Dual C Business Solutions

The Stench of Defeatism

Whenever someone starts out a conversation about their life with "I wish I would have..."  It is often a frustrating few minutes of deciding how to extract myself from the discussion. 

I'm not talking about death bed confessions or other extreme cases.  I'm talking about the people that you may interact with on a daily basis.

"I wish I made more money."

"I wish I wasn't stuck in this dead end job." 

"I wish I could move to upper management."

 "I wish I would have spent more time with my kids." 

The list goes on and on.

It is easy to look to others who have succeeded and try to identify something unique in their circumstance that would prevent us from reaching the same plateau. 

Recall that Abraham Lincoln's life was a series of significant failures prior to his presidency.

I don't know who coined the phrase "Dare to Dream" but it is incomplete.
So, with apologies to Unknown, the real quote should be "Dare to Dream and then Dare to Do".

So, whenever you come across someone that has the stench of defeatism.  Simply ask them "Why not now?"

Each success story started when an individual was courageous enough to create, communicate and execute a vision.

Seek out others who have made choices to alter their life to reach their dreams.  These individuals will challenge you to add both depth and breadth to yours.

Consultant Interview Questions

This last week I was asked what questions a client should use to interview a potential consultant.  We’ve all had consultants come in looked fantastic on paper but had no practical experience.  I recall interviewing a project manager who couldn’t handle a question regarding scope creep and managing client expectations.  One technical architect claimed six years of Microsoft.NET® in 2004, which was odd considering it was released only two years earlier. 

Note: These questions are geared towards Change Management and Organizational Development consultants rather than technical contractors and staff augmentation.

Additionally, the requirement of being able to work closely with the consultant in a mutally respectful manner is implied.

Experience Questions

1.    Have you successfully addressed this issue for other direct clients? Please provide the contact names and numbers.

2.    What type of interventions did you use?

3.    If you have not addressed this specific issue, what similar experience would you be able to leverage to address this issue?

4.    What resistances did you face in implementing the intervention(s)?  How did you overcome them?

5.    What other industries have you worked in besides mine? 

a.    Specific industry experience is not necessary but there are might be optimal practices that exist elsewhere that you can leverage.

6.    What is the value of the largest change you’ve helped a client realize?

7.    Describe a change or intervention that was not successful.

a.    Humility is important.

b.   Applied learning is equally important.

Process Questions

1.    What is your process?

a.    “It depends.” Is not an acceptable answer.  Dig further for examples.

2.     What level of partnership will be required and at what levels?

a.    Look for incongruence between the issue and the expected level of partnership.

b.   The board of directors does not need to be interviewed to address a line manager’s performance.

3.    How do you define success?

4.    How will you make your recommendation?

5.    Are you willing to train our internal staff for the implementation?

a.    An excellent consultant will say “Yes”.

6.    How would you verify the results of the change?

What consultant interview questions do you use? 

Change Acceptance Spiral

Overview:

    The Change Curve has been used for years in Change Management to help individuals understand their response to change.  Unfortunately the pressures exerted throughout a change are not effectively captured in the curve so I introduce the Spiral of Acceptance®.  Each quadrant represents a set of pressures on an individual related to any change.  Note that the spiral starts in the External Drivers quadrant but the source of change could be from any of the four.  As the progress towards internalization continues an individual must overcome resistance, incorporate knowledge, and finally acceptance from each quadrant.

Organic Leadership

Veni, Vidi, Vici.  “I came, I saw, I conquered”, Julius Caesar’s famous words distill organic leadership to its most basic form.

Witnessing organic leaders develop in a team when confronted with change or conflict is the sign of a high performing team.

Organic leadership is when an individual decides to own a specific change or challenge without through completion being directed to. 

The idea of organic leadership does not map directly to initiative.  Initiative is required for each state but is only a portion of the entire process.

The process to organic leadership is quite simple but each state transition is increasingly more difficult.

