The field house was hot last Sunday afternoon as the incoming freshmen and their families gathered inside. The new students were to be officially welcomed by the university president. It had been a long and tiring day for our son as we moved him into his dorm room. Unfortunately (though understandably), he nodded off during the most helpful part of the speech.
"I have nine words of advice for each new class," the president said. "Go to class. Do the work. Ask for help." The last three words, he explained, were the most critical in assuring their success in the coming four years. He added that they shouldn't think less of themselves for needing help. The anecdote he told to illustrate his point hit home.
After sharing those same words of counsel with a new member of the university's board of trustees, the new trustee in turn shared with the president his own version of "Ask for help."
He had founded two successful companies and had always believed in asking for help, no matter its source. In one particularly difficult challenge, he recalled, his company was working with a client when he recognized that the most talented person working on the project was an employee of the client company.
Rather than struggle on, he requested the temporary reassignment of this skilled person to his team "to be sure we delivered the highest quality solution." He saw nothing wrong in asking for help. In fact, he saw it as a requirement of the job.
Such counsel flies in the face of the "not invented here" attitude, an approach that says, if you're the outside expert, your solution is always going to be best, regardless.
I've never believed that and I loathe working with people that do. In a similar vein, I have occasionally found that a client's approach works well. Why fix what isn't broken? My counsel after examining the situation closely is usually that they continue in that manner, though I may suggest a modification or two, as well as an appropriate follow-on methodology.
Managers and outside counsels should be honest enough to know when their solution is no better than another approach. Or, like the trustee's story, they should recognize when someone else is better qualified to drive towards the highest quality solution, and then seek their help.
We see this in play both within internal teams and when outsiders are brought in. In an internal environment, this can play out in a number of ways. Petty jealousies among peers can lead to a situation where, in pursuit of greater reward and recognition, the stronger-willed person downplays, denigrates or nit-picks a teammate's more elegant solution.
Sometimes, a manager wants to take credit for solving a problem, casting him/herself as the most talented and experienced person on the project, perhaps ignoring an employee's more appropriate solution or that person's superior talent. As I noted in a blog entry nearly a year ago:
The late great sportswriter Red Smith remembered his days at the old (and defunct) New York Herald-Tribune. Sports editor Stanley Woodward returned from World War 2 and set about building what was then and probably still is the best collection of sportswriters ever. "He was scouting for the best men he could get," Smith recalled. "Stanley was the best department head, perhaps the best all-around newspaperman I've ever known. Some sports editors, especially if they write a column, are afraid of competition. They want to be the big man of the paper. But Stanley's rule was, 'I don't want anyone who can't outwrite me'."
Those are sound words of advice, whether applied directly in regard to a manager's relationship with his/her direct reports, or in the case of the outsider. The important thing is the end. We should all be seeking the best possible solution - no matter the source - to the challenge at hand so that we can achieve the organization's business objectives.
Mature people - whether in business or in school - should take to heart the president's elaboration of his counsel as our son began his university education:
Recognize when you need help. Don't be so proud that you won't or can't ask for help. Know whom to turn to for help. And when you get that help, take advantage of it.
(By the way, we let our son know the wise advice he'd missed. My wife even wrote it on an index card and pinned it to his bulletin board.)
Insights and Ideas on Business and Employee Communications
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Technology Blurs Line Between Work and Home
In the "good old days," bringing your work home was pretty rare. Usually, it meant after-dinner perusal of proposals or a few pieces of correspondence you hadn't gotten to during the day. Perhaps it was a client dinner with your spouses, or a Saturday morning round of golf with the boss.
Today, bringing your work home is standard operating procedure, in light of leaner workforces, spawned by multiple lay-offs that pile additional demands on everyone. But our extended work hours are also being fueled by the proliferation of PDAs and the Internet, which enable round-the-clock communications with everyone in the company, no matter where in the world they may be at any given moment of the day, or day of the week.
In fact, you'd better have a good reason for failing to respond to an important weekend email. Saying you hadn't checked your email won't wash.
Vacations used to be sacrosanct and so would serve as a valid reason for being out of touch, as did being on an airliner at 35,000 feet. Today, about the only airtight excuse is being unconscious in an ICU.
