Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year = new chance

As this year is coming to an end it's time to fully focus on the new year. The new year has new opportunities, new chances. Many things will be what you make out of them chances or threats, so make the best out of them. Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Short, mid and long term solutions

Are you working on multiple solutions to the same problem at the same time? What I'm refering to is that you have a short term business goal where you don't require any IT help. A mid term goal where you have very limited IT help and then you have the ideal long term solution that is provided by your IT Team. In many cases these solutions are quite different from each other. The challenge with this approach is that short + mid term solutions tend to hang around much longer than expected. Are you using this approach in your company? If yes, how is that working for you? While it is necessary in some cases to follow this approach I do not consider this a valid default approach. What is holding you back from aligning the short, mid and long term solutions into one solution?
In many cases the missing action is a decision. Who is making the decisions regarding your different solutions? Are these the same or different people? Is the communication and training effort worth developing different solutions? To focus only on one solution is much more effective in many ways (e.g. development effort, training effort, communication etc.) and therefore you might want to resist the temptation to always work on multiple solutions.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Do something new!

If you want to stand out in whatever you do you have to do something new. In business that means that when you seek opportunities you should invest your resources in new areas of a business because these areas are neglected and uncontested. When everyone is doing it then it is a standard and no longer good enough to differentiate yourself. To do this is not easy but well worth the effort because instead of following the market you can create your own market. This obviously has some challenges as well because you can't hide behind someone or something. You also need to have a strong personal drive and considerable confidence in your ideas. Generally many of us like to be judged by how well we do compared to others. I think it is good when you try to stop that urge and instead try to differeniate yourself from the group around you. Is it better for you to be No 5 in a large pool of players or do you prefer to be No 1 in a small pool? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here by the way, it's a personal decision.
If your answer is that you prefer to be the No 1 player then you are in good company with many successful people. We don't have to be geniuses that transform the world every day but if you can find a way to make yourself more unique you will help yourself and the environment around you.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

2011 New Year Resolutions

This is usually the time of year when many people come up with challenging goals for the next year. I consider these New Year Resolutions a great opportunity for change, if they are done right. Are you making any New Year Resolutions? I have some challenging and exciting new goals ahead of me and I'm already looking forward to tackle them in the New Year. 
In order for them to come true I consider two things critical, passion and discipline. Most Goals do not come true over night and so I try to measure how strong my passion is for a certain goal. My goals will be challenged, I might challenge them myself and therefore it is critical to look beyond the current moment and try to estimate how much I really want that change. If the answer is that I really want that change (not done in 1 day !!!) then I write down what I need to do to be successful. What would need to happen to make that goal come true? Do I have the necessary discipline to follow up on my passion? Apart from the current excitement and desire for positive change, am I willing to keep going when the going gets tough? If I can answer that positively then I go for it,  not just to feel good for a moment but to achieve the goal. It doesn't always work but in general the success rate is really high (>90%) for me. What do you do?

Thursday, December 23, 2010

It's not about you!

What are you doing when you are trying to get others to buy into what you are saying? Are you excited to see if you are successful? Do you carefully prepare the meeting and try to forsee every possible objection?  Are you dumping convincing information on your audience that should make it hard for them to argue with you? Do you try to pull others on your side?
If you do any of these things I suggest that you take a step back and pause for a moment. In order to get anywhere with your suggestions/ideas you have to take the focus off yourself.  Your objective is to learn how you can do something beneficial for them. How do you know what is beneficial to them if you don't listen? As long as you talk and explain everything from your point of view you are not listening.  Take a step back, take a deep breath and listen first!  Once you know what they are looking for you will be much more effective.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Pleasing everyone

You already know that you can't please everyone, don't you? Are you still trying to do it anyway? If you do then try to stop it asap because it is a useless exercise that will cost you a lot of time, energy and nerves. To be clear, trying to please everyone and getting everyone on the same table to discuss differences are very different things. Let's look at an example for pleasing everyone: As a Project Manager you have to decide who within your team is going to perform a certain task (e.g. meeting with a senior executive for a project review). There are three people that all would like to do this task but you can assign it only to one person. You pick the person that seems to be the best fit for this task. In this case you can't please everyone. You will have to disappoint two people and please one.
To make sure you keep a strong and committed team you, as the Manager, have to try to prevent these occurences or at least to soften the impact of these decisions. Nevertheless these situations will arise from time to time. When they do, accept that you can't please everyone.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Logic and decisions

