Passion, People and Principles
A lot of business advice, including my own, is often based on the assumption that people want to get somewhere. After all, the best-selling business book ever is “Good to Great“, which replaced “In Search of Excellence” in the all-time sales league.
But here’s an interesting question: what about people and firms that, quite consciously, make a choice that they don’t want to pursue “Olympic Gold.” They want to do good work, serve their clients well, while making a decent living.
Do business authors and consultants have anything to offer such people? Is there business advice out there for those without profit-maximizing, glory-seeking objectives?
If not, is most business literature profoundly misleading, because it assumes objectives that many real people do not have?
post # 358 — April 19, 2007 — a Client Relations post
One of the blogs I always read is Dennis Howlett’s AccMan. He mostly focuses on the uses of technology in accounting, but every so often he throws in a gem of really valuable general wisdom.
Here’s his list for how he characterizes great clients:
All cards are played face up
- Mutual accountability
- Willing to share whatever is necessary to get the job done
- Constantly probing to find the best solution
- Time is no barrier
- Eager to learn…and to teach
- An ‘always on’ response mechanism
- Keep up the pace
- Express thanks
- Accept value based pricing
For me, I’dd add:
- Wants thorough solutions, not quick fixes
- Is an admirable person of honor, integrity and principles, who it is a privilege to serve
- Wants a true dialogue, not just an agent to implement or advocate their pre-fixed conclusions
- Gives me enough pre-meeting homework so I can come to meetings prepared and give of my best
- , instead of having to react on the fly
- Helps me understand and prpeare inadvance for organizational politics
What would you add as descriptors of great clients?
post # 356 — April 18, 2007 — a General post
About a year ago, I participated in a webinar entitled “Best Selling Authors Pay tribute to Peter Drucker.” Apart from myself, the 80-minute audio seminar (which you can still listen to here) featured:
- Tom Peters, business consultant and best-selling author of “In Search of Excellence†and many other titles
- Frances Hesselbein, founding president and chairman of the board of governors of the Leader to Leader Institute
- Marshall Goldsmith, Ph.D., consultant and best-selling editor of more than 20 business books, including “Coaching for Leadershipâ€
In September of this year, the same group of people will be repeating our tribute, live and on a larger scale in Sydney, Australia. (To get details of the program, contact the Australian Institute of Management.)
In addition to a panel, we will each be making in-person presentations about how Peter Drucker influenced our work.
During the 2006 webinar, I said that, after the Bible and Shakespeare, Peter Drucker was the most quoted and least read author in history.
My question for all of you out there who have read his work is: what’s the most important lesson YOU took away from Peter Drucker? How did he influence your approach to management and business?
post # 357 — April 17, 2007 — a Client Relations post
Here’s a reader question based on THE TRUSTED ADVISOR:
“A client retained me to help implement a re-branding strategy of their retail stores by coaching store managers in how to make the desired changes. One form of resistance I encountered was people saying words to the effect, “We’re doing fine right now” and “We’re already doing it,” which I interpreted as complacency. I was disappointed in the outcome of influencing those managers to change their approach. Most of them eventually left the company, voluntarily or otherwise. After re-reading your book, I’m wondering whether, had I “named and claimed” their resistance, we may have enjoyed more success and retained their experience. Or perhaps they lacked the flexibility needed for a changing environment.
“I celebrated the small wins in making the changes that I saw their employees adopt – usually despite the managers’ indifference. I put most of my efforts toward asking the managers how I could help them remove the barriers they felt prevented them from embracing the new strategy. Neither of those approaches accomplished much and they usually told me they were too busy to give me and the new strategy their attention.
“After reading your book, I wonder what you think might have happened had I said to them words such as, “With so many satisfied customers and your positive financial results I guess it’s hard to understand why the company is investing in this strategy. Please tell me if I’m out of line here, but I get the feeling that because you’ve been doing a good job that you don’t share the company’s concern about how quickly and how much the marketplace can change from shifts in customers’ tastes and from new competition. Could you help me understand why I’m feeling that way?â€
****
I hope other readers of this blog will join in, because this is a classic consulting situation. The core of the problem is that that you get hired by people at one level (top management) and are asked to work with their subordinates (in this case, the store managers.)
In such (completely normal) situations, it’s not surprising that you are not treated as the subordinates’ trusted advisor, because you are not. You are management’s agent, and automatically treated (at least initially) with skepticism and suspicion.