The issue came to mind with a recent New York Times story: "Breakfast Can Wait. The Day's First Stop is Online." That, and a back-and-forth email exchange with a friend who queried me about my thoughts on the article, which concerns the impact of the Internet, PDAs and laptops on people's personal lives.
The featured families discuss their adapting and coping mechanisms, and rules regarding use (and non-use) of the Internet at home during family time. They also reminisce about the times when the breakfast table meant starting the day together, sharing the coming day's plans and expectations, instead of starting the day with emails, Twitters and blogs.
It's amusing to see people on vacation staring into a BlackBerry, tapping their responses, while lounging in the sun on a beach. We've all heard the anecdotes of how BlackBerrys have intruded on deeply personal occasions like weddings and funerals. And, we know of spouses who lay down the law about "no emails" while on vacation.
I had to laugh at a former boss who once called me on his cell phone while on a Caribbean cruise with his family - because he could.
Me: "Why are you whispering? I can't hear you."
Boss: "So my wife won't hear me. I'm not supposed to be calling the office."
Me: [LOL]
Modern technology's advance runs on parallel tracks with our expectations as to what it can and should do for us. The archetypal story - perhaps apocryphal - concerns the young businessman who happily discovers he can now email while flying to his destination. He's thrilled and immediately is tapping away on his laptop. Suddenly, he loses the connection. He's outraged, as though it's an entitlement withdrawn.
This ratcheting up of expectations demands perfection. It also manifests itself when, during a teleconference (true story), someone actually apologized - as though it was their fault - because their Internet connection was down and they couldn't access the materials being distributed online during the call.
The ability to send and receive email at all times and most locations also means that underlings strive to impress the boss (and one-up each other) by staying in touch during vacations and family emergencies, or emailing the boss in the wee hours of the morning.
This is getting out of hand. Technology has made it too easy for our work lives to encroach on and dominate our personal lives. But the increased access technology provides is not a license to intrude, nor does it lessen the critical and central importance of healthy personal lives, particularly if they involve other people like spouses and children. So managers - especially senior managers - must be proactive and explicit in defining the boundaries between their employees' personal lives and the business.
As my friend pointed out in our email exchange, yes, people need to be "fluent in new technologies," but managers must "still respect their employees' personal space."
That means prohibiting email contacts during personal time, except when dire circumstances demand otherwise. Each business is different and that boundary may necessarily be vague.
The point is, the blurring of the line between our personal and business lives has a potentially adverse impact on the quality of our work. We can't be effective in our jobs unless we are whole persons, with unique interests and drives. And we can't be whole without that clear distinction between work and home.
Today, bringing your work home is standard operating procedure, in light of leaner workforces, spawned by multiple lay-offs that pile additional demands on everyone. But our extended work hours are also being fueled by the proliferation of PDAs and the Internet, which enable round-the-clock communications with everyone in the company, no matter where in the world they may be at any given moment of the day, or day of the week.
In fact, you'd better have a good reason for failing to respond to an important weekend email. Saying you hadn't checked your email won't wash.
Vacations used to be sacrosanct and so would serve as a valid reason for being out of touch, as did being on an airliner at 35,000 feet. Today, about the only airtight excuse is being unconscious in an ICU.
The issue came to mind with a recent New York Times story: "Breakfast Can Wait. The Day's First Stop is Online." That, and a back-and-forth email exchange with a friend who queried me about my thoughts on the article, which concerns the impact of the Internet, PDAs and laptops on people's personal lives.
The featured families discuss their adapting and coping mechanisms, and rules regarding use (and non-use) of the Internet at home during family time. They also reminisce about the times when the breakfast table meant starting the day together, sharing the coming day's plans and expectations, instead of starting the day with emails, Twitters and blogs.
It's amusing to see people on vacation staring into a BlackBerry, tapping their responses, while lounging in the sun on a beach. We've all heard the anecdotes of how BlackBerrys have intruded on deeply personal occasions like weddings and funerals. And, we know of spouses who lay down the law about "no emails" while on vacation.
I had to laugh at a former boss who once called me on his cell phone while on a Caribbean cruise with his family - because he could.
Me: "Why are you whispering? I can't hear you."
Boss: "So my wife won't hear me. I'm not supposed to be calling the office."