 

Recognition:  All change starts with recognition of the need for change.  Change could result from a problem.  Unfortunately most individuals stop at this step because of laziness, lack of vision, or the reaction was simply of building up a defense.  This step cannot be taught but may evolve through experience.   

Ownership:  By becoming the owner of the change, the individual creates an accountability and therefore additional work. Ownership implies specific rights, accountabilities and responsibilities.  Cultures where accountabilities are not enforced will also prevent some individuals from moving on.  Ownership must be publically communicated.  Self identifying owners will not create the necessary accountability.  This is why many “self-help” tapes encourage individuals to share their goals with others.  Individuals who are poor at following through will falter here. 

Engagement:  Ownership has been established.  Accountabilities have been created.  Engagement is following through on the established parameters of ownership.  It is the process of creating a solution to address the change or conflict that is looming.  Note this is the first time that a deep analysis is likely to occur in identifying the root cause.  The results of the Engagement step will be an action plan.

Influence:  The implementation of the action plan from the Engagement step requires peer level influence.  One of the rights created by the Ownership is an implied authority.  This is the execution step.  Intent without action is worthless.

Organic Leadership: A successful influence step has resulted in an Organic Leader.  Fortunately this honorific isn’t permanent.  However the process becomes easier the more often it is practiced.  Organic leadership is a process available for each conflict or change facing a team.  The result is an overall improvement in the team quality and effectiveness.

In the entire Organic Leadership process there isn’t a single place that says “Wait for Management to make a decision.”

The onus is entirely on the individual.

Veni, Vidi, Vici.

But enough about me

I attended a panel discussion about raising venture capital.  Another attendee and I met when we both asked the concierge where the conference was being held.  After some small talk, the usual questions arose about careers and the reasons for attending.  The following exchange was approximately verbatim.  I think that is a oxymoron but just go with it.  I’ve changed his name and services to protect the guilty.

Elevator Arrival: “Ding” – Anthropomorphizing slightly here. 
Him: “So what keeps you busy during the day?”
Me: “I help organizations plan for their future through strategic investments in their people, processes and technology.”
Him: “Wow, that’s cool.  It must be interesting.”
Me: “It sure is, and how -“
Him: (interrupting and accelerating) “Thanks for asking, my name is Mr. Blah and I am super passionate about how I can help companies such as yours with its a, b, c things.”
Elevator Departure: “Ding”
Me: “Who is-“
Him: “Did you know that 55% of all widgets are inverted or whatever and there are so many opportunities?”
Me: “Um, no I didn’t. What is a widget?”
Him: (nodding sympathetically) “Of course you didn’t, no-one does.”
---Fast-Forward or TiVo® through about 5 minutes of information later when the panel was beginning.
Him: “Counter intuitive widget knowledge enhancement through ROI super awesomeness or whatever.”
Him: “Here is my card, a few brochures, a DVD, a self published book and a CD in case you or your network would be interested.”
Me: (sigh of relief) “Wow, the panel is starting already.  Let’s listen in.”

I can’t be completely ungrateful for this fellow.  He really drove home two important lessons in building relationships which are the foundations of consulting engagements.  On a side note, he continues to call me to this day asking for referrals.

The first rule of selling comes down to knowing who is a current customer or potential customer and who isn’t.  If you are in an environment where your customers are not, don’t waste your time selling.  A panel discussion regarding raising capital in which the attendees were primarily broke entrepreneurs who are seeking investment is not a great place to target new business.  Many of these individuals have boot strapped their businesses.  Don’t waste your time on selling items to others who will never be clients.  In this case, I did not need any widget services or products.  The idea of A.B.C. or Always Be Closing is ridiculous.  The importance of qualifying questions cannot be overlooked.  Potential clients are not stupid.  If I wanted to listen to a scripted speech about all the functions, benefits, or value of your product, I would… well I never would.  A client wouldn’t either. 

