You didn't notice the lights were different sizes?

Humans, not just managers, have a problem letting go of control. It's what we do!

Our neighbor was on a tirade because her husband messed up putting the Christmas lights on their house. I had noticed him on previous days, he was trying hard, I admired his ambition. Up the ladder, move the ladder, install clips, he was out there working for a long time. He plugged in the lights, eureka, beautiful! Even Rudolph lit up.

We meet sometimes early on garbage day. This time she was angry, frustrated, at her wits end. She sounded ready for divorce. Apparently, her husband, who I thought had done a heck of nice job, hadn't noticed the lights were two different sizes. Different bulbs! Shivers ran through me. My neighbor's relationship, years of marriage, it was all up in the air. I was sure realtors would arrive and a for sale sign was going up on his lawn. It had to be that way. After-all, the man couldn't be trusted to use the same size Christmas lights for the front of his house.

With my philosopher hat on, I thought, - how dumb is this? Who really cares? It's the little things which kill relationships, at home and at work. Nit picky, hair splitting, granular, angry, intense irrelevance twisted to dominate the other guy. And then we wonder why we have a morale, turnover, or divorce problem. It will be six months before these two kiss again.

There are several management delegation lessons here. Don't sweat the small stuff. People all do things differently than you. Worry about what they did, not how they did it. If you do have a quality concern, then build it into the requirements when you delegate.

I know my neighbor. I know he's not evil. If he had been told not to confuse the light bulb sizes and keep same size bulbs together, he would have gladly done it. A lot of delegation suffers from the same problem. Afterthoughts, adding requirements after we've given the order and then blaming the person we delegated it to.

Some points on using milestones to avoid delegation problems, - before it's too late! Use milestones. Milestones are markers that allow you to adjust the project before completion.

If you don't hit the deliverables, you probably also missed the milestones.

Milestones give distance and direction information.

Milestones tell us decision consequences and allow you to adjust the project.

Milestones are actually project structure. They are building blocks.

If you have good milestones, you'll delegate and maintain control.



The real lesson is, - lighten up, smile more. Things just go better at home and at work! Let the little things slide. The lights are up, the downside is minimal, go get some eggnog.

Merry Christmas!
Wolfgang

p.s. Merry Christmas, or whatever your excuse for taking time off.

p.s Assembling the A Team. Unique, hard to fill, exceptional.
Building key management and professional teams. What if you deliberately set out to hire the only right person for the job? What would happen to your company? If every role on your key management team had the most perfect player in it. If every professional slot had the most sophisticated brainpower in it. What then? Email me, I'll send you my thinking on it. I'll tell you why and how I do it. Email wolf@managing.ca.

Onboarding. Making New Hires Stick.

Onboarding, a word not connected to midwifery, is supposed to represent that fragile early period of a new hire. Those first six months where the emotional connection and commitment to your company is being formed. Common sense would cover off many of these points but we are in 2012, a time in history where mothers buy knee pads for babies and your new supervisor still lives with his parents.

I compiled and presented this list in one of our seminars. Use it in your company and prevent hiring failure. Hiring is too expensive and time consuming to have fail six months later.

Onboarding – how to make new hires stick.

1. Hook new hires up with your best manager or team. That experience will become the setpoint for the rest of their tenure with your firm.
2. Clear and simple direction, repeated often. Lost and confused people quit easily.
3. KPIs using numbers.
   • Give new hires clear direction in the form of KPIs.
   • Communicate: If we were to fire you, here's why it will happen.
   • Your first performance review will ask for the following.
4. Form individual relationships fast. Manager to new hire, cement the connection.
5. Narrow discretionary decision making range.
   Don't ask people to "solve a business unit problem." Ask them to do a series of activities. Provide a yellow brick road. Do not ask them to design the road.
6. Give new hires more frequent feedback than existing employees.
   Once a week for the first three months.
7. For managers and sales, give clear budgets, quotas, expense budgets.
8. Provide strategic objectives. Give them big picture focus.
9. Reduce the number of other managers influencing a new hires life. New people need one boss, not many.
10. Meet often. Staff meetings, sales meetings. Listen, help, redirect but do not reprimand or correct.
11. Provide constant support. Have other staff handy and alerted to new hire's needs. New hires give up more easily on small problems than existing staff.
12. Pay attention to existing staff. They're watching for two things; favouritism, and management mistakes. Be sure you're right.
13. Keep negative people away. Control who connects with your new hire. Allow positive people close.

Start new hires carefully. A successful company is an amazing thing.

Wolfgang

Some useful links . . .

1. Information about our pre-hiring verification program.
2. Information about our testing service.
3. Information about our outsourced human resources service.

Shoes, and Light Lager.

Nobody appreciates Metro Town Mall until they've arrived here from Yak. We take it for granted. If you're like me, and you haven't arrived from anywhere, Metro Town is just a massive, endless, collection of retail stores. I like Metro Town. After some social desensitizing and relearning how to look through people, and not at them, I cope quite well. 

