Passion, People and Principles
post # 58 — April 25, 2006 — a Managing, Strategy post
The mantra of modern management is (still) ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ and much analytical creativity goes into trying to invent new metrics (eg ‘the balanced scorecard’) in order to justify and monitor new strategies. Corporate officers are always asking for (impossible) ROI calculations on such things as knowledge management, customer satisfaction, innovation and the like.
What this measurement mentality misses is the fact that, as human beings, we are remarkably well-equipped to judge things, and we can form an accurate picture of what is going on by looking, talking and interacting, even for only a short period of time.
Take, for example, the issue of whether or not the employees in a business are excited, enthused, energetic and engaged.
In spite of corporate efforts to design questionnaires to monitor performance (including the infamously ineffective and bureaucratic 360-degree feedback programs), anyone walking into a business unit would be able to detect in a minute the difference between a ‘turned-on’ group of employees and one where everyone was operating like a good, compliant soldier. It would have to be a very sophisticated ‘measurement’ system to capture what any one of us could detect in an instance.
Embedded in the ‘management by measurement’ mentality is a false hypothesis. That effective management can be achieved through detachment – that measurements will be reviewed by a top-level (corporate-style) manager who is not involved in a hands-on way in the business, but monitors what is going on through the scorecards.
There is much in business (perhaps most of the crucial decisions) that cannot be measured in such a way that an accurate meaning can be conveyed to the person examining ONLY the measurements. Measurements can be invaluable in giving guidance to someone who must decide and judge, but are a profoundly pathetic substitute for effective judgments.
The challenge of modern business is not to improve our measurement metrics, but to redesign managerial activities so that the organization is better able to make good judgments.
How would you think about designing an organization that outperformed others by making effective judgments? I don’t think we yet have any science on this, but it would probably include:
a) Delegation of decision making to local managers who are more likely to understand what is going on and are able to make better, informed judgments;
b) A clear set of enforced guiding principles and objectives, so that trade-offs are made consistently across the firm
c) Careful selection and apprenticeship of those who are going to be placed in judgment (managerial) roles
d) Finding ways to ensure that the judges are credible and held accountable for their effectiveness
A good starting point for reading on this topic is an article entitled ‘The New Organization’ in January 21st issue of The Economist quoting Yves Morieux of the Boston Consulting Group.
M. Morieux says that, in the organization of the future, the main tasks will be to help improve the judgment-based decision-making processes that knowledge workers use, not find better ways to measure their performance.
Anyone else have some views on how you improve an organization’s ability to judge, rather than measure?
post # 59 — — a Careers post
I have had a project on the back burner entitled ‘What I Wish I Had Known’ in which I asked a variety of people what advice they would pass on to young professionals. In the near future, I hope to get this material organized and presented on my website.
One of the contributors is Debra Bender, now retired, who was a secretary (her preferred term) in a law firm. Her advice to young professionals, candid and straight from the hip, is now on her own blog, called Old Secretary.
Debra doesn’t pull her punches. Here’s a sample of her thoughts.
I once worked for a young associate who was such a pleasure that I suggested he consider teaching a course entitled, “How to Treat Your Secretary.” Ken was always pleasant and easy-going, probably a quirk of his personality, but appreciated nonetheless. After reading the first letter I edited for him, he said, “Did I write this? It sounds great!” From then on, we were a team in the truest sense of the word. Even though he asked me to do things that went far beyond duties normally considered “secretarial,” I would have done anything for him because I never felt that he was taking advantage of me. Requests were made on an “if you have time” basis and I had the freedom to say “I just can’t do that today.” Completed jobs were consistently rewarded with gratitude. When I asked how someone so young had learned such an important lesson, he said, with a smile, “At my old firm, I saw what can happen if you make a secretary mad at you and I determined then and there that I would never do anything to put myself in that position.” Treat a secretary well and you’ll be richly rewarded.
