Coach Train Learn

Use Only Small Lists

To-do lists!

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they have a value.

So many times these lists can be a burden because they just get abused. Too much on them and they have little relevance and get ignored.

In Tim Ferriss’ book, ‘The 4-Hour Workweek‘ (really!), he suggests that you have a to-do list that is no more than 3 inches square (and write normal size too!).

By having a small number of do-able activities each day there are at least five benefits:-

* You focus only on priorities

* Successful achievement of your list builds self-belief

* You gain ’spare’ time that gives you flexibility to spend more time with your people, building relationships

* Things which last for weeks speculatively on your old style list don’t depress you.

* You bin your list each day with a flourish and carry nothing over. It’s amazing at the sense of freedom this can give you.

Try buying a pack of those square refill blocks of paper from your local stationers and give this a shot for a week.

You may well be surprised at the value it brings to your day.

PS Ferris reckons that you can achieve a ‘4-hour Workweek‘ through outsourcing work, especially if you are an entrepreneur.

If you are employed, you could read ‘creative delegation’ for ‘outsourcing’ and still utilize the value of the concept.

Bad Customer Service - Where Does the Fault Lie?

I’m going to be all contentious here - are you ready?

Bad customer service is almost never the fault of the person who gives it. Period.

When we are at the blunt end of bad service as a customer, we immediately feel that it’s the one facing us (or in an increasingly virtual world, on the other end of some sort of line or another), who’s at fault.

Yet, I’m pretty sure that most people who go to work each day want to feel that they have done a great job. Trouble is, their environment isn’t always right.

So, what does that mean? Well, let me share with you 5 top line reasons why the obvious culprit in not the individual in your line of fire, the person right in front of you:-

1. The Wrong Person

You see, when organizations recruit customer ‘facing’ personnel, they need to be very definitely choosing those who like interacting with others.

So often, what I call ‘people-people’ don’t get selected because they can come across as a bit forward at interview, and that can irritate the selection team.

This is wrong.

People-people are outward and love interacting. So, when selection teams recruit, sometimes the wrong person gets put in front of you because the wrong choices were made, often for the wrong reasons.

2. The Wrong Priorities 1

Customers aren’t quite the priority the organization says they are.

Of course every organization on the planet ’says’ that the customers is ‘the most important person’ (I actually disagree - see 4. below) - and then they don’t walk their talk. A customer is only the priority level that the sharp-end management gives it.

So they go giving their supposedly customer focused  employees a ton of other jobs to do so they make best (financial) use of them.

Where is the logic of that?

3. The Wrong Priorities 2

Organizations love processes! To many, they are ‘the most important thing’. More important than customers - judge by the demanding timelines!

It’s what employs a whole bunch of people and then, with all that ‘delighting customers’ they are supposed to be doing, they lumber their people with audits and stock control and a multitude of non-customer aligned activities that support who?

Probably the bean counters and auditors who provide the processes in the first place. The customer front line employees have to comply, or they get into trouble - or focus on customers.

Well, we know what they are going to do, aren’t they.

4. The Wrong Focus

Organizations upset their people without even trying.

They fail to recognize and act on some of the most basic standards that any employee might expect.

Pay gets botched and/or paid late; workwear is  ‘delayed’; people don’t say ‘thank you’; personal ambition isn’t on the radar; holidays get moved.

None of this helps a customer facing employee be at their very best when they need to be.

5. The Wrong Managers

More and more these days, manager appointments are being dumbed down to a pretty low denominator.

Mamagers are given roles that don’t suit them and they don’t have adequate people skills to make the best of the people they have; nor appreciate the criteria required to get the right fit.

Add to that where managers don’t show they care about their people because their communication skills are lacking and you have the absolute recipe for trouble.

Can you see the reasons why it’s pretty unlikely that customer facing employees are rarely where the fault for failure lies?

If you’re a manager yourself, what do you need to change in the way you run your team; department or business. What do you not know about how the sharp-end works. And, when will you find out about it.

Or maybe you are part of the problem, not the solution?

