing I admire about my boss, it is that he has learned to manage himself in this respect. I've seen him at Dave and Busters going berserker playing shoot-em-up arcade games, and I've seen him let his inner-geek out laughing at something obscure from Monty Python, but I've never seen that side of him at the office or in a professional situation. At times he can sound a little too scripted and mechanical, but most of the time it comes across as confident and that he has all his bases covered.

“I was working with a politician who was running for mayor,” explains Benton. “I asked him to imagine that he had already won and to act like the top elected official wherever he went. How would he dress? How would he conduct himself in a grocery store? How would he respond when people came up to talk with him?”

You can have all the IQ and ambition in the world, but if you can't manage yourself then you won't reach your full potential.

[btw, the referenced article seems to refer to EQ as Executive Intelligence, but anywhere else I have seen EQ it refers to Emotional Intelligence, and most of the EQ concepts they talk about seem to fit Emo-Intel.]

Tags: EQ, IQ, executive, intelligence, pmba

Setting up your Rewards System to Fail

2006-05-12T14:50:00.000-04:00

A year ago, our team was recognized by our client with an award from their Deputy Commissioner. We went downtown to a reception hall and received awards with a firm handshake from the CIO of this huge federal agency. Our company was mentioned three different times in front of the crowd of just under a thousand people as being fundamental to the ongoing success of the project.

Internally, our company has a web page where you can nominate people for a spot award. Well, not truly a "spot" award, they're awarded quarterly. They are cash bonus rewards and have Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels -- being the senior person in the group I nominated the other two coworkers that received the agency recognition to be considered for this spot award.

The rewards system must send an automated alert to the Partner (my boss's boss) when a nomination is made, and I received the following response from that Partner:

Subject: Beacon Award

I'll need to check with [Sr. Partner]. Normally, the sector lead decides who should submit. Will get back to you. I know, not the way the system is advertised, but the reality of it. Thanks for the input. Why her [BT] rather than you and TB?

One of the coworkers I nominated, BT, was a level below TB and I, and basically the Partner just asked me why I nominated a subordinate instead of myself -- that should have been a warning sign... My response:

I wasn't going to nominate myself… I may be a shameless self-promoter, but I have my limits :)

I nominated everyone recognized (BT and TB), and TB's nomination went to [another Manager]. He also responded that we should wait until the end of Deployments. (Will there ever be an End to deployments? Won't they potentially roll on forever?) [update: it's a year later, they still roll on with no end in sight...]

All I know is that the [agency] Commissioner and CIO sat there and heard three times that [our firm] was fundamental to a project that was being recognized. And it gave us the opportunity to have you meet the Commissioner. If that's not a good example of direct marketing, and worth a few dollars, I don't know what is.

If our sector leads make these decisions, who lets them know what's going on with projects (day-to-day and recognitions)? I thought that's what the nomination form was for, so they could be made aware. I'd rather have the nomination submitted and have them decide it's unworthy than have the nomination stop at our local office. [cw]

Yes, the Partner I was writing to attended the awards ceremony and met the Commissioner and CIO face-to-face, so the event was good for him as well. And despite his final reply, I'm pretty sure this nomination never got beyond the local level:

I've already sent a note to [Sr Partner] to see if we can get a nomination approved through our process. MDs normally make the decisions based upon input from the folks, then we go beg for a slot. It's nice to see someone recognized that people should be rewarded.

Yeah, it's nice to see that I could recognize people that should be rewarded. Unfortunately it seems the system was

Anybody in the firm can nominate somebody
Only nominations from Partners count
Even then, Partners have to "beg for a nomination slot" to get it submitted up the chain of command

BT left the company about two months later -- not due to this, but it certainly didn't give her an incentive to stick around. TB moved on to another project within the firm. Our Partner has since retired. And just recently, TB's manager (that declined TB's nomination) was given the Gold-level reward for renewal of the same project, while the rest of the team was recognized with email congratulations.

If you were the rest of the team, how would you interpret that?

Tags: reward+system, bonus, compensation, pmba, shafted

Be smarter at work, slack off

2006-05-11T20:04:00.000-04:00

There is no need to convince me that slacking is a good idea, but here are some quotes for the skeptical:

"Companies need to respect the time it takes to do strategic thinking," he says. "Task-oriented thinking is important too, of course. But bigger thinking is slow."

The late Peter Drucker agreed. He wrote in The Effective Executive (an eerily prescient 40 years ago), "All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done." Gulp.

Fortune: Be smarter at work, slack off
AdPulp: Cut yourself some slack
cool site: The Slacker Manager
Tags: slack, slacker, slacking, multitasking, innovation, pmba

Inspiration

2006-05-09T20:59:00.000-04:00

Motivation is getting a hold of an idea and carrying it out. Inspiration is the exact opposite, when an idea gets a hold of you and takes you where you were originally intended to go in the first place.

Tags: inspiration, motivation, pmba

Matching Personal and Corporate Values

2006-05-09T17:45:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of renaming this blog to "management-issues redirect" since that's all I seem to be doing lately, but they consistently have interesting articles.

Finding an organisation worth working for is a great resources of questions to ask and tactics to use if you're looking for an organization that won't flunk a "spiritual audit".

Hidden behind the endless talk of organizational values are profit-driven, high-pressure labor camps trading paychecks - and diminishing perks – for your soul. All of which means that uncovering a company's corporate culture is a critical task for today's job searcher. As important as the job itself.

The first step is to identify your own cultural values, then research what you can from the company website and objective (potentially hostile) 3rd party sites such as WetFeet or Vault. Finally, arrive early for interviews to gauge the company culture yourself and ask culture-based questions in the interview. The linked article has a long categorized list of useful questions.

Tags: corporate+culture, spritual+audit, values, job+search, mission

Embrace Obscurity when launching Plan A

2006-05-04T01:47:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, I was quite a fan of Robert Kiyosaki's 'RichDad philosophy' (not so much anymore, but that's a topic for another post). I was introduced to the books by a coworker who refers to his day job, working for somebody else, as Plan B. Kiyosaki called Plan B 'the rat race' and the goal is to get through the end of each month; Plan A has a goal of financial independence and abundance.

For different people Plan A might be investing in real estate, starting or buying a business, developing an invention/product, or even writing a book and becoming a self-proclaimed financial guru so that you can live off speaking engagements and book royalties (but as I said, more on that in another post). The key thing is to remember that Plan B is Plan B -- you're doing it because you have bills to pay. But if you ever want to get beyond Plan B, you need to keep working on Plan A.

Signal vs. Noise observes the safety of developing Plan A quietly, aka Embracing Obscurity:

The beauty of starting a side business is that you can fail in obscurity. Many people worry that they’ll languish in obscurity. Don’t worry about having a great idea that no one knows about. Worry about having a bad idea that everyone knows about.

Some Plan As that started off small and fairly obscure: Yahoo, eBay, Craigslist, Google. Perhaps you've heard of them.

[Via AdPulp: A Little Action On The Side]
Tags: side+business, startup, obscurity