Have you noticed that many people at work try to be logical at all times? Especially engineers and computer programers seem to have an excessive need to look for logic.  But is the world really a logical place? I don't think so. Nevertheless some people somehow seem to hope that logic will always prevail. This will not always be the case as I can show you on one example below.
A couple of years ago I was involved in a Project that was introducing an ERP system to smaller companies (<50 employees). The effort was meant to prove that this ERP system was suitable for these companies. The leaders of these companies though were not convinced that this ERP system could really address their needs but since they had executive level relationships to the ERP vendor they went along with it. For several months we were trying to show them how they could benefit from this system. It wasn't easy and logically it would have made sense to abort  this effort at some time but then the executive level relationship might have been scared. So we kept going and implemented the system. I'm not convinced that these companies really used the system long term, but that was not the point.  The important thing in this case was the relationship between the ERP vendor and these companies.
Instead of waiting for logic to prevail you have to recognize that you deal with people and we all will do illogical things. Expect it and don't be surprised by it!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Communication Inferno?

It seems sometimes that everyone wants to be hip and sage by using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Podcasts, your own blog or website and thousand other social media tools. This is fine but can require a considerable amount of time. Is that time well spent for you?
Then we have all the cool gadgets where we can use these social media tools like smartphones, tablets, mp3 players, laptops, game consoles and many other gadgets. It feels good to use these tools because we feel hip. We're "in" because we have these cool gadgets.
In Summary, we have a lot of opportunity to use these cool tools on the cool gadgets and potentially waste a lot of time. I have a job and a family and can't spend all my time on these tools, so how do I stay up-to-date?
I prioritze what is important to me and set a reasonable time (approx. 30-45min) per day for these tools. Some  blogs, PodCasts, Linkedin Groups etc. are great and I want to enjoy them on a regular basis BUT I don't want to be held hostage by them through 24/7/365 pressure.
I do all these things to learn, to stay up to date with what is happening and I want to actively participate and drive these discussions.  In the end all the social media tools are "tools" that are supposed to help us achieve a task. If they become a task all by themselves then something has gone haywire.
What do you use social media tools for and how is that working for you?

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Recognize good leadership

How do you recognize good leadership? There are a whole bunch of things that contribute to good leadership (e.g. active listening, walk your talk, decision making etc.) and many books have been written about it but I think two key characteristics make it easy to spot good leadership even from the outside.
  1. Business Results
  2. Good Team Spirit
When you get real, measurable business results (e.g. revenue increase, cost reduction, more motivated employees etc.) that move your business forward that proves that you can get everyone to pull together. That's a sign of good leadership but in the short term that can be achieved at the cost of the team. Therefore it is important to look at the whole team when you assess leaderhip qualities. Are the team members satisfied to be in your team? Do they feel appreciated? Do you have a we-culture or a I-culture? Don't provide just lip-service to the team spirit because people are honestly your most valuable asset. Therefore treat them this way.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Change

Many of the things I've been writing about in the last 6months or so are more or less common sense. So really nothing new or original but I hope it is still worth reading because I'm writing what I see working and what I believe in and hope that helps you a little as well. In addition to that I want to encourage you to practice more of the things that you already know because I see that many people, including myself, struggling with that from time to time. Common sense in this context means soft skills.
The hard skills (e.g. Business Management Skills, Project Mangement Skills etc.) are easier to test like 1+1=2, if you get any other result you are wrong, period. Soft skills (e.g. time management, leadership, listening skills etc.) on the other hand are much harder to check. What is right and what is wrong? There are so many variables (e.g. environment, topic, timing, people around you etc.) that is becomes very challenging to determine what is right or wrong or better said what works and what doesn't. 
Many people (e.g. Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, Heath Brothers, Marschall Goldsmith, Seth Godin etc) tell us what works and what doesn't work (at work and at home). You can read them and agree or disagree with them but it is up to you to make any changes. When you want to improve in any area you need to be able and willing to focus on one or two things that you really want to change and then execute. Yes, they are mostly common sense and it is simple to talk about these changes but it is NOT easy to practice these changes.  Are you really trying to improve or do you feel comfortable just learning what you could do it you wanted to do something?

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Does experience still matter?

