Management Craft

Ideas for the Holidays

A lot of managers and HR pros struggle to find the right type of celebrations during the holidays. In our ever-inclusive culture, we don't want to offend anyone. This means we need to stay away from outwardly celebrating any one faith or belief system.

And then there is the money thing - money is tight and people don't want to spend greenbacks on useless crap for the holiday party.

So here are a couple of ideas:

1. Book exchange. We all have great books on our shelves. Why not have a gathering where everyone brings in their favorite book and people switch and share.

2. Group giving. Why not pool your pennies to help a family in need. Forgo the useless crap entirely!

3. Give a day off instead of a celebration. Let's face it, productivity goes way down during the holidays. So you might as well give people more time off to get all their personal stuff done (they are doing it at work anyway).

With all the pink slips going around, if you have a job, rejoice! I will say what many managers are thinking across this country:

Be thankful you have a job! And if you don't focus and help us turn things around, you might not have a job for very long. Cakes, parties, gifts - are you kidding me? Would you prefer I spend my day thinking about caterers or trying to find ways to prevent having to lay people off?

That's why I like option #1. It is both fun and it will help keep people focused - which is critical for many businesses that are teetering on the edge of success.

Note: The lovely table linens in the above picture are from my sister-in-law's new online business. She makes high quality table linens for a nice homemade gift. I love her handcrafted double-sided napkins. Check it out here.

Fireside Chat with Dr. John Kotter - A Sense of Urgency

Do you act with a true sense of urgency or a false one? Check out this podcast!

During this 22 minute podcast, I chat with Dr. John Kotter, author of A Sense of Urgency. This is a wonderful book (Dr. Kotter has written 17!) about the key factor that often determines whether change efforts are successful or a failure (70% fail, only 10% exceed expectations). Dr. Kotter graduated from MIT and Harvard and is Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School. I have been a fan of Dr. Kotter's work for a long time, so it was a real honor to chat with him on the podcast. Check it out! This is a podcast you will want to share with colleagues. I highly recommend the book for all managers and leaders.

You can listen to my podcast with the John Kotter by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here.

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

Be careful what you ask for....

I have been traveling over the last few days and three thoughts popped into my pea brain that I thought were worth sharing. Interestingly, they all can be organized under the title of this post - be careful what you ask for...

The first is a question. Do you know when it is time to give in? As managers, we often SAY we want independent thinkers who will challenge us or who will ask lots of questions. That said, I know of many managers who seem unwilling to change their minds about things. They are unwilling to make accommodations to previous decisions or to say, "sure, I could accommodate that," or "that sounds like a better plan, thanks."

These managers get entrenched by their initial thoughts and decisions. And I think they believe that if they give in, it means that they were wrong about the situation and that being wrong is unacceptable. Is it better to be right and hated or to be wrong and respected? Managers who say they welcome questions and opinions but then fail to allow others to influence them are hypocrites and they are often the type of managers that make people want to leave.

The second topic is an observation. Bloggers, of particularly professional blogs (ones that deal with topics, not a person's personal comings and goings), start their blogs with hopes of being read. We all want to share our 2 cents and hope that increasingly large numbers of people will find the words valuable and interesting.

At the same time we build audience, we become noticed by the PR machines for every book author, software developer, and professional who is seeking publicity. At first, the attention is very nice. We get free books and get links to press releases and such.

I do enjoy the direct links to  top shelf authors as I can get some great guests for my podcast through these PR firms pitching the latest books. But I could do a podcast a day every day and still not cover all the book authors who are seeking exposure.

I am a bit weary of this attention (that I asked for by building the blog) for three reasons. First, it takes a lot of time to weed through it all. I get many emails every day from PR firms with pitches.

Second, although it may seem that by getting this attention I am in the know in some unique way, this is not the case. The same PR firms are pitching all the other blogs like Management Craft and if we all say "yes" then you, the readers, see similar posts appear on many blogs at once (pleasing only the PR firm). So there is nothing exclusive or special about this attention.

