German Economy in 2012

The focus of the blog will change in 2012. For the first 3 months the blog posts will be focused on economic and technology news from Europe.

After all the economic woes in 2011 (and before) it would be nice to read more articles like the one below about the US economy.

Here is the first link to an article from Spiegel Magazine named "Will German Growth Stall in 2012?"

A short story from Tolstoy (from Thich Nhat Hanh's book "The Miracle of Mindfulness"

This is a very inspiring story from Thich Nhat Hanh's book "The Miracle of Mindfullness" and it fits very well in this time of year. It will take a moment to read it but it will be worth the time.

One day it occured to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter.

1. What is the best time to do each thing?
2. Who are the most important people to work with?
3. What is the most important thing to do at all times?

The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer.
In reply to the first question, one person advised that the emperor make up a thorough time schedule, consecrating every hour, day, month, and year for certain tasks and then follow the schedule to the letter. Only then could he hope to do every task at the right time.
Another person replied that it was impossible to plan in advance and that the emperor should put all vain amusements aside and remain attentive to everything in order to know what to do at what time.
Someone else insisted that, by himself, the emperor could never hope to have all the foresight and competence necessary to decide when to do each and every task and what he really needed was to setup a Council of the Wise and then to act according to their advice.
Someone else said that certain matters required immediate decision and could not wait for consultation, but if he wanted to know in advance what was going to happen he should consult magicicans and soothsayers.
The responses to the second question also lacked accord.
One person said that the emperor needed to place all this trust in administrators, another urged reliance on priests and monks, while others recommended physicians. Still others put their faith in warriors.
The third question drew a similar variety of answers. Some said science was the most important pursuit. Others insisted on religion. Yet others claimed the most important thing was military skill.
The emperor was not pleased with any of the answers, and no reward was given.
After several nights of reflection, the emperor resolved to visit a hermit who lived up on the mountain and was said to be an enlightened man. The emperor wished to find the hermit to ask him the three questions, though he knew the hermit never left the mountains and was known to receive only the poor, refusing to have anything to do with person of wealth or power.  So the emperor disguised himself as a simple peasant and ordered his attendants to wait for him at the foot of the mountain while he climbed the slope alone to seek the hermit.
Reaching the holy man's dwelling place, the emperor found the hermit digging a garden in front of his hut. When the hermit saw the stranger, he nodded his head in greeting and continued to dig. The labor was obviously hard on him. He was an old man, and each time he thrust his spade into the ground to turn the earth, he heaved heavily. The emperor approached him and said, "I have come here to ask your help with three questions: When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?"
The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging. Ther emperor said, "You must be tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that." The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest.
After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions. The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood up and pointed to the spade and said, "Why don't you rest now? I can take over again." But the emperor continued to dig. One hour passed, then two. Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain. The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, "I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions. But if you can't give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on my way home."
The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, "Do you hear someone running over there?" The emperor turned his head. They both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods. He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach. The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning. Opening the man's clothing the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash. The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it withing minutes. He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped.
At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water. The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water. Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold. The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit's bed. The man closed his eyes and lay quietly. The emperor was worn out from a long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden. Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep. When he rose,the sun had already risen over the mountain. For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for. He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around him in confusion. When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, "Please forgive me."
"But what have you done that I should forgive you?" the emperor asked.
"You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you. I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back and kill you. But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out. But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound. Luckily, I escaped and ran here. If I hadn't met you I would surely be dead by now. I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life! I am ashamed and grateful beyond words. If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness."
The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy. He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man's property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed. After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the hermit. Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time. He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before.
The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor. "But your questions have already been answered."
"How's that?" the emperor asked, puzzled.
"Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home. Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself, and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spend dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound. Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person your are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life."

Giving your best!

Do you work in an environment that encourages personal growth?  I guess it is possible to write a whole book on this topic but for this blog post I want to keep it simple and only focus on one aspect and that is "your best effort". Are you giving your best effort in what you do on a day-to-day basis? Do you like/love your work/task so much that you try to do everything that you do to the best of your capabilities? This is key for your own development as a human being and the success of your company! Let's look at an example: Your manager asks you to prepare a presentation for the Senior Management Team. The topic is the optimization of the online configuration tools that your company offers on your website. There are probably a number of people that could provide valuable input for your presentation. As you go back and forth and collect feedback from the different people/teams your presentation gets better. At what point is it so good that you feel you can't make it any better? Keep in mind that you have only limited time to finish this task. When you can honestly say that you can't improve it any further (in the given time) than you did your best. It doesn't mean that this is perfect or that anyone else couldn't do it any better it means that this is the best that you could do in the given time. This is how you grow. You stretch yourself until it hurts somewhat. Once you get more comfortable with the challenge you stretch some more.
In order to grow you have to challenge yourself and yes you have to fail.
Failing is part of growing! You don't want to fail on key tasks and therefore it is important that your company provides you an opportunity to fail on smaller, less important tasks so that you get the learning experience without jeopardizing the key projects.
Remember as a kid when you started to learn to read and write? It takes time to learn these skills and if you stop challenging yourself you will stop to grow. This is a true lose/lose for yourself and your company. Therefore make sure that you are in an environment that encourages consistent growth! This is not a nice/feel good kind of position but it is one that allows you to grow as a human being.
So ask yourself : Do you give your best effort in everything you do consistently?