Me: [LOL]
Modern technology's advance runs on parallel tracks with our expectations as to what it can and should do for us. The archetypal story - perhaps apocryphal - concerns the young businessman who happily discovers he can now email while flying to his destination. He's thrilled and immediately is tapping away on his laptop. Suddenly, he loses the connection. He's outraged, as though it's an entitlement withdrawn.
This ratcheting up of expectations demands perfection. It also manifests itself when, during a teleconference (true story), someone actually apologized - as though it was their fault - because their Internet connection was down and they couldn't access the materials being distributed online during the call.
The ability to send and receive email at all times and most locations also means that underlings strive to impress the boss (and one-up each other) by staying in touch during vacations and family emergencies, or emailing the boss in the wee hours of the morning.
This is getting out of hand. Technology has made it too easy for our work lives to encroach on and dominate our personal lives. But the increased access technology provides is not a license to intrude, nor does it lessen the critical and central importance of healthy personal lives, particularly if they involve other people like spouses and children. So managers - especially senior managers - must be proactive and explicit in defining the boundaries between their employees' personal lives and the business.
As my friend pointed out in our email exchange, yes, people need to be "fluent in new technologies," but managers must "still respect their employees' personal space."
That means prohibiting email contacts during personal time, except when dire circumstances demand otherwise. Each business is different and that boundary may necessarily be vague.
The point is, the blurring of the line between our personal and business lives has a potentially adverse impact on the quality of our work. We can't be effective in our jobs unless we are whole persons, with unique interests and drives. And we can't be whole without that clear distinction between work and home.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Workaday Realities
After college, I was thrilled to land a job as a newspaper reporter, even though the pay was paltry. In the years after the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story, being a reporter seemed like the sexiest, most exciting job for a recent college graduate.
While it certainly had its bracing moments, on balance it was a pretty tedious and boring job day-in and day-out. As a suburban beat reporter, I found myself sitting in interminable evening meetings of town finance committees, sewer commissions, school boards and the like, filing my stories, ever alert for a breaking Big Story. Aside from a couple of local crime stories, none came my way – which is kind of the way it is in that business.
While they certainly worked hard throughout the process of uncovering the Watergate mess, Woodward and Bernstein essentially got lucky to have their Big Story fall into their laps on a slow news night.
Sure, I got the chance to quench my desire to do lots of creative writing in fulfilling the obligation to write feature articles about local personalities and events. Yet I soon reached the conclusion that about 90 percent of my workday was spent on mundane tasks and, at best, about 10 percent involved truly interesting work – stuff that challenged me and helped me justify getting out of bed in the morning.
Over the years, I’ve reached a parallel conclusion about most work. Unless you’re among the small minority of people who are doing what you truly love, it’s likely that that 90/10 split holds true. Ninety percent of your workday consists of tending to tedious tasks and dealing with hassles that you’d rather not have to. The remaining 10 percent of your day involves doing what you want to do, being challenged, using the skills for which you have trained.
Okay, maybe you’ll quibble about the 90/10 split. Maybe you’ll say it’s 75/25 or 60/40. But I don’t think you’d disagree that much of the work that people do is banal, tedious and often a series of hassles getting in the way of letting them do what they excel at. I don’t want to be overly negative here because I know that there are plenty of people who enjoy their work, including the dull parts.
But my point is that this is a truism of work life that managers and leaders must always bear in mind. While it’s tempting to assume that everyone shares their enthusiasm for the organization and its vision, the truth is likely less than that.
The reality is that most people toiling on factory floors or in cubicles are showing up for the paycheck and benefits, trying to perform their jobs well and to their bosses’ satisfaction, hoping that they get the promotions and raises they feel they’ve earned or, in a time of economic crisis, hoping they don’t get laid off.
Communicating in such an environment then, it is critical to cut through the cynicism and ennui that inevitably exist in many corners of the organization, bred by the reality of people doing things they’d rather not be doing.
In an on-line discussion on the topic of communicating with employees, one fellow opined that leaders and managers must always strive to be “plain spoken” and honest in their communications, avoiding artificiality and obfuscation. I second that, but add the following corollary.
Yes, be honest and plainspoken. But equally important is making sure your communications are relevant to the target audience. Make it pertinent to peoples' location (in a multi-site company), their specific area of responsibility/function, their job title, etc. It is not helpful to communicate a carbon copy message to all audiences without accommodating the differences inherent in their position, responsibilities and location.
Relevance often is as easy as answering the #1 question on employees' minds, particularly during stressful times: "What does this mean to me?" The answer to that question obviously varies on the basis of the assorted factors of the specific job assignment.
Accommodating those differences in our communications can bring meaning to people, helping them connect the dots and find the connection between what they do and the larger purpose of the organization.
To that end, communications should be driven by centralized content (i.e., the big message) and localized relevance (i.e., linking the larger message to the everyday local realities that people deal with). You won’t erase the mundane banalities of people’s workaday realities, but you may open their eyes to the larger context so that they can better see "the big picture" and gain a better appreciation of purpose, even in the midst of the daily workplace tedium and hassles.
While it certainly had its bracing moments, on balance it was a pretty tedious and boring job day-in and day-out. As a suburban beat reporter, I found myself sitting in interminable evening meetings of town finance committees, sewer commissions, school boards and the like, filing my stories, ever alert for a breaking Big Story. Aside from a couple of local crime stories, none came my way – which is kind of the way it is in that business.
While they certainly worked hard throughout the process of uncovering the Watergate mess, Woodward and Bernstein essentially got lucky to have their Big Story fall into their laps on a slow news night.
Sure, I got the chance to quench my desire to do lots of creative writing in fulfilling the obligation to write feature articles about local personalities and events. Yet I soon reached the conclusion that about 90 percent of my workday was spent on mundane tasks and, at best, about 10 percent involved truly interesting work – stuff that challenged me and helped me justify getting out of bed in the morning.
Over the years, I’ve reached a parallel conclusion about most work. Unless you’re among the small minority of people who are doing what you truly love, it’s likely that that 90/10 split holds true. Ninety percent of your workday consists of tending to tedious tasks and dealing with hassles that you’d rather not have to. The remaining 10 percent of your day involves doing what you want to do, being challenged, using the skills for which you have trained.
Okay, maybe you’ll quibble about the 90/10 split. Maybe you’ll say it’s 75/25 or 60/40. But I don’t think you’d disagree that much of the work that people do is banal, tedious and often a series of hassles getting in the way of letting them do what they excel at. I don’t want to be overly negative here because I know that there are plenty of people who enjoy their work, including the dull parts.
But my point is that this is a truism of work life that managers and leaders must always bear in mind. While it’s tempting to assume that everyone shares their enthusiasm for the organization and its vision, the truth is likely less than that.
The reality is that most people toiling on factory floors or in cubicles are showing up for the paycheck and benefits, trying to perform their jobs well and to their bosses’ satisfaction, hoping that they get the promotions and raises they feel they’ve earned or, in a time of economic crisis, hoping they don’t get laid off.
Communicating in such an environment then, it is critical to cut through the cynicism and ennui that inevitably exist in many corners of the organization, bred by the reality of people doing things they’d rather not be doing.
In an on-line discussion on the topic of communicating with employees, one fellow opined that leaders and managers must always strive to be “plain spoken” and honest in their communications, avoiding artificiality and obfuscation. I second that, but add the following corollary.
Yes, be honest and plainspoken. But equally important is making sure your communications are relevant to the target audience. Make it pertinent to peoples' location (in a multi-site company), their specific area of responsibility/function, their job title, etc. It is not helpful to communicate a carbon copy message to all audiences without accommodating the differences inherent in their position, responsibilities and location.
Relevance often is as easy as answering the #1 question on employees' minds, particularly during stressful times: "What does this mean to me?" The answer to that question obviously varies on the basis of the assorted factors of the specific job assignment.
Accommodating those differences in our communications can bring meaning to people, helping them connect the dots and find the connection between what they do and the larger purpose of the organization.
To that end, communications should be driven by centralized content (i.e., the big message) and localized relevance (i.e., linking the larger message to the everyday local realities that people deal with). You won’t erase the mundane banalities of people’s workaday realities, but you may open their eyes to the larger context so that they can better see "the big picture" and gain a better appreciation of purpose, even in the midst of the daily workplace tedium and hassles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)