Family, visitors, it's all nice. You go to places you wouldn't normally go to. I went up the glass elevator to Harbour Centre's amazing observation deck. Beautiful. Without visitors to guide, I would never have gone up. We also went to Metro Town, why I don't know. I briefly thought about Jerry Harvey's Road to Abilene management lesson. The reason's seemed the same. 

After some time in the mall, we noticed one of our group wasn't going to come out of a shoe store. She agonized, pondered, tried on another pair of shoes, sent them back, then repeated it all again. She walked out of the store, almost, then turned around and went back in. Her face showed big stress. She didn't really like the shoes, but felt she had to make a decision, she had to buy something. This went a little too long. 

My great daughter figured it out. She want back, took the lady by the arm and said, "Susan, you don't have to buy shoes here. There are another forty shoe stores in this mall. Most of them on this floor. Come, let's go to another store and look for shoes that you really like." 

Susan looked up, blank face. She said, "Oh, right, I forgot." 

Susan was from Andrews Florida, population 530. Shoe stores, one, very small at the back of the local family clothing store. If you need shoes in Andrews Florida, you'll have to decide from in-store stock. Your other option is to leave without new shoes. Coming from Andrews and landing in Metro Town has to be a mind warp. 

Yes I know Aldo's online delivers to your home and Amazon probably has shoes as well. The management lesson is this. Our history, our context, delivers up our options. How many choices do we have on our mental shelf? Like good sheep, we tend to think inside that box. It's part of being human. When shopping in Metro Town Mall is bigger than town you live in, - it's a bit surreal. I don't care how smart you are, you're not going to respond correctly. You will be governed by context. 

Over time we can introduce new habits. Acclimatization. Humans are survivors, we adjust. But in a business setting, it might not be fast enough. A major management function is to match people with the work. Load levelling they call it. When you move people into different departments, give them different projects, hire, cross train, remember, and plan to see some of their history will show up in their work. 

I'm German. I will be on time, and if you hang around long enough, a light lager will show up somewhere. 

Look at the person. Look at their history. You will get both. 

Have a great day, 
Wolfgang 
Partner 

p.s. A quicker way to make the point is to watch Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady."

Pessimism is learned, and some learn it well.

In Cancun all the ocean facing restaurants are shielded by 3/4" thick glass. In Puerto Vallarta the same restaurants are open to the ocean. The difference is the winds. On the Carribean side the tradewinds blow constantly only to pickup when a storm approaches. You don't see a lot of small sailboats on the water. In Puerto Vallarta the water is calm, lots of small craft.

I slowly exchanged social niceties with a seemingly nice guy. Weather, sun, would you live here, - that kind of thing. A car dealer from Idaho, I should have seen it coming. I tend to talk about nothing until I can figure out how much grief you're going to give me. It's my social reconnaissance flight over what could be enemy territory. Starting a conversation is easy. Getting out of a conversation is a bit more difficult.

How did we get from the weather to what's wrong with the world economy in less than two minutes? This guy new exactly, loudly, and in great detail what was causing what, all the guilty parties and who should go to jail. I'm on vacation, or was, and this energy sinkhole was jarring me back to reality. How absurd. An angry guy is in my face, and he's not even angry at me. Senor, dos cervezas, por favor.

I started thinking about people in companies and how the same condition exists. How angry people work side by side with happy people, in the same company, and eventually wear them down with all their pessimism. Like the car dealer, they forget their good life, their paycheque and vacations, and only choose to dwell on the dark side of everything.

Optimism, pessimism, it's only how people explain life to themselves. It has nothing to with how life actually is. Pessimism is learned.

For managers the problem is that pessimists will stop when work is difficult. Optimists keep going. Pessimists wear other people down while optimists will build them up. Wikipedia has this to add:

"Optimistic people believe bad events to be more temporary than permanent and bounce back quickly from failure. They believe good things happen for reasons that are permanent. They see specific temporary causes for negative events; pessimists point to permanent causes.

Optimists compartmentalize helplessness, whereas pessimists assume that failure in one area of life means failure in life as a whole. Optimistic people allow good events to brighten every area of their lives rather than just one particular area.

Optimists blame bad events on causes outside of themselves, whereas pessimists blame themselves for events that occur. Optimists are therefore generally more confident. Optimists internalize positive events, pessimists externalize them."

Ska, it's happy! The beer is cold. The moon is low over the beach. Where is my woman? I have to get away from this guy. Run Forrest run.

Pessimism is fatal. Choose to work with happy people. It's good for you and good for productivity.

Wolfgang

p.s Book suggestion: Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman.

Ask for more information about these productivity tools

1. Performance reviews, how to outsource them.
2. Employee opinion testing.
3. Adding an optimist / pessimist test to your hiring practices.
4. Building functioning management teams.
5. Psychometric trait and behaviour testing.
6. Human resources, people issues.
7. Six steps to high moral.
8. Performance coaching tools for mangers

Big Bird, - bait?

