Slacker Manager
The Secret to Firing Someone
Sometimes, things just don’t work out.
It could be the employee.
It could be the employer.
It could be both parties.
But it’s never easy to fire someone.
It doesn’t feel good for the person doing the firing.
It SURE doesn’t feel good for the person getting fired.
So what’s the secret to firing someone?
Two words: Be human
Treat the other person in a humane way.
Let the other person respond humanly.
There may be some yelling,
Some screaming
Some anger,
Some crying.
Don’t take it personally.
Be human
And let the rest take care of itself.
What’s YOUR secret to firing people?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3561662932/
P.S. Tomorrow is my last day writing Slacker Manager. I hope you’ll join me at my new home at The Management Expert starting November 2nd, 2009!
Help Your Team Deal With Change
Recently I had a conversation with a Twitter friend about a change his team was about to go through. Here’s how the advice and how you can help your team deal with change.
Change isn’t easy, but if you do it right, you can minimize the long-term pain your team will go through as a result of the change.
1) Explain why you’re making the change – Why are you making the change? Your team probably thought everything was going well. Take time to explain the WHY behind the change as completely as possible, leaving very little to the imagination. The better job you do of this now, the better things will be long term.
2) Explain the impact of the change – Does the change mean a schedule change? More work? Different work? Less work your team hates doing? A new manager or leader? Explain as much as you can so folks know the nuances of the change and can better handle what comes their way.
3) Explain how the change plays into the mission of the individual/team/department/company – As a manager, it’s critical you help your team connect the dots, ESPECIALLY in times of change.
4) Explain how your team will play into the change (and if it’s a very positive change for everyone, explain this) – In the absence of truth, folks will tell their own story. Show them how they personally will perform better because of this change. Many are pessimistic by nature, so take time to explain how they will be able to leverage their strengths even more in this new environment.
5) Take questions – Answer as many as you can, as honestly as you can. Take notes for the rest and get back to the team with answers. Don’t BS the answers. You don’t have to know everything, but you do need to field EVERY question, even if it’s uncomfortable, and then get the answers back to your WHOLE team.
6) Give them your commitment to making the change work – Even if you don’t like the change yourself, it’s important to be committed to making the change work for your team.
After the meeting is done, during your one-on-ones:
7) Ask for your associate’s individual commitment to making the change work – You want folks to commit to making the change work, not merely comply with it and then rebel against it later. Get commitment to at least trying to make things work.
How can YOU help your team deal with change?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spursfan_ace/2328879637/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Is Your Organization High Performing?
This chapter is from the book Leading at a Higher Level, Revised and Expanded Edition: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations by Ken Blanchard
Those who want to lead at a higher level need to understand that to create a high performing organization, they need to aim for the right target.
Don Carew, Fay Kandarian, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Jesse Stoner, and Ken Blanchard
Marksmen will tell you that when you aim at a target, you should go for the bull’s-eye. The reason is that if you miss the bull’s-eye, you’re still on the target. But if all you do is aim for the target and you miss, you’re nowhere. Don Shula, who coauthored Everyone’s a Coach1 with Ken Blanchard, always told his Miami Dolphins football team that the target they were aiming at was to win every game. Was that possible? Obviously not, but if you don’t shoot for excellence, you never have a chance of getting there. That’s probably why Shula’s teams won more football games than teams of any other coach in the history of the NFL. His 1972 Dolphins is still the only team in history to go undefeated for an entire season. So the target you aim for has a lot to do with your performance.
Wall Street and the pressures of business today make many people think that the only target that counts is financial success. Yet few, if any, businesspeople would want their epitaph to include their company’s bottom line—their stock price or profit margin. They might, however, want people to remember their contribution to the creation of a high performing organization.
Those who want to lead at a higher level need to understand that to create a high performing organization, they need to aim for the right target.
The Right Target: The Triple Bottom Line
In high performing organizations, everyone’s energy is focused on not just one bottom line, but three bottom lines—being the provider of choice, the employer of choice, and the investment of choice. This triple bottom line is the right target and can make the difference between mediocrity and greatness.2 The leaders in high performing organizations know that their bottom line depends on their customers, their people, and their investors. These leaders realize the following:
Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.