Third, the attention does not seem reciprocal. In other words, I have not seen that these PR firms have an interest in helping ME or my blog. Do they believe that they are giving me the "gift" of their pitch and perhaps a few free books and that this ought to be enough? If we are talking about great thinkers and a great books (like the Drucker book I covered for my last podcast or Marcus Buckingham or Marshall Goldsmith or John Kotter) they are right - I see this as a win-win.

But I will tell you, most of these pitches are not that interesting. Not that novel. And many cover topics that I don't cover on Management Craft. I say "no" to the vast majority of pitches.

The third topic is a reflection. Like most people, I was watching TV on the night of the election, flipping from channel to channel to see who had the most interesting things to say. I give the award of most intelligent, interesting and provocative comment to Tavis Smiley. I admit, and perhaps I should be ashamed of this, that I don't know much about Tavis Smiley (I now know he has a show on PBS and is a bit like a younger version of Charlie Rose in that he asks smart questions and is reflective). I don't even remember the channel, but Smiley was asked what was going through his mind upon hearing that Obama won the election and he commented on how this election was unique in the amount of energy and interest it created. And that more people seemed engaged. His comment was that this is a moment of truth and it will be interesting to see what Obama does with this energy (use it or let it evaporate).

We have the same challenge in business. Many of us don't use, or waste, the energy we great or enable. After a while, people learn that detachment is less painful.

When we seek something - whether it be engangement in the political process, independent team members or attention in the blogosphere - we should also think about what we will do if we get what we want. And how we respond will determine whether our citizens, employees, readers or colleagues stick with us or turn away.

ASTD Gives Me a Warm Surprise

I was not going to post today because we are all so focused on the election and I did not want to do a post that said "Go Vote!" because you already know to do this.

But something just came into my mailbox and I want to thank ASTD for it. I have written several books for ASTD Press and compared to other mainstream publishers, they are small. One of the benefits of working with a smaller organization is that you can build deep and satisfying relationships. ASTD Press is a joy to work with.

This is what came by email this morning (The links are not live because it is a screen shot. Link to the book and link to the conference.)

Pretty cool, huh? Sure, they are captializing on the election theme to sell more books and conference registrations, but it is nice that they selected - out of all that they could have selected - my work. They are very good to me! Thanks ASTD!

Are You Drowning in Victim Conversations?

And I don't mean from other people, I mean your own! Victim conversations seep into our brains and keep us from doing our best work. Even the most confident and successful of us can be sidetracked by a victim conversation.

Here's the bottom line - when we play the victim, we give our power away to some one or something "out there." If you want to generate a breakthrough, get on the court and into the game.

Here's a nice post from Bryan over at Making it Count called The Victim Mentality. Check it out. Here's a wee snippet:

I would suggest that we lose more by victimizing ourselves than of facing the situation in truth and working it through for a resolution. While it’s true that taking the attitude of a victim offers us a false sense of power, control and exemption, we sacrifice our reputation in the same stroke.

What are the NEW Management Skills? How do we develop these new skills?

I am really excited about the two sessions I have coming up with ASTD called Developing Great Managers. This will not be like most conferences where you attend, listen to someone at the front of the room, collect handouts, buy books, eat crappy lunch boxes and then return home and fill out an expense report.

No, this is not your father's management conference....

During these two days - just two sweet days - we will collectively and as a group of smart and interested people CREATE hours of great developmental material for cutting edge management. And everything that we ALL create will be available to ALL participants with no limitations or additional costs.

Essentially, we all get to keep the everything the group generates. AND it will be in a format that you can easily use back at work to improve management skills within your team and company. Not to mention your own skills.

Although called a conference, this two-day adventure is more like a cross between a think-tank and a Habitat for Humanity community house build (without the house). Whether you are a manager, HR pro, or trainer, you will have a great experience.

What have you got going on this December? Join me in Dallas or Alexandria!! Here are all the details again.

============================================

Preview: This post tells you how to join me (and David Zinger and Terry Starbucker) in Dallas and DC for exciting conversations about state-of-the-art management.

ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) asked me to partner with them to provide a kick butt two day conference on developing great managers. My book by the same name is apparently a very popular seller for ASTD and they want to extend the conversation about management development.

The design for this two day conference is very cool.

It is a two day workshop whereby the participants will create and share many (maybe dozens, depending on the group size) of Power Hours - ready to take back to their workplace and use to help develop great managers.

What are Power Hours? A power hour is a one-hour informal learning conversation that is designed to get managers into discussions that will help them generate and implement new/renewed ideas to move the business forward and build their management and leadership craft.

All of the participants will get access to everything that's generated during the two days - no licenses, no limitations. Bottom line: Participants will leave the two days with years worth of management development materials and the ability to easily blend power hours into their training regimens.

Managers who develop managers, trainers of managers, and HR professionals are the target audience for this conference. Anyone interested in management and leadership will love it.

But there is MORE. You will work with me for most of the two days, but there will be a guest speaker - who I am calling the provocateur - that will spend 2-3 hours with the group talking about:

The new management skills and requirements - what are the emerging management topics that ought to be a part of your training programs but probably are not yet? Emerging, new, cutting edge, under recognized - we will be focusing on creating power hours for NEW or underdeveloped management topics.

That's why I am calling the guest speaker a provocateur - he will provoke our brains and create head spinning goodness that will then lead into our creative work for the rest of the conference. This is going to be an energizing two days.

I am thrilled to tell you that my guest speakers are people you might know and read on a regular basis! My "provocateurs" for this conference are:

David Zinger! David will be joining me in DC (Alexandria, actually) on December 9th and 10th.

Terry Starbucker! Terry will be joining me in Dallas on December 4th and 5th.

David and Terry are amazing and I am really looking forward to working with them. For those of you wondering how to pitch your desire to attend this conference to your boss - how does this sound?

When I come back from this conference I will have with me many hours of management development training we can use, reproduce and modify with no additional costs or caveats. No licensing, nothing more to buy. I will be set for great material for the next year. And I will be creating this material with a group of very smart professionals and we will be sharing all the work. This is an ASTD conference, so we can trust that it will be top notch and valuable.

And besides, with the strong economy and the drastic drop in fuel costs, the travel expenses will be very low. The take-aways from the conference will make this well worth the travel and conference expenses.

And besides, nobody gets any real work done between Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway, so I might as well go to the conference.  Early December is a great time to go because it will give me lots of information I can use to help us kick off a great 2009.

And besides, our current training topics are lame - the same ole stuff. People are sick of it. Our training could use some updating, this is a new world and managers have a lot more to deal with than they used to.

How about it, will I see you there? Drop me a note if you register.

Oh, here's one more thing that might really appeal to my blog readers - on the evening of the first day, I will invite you to an informal chat in the hotel lounge - we can talk about whatever you want.

I hope you join me. Let's do some great work together! You can find out more information about these conferences on the ASTD website here.

Also, pass this post along to the fine folks who work in your training departments, OK? (Especially if you think their training could use some updating.... :-)

Oh, this is going to be so much fun! Here's your not-so-subliminal visual.

Fireside Chat with Jeffrey Krames - Inside Drucker's Brain

Would you like to know what Peter Drucker considered to be one of the most important characteristics of a good leader? Check out this podcast!

During this 30 minute podcast, I chat with Jeffrey Krames, author of Inside Drucker's Brain. If you are a manager or leader or aspire to become one, this is a book you will want to have because Jeffrey Krames has taken the time and care to distill the very best of Peter Drucker's management wisdom into one book. Drucker wrote nearly 40 books about management, so there was a lot to distill! Jeffrey spent a full day with Drucker, at his home, just a few years before Drucker died - a special honor and accomplishment since Drucker was known for refusing requests for interviews.

My conversation with Jeffrey was fun and provocative and I think you will enjoy listening to Jeffrey's stories about Drucker and his theories about management and about how they are still so relevant today. Also check out Jeffrey's blog here where he posts about Drucker and the subject of business book publishing (Jeffrey has written several business books and is the Editorial Director of Portfolio, a Penguin imprint that specializes in business books).

