I give up

I discovered a blog about Detroit recently that opinionates issues the city is experiencing.

Having served customers in the Detroit area for the last twenty years and visiting frequently, I was always aware of the decay of the city in addition to the phenomenal work there by several innovative persons.

The blog paints a much different picture though and offers perspectives from those who live out of state. Murder rates, foreclosure statistics, and business failures have been found more interesting to possibly pessimistic onlookers. Perhaps it was just my unabashed optimism, but I didn’t think Detroit (in spite of the failure of the automotive industry and incredibly poor city management) was that bad.

Like many of you, I have driven quickly via shortcuts, detours, and with wayward mapquest directions past abandoned houses, decrypted apartment buildings, and decomposing once grand public buildings. I had never seen this before however and it brought mixed feelings of sadness and curious inspiration; sadness for both the soul of the houses and the loss of the families who once roamed their halls and laughed around their dining tables. Curiosity in how a film company could utilize the houses as a movie set, an adventure through the jungle of the house, and in how the houses were now as tree-houses; images of kid’s imaginative stories and play acting bringing joy to my mind’s eye.

It would be easy to just give up.

It would be easy to simply ignore and further abandon the neighborhoods of Detroit and the neighborhoods in our own cities that have fallen into decay experiencing the biggest financial losses and community breakdown.

Ignoring would be easy.

2010 will be a year of creativity and finding different ways of doing business. 2010 will be more about entrepreneurship. Partnerships, giving of services, reaching out to others, including others for both profit and simple goodwill is what we’ll be all about.

Workin' for the man

You run your own business: you sweep the floors, dust the countertops, organize the merchandise, greet customers, up-sell features, design new services, market your wares, and so much more to basically do what ever you have to do to make your company successful.

What tasks go away if you say, simply work for a business?

I dare propose this: “none”

In every business, every employee is a salesman.

In every business, every employee coddles its customers. Selling and coddling are supported by the tasks (assigned to you defined by your given role), supporting your colleagues to do the same, and yes, even housekeeping.

We’re all in business to stay in business.

What motivates you to do the extra steps and to step outside of your role to ensure an amazing customer experience?

Empowerment

Trust

Responsibility

Kudos

Incentives

Mutual support

Leadership by example

Gratitude

I imagine your employees are motivated similarly.

It's not my job

A month ago Thanksgiving, I talked about being thankful to your colleagues. As the week of Christmas has arrived, I am thinking about what and how you give in your organization.

What are you giving back to your organization?

Ideally, your teams are made up of diverse skills and viewpoints complimenting each other on how they interact and what they bring to the table. Your teams are confident enough to counter view points for creative discussion leading to creative solutions.

We all have our role. We all have our job.

Having our role also means that there are roles that don’t belong to us; tasks and responsibilities that don’t fall under our umbrella – tasks left to others.. jobs that aren't ours.

Do you ever do things that aren’t directly assigned to you? Of course we all have to mindful of our immediate and long-term responsibilities to ensure our work is getting done without being overworked ourselves, but I’d like to explore what happens when we give of ourselves fully at work.

Let’s starting with making a list of things that we could give:

• Pick up any trash you come across that’s the size of a dime or larger on the floor

• Help a colleague pick up something that accidentally spilled

• Walk a strong pace to get to your destination quicker – to finish quicker

• Smile and greet every person you encounter in your office

• Listen respectfully to every person you interact with in your office

• Help someone do their job if you have idle time

• Research and brainstorm on products, services, or just plain ideas that will help your company to do more.

• Contribute in discussion at meetings

• Prepare for meetings you’ll attend

• Finish your work when you’ve committed to finishing it

• Continuously think of ways you can do your job better

• Continuously think of ways your company can service its clients better

• Choose to share the positive verses complaining or dwelling on the past

• Support the team decision and make it successful even if you disagree with the method (within moral limits obviously)

• Go the extra step, put on the finishing touches, and do a little more proudly to delight your clients (or the colleague you’re delivering to)

• Be proud of what you deliver

• Understand the ‘why’ of decisions so you can support them fully

Wouldn’t you like someone who did all these things to work for you?