Provider of Choice
Being the provider of choice is increasingly challenging. Competition is fierce as new competitors emerge unexpectedly. Customers are more demanding, with many more options at their fingertips. The world has changed in such a way that today the buyer, not the seller, is sitting in the driver’s seat. These days, nobody has to convince anybody that the customer reigns. In fact, companies are motivated to change when they discover the new rule:
If you don’t take care of your customers, somebody else will.
In Raving Fans®: Satisfied Customers Are Not Enough,3 Sheldon Bowles and Ken Blanchard argue that to keep your customers today, you can’t be content just to satisfy them. You have to create raving fans—customers who are so excited about how you treat them that they want to tell everyone about you. They become part of your sales force. Let’s look at a simple yet powerful example.
What’s the most common wake-up call that you get in a hotel in America today? The phone rings at the allotted hour, but when you pick it up, no one is there. At least they got the machine to call your room at the designated hour. The second most common wake-up call greets you with a recording. But again, no one’s there. Today if you pick up the phone on a wake-up call and a human being is on the other end—someone you can actually talk to—you hardly know what to say. A while back, one of our colleagues was staying at the Marriott Convention Hotel in Orlando. He asked for a 7:00 wake-up call. When the phone rang and he picked it up, a woman said, “Good morning; this is Teresa. It’s 7 o’clock. It’s going to be 75 and beautiful in Orlando today, but your ticket says you’re leaving. Where are you going?”
Taken aback, our colleague stammered, “New York City.”
Teresa said, “Let me look at the USA Today weather map. Oh, no! It’s supposed to be 40 degrees and rainy in New York today. Can’t you stay another day?”
Now where do you think our colleague wants to stay when he gets to Orlando? He wants to stay at the Marriott so that he can talk to Teresa in the morning! Raving fans are created by companies whose service far exceeds that of the competition and even exceeds customer expectations. These companies routinely do the unexpected and then enjoy the growth generated by customers who have spontaneously joined their sales force.
Employer of Choice
Being the employer of choice is equally challenging. With highly mobile, competent workers in demand, employers must find ways to attract and keep their best people. Good pay is no longer the only answer. It is true that some competent workers will go elsewhere for a higher wage; however, today’s workers generally want more. They seek opportunities where they feel like their contributions are valued and rewarded—where they are involved and empowered, can develop skills, can see advancement opportunities, and can believe they are making a difference.
You will get little argument today if you tell managers that people are their most important resource. Some even argue that the customer should come second, because without committed and empowered employees, a company can never provide good service. You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well.
Several years ago, a friend of ours had an experience in a department store that illustrates this point well. He normally shops at Nordstrom but found himself in a competitor’s store. Realizing that he needed to talk to his wife, he asked a salesperson in the men’s department if he could use their telephone. “No!” the salesperson said.
He replied, “You have to be kidding me. You can always use the phone at Nordstrom.”
The salesperson said, “Look, buddy! They don’t let me use the phone here. Why should I let you?”
People who are treated poorly tend to pass that attitude on to their customers.
Another reason that your people are so important today is because these days your organization is evaluated on how quickly it can respond to customer needs and problems. “I’ll have to talk to my boss” doesn’t cut it anymore. Nobody cares who the boss is. The only people customers care about are the ones who answer the phone, greet them, write up their order, make their delivery, or respond to their complaints. They want top service, and they want it fast. This means that you need to create a motivating environment for your people and an organizational structure that is flexible enough to permit them to be the best they can be.
Investment of Choice
Growing or expanding requires investment, regardless of whether the company is publicly owned, privately held, government, or nonprofit. All organizations require funding sources, through stock purchases, loans, grants, or contracts. To be willing to invest, people must believe in the organization’s viability and performance over time. They need to have faith in the leadership, the quality of the people, the product and services, the management practices, and the organization’s resilience.
