I Sound Like My Mother

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“I tell them what to do and all they do is argue,” complained Cheryl.

“How does that sound?” I asked. “Pretend I am running the line. What mistake could I make that needs correction?”

“They always forget to inspect incoming materials for quality. They just dump the parts in the bin. This company hired me to prevent quality errors. It starts by inspecting the incoming plastic parts,” Cheryl explained.

“So, I take a box of incoming plastic parts and I dump them into the bin for assembly, but I don’t check them for quality, first?”

“Exactly,” said Cheryl. “You can’t do that. I personally inspected all the incoming parts from yesterday and now you have them all mixed up. What were you thinking? You will have to pull all the parts out of the bin and re-inspect every one. We have a 20 percent failure rate on finished goods and it’s all your fault.”

“What kind of response do you get?” I queried.

“Oh, they say they never had to inspect parts before I came along, or that they didn’t make the damn parts so it’s not their fault. I can’t seem to get them to take responsibility. They sound like little kids. -I didn’t do it, not my fault.-”

“So, if they sound like little kids, what do you sound like?”

“What do you mean?” Cheryl became quietly curious.

“If they sound like children, do you sound like a parent?”

Cheryl stopped cold. She was ticking the conversation back in her head. “My goodness, I sound like my mother.”

“And when you sound like a critical parent, what kind of response do you invite?” I asked.

“When I sound like a critical parent, I invite them to argue with me?” Cheryl’s question sounded more like an answer.

“So, we have to figure out a way to correct the behavior without inviting an argument.”

An Inventive Way to Solve a Problem

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My coffee was piping hot, hazelnut with a little cream. Cheryl’s meeting was to start in a few minutes. She was determined to turn things around with her team. She was hired as a troubleshooter in Quality Control, but finding the problem and fixing the problem are two different things.

“So today, you said you were going to listen?” I asked.

Cheryl nodded “Yes.”

“What position will you be listening from?”

The question caught Cheryl off-guard. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“The way we see the world is often influenced by our position. In fact, you have listened to your team before, but you were listening from a position of judgment, so you didn’t hear what they had to say.” I stopped to let that sink in. “What position will you be listening from today?” I repeated.

“I guess I will be trying to understand their point of view.”

“Not bad, but not aggressive enough to be effective. What position do you want to be listening from?”

Cheryl was stumped. “Curiosity?” she finally blurted out.

I nodded. “So, when you sit in your meeting today, you will be listening from the position of a curious child?”

Cheryl smiled.

“And curious children always have a lot more fun than stuffy old Quality Control managers,” I said. “And curious children often invent interesting ways to solve problems.”

Third Egg Strategy

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I have to share with you, a new blog posted by my favorite guru of Customer Service, Howard Hyden. I have been a fan of his ideas for more than a decade. Good stuff. This is his first post.

The Third Egg Strategy
I met a client for breakfast at a coffee shop close to his company where we were greeted with a long line. He indicated that this place was always packed in the morning and a typical wait would be 15 to 20 minutes. He also indicated that there was another coffee shop not far down the street that was always half-empty. Read More.

Government Jobs Incentives

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Overheard in an interview from a reporter related to the government’s job stimulus efforts.

Reporter – “Will the recent government hiring and job placement incentives cause you to hire more employees?”

Response – “You don’t understand, no employer creates a job in response to a government program or incentive. Employers ONLY create jobs when a role becomes necessary for them to meet market demand.”

Posted from Tucson AZ. Working with Gary Hirsch and his Vistage group on the research of Elliott Jaques.

Nuclear Winter

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I spent last week working with my executive groups on an exercise with two purposes. The first purpose was to examine this most recent recession and look for lessons learned. The second purpose was to light a fire moving forward.

In 2005, we first learned of the impending recession, its timing, depth and breadth. My resource for this warning was Brian and Alan Beaulieu at EcoTrends. In January 2007, EcoTrends confirmed their forecast, before we retreated to the basement nailing down the hatches.

In that meeting, Alan Beaulieu, to create some hope (or an economist’s attempt at humor), spoke about the recovery. “There will come a time,” he started, “when we will give you the ALL CLEAR. It will not feel like the ALL CLEAR. It will still feel like nuclear winter. But we will tell you.”

And that signal has appeared. NOW is the time. NOW is the time to be aggressive. NOW is the time to take market share.

“There will be no double-dip,” they confirmed two weeks ago.

Your competition is still on its heels, whining and complaining about the economy. Now is the time to open the hatches, mobilize, expand your tolerance for risk.

Your competition still sees the world in nuclear winter. Now is the time to strike.

Think about your target in 2013. What steps do you need to take?

When Do You Want to Talk About It?

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Marion put the final touches on her plan for 2011. Impressive, detailed, some 10 pages in length.

“Brilliant!” I exclaimed, with all the enthusiasm of a Guinness commercial. “Very articulate. How long did it take for your team to put this together?”

Marion sat up with pride, “Why, thank you, but I have to take most of the credit. I worked over the weekend. I mean, I am sure that some of the ideas came from my team. I mean, if I had asked them, I am sure they would agree with most of the plan.”