Another thing I will never do is cry in front of someone, no matter how mean and evil-tempered they’re being. I have done my share of boo-hooing in bathroom stalls, but I refuse to let the perpetrator know he got to me. My policeman-husband’s advice is a bit more pro-active, shall we say. “Don’t let them intimidate you. When they come out yelling, just get up out of your chair and stand up, and I promise they’ll think twice about carrying on.” I have to admit that I’ve done that once or twice, even shaking my finger in someone’s face. It was effective, to say the least, and felt good at the moment, but I’m not convinced it was the best solution, long-term. There’s nothing quite as sobering as calm, total, rational silence in the onslaught of a ranting, raving, red-faced temper tantrum.
Since I work for three people, it is critical that everyone is truthful about assignments and deadlines. However, there’s always the one who believes that fudging the truth about deadlines will get her work done on a priority basis and, on the opposite end, the one who always waits until the very last second, springs a surprise deadline on me and expects me to drop everyone else’s work because his absolutely, positively has to be done before 5:00. Both are dishonest, in their own way, and make my job more difficult and stressful. Jus’ the facts, ma’am. Just let me know what has to be done today, what can be done tomorrow, what’s priority, what can wait, and then allow me the freedom to work your demands into my other assignments for the day. Another old secretary trick: When everyone’s work has to be done at the same time, I simply stop working and say, “Talk to each other. When you’ve figured out how I should do this, I’ll go back to work.” It has never failed.
I told you she tells it like she sees it!
post # 57 — April 24, 2006 — a Careers post
Rajesh Setty has just released a free 40-page e-book called Personal Branding For Technology Professionals. Including both concepts and workbook materials, he advocates developing a personal career strategy including some of the following lessons:
Build your personal brand before you need it
Give and get a lot of help
Leverage all your projects
Practice patience
Be comfortable with being uncomfortable
Who you are determines what opportunities open up
Balance is critical
It is not just technology professionals who would benefit from examining Raj’s thoughts.
For those of you who don’t know his work, he is the Chairman of CIGNEX Technologies, Inc (a Silicon valley company he co-founded in late 2000), the author of a fabulous book Beyond Code, and a prolific blogger.
We are always dealing with two people whenever we interact with a single person. There is the person in their role, and the human being beneath the role. Whether it’s a client, a subordinate, a colleague or someone in your personal life, it’s going to be the human being, not the ‘person in role’ who is going to give you what you want and need.
A large part of success in business (and perhaps in life) in getting access to the human being behind the mask.
For example, clients like to pretend that they will buy through a logical, detached process, but don’t believe a word of it. It’s always (ultimately) going to be trust, confidence, comfort and chemistry that will -at the tipping point – win you the business.
If you don’t like getting to the really personal, emotional level, this is not all good news. Especially if, like me, you don’t have a natural proclivity for intimacy. My standard line is that I love audiences – it’s individual people I have difficulty with!
The role versus human being issue reveals itself when I do my consulting work. Very frequently, I will be facilitating or participating in a committee meeting to address an issue. I’ll ask “Any questions?” and, often, the room is silent. (We’re all in role-to-role mode.)
But as soon as we break for coffee, I get cornered in the corridor or followed into the bathroom (!) by people who want either to ask a really great question or tell me the truth they couldn’t tell me in the open meeting.
Until a year ago, I was also a member of the “smoker’s gossip club.” Banished to the sidewalk outside the building, there were always a few people sharing my addiction, and they would always begin to tell me what was really going on. Having quit smoking, I no longer have access to that form of insider information.
People will always tell you more in informal “off-the-record” situations than they will in meetings. Formal meetings are a ritual dance, not a sincere effort at problem solving.
Early in my career, I used to avoid one-on-one, personal interactions with clients. Now, I try to create situations (for example, pre-and post-meeting telephone conversations) where I can give people the comfort to tell me what’s really on their mind.
It’s still an effort for me, but I’ve learned that, to be effective, I’ve got to do it.
The world is filled with people not “clients” or “bosses”, and it’s the “people-as-peole” who are going to give you what you want, so you had better start working at understanding them – one at a time.
What approaches do other people use to break through the role interactions and get other people to reveal themselves and their true wishes, desires and concerns?
post # 55 — April 23, 2006 — a Careers post
I hesitate to pass this on for a variety of obvious reasons. However, here goes.