What more would you add to this list?

Lions, tigers, and bears..

Actually, more like: lions, beavers, and golden retrievers.

At my previous company I would periodically take those little self-evaluation tests to figure out my general personally type. This was typically done during a team off-site and the results would be anticipated.

Of course Larry is a “Retriever”.

Sure enough, the test results showed that Mary is a strong driver but with a tall yellow bar too.

For myself, I was always a driver but like reading horoscopes, I saw a little of myself in each description of the lion, otter, golden retriever, and beaver.

Sometimes we’d have to wear these little personality name tags in the office and when we’d tire of this display; we’d hang them in our office for people to see. Supposedly this would help others work with us better.

How exactly am I supposed to give a Retriever information?

How do I more effectively ask a Beaver to do something?

Wouldn’t it be easier if I just knew what to get from others to do my work more effectively?

We all go to work wanting to do a good job. Everyone there, like everyone you might notice in your neighborhood, at church, or in the grocery store, is a mixed bag of nuts. We’re all different. We all have our own idiosyncrasies. We all have our own perceptions based on our upbringing. Some even have their own agendas.

How can we work together better?

While understanding your colleagues and knowing them personally always benefits, one doesn’t always have the opportunity to understand how someone works.

• You could be new on a team.
  

• Your team could be located at several locations.
  

• Understanding someone else’s personality type might not be your gift.
  

There are many reasons why knowing yourself better is the key to getting information presented to you as you need to do your job more effectively verses leaving it to someone else's interpretation. Things like:

• What questions should you ask to fill in the gaps in your mind?

• How should you lay out your work for your brain to process quicker?

• When should you slow down to let others catch up?

Just as in personal relationships, understanding your very own unique way of processing information, will make you more effective in all you do.

The problem with training:

Good Intentions.

I was flying recently and while listening to the flight attendant talk about how to use the oxygen masks it got me thinking about training. There is no actual hands-on training for a flight crash situation for us lay people. The attendant doesn't give us all the information either - like the fact of not getting your own oxygen mask on quickly is imperative in a loss of pressure situation as otherwise you'll be unconscious in 15 seconds.

That's good information, yes?

Akin to reading leadership and self help books, it's all good information but there are no hands on practice. Overcoming bad habits and learning new methods is possible with workshop and accountability based training.

Reading books on leadership, problem solving, strategic planning, software development, time management and while this list really could go on and on as you know the point is, reading books for purpose of development is –and how can I say this politely: “nice”.

Reading books as a group allows for some camaraderie and spontaneous discussion. Reading books is self affirming as often you read about ideas that you currently execute. Reading books is helpful as they give you ideas on how to improve and the methods in how to apply them. Reading books can only take you so far.

The same goes for attending a live training class. Training classes are great for two reasons. First, training exists for most major job skills. Second, it’s pretty easy to send someone to training. Because skills are taught by an ‘outside’ person, one can be vulnerable and ask questions without fear of looking bad in front of their supervisor. As an aside, this is also why I don’t advocate joining your team in the training unless it truly is something new to all of you.

The intention is a good one: you recommend books and send your colleagues to training so that they will better themselves and better the company.

But, what happens after the training?

• What gets implemented?
  

• What new is executed?
  

• How much better is that person at their job?
  

• How will they react in a critical moment?

We all go to work wanting to do a good job. We all want to be the dynamic leader we read about. We all want to be the fast problem solver and the most effective salesmen.

Q: But how?

A: Hands on practice, follow up and accountability over time.

Frankly if you as a manager don’t ask what was implemented from new learning or if you don’t ask to see details illustrating that a better method was employed, why should that employee change?

What do you do to encourage higher margins, permanent root cause problem solving, and effective leadership to those on your team?

Image credit: Daniel Iggers. See more pictures by him here: