In Memoriam
post # 430 — September 11, 2007 — a General post
This is a day to remember many tragedies and losses, and resolve to carry on nonetheless. That’s what’s expected of us, and it’s the best we can do.
Passion, People and Principles
Think of Work – new careers videocast & audiocast
post # 429 — September 10, 2007 — a General post
In Think of Work, the 22nd episode in this series, we are going to examine the issue of professional engagement and excitement. All to often professionals are doing tolerable work for tolerable people or worse, work that they dislike for people they don’t care about. The impact of this, not only on a personal level but in the marketplace, is staggering. We will look at ways to change this in your professional life.
Audio Timeline
00:40 — Introduction
01:08 — A survey on professional excitement: Does your profession excite you?
03:25 – A survey on professional excitement: Do your clients excite you?
06:04 — The importance of choosing work and clients that actually interest you
09:08 – Conclusion
You can download Think of Work or sign up to receive new Maister Moments videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
Self Publishing: Shining Examples?
post # 426 — September 7, 2007 — a Strategy and the Fat Smoker post
I was thinking about whether there are recent examples of established authors who decided to self-publish their latest works.
Unless my information is wrong, I think both Jim Collins (Good to Great in the Social Sector) and John Kotter (Our Iceberg is Melting) first launched these books as self-published, although in both cases they subsequently accepted offers from publishing houses. I don’t know why.
Does anyone else have recent examples?
Why Does Bad Management Thrive So Much?
post # 428 — September 6, 2007 — a Managing post
One of the things that puzzles me and fascinates me is that, according to the economics and competitive strategy I was taught, companies that do things well, are efficient and achieve high standards should (in theory) drive out their competitors who are managing poorly, fail to use resources effectively, etc.
The source of all these reflections is an email I just received from a young professional describing how his firm operates. My question is: why hasn’t this egregiously bad management been driven out competitively? How do firms like this stay in business?
Here’s the story as it was relayed to me in my correspondent’s email:
***
Over the last few weeks situations at my workplace have sent me down and interesting journey of thought. Specifically, I have noticed how distorted our perception can be in the accounting industry.
There was a particular engagement in my sector which was new to us this year. We had one staff member with less than a year experience, one supervisor who has been at our firm for less than 6 months, and a principal who has been with our firm for 3 years but has extensive public accounting and private industry experience. As the engagement went on it became very clear that work was not progressing at a satisfactory rate but nothing was adjusted to compensate for it.
Finally, last week, the young staff member stressed once again that he did not believe they would be able to finish the work on time. At this point the sugar hit the fan! The principal came down very hard on the staff and supervisor and stated she was “disappointed” in their inability to get the job done. For the rest of the week, the principal and another manager from our department stepped in and worked close to 20 hour days to complete the project. I should also mention that both the staff and supervisor had put in 60 hour weeks over the last 2 months attempting to meet the deadline.
I first became upset when the principal threw the staff member under the bus and failed to take any responsibility for the engagement herself. But what bothers me even more is that from the outside, the principal (and the additional manager who stepped in to help out) looks like she saved the day when in reality the engagement “failed” due to poor management throughout. Part of me realizes that my youth may cause me to overlook many aspects of the situation but I also know that this has solidified in my mind the up-hill battle that many individuals in my generation will have in public accounting.
Unfortunately, this industry will continue to reward those who sacrifice their time, their family and their lives over those who find ways to manage effectively, and become more efficient. The end result is that current senior management will label my generation as lazy and arrogant (both are partially true). If you tell me that I can achieve success, as my superiors have, by working 3,000 hours a year I would see it as a failure. If I have to work as much as someone else did 20 years ago to accomplish the same results have we really progressed at all?
I always thought that a fun experiment would be to tell someone that they only had 45 hours this week to accomplish their work. I bet we would all be surprised by the efficiencies and innovation that would come out of it. The fact that this profession will permit, and even worse, reward those who work such ridiculous hours exposes a fundamental flaw in the collective thinking of the industry. After all, we are not teaching our young staff to find better, more effective ways to do anything. But rather, we are simply showing them how to put their career before their family and personal life. We do not encourage that people take risks, try something new, or go out on a limb. We take the easy, safe route…we just work more. In the process we are rewarding many who are poor managers, poor developers and are stagnant in their own development.
Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
***
I’d like to hear everyone else’s thoughts: How do firms that manage this way survive? Is it simple that EVERYONE is equally bad, so there’s no penalty?