It sounds like I’m against networking and that is far from the truth.  Networking is a vital part of any business.  Simply be mindful of those you network with to ensure your circle of professionals all have the same highly ethical standards.  Birds of a feather…

The incredible second rule.  If the potential client looks uncomfortable it is for one of the following reasons.  Make sure to find out why before proceeding.
1.    The lack of interest in your product or service has gone from moderate to monumental resulting in physical discomfort.
2.    The client has a question.
3.    The client might be concerned since you haven’t taken a breath in the last 750 words or 3 minutes and is considering the liability if you pass out.
4.    The Super Duper Burrito was a bad call for lunch.

Being able to sense the tenor of the discussion and respond effectively to client concerns is much more effective than ripping through three hundred Microsoft Power Point® slides complete with transitions.  Nothing in a presentation will build a relationship.  It might build trust or establish expertise but it does not build a relationship.

I recall one very effective relationship where our first meeting was only 20 minutes long.
The client asked 2 questions:
1.    How can you make this project/process/implementation more effective?
2.    If Monday was your first day, what are you doing?
To effectively answer these, the rest of the meeting was discussing the current client challenges.
I asked the client after a few years about why there were only 2 questions.  The answer taught me many things.  The Client said: “You explained that you didn’t know exactly how to improve my condition but the knowledge exuded through your questions indicated that you were the right choice.”  This specific relationship was created through questions. 

But enough about me…

Lessons Learned:
1.    The questions you pose provide a better gauge of your knowledge than any presentation ever could.
2.    It is not about you.
3.    I’m serious, it is not about you.
4.    Relationships exceed all other forms of sales tools.
5.    Obsequious sycophants cannot build relationships.

In Spite of ... Change

 

Have you ever seen or perhaps sent the following email?

 

 “Congrats on the implementation of the New Cool System or NCS that the IT team and select business users have [implemented;delivered;built].  The Old Decrepit System or ODS has been shut off and the majority of your data has been transferred.  Please contact the Help Desk if you experience any issues.  The NCS will allow us to better: [increase shareholder value; realize operational efficiencies; increase top-line sales].  Training will be scheduled soon.

 

Thanks,

The Management”

 

Technology change reflects a significant portion of the change employees experience.  Unfortunately poorly managed technological change has resulted in a cynical attitude by the end users.  The above letter will often result in open revolt or a grassroots movement attempts to identify various ways to work-around the new system.  In Spite of Change, the organization continues to function; albeit hobbled by the NCS.  The prevailing feeling “In spite of the NCS, we are able to deliver our product or service” when the feeling should be “Because of the NCS, we are better able to deliver our product or service”.

 

How can a change agent effectively ensure a proper technology innovation? 

 

Recognizing the guardrails of OD in IT are vital.  First, I posit that the majority Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC) models that exist today are effective at creating a realistic solution.  The effectiveness of each methodology is outside the scope of this article.  Secondly, the solution delivered will result in a change to an organization or subset of the organization in a significant way.  A “significant” change being defined as a change that results in the altering of current or expected behavior to accomplish a process or series of processes. Additionally, the team will create a business process document outlining the as-is versus the to-be process.  Most software requires input from a specific subset of the affected team.  This subset of business users is expected to sufficiently represent the business needs to influence the solution.    Finally, the organization is sufficient in size so that the technology development team is external to the affected organizational subset. 

It is within these guardrails that the change agent must act.  Change management is often defined as “Training” within the project plan, usually towards the end of a project.  Sometimes this occurs after the project is completed.  Effective technology change management means ensuring the user is meaningfully engaged throughout the entire SDLC.  Adoption velocity is an important measure of the success of an implementation.  The quantity of individuals who are effectively using the new tool will help leadership understand, reactively, how effective the change is be embracing.

The following table outline the primary phases that occur throughout a project;  SCRUM will occur iteratively and Waterfall will be sequentially. 