Efficient Product Configuration and Pricing Tools and Processes

They are key for every efficient Sales Force. The less people you need to involve in a Sales Cycle the smoother the sales cycle can be. Sales Reps should be able to use Product Configuration and quoting tools without reading a 50 page document or going to a 5 day training class. If your environment requires additional teams to handle a product configuration or a quote you have room for improvement.  Let's take it step by step. Before a Sales Rep ever gets into the situation where they have to use these tools they have to know the products they are selling. Therefore the focus for every company will be to train their sales force about their own product offering first. In some cases the product offering can become very complex (e.g. cars, computers) and so it would be challenging for even the best sales reps to memorize all the rules (e.g. sun roofs are only offered with cars above a certain $ value and in certain geographic areas). In addition to that almost all products become more customizable and hence the need for a configuration tool is only increasing going forward.
The (configuration) rules are continually changing and you want your sales force to foster good relationships with your customers and NOT to memorize all the rules because the sales objective is to increase the face-to-face time of your sales force with your customers. For e-Commerce this is obviously different. We'll address this in a future post.
Which sales tools (e.g. Salesforce.com, Siebel)  you use is less important than the company culture and the support your sales operations team can provide.
If the Sales Support/Operations team is doing their job well it can open new exciting opportunities (for cross and upsell) for your Sales Force.
What does your Sales Team need to proactively address more customer needs/questions?
What is your sales cycle? How long does it usually take to prepare a quote in your industry? Are you selling online or do you meet your customers face-to-face? Do you use predominantly standard pricing or customer specific pricing? In any case you want to offer your customers as many possible value enhancing solutions as possible w/o becoming annoying. That is where the value of the Product Configuration and quoting tools can support your sales team. You want to guide your Sales Reps by giving them a powerful configuration and quote tool.  If they never know about additional options they can't sell them.
Tools are important and there are a number of good tools out there. Nevertheless I think the company culture is more important than any specific tool.
What tools do you use? How is that working for you?

Focus on your tasks!

There are many things to look out for to have a successful and gratifying business career. If we compare a business career to a game then your education (and relationships!) is the key to let you play the game and to start the game at a certain level (which in turn will decide, in most cases, where you will end up in your career).
Once you have the education and you're in a job you are ready to play the game but now it's a different game. It is different because now you don't want to get in now you want to get up or you want to have more freedom to make decisions or you want to be noticed or you want to be liked etc.
If you focus too much on what others do, how they do it and why they get what they get instead of focusing on your team and/or work tasks you have a good chance that you won't achieve anything. It is good and smart to learn what your leaders want and how they want to get things done but you don't let that interfere with the tasks you're working on. How do you work with your teams if you are a leader yourself? 
When you have a task (e.g. improve the sales order turn-around-time from x hours to y hours) then you don't need to worry about Team ABC that works on Sales Compensation. If you question why that team has more budget, why some of their team members get promoted while you can't promote anyone or you don't get promoted yourself you focus on the wrong things! You have to focus on your task (improve the sales order turn around time). Learn how you can do it. Who can help you to do it? Communicate and network with the key players in that area and make sure that they understand what your team/you are doing to achieve that goal. An attitude that shows you want to reach that goal (with your team) without putting your team/yourself in the middle of the stage will help. Put all your effort into this and get the task done!
Notice that in every sport (e.g. basketball, soccer) the players are focused on the game! Yes, there are interesting things happening all around them. There may be thousand distractions but they are there to play their sport! Take the current NBA Playoffs, most players are pretty young and they manage NOT to be distracted. This is what makes them successful! They focus on what counts when it counts. Do the same thing for yourself in your job and focus on your tasks!

Challenge yourself!

As long as you feel very comfortable with the tasks that you do you don't grow. If you want to grow you have to challenge yourself. You should feel uncomfortable with new tasks on a regular basis because otherwise you've been there, done that. While it feels good to be comfortable with a certain task it doesn't help you to grow.  There are many routine tasks that everyone needs to master in every job and they are good to build confidence but if you want to grow you have to leave this path on a regular basis.
In today's and tomorrow's workplace you have to keep learning/growing and if you want to have a successful career you have to do that while you are working on your relationship skills.
What do I mean by "feeling uncomfortable"? I mean for example that somebody might assign you a task that you feel is too much. You might think you can't do that but instead of looking for excuses or other ways to get out of it you actually sit down think about how you can approach the task. Who in your network can help you? How can they help you? What sources can you use to come up to speed? Don't accept a "no" from yourself. To make this work you have to be honest with yourself. For example if you know how to write a Software Program and somebody wants you to build a rocket you are in over your head. In this case the challenge is unrealistic! You should know yourself well enough to prevent these unrealistic to prevent unnecessary frustration. Now if somebody asks you, as a Software Programmer, to improve the performance of a critical program that somebody else has written in 2 weeks. Now that might be difficult, you might not have done that before but this is in your area of knowledge. All you need to be successful is determination and perseverance. Maybe you need others to help. The goal is to make it work and be responsible for it. No, you can't do everything yourself but you can be responsible for making it work. Take on this responsibility and grow. Don't wait for these tasks to be assigned to you. Look for them! Make sure you always have something that gives you an opportunity to grow.
You will gain much more self-confidence from these tasks than you get from the routine tasks you do today. The challenges of today are the routines of tomorrow.

