|
|
Burnout is rough. You know that feeling when you’re sitting on the couch in the evening and dread going to work in the morning. Or the Saturday that you tell yourself that the weekend is almost over and you’re that much closer to having to go to work. You’re burned out and need to find a new perspective. The worst thing you could do is to jump to another job right away until you’ve analyzed the source of your disaffection. It’s usually not work that’s bothering you but either something at work or in your personal life which won’t allow you to focus your energy on what you know is important. That’s often the reason for your anger and frustration. The only way to break this downward spiral of misery is to step back and get a fresh perspective but what the heck does that mean? When you’re caught in this cycle it’s very hard to reflect on anything other than your problems, or the problems you’re telling yourself are causing your grief.
I’ve been watching several people at work that I can tell are burned out but don’t know it. One fellow I’ve been watching is best described as a curmudgeon. He’s an incredibly hard worker and very bright but Eeyore has nothing on his attitude. Every new method, direction, or vision is not only wrong but disastrous. He really can’t understand changes and fights to keep his world static. He is overburdened but can’t delegate to others because he just can’t see the work getting done right. Now here is someone in need of perspective, but you see this behavior somewhere in every organization and its not healthy for either them or the others in the team.
A lady I work with was suffering from the same symptoms as mentioned before. Nothing was going well, her manager was an idiot, her peers were incompetent, and she was looking for a job. Now THAT is someone you’re going to hire, right? I was talking through some issues with her and she said that one day she stopped and really thought about her situation and the people around her. She said that she realized that much of the situation she owned and some she didn’t. She needed to figure out the drivers and pressures of her manager and find a way to make her as successful as possible and to identify what needs to be accomplished daily and weekly. This shift of focus from an interpersonal situation helped my friend to understand that her boss was a good person with pressures that cause decisions and that my friend could be a part of solutions. Relationships with her peers also improved as she started to understand from their perspectives as well.
Burnout seems to be a “zeitgeist” of today’s economy. There are a ton of external pressures that are affecting all of us and it is too easy to project fears and concerns of our personal life onto our professional situation. We spend most of our time at work so that’s where we tend to take out or frustrations. Unfortunately, when this happens we are less productive and we make other people uncomfortable and unproductive as well. When you start to feel that life isn’t working well try to sit down and really think about what it is that is causing you anxiety. Once you identify and articulate the sources it is easier to isolate the problems and take greater enjoyment and satisfaction out of life.
There’s a good reason that the Scott Adams cartoon, Dilbert, has a character called “Mordac The Preventer of Information Systems”. I’ve heard many disparaging comments about I.T. departments in general and in the last 3 weeks I’ve been at my wits end trying to get a project approved in our I.T. department.
From Scott Adam’s Dilbert
I.T. Departments’ reputations seem to be pretty consistent regardless of the company. The common perception is that they are an obstacle to the business and overly bureaucratic. The biggest problem that I see with I.T. is that they are only measured on meeting project deadlines and budgets but the business value of project scopes are not factored into their success metrics.
I’ve been leading a project within our company that impacts sales, development, and support. The project has been scoped and approved by the business over the last 8 months and it is time to get our I.T. department’s commitment for system changes. What I didn’t understand was that I.T. did no analysis until the business finalizes their scope and then they provide feedback regarding what scope they are able to deliver. The inevitable response from I.T. was that they could provide a small percentage of changes. They did not give me any alternatives regarding increased resources or schedule change….they just said no. They also made business decisions by determining what they were willing to do (regardless of the business context). The fantastic part of this story was that I.T. was a member of the project team for the last 8 months and never raised any concerns. It appeared that they viewed their job as attending a meeting rather than contributing to a project.
We had daily meetings arguing about what features would be in scope and out of scope but the bottom line was that what they were offering to commit to removed the business value of the project; However, they would have been very successful meeting their schedule within budget. I paused to try to understand my I.T. colleague’s perspective. They were unyielding on the schedule and reluctant to provide scoping for more resources (people and money) but were very comfortable removing the functionality of the project that created value.
It is clear that I.T. is measured in a way that incents them differently than their business partners. They are measured by budget and schedule but there is no measure of business value or scope delivered. How can companies link I.T.s accomplishments to the business improvement? This is a genuine request for comment because I’m struggling. It appears that I.T. is an infrastructure that views themselves as the guardians of the status quo. How can a business break this cycle? There must be some way to link I.T.’s success to the success of business goals and make them vested in the business’ success.
The most common corporate buzzwords that I’ve been hearing over the last year are “transformation and “disrupt”. Companies are focusing on how to create a competitive advantage in this tough economic downturn. Markets have been shrinking during this 22 month recession and any advantage must come from focusing on business infrastructure in the reduction of capital expenses and improving customer experience with both products, sales, and after sales to reduce operational expenses. Companies are now focusing on projects that will improve product experience, field performance, sales cycle, support experience, and other customer contact points that can drive customer loyalty. However, most projects that I’ve heard described as “transformational” often have poorly defined goals, goals based upon some pretty wild assumptions or short term problems with limited return. Transformation should be more about how we approach our business issues. Most business problems are not unique or new and we need to find new ways to approach them.