You can listen to my podcast with the Jeffrey Krames by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here.

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

From Marshall Goldsmith - Grow Up!

I love this quote from a recent Marshall Goldsmith blog post called, Finding a Great Coach:

“You’re an adult. Grow up! Take responsibility for your behavior.”

If only we all did this, there would we peace and harmony and money all round..... Life would feel like a swim in a warm river of chocolate....

... Sorry, I guess I got carried away day dreaming.

NPR says we are deluding ourselves about multitasking..

Check out this article and audio from NPR about multitasking. They say we frequently overestimate our ability to do many things at once. I find it interesting that we keep going back to evolutionary science. It seems that for all our new technologies, our bodies (unless you have bionic parts) still think we are hunter-gatherers, or perhaps even hiding in the tall grasses so as not to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

To optimize our experience, then, shouldn't our tools and practices take into account our nature?

Sounds like an interesting book title - How to Avoid Being Eaten By a Saber-toothed Tiger.

On a completely different topic...

What if, like most things, management takes practice and our first attempts are not very good? Writers often toss away their first few books - or put them in a drawer until they can go back and re-read them. Doctors practice on cadavers before they ever cut a live human. Pilots fly simulators before getting into the real cockpit.

Most managers don't get a safe environment in which to practice, learn, and fail. The people are real, their feelings are real, and the consequences are real. Sure, we sometimes do simulations in classes, but these are not good comparisons  - the situations are not very real. I bring this to your attention to evoke three responses:

1. Let's cut newer managers some slack - understand they are learning (hopefully).

2. If you are a manager, your employees - no matter how much it might seem this way on some days - are not cadavers. They need you to be great even if you don't know how to be great.

3. Why do we do this? Why do we promote people who have no idea how to manage, give them no help, and then expect anything other than a metaphorical train wreck?

If they do the right thing, does it have to be sincere?

I was reflecting on the best practices for developing senior leadership teams. Not the individuals, the team of leaders who drive the business forward (or backward). In helping senior teams align their daily practices and regimens to yield the best results, there is sometimes a chicken and the egg thing.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

In business, the two elements might be:

A. The right actions.
B. The right intent/feelings.

Does doing the right things lead to the right intent? Or does the right intent lead to the right things? I know MANY leaders who have the right intent but who don't do squat. And I know lots of CLUELESS leaders who are willing to be coached and try anything that might help improve results.

So is it OK if leaders do the right things - make the right decisions, take the right actions - but for reasons that might make us squirm (money, power)? If we believe that the actions will become developmental and win over their hearts in time, then we'd have to say it is OK to embark on the right actions regardless of whether their reasons leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

And then there are others who say that senior leaders ought to be focused on profitability (or other financial results) and that it is the middle manager's job to tend to the care and feeding of employees (making this line in inquiry mute).

What do you think?

How do you know a great leadership team when you see it? What are the qualities of a great team of leaders? How do they conduct business? How does their average day differ from the days experienced by less effective senior team members?

Poems for Boss? Happy Boss's Day!

October 16th is Boss's Day. I have written a Boss's Day post every year for the last four years. A couple of years back, I offered  Boss's Day Poem. I gotta tell ya, that thing gets SO MANY Google hits from people searching for poems for bosses. Over 10,000 20,000 hits in the last couple of days alone.

I had no idea that we were all so sensitive. :-) Or is it that we are too cheap to buy a gift?

I thought I would share that poem again today. Do something nice for your boss today, OK? Being a manager is often a thankless job. Sure, many managers are slugs, but most are well meaning slugs who learned from other slugs.

Give him or her something delicious, like a box of truffles or a liter of Bombay Gin.
Give him or her an afternoon off - manage up and tell your boss to play hookie.
Give him or her one drama-free day.

Here's the poem (poems, actually, there are two) - enjoy. Oh, and I know I am no Robert Frost or Billy Collins......