Watching the Obama Romney USA presidential election process, I'm completely awed by the duration and scope of what's going on. It's a marathon.

What is new, is the amount of negotiation or tactical brain power both camps are displaying. In itself that's not new, but they are taking it to extremes. Neither candidate can say anything without it backfiring.

Romney talks about PBS cuts, including Big Bird. Obama's next day ads make fun of the idea that Big Bird might be the cause of America's financial woes.

Day 2, the media and Romney's camp observe two things. Americans are worried about jobs and their president is worrying about Big Bird. Ouch!

Secondly, the debate was days ago, Obama lost. Do you think it's smart to remind everyone about your worst moments? Even though the big bird ads are funny, they're about a two hour evening where you were beaten badly. Smart would be to let it pass and deal with issues.

To make matters worse, the Sesame Street people are angry because Obama used their Big Bird trademark character without their consent.

Who knew this was going to ricochet all over the place like a stray bullet?

Did Romney setup Obama hoping he'd take the bait? Did Obama's ego not allow him to see this was a backward step loaded with other problems?

Regardless, a couple of negotiation lessons come out of it.

1. If you can use the other guys points against him, it's supposed to work. But not always.
2. Most end games are limited (prisoner to) the earlier moves we made. How you set it up defines how it ends.
3. Every move you make creates a 'wake,' or backwash. Everything has collateral effects. Turbulence. It pushes both players in some other direction.
4. The more moves, or outcomes you can envision ahead, the greater your chance of reaching your objectives. The problem with exponential possibilities is they soon spin out of control. Ask Bernie Madoff.

Our next seminar is Wed. Oct. 24th, at the Terminal City Club. I have almost no seats left but please ask. Things change up to the last moment.

Let's build great companies together!
Wolfgang 

How Trait Testing Becomes a Management Advantage.

Testing reaches into every level, 100% of your company's employees. Make testing part of your hiring practices. Here's why.

1. Testing is three times more effective at predicting behaviour than is interviewing. Anyone that is being interviewed, has to be tested.
2. Job fit. Workplace and culture fit translate into morale, teamwork, and productivity. Only people working in their correct roles can produce at high levels.
3. Company morale. Use testing to establish a company culture benchmark to measure all new hires against.
4. Often managers hire individually across a company. Testing ensures uniform hiring practices.
5. Testing candidates generates specific questions for managers to use to drill down in second interviews.
6. Without test results for each person, managers are working blind. Managers can't manage people they don't understand. Pushing for compliance is not enough.

Managers assess people at three levels:

Level 1. - Candidate appears to. (Interviewing, in person meetings)
Level 2. - Candidate can do. (Resume, experience, skills, education)
Level 3. - Candidate will do. (Testing, character, work ethic, maturity, personality traits).

It doesn't matter how great the candidate is if they "won't do." After you read the resume, determine if they "will do." Make testing a management tool to push productivity.

For more information call Metrik Management Inc. at 604-931-6813 or email Wolf@managing.ca

Worst way to choose a candidate? Interview them.

The most frequent response we get from candidates sent to a client interview is that the interviewer did all the talking. Presidents are the worst offenders! They don't ask many questions but spend the interview time singing the praises of their company. Maybe not always, but it's been that way for the last 25 years.

When the interviewer dominates the conversation, a couple of things go wrong.

1. When you talk, you're investing emotionally in the candidate. From then on, you'll tend to discount negative information. Eg.,, reference checks that are marginal, testing results that show weakness and the findings of your other managers who interviewed the candidate will have a reduced impact.
2. When you talk, you don't learn anything. Everything you're saying you hopefully already know. (I realize that doesn't always hold true.) Having the candidate learn about you is the opposite of what interviews are for.
3. It makes you sound needy. Candidates will wrongly get the impression your company is selling hard, because it can't fill the position. It makes negotiating a final job offer that much more difficult.
4. The really big problem is that interviews, as a way of predicting a candidate's success rate, are terrible. Interviews are only 14% effective. More correctly, interviews fail us 86% of the time!

What to do. Most companies use three predictive tools, including testing, reference checking and interviewing. Here's how well each of these tools works for you.

       Testing for ability             53% most accurate
       Testing for personality     38% accurate
       Reference checking         26% accurate
       Interviewing                    14% least accurate

The best way of understanding the true capabilities of any candidate is to combine all three. Do each step thoroughly and the numbers say you could be over 80% correct in your hiring decisions.

Many people, myself included, rely heavily on interviews. I find these numbers counter intuitive, but it is what the research says. Interviews are only 14% accurate when it comes to predicting employee performance.

If you have questions about management issues or hiring choices, write me an email.

Make better people choices, build better companies.

Regards,
Wolfgang
Partner

1. Note: Think Tank for senior managers, October 24th, Terminal City Club, Vancouver. Subject: How to Negotiate Agreement and Negotiation. This is a small group event. Phone 604-931-6813
2. Source: These numbers may vary between researchers but interviewing tends to remain the least effective predictive tool while testing, in it's varied forms, tends to be the most accurate predictor of future performance. These numbers above were taken from the book "Hire the Best" by M. Mercer PH.D. He shows them as being taken from five different research sources.

