Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. The Seven Triggers of Fascination

It pays to fascinate. Consultant Sally Hogshead has been studying fascination for many years, and for her first book, Fascinate, identified seven triggers that makes brands and companies compelling. Now she is taking her ideas into the personal realm, Marieke Hensel reports on BrandingPersonality.com, to show how individuals can captivate someone else. The seven triggers are:

• Power – people who take command
• Passion – people who attract with emotion
• Mystique – people who arouse curiosity
• Prestige – people who increase respect
• Alarm – people who create urgency
• Rebellion – people who change the game
• Trust – people who build loyalty

Not everyone will fascinate in the same way. Indeed, Hogshead recently developed a matrix of 49 personalities by combining an individual’s primary and secondary fascination triggers. “Your secondary trigger plays a major role in who you are and makes you two-dimensional,” notes Hensel.

Hogshead cited as examples the following famous individuals who all have power as their primary trigger but different secondary points of fascination:

• The Ringleader: Richard Branson (Secondary: Passion)
• The Guardian: Warren Buffet (Secondary: Trust)
• The Mastermind: Mark Zuckerberg (Secondary: Mystique)
• The Maestro: Georgio Armani (Secondary: Prestige)
• The Final Authority: Darth Vader (Secondary: Power)
• The Watchdog: Suzy Orman (Secondary: Alarm)
• The Change Agent: Steve Jobs (Secondary: Rebellion)

You can take her quiz to find out your own fascination approach on Howtofascinate.com. “You probably have a Crayola box of talents that you’ve never tapped into,” the site proclaims.

2. The Seven Productivity Mistakes

Each day we chase efficiency and effectiveness. But we’re often stymied by seven productivity mistakes that blogger Ali Luke identifies on the DumbLittleMan site: 

• Cutting back on sleep: When we’re harried, it’s very tempting to cut back on sleep. “Skimping on sleep is going to decrease your productivity. In the short-term, you’ll find yourself struggling to focus. You’ll work more slowly than usual. In the longer-term, you could end up getting ill more often,” writes Luke.
• Multitasking: It’s tempting to multitask, but it doesn’t work, except when you combine a mental task with a physical one, as when you listen to audio recordings while ironing or doing the dishes.
• Doing everything yourself: There’s an old saying, “if you want a job done well, do it yourself.” Ignore that. Make sure you delegate tasks to others while you focus on high-powered activities.
• Focusing solely on numbers: It can be useful to track your performance, but focusing on numbers can lead you to miss important things that can’t be quantified.
• Eating at your desk: This is OK occasionally, but should not be a daily practice. “Taking a proper break helps refresh you for the afternoon ahead. Even getting out of the office and walking around for 15 minutes is valuable,” she advises.  
• Checking email frequently: Often this happens because we’re not sure what we should be doing. Figure that out, and stop checking email every five minutes.
• Pushing yourself too hard: Don’t try to be productive at the expense of everything else, as it might eventually impact your health.

3. Would You Fire Steve Jobs?

If Steve Jobs worked for you, you would probably fire him. That’s the provocative claim of entrepreneur Greg Fraley, on his blog. If Jobs arrived in your organization fresh from dropping out of college, you would probably give him some low-level task. You wouldn’t notice the long hours he puts in when you’re not around, nor appreciate the time he spends investigating things that have little to do with your firm. You also probably wouldn’t like him very much — he can be charming, but he’s blunt and thinks he knows it all.

Leaders have a low tolerance for people who think (and act) differently. “Steve became Steve because he was out on his own doing his own thing. If you want to find and keep that kind of talent you’d best make sure you invest in creating a culture that supports people who think different,” concludes Fraley.

4. Plan Your Weekly Outcomes

The single most important thing software engineer J. D. Meir does at the start of his week is to create his list of outcomes. On his blog, he urges you to prepare the list every Monday, in written form. Put three wins you are seeking at the top of the page and then, below that, your longer list of goals and tasks.

“The key, as always, is to focus on outcomes, not tasks.  By having a list of your outcomes, you make it easier to drive results versus getting lost in the weeds,” he concludes.

5. Zingers

• Fun focus:  Barbara Corcoran, who built the largest residential brokerage firm in New York City, says she found the more fun she created in the company, the more creative and innovative staff became. (Source: Entrepreneur.com)
• With gusto: Leadership coach Jon Gordon offers this mantra to follow daily: “Attack this day with enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” (Source: Jon Gordon’s Blog)
• Before we meet:  Suzie de Rohan Willner, chief executive of the FitFlop online shoe store, suggests you request a purpose and intended results from anyone who wants to meet with you: “This makes people think harder about what they want to get out of the meeting and helps to focus me more swiftly on the topic.” (Source: Management Today)
• Action words: Marketing consultant Roger Dooley says in selling – be it a marketing brochure, or a letter of recommendation – verbs have more power than adjectives. They are vigorous, and force you into clarity. Adjectives should be used sparingly, and only when they are vivid, sensory, specific, or emotion-inducing. (Source: Neurosciencemarketing.com)
• It’s how you hold me: “Would you mind holding for a moment?” Of course you do, and so you shouldn’t let anyone in your organization foist that phrase on your clients or suppliers. Serial entrepreneur Ron Burley suggests they say, “I am going to put you on hold while I speak to my supervisor about that request and I’ll check back with you in a minute or so if I haven’t had an answer by then.” (Source: Inc.com) 

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  Five Tips For Email Marketing

Question: How can I boost the impact of my email marketing?

8020Info President and CEO Rob Wood responds:

Research from ExactTarget’s Channel Preference Survey in February 2012 indicated that, compared to channels like direct mail, social media and telephone, email is a stronger communications vehicle for almost all types of content except unsolicited content/spam.

Nevertheless, you need to be clear on what you’re trying to accomplish with your email marketing program, and then implement, monitor/test and tweak it on a regular basis to get the greatest impact for your effort.

Morgan Stewart, CEO of Trendline Interactive, offered some additional tips on a recentMarketingProfsUniversitywebinar. You might find them helpful:

• Review the foundations of your program:  First look at the strengths and weaknesses of how you handle subscribers as they pass through the initial lifecycle stages of awareness, interest and subscription. Your subscriber needs to clearly see real value in receiving your marketing emails or e-newsletter.
• Keep it relevant – from the subscriber’s point of view:  You need to understand their motivation. He notes: “your competition in the inbox is every email that is more relevant than your email.”
• Align Messaging With Segmentation:  If you understand your subscribers well and can identify different content needs, you can improve the relevance of your messaging by sending different versions to specific sub-groups on your list.
• Activate unengaged subscribers:  It’s natural for subscriber engagement to decline over time — accelerating if the content is not relevant, of low value to the subscriber, or is too frequent for their level of interest. Will you let these dormant subscribers eventually opt out or will you pursue re-engagement?According to iMedia Connection, it’s not uncommon for 40% or more of an email list to be unengaged or inactive in response to your calls to action. They’re not bringing you much benefit for your efforts. Stewart suggests you can appeal to them with win-back offers, new feature announcements, requests for feedback, or decreasing the frequency of your mailings to these subscribers.Perhaps his most surprising re-engagement tip, based in part onUniversityofMichiganresearch, involves sending a “This is your last email” message to unresponsive subscribers, since they will often reconnect to avoid a sense of losing something.
• Review your timing and triggers for mailing:  Should they be regular bulk mailings (as many e-newsletters are)?  Or triggered by an organizational event, such as a news alert, anniversary, special offer or up-sell message?  Or, conversely, should they be sent in response to subscriber behaviour, such as signing up, making an enquiry, responding to an offer, or re-engaging as a subscriber?

Other tactics and tools are available to stimulate growth of your mailing list, test content, and coordinate online and offline marketing touch points, but these five tips offer effective first steps to sharpen the impact of your email marketing program.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Process Mapping

This month a number of 8020Info clients are embarking on process mapping projects to smooth customer service flow, eliminate duplication and operational inefficiencies, better assign resources and/or improve internal teamwork and coordination.

One of the important first steps is to clarify what is to be mapped and in what level of detail. It often helps to start by determining the general scope (what’s in or out), how finely to break down the input/output “steps” in a process, and whether the process crosses operating units or is self-contained within a single team. Consider the most appropriate lenses to use when you look at your processes, including maps of: 

• The flow and use of information/documentation
• Communications contact and points of interaction
• Critical decisions made at various points in a process
• Use and allocation of resources to various tasks and processes
• Governance and accountability

8020Info helps teams develop and implement their strategic plans, research and marketing communications more effectively. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com

8. Closing Thought

“A long dispute means that both parties are wrong.”

— Voltaire

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1.  Skip The Stew: Use Four Meetings

 A clueless cook who takes everything in the pantry and refrigerator and combines them into one stew would likely get an unpalatable concoction. And consultant and best-selling author Patrick Lencioni says that’s the mistake we make when we gather administrative, tactical, strategic and personnel issues into one long, exhausting staff meeting.

“The fact is that the human brain is not meant to process so many disparate topics in one sitting,” he writes in his new book The Advantage. (See review http://bit.ly/HIRddQ)

Instead, he urges your management team to separate its work into four types of meetings:

• Daily Check-In: This should be kept to at most 10 minutes, with no agenda and no resolution of issues — just an exchange of information. If managers know they will see each other daily, that can forestall some email and impromptu meetings.
• Weekly Staff: This 45- to 90-minute meeting handles tactical matters. Don’t prepare an agenda in advance, but seek out the issues that need attention at the start of the meeting by going around the table and having everyone report on their two or three priorities for the week.
• Ad Hoc Topical Meetings: These sessions give you time to dig into a critical issue that can have a long-term impact on your organization. In the past, you may have allotted them 15 minutes in your general staff meeting; now take a few hours to grapple with them properly.
• Quarterly Off-Site Reviews: Step back from the business and get a fresh perspective quarterly, looking at your strategic thrusts, goals, and performance of key employees.