On my website, by each piece of content, I invite visitors to rate (or evaluate) that item and provide feedback. The evaluation scale I offer is “1 to 5″ with 5 being a top score.
Giving my article Are Law Firms Manageable? an evaluation of 0 (yes, that’s zero) an anonymous correspondent writes:
Law firms don’t work for a simple reason. All day long, lawyers advise clients how to screw everyone. In the firm setting they advise CEOs how to screw everyone, the CFO how to screw trade creditors, etc., etc., I could go on.
Lawyers are the ONLY really honest people when it comes to firm management. They know not to trust.
All the other firms where people are trusting someone – sooner or later, the trusting ones will be screwed.
It’s hard to know how to react to this, beyond pointing out that critiquing things anonymously isn’t the basis for an intelligent dialogue. Do note something interesting – the author is saying that lawyers learn to not trust because everyone they serve wants to screw someone and then hires the lawyers to do it. The clients (the business world) are not being portrayed in a good light here. This is not just lawyer-bashing, this is businesspeople-bashing.
I’m a professional skeptic, but the sheer cynicism expressed here is deeply depressing.
Yes, I know that we’re all sinners, and that it’s naive to believe that other people will always do the right thing, but is it REALLY a practical posture to act on the principle that “sooner or later the trusting ones will be screwed.”
Surely there will be a Pygmalion effect – if people see I always treat their motives with suspicion, won’t they respond in kind? Won’t I get less from the world by taking that position?
What’s the evidence, for or against the cynical versus the hopeful view of the world?
What rule do you live by?
What rules do you teach your children to live by?
post # 54 — April 21, 2006 — a Managing, Strategy post
In yesterday’s post, there is the beginning of a discussion about networks or ‘hubs’ of professionals . I don’t want to bring that discussion to a halt, but in this post, I’d like to explore one specific question that arises from the discussion.
If you are an organization (let’s say a company or a firm) made up of professionals who are mobile and can take both their skills and their book of business elsewhere, how would you go about judging or measuring whether your organization was adding any value above and beyond the sum total of the individual talents (or books of business) of all the individual players?
In other words, how do you tell whether the organization is contributing anything?
It’s been a long time since I was an academic, but I do remember that there was a lot of work around measuring the EVA (economic value added) in corporations. Does anyone know if this can be readily be applied to professional environments?
I can imagine asking people whether they THINK their organization is helping them succeed more than they could either on their own or (probably a better question) at another firm. I can then imagine asking them IN WHAT SPECIFIC WAYS do they think they are benefitting from belonging to one organization. But that’s pretty sooft stuff.
I know there are real differences between firms in this regard. My old model of “Hunters and Farmers” (written in 1985 but included in Managing the Professionals Service Firm ) analyzed the difference between firms of autonomous entrepreneurs (‘hunters’) and firms where the value was emebedded in the organization and everyone worked to make the overall entity succeed (‘Farmers’ or ‘One-Firm Firms’)
I can usually tell pretty quickly when I visit a firm where on that spectrum they are, but I haven’t (yet) thought through a way of assessing it so that (a) managers inside the firm can judge whether they are making progress in building a firm that is cohesive and adds value beyond bringing in the right warlords and (b) observers and analysts could compare the progress of different firms in this regard.
Does anyone want to propose some metrics on measuring or judging ‘value of the organization?’
post # 53 — April 20, 2006 — a Managing, Strategy post
This question was submitted by email:
I own and run a PR consultancy with 24 professionals. In the 13 years I’ve been in business, I’ve lost 7 of my best people. They either open up their own shop or move on to a client. In order to retain the great people, I tried offering bonus compensation (7 yrs ago) and opening up the chances for sharing in the ownership (3 yrs ago). Despite a great culture within the firm, I still had departures.
Now I’m reflecting on the idea of a Branded Free Agent Hub, a place where the best senior Communications/PR talent is exclusively pooled together, but where the senior professionals work independently (and even from remote locations) for their own clients. It could be somewhat like a cost sharing model found in some law firms.