I mean, - if you're not on facebook, - who are you?

Tim Horton's defines Canadian culture and makes a profit. The CBC was supposed to do that, but hasn't figured it out. Our government gives the CBC $1B a year, sort of a training budget, so eventually they will also learn how to define Canadian culture.

You and I know that Canadian culture is defined by Facebook, iPhones, and Tim Hortons. We don't know who the person is that thinks the CBC is involved but he's costing us a cool $1B. What we get for $1B is interviews with people who've volunteered to go without Facebook for a month. It's information we need more of in Canada.

A female university student being interviewed about the real trauma she endured on one of these one month no facebook experiments. She felt a complete outsider, suffered loneliness, had to deal with inner emptiness and loss of meaning, missed some parties, and felt a genuine disconnect from humanity. The damage was real, her pain was real and the tender CBC interviewer truly understood her.

Her best line, "I mean, if you're not on facebook, who are you?"

Our priorities in this first world haven are a bit special. Other parts of the world worry about not getting killed, starvation, and disease but in Canada we have a generation who feels the same pain by volunteering to go off facebook for a month. What's worse, the publicly funded CBC legitimizes the delusion by interviewing this person as if this was a story.

Somewhere there is a manager who will have to manage this facebook withdrawal victim.

1. Silliness needs your permission to thrive.
2. "Suck it up Princess" (Prince or Buttercup) is a useful phrase.
3. The follow-up punch from silly people often includes ideas like abuse, traumatized, stress leave, or "me-day."
4. Silly people expect you to put meaning into their work. You generally respond by providing pizza on Friday.

In truth, you can't help, or manage, and should never hire, anyone who thinks one month without Facebook is a personal trauma. Using words like "work ethic" or "sense of duty" will only make things worse. Don't try.

Oprah won and now she's retiring.

Let's build great organizations,
Wolfgang

p.s. Think Tank, - Oct. 24th, Terminal City Club, for senior managers. Small group. Almost full. Subject, - "How to Negotiate Agreement and Cooperation"

p.s. This is a true story. I was scanning radio stations and came across this CBC interview. You can't make this stuff up.                

How Badminton Replaced Hopscotch at the Olympics

Why it's assumed we care about badminton, fencing, canoeing, archery. table tennis and a host of other activities which aren't visible for four years, I do not know. Or, maybe we do care. What was the conversation that replaced the game of jacks with archery? What got hopscotch thrown out? Is there a power point presentation which shows there's more money in badminton than in hopscotch?

It doesn't matter what you do in your business but it has to makes sense to your people. Otherwise you spend all your time managing bad behaviour.

Bad behaviour in badminton. The Beijing badminton scandal where Chinese players threw the games in a bid to get more favorable draws later in the tournament. They sprayed shuttles into the net just to get through the matches. Thousands of spectators watched in disbelief as a bunch of "Generation-Me" kids, - not grasping for a minute what it should mean to be in the Olympics, - enshrined themselves in history by not caring about the game, but only about the winning.

Canada is pushing the same values-vacant "own the podium" slogan. Excellence is trampled by win at any cost. If you use 'own the podium" as the standard, then the Beijing team did the right thing. Once we strip values out of anything it takes you into some strange directions with some results you never bargained for.

A couple of thoughts come to mind.

1. If it's only about a gold medal, cheating becomes ok. If you want to bring out excellence in your people, you focus on excellence, not money.
2. Excellence can motivate for a lifetime. Money will motivate for a day.
3. Your new quarterly goal can be "badminton," just make sure they know why you bumped "hopscotch." You can make any decision you want, but it has to make sense to your team or nobody will care.
4. Be consistent. Trying to get people excited about badminton once every four years won't light a fire of participation. Only daily, unwavering, long-term commitment will inspire those around us.

Morale building, teamwork, employee engagement is what great managers are good at. Great managers build great companies by not focusing on the gold, the money. They focus on individual greatness and excellence. It is how they inspire exceptional performance in ordinary people.

I am not against badminton, or your new quarterly goals, but could you mention it more than once every four years?

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

Two Iron Chef's. Only One Would Make it in my Kitchen.

Iron Chef. Next time you watch it, imagine these are your managers. As in business, each is given the same key ingredient, raw materials, time, workplace, and after one hour, each ends up with a completely different interpretation of what great food should look like. Fabulous results, but 'different.'

Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, Anthony Bourdain, Lynn Crawford, the list is long and distinguished. They are all great but they are not interchangeable. Each can excel in a restaurant, but they cannot excel in every restaurant. Each has their own style, their own idea of what great food is.

Certainly some chef's are better than others but what's more important is that in many instances both chefs are excellent, though their results are so different. In your restaurant only one chef, or one manager, can actually excel. Only one can take you to your goals.