2. The Four Paradoxes Of Great Performance

Consultant Tony Schwartz says the key to great performance — and leadership — is the capacity to embrace opposites. On the 99 Percent blog, he shares four paradoxes to master:

• Physical Performance: We have grown up believing that bigger and faster is better at the physical level. But in reality, he says, human beings operate best when we alternate between expending and renewing energy. Intermittently renewing and refuelling our energy prevents us from withering out as the day progresses.
• Emotional Performance: Confidence is generally accepted to lie at the heart of success, with vulnerability and uncertainty considered weaknesses. We certainly need confidence, but it can turn into arrogance, denial and rigidity unless it’s accompanied by humility.
• Mental Performance: Society worships at the altar of facts, the scientific method, and analytical, left-brain thinking. But it’s now recognized that we need the intuitive leaps and creative breakthroughs provided by the right hemisphere of our brain as well. Whole brain thinking is essential.
• Spiritual Performance: It helps to have purpose, but he notes that people in professions such as health care, education, social work and the military often run almost solely off spiritual energy. By focusing single-mindedly on helping others, they can succumb to compassion fatigue. So you need to balance self- care with your desire to help others.

3. Giving Interns Proper Guidance

Over the next few months, many young people will join our workplaces, seeking money to fund their education as well as experience that might help their future careers. On her Ask A Manager blog, consultant Alison Green warns that often the experience they need will start at the very basics, such as being on time and calling in if they are sick. Many of them don’t understand basic office procedures, so the explanations are part of the price of cheap labour and helping them for the future.

“This means, as silly as it might seem, explaining things like ‘you’re expected to be here every day, on time, except if you’re sick or you’ve cleared it with me ahead of time’ and ‘if you’re not able to come in, please call and let us know before 9 am’ and ‘you need to call with that message, not text it,’ and ‘please keep the use of social networking sites to a minimum during the day’ and so forth,” she writes.

4. The Five Influencing Styles

Whether managing direct reports or marketing to the masses, we tend to develop preferred influencing styles. Researchers atTemplehad identified up to nine primary influencing tactics, and Chris Musselwhite and Tammie Plouffe at Harvard have identified five distinct influencing styles:

• Rationalizing: Using logic, facts, and reasoning to present your ideas. Do you leverage your facts, logic, expertise, and experience to persuade others?
• Asserting:  Relying on your personal confidence, rules, law, and authority to influence others. Do you champion your ideas even when others disagree, and challenge ideas in disagreement with yours? Do you debate with or pressure others to get them to see your point of view?
• Negotiating: Looking for compromises and making concessions to reach a satisfactory outcome from your point of view. Do you make tradeoffs and exchanges or delay discussions until a more opportune time?
• Inspiring: Encouraging others toward your position by communicating a sense of shared mission and exciting possibility. Do you use inspirational appeals, stories, and metaphors to encourage a shared sense of purpose?
• Bridging: Attempting to influence outcomes by uniting or connecting with others. Do you rely on reciprocity, engaging superior support, consultation, building coalitions, and using personal relationships to get people to agree with your position?

Perhaps you tend to lean on only one approach, style or set of influencing tactics: could you benefit from better use of the full range, selected according to audience and situation?  (For more, see the Harvard Business Review at http://bit.ly/xPAGW3)

5. Zingers

• We know a picture is worth a thousand words. For those using smartphones, Craig Changfoot says you should look at sending information using a picture rather than a lengthy email. The manager of maintenance and operations at SimonFraserUniversity’s downtown campus in Vancouvernotes that his department, for example, now uses photos to relay repair and maintenance problems from the specific site to relevant co-ordinators. (Source: OrganizedActions.com)
• Incentives specialist Paul Hebert says everyone in your workplace wants to be king (or queen) of something, be it the United Wayeffort, a change project, the office picnic, or some other initiative. Try making that happen — for everyone — and he says you’ll be surprised at the energy unleashed. (Source: Incentive Intelligence)
• Creativity requires insight ability, when you take leaps into the unknown, and analytical ability, when you solve problems by working steadily to an answer. Research by academics Mareike Wieth and Rose Zachs found that people whose circadian rhythms are strong in the morning are better at creative problem-solving in the evening, while evening types fare better with creativity in the morning, probably because being a bit sleepy and vague broadens the mind’s focus. (Source: PsyBlog)
• Entrepreneur Jeff Haden says it’s tempting to assume long-term clients love your brand. More often than not they love your employees. So be careful about changing your employees. (Source: Inc.com)
• End-of-project reviews often focus on the negative — mistakes we hope to profit from. Blogger Ian McKenzie recommends not forgetting the positive: Instead of just asking about what went wrong, ask what went right? Instead of flagging new issues based on project experiences, consider what past concerns might be dropped. Look at what you would do differently next time, but also what you would do again and which strengths you could use more. (Source: Ian’s Messy Desk)
• Consultant Colleen Francis says research shows a testimonial with plain text on your web site will draw significantly fewer click-throughs than one dressed up with a punchy font and graphics. (Source: EngageSelling.com)

Q&A with 8020Info:  Reconciling Vacations And Project Deadlines

I had been planning a special two-week vacation this summer, but my boss just assigned me to lead a project with a Sept. 1 deadline: What should I do?

8020Info Associate Harvey Schachter responds:

I’d start by not assuming the project and your vacation are incompatible, despite the end-of-summer deadline. What are the options for giving yourself a July 1 deadline, and finishing the work — or, say, 95 per cent of it — by then?

Often we tackle the bulk of the work at the end of a project, but if we push up the end date, the work can often be handled, to our surprise, in a compressed period.

Or, is it possible to schedule the work in a way so that you are not needed during your vacation period, involving others more at that point (and similarly, arranging the sequencing of work so that your key staff can get their time off as well)? It’s rare that everyone needs to work flat out every week on a project. Perhaps handoffs can be better managed.

If that’s impossible, try pushing back on the deadline. Announcing a Sept. 1 deadline may reflect a routine or casual office practice rather than a rigorous decision. The date has likely been picked because your boss or someone else wants to pick up the ball in the fall, bringing Sept. 1 to mind. But could Sept. 15 work? Or Oct. 1?

Since you’ve carefully weighed the workload and time crunch in evaluating whether you can take a vacation, you have some ammunition to ask for a more acceptable deadline. Vacations are important, and your boss should acknowledge that reality with a concession, if possible.

If he or she doesn’t, you have to re-examine your vacation plans. Can that vacation be postponed, or split into two one-week trips, or a series of vacations arranged to make sure you refresh yourself over the summer? Think about the purpose vacations play in your life, and rethink the summer schedule to fulfill your needs. Perhaps some longer weekends or four-day weeks can be worked in, while still meeting the deadline. But don’t totally postpone time off until “tomorrow” because in the modern office, tomorrow has a habit of never coming.

Work-life balance requires endless balancing. It also requires thought and creativity. Apply that thought and creativity here.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Why We Procrastinate

In our project-oriented consulting practice, we know procrastination is a tempting siren to be avoided at all costs. Recently we discovered some helpful advice on www.itworldcanada.com, in Merideth Levinson’s article 4 Reasons We Procrastinate Despite Knowing Better.

She quotes author Rory Vaden who compares procrastination to buying on credit — making easy, short-term choices that have difficult, long-term consequences. He says we procrastinate because:

• We are blind to the impact. Counter that with a clear vision of how acting now will make your life better and a keen awareness of how putting things off wastes a significant amount of time and money.
• We procrastinate out of fear. Realize it’s okay to be scared. Sometimes just getting started will help get past the fear.
• We procrastinate out of a sense of entitlement, feeling we just shouldn’t have to do the work. Roll up your sleeves and stay focused on how the work on your plate today will help you achieve your goals tomorrow.
• Procrastination may be linked to perfectionism. Don’t wait for the perfect plan to ensure success; focus on making progress. Realize that each passing moment tends to weaken your intentions.

8. Closing Thought 

“Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.”

— Ingvar Kamprad

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. Six WaysTo Get Better Feedback

Feedback helps us grow and develop. To attract feedback, consultant Kevin Eikenberry suggests the following six behaviours on Hodu.com: 

• Ask for it: Don’t assume you’ll automatically receive feedback. Often you must ask. And it pays to ask ahead of time — before you start working with someone on a project — so they can observe you more carefully and offer thoughtful advice.
• Value it: When you give someone feedback and they seem to reject it, you’ll be less likely to offer any more in future. So keep that in mind when you receive feedback, thanking the individual for their help.
• Listen to it: Receiving the feedback isn’t enough; you must hear it! “Listen with your ears to what is being said, so you hear the words. But listen too with your eyes and your heart,” he writes.
• Be open to it: It’s easy to be open to feedback when you agree with it or have already thought about the ideas being shared. But it’s also important to be open to feedback that comes as a surprise or makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Depersonalize it: When you take feedback personally, you get defensive, and the other person will sense the hostility and be less likely to offer feedback in future. Try to decouple the feedback from you as a person and treat it as a comment on something else — your behaviour.
• Use it: You may not act on every bit of feedback you receive, but if you never act on any, don’t count on receiving much.

2. Proof Points, Counter Points, And Signature Points

In customer service, it’s important you understand the role that proof points, counter points, and signature points play in determining how your brand is perceived and understood. On ChangeThis, customer experience consultant Michael Kanazawa explains:

• Proof Points: These are operational elements that speak to customer expectations of the experience associated with the organization or brand. Starbucks has wide appeal as a place to take a break from a busy day, not just an outlet to purchase a cup of coffee. Proof points are the warm colours in the store, the relaxing music, and the treats to supplement your coffee as if it was home.
• Counter Points: These are the operational elements that contradict the positive expectations the customer has about your organization or brand. United Airlines had a slogan about “Flying The Friendly Skies” at a time when its customer service was amongst the worst in its industry. If you can’t eliminate counter points, switch the branding thrust: United might have been affected less if its slogan had emphasized what it actually delivered — that the airline flew to more cities than its competitors.
• Signature Points: These are the elements that are highly unique expressions of the organization or brand and are delivered operationally with very high consistency, authenticity and sincerity by employees. “Signature Points are the types of things that people are compelled to buzz about with others,” he says. It’s the warm chocolate cookies you receive unexpectedly at a hotel or the recommendations from Amazon when you make a selection.  

3. Beware Of The “Too Short” Meeting

Consultant and board member Nilofer Merchant isn’t a fan of meetings, but she warns that in the haste to reduce our time in meetings, we must beware of the too-short meeting. It’s a meeting where we fail to actually deal with the issue at hand, either inadvertently or intentionally. It’s the meeting where the organization faces a critical and complicated strategy issue, but allocates only two hours for the board to discuss it rather than the full day needed.

“Too often, we spend our time in the mindless, the routine, and the problems of yesterday … perfecting things that don’t even need to be perfected. But we don’t spend the time rolling up our sleeves on the thing that needs to be addressed. Don’t bring people together if you’re not going to use them well. And stop avoiding the real issues,” she writes on her blog.