Communicating a plan

The communication of a plan is as important, if not more important, than the plan itself. It doesn't matter if we talk about a project plan, a business plan or any other plan. As long as you need other people to achieve your plan it is key to make sure others understand what you are trying to achieve and why they should be interested to help you. Note that this applies to everyone! Good communication is not limited to a specific audience.
When you communicate your plan make sure that you do that in the most interactive format. This means whenever possible do this face-to-face. If that isn't possible that doesn't mean it can't work it just means you have to work harder to get what you are looking for. Do not try to do this in writing though! The risk that you don't get your point across is too big. If a face-to-face isn't possible try a "Skype-Meeting". If that doesn't work either you can maybe try a phone meeting if you know the people very well. In any case I think the only really acceptable format for important meetings are face-to-face or maybe a Video/Audio ("Skype") meeting.
It is a good idea to handout notes or slides at the end of your meeting so that people remember exactly what you were saying.
Keep the following points in mind for your face-to-face meeting and for your notes/presentations

• WHY
• Why do you want to achieve a specific goal?
• Keep in mind that people need to buy into this goal. Prepare the meeting and address critical questions as much as possible. Ask for help to come up with critical questions!
• Why should people be interested to help you? What is in it for them?
• If you want to achieve the maximum benefit you need people to own the goal. Make it their goal. Show them the benefit they get when they pursue/achieve this goal. Don't do this to manipulate people but to create a true win/win situation
• WHAT
• What is the goal?
• Can the goal be measured? How often will you measure it? Who will measure it?
• What do you need from the participants/team?
• WHO
• Who needs to provide what by when?
• WHEN
• When do you want/need to achieve your goal?
• How critical is it to achieve the goal/milestones?
• HOW:
• How will you measure the success?
• How do you know if you achieved the goal?

You will achieve the highest success when people understand why you ask for something and they buy into your reasoning. Keep in mind that good communication is an ongoing process. You can and will improve when you pay attention to your communication.

Efficient Sales Force (sharing an idea)

How does an efficient Sales Force operate? This is a topic that could easily fill a couple of books. So I want to restrict my idea here to a very short list of tasks that I think a small to medium size Sales Force in the IT Industry should perform. Do they perform tasks like account planning, opportunity management, quote preparation etc. by themselves or do they have to have Support Personnel to do these tasks for them? 
My answer is yes they should do most of these tasks themselves because it is beneficial for the Sales Team to be self reliant. It's also fosters a more dynamic culture. The less teams/people are involved in the Sales Process the less points of failure we have. This requires a good and clear partnership between the appropriate business and IT resources/departments.
Asking the Sales Force to perform more tasks by themselves requires the Sales Team to have an "allrounder" mindset. This is only possible when the tools and processes are manageable for one person. To find an environment where the system and process landscape is manageable by one person is more likely in newer and smaller companies. Example: If every product (Hardware, Software, Services) an IT company is selling can be quoted in one process and tool then one Sales Person needs to be trained (in <= 1 day excl. Product training) to use that tool and they are good to go. The good thing about this is that the Sales Reps feel responsible for these tasks. They "own" the process and tools and don't hide behind other teams. Many newer small to midsize company Sales Teams seem to be more self reliant than older/bigger companies.What I mean with self reliant is that the Sales Reps do more tasks themselves. Is that good or bad? Is this approach scaleable once the companies become bigger or not? How can this work for companies that have hundreds of systems and different systems in each part of the world? I don't have the answer and I don't pretent there is an easy solution but it is worth thinking about these and similar questions because the correct answer for your company could potentially yield large benefits.

Here is what I would consider an ideal example of a small to midsize Sales Force (assuming we are beyond the opportunity phase).

1. Prepare the customer visit (determine what Customers to visit, determine products that these customers would benefit from, determine contacts at company etc.)
• Sales Rep uses one tool to access information
• What products at what price did we sell to the customer before?
• What competitor products are out there? How are they different from the products our company offers?
• Who is the contact person in that company?
• Is there any cross or up sell opportunity?
• special notes about company contacts (e.g. upcoming birthday, lunch/dinner preferences etc.)
2. Go to the customer and build a mutually beneficial relationship
• Capture Opportunities (e.g. current issues with xyz ...customer might benefit from our product/service abc)
3. Prepare a quote for your customer
• Sales Rep should be able to prepare one (preliminary) quote for all products in one system
• Configure complex products in configuration tool (e.g. SAP Variant Configuration, Big Machines etc.)
• Show cross and upsell opportunities
• Tools shows what products/services this customer bought from us before
• Determine VSOE compliant Price with applicable Discounts for customer (based on Sales Rep authorization levels)
• Show price on header/item level to Sales Rep (to determine potential discounts)
• If additional price approvals are needed a workflow routes it via email to the correct people
• Prepare customer presentable quote
4. Turn the quote into an order
• typical ERP functionality (e.g. Credit Check, Global Trade Checks etc are performed)
• trigger sales compensation for Sales Reps that they can follow

This list could obviously be much longer and much more detailed (!) but for the Blog Post this should suffice. Note that there are many different situations and circumstances and hence the "ideal" answer I describe above does very clearly not apply to everyone.
How can you make your Sales Force more efficient? Think about it! There are improvement opportunities in EVERY companies. What can YOU do in YOUR company today?