That's my point here. We may think we can choose between great managers but in truth only one will succeed in your kitchen. The other, though great, would create results your company just can't integrate or make use of. Great chef, wrong kitchen. Fit, culture, feel, values, so many variables.

Choose carefully for the success of our business depends on it. Where you have critical choices to make for key positions, please call me. Management projects requiring executive fit, skills and culture tailored for your organization is what we do.

Thank you,
Wolfgang

Jack Welch said, "with the right people in place, things just get better. With the wrong people in place, things just get worse."

Is this candidate a fake, or a Chagall?

Somewhere in my reading I learned that the art world is saturated with forgeries and fakes. There are so many no one knows exactly which painting is by a master and which is an original or a reproduction. Over 50% of the great masterpieces have never met a great master, - they are forgeries. The experts will tell you they can tell a masterpiece from a fake, but the facts don't quite support their ambitions.

Many of these paintings are as good or better than the great artists of history would have painted. There are many websites and even trade letters which list, follow and categorize thefts, forgeries and fakes on the market. Fake art is a time honoured industry!

I've read a few books, among them, "The man who made Vermeers", "Provenance," and "The Caravaggio Conspiracy," (Peter Watson has more nerve than I'll ever have). Fascinating books about very clever people, all ending in the same place. A Vermeer might not be a Vermeer. A Chagall might not be a Chagall, and nobody really knows for sure. Even the art experts and historians at Christies and Southeby's in London and New York who appraise and sell them for millions, don't know. Some make it through the system, some get caught. The art world is like the wild west. Chagall, $4m today. $10,000 tomorrow if it's a good forgery.

So how do you tell the difference between an original master and a reproduction? The answer is, provenance. Provenance is the chronology of ownership and location of a historical object.

A resume is the provenance of the candidate. Forged resumes, reproductions, fake credentials and experience is also a time honoured tradition. Why not say you managed twenty people when it means your next position could pay $25k more? Why not say you completed your degree when there is a high likelihood that no one will ever check.

Resume fraud doesn't carry jail time yet can change your life! Who gets hurt? Do your job, enjoy the perks. If you get caught? Resign and claim misunderstanding.

Most managers don't really know the person they're hiring. It's a gamble. Your best bet is to establish provenance, chronology of the candidate. Verify each piece of what you are given.

The punch line? In the book, "Provenance," John Drewe's trick was to forge the paper trail behind the fake master. He forged provenance. So even provenance is not quite enough to separate the fakes from the Chagalls!

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

· Call us before you decide on your next hire. Ask for a full pre-employment verification report. Let us establish candidate provenance. Call Metrik Management Inc. 604-931-6813.

"Are Americans Always Making Excuses?"

Not my title but the title of a great article, (see source below) which I uncovered in my research on meetings. I wanted to include a small section on Hansei meetings, part of the Toyota way teaching an attitude of self reflection.

Despite the bad press, I don't mind our RCMP, here's why. After going through a road block in the Dominican, setup for the express purpose of extracting bribes from drivers, (full flak gear and machine guns), our RCMP started looking pretty good.

I asked our Dominican driver, "how does this escape the attention of the local police chief, or the media?" I was told, "the chief assigns roadblocks to raise money for him and his officers."

Our RCMP may have a raft of dysfunctional issues but I've never been asked for payola at a local roadblock. Which all takes me to the RCMP commissioner's apologist line where he suggested that if the RCMP was good enough for him, it couldn't be that bad. (Author Paul Plango).

Funny, yes? If you employ people who think lowering the standard or improving the process are the same thing, - send them to the Dominican.

Going back to the Hansie meeting article and the idea that Americans, (Canadians) tend to make excuses rather than seek improvement, there's some truth to that. It's a bit of our positive thinking culture but it doesn't make for many learning moments.

Lean thinking asks these questions.

• What can we do to avoid this problem in the future? 
• How can we make sure this doesn't happen again? 
• How can we prevent re-occurrence of this incident? 
• What can we learn from this? 
• How can we do better next time? 
• What ideas do you have for improving in the future?

These are great process improvement questions to ask at meetings because they solve root cause. They dig deep. Lowering the standard to our personal best, won't improve anything, not even the RCMP.

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

p.s. Source: Rochelle Kopp, Managing Principal, Japan Intercultural Consulting. "Are Americans always making excuses?" Feb. 2012.

What if two smart people can't agree on something?

It's situations like this that remind us managing is closer to parenting than we want to admit. It's why we have managers and mothers, to get us through the parts of life where we lose sight of what's supposed to be happening. Kids fighting over a toy, teens fighting over who gets the car, and manager's debating over who's right while a meeting goes nowhere.

No matter how corporate, all organizational life is reduced to a very human level. Nothing is quite as constant as the people problems we have with meetings. Yesterday a group asked - what if two managers both feel strongly that they're the ones to make the final decision? What if two people both sincerely feel they have the right answer, but can't agree?