4. Test With Three Strategy Questions

For top performance, consultant Art Petty suggests on his blog that you regularly ask your team three key strategy questions to test, rather than automatically assume, that an initiative will benefit the organization:

• How does the initiative we’re considering help us to grow or create power — new customers, for example, or new revenues from existing customers?
• How meaningfully different is this initiative to our clients?
• How defensible is our approach versus our most dangerous competitors?  “Too many ‘me too’ and easily replicated initiatives is a formula for stagnation or decline. If you cannot pass this critical acid-test question, something is wrong,” he stresses.

5. Zingers

• Productivity expert Jason Womack suggests stopping halfway through the designated time for a meeting and reminding people of what you intended for the session. (Source: The Womack Report)
• If you’re bringing in some interns this summer, here are 10 ways to make the best of them: Explain what the organization does. Ask them what they want to get out of it. Set clear tasks and responsibilities. Make them feel a part of the team. Give regular feedback… and ask for some in return. Listen to their ideas. Make sure they feel valued. At the end, thank them for their hard work. If they’ve earned it, give them a good reference. (Source: Management Today)
• If you want to improve your Twitter clickthroughs, social media researcher Dan Zarella recommends writing longer tweets — between 120 characters and 130 characters, since context seems to help — and placing the link about a quarter of the way through the message. (Source: GetElastic Blog)
• Consultant Jon Gordon urges you to keep pushing your people to be their best. Your team needs your toughness to grow. (Source: Jon Gordon’s Blog)
• Research shows that, when interacting with an organization, people remember the peak of the experience (be it good or bad) and the last part of the experience. Entrepreneur Seth Godin says the easiest way to amplify customer satisfaction, therefore, is to underpromise, increase the positive peak, and make sure it happens near the end of the experience you provide. (Source: Seth’s Blog)

Q&A with 8020Info:  Overcoming The Plan-Do Gap

Question:  We now have a plan, but how can we bridge the gap between planning and doing that seems so common?

8020Info Senior Associate Consultant Karen Humphreys Blake responds:

This is indeed a common challenge. Once a workplace grows beyond a small number of individuals, leaders have to count on employees to get things done.  Many successful organizations have found the answer lies in making a strategic commitment to truly engage their employees in the work of the organization.

These efforts can have a very positive impact on the bottom line. Studies over the last few years have found a high return on investment when companies adopt strategy-driven employee engagement programs:

• Create a workplace where employees can build a personal and emotional relationship to the employer brand.  Creating an engaging environment for employees involves mutual trust, authentic communication, respect, shared values, and a commitment to growing together say the authors of The 2020Workplace by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd.
• Share your organization’s vision, mission and values with employees when they first start working with you and make opportunities to continue to reinforce these important foundational messages regularly, both verbally and in writing.
• Talk openly about the business context. Educate your employees about the business or organizational environment and regularly share information about your plans as well as your financial and other performance metrics.
• Ask for, listen to and act upon suggestions employees make about how to improve organizational performance.  There are many ways to do this: invite small groups of employees to meet with the president several times a year; encourage managers to regularly solicit suggestions from staff members; and put in place suggestion systems that reward employees on the spot or when a more formal written suggestion can be shown to increase sales or efficiency.
• Find ways to recognize and reward good employee performance. Find ways to show employees how their individual performance links to corporate performance. This can be done on an individual basis through regular manager-employee meetings and performance reviews. It can also be achieved by sharing stories with all employees regarding how actions by individual employees have made a difference.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Facilitation Made Easy

There’s no doubt that a skilled facilitator can help a group perform at a higher level, but great outcomes from a group discussion also depend on the participants. Last week we had occasion to see this in action with about 14 board members and senior staff interacting in a planning session to develop priorities for a four-year workplan.

All participants contributed ideas, concerns, analysis, insights and different points of view, but three of them particularly helped the person at the front of the room trying to manage process:

• One participant showed by example that she had come prepared – her homework done, notes ready – and presented her points with an enthusiastic sense of fun, which did much for the tone of the discussion.
• Another waited for the right moment to name the “elephant in the room” – a delicate situation that no one really wanted to deal with. That helped clear a log jam.
• One was willing to respectfully disagree with prevailing thought in the group, ensuring that a natural tendency to “be nice” didn’t trump a considered look at both sides of an issue.

We always appreciate compliments on our facilitation technique, but are mindful that it takes the whole room to help a group do its best thinking together. The contributions of those three participants were very much part of the “facilitation”.

8. Closing Thought

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.”
— Rita Mae Brown

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. Distinguishing Between Talent And Prima Donnas

You want talent — people who make your organization succeed through their exceptional work. But you don’t want vain and temperamental prima donnas with an inflated view of their own talent or importance. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult to discern the difference. 

On Human Resources IQ, executive coach Steven Berglas notes: “Early in their careers, both talent and prima donnas deliver the goods with no ill effects on those around them. Before too long, however, prima donnas reveal their true colors. These folks are insecure over-achievers who see life as one zero-sum game after another, with everyone in their environment posing a threat and representing a potential obstacle to their coveted achievement.” 

He sets out three tests to help differentiate between talent and prima donnas: 

• Know them by what they want: Talent strives to succeed for the joy of succeeding. Prima donnas want both tangible rewards for doing well and also attention or public acclaim.
• Know them by their influence on others: Talent will demand the best from others around them. Prima donnas can be saboteurs, humiliating or blaming others who are not up to par.
• Know them by how they demand to be spoiled: Talent can be quirky, at best, or obtuse at worst. But prima donnas are upsetting, refusing to make their wishes known in more benign ways

“Once you can differentiate talent from prima donnas, you need to reward talent in ways that inoculate them against attempts to poach them while massaging their egos. The only way to do this is with heart-to-heart conversation,” he concludes. 

2. The Three Essential Job Interview Probes

You probably have a long checklist of questions you normally ask when interviewing job candidates, but you really need to find answers to only three core questions. On Forbes.com, HR specialist George Bradt says the specific words might vary, but your questions should probe strengths, motivation, and fit:

• Can you do the job?  This isn’t just about technical skills but also about leadership and interpersonal strengths. Kevin Kelly, of Heidrick & Struggles, advises: “You can’t tell by looking at a piece of paper what some of the strengths and weaknesses really are… we ask for specific examples of not only what’s been successful but what they’ve done that hasn’t gone well or a task that they’ve failed at, and how they learned from that experience and what they’d do differently in a new scenario.”
•  Will you love the job?  It can be hard to put your finger on what really motivates someone. As well, interview subjects want to come across as keen even if they aren’t sure they want the job — they are, however, generally motivated to get you to offer them the job.
• Can we tolerate working with you?  You want to know about cultural fit — whether the individual will fit well into the organization. But you don’t want a chameleon. At a deeper level, you want to know whether the organization will be better off with the individual over time and will they change it for the better.

3. Two Tips To Improve Your Meetings

Running better meetings involves the courage to put some limits on proceedings. On Inc.com, consultant Tom Searcy suggests you limit the topics for a meeting.  That will tighten the attendee list, shorten the time commitment, and increase the potential for action.

“I have seen meetings that are laundry lists of reviews, discussions and feedback that do not lead to any real action. All of that can be handled digitally. If you are not doing something, don’t meet. If you are, then do it deep, get it done and move on,” he writes.

You also must limit people from repeating statements that have already been heard. Like a referee in sports, call a foul in such situations: “It seems that we have heard all of the ideas on this topic and we are now repeating ourselves. Does anyone have a new comment to make that is neither a repeat of a past idea nor a counter to one?” If not, ask for a decision. 

4. How To Sharpen Your Persuasion Skills

You can’t persuade someone until you truly understand them. So when trying to persuade a colleague, stakeholder or customer, blogger Donald Latumahina suggests you shouldn’t assume that you know what they want. Try to stand in their shoes, looking at the issue from their perspective.

Also, keep in mind the consistency principle: People prefer to remain consistent with their beliefs, feelings, and actions. You will face resistance if you are asking them to be inconsistent with how they view themselves and are more likely to be successful if you frame the request as something that keeps them on their path.

5. Zingers

• IT engineer Nathan Zeldes says most people don’t read emails carefully, which is why you often get replies that don’t address all the issues you wanted discussed. He suggests giving the message a subject line like “Three Questions For You”; starting the message by stating how many queries you have; and also putting every question in a separate paragraph, prefaced with, “Question 1,” “Question 2,” and so on. (Source: Information Overload) 
• A clearly written goal and carefully thought out action plan is not enough. Thomas Nelson Publishing Chairman Michael Hyatt says you also need a list of “internal motivations” — why you want to achieve this goal — that you can use as a regular reminder to keep the fire boiling. (Source: MichaelHyatt.com) 
• If you have a suggestion box, consultant Paul Hebert suggests you put it in the garbage: The implicit message is that if people have an idea, they should put it in the box and somebody else will decide if it’s any good and what should be done next. Instead, tell your people that, if they have a good idea, take the initiative to make it happen and advise their manager it’s one of their goals for the year. (Source: www.i21-align.com) 
• Distractions come not only from your environment; they also come from your mind, notes blogger Ali Luke. When you’re distracted, label it — “I have an urge to check email” — since recognizing the tendency to go off-track may, oddly, help you stay on the rails. (Source: Dumb Little Man) 
• Some people read business articles and books looking for confirmation. Entrepreneur Seth Godin reads them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap; the real gold is new ideas that show you what’s wrong and how to change things for the better. (Source: Seth’s Blog)  

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  Managing Your Luck

Question:  Do you need to be lucky to succeed?

 8020Info Associate Harvey Schachter responds:

It often seems as if successful people have the benefit of luck — a lucky moment, when they are in the right spot at the right time, and then everything snowballs. It’s luck that makes them, not skill.

That belief may be fuelled by envy, of course. Certainly there are signs it’s misguided, from recent writings by some well-known authors.

In Great By Choice, Jim Collins and his collaborator Morten Hansen looked at organizational success in the volatile last decade. In the usual fashion for Collins’ research, they compared some particularly successful companies to similar organizations that weren’t. One of the factors examined was luck — how much did luck account for organizational success?

The researchers admit that analyzing luck is difficult (certainly novel), but they did it rigorously, using a sensible methodology. They found that both sets of companies had roughly equal amounts of good luck and bad luck. They also checked timing, to ensure the early occurrence of good luck didn’t favour certain corporations, and it didn’t. And there was no big spike of luck.

Their conclusion was that the successful companies were more skilled at capitalizing on luck. Unlike the other companies, they could manage their luck better.