The professionals could work, live and nurture the relationships with their respective clients at free will like an entrepreneur. They could work as flexibly as they wish. The hub would provide all the benefits of a large professional service firm – stuff we already have in place like coaching, online project management tools, service offerings/packages, service innovation, a strong brand, administration, billing, reverse seminars with clients, sharing of knowledge with peers……you name it).
The professionals would bill 100 per cent of their time to their accounts. In return, the hub would keep a percentage of the revenues, say between 10 and 20 percent. The hub would fly under the flag of the brand I’ve built in the past 13 years.
So what’s in it for the client? I presented the model to four of my long time clients. The model is not really relevant to them. They say as long as they can keep the relationship with their consultant and as long as the hub secures the defined service level they’d buy in.
And what’s in it for the professional? I talked to some inside and outside peers. They think I’m crazy. They say I’ll lose business and above all, I’ll lose the professionals who may be savvy experts but not so good in relationships. They could be right. My math tells me that out of the 24 staff I’d have only 6 or 7 who would go for the ride. A ride that, I think, would be beneficial to the client as well as for the professional.
Is the Branded Free Agent Hub a professional service firm (PSF) model that’s built for the future?
Boy, this question raises a lot of profound issues. Let me give some quick conclusions, inviting other people to jump in.
First, I have heard other people propose models like this. In fact, over the years, I have been invited to join in on one or two. (I declined.) I have NOT heard from – or about – those people ever again, so I don’t think the model has had much success in general.
The single best example I know of where it has worked is with the EDGE group (which includes Patrick McKenna, my co-author on the book First Among Equals). They have an association of consultants who all advise law firms – each person is independent, but they work together to share knowledge, do joint research, publish a shared journal and do other activities.
I think it works because they all do related things and have many opportunities to work together and learn from each other. If, in your model, the senior professionals did very different things, I suspect the Free Agent Hub would be very unstable. Maybe Patrick or his colleagues would like to join in the conversation here on which of the activities work best for them.
Second, I doubt whether the hub will justify a “commission” of 10 to 20 percent. In many countries and in many professions there have been both informal networks of firms and ‘aggregators’ – companies who buy up smaller firms and try to add value by providing the network benefits you suggest. The trouble is that the benefits are really worth paying a lot for. Let me give you a quick comment on each one on your list:
Coaching – “I’m from headquarters and I’m here to help.” (No, not worth a lot – I can get input from my peers in the business community without paying a percentage off the top.)
Online Project Management Tools – Maybe this was scarce 10 or 15 years ago, but today there are so many vendors offering good software for a variety of things that it’s unlikely to be an ongoing benefit. Maybe as a one-time start-up I could use advice on these tools, but I’m not going to pay an ongoing premium to the hub / network / aggregator for their proprietary versions.
Service Offerings / Packages – Yes, by partnering with other individuals or firms, you may be able to offer a wider range of services, or a new offering that combines in one project a diversity of skills. As I argued in True Professionalism, the market recognizes an advantage in creating something new, but doesn’t consider a broader “menu” as much of an advantage if each of the dishes on the menu are available to them in the market anyway.
Service Innovation – It’s not clear to me that this is a guaranteed result of a hub of independent entrepreneurs. Yes, if they all agree to fund the same, focused research projects, then they can do more together than they can independently, but that requires true joint decisions and joint commitments, which not all hubs / networks / aggregators or firms achieve.
A Strong Brand – I’m a skeptic that a brand is what the individuals get from the hub. I think of it in reverse – if the individuals all live to a high standard, then the hub will have value in the brand (which, of course, is more than name recognition.) Exactly as your clients said, the brand value is in the achievement of consistently high standards. Fully-owned firms rarely achieve this, so I have my doubts about whether a loose band of individualists will.
Administration and Billing – The benefits here are real but very small. Not worth giving away freedom and autonomy to get this.
Reverse Seminars with Clients – If by banding together you can do more joint listening to and learning from the clients, then this could be a real benefit.
Sharing of Knowledge – Very beneficial if real and on-going.
My bottom line is this – I think all the topics I have just discussed need to be addressed whether you are an integrated firm OR a hub or network or aggregator. I don’t think structural form is the issue, but whether or not you have the processes in place to capture the “Let’s benefit by doing things jointly according to a common philosophy with mutual commitment.” If you have that, there is value in your association together. If you do not have that, then being a hub (or anything else) won’t solve your ‘departures’ problem.