Project Phase	When OD / Change Management is “Training”	End User’s Perspective
Pre-Scoping
Analysis
Design
Construction
Test & Validation	Training – ready set go.	“Another change? How will the new system affect me?  I don’t remember being asked for my input.”
Implementation	Keep Training	“It has been released?”
Post Implementation	Even More Training	“Why am I learning about this the hard way? Grrrrrrrrrr.”

 

The process in the table above will not result in the most effective adoption of the new system.

 

 

The optimal OD & Change Management process in IT projects is below.

 

Project Phase	Effective OD in IT steps	End User’s Perspective
Pre-Scoping	Identify affected user groups.
Analysis	Create ownership within affected user groups. Ensure visible leadership support.	“I’m engaged to help define the optimal solution.”
Design	Engage affected user groups to communicate changes and value. Ensure visible leadership support.	“I realize there are other stake holders who have inputs.  I need to be flexible.”
Construction	Create transition plan. Identify barriers to transition. Ensure visible leadership support.	“Knowing the changes and how I can embrace them allows me to plan appropriately.”
Test & Validation	Engage the user groups to ensure transparency and validation of transition plan. Intervene as necessary. Ensure visible leadership support.	“My feedback is valued since I will be working directly with the new system.  The transition plan ensures efficient steps towards the new state.”
Implementation	Monitor change after implementation. Ensure positive change is encouraged and negative change or backsliding is discouraged.	“I expected and planned for this change since I knew what to expect.  Here we go!”
Post Implementation	Follow up on change.  Incorporate recommendations in future changes.	“Here is what works, here is what didn’t.”

 

 

The second process will increase adoption velocity, adoption coverage and build trust between the technology and business teams.

The reality is that most organizations cannot immediately adopt the a stringent OD approach.  If the teams are willing to engage this change management process over time until the full process is utilized then the incremental success will be readily recognized.

 

Help move the organization perspective from “In spite of change we are generating revenue” to “Because of change we are better able to generate revenue”.

Arbys, Patterns and Poisson

Poisson not Poison.

One of the top skills that differentiate excellent consultants is the ability to quickly recognize patterns.  Reincarnating Rorschach isn’t necessary.  The ability to identify inefficient patterns of behavior is based on your knowledge and experience.

The recent Google Wave® application platform changed the collaboration model by allowing multi person editing or real time chatting.  Real time chatting is a game changer.  I can see what you’re typing instead of waiting for you to hit enter.   Google® recognized that the currently acceptable interface of seeing “Someone is typing” is inefficient. 

I was recently ate at Arby’s® and noticed a rather inefficient pattern.  Three individuals were taking orders and giving out the receipts with the appropriate numbers on them.  There was the usual snaking pathway to reach the registers.  The line moved quickly; which was good.  However, there were only two line cooks who were unable to keep up with the amount of orders.  After being properly routed through the ordering process, the customers were expected to create a melee at the end of the routing to collect their order.

It would make more sense to extend the line waiting time, an ordered process, to minimize the unordered process of food collection.  Add to the consternation was the soda machines was at the beginning of the melee.

I don’t need to be an expert at the Poisson distribution or queuing theory to recognize the idea that maximizing known, ordered events is more efficient that relying on unknown, unordered events.

Do I have the best answer for Arby’s®? 

Probably not, but here is what comes to mind.  Intuitively, the order would have at least 2 statuses; In Progress, Complete.  The metrics should be available to say the optimal amount of orders, perhaps even to the specific line cook.  If the total of the “In Progress” orders exceeds the ability for the line cooks to efficiently keep up then new orders should not be accepted or at least entry should be slowed.

When my Grilled Chicken Bacon & Swiss Sandwich and curly fries finally arrived it was delicious.

What inefficiencies have you observed?

Merger Mania

At a high level; a merger is simply the management of redundancies, communicating objectives, ensuring collaboration and most of all ensuring the proper partnership across all levels of the new organization.