Complicated Systems and Training

Does your company have a complicated IT system environment? Let's look at an example, does your company have one system to create quotes and orders for your sales force worldwide or do you have a myriad of standalone systems, spreadsheets and processes that all need to be integrated? If you work for a multinational company you probably have different systems (some integrated and some are standalone) in different parts of the world (e.g. In North America you use one system for your Sales Force while you use another system for your team in Europe or Asia). The complexity gets even higher when various regional business and IT teams for these systems need to work together and agree on any changes. In this environment it is pretty obvious that a high quality training for your Sales Teams is key to being successful. Don't get me wrong the system complexity needs to be addressed (!) but that can't happen overnight in most cases and in the meantime you still have a business to run and therefore to make the best out of what you got.
Many systems have a a lot of functionality that most Sales Teams don't use. How do you train your Sales Force on the essential functions (while you work on getting better systems!) of your systems?
Does the Sales Force get appropriate product training? Do they know how you approach your customers? Do they know your systems and processes once the Sales Process starts? Can they create a quote or order themselves or do they need support from anyone?
In any case you should spend the time to put together a solid training schedule that every Sales Rep should go through. Yes, this is an investment and if it is done well it will pay back dividends. If you have a simpler system the training will be shorter and if you have a more complex system the training will be longer. Face-to-face meetings are the most efficient while you can use webinars or other audio/video options as alternatives. Because of budget concerns the cheaper options are mostly preferred but they require a different approach (e.g. an assessment at the end of the class). A good training includes a business case example in the system, a reference document that every particpant gets with the key lessons and a questionnaire at the end to evaluate the class and presenter. Once you have this all together you can bridge some system gaps and shortcomings until your systems catch up. Not ideal but practical.

Executive Communications

What you have to keep in mind when you communicate with Executive and Senior Management is that they usually don't have a lot of time. What I mean by Executive and Senior Management is a manager that manages more than 100+ people.  If you are not at the peer level with them you will have to schedule a meeting ahead of time with their Admin. When you schedule this meeting treat their Admin like you would treat the Executive or Senior Manager themselves! Explain clearly what the purpose of the meeting is. Why do you need to meet with them? What do you expect to get out of the meeting? How can the Executive or Senior Manager help? Don't ask for more time than you really need. These people are busy and if you ask for too much you might not get anything at all. So keep the meeting request to the minimum amount of time because in that case you might get a chance to present your case.
Expect that even the Admin might not be very patient and friendly. There are many people who would like to spend some time with these Managers so they might not always be as patient as you would like.
Once the meeting comes it can happen that the meeting is shorter than you expected. So if you have scheduled 30 minutes for your discussion, plan to finish it in 15min or less. Note that I mentioned discussion and not a PowerPoint slide presentation! If you have to have a Slide Deck than just use it to guide the conversation. Keep the slides to a minimum --> don't use any font size smaller than 14 (the bigger the better). Don't add more than 3 bullets on a slide etc. Test the communication (if possible) with someone before you have the real discussion! This will help you to improve your communication and to have a higher chance to get what you are looking for.
Make also sure that you don't present details! These people are used to work on a higher level and will not appreciate if you bring up topics that they don't understand. Their job is to connect the dots and to lead the organization in the right direction, not to understand each and every single dot in detail! This obviously means they can't afford to get lost in details. So don't go there! If they ask for it (and you should plan ahead of time for these potential questions) give them just as much information as they need but don't give in to the temptation to show off your Subject Matter Expert knowledge. Short, clear, precise and goal focused communication is the key to any success on that level.
Last but not least keep in mind who you are talking to and prepare accordingly. If it is a Finance person then they will most likely look for numbers to verify the information you're presenting.
Even though this list sounds probably somewhat long and frighting it is well worth the investment. If you get on the same page with an Executive or Senior Manager that can have career changing implications! So yes, it's tough but well worth the effort if you do it right. Put some effort in it and prepare these communciations well and they will pay off!.
Good luck with your Executive and Senior Management conversations.

Stop complaining - start changing

It is easy to complain about a situation but it is much harder to actually do something to change that situation. For example: You might think that you are overdue for a promotion because you have a huge knowledge in your area of expertise, you actually work well with the decision makers in your area, you might even pursue some additional certifications, academic degrees or otherwise trying to improve your skills. Even though you do all these things you don't get the promotion you are looking for. In this case it is easy to complain for all the right reason BUT it doesn't change anything. Do you want to feel well for 10 minutes by getting someone to agree that this is an unfair situation or do you actually want to change the situation? If you really want to change than find out what is going wrong. Analyze your  situation. Which person is responsible for promoting you? What do they value? Are you delivering what they are looking for? Do you communicate well to let them know what you do? Face these uneasy questions openly and ask your friends for honest feedback to learn what you can do to change a situation.

Get it done attitude needed

Have you ever been with a start up company or did you have your own company? If yes, you understand why I say we need more entrepeneurial minds to achieve real and lasting change. We need people that identify issues,  have great ideas how to fix them and then an iron determination to get it done. Are you that someone?
Do you allow yourself to own issues and act on them or do you still wait for someone to tell you what to do?
You don't have to wait until somebody assigns you a task, you don't have to wait until somebody asks you to start working on something. If you have an idea how something (e.g. process, system, sales tactic) can be done better, own it and make sure that your team benefits from your ideas and work. Stop focusing on all the internal company workings (e.g. politics, power games) they will just distract you from achieving your goals. Instead of waiting for other people to lead, lead yourself.

Dare to be yourself at work!

Do you dare to be yourself at work? I see many people that struggle with that. Why is that? If we are not ourselves who are we? Are we just a summary of the good ideas and intentions we picked up from books, magazines, discussions with colleagues etc.? Or are we slaves to the opinions of our management chain?
If you are 100% dedicated to make your company successful because you are truly passionate about your work and your colleagues I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be yourself at work. In fact I consider it critically important that you are yourself at work how otherwise could you be really emotionally attached to the work you do?

In person meetings are important!