The key to real business transformation is to understand the problem thoroughly and to define goals crisply. There are many business problem-solving methodologies that guide organizations through this transformational way of thinking but they’ve gotten a bad reputation. There is Total Quality Management (TQM), 6 Sigma, Lean, and Theory of Constraints (ToC), to name a few. Oh, I know that your first thought about these methodologies are of those “crusty old school” manufacturing types that harps on process as if it were a religion. Unfortunately, people misunderstand the purposes of process and take them to an extreme or they lose sight of the reason for building the processes and the project becomes a goal unto itself. If you can find solid business people, these methodologies can be a tremendous help in defining real value, using data and measurements that mean something to the business, and creating predictable outcomes with measurable results. It doesn’t matter with methodology you use. Just pick one. What are important are the leaders you get to apply them appropriately.
Many projects set out to solve problems but miss the mark because they jump straight to solutions based upon assumptions. A problem solving methodology forces you to understand those assumptions and validate them with data. Several months ago I talked to a product management executive that wanted to reduce the cost of field failures. Field replacements were costing him millions of dollars a quarter and he had seen a report that showed more than 50% of the units returned had no problem found. His team decided to solve this problem by creating troubleshooting training for the technical support group so they would be able to better isolate problems and solve them without replacing the devices (at great cost). 2 months after the training was delivered there was no change in the field replacement rates and the same percentages came back without any identifiable problem. This was a great example. The team thought they new what the problem was but spent time and money without identifying the real cause. Their transformation occurred when they realized that they created a solution without understanding what the real problem was. After close analysis of the technical support trouble tickets and interviews with the support personnel, the team discovered that the product didn’t have enough diagnostics in it to isolate problems and replacement was the easiest solution. For less than it cost for 1 months worth of replacement product they developed diagnostics features that reduced field replacement by 30%.
Jack Welch Recognized the transformational nature of solving problems by using data and a disciplined methodology. Under his leadership, GE taught all of their business leaders 6 Sigma so that they would have a common toolkit to approach problems with and create the greatest likelihood of success. Mr. Welch said that growth was a process and it allowed him to grow GE from a $13 billion company to one worth several hundred billion dollars over a 20-year period. 6 Sigma brought clarity to their business and a common vocabulary to work from. The transformational aspect of this approach is that it provides a roadmap to achieve predefined results in the fastest possible way. It’s transforming how you think Now, that is a “transformational” concept that should “disrupt” your business in a great way!
We’ve all sat through long presentations that left us wondering how to get that fraction of our lives back. You know, those “FYI” presentations that are often more self aggrandizing than informative. During this economic downturn, I have seen an increased number of internal company business communications that have made me wonder who the target audience is and “why am I listening to this update?”. I’m often surprised that presentations are delivered without a clear goal in mind and a specific request. “FYI” presentations are sometimes appropriate, but should almost always be at the request of the audience. Presentations should usually have an expectation of action or decision.
Presenters should answer a few questions before they even build their story:
1) Who is the audience for this presentation?
2) What do you want to happen as a result of this presentation?
3) Are the right people in the audience to achieve the goals?
4) What is the action plan if you get your desired result?
5) What are the alternative results if you don’t achieve your goals and what is the action plan
around those?
These 5 questions are the key to a successful presentation. As the story is built you should revisit these questions to ensure that you do not wander from your goal.
One VP of a large networking company that I know told me that if these questions aren’t clearly defined in a presentation he won’t add the presenter to his meeting agenda. He frustrates many people that are looking for “visibility” but I thought it was a great way to protect his, and his meeting attendees, time. This ensures that a group is focused on making decisions but also protects the credibility of the presenters. Think about what you thought of the last “FYI” presentation. Most likely you questioned the focus of the people involved. I know I do.
My friend read the above screed and said that he could tell I’d sat through way to many of these lately and that these guidelines are things that people just know but forget. I disagree. I’ve been coaching people on their presentations and they don’t know to define their goals. Presentations seem to be an end unto themselves rather than the reporting of a situation or project with a request for decision. That’s the problem.
Have you had these experiences? What have you done in your business to guide the right behaviors?
I chuckled when I read “Speaking Truth to PowerPoint” in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Business has grown to rely heavily on PowerPoint as a primary communications medium. Unfortunately, details are lost because the nature of presentation slides is summarization. I depth business planning requires a format that is conducive to thoughtful detail. I don’t think that PowerPoint itself is evil, but I do believe that it is radically misused today. I’ve seen complete product concepts delivered with no more documentation than a slide deck. Business infrastructures are proposed through slideware without the discipline of writing out the analysis and presenting the details in supporting logical order. There’s a reason that we were taught to write papers in college. We were trained to make cogent and complete arguments. Unfortunately, PowerPoint has enabled the business world to create a deliverable that lacks substance and allows for sloppy thought processes. Colonel Hammes is correct when he says that PowerPoint is “actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making.”