The September Carnival of Trust
post # 427 — September 4, 2007 — a General post
Welcome to the fourth Carnival of Trust, originally launched by Charles Green at Trust Matters.
My job was to choose the top 10 for this month. So, here are some interesting items that I think are worthy of your attention.
First, in the category of trust in society, the economy and politics, look at Marty Lederman’s frightening discussion of The Rosetta Stone of the Detention/Interrogation Scandal, in which he explores the role trust plays in the interrogation of prisoners.
Next, Tiffany offers what she unabashedly calls a “political rant†about the recent Lead in the Children’s toys events.
Annalee Hewitz explores issues of anonymity and trust in the use of Wikipedia.
Alan Weis tells an interesting story about being approached by PR firms to be an expert for the media on the Minneapolis bridge collapse story — and why he declined.
Then there is Rajesh Setty’s advice in his ongoing series on “How to Distinguish Yourself†The latest in his advice series is Watch Who You Refer.
In The Secret Sauce for Virtual Teams, Anne Truitt Zelenka provides a stimulating discussion about how to make geographically dispersed teams function through the use of trust.
Also in the category of trust in managing, take a look at Bruce McEwen (who blogs under the name of Adam Smith, Esq.) who reports on a Harvard Business School Study of an advertising agency that tried to manage through “valuesâ€, but found it harder than it first appears!
Rob Millard reports on a study in Harvard Magazine about the relationship between Trust and Betrayal in the Process of Strategy.
Paul Pedrazzi, of Oracle, provides a stimulating explanation of “Why Social Networks Don’t Work for Business.â€
Michelle Golden offers an interesting twist on client portability and trust. She discusses the provocative view that the fact that a member of the firm COULD walk away with one of the firm’s clients is a mark of appropriate client intimacy!
Thanks to everyone who submitted blogs for consideration and for those looking for more about trust, the first, second and third carnivals should satisfy. If you’d like to be submit an article for consideration for the next carnival of trust you can do so here.
The Importance of Appearance
post # 425 — September 3, 2007 — a Careers, Client Relations, Managing post
Back in February, I blogged about my experience being a juror. As part of the follow-on discussion, Penelope Trunk (who has a fabulous blog called ‘The Brazen Careerist’) commented: “one thing I learned is that fat women don’t have a lot of empathy and defendants usually try to strike those jurors.â€
Yesterday, Joseph Dunphy reacted by saying: “On behalf of many, I suspect, I’d just like to say WHAT? Did I really just read that? Unbelievable. That’s just terrible.â€
I understand Joseph’s initial reaction, but I don’t think Penelope was advocating anything — she was just sharing her real-world experience that appearance matters a great deal more than we like to admit openly.
For example, last week I was conducting a workshop for a global corporation that had concentrated a number of its in-house services into one “shared services†unit. One service line in particular received much higher client satisfaction ratings than the others. We discussed why, and focused on the traditional client service topics.
During one of the coffee breaks, one of the participants came up to me and said, “The real reason that unit does so well is that it explicitly sets out to hire attractive young women. No-one likes to admit it, but that makes a huge difference.†(The unit was in a South American country, if that makes a difference to your reaction to the story.)
Of course it does. I know of more than one top-flight professional firm that takes appearance into account in its hiring of both males and females and gives its young people lessons in how to dress well and how to behave with sophistication.
Should appearance, youth and manners matter? Maybe not, but they do — a lot. To pretend they do not is just unrealistic.
Yet in many countries this is called discrimination and is legally barred.
All of this raises some interesting questions:
Should more firms continue to include physical appearnace in their hiring, even to the point of preferring some ages and genders?
Are we naive to believe they are not already doing that?
Are discrimination laws fighting a losing battle against human nature?
Should I get back on the treadmill and worry more about my clothing in order to enhance my career prospects?
Self-Publishing: Patience, Buzz and Marketing
post # 424 — August 29, 2007 — a Strategy and the Fat Smoker post
I’m frustrated!
One of the attractions of self-publishing, I hoped, would be to put things on a faster track than is normal with publishing houses.
I have never quite understood why it takes them fully nine months from the time you hand over a manuscript until the official publication date.
I’m beginning to understand. By self-publishing, I can get my books physically produced in a small number of weeks, and theoretically at least, listed on Amazon immediately. That would be one option.
However, it’s now becoming clear that the campaign to bring it to the audience’s attention is going to take a lot longer. All the advice I am receiving, from both traditional book PR experts and on-line blogging PR advisors, is that I should allow time for the marketing before the book is available, not afterwards.