If an organization’s financial success is a function of revenue minus expenses, you can become more sound financially either by reducing costs or increasing revenues. Let’s look at costs first, because in today’s competitive environment, the prize goes to those who can do more with less. More organizations today are deciding that the only way to be financially effective is to downsize. There’s no doubt that some personnel reduction is necessary in large bureaucracies where everyone just has to have an assistant, and the assistant must have an assistant. Yet downsizing is an energy drain, and it’s by no means the only way to manage costs.
There’s a growing realization that another effective way to manage cost is to make all your people your business partners. For instance, in some companies, new people can’t get a raise until they can read their company’s balance sheet and understand where and how their individual efforts are impacting the company’s profit-and-loss statement. When people understand the business realities of how their organization makes and spends money, they are much more apt to roll up their sleeves and help out.
Traditionally, managers have been reluctant to share financial information. Yet these days, many organizations are responding with open-book management. That’s because they realize the financial benefits of sharing previously sensitive data. For example, in working with a restaurant company, one of our consulting partners was having a hard time convincing the president of the merits of sharing important financial data with employees. To unfreeze the president’s thinking, the consulting partner went to the firm’s largest restaurant one night at closing time. Dividing all the employees—cooks, dishwashers, waitstaff, bus people, receptionists—into groups of five or six, he asked them to come to an agreement about the answer to a question: “Of every sales dollar that comes into this restaurant, how many cents do you think fall to the bottom line—money that can be returned to investors as profit or reinvested in the business?”
The least amount any group guessed was 40 cents. Several groups guessed 70 cents. In a restaurant, the reality is that if you can keep 5 cents on the dollar, you get excited—10 cents, and you’re ecstatic! Can you imagine the attitude among employees toward such things as food costs, labor costs, and breakage when they thought their company was a money machine? After sharing the actual figures, the president was impressed when a chef asked, “You mean, if I burn a steak that costs us $6 and we sell it for $20, at a 5 percent profit margin, we have to sell six steaks for essentially no profit to make up for my mistake?” He already had things figured out.
If you keep your people well informed and let them use their brains, you’ll be amazed at how they can help manage costs.
This is particularly important in uncertain times. If you develop committed and empowered people, not only will they help manage costs, but they’ll also increase your revenues. How? By providing legendary service that creates raving fan customers who will want to brag about you. These customers become part of your unofficial sales force or PR department, which increases your sales and/or visibility and makes your organization more attractive as an investment. Now you are a leader of a high performing organization.
This excerpt from Leading at a Higher Level is courtesy of FT Press.
Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/respres/3153378745/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Trust But Monitor
When I graduated high school, I went into the Navy and worked as a communications technician. I worked with a lot of people in military intelligence, including Navy guys who had the coolest patch for their flight jackets.
In God We Trust…All Others We Monitor
At the time, I thought it was the way things were. You trusted people, but you monitored them.
And now, as a manager, I guess that is the way things are.
I trust my team to do things…but I review their work to make sure it’s done right.
I attend meetings where people say they’ll do the right things…but then we check in at the next meeting to make sure they got done.
I expect my team to take care of customers, but then I ask them how we’re doing whenever I see them.
Now that I think about it, I trust but monitor just about everything with my team.
Do you trust but monitor or am I just a micromanager?
Image source from Phil Gerbyshak’s personal collection
Post from: Slacker Manager
Sunday Six Pack: 10-18-2009
Hope this week was another great one for you. As it draws to a close, I find myself looking inside my heart for lessons I need to learn. I hope the six articles I’ve chosen touch your heart too!
Miki Saxon has my favorite article of the week, Ducks in a Row: Cut Them Some Slack, offering a powerful lesson we all can learn from:
But the older I got the more successful I was and I never regretted it. If the behavior continued I look for reasons and more often than not I found them.
Sure, there were times nothing was wrong and the person was just taking advantage of me and others, but more often they were under the gun, whether a derringer or a bazooka, and I was glad I didn’t make it worse.
So the next time someone lets you down, think about Jenny and cut them some slack; you’ll be glad you did.
