Management Craft

Virtual and Global Team Excellence - Where in the world is my team?

First, an admission. I am behind on my book reading. WAY behind. So if you sent me a book (that I said I was interested in receiving) and wonder what's up, please stick with me. The gradual move to my temp apartment in Cincinnati and the new gig have thrown my reading schedule off.

One such book - and this is one I was really looking forward to reading - is Where in the World is My Team? by Terence Brake. This is a well done and much needed book for anyone dealing with the challenges of a geographically dispersed team.

OK, that is most everyone these days. Even if you work at a manufacturing plant, chances are you are regularly working with design engineers, sales or marketing people or vendors or call centers at other locations. This book will help you if your team is separated by a few miles or thousands of miles (it focuses on global team strategies, which all seem quite applicable to mildly dispersed teams).

And here is the bottom line. Terry offers up a simple but elegant model that will help you, dear managers, make sure you are not forgetting or inadvertently ignoring the basic practices that enhance global team performance.

Terry highlights three challenges facing dispersed teams: isolation, fragmentation, an confusion. I have seen these signs with teams separated by two floors! To combat these challenges, teams need to have high engagement, cohesion, and clarity. Yes, these are the right and important elements!

Then Terry drills down on these elements and offers specific and actionable advice for creating a culture that enables team excellence. These are broken into several categories like cooperation, convergence, coordination, capability, communication and cultural intelligence.

The model is simple - it is very clear - but it also covers a lot of ground. And it is evident that Terry knows his stuff by the examples and the specific suggestions he offers. he offers several drawings and pictures that help turn concepts into models and show the linkages between actions and results. If I could have had one wish, I would have liked to have seen even more drawings - hey, I am a simple girl and I like pictures. The books is a highly manageable 220 pages and has a nice synopsis and glossary at the end for people who like executive summaries and definitions.

If you manage teams, get this book. I think you will like it.

And BTW, as I was reading it, I could not help but think that this book PLUS Hip and Sage, would be a great double package to give every manager over the age of 40 who manages teams. If they read both books, and apply 1/10 of the suggestions found in each, they will be SO hip and SO effective as a manager in this new work world.

Management Craft on the List for Top Career Blogs

I was pleased to find that Management Craft is on the list of the top 100 English language career blogs from Career 100/Rise Smart. You can see the full list here. There are some great blogs on the list! Although career development is not the main focus of this blog, I do write about it often. Also, for managers, building your craft is an important way to build your career.

Fix Meetings - From Seth Godin

Love this short and focused post from Seth Godin called, Getting Serious About Your Meeting Problem. I would like to second Seth's comment about the importance of adding value. He suggests that if we are not adding value, we should leave. I agree! So many people focus on how a meeting is wasting his or her time, but I have not heard as many people wonder whether they are contributing fully enough. You see, only that last thought has the power to change things. As long as we all shrug our shoulders like the poor helpless victims that we aren't, not much will change. Check out all 9 of Seth's recommendations.

And can we add a cell phone signal scrambler into the meeting room remodel budget? Perhaps trap doors under each chair that give way when BP gets too low....

Washington DC - Monday Evening Events?

I am in Washington DC this coming Monday and Tuesday for business and my Monday dinner appointment just rescheduled. So, dear readers, help me out. Do you know of any great business events going on in DC or Alexandria this Monday evening? Let me know in the comments or send me an email by clicking on the link in the left column of the blog.

And if I can't find a business event, I would be open for hearing about any great events happening Monday.

Thanks! Lisa Haneberg

Management Matters and Teams Matter

Here are two great posts for you to check out. First, from pal Rosa Say comes this article called, How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture.  Wow, I agree with Rosa's points here. It is time for managers and leaders to SHINE and it is a privilege and honor to be able to do so. And it is time for organizations to value and focus the role of managers. Here's a snippet:

When layoffs happen, we are seeing managers being plugged into new vacancies like gum being used to caulk the cracked hull of a sinking ship. Sometimes the managers are the ones who are being laid off, for they earn the higher salaries and accompanying benefit costs, and surely, if they were largely babysitters before anyway, maybe we won’t need them now that the staff who still remain are so grateful they still have their jobs to hang on to… everyone’s crumbling entitlement mentality has been one silver lining in all this, and they’ll work harder than before to compensate.