What you were trying to get the store managers to do may indeed have been a wise move for the company, but you must not believe, for a moment, that, from that fact alone, the store managers would want to go along with it. You can’t assume people will want to do the right thing for the company, even if (or especially even if) they hold middle management positions. Like all human beings, they will first filter any proposed changes through questions about what’s good for them personally. They may never say it out loud, but that’s what they are thinking — always.
There’s even an acronym for it: WIIFM? (What’s in it for me?)
You describe the store managers’ attitudes as “complacency†and “indifference†but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that what was really going through their heads wasn’t that neutral.
So, what’s a trusted advisor to do? Well, obviously, one of the first things you have to figure out is whether or not the proposed changes your (top-level) client wants to make actually are in the personal best interests of the subordinates you are working with.
If the answer to that is “yesâ€, then your counseling job is to earn the trust of the subordinates and work with them to help them see why the change is (potentially) good for them. (You had better not be faking it, either. If you really want me to buy into your program, you’ve got to convince me you’re trying to help me as well as the company, not just the company.) I would try to get the individual talking about his or her job and what the changes would mean to them personally. I’d stop talking about “how much the marketplace can change from shifts in customers’ tastes and from new competition.â€
If the answer is “noâ€, the proposed changes are not in the subordinate’s interests, then (as might be the case with the example you gave) maybe your job is to help the subordinate understand that, the change is going to come anyway, whether they like it or not, and you want to help them adapt to it. (It sounds like some the store managers could not, or did not.) Let’s hope you can do it in a way that sounds like support, and not a threat!
Yes, this is all tough to do, but it’s absolutely typical in consulting. Management always wants consultants to “go persuade my people to do X.†That’s what being a change agent is all about. And doing it well means being able to be an honest broker, understanding changes from the perspective of all the parties involved.
OK, folks. Time to pitch in. A lot of you who read this blog are consultants. How do you handle situations like this? What do you say?
post # 355 — April 16, 2007 — a General post
In the fourth episode of my live video and podcast series, I dentify the link between what it takes to effect change in our personal AND professional lives. As you will see, it’s never that we are ignorant of what needs to be done, it is a question of having the determination and courage to put these behaviors into action as a way of life. This video is based on my article and podcast of the same name. It was filmed in Estonia in 2005.
Audio Timeline:
00:38 — Introduction
01:03 — The fat smoker
02:04 — The avoided inevitable: Eat less, exercise more.
03:35 — The courage to change
03:55 — Go to class, do the homework: The temptation of short-term gains
05:28 — Conclusion
You can download Fat Smoker 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.
post # 354 — April 13, 2007 — a Client Relations post
For a long time, when I do a speech, seminar or consultation meeting, I have handed out many more pages of slides / handouts than I plan to cover.
The theory is that (a) if someone asks a question, I can say “Yes, l’ve got something on that, let’s look at page 26″ and (b) handing out more pages than I actually plan to cover gives people “takeaway” value – extra material that they can review after the meeting.
In recent years, I’ve noticed something interesting – this approach is becoming MORE effective. In the old days, when I handed out the paper copies to everyone, they rarely got used. With the best intentions in the world, people stuffed paper into their briefcase and never looked at it again. or they abandoned it so they don’t have to carry it home.
Many meeting organizers responded to that by handing out CDs of the handout material, but even that is now old-hat. What’s really working well is to post the slides and handout material on the web. Obvious, but incredibly effective.
I am now finding that people are REALLY following up and using the material, and apart from the “noble” cause of providing more value, it’s helping to introduce my work to new people as those who met / heard me forward the material on to their friends.
I use two approaches at the moment. My standard set of handouts is on my website and I place the customized ones in a private area (“landing page”) for each client. It might be interesting to note that I still hand out the paper copies. If there are none, and I just say “Go to the private landing page for more,” fewer people go, because tey don’t know what’s there and they don’t bother. However, if I hand out the paper and say “If you see anything here that interests you, you can find it on the landing page,” then the follow-up percentage is much higher.
I have two questions for you to react to, if you wish to join in:
(a) Who else has an interesting set of handouts available for download? Tom Peters posts his slides, but maybe we can make a list here, so that everyone who reads this blog can be made aware of other interesting resources out there. Any nominations?
(b) Has anyone evolved to different strategies on using and disseminating their slides / handouts? What are you doing?