The right response to turnover and mobility problems is not (just) pay schemes. Instead you (and everyone else) must address the question of why your firm exists – as a firm. What value does the organization add above and beyond the individual talents of the individuals?
I discussed these questions in How Firms Should Add Value, chapter 11 of True Professionalism and also raised them in my article Are Law Firms Manageable?
There’s a lot more to say on these issues, but let’s see what others in the blogosphere say first.
post # 52 — April 19, 2006 — a General post
As promised (or threatened) I have posted on my website today the first 4 episodes of my 15-part podcast series, entitled MANAGING PROFESSIONALS: ATTITUDES, SKILLS & BEHAVIORS.
Each week, a new episode (approximately 20 minutes each) will be posted.
The previous series of 14 podcasts on MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES is still available for download.
post # 1 — April 18, 2006 — a Uncategorized post
EMBARGOED until Tuesday, April 18, 2006
US-based business guru David Maister is breaking ground as the first top-tier business author to start podcasting — making professional audio broadcasts available for download on the Web. The former Harvard Business School professor, named one of the top 40 business thinkers in the world, launches his pioneering podcast masterclass series on management this month — available free from his website, www.davidmaister.com.
Maister, widely hailed as one of the world’s leading management authorities, is the author of five best-selling management books: “True Professionalism,” “The Trusted Advisor,” “Practice What You Preach,” “First Among Equals; How to Manage a Group of Professionals,” and the canonical management textbook “Managing the Professional Service Firm.” For years people have asked Maister whether his books were available on audio format. Until now, the answer was no, but now they are — for free.
Maister likens the new 15-part series of podcasts, or free downloadable audio broadcasts, to a full university course in management. The new series launching April 18, entitled “Managing Professionals: Attitudes, Skills and Behaviors,” builds on the success of Maister’s original 14-part podcast masterclass on marketing launched in January, which surpassed 15,000 episodes downloaded and was featured as a “New and Notable” podcast in the iTunes Music Store. The earlier series is also available on Maister’s website.
Podcasts are subscription-based audio broadcasts available on the Web. Podcast subscribers automatically receive downloads of new episodes from the Internet directly to their computers. Subscribers can then play back podcasts on desktop or laptop computers, portable mp3 players (such as iPods), and home and car stereo systems. For those new to podcasting, Maister’s website includes suggestions on software for playing podcasts, instructions on how to subscribe to his podcast series, and troubleshooting advice.
Maister, one of the most respected consultants in his field, will cover topics ranging from what the latest research says about the key characteristics of effective managers, through motivation of individuals, building teams, earning the trust of those you must influence and judging your managerial success. The series is based on material contained in all five of Maister’s books, as well as his many published articles.
Maister stresses that he is on a mission to help businesses realize that effective management remains a source of competitive advantage, but that most businesses choose the wrong people for managerial jobs. “Managers should be interested in helping others, but most look on management as a milestone in their own careers,” says Maister. “You can’t be an effective manager if people think you are only interested in yourself.
“This series is an attempt to serve individual people who are accepting a managerial role. I want to help them think through the role they have taken on, the responsibilities they bear, and how they can truly add value and make a difference.”
Maister’s work is dedicated to helping businesses promote and energise people to manage others more effectively — even where this may involve telling them things they don’t want to hear. His website also contains frank, constructive articles and videos about where companies are going wrong, and what they should do to ensure staff are resourced and focused on making clients happy.
The consultant who has lectured businesses for decades on the power of “marketing as a conversation” is committed to 2-way communication through new social media tools. “The great advantage today of the Internet is the opportunity to create dialogues, and not just one-way pontification,” says Maister. In addition to breaking ground with his podcast series, Maister is also one of the first top-tier business gurus to start a web log (or blog).
Maister’s new blog and website, launched in January 2006, make thousands of dollars worth of consultancy wisdom available for free and Maister says, “After a long career, I’m very proud to be able to make these resources available.