That’s for organizations. What about individuals?

In Outliers, journalist Malcolm Gladwell looked at the 10,000-hour “rule”, that it takes an investment of about 10,000 hours of focused activity to become proficient or expert at world-class levels. He also looked at how certain people or classes of people seem to be in the right spot at the right time.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, for example, were born in an era when young people with access to new technology could lead a computer revolution. But there were lots of people of their age who had access to technology at excellent high schools and universities and computer clubs, but not many were as successful.

In one way, compared to people born 10 years earlier who also had a facility for technology, Gates and Jobs were lucky. But in another sense, they capitalized on their luck, putting in 10,000 hours of focused effort (and more), along with their ability and drive to succeed.

So luck may be less important than our doggedness and ability to make the best of good or bad situations.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Tools To Make Your Case

From time to time we hear clients express frustration in persuading others to their point of view — “we provided them with all the statistics, but they just don’t get it!”

(This week’s instance involved getting provincial government bureaucrats to appreciate regional issues and solutions foreign to their Toronto-centric way of thinking.)

If you’re facing similar frustrations, you might consider using this list to assess whether you’re depending on just one type of persuasion when others might be more effective. In his 2006 book Changing Minds, leading psychologist Howard Gardner identified seven levers of mind change:

• Reason (logic)
• Research (data, evidence proof points)
• Resonance (emotional appeal)
• Redescriptions (often known as reframing, e.g. the glass half full, not half empty)
• Resources and Rewards (incentives)
• Real World Events (trends or events that influence thinking — 9/11, for example)
• Resistances to Change (and managing it)

 From our own experience, we would add three other tips:

• Frame your case in a way that connects with your audience’s way of seeing your world. Some call it audience-centred presentation. Others do it by translating their point: “What this means to you is …” 
• Change is driven by motivation, which is fuelled by feeling. If your audience merely appreciates your points intellectually, without “feeling” the impact of your case at some level, you haven’t really persuaded them. 
• Keep it going. So often a great first hearing is left to stand on its own — sustain your communications effort, consolidate your first win with follow-up to confirm the wisdom of adopting your position, and continue building the relationship.

 We tend to underestimate the effort required in persuading others to adopt a new point of view. These tips may help focus your task and make it a little easier. 

8. Closing Thought

“There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.”  — Joseph Addison

The 8020Info Water Cooler

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. Seven WaysTo Frustrate Your Employees

You can learn from a bad boss. And Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has therefore been blessed since he has had more bad bosses than good bosses in his career. On his blog, he has some fun by offering ways to frustrate your employees, including these seven habits that you may want to avoid:

• Don’t be responsive: Let their emails languish in your inbox and don’t return voice mails in a timely fashion. Maybe they’ll solve the problem on their own or give up.
• Cancel meetings at the last minute: This works best if they have had to travel to the meeting, of course.
• Reprimand them in front of their peers: Public ridicule shows you have no confidence in them.
• Change your mind frequently: Get them excited about going in a new direction and then reverse course. Keep them guessing at all times.
• Don’t bother stating your expectations: Instead be vague, or silent, letting them wonder. “But then when it comes time for their annual review, hold them accountable to specific goals. This way, no matter what they have accomplished, you can make them feel like a failure,” he writes.
• Focus on superficial things rather than substance: Focus on how they dress or how much time they spend at their desk rather than what they accomplish.
• Assign them work, then micromanage the process: Second guess them, liberally. 

2. The Genius Of The Lone Genius

If an organization has a choice between having one genius innovator or a team of good innovators, most organizations would choose the team. But Alva Taylor, an associate professor of business administration, says on Tuck.Dartmouth.edu it’s better to go with the lone genius: Research has shown such a person can have 10 times the creative output of a team.

He warns that too often companies luck into finding a great innovator but then foolishly “force them to act like everyone else — to sit on teams or committees and have them work under the routines of the rest of the people in the organization. What they should be doing is giving this person all the resources they need and then getting out of his or her way.” 

3. Establish Ground Rules For Your Team

Before Alan Mulally took the helm at Ford, members of senior management often fought with one another and group dynamics were dysfunctional. In his book Once Upon A Car, journalist Bill Vlasic says Mulally established ground rules for the central Thursday morning meeting that included no encyclopaedic briefing books, no aides, no jokes about colleagues, and no side conversations — and he emphasized that facts, not opinions, would rule. 

If someone couldn’t comply with the new norms, Mulally told them bluntly, “You’ll just have to work somewhere else.”  He explained: “The important thing is that we are all accountable to each other. You are accountable to the team, and the rest of the team is here to help you.” 

Bryant Professor Michael Roberto, on his blog, says too many teams suffer because leaders don’t outline the ground rules and expectations explicitly: “Leaders need to be clear about the shared norms and ground rules which will govern behaviour.” 

4. Five Steps For Retention

Too often organizations lose focus after hiring an employee and then fail to bring the individual on board effectively. In Leadership Excellence, HR consultant Kathy Albarado suggests:

• Develop onboarding checklists: You should have checklists that the new hire and the manager complete together before the starting date at work. This indicates exactly where and when the employee should report to work, and what they will be doing the first few weeks. A buddy or mentor should be assigned.
• Identify management’s first-day responsibilities: The employee’s manager and your HR lead may share responsibilities for onboarding, and should know clearly their roles on the first day and how orientation will proceed. “Consider taking the entire team out to lunch on the new hire’s first day. It’s amazing how this one simple action can unite a team,” she writes.
• Identify first-week responsibilities: During the first week HR officials need to ensure all forms are completed and benefits registered. Managers should clarify concerns and address questions about job and performance expectations, and training opportunities.
• Seek integration during the first 30 to 90 days: The hiring manager needs to ensure that the orientation phase moves effectively into long-term assimilation. “Neglecting to monitor assimilation greatly increases the odds of losing the new employee,” she advises.
• Continue development beyond 90 days: After initial goals and expectations are met, managers must adjust with the employee to the longer-term needs of the organization. 

5. Zingers

• At the beginning of each day, Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., maker of the celebrated Sam Adams brew, asks himself what are the three most important things he needs to get done. The day will be pock-marked with distractions, pressures and opportunities, but he still makes sure he has done those three things before the day is over. (Source: Entrepreneur.com)
• Bob Herbold, former chief operating officer at Microsoft, says a useful question to ask in a job interview is: When you were young, who was the person who was most influential in teaching you valuable lessons about life? Then probe about what those lessons were and how they guide the individual today. “The lessons you are looking for are basic principles that suggest a high degree of self-confidence, a sense of personal responsibility, a strong drive to achieve, and solid fundamental ethics. No hint of these kinds of traits should be a red flag,” he says. (Source: ThoughtLeadersLLC Blog)
• Early prototyping is increasingly hailed as a way to check out and build upon an idea, but research in the auto industry by Northwestern University Professor Paul Leonardi found that when people see a detailed prototype they narrowly concentrate on its form and function rather than the broader parameters of the idea, and so brainstorming ends rather than getting provoked.  (Source: Harvard Business Review)
• Dan Schneider, founder and CEO of SIB Development and Consulting in South Carolina, is offering a $50,000 bonus to any of his first-time employees who stay with the company for five years, hoping to counter the costs of losing and replacing employees. Stay 25 years, and the person gets $250,000. (Source: Money.cnn.com)
• Entrepreneur Seth Godin suggests you find a geek who understands basic tools like Outlook and Excel, and sit beside him or her for an hour and watch the individual work. Ask: “Tell me five ways I can save an hour a day.” Whatever you need to pay for this service, it will repay itself quickly. (Source: Seth’s Blog) 

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  Tightening Up On Wait Times

 Question: Can you suggest any tips for tightening up our processes to achieve faster communications/service turnaround and reduced backlogs?

 8020Info President and CEO Rob Wood responds:

 One approach might be to look at flow and productivity in your system.

• Capacity: If you have a steadily growing backlog of work, that may point to a capacity issue — you will have to reduce the scope of what you’re trying to do, increase productivity, or expand capacity so you can turn work around in a more timely manner.
• Backlogs:  Sometimes a backlog from the past is carried forward into the future and all the new work is continually delayed. But if you could keep up once you were caught up, consider a special one-time project to deal with the backlog.
• Duplication:  Identify areas where delays create duplicate work. An example of wait times in health care may illustrate: suppose your family doctor feels you can’t wait eight months to see a specialist, and therefore refers you to Emergency. There your assessment is repeated with a medical resident, and finally you get a faster-track referral. But the delay has created duplication of effort, wasted your time and delayed someone else waiting for care, and continuity is at risk as you are repeatedly flipped from one provider to another.
• Productivity Killers: Interruptions and breaks in workflow are known enemies of productivity.  For example, consider what happens when someone testifying in court needs an extra hour to answer all of counsel’s questions. Instead of sitting for an extra hour, the court puts the matter over for a few months. The witness has to make an extra trip, court staff get stuck with an extra round of scheduling duties, everyone involved has to spend more time refreshing on the case, and the continuity of the process is fractured.
• Bake In Flexibility:  Consider how you might build more flexibility into your system, either routinely scheduling extra time to handle whatever surprises might take longer than expected (like the court example) or perhaps designing a mix in your workload that allows you to put some things off while you keep the workflow moving.
• Be Disciplined:  No system works if you don’t follow it. This makes procrastination a target in the effort to achieve smooth workflow. It might also help to increase awareness of the downstream consequences of delays. 

We are all susceptible to the types of systemic inefficiencies mentioned in the examples above:  We have a meeting, but then wait a while before following up on the outcomes or action items. We do some research, but don’t write the report for some time – and then have to “get it all back in our heads” again. We may acknowledge an enquiry, but then put aside the issue instead of following up immediately and closing the file. But this six-point checklist may help you tighten up on workflow, productivity and customer service.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Performance with Caring

This week we were chatting about the wisdom in the adage: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

What makes us want to deal with someone time and time again?  What contributes to making a salesperson, fundraiser, employee or service provider stand out from the rest? A critical ingredient in their performance is “caring”. 

This can mean caring about the client and improving something in his or her life, caring about their values or cause, or caring enough as an employee to do a good job, helping the organization to achieve its goals. We all want to deal with someone who cares about what matters to us. And people who care tend to build good relationships that reap rewards.