Being Boss

It is not always easy to be the one in charge
In charge of fixing the daily conundrums
That inevitably a come up at 4:30 on Friday
The Friday you have ball game tickets with a pal

Having to make the calls can cause nerves to flair
Flair with fear and raw vulnerability for what’s unknown
And the issues get more gnarly as the day wears on
Wearing patience thin and testing tired brain cells

Why would anyone want to be the boss?
The boss gets all the complaints and aggravation
Constant interruptions render plans obsolete
Obsolete and out of touch before clearing the gate

Being boss comes with these and many more challenges
Challenges roller coaster emotions and energy
These diversions don’t overshadow the reason to lead
Leading is about people, connection, and excellence

Leaders can see and develop our potential
The potential to fully express and utilize our talents
The boss cares about whether people are engaged
Engaged and unencumbered by rolling crud

Hats off to all leaders who get through the muck
The mucky muck of business to help people be great
Jobs would be unbearable without great bosses
Bosses who get what leading is really about

Boss’s Day Haiku

Context and comfort
Filtering through politics
The boss saves the day

For Geographically Dispersed Teams

I was doing some work with a client last week - a manager who leads three geographically dispersed teams. I shared this diagram as a way of making sure he had the basics covered. You want to work on each box and define and discuss each box.

More on Multitasking...

Here is another email comment on the multitasking discussion, this time from Management Craft reader Michele:

Hi Lisa –

First – let me say that I love your blog/website/books … and have enjoyed (and shared with many!!) these e-mails tremendously!

Onto specifics …WOW … this response really resonated with me, and not in an entirely positive way (he has good points, but it doesn't address multi tasking!). What Dave is describing is part of my profession … and it's called Lean Thinking!  Yes – not a new idea, made famous by Toyota, fostered in this country by James Womack and the great minds at the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Lean, as most of us have learned, is the systematic and continuous identification and elimination of waste.  What could be more wasteful than sitting around doing nothing while you're waiting for a process to finish?  On this I agree!!  However, in today's world, the operational definition of "multitasking" is a far cry from that of "Lean" – multitasking is the ability of a person to perform more than one task at the same time.  How many meetings have you attended where you are so focused on your Blackberry that you miss a critical portion of the discussion?  How many times have you tried to complete tasks while participating on conference calls?  What was the quality of your participation/output for each of those?  Could it have been better if you had been focused?

I believe that the raging inefficiencies in Corporate America (exactly why do we meet 49 times to discuss the same topic without any progress???!?!!!!???) have led many of us to multitask – because it is one of the few ways we have to "eliminate waste" in our jobs …. But realistically, this useful multitasking has crept into areas where it is doing more harm than good.

I personally am tired of 24/7 e-mail/IM/cell phone contact.  None of that is nearly as important as taking the time to connect with our colleagues, friends, family, and environment – and giving them the respect of focus and participation in the current moment.  In business, I vote for focus, active participation, accountability, and rapid deployment of solutions.  Personally, I vote for watching a peaceful sunrise with my husband, listening to the birds swooshing over the water, drinking in the stillness of the new day any time … Blackberry be damned!

Kind regards,
Michele

Thanks for your comment, Michele! I am with you about the Blackberries and similar tools.

One thing I have not said before, but believe, is that there are some differences in how we handle switchtasking, as Dave Crenshaw calls it. Some of us are better at it than others based on our habits, skills, and natural tendencies BUT - and this is an important BUT - even the best switchers are reducing their potential focus and productivity.

And Michele's main point is important. Let's not skimp on how we connect with the people who are important to us.

As we head into the weekend, consider making this a no technology weekend - or a no multitaking weekend!

Leadership and the Presidential Candidates

Kevin Eikenberry offers this interesting post called, Which Presidential Candidate is the Best Leader? He has written a lot about leadership and is now applying his model of 12 characteristics to the candidates in a survey you can participate in. It will be interesting to see what Kevin's survey comes up with! Here are the characteristics of remarkable leadership according to Kevin:

• Champions Change   
• Communicates Powerfully   
• Builds Relationships   
• Develops Others   
• Focuses on "Customers"   
• Influences Impactfully   
• Thinks & Acts Innovatively   
• Values Collaboration & Teamwork   
• Solves Problems & Makes Decisions   
• Takes Responsibility & Accountability   
• Manages Projects & Processes   
• Sets Goals & Supports Goal Achievement   

Does your candidate pass the test? You can read more about these in Kevin's book called Remarkable Leadership.