Jim Estill explains how to keep your energy high after lunch:
This is one of most common energy problems that most people have. Solve that one and you could make a fortune.
Lisa Haneberg offers Happy Bosses Day: Five Thoughts for the Future:
So let’s all raise a glass (or Krispy Kreme) to our managers! They have thrown themselves into the the corporate snake pit wearing a smile and bringing determination, passion, and selflessness. Even if the delivery of their words or deeds is not yet fully developed – management is a craft – it is an amazing endeavor they have taken on and a humbling responsibility they have accepted.
Thomas J. Lee shares 4 Warning Signs of Disengagement:
How can you tell if your organization is teetering toward disengagement? Here are four common warning signs. None of them will surprise you, but from time to time you should remind yourself just how ominous they are. If you notice even one, you should take action. If you don’t act, you will soon notice another one, and then another, and eventually all four.
Bob Sutton reminds us You Better Start Treating Your People Right or Your Best Will Be Leaving Soon:
…if you have treated people like dirt during the tough times (for a horror story, see here), have been inept about how you have implemented tough decisions (see here) or have simply been clueless about your people’s perspective during these tough times (see here), you may have been able to keep great people working for you during these tough times and to hire some of the best. You can be sure, however, that they have told their friends about how much your company or you suck. They are waiting for things to get better, and perhaps encouraged by the signs the labor market is coming back, are probably doing their jobs extra well these days to enhance their reputation for that coming job search. So you may be fooling yourself into believing all is well when it is not.
Rosa Say closes out my Sunday Six Pack with We Learn Best from Other People:
New technology communications and talk-story conversations have something in common: They are only as good as what you are willing to devote to them. No input, no output. However talk-story conversations have a big advantage: You don’t need to buy something, plug it in, program it and learn to use it. You aren’t limited to others who have the same tool; for instance I am fully aware that I only reach others with Twitter accounts when I tweet, and they largely have my same habits.
What were YOUR favorite posts for the week? Share a link in the comments so we can all learn more together!
Photo credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/groundzero/289959556/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Creating an Opportunity Mindset
Note from Phil: Here’s another great article from Joe Calloway to help you break out of the doldrums and create a new mindset, an opportunity mindset. Just in time for a hot cup of coffee on a cold day!
Coming out of the Recession — Creating an Opportunity Mindset
By Joe Calloway, Author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison
Hopefully you didn’t miss it. It’s dominated the news for a year. It’s been described as difficult, daunting, and even devastating. People have referred to it as a meltdown and a disaster. It’s the recession. But no crisis can last forever. One day soon, we’ll wake up and the recession will be nothing but a memory. If you act expeditiously, you will be able to capitalize on the business opportunities that the recession has created.
The recession that we are currently emerging from continues to present what may be the greatest opportunity you’ll ever have to advance your business, accelerate your strategy, and gain significant market share over your competition. There are three reasons this is true:
- Some of your competitors checked out. They dug in, hunkered down, and chose to ride it out, leaving an opportunity for your business to garner market share. Motivational speakers told everyone to “refuse to participate in this recession.” You should hope that your competition did just that. Recessions create incredible opportunities but you have to jump in and take advantage of them.
- Change in the economy creates changes in leadership. In a recession, customers, whether business or retail, gravitate toward strength and leadership. Drastic change can cause existing market leaders to hesitate or falter, creating a vacuum for you to move into. It can also give market leaders their best opportunity to extend their lead, showcasing their strengths as the also-rans run for cover. In marathons the lead usually changes hands or is extended in the toughest parts of the race.
- Mindset becomes more important than ever. Mindset, or the way you think about business, becomes even more important in a recession. A company with a mindset, or culture, of everyday innovation and relentless improvement can improve its position more quickly now than ever before. It’s been said that a recession is a reallocation of money from the timid to the bold. Be bold.
There are those that will say that to talk of the opportunity of a recession isn’t being realistic. They are wimps. Nothing is more realistic than to act on the opportunity presented by economic upset. A real estate broker who worked through the great economic meltdown of 1980 (when the prime rate reached upwards of 20 percent) said, “God has given our competition the opportunity to find another line of work. It’s our job to help them do just that.”
It’s all about your mindset. If you refuse to see the opportunity of the recession, or any other circumstance for that matter, there’s no way you can take advantage of it. The following are key components in creating an opportunity mindset that can make the recession work for you:
- Begin with the end in mind. Most companies execute business strategies without having a clear, compelling idea of what they are aiming for or how to get there. Know exactly where you want the new economy to take you. Clarity of your vision and your goals is the starting point for an opportunity mindset.
- Stop talking about it — take action. Successful organizations and individuals have a great propensity to action. While others talk about what to do, leaders do it. Don’t let the after effects of the recession freeze you into inaction.
- Be willing to fail. If you are waiting until you are 100 percent sure of success before you try a new idea, then you’ll never do anything. Winners know that even if an idea fails, they gain new information, which puts them on the correct path. The recession changed all the rules. The marketplace is looking for new ideas.
- Give up being an expert. Experts get caught in the “I know how to do this” trap. If you are successful, all that means is that you know how things used to work. It means that you can compete and win in markets that no longer exist. Today’s a new day with new challenges that will require new approaches. The best lessons are learned after you know it all. Be passionately curious and always look for the new best idea. Recessions create new realities. Be open to them.
- Improve relentlessly. No idea gets more lip service than this: “To be competitive we have to be better tomorrow than we were today.” What did you do so far today that made you better than you were yesterday? It’s a tough question because even though our intentions about improvement are good, it’s difficult to actually take action that improves your performance. Look at everything you do with the permanent question in mind of “how can I make this better.” You can’t take advantage of the end of a recession if you do things the way you’ve always done them. Look at what you do with renewed vision.
It may seem slightly preposterous, but there are beneficial byproducts that are yielded to those who embrace a recession as a premier opportunity to both grow and succeed rather than a time to hunker down and take cover. Understanding that the recession, ironic as it sounds, could be the most opportune time to grow your business and command more market share is essential. Then, taking ownership of a new, multi-faceted mindset will help your business flourish, regardless of the economic climate.
©2009 Joe Calloway, author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison
Joe Calloway, author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison, is a consultant on employee engagement and performance whose client list reads like a Who’s Who of business — from newspapers in Sweden, hotels in Great Britain, and computer companies in South Africa to world brands like BMW and IBM. He speaks frequently on business trends and has been inducted into the International Speakers Hall of Fame. For more information, visit JoeCalloway.com.
Post from: Slacker Manager
My Boss Is: A Bosses Day Poem
My boss is a coach,
Someone who helps me believe I can -
Fix any problem.
My boss is a question asker,
Helping me find the right answers
To questions I didn’t know I should be asking.
My boss is a mentor,
Showing me the way to do things right -
The first time.
My boss is a partner,
Asking for my help when she knows I can help -
And encouraging me to do the same.
My boss is a confidant,
Someone I can ask any question -
And not feel one bit stupid for asking.
My boss is all of this – and more
And for that I am grateful
For I can achieve more with her help
Than I could by myself.
Happy Bosses Day boss! Thanks for being a great boss!
Signed,
Phil Gerbyshak
Bosses Day, 2009
Post from: Slacker Manager
Dear Slacker Manager Readers
Dear Slacker Manager readers,
One of my employees was out of dress code today. He had his shirt untucked, and our dress code clearly states shirts must be tucked in. When I asked him to tuck it in, instead of complying, he went to the associate handbook to find where it said (I had already shared with him the exact quote) and he took a screen snap of the handbook, and sent it to me with a note that said “Gotcha!” and then he tucked his shirt in.
How should I respond? Is this disrespectful or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
Signed,
A manager who needs advice
Your turn:
Dear readers – what should be done? How would YOU respond to this?
Winners: Saving the World at Work
Sorry for the delay in announcing the winners of my Saving the World at Work contest. I’ve been busy, er, saving the world at work, or at least trying to 
Hope you have been entertained while you wait.
So I received 3 wonderful entries, so I’m going to ask Tim Sanders to send a copy to my first 2 people, and I will send a copy to winner #3.
Anne shared:
I’m trying to convince my staff and co-workers of the importance of work/life balance, especially in regards to taking their vacation time regularly and using sick days appropriately. As a wise boss of mine once said, “they’re not benefits if you don’t use them.”
Mistra Moazami offered:
I am entering to win the book. I am surrounded by negative and low morale people. They all walk around and complain about management and all the things that are wrong but not a single one of them will lift a finger to help themselves, help each other, or help our customers. Sometimes I feel drained of energy trying to keep positive and motivate others.
Bryan Ray said:
Keeping a good attitude.
There are often times in every company when rumors of layoffs are going around, or deadlines are not going to be met, or a long time team member has decided to part ways.
I’ve often found that keeping a good attitude around the office regardless of the circumstances helps keep morale a little bit higher.
Thank you Anne, Mistra and Bryan. I hope you enjoy the book, and that your efforts help Save The World at Work!
Thanks also to Tim Sanders, for sharing his book with the readers of Slacker Manager! If you’d like to support Tim, I know he’d appreciate it if you picked up a copy of Save The World at Work.
Photo courtesy of Tim Sanders
Post from: Slacker Manager
7 Secrets of Successful Managers
Successful managers aren’t perfect. Successful managers do get more done, get better results, and have lower retention rates than unsuccessful managers. I don’t know all the secrets of being a successful manager, but I do know seven secrets that can help you be a more successful manager.
Successful managers…
1) Are comfortable being themselves – Know who you are, and be comfortable with that. Know who you’re not, and be comfortable with that. Take the time to understand who you are, so you’re not surprised by what you naturally gravitate towards, and away from. It’s also very ok to be vulnerable and show pain when you feel it. It doesn’t make you seem weak; it’s truly a sign of strength that you are comfortable enough to be yourself in front of your team. Who wants to work for a robot anyway?
2) Empower others to be their best selves – Your team is better than they know. Your team is better than ANYONE knows. We’re humans. It’s true! We have greater potential than anyone knows. So ask yourself a few tough questions to know if you’ve empowered your team to be their best selves. Does your team know you’ve got their back, no matter what decision they make, as long as they made a thought out, intelligent decision? Do you believe your team is better than they know? Can your team make a decision without you being there, because you’ve taught them how to evaluate information and make the best decision with the information available?
3) Set stretch goals for themselves and their team – Meeting easy goals doesn’t help anyone, not long term. Easy goals are tasks, not goals, so take time to set stretch goals for yourself. Share those stretch goals with your team…and then help them set stretch goals for themselves that tie back into the goals of your team as a whole.
4) Set the example – If you’re coming to work late, your team thinks it’s ok to come into work late. If your team sees you not following the dress code, or being rude to customers, or to other people, then your team thinks it’s ok to treat these people badly. Set the example in all you do, and realize that no matter where you go, the spotlight is always on YOU!
5) Ask for help when they need it – You don’t know everything. You can’t know everything. So be willing to ask for help when you need it. Ask it of your peers, your manager, and your team. Show your team that it’s good to ask for help, and they’ll ask for help too.
6) Admit when they are wrong – You’re going to make mistakes, unless you’re not taking enough risks, in which case you shouldn’t be a manager. When you do make those mistakes, admit them. Admit them to your manager, to your peers, and to your team. Apologize, make it better, but admit when you are wrong, don’t cover it up or pretend it didn’t happen.
7) Don’t worry about who gets the credit – Don’t worry about who gets the credit for things. Share all the credit you can with your team. If your team does great stuff, you’ll look good, and it really doesn’t matter who came up with the idea. If you instead try to snag the credit for every little thing your team does, you’ll look petty and like a glory hound, and your team will stop working so hard to do extra things that would otherwise propel them forward.
And one more:
Say thanks often and authentically – Make time to say thanks to your team for all the great stuff they do, in an authentic way. Honest, specific appreciation goes a LONG way, especially if you can’t always offer more pay, more time off, or more other benefits.
Got any secrets for being a successful manager? Share your tips in the comments below!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eurritimia/369919302/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Good Morning Monday
Good morning to everyone reading this, or good afternoon or good evening, depending where you are.
Today, show up a few minutes early, and take 5 minutes to say good morning to every person on your team, individually, with feeling.
Embrace the day and the week in front of you.
Good Morning Monday!
Why say good morning to everyone personally?
First, it shows you’re there, with your team, ready to handle whatever comes your way for the week. Showing up is at least half the battle on many of my Monday mornings.
Second, it shows you care about everyone as individuals, and not just as a team. I work better knowing someone cares about me as a person. What about you?
Last but not least, it gives you the opportunity to head off anything that might have happened over the weekend, or that might happen all week, to anyone on your team. Not because they’re going to tell you anything while you’re saying good morning. Rather because if something did/does come up that’s causing a distraction, your team will be more apt to bring it to you so you can know better what’s going on.
Good morning Monday!
How do YOU like to start your week?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knittinging/3309816604/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Don’t Waste a Perfectly Good Crisis
Guest post by Joe Calloway, Author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison
NOTE from Phil: I was offered this article from Joe Calloway’s publicist and I think it’s a great message for everyone. Powerful stuff here. I hope you enjoy it!
Very often, great companies become even greater when a crisis forces the decision to go. There’s a tremendous sense of clarity and urgency that can come from facing disaster. It’s in these moments of truth that the true Category of One company rises to the top. For extraordinary companies, a crisis can thin the herd and force the competition to find another line of work.
The historic economic meltdown of 2008 gave us an almost limitless supply of practical business lessons. Perhaps the most impactful of those lessons is that there can be tremendous value in a crisis. When taking action is just an option, it’s easy to continue having meetings about it. But when the banks stop making loans, customers are canceling orders, revenue is plummeting, and your cash flow is slowing down to a trickle, you begin to realize that more meetings aren’t the answer. You have to do something and do it now.
It’s been said that a recession is a reallocation of money from the scared to the bold. The reaction of many people to a crisis is to hunker down, play defense, and protect what they’ve got. They’re scared. They’re like a squirrel in the middle of the road with a fast-moving car heading straight for it. They turn left, then right, then freeze. Only the fast reflexes of the car driver can save the day. But a crisis doesn’t care. It won’t swerve to miss you. Survival requires action.
Hard times bring out the motivational slogans. One of the most popular slogans in times of recession is “Recession? What recession? I refuse to participate in the recession.” I understand the idea behind that line of thinking. The problem is that if you don’t recognize the existence of a recession, you’ll likely miss the extraordinary opportunity it presents. Not participating in a recession means that it’s business as usual. But it’s most definitely not business as usual. Everything’s different, and you have to take advantage of the changes. You should not only participate in a recession but do it with the pedal to the medal. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist — use it.
In January 2009, 1 was working with a company at their World Leadership Conference. Six hundred of the top leaders of this company had gathered to plot their course of action in the face of a monumental economic downturn. The company was, fortunately, in a position of strength, with a strong balance sheet, talented employees, and great products. They were, however, not the leader in many of their markets.
One of the division presidents made an impassioned plea to the attendees. “This recession won’t last forever,” he said. “We can’t make the mistake of letting it pass us by. We can’t find ourselves waking up one day having let this incredible opportunity slip away. Please don’t waste a perfectly good crisis!”
The above is an excerpt from the book Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison by Joe Calloway. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2009 Joe Calloway, author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison
Author Bio: Joe Calloway, author of Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison, is a consultant on employee engagement and performance whose client list reads like a Who’s Who of business — from newspapers in Sweden, hotels in Great Britain, and computer companies in South Africa to world brands like BMW and IBM. He speaks frequently on business trends and has been inducted into the International Speakers Hall of Fame.