“I firmly believe that the best way for an individual or a company to showcase both their expertise and their dedication to client service is to prove they have something to offer by giving something for free. Anyone who wants to test my theory can check out the resources available on www.davidmaister.com.”
If you would like further information on David Maister’s newest free podcast series, or the resources available on his website, please contact David Maister directly at (617) 262-5968 or david@davidmaister.com.
Keywords
blog, conversational marketing, David Maister, generous web, iTunes, Lessons I’ve Learned, live web, management, manager, managing, marketing, mp3, podcast, podcaster, podcasting, social media, web2.0, weblog, business podcast
post # 51 — April 17, 2006 — a Careers, Managing post
In my April 14 post, I argued for the efficiency of providing lower-cost people to help higher-paid people stay fully productive. Among other good comments, Josh asked me the following –
David, can this concept be taken too far? Is it appropriate to use administrative staff, or relatively low-paid resources to free up a partner’s time to the fullest extent? I know an accounting firm that encourages Senior Accountants and Partners to delegate anything and everything to the firm’s admin staff, including non-business related tasks (picking up out-of-town guests at the airport, dry-cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.). Their concept is that time saved will result in more billable hours OR a happier professional. What’s your take on this?
Josh – first of all, everything can be taken too far. Second, I do think it is a good idea for firms to provide ‘concierge’ services to busy professionals, as long as the same principles of wise delegation are applied at all levels. I would not want a trained administrative assistant – who can add a lot more value through administrative skills – being used to do grocery shopping.
The principles I argue for imply providing appropriate support all levels, not just the ‘elite’ professionals or the senior people. Special privileges for the bosses creates a very dysfunctional class system. (I’m from England – I know all about that.) But an organized, comprehensive program makes all the sense in the world to me.
Of course, the whole theory of providing good support rests on the assumption that people will use the time that is freed up to their highest and best use – and this may not always be the case.
First, people often use the ‘freed-up’ time inappropriately. More current billings may not be the missing element in the business mix. I frequently ask people why they are not executing and implementing their own plans for strategy, marketing, people development, self-development or a whole host of things. The answer comes back as a chorus – ‘Too busy!”
‘Too busy doing what?’ I ask?
It turns out that people are too busy overinvesting in making today look good (this month’s billable hours) an underinvesting in building a better tomorrow (their own ‘get better’ strategies.)
If they had more free time, they should use it BUILDING their business – finding the time to do the things they know they should be doing for the health of their careers and business and are not doing.
If more admin staff just results in more ‘billable hours’ it can be simultaneously both a benefit AND a lost opportunity.
Finally, you hint, Josh, at another very important perspective – does having more support to take care of admin or concierge needs result in HAPPIER people?
Well, fewer frustrations with admin and concierge tasks can eliminate sources of frustration (ie get rid of dis-satisfiers) and that’s no bad first step. However, they taught me in business school about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which argued that the absence of dis-satisfaction does not mean satisfaction.
Firms that think they will have HAPPIER people through these programs are fooling themselves. In fact, they can (and do) backfire if the people think that, rather than being supportive, the firm is just trying to extract the last ounce of effort from them. Many people need the break provided by walking to the dry-cleaning store, just to clear their head and can return to their work tasks a lot more focused as a result of taking a break (I’m one of those people.)
This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have support services available to me, it just means that the hope that you can eliminate ALL my down time and keep me fully operative all day long is…well, it’s nonsense. You can make me more productive, but not through support alone.
This last point allows me to stress a point where my own work has been misinterpreted and misapplied. In PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH, I was able to show statistically that firms that can energize, excite and enthuse their people make the highest profits.
However, there’s a world of difference between being energized, excited and enthused and having a ‘nice’ work environment with support services, concierge services, crèches, maternal and paternal leave policies, etc. These help make people ‘happy’ but ‘happy’ isn’t the goal – turned on is. And that requires meaningful work, challenge, a purpose, skilled managers and like-minded colleagues – none of which are provided but concierge services alone.
Yes, give me support – even for picking up dry cleaning – but it will all be a waste of time if you don’t also help me find the meaning and magic in what you want me to do with the time that has been saved.