“So, has your team seen this plan, yet?” I asked.

“No, we’re under a pretty tight deadline. I didn’t want to bother them.”

“So, exactly when do you intend to take the time with your team to talk about it?”

“Well, you know my team, once they start talking about it, they will spend all day.”

“So, exactly when do you intend to take that day for your team to talk about it?”

“Well, we really don’t have the time, just talking about it, you know?”

I nodded in agreement. “I know you don’t have the time to spend, but you will spend it nonetheless. My question is when do you want to spend it?”

“What do you mean?” Marion asked.

“I mean, do you want to spend time talking about the plan when you are planning or when you are in the middle of a crunch-tight deadline for your customer?

“Here’s the story, Marion. Your team will participate in the thinking that goes into this plan. They decide that. All you get to decide is when. You can decide for them to participate on the front end, or the team will decide to talk about it on the back end.”

Can a Mission Statement Be a Picture?

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“We have to find a purpose that has us?” Rachel was confused. “I’m not sure I understand. We are trying to do strategic planning for 2011. I get that we have to define our purpose. I know that purpose will drive the rest of the plan. But you make it sound like that purpose has to be some powerful compelling force. We bake bread.”

“Exactly!” I said. “What kind of bread do you bake?”

“Well, we bake all kinds of bread.”

“So, why do you bake bread?”

“I don’t understand.” Rachel’s head was moving from side to side. She wasn’t disagreeing, but she was having difficulty with the question.

“Why do you bake bread?” I repeated.

“Because our customers buy it.”

“And, why do your customers buy it?”

“Well, bread is consumed at almost every meal in some form or another. People eat a lot of bread. It’s a comfort food.” Rachel was trying.

“Why is bread so important to people?”

“It’s just part of life, bread goes with everything. It’s universal. Around the world, all cultures eat bread. When people get together, they break bread. It’s almost a bond between people.”

“And do you bake quality bread?” I asked.

“The best,” Rachel smiled. “Hot out of the oven, warm, soft, drizzle a little honey on it, just the smell of it makes you feel good.”

“Rachel, you are on the right track. Somewhere in what you describe, is purpose. Somewhere in there, is vision. Somewhere in there, is mission.”

“It’s funny you should say that,” she said. “In the hallway is our mission statement, only it’s just a picture, of a steaming loaf of bread emerging from an oven door.”

What is your company’s mission? If you were to take a picture, what would it be a picture of?

Find This Purpose to Drive Your Plan

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“Why do you think you never looked at your plan this past year?” I asked. Rachel was quite interested in making her 2011 plan different.

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “It was almost like it didn’t matter. We could re-read it and talk about, but it still didn’t seem to matter all that much.”

“That’s why purpose is so important. That’s why purpose is the first step. Purpose drives the rest of the plan. Without a well defined purpose, your plan will be uninteresting and just sit on the shelf.”

“So, we really need to have a purpose,” Rachel was nodding, enthusiasm creeping across her face.

“No,” I said. Rachel’s face turned quizzical. “You don’t need to have a purpose. You need to find a purpose that has you. You need to find a purpose that has a hold on you so tight that you can’t stop thinking about it. You need to find a purpose that captures you. When you find that purpose, you won’t have any problem pulling your plan off the shelf and working it.

“Find a purpose that has you.”

The First Question in Planning

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“Why and which?” Rachel repeated. We had been talking about planning. Come the first week in January, Rachel had to present her 2011 plan to the rest of her management team.

“How did you approach this plan last year?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, seems like we just got the group together and set some goals for the year.”

“Interesting. And, how did that work out?”

“It’s funny,” Rachel said. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling. “We never really looked at them again, until last week when I started thinking about 2011.”

“Did you accomplish any of the things you set out to do?”

“We knocked a couple of things off the list, but I have to tell you, some of the stuff didn’t even matter. It was really kind of vague.”

“So, why did you create the plan?” I asked.

“Because we were supposed to,” Rachel replied.

“So, you never really asked the question –why-?”

“Maybe, you are right, that is the first question.”

The Difference Between Strategic and Tactical Planning

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“I am just not sure where to start,” said Rachel. “We have to start working, now, toward a planning meeting scheduled for December. This is important, but I am not sure about the first step.”

“Think about the journalism questions that every reporter must ask,” I instructed.

Rachel started working these over in her head.

  • “Who?
  • What?
  • Where?
  • When?
  • How?”

“There are two more questions,” I prompted.

  • “Why?”

“The last question is the tough one, escapes most people,” I lamented. Rachel finally shrugged her shoulders.

“Which?” I responded. “So, which of these questions are strategic?”

Again, Rachel began to test each of the questions. None passed the test until she arrived at why and which.

“Most managers spend their day thinking about what and how, but first, we have to look at why (purpose) and which (strategic decisions based on purpose).”

During the next 60 days, as a manager, you are likely to participate in either tactical planning for 2011 or strategic planning for 2012 and beyond. Remember, the first questions are about purpose and direction. Ask why and which, before you ask what and how.