Just an average day at the office, right?  Simple in the same way that open heart surgery is simple.  To further extend that analogy would require more medical knowledge than I can muster.  In a final effort to resuscitate the correlation, both activities require implementing change while still performing at full speed.
Beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…

Moving on.
A Business Capability (BC) is a function that performs some discrete activity that adds value.  Most organizations have a catalog of these capabilities mapped to the different business processes and systems to ensure an adequate portfolio vision.
Below graphic is an example of the Business Development business capability at a generic corporation.

 
It is safe to assume that both organizations have teams, business processes, and technology to accomplish this BC.  Would you acquire a company that didn’t do business development?

For each of the business capability redundancies, identify:
1.    Percentage of overlap
2.    Gaps analysis
3.    Cost of closing gaps
4.    Cost of changing business process
5.    Risk of coexistence

Leadership will then be able to make the appropriate decisions on how best to address each capability based on priority, risk, and cost.

Communication needs to remain at the top of the list for leadership in ensuring a smooth merger.  Magniloquence and verbosity fall short in value to an organization than message content.  Have no doubt that the rumor mill is working all three shifts.

In one meeting at the MN Entrepreneurial group, The Collaborative. One of the CEOs on the panel was discussing his first companywide meeting after acquiring a business.  His introduction was one of the most impactful that I’ve heard.

    “If there are two things you need to remember from this speech, they are:
        Number 1;  You have a job.  You’ll have a job tomorrow.

        Number 2;  You’ll have the same benefits package you do today.“

Years later one of the machine operators said that his message immediately and unquestionably squashed the scariest rumors about downsizing and benefits.
It is imperative to communicate early and often about the pending changes to either people, processes or systems.

This most difficult integration point is the people.  The significant difference in personalities, cultures and attitudes between the teams will lead to difficulty.
Let me say that again.  Integrating people is hard.  Even more so if they are former competitors.
An unfortunate tendency of the acquiring organization is to discount the value of the people of the acquired organization.
The perspective change from ‘Us versus Them’ to ‘Us versus the Market’ is a time consuming, investment intensive endeavor.  There will undoubtedly be some attrition as individuals are unable to adjust.  Non-trite team building is necessary at all levels to ensure the proper partnerships are developed.

Other considerations:
1.    People
    a.    Career Paths
    b.    Job Descriptions & Levels
2.    Technology
    a.    Data Center Location and need
    b.    Licensing
    c.    Vendor contracts
    d.    Support SLAs
    e.    Technology Portfolio
3.    Business Development
    a.    Market segments and penetration
    b.    Customer lists and cross selling
4.    Strategic
    a.    Flagship product lifecycle
    b.    Hybrid products and services
5.    R&D
    a.    Investment priorities
    b.    Intellectual property knowledge sharing


Oh, did I mention that the new organization still needs to generate revenue while completing the merger?

Good luck!

Taking the Cult out of Culture

 

 

All organizations, regardless of size, have an unwritten code of conduct that is often referred to as a “culture”.  Cultures differ from policies at the broadest level as they are not included explicitly in the employment contract. 

 

The bromide, “Drinking the Kool-aid™”, is often used to describe the embracing of a culture.  Does anyone find this sobering that this saying is also often associated with an unfortunately permanent, cult-like behavior?   The oft repeated story about a group of monkeys, a set of stairs, a water hose and a banana regarding social acceptable behavior is a perfect example.  Eventually, the original lesson was lost through attrition but the behavior or culture remained.  As I stated before the culture sets expectations regarding workplace behavior.  These behaviors are the result of learned responses based on copying current staff or leaders within the organization. Since these behaviors have been ingrained in the organization it becomes difficult to adopt any changes or improvements.

 

Unethical behavior breeds unethical behavior. 

Meeting intensive culture breeds meetings. 

Inclusion breed inclusionary activities and exclusionary prejudices. 

Self-sacrifice breeds volunteering. 

Humility breeds humble employees. 