Some may be reluctant to show they care, feeling it is unprofessional or just time consuming. Caring, though, translates into listening, acting on what we’ve heard to deliver services or products people want in the way they want. It may mean taking the time to ask about someone’s family, digging a little deeper to understand a problem, or (like a good fundraiser we know) taking along some homemade peanut brittle.  As humans, we can tell pretty quickly if someone we are dealing with cares.  It starts to build trust and sets the stage for good service, right off the bat.

Caring has to be authentic, though.  If you don’t – or can’t – care about your customers or what you’re doing, you probably need to reassess your work.  Both you and those around you will be more satisfied.

8. Closing Thought

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
 — Eleanor Roosevelt

The 8020Info Water Cooler

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. The Six Attitudes Leaders Take Towards Social Media

Leaders of organizations first saw social media as a threat. But now they are starting to see it as an opportunity, Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald, of the Gartner technology research firm, observe on Harvard Business Review blogs. Here are the six different postures they have identified:

• Folly: Leaders in the organization consider social media as nothing more than a source of entertainment. Anyone trying to initiate a social media venture must therefore emphasize how it would directly impact organizational challenges and goals.
• Fearful: The leaders see social media as a threat to productivity and management authority. Any initiative must be low risk.
• Flippant: The leaders don’t ignore social media but also don’t take it seriously. They view it as a matter of technology, allowing access and hoping something fruitful might arise. Proponents must convince the leaders of the valuable purposes that social media can serve.
• Formulating: They recognize the value of social media and the need to be more organized and strategic in using it. The approach here is to build on that positive foundation, emphasizing the broader strategic possibilities.
• Forging: The organization is starting to develop competence in using social media to reach out to communities. To keep progressing, it must recognize past successes and capitalize on growing momentum.
• Fusing: Still rare, this is the most advanced attitude, with community collaboration viewed as an integral part of the organization’s work, ingrained in how people think and behave

2. Seven Strengths Shy People Have

Shyness is generally viewed as a weakness. But on the Life Optimizer blog, Dan Stelter, of the Anxiety Support Network, sets out seven strengths that shy people have — each drawn from what traditionally has been viewed as weaknesses:

• Cautious thinking: Yes, we live in an era when it’s vital to act quickly at times. But not always. When you encounter a difficult problem at work, a snap decision can thrust you headlong into trouble. Thinking things through beforehand can be a big plus.
• Meekness can make you approachable: Meekness can be a social strength, since people are comfortable approaching ordinary folks.
• Being quiet leads to a calming effect on others: Not saying a lot can calm the waters around you.
• Appearing vulnerable is great for certain jobs: For various human-service jobs such as counselling or therapy, appearing vulnerable encourages other people to open up to you more.
• Shy people appear to others to be innocent or good: People may respect and trust shy individuals more than their aggressive and dominant counterparts.
• Shy people tend to be more believable: Aggressive and outgoing folk can seem self-serving, while shy people, with their “good guy” persona, can be more believable and likeable.
• Being shy leads individuals to learn from an early age how to overcome barriers: “Once you learn how to overcome your shyness, every other barrier in life will be easy in comparison,” he concludes.

3. Are You Helping Clients Understand What They Need?

A year ago consultant Donald Cooper and his wife booked a cruise adventure to the Falkland Islands, traveling around the bottom of South America and up the coast ofChiletoValparaiso. He estimates that at least 70 per cent of the people on that trip should not have been sold the package.

In his newsletter, he describes elderly people with canes, walkers, wheelchairs and electric scooters on a choppy trip through one of the most feared bodies of water in the world. And without mention of the typical winds and temperature for their December trip, people lacked the long johns, down vests, toques and mitts to feel comfortable.

The lesson he shares: What information, coaching or help do your customers and clients need to effectively choose among and use the programs and products you offer? 

4. Cultivating Serendipity With Deep Dives

In his book Where Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson writes about the role of serendipity in innovation, and suggests we can cultivate it by deep dives in which we immerse ourselves in a topic in a condensed period of time. An example he cites is Bill Gates’ annual reading vacations when he would take a week off from Microsoft to go through reading material he had gathered throughout the year.

BryantUniversity’s Michael Roberto, referring to this approach on his blog, notes how Johnson stresses that compression of time is vital: If too much time lapses between reading these books, we are more likely to forget certain things and fail to see the potential for novel combinations of ideas.

So plan a deep dive this year into a topic of concern. 

5. Zingers

• Consultant Steve Roesler says you can be in charge, but you’re never in control. (Source: AllThingsWorkplace.com)
• The first 10 seconds of a visit to a web page are critical for users’ decision to stay or leave. The probability of leaving is very high during those initial few seconds because users are extremely skeptical. If the page survives this first, extremely harsh judgment, users will look around a bit. But they’re still highly likely to leave during the subsequent 20 seconds of their visit.  (Source: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
• When you’re hiring, look for talent hiding in plain view, suggests writer-manager Jeff Haden. Hire career switchers, like teachers, who can be excellent trainers and understand how to manage different personalities and motivate. Don’t reject someone just because they currently have a crappy job, assuming that’s all they can handle. They may have developed valuable talents, such as attention to detail, and a good work ethic.  (Source: CBS Moneywatch)
• Consultant Patricia Katz suggests turning your “To Do” list into an “I’m Looking Forward To” list. As you mark down the activities at hand, think of how you should be looking forward to them – sharing experiences, moving forward, making a contribution, and the like.  (Source: Pause Blog)
• Mike Myatt, chief strategy officer of N2 Growth, urges you to create a culture where meetings are the exception, not the rule. And keep in mind the purpose of a meeting is to create solutions, not problems, and to alleviate frustration, not cause it.  (Source: N2Growth Blog)

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  Better Employee Communications

Question:  How can I improve communication with our employees at little or no additional cost?

8020Info Senior Associate Consultant Karen Humphreys Blake responds:

Organizations that strategically maintain good communications with their employees stand to benefit from the enhanced engagement and improved performance that result.

Here are a few things you can do to improve how you handle this important management function:

• As a leader, set a strong example of good communication.  Pay attention to what and how you communicate with employees. Share your strategic vision, expectations and an open, honest assessment of the challenges the organization faces.  And take time to listen to what people say. Your managers and staff can then follow your lead.
• Never assume the job is done. One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is assuming the message gets through on the first attempt. Communicate, communicate then communicate again.
• Recognize different learning styles. A combination of various approaches will ensure best results. Use the spoken word, print, charts and graphs and stories. Video is now an inexpensive technology accessible to all.
• Use clear, concise, simple language. Avoid insider jargon and vague terms or sentences. Run key messages through a readability measurement tool such as www.read-able.com. Check them with family members, friends or others outside your work environment to see if they could be misunderstood.
• Provide context up front. People need to know why they should read or listen. They need to understand complexity and nuance. Providing this background information up front will make them more receptive.
• Make managers accountable for good communication. Make your own special effort to communicate with your managers. And make them accountable for good, clear two-way communication with the staff in their areas, perhaps as part of your performance management process.

Good employee communication need not cost a lot.  Poor communication can cost a bundle! 

7. News From Our Water Cooler: Finding Motivation in January

In January, some offices find they lack energy coming off the holiday break. The first instinct for leaders when it comes to motivation – or more specifically, a lack of motivation – is to take action that stirs up the troops. But in fact, research suggests the role of leaders is to ensure there is a healthy environment in the workplace for people to motivate themselves.

Check your situation:  Has anything changed since before the holidays, and that you need to re-adjust? Have you talked to anybody about the lack of energy, and asked them what the reasons may be (or even whether your interpretation is correct). Did this happen last year? Is there something about your annual work cycle that makes it inevitable — for example does January tend to focus on planning instead of stimulating client interactions or sales successes? There’s danger in trying to artificially stoke up enthusiasm if logic suggests this isn’t the appropriate time.

Most leaders will want to try to spark enthusiasm:  Choose your approaches carefully, tailored to the situation. Maybe all you need is an informal Friday afternoon at the pub, or have the boss bring in some Timbits a few mornings. You might try a contest to bring in the most customers, if that fits, or have some fun coming up with the wackiest captions for a series of photos.

Just remember, motivation comes from within. You can help nourish it. You can eliminate barriers. But you can’t change the weather in January or make people feel motivated. 

8. Closing Thought

“If there are one hundred good things to do and you can only do ten of them, you will have to say no ninety times.”
— Richard Swenson

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. Isolation And The Information Worker

A study of 35,000 information workers in a variety of organizations found, not surprisingly, that they suffer from overload, miscommunication, and disorder, unable to find information when they need it. But Mike Song and Bill Kerwin, of Get Control.net, say they were surprised when their study found a fourth productivity pain point: Isolation. Information workers feel alone in facing these common productivity challenges; less than 20 per cent report receiving any coaching on how to manage email and meetings more productively.

 The consultants list these reasons for the isolation:

• No goals: Most organizations lack workflow goals to which their people can aspire. When somebody masters new software like Outlook or WebEx (becoming more productive compared to colleagues who don’t), it’s likely their organization doesn’t even have a name to describe the achievement and therefore doesn’t recognize it or motivate others to achieve the same proficiency. 
• No guidelines: Employees are handed their computers but never given any guidelines for using those tools productively. “Without standards for reducing overload, writing better messages, discovering key tech tips, and other useful knowledge, most professionals simply stumble along, missing huge opportunities to streamline their work flow,” the authors write. 
• No leaders: Without goals and guidelines, leaders struggle to convey productivity insights to staff, feeling unqualified or even uncertain it’s part of their duties.

It’s clearly an area that organizations must address so employees no longer feel they are floundering, alone, in a world of overload, miscommunication, and disorder.

2. The Need For Prototyping In The Social Sector

Prototyping is common in businesses these days, as entrepreneurial executives and designers come up with a “quick and dirty” model of some new product they are developing. But in Harvard Business Review, Sohrab Vossoughi, founder and president of Ziba Design, says it’s time for social services organizations to adopt the same development and testing approach. 

“Prototyping not only speeds up the design of solutions but helps you solicit valuable input and get buy-in from diverse constituencies. If a problem calls for a truly novel solution, it’s the best way to get the ball rolling,” he observes. 

But he points out that’s not how things work in the public sector, where government and agencies are geared for stability not change. The processes typically focus on thoroughness, fairness, and certainty. Something as simple as adding bike lanes in a neighbourhood can go through endless reviews before the first stripe is painted. “The process can take years and probably costs several times more than it would to just install the infrastructure and remove it if it didn’t work,” he declares. 

He argues we can’t afford that expenditure of time and resources. And we’re fooling ourselves by thinking it prevents risk; it’s actually riskier, because the certainty it seeks is an illusion. 