Face-to-face meetings are still critical in establishing successful business relationships. Today with all the distributed teams, available online tools and tight budgets that is not an easily justified point-of-view but I consider it still true. In person meetings are very different from communicating via SMS, phone, email, video conference, instant messenger etc. because it is more personal. When we sit opposite from each other and can see the whole person acting and reacting that allows us to see the other person much closer as if someone can hide behind technique. There are still enough opportunities to have misunderstandings but it's a little bit harder to hide something. Ask for face-to-face meetings when appropriate (e.g. at the beginning of a project, when you start working with new teams, before big decisions etc.).

You get what you reward

What do you want to achieve and how do you want to achieve that goal? In a Project were you need team members to work together closely you should strive to increase team work. You can do that by rewarding team work either with monetary or non-monetary rewards. Check this link to get some ideas.
Be very careful what rewards you use (single contributor or team rewards)  because if you use the wrong rewards in a situation you can create quite a mess.  For example if you hand out a MVP reward in the project mentioned above you will actively discourage team work and instead encourage single contributors to go after the reward. Your team might not share information or in the worst case share incorrect information in order to get the reward.  One very important thing to keep in mind is really mean it when you reward single contributors or teams. Don't hand out "fake" rewards just because it is in the HR playbook. Employee's are not stupid and very much appreciate a honest reward.

Goal Setting

Are you setting goals to feel good or do you actually try to achieve them? The feel good goals are something like a new year's resolution to eat healthier. For an organization it might be something like finally getting to work on a project that you know should have been done a long time ago but you never had the resources and time to do it.
You know you should do that or you know you want to do that but then again it is really hard to make the necessary permanent changes. Do you like Broccoli, carrots, salad and apples? Are you sure you can eat that every day and enjoy it? Are you committed to spend a considerable amount of time to find, try and shop for different recipes to make these dishes actually delicious? Or do you just like to talk about it with friends and colleagues how difficult it is to actually reach that goal? Maybe you already have an excuse in the back of your mind because you are not really committed to achieve what you say you want to achieve.
Talking and complaining about it doesn't get anything done and doesn't make you feel better (long term).
If you set a goal for yourself or your organization think hard (not necessarily long) about what is really important to you! Forget the feel good goals, because they will in most cases just waste your time, and focus on the goals that you are committed to achieve. Think not just about the goal itself but also about the time you spend to achieve that goal because you will spend a good amount of time to reach that goal.

Opportunities

Which of your business ideas presents the least risk and the most opportunity? This is something you should be watching out for on a regular basis. Listen when you communicate with others, really listen. See what data they are sharing, what they are talking about etc. If you get this feedback from a variety of stakeholders this will give you a good feeling for the biggest needs. Once you have the biggest needs (= opportunities) you know where to start. There are many opportunities for improvements in every field. What is it in your field? Where can you make a real, measurable impact? Watch out for it and make an impact!

Meeting the customer need

Are your projects focused on your customer needs or are they centered around internal process and system challenges or some other non-customer centric issues? Have you verified with the correct stakeholders that their perceived business problems are the correct problems to focus on?
Everything you do in a business environment should keep the customer benefit in mind. The customer should  be the North Star of every business. There are many other goals that are important but they won't matter that much when you have no customers.
Schedule your time with that in mind and always remember how you can communicate effectively with the customer to show them what you do for them.

The difference between Failure and Success

In many cases the difference between failure and success is just one more try. If a situation looks hopeless and you give up you have to decide if this is one of these situations or if it is the right thing to give up. It's not easy to say and only you know the right answer. When you try to reach an objective and fail you should change the approach though. Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results is, according to Einstein, stupid. In any case not every objective is worth this kind of effort so think before you decide to reach an objective. Once you've decided that this objective is worth it and that you want to achieve it there should only be very few things (out of your control) that can stop you!

Entrepeneur or Management freedom?

Do you believe that when you are your own boss that you don't have to work for someone else anymore? If you do that you should think again. Every entrepeneur is working for their customers. If the customers don't buy the products or services anymore there is no business. You might have more freedom with some of your decisions but you need your customers.
As a Manager (on whatever level) you work for whoever owns the company or the next level above you. In that case you might be less concerned with customers but you still have someone you are working for.
This will be the case for 99% of the population. Instead of fighting or denying this fact it is better to actively search situations where you can work for someone because you share the same values most of the time.

Relying on yourself

Isn't it amazing to look at all the business books that come out and give recommendations regarding change? I mean do all these people really have so much experience concerning change? Some authors are really great and worth listening to but many authors are less convincing and are basically a waste of time. While I think it is good to get as much information as possible from a number of different resources I think we also have to start relying on our own judgement again. Before you can and should rely on your own judgement you have to put in some serious effort like learning as much as possible about the topic at hand and you have to accept that you will never know everything about a topic. It can be tough when you think there is always someone out there with something better (e.g. education, judgement, success, connections, skills etc.). While in many cases there might be someone out there with something better that shouldn't stop you, after careful preparation, to rely on yourself.

Change is hard but rewarding

Who said change is easy? It is not! Have you ever tried to stop smoking or known someone who has tried? It is tough and many people fail! People want to stop but in many cases it is simply not working.
This applies to most big changes (e.g. move to a new place, start your first big project, start a new job) in your personal life as well as to big changes in your professional life. If these big changes would be so easy then everyone could do it easily.
One way to get through big changes is to decide upfront how strongly you want to achieve a goal and if your discipline is strong enough to actually do it. You really have to want that change and be ready to go the whole nine yards to achieve it. If you try to change without a real good reason and without much conviction you've already lost.  Once you successfully mastered a big change it is very rewarding but you have to be willing to but in the effort to get there.