The Power of a Group

You are the leader of your team, your department or your organisation. You are the owner and amongst you all, no one can do the job; run the place, like you do. We all know that and have been there.

It’s tough because someone has to do it.

In fact it’s a struggle and because you are building something worthwhile, someone once told you that you don’t get anywhere without hard work.

Period; full stop; whatever.

In fact there is a lot of research now that shows you are wrong. Not just a bit wrong. Horribly wrong.

In ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ by Robert Surowiecki, he quotes a number of sources of information. Like, if you compare the performance of a team of experts with a team of half experts and half not experts, which gives the best results?

It’s the second one.

If you have a bunch of people working on a problem will they find a better solution than just one person. They will. In fact as long as they have the following attributes:-

• Diversity of Opinion - each has their own private information
• Independence - from other decision makers
• Decentralisation - can take into account local (and hence diverse from the big picture)
• Aggregation - the capacity to bring together all this variety of opinion

A crowd will always generate the best result - even if they are disparate and not connected in any way!

So, how can you go about getting the best from a group of your people, to enhance what you do?

The findings that Surowiecki brought up are no different in your business and organisation than the many examples he shares. Such as elections, marketing, gambling etc.

There are dozens in the book. Yet, how many organisations truly involve their people in making vital decisions about how the business can do better?

So, as a starter for 10, try asking them.

Next time you face a problem or challenge in your business, gather a group of people - as random a group as possible and give them these three tools and let them get on with it.

Ensure that they are different, empowered and encouraged to contribute. From the evidence from Surowiecki’s book, your people are almost definitely going to produce a better result than you alone ever could. Then you have to go with that flow.

Remember they must generate a solution that works, that doesn’t generate new problems and is cost-effective. If you give them their head, it is almost a given that they will do just that.

The challenge for you is not whether they will do well; more that you are willing to let up your own control and give them the opportunity to test their solution.

And that’s a big ask for you - not them.

The book is a worthy read too!

Feedback is a Gift

Feedback is a gift - when done properly.

The very word strikes fear into the hearts of millions of workers every day, because the only time they get feedback is when it is delivered by a manager who wants to criticise - yet put a bit of positive spin on it.

Ever been there?

I know I have and it sets off that internal groan, because you know just what’s coming.

Feedback is a gift - remember that at the start of this piece?

It can be a gift where used constructively, consistently and with goodwill. It is available to all of us, all the time, whether we are a manager or an employee with a manager.

It is available two-way and when used that way is a valuable tool for developing everyone in your organisation, department or team, however big you are, however small.

In fact personal self-feedback can be the ‘holy grail’ of development, where we get to be thoroughly honest with ourselves about how we are doing (and accepting self-praise when it goes well).

Back to others - how do we get feedback to work so that people really embrace it rather than run away from it?

Here are ten little tips to help you get the best from Feedback:-

1. Be Consistent!
Be consistent and give regularly - be a model for others to observe and then do themselves.

2. Receive Feedback Yourself
By personally asking for and receiving feedback you will receive much more you can use positively than to your detriment.

3. Value the Potential
We get too little truth in our lives as managers. People are nice to us face-to-face and then talk about us behind our backs. Feedback opens up the loop.

4. It’s About What, Not Who
Feedback is about the behaviour, and not the individual. It’s saying that you do a great job and this time what happened in detail. What did you ‘do’, not who are you.

5. Lose the Criticism
Always offer feedback and then, first ask them ‘What went well?’, and once you have given them time for that, ‘What might you try differently next time?’ And after they’ve said their bit, do it for them yourself. They will appreciate recognising their own performance first.

6. Look to the Future
Growth opportunities present when they see the possibilities and usually, they see them for themselves first. Thus ownership of a new solution in the future gives hope and excitement and evolution of performance.

7. Be Unconditionally Constructive
By avoiding negatives and ‘but’ you will engage rather than put off. Your people will be with you rather than against.

8. Deliver Promptly
The best time is in the moment, at the time or as close to is as possible. If you give your feedback at the first opportunity, you will find it is much better received.