I don't like to talk politics on this blog but I do have just one beef. Actually, I have many beefs, but will share only one. I am very disappointed in how UNPRESIDENTIAL Sarah Palin has seemed in TV interviews and the debate. Sure, she is likable and charming and sometimes funny, but I could not see her sitting across the table from other world leaders and representing us well. She seems more like a spokesmodel than a serious candidate.

What I find most interesting about politics is how people use very different criteria for selecting leaders. I bet that if we were held to the same standards for voting that we have for hiring people, things might be different. As it is, we engage in discriminatory "hiring" (selection by voting) because many of us use non-job related criteria for selection.

That said, if the theory of the wisdom of crowds is correct, we will still tend to get it right most of the time - as a collective.

This Multitasking Bad? Another View....

Dave, a Management Craft reader, sent me an email with his thoughts about multitasking. Because I love to share many points of view, I asked Dave if I could post his email and he said, "yes." Here it is. Thanks Dave!

Lisa,
I listened to your podcast this week with David Crenshaw about multitasking.  I was very intrigued by the comments made by both you and David.  I would agree that “scattered” multitasking is a time killer.  When jumping from one task to another it does take time to re focus your energy and your brain.  I do however disagree with the comments that you can not train to be a better multitasker and that multitasking is an old and outdated way to both manage your people/department/company and your projects.

First, we need to define or clarify multitasking.  I believe that there are Tasks of varying sizes and complexity that can be broken down into smaller sub sets or smaller tasks.   The example I will use is cooking a dinner. The large or main task is cooking the dinner, the sub sets are: BBQ the roast, bake the potatoes cook corn and make a soup.  If the roast takes 2hours to cook, the potatoes take 1 hr, the corn takes 20 minutes and the soup takes 1 hr, without multitasking the meal would take up to 41/2 hours to prepare and cook.  This can be reduced by over 50% by properly planning out the cook’s time.  While the roast is on the BBQ prepare the soup, while the roast and the soup are cooking prepare the potatoes, while the roast is on the, soup is cooking, the potatoes are cooking prepare the corn.  If everything has been planned and executed properly the roast, soup, potatoes and corn are all ready within a few minutes of each other.  The cook has successfully completed a series of tasks simultaneously, or in other words multitasked.  The time savings are significant and the project (Dinner) was a success.  The key to this being successful is paying attention and planning thinks out.  While the roast may take 2 hrs to prepare and cook it does not require constant attention.  Same for the soup, potatoes and corn.  Each task requires monitoring, which the cook can do while he is completing the other tasks.

Second, I do believe you can become better multitasker.  With training and experience you can learn from your mistakes and make your process better. In the above example if you over cook the roast because you were preoccupied with the soup, next time you will pay more attention to the BBQ to prevent the flare ups.  As business people we are always learning and improving.  If something does not work, we assess, rework if necessary and attempt again. 

The main reason for this email is to say that multitasking has its place, and can be very effective in both personal and professional life.  This happens when people are trained and managed properly on what multitasking is how it can be good and the pitfalls that can happen if it is not executed properly.

Dave

Fireside Chat with Dave Crenshaw - The Myth of Multitasking

Are you a multitasker? Check out this podcast!

During this 24 minute podcast, I chat with Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing it All Gets Nothing Done. If you have been reading Management Craft for a while, you know that I agree whole heartedly that multitasking can rob even the most hard working professional of his or her ability to focus on what's most important. If you suffer from an addiction or habit of multitasking, or manage employees who do, check out this podcast and Dave's new book. Focus, grasshopper!

You can listen to my podcast with the Dave Crenshaw by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here.

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.