Check it out.

Here's another great post from another online pal, Dwayne from Genuine Curiosity. He summarizes several great books for team building in his post called, Putting the Work in Team Work. Dwayne always does a great job summarizing the strengths of books and this post is no exception. Personally, I would like to see MORE attention paid to helping leadership teams be great together (that's why my manager and I are writing a book about it). Great teams are an amazing force. And really, a senior team cannot expect any team reporting under them to be more functional or passionate than they are. This is a ig responsibility and burden, but one we all take when we accept a high level position in the organization. Being a great team member ought not be a choice or option.

Engagement - best in class

I like this post from Learn2Develop called Employee Engagement. Check it out.

There is a part of me that wonders if, like so many things, we are suffering from functionaltermitis (terms unique to a function). What's that? It occurs when a lack of communication occurs because different groups like to call the same things by different names. And not just that they call things by different names but that those other names are somewhat repelling.

For example - alignment. OD people use this word a lot. It can make the eyeballs of some execs roll back into their heads.

And how about values? I hear a lot of HR, training, and OD people talk about values. Fewer execs.

And what about accountability? More execs use this word, less so for others.

I worry that engagement is a word that HR, training and OD folks are using and making the eyeballs of some execs go back in their heads..... Do you find this? It is not the concept that is causing the chasm - it is the word and how we talk about it. Engagement can also be described in very businessy terms and so if you are finding that you want to talk about engagement but not getting the audience you desire, try changing how you talk about it (without changing how you talk about it, if you get my drift).

And then there are the strange sayings we throw out that likely make all our eyeballs retract back - things like, "we are a mission driven business." Hooey - missions can't drive a thing. People drive. Some drive fast, some slow, some straight, some winding. And some people buy SUVs and never go off road, but that is another topic entirely.

Anyway, I digress, check out the post. :-)

Change - Guest Post from Lisa Edwards

Here is a helpful and uplifting guest post from Lisa Edwards, co-author of Managing Talent Retention: An ROI Approach.

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Change

“They always say that time changes things, but you have to actually change them yourself.”
-Andy Warhol

I work in the media industry, an industry facing big challenges due to economy as well as the shifts in the way that our customers think about and purchase media-related products.  When I think about our business and where the growth opportunities are going to come from I am reminded of the experience I had with my family's printing business. 

Twenty years ago, the printing industry was going through everything the media industry is going through: consolidation, competitive pricing pressures and prices that drop below the actual costs of doing business.   My family ended up closing the printing business, but while we were struggling to keep the printing business alive, we launched a poster business that still exists today.

The way that we discovered the poster business was by exploring ideas and testing them out.  At first, we thought we wanted to design and make book marks by using the scrap end of the stock.  As we pursued that idea, it grew to the idea of doing art prints, which after testing the market (and failing at that), grew to the concept of large inspirational art posters.  The concept was unique at the time and the focus groups told us the product would never sell, but in fact, it did.  It was our willingness to explore something new, focus on something we were passionate about (art and inspirational messages) and really persisting even in the face of the market data telling us it wouldn't work. 

The first year we took our full line of 20-posters to the trade show, we were the only poster company.  The next year, there were four new competitors copying our products, but because we were the market leader our posters stood the test of time.  Today, some of the poster titles have sold more than a million copies.  It's still a small business, but it's a market leader in its category.

At nearly every business that is struggling today, I think that this is the perfect time to focus on what the people are most passionate about, have the willingness to pursue a new idea and make it acceptable if the business model for the new idea isn’t immediately defined.  It’s the time to allow for experimentation, but also not to give up when something fails.  It’s a time to explore and test things out.

In the business where I work, I always come back to our owner/founder's original idea for the business.  At the time, he was SO visionary, that the marketplace wasn’t ready for his idea.  Maybe now is the perfect time.  Maybe it’s the same for the company where you work.  Maybe you have an idea that you’ve been incubating for a few years.  Maybe now is the perfect time to pursue the idea.