Prototyping — developing an idea to get a sense of reality — counters the tendency to resist innovation. So the social sector needs to learn from designers, making prototypes and testing them, internally first, and then with a small set of users, modifying as feedback is received.  

3. Act Like A Leader

Leaders have presence. They exude self-confidence, are self assured, command attention, communicate well, and make others feel good. To do that, it helps to learn some acting techniques, leadership development specialist Dan McCarthy writes on his Great Leadership blog. 

First, pay attention to your entrance. People form lasting impressions from how you enter a room, your physical characteristics, and your initial words.  

Actors learn to deliver their lines effectively. Like them, you must know your lines – in this case, the subject matter. You must also pay attention to volume, tone, speed, choice of words, and articulation as well as gestures, facial expressions, and movements. 

Actors connect with their audience, and you must invite them to participate, ask questions, listen, and make them feel good about their participation. Finally, re-emphasize your key messages, just before you exit stage left. 

4. Is Your Organization Pre-Digital?

A brief visit to the emergency room recently reminded entrepreneur Seth Godin of what a pre-digital organization is like. It was a 90-minute ordeal to see a doctor for 90 seconds, with six people doing bureaucratic tasks and screening that are artefacts of the paper universe instead of being plugged in electronically and knowing his medical history from a quick ID scan at the entrance. 

“School is pre-digital. Elections. Most of what you do in your job. Even shopping. The vestiges of a reliance on geography, lack of information, poor interpersonal connections and group connection (all hallmarks of the pre-digital age) are everywhere,” he writes on Seth’s Blog. 

The message he takes away: We are just at the beginning of the transformation of our lives.

5. Zingers 

• Marketing consultant Sally Hogshead says you should have a career goal that scares you. It should expose you to a real chance of failure, and be big and important enough to give purpose to your work. (SallyHogshead.com) 
• Early in her career, consultant Susan Finerty ran into a colleague who was constantly criticizing her to others.  She wrestled with whether to complain to her boss or confront the critic, but eventually decided the critic was somewhat right and Finerty needed a coach to build expertise. So she approached the critic to be her coach, channelling that woman’s energy into helping rather than criticizing. “I don’t remember anything that she coached me on.  But this lesson on disarming a critic will stick with me forever,” she says. (LeadershipMutt.com) 
• Web designer Ilya Pozin says if you want someone to do something on your web site, such as signing up for a newsletter, don’t confine yourself to putting up a box that says “enter email” or even “sign up for newsletter.” Tell people why they should do it – what’s in it for them.  (Source: Inc.com) 
• Facebook has been hailed as an excellent source for checking up on job candidates. But employee engagement coach Cindy Gordon asks us to question how useful it is: “Can we really believe that someone who likes to get drunk during university parties would make a poor hiring candidate?  Does the fact that a person has 1000 Facebook friends mean that they have people skills or relationship building skills?” (Source: Coachspotlight.com) 
• Take a 10-minute walk each day and say out loud what you are thankful for. It will set you up for a positive day, advises author Jon Gordon. (Source: Jon Gordon Blog)

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  Learning From Tales

 Question: What can I do to sharpen the stories in my communications content?

8020Info CEO Rob Wood responds:

We always recommend the use of compelling stories whether for important presentations, website content, e-newsletters, case studies, testimonials or other communications content. 

Here are some great tips from Veronica Maria Jarski, writing on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix last October. She sums them up in 5 Content Writing Lessons from Bone-Chilling Tales: 

• Use a character that inspires strong emotion. With Halloween tales, for example, how can one be indifferent to intriguing characters like Count Dracula or Dr. Frankenstein. But make sure the reader can identify with the organization or person you’re writing about and that they come across as a real person.  
• Write with rich detail. It’s not just a Snowman, it’s the Abominable Snowman; not just a Horseman but the Headless Horseman. Telling details and emotion-inspiring words make a story come to life. 
• Sentences do something. Use active sentences far more often than passive voice. In bone-chilling tales, hearts thump, witches fly and werewolves howl. 
• Wordplay underlines the story.  Rhyme and rhythm help make content stick in our minds. Remember the three witches incanting: “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” 
• The story takes you somewhere. A good writer carries you along on a journey. For more on that, see what we wrote about Nancy Duarte’s take on The Hero’s Journey (8020Info Water Cooler, Vol. 11 No. 14 – Oct. 10th). 
• A lesson is learned.  Whether a big lesson or small lesson, Jarski says, leave the reader with something to ponder. 

If you work hard to apply those tips (and it is hard work!), your content will have a much stronger effect as your stories intrigue, satisfy and stick with your audiences.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  Match Behaviour to Prospects

This is the time of year when many of us come back from the holiday break ready to get focused, tune up the plan and do great things in the coming year.

You may be thinking about ways to boost program enrolment, increase sales, attract donations, or connect with and serve new audiences or stakeholders. Here’s a simple framework from The CEO Sales Solution newsletter that brings attention to the different types of prospects you may have — and the need to adjust prospecting behaviour accordingly: 

• Taking Orders:  This type of buyer knows they have a need or problem, they know you have a solution, and their pain is sufficient to spark prompt action: This is the “easy sale”. Be in the right place at the right time with a competitive offer. 
• Competing For The Deal:  This type of prospect knows they have a problem and that you have a solution to it, but the problem isn’t so bad they need to make an immediate decision. They’ll be shopping around and expect you to work for the deal. 
• Getting On The Radar:  Another type of potential prospect knows they have a problem, but have no idea you have a solution to their problem. In fact, you may have a far better (more effective/less expensive) option for them, and you need to bring it to their attention. 
• Reframing Opportunities:  Finally, there are those who don’t realize they actually have a problem, or are missing out on available opportunities — until you reframe the situation, helping them to understand it in a new light (what many call a “paradigm shift”). 

Depending on the competition, the first two types of prospects are the easiest to serve, but only one in 20 clients may fall in those categories. Succeeding with prospects in the last two categories require real expertise and skill, elevating a sales person to the role of trusted advisor.

8020Info helps teams develop, communicate and implement their communications, research and strategic plans more effectively. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com.

8. Closing Thought

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. The Unplanning Approach

When we start a new business or social agency – or launch a new product or program – we are careful to take time to plan in detail. But consultants Ian Sanders and David Sloly argue that sometimes there is virtue in an unplanning approach.

They write on ChangeThis Manifestos:  “The problem with writing a fixed plan is that you can get stuck in amber. You get so bogged down with hypotheticals, financial modelling and revenue projections that your cool business idea gets stuck in a spreadsheet and the light never goes green. Instead of focusing on making your business idea happen, you end up suffering from analysis paralysis: The number one killer of all great business ideas.”

But we persist, believing a plan will guarantee success in executing even though, they note, you can’t predict how things will look in just five months time, let alone five years. Right now, organizations have to be agile to succeed, prepared to rethink and reinvent what they do and how they do it.

 So try their unplanning approach:

• Take action: Unplanning is about moving from a passive to active mindset. Get used to making quick decisions, focus on outcomes and get your product or service out there. Do something!
• Test it: Don’t test your idea on a spreadsheet; test it live in the marketplace. Launch a prototype, and learn from what transpires. 
• Be agile: Be open to change and flexible enough to grasp random opportunities that come your way.

2. The Emperor’s New Internet Clothes

Advertising guru Roy H. Wilson says he feels like the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes when he discusses Internet darlings Facebook and Twitter.

He notes on his Monday Morning Memo that the first Internet buzzword was “eyeballs.” Any site that could generate a high number of unique visitors was considered overflowing with eyeballs and a success. “But eyeballs didn’t translate into dollars unless you delivered a message to the brain behind those eyeballs that was judged to be highly relevant and sufficiently credible,” he notes. 

Then came “going viral.” But that also faded away, as most companies didn’t have messages with the essential word-of-mouth triggers.

Now it’s Facebook and Twitter. “Facebook promises hyper-targeting but this has been the promise of every media since the invention of advertising. Newspapers have been divided into sections for nearly a century,” he says. Twitter is a quick way to blurt 140 characters to whomever will give you a moment’s attention, but for most companies it’s not highly effective.

He recalls a client who diverted some of his ad budget into a country club membership, on the premise he could sell product on the golf course. He didn’t, but had a good time golfing every Tuesday. 

“Make time for the things that give you pleasure. Facebook is a country club membership. If connecting on Facebook is your thing, go for it. But please, let’s not pretend it’s the highest and best investment of your time,” he concludes.

3. Take Time For A Talent Review

If you’re going to execute on your strategy, you need the right talent in the right places. So as you prepare for the New Year, organize a talent review.

Consultant Amy Wilson, on WilsonInsight.com, advises that the process starts with the leadership team discussing business initiatives critical to success in the coming year (or years).  Highlight important leadership roles and staffing vulnerabilities. 

With that backdrop, move on to assessing individuals. What are each individual’s strengths?  What are their interests? Are they a fit for a new initiative or better suited where they are?  Should they be groomed for a future opportunity?  “Over the course of the conversation, the leaders get on the same page with what matters to the business and what’s needed by the business,” she notes.

Expect disagreements, as team members may fear losing a protégé or compete for choice mentoring assignments. But transparent discussion makes execution of your strategy more likely. 

4. No Time For Marketing?

Marketing consultant Drew McLellan says in his Marketing Minute that a common theme in the conversations he has with business owners is that they don’t have the time to consistently market their business.

Too busy.

Too busy to send out a customer newsletter, attend an important trade show, or update their web site.

But when he asks if they have time to serve their clients, they say, “Of course. I have to stay in business.” Ditto, when he asks if they have time to send out bills.

So they find time to do what’s necessary, he points outs: “It’s that you don’t consider marketing a necessity to stay in business.  Now that’s a very different conversation.”