For more information, please visit JoeCalloway.com.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aresauburnphotos/2678453389/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Coaching Survey: Please Participate!
One of my good pals (and a fellow blogger and author), Lisa Haneberg (author of Hip and Sage, High Impact Middle Management and others), is working on a book for about how we can best coach up and down the generations. To collect data and feedback for the book, she is asking professionals of all ages to participate in a brief survey. Those who participate will receive a copy of the results by email.
If you would like to participate, click on this link.
http://www.surveymk.com/s.aspx?sm=kr6BTco_2bf81PDR5uXyDvfQ_3d_3d
Image credit: http://www.customsigngenerator.com/want.asp
Post from: Slacker Manager
Celebrate Your Customer’s Success
It’s mid-week in the 2009 Customer Ser vice Week, and today, I want to share how to celebrate your customer’s success. I recommend you make this a habit not just this week, but each week, and to encourage your team to celebrate with your customer’s too, because it feels good for the giver AND the receiver.
Most organizations of any size have newsletters, internal websites, or something that mentions each time an associate does something extraordinary. I do my best to notice each of these, and to remind my team about these things, so they can mention them when they’re on the phone with these people, and to offer them another “Way to go!” to continue the celebration.
I recommend doing these personally, on the phone, because in my experience, most people don’t think anybody reads those memos, and they appreciate the acknowledgment.
As a manager, I also make time to send an e-mail, with a link to the article and something I noticed in the award memo, congratulating the associate. If it’s associate of the month, I might ask how they’re going to spend their $100 prize. If it’s for donating their time or money, I might ask them a little more about how they got started with that charity. Something that shows I took the time to read the article about them.
Most of my customers are internal, so it’s easy for me to get these articles. If I worked in external customer support, I would add Google Alerts on my top client’s names, so when their names were mentioned anywhere, I could print out the story and mail it to them, or maybe write a nice article about them on my corporate website if that were allowed.
Celebrating your customer’s success doesn’t take a lot of time or effort. It just requires you to pay attention and notice things that are already happening. The rewards you get are good will, good feelings, and often a bit of shock. It’s a great way to position your team, as the team that notices the great stuff other people do.
What are your best suggestions for celebrating your customer’s successes?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tranchis/3578657672/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Job Appreciation: Customer Service Week
One of the best ways to celebrate Customer Service Week is by doing some job appreciation, or swapping jobs for an hour, a half day, or even a full day. In past years it’s been one of the most widely participated in activities for customer service week.
I’ve also seen this go WAY wrong, where folks have been left alone to do someone else’s job, putting them way out of their comfort zone…and putting a bad taste in our customer’s mouths too.
Here are some tips for a successful job appreciation. I don’t promise perfection, only that you’ll stand a much better chance of success than if you don’t follow my suggestions.
Partner with an Expert -
Find a senior leader to encourage others to participate – My CTO always gets involved and is willing to shadow my team for 3 or 4 hours during the week. He also sends an e-mail to challenge all of his leaders to do as much or more than he does. It’s easier to say no to a peer than it is to your director, so a little peer pressure can go a LONG way
Make folks feel welcome – We create special signs for visiting leaders, complete with their name and department, and I make sure to shake each person’s hand as they’re starting their job appreciate to let them know how much I appreciate them sharing their time with my team. The more welcomed folks are, the more likely they are to participate again, or tell other people about it.
Send a calendar appointment to all parties involved – Most managers live and die by their calendar, so look for a good time on their calendar and block the time. Best suggestion is to block it as out of the office, so other don’t try to double book and squeeze something else in.
Write an article about it for your internal website or newsletter, and include pictures of leaders in action - I write up an article and send it to our marketing team to put in the newsletter, and I include quotes from the leaders about what they learned. I also take a picture of each person who sits with someone on my team as a nice memento for all participants, and I share this with marketing as well. I find doing the work for our marketing team and letting them edit for space and clarity means my article and photo will probably get published.
What are your best suggestions to share job appreciation during Customer Service Week?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/austinevan/3225409596/
Post from: Slacker Manager