Apparently, media outlets have already (late August) received galleys of forthcoming books to be published in January. They would be unlikely to consider looking at a book submitted now that was publishing earlier: it wouldn’t allow them the time (given how many others they have to look at) to consider it. To even have a chance of review in major media outlets, I am told, I should plan publication for my book in, say, January.
So, it appears that the long lead-times I have experienced in the past may not have been publishers’ inefficiency, but a response to the way mainsteam media works.
What’s also interesting is that my “internet and blogging” advisors basically say the same thing: serve the blogging community by giving them the chance to review and comment on the book before publication. Allow plenty of time to build the buzz.
In a way, it feels paradoxical. Surely, I think to myself, it would be better to get some attention when people can actually respond and buy the book! Don’t you lose effectiveness if people can’t buy it when they read about it?
Friends and advisors point to what happens in record and movie marketing: word of mouth is terrific, but a great opening weekend really helps!
A really interesting description of how a current top best-seller (The 4-hour work week) was marketed is given here.
Of course, since my book (STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER) is all about having the patience to bet on the long term and defer immediate gratification, I should be able to understand all this. But the truth is that I wrote the book because I find delayed gratification hard, not easy.
I’ll keep you posted on what I learn about marketing my book. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to build a little buzz for me!
Anyone else been through this? Any views on pre-release marketing versus post-release marketing?
Getting Hired by New Clients – new client videocast & audiocast
post # 423 — August 27, 2007 — a General post
The 21st episode of this series, Getting Hired by New Clients, will focus on the challenges involved in building a trustworthy reputation and the importance of demonstrating rather than asserting your capabilities. As you will see, as with any relationship, it is up to you to go first.
Audio Timeline
00:39 — Introduction
01:03 — A personal account of the power of recommendations and reputation
03:37 — The cycle of mutual recriminations the client/provider relationship
05:31 — How to “go first†as a provider
12:11 — Demonstrate, don’t assert
14:22 — Conclusion
You can download Getting Hired by New Clients or sign up to receive new Maister Moments videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
Self-Publishing: Becoming a Publisher
post # 422 — August 24, 2007 — a Strategy and the Fat Smoker post
Last week, Adam J Fein commented in one of my self-publishing blogposts. He asked:
Are you using your primary company as the “publisher” or are you setting up a separate publishing company? (Actually, I don’t know your corporate structure, but I have heard that LS only works with “publishers†not individual authors.)
Did you hire people to perform the services normally provided by a publisher, such as an editor, designer, or publicist? If so, any tips on finding these professionals? If not, why did you decide to go it alone?
***
Adam, you’re right that Lightening source only deals with “publishersâ€, but I found out that all it takes to become a publisher is to purchase some ISBN (International Standard Book Numbers) from www.bowker.com It cost me about $450 to get 10 numbers (just in case I want to publish books other than my own.)
I also had to get a certificate from my City Hall (Boston,MA) to let them know I would be trading as “The Spangle Press†(a sole proprietership.) It was bureaucratic, but not very time consuming. I just needed a form notarized. But it keeps the costs and income from the books separate from the consulting business, which I wanted just for clarity.
I have the best support team in the world: www.stresslimitdesign.com They found me a great person to design the book, and I plan to split my publicity between two people — an online person to promote to bloggers (Julien Smith at http://inoveryourhead.net ) and a “real world†PR person to promote to traditional media. Mark Fortier, Fortier Public Relations (www.fortierpr.com) has been highly recommended to me — which is the ONLY way to find any professional provider, right?
Note that I would have had to hire the publicity folks anyway — publishers don’t spend money on marketing. So, the incremental costs have been the design and editing, but I expect to earn a much higher percentage of the book’s cover price by self-publishing. I expect to “earn back†the fixed costs of setting it all up within the first month!
Warlords and Civil Society
post # 421 — August 22, 2007 — a Strategy post
I need some help from the historians and anthropololigists among you.
In the history of mankind’s evolution, civil society (social collaboration, governed by the rule of law) triumphed in most countries over the warlords (rule by those with aggressive individual force and the willingness to use it.)
But how and why? How did the feudal barons with their armies come to accept the rule of law? How did developed economies come to root out (most) self-serving corruption and establish trustworthy civil servants?
What lessons can we learn that apply within businesses? How do we “tame” the individual warlords (rainmakers) and get them to do things for the good of the firm?