Every manager has to deal with uncomfortable situations from time to time.

From giving constructive feedback to letting people go, difficult conversations are part of life.

If you’re not sitting down with a troublesome member of your team, and dealing with the stuff that’s so troubling, then you’re not managing — you’re ignoring/avoiding/ evading/bailing/hiding/running-away-from and not living up to your responsibilities.

Some of the most difficult conversations involve key players who aren’t living up to their responsibilities or your expectations; worse still if the problem is a fellow founder.

• Deal with problems early — don’t wait for a mythical right time. Give feedback (good and bad) as near to the source as possible. Immediate and direct is better than delayed and fudged.
• Use direct language — “you’re not pulling your weight” isn’t very helpful; “I’m really frustrated that each new feature takes much longer than your original estimate,” is.
• Write it down — the more difficult the conversation or the more likely you are to chew over your words, the better it is to use notes. I make sure I can stay on track by looking at my crib sheet and saying “Let me make sure we’ve dealt with everything. Oh yes, …”

No amount of experience or preparation ever makes these situations easy, but leadership means entering the discomfort and dealing with the issue.

One final point — don’t tell them how difficult it is to say this stuff. You may think it helps to get them on your side. It doesn’t. If it’s hard for you to say, it’s even harder to hear – so stop thinking about yourself and try to empathise; this conversation is not about you.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: meetings, responsibility, values

What are you doing? Lots of stuff, right?

It’s easy to be seduced by action – doing all the whats of what we’re doing.

Image copyright: annnna

It feels good to be busy. It feels good to do stuff without thinking. To feel wanted. To roll along. To do.

So nice in fact that sometimes we get into things just because we can, or always have, or someone says please.

For one day only, see what happens if you ask yourself and your team, why?

1. It brings the what into focus
2. It defines success
3. We’re likely to be more motivated when we know why it matters
4. It releases creativity – for alternatives whats that get to the why better
5. It creates options and helps prioritise
6. A clear common cause aligns resources
7. Decisions are faster and firmer
8. It can save a lot of work – particularly if there is no why and you can stop, or not start

No getting away with “because I have to” or “you told me to” — to get the benefit you have to go deeper than that. Visit the why-stuff-happened world of root cause analysis to work out why stuff should happen.

The 5 Whys Method.

Legend has it that Sakichi Toyada, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, invented and systematised the 5 whys method for engineers looking for the seat of a given problem, although anyone who’s been a kid knows that asking a bunch of whys is the way we’ve always learned. You can use his method to determine the future, not just analyse the past. Just ask why (about) five times.

I’m about to drive to Cambridge to attend a conference (the possible action)

• Why? – I need to connect with some people in our market (first why)
• Why? – To find some potential pilot sites for our next product (second why)
• Why? – We like to do live testing before we do any marketing (third why)
• Why? – We’re obsessed with quality (fourth why)
• Why? – The golden rule; treat others as you’d like to be treated. We don’t want to sell anything that hasn’t proved its worth in the real world and we know is up to the job (fifth why, root cause)

So going to Cambridge is the tactic that will fulfil some personal goals and further the strategy and values of the company. If the answer to number 2 was, “I always go, they expect me there”, I’d save myself an awfully long drive.

Whenever you need to commit resources, better know why.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: planning, resources, values

This week I got involved in a conversation that had lawyers sitting on the other side of the table. Thankfully not the kind of discussion that happens when things go bad, but the other kind, when things haven’t quite started yet.

This happens a lot in organisational life. Employment contracts, licensing agreements, partnerships, outsourcing, non-disclosures, service level agreements. Internally and externally, we rely on bits of paper to nail the detail. These things are so common that it’s easy to believe that this is the way to do business. That this is how to deal with difficult possibilities. That this will make everything ok. But it won’t.

Lawyering like this is good, but it will only reduce some of the wriggle room for some of the arguments that normally come up. Not eliminate disagreements altogether. Not stop problems happening. Just squeeze some of the juice out of the lemon – it’s still going to hurt, but not as much.

If it’s going to hurt, why do it? Why employ, agree, partner, outsource or do anything else that puts us in the hands of others? The promise of working together is that the business of the organisation will be better than before. An organisation’s success will increasingly be determined by its ability to work across formal boundaries – whether than means inter-department or inter-company.

• Go in with eyes wide open. By all means clock up some billable time with lawyers but don’t kid yourself that this means plain sailing from start to finish. There will be problems. Expect them to happen, however good your relationship and however willingly the parties sign at the start.
• Work through the bad times. When things start going wrong, put your collective heads down and work it out. Nobody wins when you walk away or run to litigation. Remind yourselves the reason you got together – to both be better than before – and find the path through the mountains.