Here's how to look at that issue. As much as feelings are important, moving the company's purpose forward is more important. Of course if you've done your manager job correctly your people are also hyper emotionally engaged, so they disagree even more! Emotionally engaged people can sure get excited about any decisions effecting "their" company. Regardless, remind everyone about the larger purpose. Put things into context.

The next issue is more difficult. It's the idea of compromising an ideal solution for one that is acceptable to both people. Consensus. We may disagree on many things, but we can agree on one issue.

Perfection also masks inaction. Sometimes going for the perfect answer covers up the fact that nothing is happening. Inaction is the result of perfection.

In group meetings many problems solve themselves once we remember what we all signed up for. We're not here to get things our way, or have a perfect answer, we are here to move the company's objectives forward. When we remember our original purpose, original question answers itself.

Tip: Put it into context, teach people the value of consensus and come to the seminar! On Thurs. Jun 14th my seminar is about holding effective meetings. Learn how to turn meetings into productive management tools! Join me, bring your team.

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

Reservations: 604-931-681. Or email us at info@managing.ca

p.s. Do you need a Meeting Makeover?
If your meetings are in trouble, if people don't attend or can't agree, I have 3-part meeting makeover solution. No meeting is too boring, too hated, too unpopular, or too abusive for me for me to turn around! When I save your company's business meetings I save your company. Please call me. Wolf 604-931-6813. Email wolf@managing.ca Thank you.

I'm a Princess, and you're all going to cover for me.

Twenty seven years old, $60,000 in debt, mommy, daddy and boyfriend lending, giving, paying and generally getting sucked into the Princess' irresponsible, GTL (gym, tan, laundry, - it's a lifestyle) and it's not my fault I don't have a job, behaviour.

Like a traffic accident, you know you should move on and change the channel but you watch anyway. Whether you like the show, Gail Vaz-Oxlade or her "Princess" show is not the point. Focus on the young people she's trying to reconnect back to reality.

All I can think of is that at some time, we all employ people like that. They send us resumes, we waste time on them and if we're lucky, we finally hit that irresponsible part of their character and shunt them into the 'no' pile. The scary part is some of them actually get through the system and get hired. I'm shuddering as I write this.

Mom and dad are standing by with that neutered, guilty, grin, - the same attitude their princess has developed, silently signalling, "Who, me? She may be our daughter but we didn't teach her this spoiled, self centered behaviour. Don't know where that came from. "

It gets better. I watch one mom jump angrily to her slacker daughter's defense. Now both are forever on TV and YouTube showing the world how to make spoiled, irresponsible entitlement a family virtue. Yes, a train wreck. I shouldn't watch. But, TV producers aren't stupid, they know what attracts an audience.

It's obvious to watch for this behaviour at time of hiring. What's not so obvious is not spending time on these entitled characters when they're already on payroll. Coaching and training is wasted on people with no redeeming character qualities. It only works on good people. Do some digging, find out about their life, their values, their family life, their hobbies and pass times. What is their world view? Their values?

There a many variations on this "Princess" theme. They all end up in the same place, - people who don't want to work or take responsibility. People who really don't want to be helped. People you and I are never going to make effective.

Spend your time on good people. Replace the rest. Jim Collins didn't write the book for nothing. Human resources management requires we focus our resources where they have some chance of paying back.

If you ever wonder which half of your workforce is part of your next twenty years, call us. We'll bring the tools and find out for you.

See you for breakfast ,
Wolfgang

Next workshop,
Date: Thurs. June 14th, Deer Lake, Heritage Village, Burnaby. (Discovery Room)
Subject: "How to Hold Effective Meetings."
If you struggle with meetings, have too many ineffective meetings, or suffer meeting fatigue, this seminar will put your meeting process on a productive, (and popular) track. Different reasons to have meetings, (or not) and the tools, and ideas for structuring team and company meetings. (More information, click to brochure.)

Reserve your seats, email or call 604-931-6813. Thank you.

"It's ok to Make a Profit. That's Where Job Security Comes From."

Wednesday morning with one hundred managers starting the day at the beautiful Planetarium. Sensational room, floor to ceiling windows overlooking English Bay. What could be better? Subject Conflict resolution. How to get people working together when you just can't fire everybody.

I've avoided teaching conflict resolution for years. My first choice is to get people who are committed to the cause. When people really care about the same things, conflict seems to be missing. Anyway, years go by, I softened my position, and even did the seminar.

A piece in the seminar was worth repeating in the newsletter. The idea that managers are too quick to take ownership of too many things. That they run scared begging for political approval, and as a result, invite conflict where there shouldn't be any.

Have you ever seen a dog chase a stationary car? Not likely. Dogs only chase moving cars and when the car stops, even the dog loses interest. As long as you run from tough issues, people in your company will continue to chase you. When you actually stand firm, hold your ground, most of them will drop the issue. They too will lose interest.

One of those tough issues is being accused of running your company for profit, and of shedding people when times get tough. Here is how I'd like you to look at that.