9. Open Your Questions
Ask discovery questions with ease - there is no falseness, nor discomfort. Indeed the use of this questioning skill binds the relationships they are so good at making. The 6 Wise Men do this best Who, What, When, Where, How and Why.

10. Provide Support
Whatever the learning from this regular and consistent feedback you are using (two-way), there may be the need for ongoing support and coaching - be sure to offer it.

Feedback - a much underestimated and much maligned business opportunity, ready and waiting for you right now.

The Average Employee Is Best - Yeah Right!

It’s become commonplace in larger organizations to ensure that employees achieve to a set standard.

Maybe it’s that they are even audited to achieve that standard. Perhaps they are sterilized to a particular set of processes. Achievement of what’s set down becomes the target.

It’s become the norm to ‘dumb down’ on performance, to get the poor performers up to speed.

Yet this often means that it pulls top people down to that line as well as less time is available to spend with them, nurturing, challenging and stretching their capacity - driving them crazy and getting them to achieve the average.

That’s not good.

Taking care to allow employees some slack - to become the best they can - is a very positive way forward and one worth cultivating too.

Managing your poor employees individually is the more challenging - and a much better way.

What Is Management?

Two absolutely necessary things needed for the survival of any organization are leadership and management.

While leadership is the ‘quality’, which determines how far a company will go and how successful it will be in the long run, management is the ‘quantity’ that deals with the daily workings and the implementation of current plans that will help in the immediate health of the organization.

Leaders or Managers - What’s The Most Valuable?

So while leadership is a quality, which is undeniably useful for the eventual benefit of the company, management is the crucial, integral activity that will ensure it survives today, by ensuring the company delivers it’s operational requirements, thereby ensuring the possibility of seeing a tomorrow at all.

Leadership can be described as ‘that quality which involves innovation, risk taking and exploring of new avenues’ for the company to secure a stable, unchallenged superior position in a competitive world.

From this it could be considered that in a constant and steady state, all an organization consistently needs is solid management skills to survive, without any need for leadership skills. Leaders in any organization are the seeds sown for health and success in the future.

Managers Focus On Today’s Performance

To manage well is to focus on ongoing activities. Since the aim of management is to maximize profits using available resources, any good manager should be able to motivate and encourage his or her people.

They should have the ability to initiate the workers, any company’s main assets, into an inspired state of working, to get them pulling together in order to achieve a common goal.

It is only when managers are accomplishing results, through the co-operation of their workers that a company will be able to flourish. This is why a manager has to have the keen ability to gauge his workforce’s needs and act accordingly.

If his workers are capable and have adequate skill then the manager merely has to motivate and encourage them towards progress. If, on the other hand, the workforce is not that accomplished, the manager’s task is to personally guide and instruct them in order for them to benefit.

Get Management Right And Then Focus On Leadership

So, since utilizing and distributing resources is what is demanded from the manager, he cannot afford to be overly authoritarian. If he is, then he may push his workers into being less productive. Instead he should be the friendly but firm guide who inspires dedication to a common end.

Any manager’s goal is to maximize resources and reap the highest results, while dealing efficiently with clients and their quirks (as well as employees).

So while leadership focuses on taking companies onto new directions and give them new visions and aims, good managers help inspire employees deliver results in the shorter term in a focused way.

This helps the company to consistently reap profits right now, maintaining stability and equilibrium, so providing a healthy environment for the longer term potential the leader seeks to unleash. So a good manager will know how to handle stakeholders, clients and workers with equal ease, keeping things moving along nicely.

Then The Leader Comes Along

Because a manager is interacting so intimately with all parties, he or she will instinctively have knowledge of what clicks, who should be made to work together with whom and how to deal with problems.

But while a manager by virtue of the nature of his work has to be an insider, working closely at the sharp-end of the business every day, the leader does not. He can work from the sidelines and inspire change without even having a personal stake in what’s happening today.

Leadership is needed for future growth and development in any business.

It is a strategic activity, requiring vision, creativity and market-wisdom. Management is what gets work done; what brings today’s cash-flow and ensures the health of the business right now and in the foreseeable future.

It is the true force and inspiration behind any successful organization, without which, there would be no future.