Depending on your job, experience can be very important or it can be less important. What is always important are your job skills. Let me explain what I mean. If you have led multiple projects that is good but it doesn't mean that you have learned something new in every project. When you do the same thing over and over you don't really learn anything new. All the projects are your experience, what you did in the different projects are your job skills. So you can potentially do projects for years without learning new skills.
Repetition doesn't necessarily add new skills. We want to be challenged, do something new, learn new skills and do something that makes a positive difference. 
For many technical knowledge workers (e.g. Software Developers) I think that experience still matters a lot but it matters less than it did 10 years ago because technology changes so quickly. You can't expect to learn something today and then still make a living from that knowledge in 5 years. Instead you have to be able to apply what you learned very quickly and effectively and then move on to whatever comes next. It is a constant learning and reinvention process. Why would you want to wallow in work you had done 5 years ago anyway? That was then and you can't get it back but you still want to deliver your best work today, right? So focus on getting the best possible, up-to-date job skills for your work today.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Networking and exchange of business cards

The challenge with most organized "Networking Events" is that many people are only interested in themselves. Many attendees want to sell something without being interested in you or your needs. It's easy to spot these people because they usually talk a lot about themselves and whatever they have to offer. Another trademark seems to be the number of businesscards that are exchanged, the more the better. After a meeting like this you can add some contacts to linkedin, and then what? Is it really a surprise that for a good number of attendees these "Networking Events" do not bring the expected results?
Be open when you go to these events and expect a "give and take" (in this sequence). Go only to the events that really interest you and where you expect to meet interesting people.
For sales people this is obviously a different game but for all other occassional Networkers this is something to keep in mind.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Don't let Bureaucracy stop you!

In order to make progress we have to be willing to accept risks. When we are about to do something new or different then we need to lead. In most cases this isn't easy because it means that we don't have cheering crowds helping us to proceed but that we swim against the current most of the way. That can be very tough and dispiriting but it can be well worth the effort!
Are you interested and committed enough to work on a change like that?
A certain bureaucracy is probably needed in large organizations in order to make sure things keep working but it can and it is overdone in some organizations! To break through this bureaucracy is mostly up to individuals. Therefore don't look to others to change things, look in the mirror instead and see what you can do to address these bureaucracy issues. Many well intented efforts are stopped by lenghty processes, documents, approvals, extensive ROI calculations etc.  because in these cases the bureaucrats don't have to say "No" but they send us on an seemingly endless loop instead. Have you experienced this in your organization? This is a classic case of analysis, paralysis and ends with "no risk, no change"!
Don't accept this! Change is possible and well worth the necessary effort. Sometimes you have to break the rules to make progress. Are you up to it?

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Know what you can't do

In order to be really successful at anything you need to know what you can do and what you can't do. This is pretty clear as long as we talk about things like skiing, swimming or playing the piano. In case of skiing there are basically three questions
  1. Are you interested in skiing?         (Interest, Motivation, Enthusiams)
  2. Can you ski?                                (skill, knowledge)
  3. Are you physically able to ski?      (prerequisite)
If you answer yes to these three questions you will probably look forward to a weekend in the mountains. When you are not interested in skiing you will lack the motivation and hence chances are pretty high that it won't be good for you or the people you ski with. 
When you can't ski, it can still be good but it might get more costly because you will need to take skiing lessons. In the last case, if you are temporarily or permanently unable to ski then this is a no-brainer, you won't go skiing.
In the work place it is important to know which tasks you are interested in, which tasks you can already perform and if you fulfill the prerequisites to perform a certain task. Focus on the tasks that really interest you, make sure you can perform these tasks and then just do it!

Friday, December 3, 2010

The value of face-to-face meetings

Even though we can do almost every meeting without being in the same room it is critical for some meetings to be face-to-face. If possible, it is always good to have the first meeting with a new person or group face-to-face because you might get a very different impression and you can't repeat the first impression. Note that this is not just the case for very important meetings, this applies also to your regular business partners and direct reports.
I found that, most of the time, I got a stronger relationship with people I first met face-to-face. This is no surprise since 93% of our communication is impacted by non-verbal cues. In addition to that you will probably go on some non-business activities like lunch or dinner where you get a chance to learn more of the other person in a non-business setting. These meetings and discussions help to form a different, more refined view, of someone than just the regular phone or web meetings. Keep this in mind before you decide about the next travel budget. Nevertheless once you met,  I found that it is perfectly fine to work with them remotely as long as you can see them face-to-face on a regular basis.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Ship something today!

It seems that we sometimes spend 90% of our time talking about all the great things we would do if some things were different. If we had more people onsite then ... if we had a greater budget then ... if we had more experienced people then ... etc. Does that sound familiar to you? If it does, challenge this situation! Ask why we have to talk so much before we can get anything changed, started or done. Raise the urgency level to speed up the discussions and get ready to make a decision. Yes, this is part of what management and leadership is about, you have to make decisions. You will not always have the data you need and so you need to get comfortable with making decisions based on incomplete data. Just to be clear, I'm not recommending you to jump into action after one short discussion but instead of getting lost in Analysis-Paralysis you should strive to get started.
What counts in the end is that you and your team have delivered something useful. You will not get credit for all the great thoughts you had or for all the huge documents you've produced but for what products or services you have provided to your customers.