1. Don't apologize for profit. Profit is called job security. When profit stops, jobs are lost. Anyone against profit is also against job security.
2. The people who accuse you of making a profit, would never have accepted a job with your company had you told them you were losing money.
3. Don't apologize for layoffs. All layoffs begin with the least contributing people. Even when whole departments are eliminated, the company will go to great lengths to relocate it's great people and retain them. On those occasions when you have to lay off great people, it's really about your ability to stay afloat. It's not personal.
4. Be proud that you value contribution. Employees who advance the company's objectives have to be valued first. Any company with integrity has to place seniority, nepotism, and social affiliation a distant second.
5. Our world has many choices. If these values don't appeal to you, please look elsewhere.

To young managers, say what's right. Don't hide from things that your company is based on. Contribution is what got you here in the first place. Value those employees who do the contributing. 

See you for breakfast,
Wolf 

p.s When you think like a producer, and not a consumer, you'll understand your company better.

"Ketchup Might Not be Medicine."

Over the summer holidays between grade one and two, my teacher Ms. Rasmussen sold my parents a set of World Book Encyclopedias! I suppose the World Book sales managers figured out that teachers had a pretty good built in contact network. Back then class sizes were 40+ students, which meant about 40+ families who could buy a set of Encyclopedias. 

Red, simulated leather grain covers, coated paper, black and white but with special full color sections for pictures! Each book weighed about five pounds. There were 28 volumes and I read, thumbed, paged, studied every one of them cover to cover on the front porch when the weather was nice. I loved those books. I don't know how they were delivered to our home and I certainly don't know how my parents paid for them since we didn't have any money. And the world ran just fine. 

Do I think iPhones, iPads and social media are important? Not really. What happens when everyone is connected to everyone else? Not much. If you want to start a revolution on facebook, the governments just shut down the internet. If you want feedback on your dumb idea only those trying to sell you something and the obnoxious bullies will respond. 

If you're left turning lane is not moving because the idiot at the front is busy texting, you're witnessing the real life impact of technology. 

My point here is, worry a little less about what you think and a little more about where your thinking gets you. Does any of this stuff have real results? Big studio movie promotion budgets don't include social media, - that ought to tell you something. 

Here's where listening to other people gets you. We used to think the Russians were a serious world power. All that got us was some good James Bond movies. Until about 1895, we used to think Ketchup was medicine. Madonna is better at teaching our children in class sizes of 20,000 than our teachers are with class sizes of 18. Steve Jobs ran a secretive, top down controlling empire and built great products. Apple is a need to know dictatorship. Our governments showed us that paying employees 20% over market reduces productivity. Global warming is brought to us by people who can't tell you whether it's going to rain tomorrow. 

Stop listening to other people. The next person trying to convince you of something is probably taking ketchup as medicine. Listen to the voice inside of you. Look around at the results. You're a manager. If it works, do it. If it doesn't work, stop doing it. Do what's right, do what's next. 

April 18th, be there! My workshop is about resolving conflict. You won't believe your ears, your children may not recognize you when you get home, - but you will be a fiercely better manager!

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang 

p.s. I think managers are limited by all the theories they're bombarded with. With so much nonsense around I encourage you to follow your own path. The best answer is probably your answer. 

p.s. I like my iPhone, I don't need an iPad, I do think email changed how we live our lives. Big ideas, clear thinking, useful thinking, results, all are not dependant on interconnectivity. Greece had the internet. The 2008 financial meltdown had the benefit of the internet. Blackberry / RIM had the internet. Christy Clarke has the internet. How's that working out? (BTW / Penicillin happened without the internet. Unbelievable.) 

Dumb is dumb, smart is smart. A stand alone concept. And ketchup is not medicine. And, it's ok to begin a sentence with 'and.' 

"How Did Lady Gaga Get to be in Charge?"

There is this idea that you need official authority to get anything done. Woe is me, how do I influence a bunch of people when I can't really fire any of them? Dogs don't have real authority and they get a lot of stuff done. They run entire households. They influence everybody. Families design their life around the dog. Watch Cesar Milan and see who's running the household, (and his show). It's the dogs that are in charge. Dogs don't have business cards with titles. They have no official authority yet they have a tremendous effect on every one of us.

I thought about this need for official authority, and am no longer sure it's a real issue. Even Bill Clinton, then President of the United States said, "being president is like running a cemetery. You have a lot of people under you but nobody is listening." If the President can't rely on official authority, I'm certain it's not going to do you much good either. All of us, even the powerful, end with only unofficial authority.

One of the attributes people who delegate or lead others have is a disproportionate sense of competency. Sort of like Lady Gaga. Let's be clear, "Lady," is a 25 year old kid born in 1986, when the Pet Shop Boys had their hit, "West End Girls." How long ago was that, really? "Lady" sort of missed the memo about 10,000 hours of practice for master level performance, and went straight to the front of the bus. Reason? She has a disproportionate sense of competency and authority. Completely out of whack with who she really is.