Excellent customer service breeds revenue. 

100 hour weeks breeds more 100 hour weeks.

Work/Life Balance breeds higher morale.

Drinking at work breeds more drinking at work.

Coercion for results breeds further coercion.

 

And so on.

 

Outsiders and newcomers to any group will often see the varying degrees of cultural dysfunction.  Unfortunately these same individuals are hampered by the need to “fit-in”.  The second and third level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ensure that any proposed changes would be tempered by this peer pressure.  Through constant exposure the employee will soon be quaffing the Kool-aid™.

 

Essentially a culture is the peer pressure to do or not do activities that are considered appropriate behavior.

 

There are 3 rules that can take the Cult out of your organization's Culture.

 

1. Employees should challenge inappropriate corporate cultural trends. 

2. Leaders should embrace, recognize and promote positive trends.

3. Leaders should recognize and quash any negative trends.

Your Staff is not Normally Distributed!

Peer reviews, 360 feedback, mid-years, S.M.A.R.T. goals.  A host of techniques exist that are used and sometimes abused to better rate employees.  The challenge will always exist in translating subjective metrics to objective measurements.

For example, how can attributes like "team-player", “organizational agility” be translated into a scale that allows for valid comparisons across a team, division, and organization?    One approach is to provide a weighting for the different attributes. 
Below is an example weighting performance scale for an entry level technical resource.
 

Performance Attribute	Weight
Team Player	25%
Communication	10%
Technical Aptitude	50%
Organizational Agility	15%

     

Therefore resulting will be the Expected Performance   would be:
 
         

The next question to those still paying attention is how Performance Value,  is calculated.
Many organizations collect these values from peers, managers and direct reports.  Some companies weight the Performance Values based on the source.   The weighting system becomes further obfuscated to:

 

 

The dangers of Role weight is the topic of another article since the organization’s culture significantly affects this type of weighting.

Having fun yet? I could go on with adding employee level as well.
How does this compare to other divisions?  Certainly the weighting would be different.  The undoubtedly  extroverted sales division would weight Communication and Extemporaneous speaking significantly higher than the technical division.

Assumptions:
    There is a max performance and merit raise dollar value (B) for an entire organization.  To extend the assumption, this would be split in some way between the divisions and finally the teams.  For the sake of this argument, let’s assume an even distribution of these dollars.  Therefore:



 
Resulting in the following:
B(team) = Total dollars available for a particular team.
P^  = Expected employee performance on the team.

Final Step:

Intuitively the final step is mapping the division of B(team) to each employee.  This is one of the most difficult activities when defining the bonus & merit distribution.  Some organizations have yet another nifty equation to use.  Stick in the P, get out a bonus.  Others, leave the consideration to the manager and finally the scariest organizations are the ones who enforce a specific distribution for employee performance.  I know of a large tech company requires all the teams to have a near Normal Distribution for the bonus and merit increases.

Problems with forcing Normal Distribution in performance management:
1.    Effectively mitigates the ability for outliers, extreme high performers and awful employees, to stand out.   These outliers require significant focus from investment(high potential) or relationship severing(low).

2.    Fails the variable independence test.

Since both Team Size and B(team) is finite and known.  Employees are directly competing for the same B(team).  Employees will act in self interest in maximizing their portion of B(team).  Self interest will result in each team member attempting to game the system by lowering the Performance(attribute) value for team mates while working to maximize their own. 
Therefore, the lack of independence inputs results in a distribution unlikely to coincide with a normalized distribution.


Leadership Challenge:
I encourage leaders to challenge any math distribution specific performance management system.

How does your organization approach merit and bonus structures?

Books I'm currently reading

"Ultimate Leadership" by John C. Maxwell -

"Rain Making 2nd Edition" by Ford Harding

"Reframing Organizations" by Bolman & Deal

"American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson" by Joseph J. Ellis

Make time to read books.  It will enhance your life.