Shawn Callahan, a regular participant on this blog, sent me a fabulous link to a discussion of Powerpoint’s abysmal contribution to obfuscation, especially as it affected NASA’s decsiion-making ability. The ensuimg discussion is serious and heavy, but worth reading. Like me, Tufte is on a campaign to stamp out Powerpoint.
For those of you who don’t know his work, Tufte is the world’s expert on the visual display of quantitative information. His books are works of art. Look for them!
post # 352 — April 12, 2007 — a Client Relations post
This blogpost continues this week’s series on making presentations. See here and here.
There’s a spectrum of presentation styles, between planners and peformers.
I’m the latter.
Personally, I have difficulty sometimes working with and through human resource and training departments who, when we’re working on putting together seminars or speeches, want to:
- Specify learning objectives
- Develop a teaching plan
- Identify in advance every slide that is going to be used, in which order
- Know which questions are going to be asked of the group at which point
- Otherwise establish a fixed methodology or flow for the session
I know these people are doing their job, and that many of them are highly trained in “adult learning.” I also clearly see the need to capture the content, the process and the flow when a company or firm is trying to roll out a program which is going to be delivered many times in different locations.
I just find it hard to slot my delivery style into such a structured, planned approach.
I’m prepared to be accountable for achieving goals when making presentations: I just hate being locked in specifying in advance exactly what’s going to be said, in what order. I never know that until the (interactive) performance begins.
I can also work with “planners” to help THEM develop programs that can be given (by others) multiple times.
But when the stage lights go up and the curtain rises, it’s a performance! With all the strengths and uncertainties that are implied by that word.
By the way, this doesn’t only apply to formal seminars. For me, it applies to all client meetings: I prepare, but I stop way short of preparing a fixed, formal presentation. Even there, I take the performing approach, rather than the (structured – ‘who’s going to say what when?’) planned approach.
Does anyone have experience or insight as to how to capture the benefits of both approaches?
As a follow up to yesterday’s posting on using an overhead projector, here’s another philosophy of mine on giving presentations (in small or large groups, standing up or sitting down.)
No matter how much you want to convey, you should always give your audience the chance to react and ask questions as soon as you have covered your first main point – no later than 15 minutes into your talk.
You should ask something like “Does that fit your world?” “Do you all agree with that?” “Is that what you are doing now?”
By asking for immediate response, you can ensure that you are both relevant and that you are bringing your audience along in your chain of reasoning. If you wait until you have given 4 or 5 steps in your reasoning, you could suddenly get a question about your first point and have to retrace all your steps – you’ll be scrambling to catch up.
And if you get a question that’s about something other than where you are going, either use it to bring you back to your theme, or ask permission to come back to it later.
Some speakers to do not follow the 15-minute rule, but I think that’s what makes them “speakers” rather than EDUCATORS. If you want the focus to be on you – give a speech. If you want to serve your audience – take questions – frequently and early.
I have had some questions about why, in my videocasts, I am shown using an old-fashioned light-bulb overhead projector (OHP), even for presentations to large audiences. Some people ask whether it doesn’t present an unprofessional, out-of-date image.
To this day, in all my presentations, I ask for the overhead projector as a matter of choice, because it is the best technology I know to minimize the barrier between me and the audience.
By writing on blank plastic sheets with the projector, I can create “lists†in front of people, drawing the answers out from them, even if I already know what I want the list to contain. The session thus becomes more Socratic and interactive.
Even if I am not being so interactive, and am making my own points, the act of writing them down in front of people lends some drama and “theater†to the proceedings, allowing me to keep the presentation lively.
Contrast this with the all-too-common approach of having prepared slides, in a fixed order, and rigidly walking the audience through what you have decided they should listen to. That’s no way to “connect.â€
A wise mentor once told me that, in making a presentation (or in teaching) you can focus on one of three things: your material (let’s get through this), yourself (ain’t I great?), or the audience (what do you want to ask about?)
Guess which is most valuable?
Which leads to the final virtue of the old-fashioned OHP: If someone in the audience asks “But what about this other perspective?â€, you can quickly throw on to the OHP any prepared slides you have on the topic. You don’t need to scroll through tens (or hundreds) of computer based-Powerpoint slides to find the one you need.
An OHP and a collection of prepared plastic sheets allow you “random access†to your material, thereby enabling you to truly customize your remarks (and your performance) to the specific people in front of you.