It's not about official titles or authority. Before you can influence anyone, delegate, lead or supervise, you have to deeply believe you deserve to be at the front and you also have to do it better than the other guy. Lady Gaga leads because she thinks she can and because she can. She's very, very good at what she does.

First, you have to think you can. Secondly, you have to be very, very good at what you do. When those two things are in place, you don't need official authority. You'll be in charge. People will follow you freely. Delegating is not about authority, it's about having a following. Lady Gaga is in charge because she has a following.

On March 14th come join us for breakfast at the Burnaby Village Museum, where we'll discuss delegation. Workshop starts 7:59am sharp, - we're already 80% full.

See you for breakfast!
Wolf

Comments about March 14th seminar. "Learn to Delegate Effectively"

What I mean is delegate without losing control, when you don't have all the power and when you're befuddled because you're wearing too many hats.

There are a couple of things about delegating that worry managers

• Losing control. Either on deadlines or quality of the work. Managing delivery.
• Involving others. You may want to delegate but your team are not accepting the responsibility.
• They worry about losing control. A task or project may take a wrong turn, or not get done correctly.
• They think it takes too long to train others. On that point, they are correct, but I'll tell you how to work through that.
• They don't really think they have to delegate, that things can continue the way they are.

We'll talk about all these things and I'll give you solutions. On another level, delegating controls your career. People who can't figure out how to make delegating work for them don't go very far in the company. (Brochure/Info sheet below.) 

Need a seat? Book today! Call us at 604.931.6813 or emailinfo@managing.ca 

"Of course I love you. I bought you a house didn't I?"

I always felt people who complained about communication problems just weren't committed. Where there is commitment, communication seems to happen on it's own. Where there is love, people make love. Where there is no love, people go to therapy and engage in communication. Even in our personal life it's never about communication, it's about commitment.

Though that might be true, it's also true that great managers tend to be great communicators. They get their message across and move their team in the direction they want. For that reason, on February 22nd, my subject is "How Great Managers Communicate."

Managers get into trouble over communication in several ways. Most obvious, the team isn't clear on direction and afraid to ask. Closed culture managers where openess takes a back seat to formality. Unassertive managers who think they communicate by avoiding, delaying and dropping hints. Indecisive managers who stock pile their issues for end of the month when they blow up at everybody.

The world seems to agree that 75% of what managers do includes communication. When employees quit, they quit their manager, not their company, making retention a bigger issue than it was last year. Our economy is growing again in 2012. Manufacturing, building trades, engineers, HVAC and other areas suffer talent shortages now and it's going to get worse.

A contractor client, complaining to me about his wife, said, "I told her. I'm not going to keep telling you I love you. I bought you a house and I think that's enough."

He's divorced now. I guess communication plays a bigger role than I want to admit.

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

p.s. See brochure information for Feb. 22nd seminar, "How Great Managers Communicate" go to . . . 

Forrest Gump says,

Where did these Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurants come from? Long ago I made the mistake of going into one in Lahaina. Last week, walked by one in Cancun. Thank you google, I learned they were started in 1994 by Viacom, which owns the distribution for the movie, Forrest Gump. That explains that. It occurred to me that Forrest's mother had a pretty good people sense about her. Below are some wise insights about human nature as applied to hiring, selection and managing people.

1. "My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
   Listen to each candidate with an open mind. You never know how they're going to surprise you.
2. "My Mama says you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes."
   And their clothes, manners, preparation, hair, eyes, - look at them and you'll see everything you need to know.
3. "Mama says, - stupid is as stupid does."
   Everybody has a life story. Some are tragic, some are stupid, some are brilliant but all tell you who the person is.
4. "My Mama always told me that miracles happen every day. Some people don't think so, but they do."
   Optimism matters. Life is 20% what happened to you and 80% what you did about it.
5. "Just run away, Forrest. Run, Forrest! Run away! Hurry!"
   Your 6th sense will tell you when you should run away from a candidate, an employee, or a project.
6. "Now, it used to be, I ran to get where I was goin'. I never thought it would take me anywhere."
   Some people just see the work in front of them. Some see the larger picture. People who work with a purpose are more effective than those who work without purpose.
7. "He must be the stupidest son of a bitch alive, but he sure is fast."
   Cast people for their talent. Put people where they can use those strengths. If you hired Forrest Gump, let him run.
8. [Forrest is at the White House Standing in front of a food table with a large spread of food and soda]
   "The really good thing about meeting the President of the United States is the food. They put you in this little room with just about anything you'd want to eat or drink. But since, number one, I wasn't hungry, but thirsty, and number two, they was free, I must have drank me about fifteen Dr. Peppers."
   Hire people who can see things for what they are. A room, food, - everything else is drama.

See you this Wednesday for a great seminar. I'm putting all my effort into the interview process and questions that will reveal who you're candidate is. 

See you for breakfast!
Wolfgang 

p.s. If you don't have a reservation, please check with Rachel at 604-931-6813. Full content outline is on our website. 
p.s. A "man cave" is called a house. If you think it's a room in the cellar, you're not ready for management.