The difference between pleasing your boss and achieving results

If you just watch out to please your boss/manager then I hope for you that you have a really strong and well connected boss. If he/she knows exactly what to do and where to go, is a trustworthy person and he/she takes you along for the ride then your career might be ok. Since that is not always the case you have to keep thinking for yourself. Don't get me wrong here you work for that person and you better make sure he/she is satisfied with the work that you do but that is not all. It does not end here!  Be active in your career development and think what you can do to address challenges in your work environment. What could you do today that would make a difference? It doesn't have to be some pie in the sky or boil the ocean change but it should be something that helps to improve something. A little help on a daily basis goes a long way. Instead of just following directions think for yourself, address issues, communicate them effectively to the decision makers and don't give up.  Make your ideas count !

Relationship building

If you like it or not relationship building is probably the most important skill to progress at work. Most people want to know who they work with. A certain knowledge in the hiring area is also important but the key point will be that the hiring manager trusts you to perform the job based on his ideas. This obvioulsy works best when you already know the people that you want to hire. In most cases they probably also want a network of people confirming that what they see is correct. Keep this in mind as you progress in your career.

Success measures

Who is measuring if you are doing a good job? How do you measure if your team is doing a good job? In order to determine that you have to agree on some meaningful goals ahead of time. In some cases you might set the goals in some other cases the goals are set for you. All this is pretty basic HR stuff that most people are very familiar with. In any case it is important to discuss your business goals ahead of time because they will, most likely, influence your career. Are these goals something you really want to do? Is it something that you are truly passionate about or is it just some "stuff" that you have to do? I think we all have some goals that we have to do and that we are not passionate about but since we just have one life I would love to spend the majority of my time on things that I really care about.  If that is the case your career is on the right track. If it isn't than you have to do some work to get your career back on track.
If you can't agree to many of your business goals then you should start thinking about how you can change the goals or if that is not possible about leaving the team. If you want to or have to stay with the team then you should focus your energy on your goals. Have a successful career by that measure until something else comes up.

Enthusiasm needed

If you are really excited and curious about the things that you do on a daily basis you have a chance to become really good at them and to be happy and successful. Focus on what you like and don't measure it only in Dollars or recognition. You might end up doing what you do only because of the money or the respect but not because you love doing it. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life? In order to be successful for yourself you have to be able to spend your time in a way that you enjoy! You have only one life so spend it wisely. There are many ways to be successful in almost any way of life. If you are a roofer or a dean at a university or a CEO, everyone can be successful finacially and personally. It's up to you to focus on your strenghts because you don't think about your pay check all day long, right?

Working from home

More and more jobs allow you to work from home, at least partially. I think there are some jobs where you can do that well and others where that is not really a good option. For Retail or Service oriented jobs it is pretty obvious that you can't work from home but for other jobs like for example consulting or professional training it is not always that obvious.If you do it right it can be very efficient and convenient. The most important aspect you need to consider, beside finding an employer that let's you work from home, is that you have enough self discipline to schedule your day as if you are in the office. Start the day like you would start a regular office day and dress as if you would go to the office. If you can do this then you can work more effectively from home as when you're in the office because you have less interruptions.
To work from home all the time, like a teleworker, requires a very high level of discipline and is definetely not the right option for everyone. In my experience many people can work from home effectively for 1-2 days a weeks but they struggle to do it all the time.

Selling yourself

You should be prepared at any time to explain quickly and simply what you do. Why is that? Because if people don't understand what you do they will not appreciate what you achieve. To say this very bluntly is you will get stuck in your career because people (managers, peers, direct reports) don't know what you can help them with. To make sure that people understand what you do you have to take some time to think about it and then tell them without jargon or long winded explanations. In short you have to sell yourself on a regular basis and in a non-intrusive manner. Just make sure that the people that most influence your career understand why it is good to have you on their team.
Here is an example: If I tell you (as my manager) that I'm working to optimize Sales Processes and Tools in the High Tech Industry does that mean anything to you? This is so generic that it is useless. It has to be something more specific like I'm working on the quoting process for my company to make sure that our quotes get faster to the customer (e.g. within x hours) and by ensuring we do that with less money and effort (e.g. cut our current costs by 20%)  by June 2011. 

Tips, Tips and more Tips

I love to read business books (e.g. High Tech, Sales techniques, Time Management, Self Improvement etc) since I always look for ways how I can improve. On average I probably read 1-2 business books a month. Since I'm chronically short on time I want to make sure when I read a business book it is worth the time and money. This is not always easy because many books claim to provide something new and unexpected but most books really don't deliver on that promise.
When I read a book these days that is recommending that companies should allow employee's to dedicate 20% of their time to any improvement project (like Google) I really start to yawn. Even though it is a worthwhile idea it is not new. Right now many business books focus on "value" and even though some are really good (e.g. Bury my heart at conference room b from Stan Slap) many just seem stale. I know that Nordstrom, South West Airlines, Google and a handful of companies are always named as great examples. The really interesting books are the ones that make you think, some that have something useful and unexpected. Check out the business book authors in Podcasts and on blogs before you buy any book to make sure they have something to say that is worth your time and money!

Recognition

Are you happy with the recognition that you experience in your business and personal life? Does your partner or family tell you that you do the right things or how important you are for them? Does your management team tell you that you are doing a good job? But this is not a oneway street. Do you tell your partner or family how much you need and appreciate them? Do you tell your team how good they are and how much you appreciate them?
These things are very important because as social beings we want some recognition from others and we should recognize others. This is what makes life good. We want to feel good about ourselves and our environment and we want others to feel good. When we feel good we are much more willing to give more and do more and that benefits everyone in our business and personal life.
Tell at least one person every day what you appreciate about them. Small steps make a big difference over time.