When choosing which person or organisation to share ink with, work out who you’re dealing with (which is more about values than names or capabilities), and ask yourself “can I work with them when things go wrong?”

Ultimately, never allow the desire for a deal to cloud the needs of the business.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: partners, values

It’s Easter weekend and I know I’ll spend at least some of it caught up in the beautiful torture of the Masters at Augusta. Which got me thinking, is golf skippy?

Just for a second though, consider football. Surly and recalcitrant players, managers who refuse to talk to the press, habitual swearing at match officials, cheat-if-you-think-you-can-get-away-with-it, blame-the-referee, I didn’t see it.

Now golf. Steeped in tradition and history and always played under strong values – honesty, integrity, and respect for the rules and other players – golf is about winning the right way, or not at all. The rule book is non-negotiable. Golfers honour rituals and conduct that were nurtured in a different age.

To an outsider like me, golf embodies the spirit of sportsmanship. To a skippy-ist like me, has all that slow had a positive effect on the quick?

Skippiness of a game is a tricky question. It is a game after all, you’re supposed to enjoy it.

It’s also a business. The rules are run by the R&A at St Andrews but the commercial interests are run by the two most powerful professional players’ bodies, the PGA Tour and the European Tour, and outside of playing, there’s an industry of equipment manufacturers and a network of shops, clubs, sponsors, communities and volunteers.

For the sake of argument though, let’s concentrate on the professional game as represented by the PGA and European Tours. Now, is golf skippy?

Skippy customers?

Ever spent less than five minutes talking to a golf nut who gets into his favourite subject? Golfers seem able to recall every shot of every game – played or watched – and to re-experience the thrill and frustration as they do it. Practically everybody who plays golf was first brought to the game by somebody else who already played; the evangelist effect in action.

Skippy staff?

It’s easy to believe, especially during Masters week, that professional players hug their golf bags with excitement every morning. Maybe not, but as a job it has some benefits; it’s a meritocracy, played in beautiful surroundings, and well paid if you’re good enough. Joining the professional tour isn’t easy and the life can be hard – living out of a suit case, no income guarantees – yet every year over 700 players attempt to qualify for the 30 places that come up for grabs on the European Tour. Do they skip to the office every morning? Playing a game they love for a living, most probably do.

Skippy owners?

The PGA and European Tour are players organisations – established for the benefit of the players. The PGA Tour in particular says it’s mission is to:

“expand domestically and internationally [and] to substantially increase player financial benefits while maintaining its commitment to the integrity of the game.”

If that’s their intention, if that is what it means to get whatever they want, in abundance – they’re skippy. Sure, the recession is biting. According to the Telegraph, private membership clubs have begun to find themselves in the rough. Everyone can see sponsorship is fading in every sport, golf included. Player financial benefits are bound to suffer this year too. But grading over the long term – the owners must be skipping. Tiger is back, viewing figures are up again, and players at all levels regularly “call a penalty” on themselves showing the commitment to the integrity of the game is as strong as ever.

So why the difference between golf and other sports?

Photo Credit – pocketwiley via Flickr

Neatly filed under Purpose,Skippiness
Tags: golf, Purpose, values

Thomas J Watson Jr succeeded his father as chief executive of IBM in 1952. His leadership was something of a success. IBM experienced around 30% compound growth, year on year, for the entire 20 years that he was in the job. Amongst his projects he oversaw the System/360 project, an initiative Fortune magazine called a “$5 billion Gamble.”

This isn’t intended as a second instalment in a series on the history of computing, any more than Don’t Waiver was yesterday, but as an introduction to running a business based on beliefs. How did Watson pull off $5 billion gambles? Page 5 of his 1963 book, from which this post takes its title, gives a clue:

I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions.

Next, I believe that the most important single factor in corporate success is faithful adherence to those beliefs.

And finally, I believe that if any organization is to meet the challenges of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.

In other words, the basic philosophy, spirit, and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation, and timing. All these things weigh heavily in success. But they are, I think, transcended by how strongly the people in the organization believe in its basic precepts and how faithfully they carry them out.

Watson’s sound set of beliefs formed the deepest of IBMs layers, providing the foundation for everything that happened at IBM under his watch.

I just searched Amazon for “business books” and found 156,947 results. One of them is Watsons, (which you can find here) – recommended reading for anyone in the pursuit of skippiness.
Photo credit – US Department of State, via Wikipaedia.

Neatly filed under Foundations,Purpose
Tags: beliefs, IBM, planning, Purpose, values