It’s hard to think about investing in a new idea—whether it be a new product or new business when everyone is thinking about cutting back and trimming expenses. Investigating a new idea doesn’t mean you have to invest all of your resources into it.  Instead, a very small team of people could pursue the idea.  They could do this as an extra activity in addition to their normal job duties.  And, if they are passionate about it, they will do so willingly!  Entrepreneurial ideas come to fruition during times when we are faced with huge challenges, few resources and an outlandish dream.  In fact, Google was started during a recession.  GE was founded during the depression.  With the passion, focus and openness to experimentation at your company, just think what you could create. 

And, as time changes things over the next 5 years, you could change your business into the hot brand that Google became just a few years ago.

© 2009 Lisa Edwards - www.BloomWhereYouArePlanted.com

Plane Travel Etiquette?

Here's a very funny and helpful post from Annarchy called, 10 Things I Hate About You, Travel Edition. Check it out. Hat tip to Warrens via Twitter.

Have you met good business contacts on a flight? I have, but it happens less and less as we all get more irritable and iPodded on planes. And now - with security lines long and flights full and fewer comforts - we are all trying to fit in eating concourse fast food bought 2 hours prior and make up for sleep lost due to getting up at 3am to get to the airport.

So what's with the food, anyway? If I buy a Wolfgang Puck Express Chinese Chicken Salad at 11am and eat it at 1pm (after waiting for the plane to take off and get to cruising altitude) am I in the "danger" zone from a bacteria perspective? I think so. I wonder if food poisoning has gone up since airlines cut food service....

The New Business Acumen?

I did a talk last night for the Greater Cincinnati Chapter of ASTD. The topic was: The 10 Ways our Management Training Must Change. At the beginning of the talk I offered up two lists - first, the list of knowledge areas that used to make up what we broadly call business acumen. And then I shared what I thought was the new list. Here they are. Tell me what you think and what you would add or subtract to the new business acumen.

Knowledge Areas that Make Up Business Acumen (Old):

• Finance/P&L
• Accounting
• Marketing
• Sales
• Strategy and Planning
• Decision Making
• HR/People Matters
• Operations/Throughput/Efficiencies

Knowledge Areas that Make Up Business Acumen (New):

• ALL the areas above PLUS:
• Complexity/Simplicity (how to manage in a more complex world and de-hassle the org)
• Online EVERYTHING (how to work and communicate online)
• 24/7/365 (how to deal with our always on world)
• Outsourcing, In-sourcing, Intra-outsourcing (how to source work)
• International/Virtual/Free agent teams
• Ubiquity/Experts aren’t (that our competitive advantage is no longer expertise, because anyone can find the knowledge quickly)
• Four generations in the workplace

Hubris or Humility? Choose wisely and prosper.

My pal Starbucker offers this killer post about humility called, Starbucker on Leadership: The Welcome Return of Humility. Here's a wee snippet:

It’s as if all of these executives ignored the existing conventional wisdom of achieving sustained business greatness - the blend of will and humility Jim Collins refers to in his book  “Good to Great” as “Level 5 leadership” - in the misguided belief that they alone had all the answers, and that any show of restraint, or for that matter, expansion of the inner circles to thoughtfully and inclusively debate and discuss strategy and vision, and risk and reward, and the long term versus the short term, was nothing more than a waste of time.

I agree with Starbucker on this one, for sure. One of the most important aspects of sageness is humility (shameless plug here: go preorder Hip and Sage on Amazon today - thanks). But seriously, there is no better way to show leadership that to show your humanility. To proudly and empathetically be a beautifully flawed and constantly learning professional. Humility is a simple but elegant emotion and act that comes from valuing others and seeing yourself as part of - not separate from - a larger whole.

As I have aged, I have honed my ability to sniff out those who are out for only themselves - I bet you have, too. These people are missing the point of achievement and most certainly have a hollow personal definition of success.

Hey, I love money and I love success. But I hope I never stray from thinking that success comes when I can do great work that contributes to others or an organization - and is often achieved when I am great as part of a group effort.

And I agree with Starbucker's strong close to the post - we are not alone. The world does not revolve around us and we are not pulling all the strings. But we can all be great leaders and contribitors with a healthy perspective and when we practice humility.