Your Career

Is your career where you want it to be? Do you know exactly where you want to be career-wise? If you have a clear goal, would it really make you happy if you achieved that career goal? How do you know if it would make you happy to achieve that career goal? I know these are many questions but it makes sense to take your time and find an answer for them before you pursue or change any career. Also keep in mind that you should enjoy the time while you pursue that goal because you will spend most of your waking hours working to reach that goal and not celebrating the goal itself. It is great to reach a goal but that is just one point in time. We all spend so much of our time at work that it should be well worth our time to think about what we want to do with that time. Think about it because it is your life!

Judging yourself

Judge your accomplishments by your own standards and not anyone else's! This doesn't mean that you have to set the bar low! Quite the opposite, set the bar as high a possible and maybe a little higher. What it means is that you should make peace with yourself instead of allowing others to make you feel miserable. If you allow others to measure you by their standards that is a recipe for dissatisfaction.
Let's look at an example: I'm a sales process and tool specialist and work on a project with a finance controller. My finance skills are sufficient for my area but I'm by no means a financial specialist. If I allow the controller to measure my financial skills by his standards I have lost. I'm in this project because of my sales skills and NOT because of my finance skills. Keep this in mind the next time you judge yourself too hard or allow someone else to judge you too hard.

Commander's Intent

Do you know the saying “no plan survives contact with the customer?” It comes from the military saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. Since the army knows that this is true they came up with a high level concept in the 1980s that is called the Commander’s intent (CI).  CI is a crisp and clear statement that is used at the top of every order. It specifies the plan’s goal and the desired end-state of the operation.  On different levels of the organization there can be different CI’s.  A high level example might be “Make Afghanistan peaceful”.  The Army suggests 2 questions to arrive at the CI

1.       If we do nothing else during tomorrow’s mission,  we must …

2.       The single, most important thing the we must do tomorrow is …

Read “Made to stick” from Chip & Dan Heath if you want to learn more concerning CI and many more valuable concepts. What is your Commander's Intent?

Change

Is change good or bad? I guess it depends on what kind of change it is and how you perceive the change. A change can be an exciting opportunity to improve a situation or it can be the first step in the wrong direction.
Most of the changes in our lives form first in our heads and then they happen in real life. So make sure you approach change as positive as possible. That sounds much easier than it is! Think about a Merger & Acquisition situation or on a more personal level on a separation from your partner. These are big changes and they are not easy to deal with. Another example could be a project that you get assigned in your company. Let's say it is a very challenging and critical project for your company and you know that senior management is paying very close attention to this particular project is this good or bad for you? Is this something great for you because you can show what you and your team can do or is it something scary?  Your judgement of the change will determine how you approach it. Don't waste energy and fight the change but instead try to make the best of it!

Business life and personal life

Is there such a thing as a business and a personal life? I mean can you have one set of values in one life and another set of values in another life? How many hours do you spend at work every week. A week has 24x7 hours, so 168 hours. We all have to sleep so let's assume that is 7 hours a night, which means 49 hours per week. This leaves us on average with 119 hours per week. Now how much of this time do you use for your job? Let's go with some low and conservative numbers (at least for Managers and Key Contributors) and say it's around 9 hours a day, 5 times a week. That adds up to 45 hours. In addition to the job itself let's assume you have some light commute. Again let's estimate low and assume it's only 40min a day. That is ~ 3.5hours of commute per week. Then how often do you think about work when you're actually NOT at work. This includes things like thinking about a presentation you have to prepare, an email you have to follow up on, telling your partner about a challenge at work etc. I assume 1.5 hours every day. This ends up to be 10.5 hours per week. If we add all the job related hours we end up with 45h+3.5h+10.5h = 59 hours. So out of our 119 hours we spend 59 hours with our job and 60 hours on our personal life. Your Job is 50% of your waking hours! Every day, every week, every month and every year. This is your life. Make sure that your business and personal values are closely aligned otherwise you waste your life.

Building a strong team

In many companies Managers talk a lot about how important people are but what do YOU do to really show your team how important they are? Lip service is not enough! In addition to your company standard benefits like 401K, Health, Dental, Eye Insurance etc. what is important to your team? You have to meet with them on a regular basis to find out and to stay on top of this topic. If people are taken seriously and see that you, as the manager, put in a real effort to help them move forward that makes a world of difference. Unfortunately many Managers (incl. Project Managers) are overwhelmed with this role and are more focused on themselves than their team. Instead of stepping over your team, to appear as the hero, make your team stronger. Mentor your people and provide them with the necessary connections and advice. It requires some effort and sometimes the effort will be wasted but most of the time you will get much more benefit from this than you think.

Do what you say you will do!

Communication is a key factor in every relationship because it allows us to clearly state to each other what we need and what our objectives are. Therefore it is very important to further develop our communication skills at every opportunity. Some people are very good in 1 on 1 discussions, some are very good in giving speeches, some excel in written communication and some people are simply very likeable and gain credit through that. In all these cases, and many others, though the most important aspect is what follows the communication. To do what we say we will do is one of the most important things in relationships. We have to think before we communicate because we will be held accountable for the things we say.

Take back control

Is it up to you or the people around you how you feel? Or does the weather influence your mood? There can be many things that influence how we feel, good or bad. Do you want to gain some more control over how you can deal with these uninvited feelings? If you do then you should have a look at Victor Frankl's book "Man's search for meaning".  We might not be able to influence everything that impacts us (e.g. the weather won't get nice just because we feel depressed) but we can influence how we react to these things. This is much more powerful than you think. Read the book and see how powerful this can be.