5. Zingers

• Business advisors Linda Hill and Kent Lineback ask: When is the last time you asked the group you manage and the individuals in it this simple question, “What can I do to help you be more effective?” (Source: Harvard Business Review Blogs)  
• Shakespeare wrote in Measure For Measure: “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” Enrique Salem, CEO of Symantec, uses that quote in his company’s advanced leadership class to send a message: “You’ve got to take some chances. You’ve got to take some risks, and sometimes things don’t work out, but you’ve got to go for it.” (Source: New York Times)  
• To stay calm under pressure, Susie Michelle, founder of Momscape.com, tries to imagine the problem facing her as a knot, with the knot clinching tighter if she panics and pulls frantically on the ends. Instead, she must adopt a singular focus, loosening one strand at a time. Another technique she recommends in such situations: Think of someone who is unflappable, and imagine what that person would do. (Source: Dumb Little Man)  
• Careers expert Andrea Levit warns against unnecessarily pointing out flaws in others. It’s not your responsibility to ensure perfect conduct by colleagues, so even if you normally pay obsessive attention to detail or feel morally outraged about an issue, let it go. Unless your action can prevent a grievous mistake it’s not worth the potential damage to your reputation. (Source: Lifehack.org)  
• The easiest way to describe your product or service is to outline how it’s different from the competition, entrepreneur Seth Godin says, and that’s the approach we typically take. But your prospects have another option besides choosing between you and your competitors: doing nothing. So don’t neglect to talk about why you made the product or service in the first place, and the benefits it offers. (Source: Seth’s Blog)  

6. Q&A with 8020Info:  HolidayReading 

Question: I’d like to curl up with an enjoyable book about business or organizations this holiday season. Anything to suggest?

8020Info Associate Harvey Schachter responds:

If it’s pure reading pleasure you want, I’d recommend the Walter Isaacson’s biography, Steve Jobs. It’s a doorstopper of a book, 571 pages before bibliographical notes and index, but I wasn’t impatient or bored at any point when I was reading it — the time flew away.

This is not a technology book; it’s an engrossing character study and portrait of a career. Jobs’s accomplishments are larger than life, but he was also a larger than life individual, who in anecdote after anecdote shared by the author shows how to be a leader and in anecdote after anecdote how not to be a leader. At times you want to throttle Jobs for his outrageous behaviour, notably his treatment of other human beings. But when you see the allegiance they had to him — even after being brutalized — and what they accomplished, it makes you pause. The book is easy to read, touches the emotions, and forces you to think throughout about leadership.

Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, also has many accomplishments to his credit, including (like Jobs) coming back to the helm when his company was floundering. His book, Onward, is also a pleasure to read, as he tells about the turnaround he led, explaining his vision and tactical execution of the strategy that evolved from his beliefs and the company’s situation.

Fables make for enjoyable holiday reading, and this year three caught my attention as being better than the norm: The Secret Letters Of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Toronto success coach Robin Sharma, which offers nine insightful letters on being a better human being at work and outside of work; Leadership Rules by consultant Chris Widener on how to become the leader you want to be by following the formula of a fictional football coach; and The Seed by Jon Gordon on finding purpose and happiness in life.

Finally, Drowning In Oil by Loren Steffy is an absorbing journalistic case study of the folly that led to the BP oil disaster.

Other books may provide more explicit lessons on how to run your organization better or improve your personal performance, but if you want some easier holiday reading with an organizational message, those should do the trick.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:  2011 Shout Out

It’s been a busy year jammed with fascinating projects, and we’d just like to say thanks to those special people, our clients, with whom we’ve had a chance to collaborate in 2011, helping them to achieve their strategy development, research/consultation and communications goals. Best wishes of the holiday season from all of our team to:

• Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation
• Chien Noir Bistro
• City of Kingston— Cultural Services
• Community Network of Specialized Care
• Downtown Kingston! BIA
• Frontenac Community Mental Health and Addiction Services
• Frontenac CFDC (Community Futures Development Corporation)
• Frontenac County
• Fairmount Home (FrontenacCounty)
• Frontenac Integrated Community Sustainability Plan
• K3C Community Counselling
• Kawartha Lakes CFDC (Community Futures Development Corporation)
• Kingston Economic Development Corporation (Convention Centre Feasibility Review)
• Kingston Frontenac Public Library
• KFL&A Public Health — Healthy Communities
• KingstonPolice
• Lafarge (Bath)
• Loyalist Township (Recreation Dept)
• Marine Museum of  the Great Lakes
• McMaster University Advancement
• Ontario College Advancement
• Ontario Diabetes Regional Coordination Centres
• Prince Edward County (Economic Development)
• Providence Care Inpatient Rehab
• QUASR (Queen’s University Administrative Systems Replacement) Project
• Queen’s Bachelor of Fine Arts Program
• Queen’s Department of Family Medicine (Primary Care Project)
• Queen’s Learning Commons
• Queen’s School of Religion
• Region9 Tourism Organization — The Great Waterway
• St. Lawrence Parks Commission
• Theatre Kingston
• Township of Laurentian Valley
• Township of Leeds and The Thousand Islands
• Township of South Frontenac
• University Hospitals Kingston Foundation

We look forward to working with you in 2012.

8. Closing Thought

“Wisdom is divided into two parts: (a) having a great deal to say, and (b) not saying it.”

— Anonymous

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. The Five Levels Of Interpersonal Communication

It’s easy in today’s digital world to become haphazard about the way we communicate. But each form of communication has advantages and disadvantages. On The 99 percent.com, entrepreneur Scott Belsky reviews five levels of interpersonal communication:

• Message Into The Ether: Snail mail and email are generally presented as opposites, but both are not conversational. Emails and letters are sent out, and then new messages are composed and returned. Because they each lump all the points under discussion rather than go point-counterpoint as in a discussion, a high level of misunderstanding can occur with them.
•  Back And Forth Messaging: Whether instant messaging or text, the next level of communication is conversational, but still conducted remotely. Misunderstandings are less likely because of the flow of points back and forth, but the bite-size messaging means it’s not well-suited to discussing complex matters.
• A Verbal Dialogue: Here inflection is added to the mix, allowing elements like frustration and stress to be picked up easier than in written communication. But verbal dialogues must be scheduled.
• In-Person Spontaneous Discussion: When something important comes up, you might decide to just drop by a colleague’s desk and start talking. Visually seeing each other improves the conversation, but if others are in the vicinity it can be less intimate and spontaneity isn’t everyone’s preference.
• In-Person Scheduled Discussion: This allows time to think about the issues, and take advantage of inflection, visual cues, and the comfort of privacy.

2. Encouraging Yourself

Leaders provide encouragement. And if you’re a leader, the first person you must encourage is yourself. Consultant John Maxwell tells how even President Abraham Lincoln needed affirmation, and in his pocket the day of his assassination was a laudatory newspaper clipping. (See column on Business.Inquirer.net.)

Maxwell offers four strategies for keeping in high spirits:

• Create Mementos: Find a tangible memento to represent the accomplishments that make you the proudest, be it framing written words of praise from your manager or an award you have won. Give yourself visual cues that will trigger recollections of success.
• Build A Support Team: Every relationship in life can lift us up or drag us down. Make sure the people in your inner circle believe the best of you and will cheer you on as you encounter challenges.
• Envision Future Rewards: Keeping future rewards at the front of your mind will provide encouragement. “If you’ve ever run a long-distance race, then you know the rush of energy that comes from seeing the finish line. Having the goal in sight gives you encouragement to finish the race,” he notes. “Spend time visualizing your arrival at the finish line.”
• Sow Encouragement Into Lives Around You: Encouragement is reciprocal. If you want encouragement from others, then be generous with it yourself. “I’m amazed at how eager people are to return the favour after I’ve provided them with inspiration. They line up to express their gratitude, and their kind words give me the strength to keep going,” he concludes.

3. In Praise Of Rolling Budgets

Forecasting the future can be difficult, particularly for new, entrepreneurial organizations. On American Express OPEN Forum, consultant Ken Kaufman says instead of a static, locked-down 12-month plan, you should consider adjusting your forecast every month based on what you have been learning from the market.

Perhaps the costs per lead in your original forecast have been validated, but your estimate of the percentage of leads who will turn into customers has been wrong. Use that new information to create a new budget looking out at the next 12 months, so you aren’t stuck with outdated assumptions and unfeasible outcomes for the rest of the original budget year.

He notes that another great feature of the rolling budget is that you always have twelve months forecasted. “When most companies use a static budget, the forward-looking nature of their predictions gets shorter as the year transpires. A calendar-year company, therefore, only has three months budgeted in October — not much of a forecast,” he stresses.

4. Making It Personal

On his blog, personal success guru Robin Sharma praises someone he calls a Merchant of Wow, a leader in a department store chain who every Sunday night personally calls customers who have given negative feedback.

“In a world filled with people who are bored and apathetic and looking for the latest way to escape the doldrums of their work, this leader cared. He understood that even one unhappy customer was one too many. And that feedback is how the best become better. So he made it personal,” Mr. Sharma declares.

5. Zingers

• We organize our schools around obedience, in the hope it will lead to self-control, notes entrepreneur Seth Godin. Similarly, we organize our companies around obedience, seeking self-control and success. But he questions whether obedience is the way to get to success: Compliant sergeants rarely become great generals. (Source: Seth’s Blog)
•  The word feedback has morphed into “Here’s what you need to correct” instead of “Here’s how I think we’re doing,” says consultant Steve Roesler. With the word feedback taking on negative connotations, drop it, and instead start holding ongoing “conversations,” which since we were kids have been held to discuss how things are going. (Source: All Things Workplace)
• Workers change the computer windows they are working in 37 times an hour, on average, according to the New York Times. Marketing executive David Lavenda suggests new collaboration tools are only making it worse and we need to focus more, integrating the productivity tools better with our work flow. (Source: FastCompany.com)
•  Uncertainty creates a void, and where there is a void negativity will creep in, says consultant Jon Gordon. Leaders must constantly fill the void with positive communications, getting on the phone and meeting with people personally to explain your vision. (Source: JonGordon.com)
• When asked what annoys them about PowerPoint presentations, 74% of respondents in a survey listed the fact the speaker read the slides to them; 52% picked full sentences used instead of bulletpoints, and 48% complained the text was too small to read. (Source: Dave Paradi’s PowerPoint Blog)

6. Q&A with 8020Info: Six Ways To Check Project Integration

Question:
How can we better integrate planning for multiple projects?