Ask for forgiveness instead of permission

If you want to achieve change you sometimes have to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. In many organizations it is challenging to get any changes approved without hard ROI (Return on Investment) data.
Now what do you do if you don't have that data and you can't get that data in a reasonable amount of time?
First of all you really have to believe in the change that you are proposing and you should have some basic data that shows why this is a good idea! Show some user/customer benefits. Who will benefit from your idea and why? Then you have to determine are you ready to put in some serious personal time and effort to show that you are correct? Are you passionate enough to find other Teams or individuals to support you? Let's assume you do, then it helps to keep the effort small and run some kind of pilot project to check if your idea is really as good as you think it is. Once you can show that your idea works on a smaller scale you have a much better chance to move forward with your idea on a larger scale. Good luck and just do it!

Take care of yourself

If you are in a position where you do what you love to do for a living, time doesn't really matter that much.  In this case your work is your hobby and you wouldn't know how to use your time any better anyway. As long as that position provides sufficient financial means you are in a great position to achieve personal and professional satisfaction. Alas, for many people that is not the case. They might love what they do but they don't want to do it 24/7/365! I am in this category and I think that is fine!
If you are also one of these people then you should ensure that you balance your time between work and home effectively. Notice that this is not just a saying that you use to show your boss how dedicated you are but something important for your longterm health and well being as well as your effectiveness at work. To be successful also means to know when to say "No". Take care of yourself and actively schedule time to recharge your batteries! Note that in some cases the work just needs to get done and you have to suck it up and do whatever needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done. But that should not be your default.

Do more and better work

One challenge in the work environment is that most of the time multiple tasks need to be addressed at the same time. Is that true for you? If it is, does it have to be this way? I don't think so! If you are an exceptional multi-tasker then this might not present a problem for you but if you are more of an effective sequential worker then this is a problem.
In any case, one reason why we have this challenge is that we miss to prioritize our work. Many of us just go ahead and work on whatever task comes our way or whatever task we like to work on.  This is not a good use of anyones time. Prioritize the tasks that come up and then work on them in priority order.
It is simple but it is not easy. On a typical day when you attend meetings, check emails you also have to prepare other meetings, get a report out to your team, follow up with other teams to ensure the system or process requirements were correctly understood and many other things. Instead of just reacting to whatever comes your way put some effort into regaining control of your time. Don't jump on every task. Think and prioritize before you start the next task.

Little effort - big return

Have you ever noticed that the "little things" in life are very often the "big things"? What do I mean by that? Let's look at an example everybody understands. When you have a partner you do not come home every night and bring a present, right? Even when you are madly in love and can't get enough of each other. What you (hopefully) do though is treat each other nicely. If you want to have a good relationship you have to treat each other accordingly.  In a Business setting it is very similar. There are many little things that can make a world of difference, they don't cost much beside your good will. Some examples are saying "Thank you" more often or letting someone finish their sentence without interrupting. It can even be as trivial as a nice greeting in an email. Try it and see that a little appreciation and respect goes a long way.

Simple Language

Do you have problems to understand when somebody talks to you in acronyms? If you do then you are not alone. While it might be ok in your professional group to use acronyms, many people outside of your group, and maybe even some inside, will not understand what you are refering to. The point of communication is that people understood you, isn't it. If you are not sure if an acronym or term is commonly understood replace it with another, simpler term. In some cases you might have to use examples to make it really clear what you are talking about. Don't be afraid to lose time when you do that because in almost all cases that I have run into it actually saved time. It's simply a good habit and it helps to be clear and unambiguous.

Time

Today I heard (again) about an interesting question from Marshall Goldsmith. It is not a scientific study but based on him asking 10,000s of people around the world a question.  He is asking people what percentage of their communication is based on either telling others how smart, special or wonderful they are or how stupid, bad or inept some other people are.  Based on his feedback the average number is 65%.  That is a lot of time even if the number is only somewhat correct. If this is anywhere near your answer to this question, then you have a first hint on where you can save time.

Coming to terms with decision making

I just read this article from Marshall Goldsmith's book "Mojo ...". It is an excellent book and this paragraph sums up a couple of important points. Read it and learn from it.
"Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make that decision - not the "right" person, or the "smartest" person, or the "most qualified" person, and in most cases not you. If you influence this decision maker, you will make a positive difference. If you do not influence this person, you will not make a positive difference. Make peace with this. You will have a better life! And, you will make more of a positive difference in your organization and you will be happier."
This approach sounds simple doesn't it. But it is certainly not easy! Treat your decision makers like they are your best customers.

Up to you

You might not recognize it but you probably have more influence than you realize. That is true at work and it is also true in your personal life. It is up to you to use your influence to improve things. Are you aware of how your attitude impacts your day?  In this context it is important to notice that an authority position obviously provides more opportunity to impact outcomes but even without that official position you can have influence. Instead of focusing on decisions that you can't influence, focus on the ones that you can.  Let's look at an example. If an organization decides that they need another Merger to grow their business and you are at the lower or midlevel of the organization you will have no say in what is going to happen. So there is no point in dwelling on these thoughts for long because you can't influence it. What you can influence though is your attitude towards Mergers and to your (future) team in general. You can see a merger as an opportunity or as a threat. You can also come to work with an open mind and look for the good things that you can build on or you can focus on the negative things. Whatever you decide will heavily influence your day and the day of the people around you. Are you ready to be a positive influence for yourself and others?