8020Info CEO Rob Wood responds:

We’ve been hearing a lot about this issue over the past few months – organizations can’t afford to duplicate effort, overburden limited internal resources with multiple demands, or have their own projects bumping into one another at an operational level. They want to coordinate areas of overlap in planning, operations and resources. Here are some perspectives or “lenses” you can use to identify your pressure points:

• Strategic Alignment: Do your various programs and projects fit within a coherent overall model or do they serve different masters, with conflicting strategic goals or priorities?
• Project Management: One project’s output may be another’s input. Look for dependencies: What must one project deliver before another can begin or finish? How will progress on one program depend on others meeting their milestones and deadlines?
• Sharing/Access to Resources: When do you both need access to the same resources? When could you share the workload or save time or money by a joint purchase?
• Keeping People in the Loop: Do those who manage your projects know how and when they should check in with each other? Time spent getting input from your colleagues early, as a project is being chartered or designed, will often save trouble later. Or it may be more important to check in at critical points during project implementation or when you need help with problem-solving. It’s usually important to “close the loop” by reporting back on how things turned out.
•  Reporting: Who needs to know what, and when? (A weather report is useless the day after. And remember audience-centred communications — what you want to tell them may not be what they want or need to hear from you.) What communications format will work best for the individuals involved: High-level or high-detail? Text or pictures or charts? Reports? Meetings? Email updates? A demonstration or on-site review?
• Managing Change: Most projects, almost by definition, involve change and its shadow — resistance to change. Your project may generate fear or concerns for others related to their sense of meaning, control, identity, belonging, competence, or status.

A thorough discussion of these points with your project leads will go a long way to help improve coordination and integration of your group of projects.

7. News From Our Water Cooler: “Impact Buyers”

Typically we let buzzwords sit awhile before using them, like a wine that must age before we know its real worth, but we’re finding it hard to resist the idea of “impact buyers”.

The term popped up in a recent conversation with Kingston’s innovative Cultural Services team, used to describe how arts and cultural programs create highly valued social impacts in the community.

Authors like Jason Saul in The End of Fundraising: Raise More Money by Selling Your Impact describe how impact buyers attach real economic value to social outcomes and act like consumers to purchase those social benefits — they could be funders, investors, corporate citizens, employees, partners, service providers or individuals who pay for some product, service or experience to support social outcomes.

The idea of an “impact buyer” also applies in many other contexts outside of the arts, and is a fresh way to look at the feature/benefit distinction. We buy fair trade coffee for the social impact on farmers. We make a hospital donation to support a healthier community. We pay to hear a great speaker to stimulate imagination and learning. We support recreation programs to make a difference for youth.

It’s always worth being reminded that we aren’t buying the ¼-inch drill bit (feature) — it’s the ¼-inch hole (benefit) we want. It may not be the product or service or funding/investment opportunity, but the social impact we seek.

8. Closing Thought

“Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire.”

— Robert Brault

Highlights from the latest information
for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs

1. Sleep On Those Tough Decisions

Before making his decision to authorize the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, U.S. president Barrack Obama kept the military and his advisors waiting while he slept on his decision. On Harvard Business Review Blog Network, social psychologist Maarten Bos and Harvard professor Amy Cuddy say that was exactly the right course to take with a complex decision.

During periods when the mind is not consciously focused on an issue, as with sleep, it accurately weighs the pros and cons of relevant decision attributes. In one study about making car purchases, participants who made immediate decisions chose cars with many but unimportant attributes, whereas participants who were first given a task to distract them from the decision chose quality cars.

So when faced with a complex decision, take in all the information that you can, then go for a run, listen to some music, or sleep on it. Finally, since unconscious thought is not as precise as conscious thought, double-check the facts of the decision you now intend to take.

2. How To Manage Cash In A Small Organization

To stay alive, small companies must manage cash carefully. On The Grassy Road blog, serial entrepreneur Penny Herscher offers these four tips:

• Build your own model: A good finance team can construct many financial models but there is no substitute for thinking through the essential factors affecting your business yourself and formulating your own model. Ask yourself – and answer – tough questions like: What is the cost of every new employee? What is your true receivables collection time? What is the monthly productivity of each sales representative and how many months does it take from hiring to positive cash flow for each agent? What assumptions are you making about average sales price and average transaction size – are they realistic?
• Cap your own salary: In many young companies the largest expense is salaries. If you cap your own salary at below-market rates, it makes it difficult for others on your executive team to demand more. “It’s a delicate balance because your team needs to make enough to live and not worry about their families, but no more [than that], because in the end they’ll make more money from their options when you reach a successful liquidity event,” she writes.
• Hire a tight fist in finance: Since you can’t watch every transaction she recommends getting a “pernickety, detail-oriented, negotiating, thick-skinned finance lead at your side.”
• Test every decision: Before every decision, ask: What is the impact on cash flow? Growth takes risk, but you must be sensitive to the cash flow implications.

3. Tips For Choosing A Web Designer Vs. An Artist

Choosing the best designer to build or reshape your web site can be a challenge. But on InformationHighwayman.com, New Zealand web copywriter D. Bnonn Tennant offers this approach:

• Draw a vertical line down a piece of paper and write “Good” and “Bad” at the top of the columns.
• Go in turn to each designer’s site. Put a tick in the Good column every time you see a term that is meaningful to you, like “business objectives,” “return on investment,” “your revenue goals,” or “increase sales” as they discuss the services they can offer you.
• By contrast, put a cross in the Bad column every time you see a term like “beautiful,” “passion,” “branding,” “modern,” “clean” or other puff words that don’t convey a clear outcome or benefit to you.
• Hire the designer with the most ticks and least crosses.

“Designers who don’t understand that websites are business assets which must achieve specific business objectives, which in turn are tied to revenue goals… are not actually designers at all. They are artists. Giving them your money is not an investment in creating a business asset – it’s a divestment of capital that is never going to come back,” he declares.

In that vein, he urges you to beware of designers who use industry buzz-words and faddish terms that they may believe describe benefits, but which you can’t relate to any discernible value in meeting your actual needs and required results.

4. Getting Performance Reviews Right

The biggest mistake managers make on performance reviews is thinking the purpose is to find something wrong with an employee and then fix it, says Mike Carden, CEO of performance-management software company Sonar6.

In conversation with SmartBlogs.com, he says you want to take that approach only with your poorest performers, such as a salesperson reluctant to make calls. With star performers, work out ways to stretch them and leverage their talents.

He notes that whereas any sensible person would have focused on making the 12-year-old LeBron James into a superior basketball player, the typical people manager approach would have foolishly fixated on improving his swimming.

5. Zingers

• Do you feel you can improve your skills on something like leading a meeting, delegating, or listening? At the end of an interaction with someone, ask that individual how they rate you on that skill on a scale of 1 – 10. If they suggest something below 10, which is likely, ask what it would take you to improve to a 10? After you get specific ideas, try them. (Source: Great Leadership)
• Success through winning a lottery may be easy if your number is drawn, but your chances are uncertain. Medical school may offer a certain path to success, but it’s not easy. Entrepreneur Seth Godin says most people are searching for a path to success that is both easy and certain – but most paths are neither. (Source: Seth’s Blog)
• Everyone appreciates a thank you, but too often we’re too busy to remember to say those powerful two words. Consultant Jennifer Miller says you should make your thank yous unexpected, sincere, specific, and aimed directly to the heart of the individual you are thanking. (Source: The People Equation)
•  When Caryn Stern became president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, she asked her subordinates for a list of their best and brightest, without indicating how many should be on the list. After receiving those, she declared: “You’ve got one year. At the end of the year, either everyone working for you is on this list, or you’re telling me how you’re getting them there, or you’re getting rid of them. If we are going to attract the brightest and the best, then we’ve got to keep only the brightest and the best.” (Source: New York Times)
• Consultant Art Petty says too many leaders send their teams into battle on a daily basis armed with nothing more than a “go get ‘em” and a metaphorical slap on the back. Instead of cheerleading, consider motivating employees with clarity and context about the importance of their work and their impact on people. (Source: Leadership Caffeine)

6. Q&A with 8020Info:
Tackling Strategy for 2012

Question: We are planning a strategy session to prepare for the new year. Any suggestions?

8020Info Associate Harvey Schachter responds:

Here are five issues to consider:

• Do you really need to develop a new strategy? Strategies should not be redesigned annually, unless something significant has changed or the existing strategy is truly outdated. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meet annually. But what you probably want is a session focused on implementation. If so, start with a review of how effective you have been in implementing your strategy recently, and what improvements can be made both in overall approach and specific ventures.
• If it’s a strategy session, don’t waste time drumming up revenue and profit targets. That’s not strategy, according to legendary strategist Richard Rumelt.
• If it is a strategy session, think about focus. In his bookBad Strategy, Good Strategy, Rumelt says the kernel of a strategy has three elements: A diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action. Too often, we bundle all the possibilities together into a large, complex strategy meant to appease all factions in the organization but one that is impossible to clarify for staff. He notes that when Steve Jobs returned to a nearly-bankrupt Apple in 1997, he dramatically simplified and narrowed scope, tackling the fundamental problems with a focused and co-ordinated set of actions. “A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design,” he writes.
• Usually we’re told strategy is about choice. And in the need for focus, strategy is about choice. In The Opposable Mind, however, Rotman School of Management Dean Roger Martin showed how many of the best strategies were devised by leaders who were faced with a choice between two less-than-perfect options and instead found a way to combine them into a more effective, alternative path.
• Luxury hotelier Isadore Sharp, for example, refused to accept that only two types of lodging could be built: small motels with intimacy and comfort, or large hotels with excellent location and amenities. Instead, he decided to create hotels with the intimacy of his original small motor hotel and the amenities of a large convention hotel. A. G. Lafley, when he took the helm at Procter & Gamble, refused to pick between low pricing or intensive innovation investment, embracing both.
• On a more prosaic note, if it’s a day-long strategy (or implementation planning) session, make sure you take some time for fresh air, whatever the weather. It stimulates the kind of sharp thinking you will need.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:
A Poem For Halloween

Halloween is upon us, a big night for the kids. But Halloween is a big season for business as well, the second biggest holiday in spending, which led entrepreneur Rhonda Abrams to compose a poem on her PlanningShop.com site, borrowing in tempo and style from A Visit from St. Nicholas. Here are some excerpts:

Merchants and restaurants
And businesses galore
Have found ways to use Halloween 
To sell even more

“It’s a holiday for kids,” 
I hear you say. 
Yeah, just visit a bank
On Halloween Day

All the tellers wear costumes
Some even quite funny
And these are the people 
Who’ve got all your money….

Use Halloween to let clients
Know of them you’ve been thinking
So they’ll remember your name
Through all their December drinking

Run a Halloween special
Offer good things to eat
Be creative, be clever
Find a trick, find a treat

So plan a promotion 
With a Halloween tie-in
One that will get 
All your customers buyin’

As I close out this poem
Only one thing’s to write: 
“Happy Halloween to all
And to all a good fright.”

8. Closing Thought                                                                 Top

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”

   – A. A. Milne