I ask my staff to put together summaries. Formally writing out a business case or a tactical plan requires people to really spend time succinctly defining their goals. Its too easy to embellish concepts with fluff in a presentation because of the personal delivery and the limited time frame but when the reader sits down to focus on a written concept they have more time to analyze what is being presented. The author must carefully craft an argument and provide supporting evidence in a logical manner that reinforces the goals. A well crafted briefing is very easy to read and understand. It should compel the reader to agree or contribute to the concepts. A written summary will also more easily expose logical weaknesses and allow them to be addressed more swiftly.
The “PowerPoint” culture that has become pervasive in business today has created some very bad habits. Planning and execution are done in brief bullets and pretty graphics. Unfortunately, the lack of detail has led to what is almost a “glibness” towards due diligence. Without some level of rigor in planning and execution, critical items are missed, like the “O” rings in the space shuttle disaster. Not all details have such dire consequences but they are important to our business. It is work putting at least as much effort as we did for our mid-term papers in college in the creation of our business and project plans.
When I first heard about the modified Pecha Kucha exercise that I was invited to participated in (see Pecha Kucha on Summer Vacation) I wondered “what kind of nonsense is this?”. I first had to look on Wikipedia to figure out what it was. I’m not one for gimmicks, and this seemed like a gimmick. I was supposed to do a Pecha Kucha about a couple of things that inspire me and a pet peeve. I gave it some thought and started surfing the internet for images that spoke to me. This is what I came up with:
Inspiration: High Risks, High Rewards
Moto GP is the highest level of motorcycle racing in the world
Moto GP is the World Championship of Motorcycle Racing
These talented riders train to deliver consistent results at the highest level of performance.
Successful racers maintain lap time consistency within only a couple of one hundredths of a second per lap throughout a race
They push performance to the edges of possibility – High Risks, High Rewards
Moto GP Motorcycles are in excess of 220 brake horsepower and about 350 lbs
Moto GP speeds exceed 200 mph
Top Moto GP riders are some of the higher paid athletes in their respective countries (i.e. Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner)
Inspiration: personal excellence and team reliance
The U.S. Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, exemplify a combination of intense personal excellence and team reliance.
There have only been 231 pilots in the squadron since its inception in 1946
Each Naval Aviator that joins the Blue Angels has distinguished themselves as the best combat pilot and the Squadron must trust in the expertise of their teammates and learn from one another to improve. They fly at speeds over the speed of sound with only a few feet between the wing tips. Their lives are in one another’s hands.
While the Blue Angels are considered a demonstration team, members of the squadron are combat trained pilots that must go through a rigorous selection process focused on identifying representatives of the “excellence and professionalism” found throughout the fleet.
Pet Peeve: People with the wrong skill set for their job
Lucy and Ethel, from “I Love Lucy” in the famous “Chocolate Factory” episode were delightfully incompetent at this job. As the conveyor belt sped up, Lucy and Ethel were unable to keep up with the pace of packing chocolates in boxes and started to stuff them in their clothing and in their mouths.
They were the people with the wrong skill set for their job. We’ve all been on projects with people who don’t quite fit their roles. Goals are often misunderstood and results are lackluster at best. Many Silicon Valley companies believe that if they get smart people for a job then they will be successful. This is not true, they need the right smart people to succeed.
What I learned from this exercise is that people inspire me. I love to be around people who push themselves to achieve excellence, people who are creative and very motivated. My inspiration comes from being around this kind of person. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this activity. It made me think about the things that I really care about.
I was invited to a pot luck dinner with other industry leaders and the host organized a very clever group activity that was a lot of fun. The invitation said that we would each be doing a modified and shortened Pecha Kucha that will consist of 2 to 4 slides with a couple of things that inspire us (love) and something that we detest (pet peeve). I had no idea what Pecha Kucha was so I went directly to Wikipedia and found that this was an informal presentation format that limited the amount of time one had to deliver messages and allow for a larger number of presenters. I did like the concept of sharing with a group of like minded professionals in a way that would help us understand one another’s motivations.
I was thinking of what inspired me as I drove in to work this morning. Defining inspiration is not a simple activity and I had to really think about experiences that I’ve had where I was excited about what I was doing. The memories that came to mind were ones of early projects that required me to work with groups of very bright people, understand problems that I’ve never encountered, identify solutions, and create an operational plan to execute the solutions. Boy, that’s a mouthful but is it really the source of my inspiration or what I love?
After examining the new projects that I remember so fondly the most common element was that the people on those projects were the key to my excitement. We had difficult and important problems to solve but what really made the projects as inspirational as they were was that the teams consisted of people who had the right knowledge, the right experience, and the right attitudes.
The early phases of these projects we brainstormed the and defined the problems. Everyone participated, everyone listened, and everyone appreciated the important contributions of the rest of the team. They were all experts and respected one another as experts. We all brought out each others creativity in solving problems.
Not long ago a friend of mine mentioned a very interesting health care offering that he’d been thinking about. After a brief conversation I started to research technology around health care infrastructures and he and I emailed ideas back and forth. We introduced one another to friends that had expertise in various aspects of the concept and worked to teach and learn from one another. That kind of partnership and mutual support, based upon shared interests and goals, is inspiring.
Coming back to the Pecha Kucha exercise, what would my pet peeve be? It would have to be the opposite of my passion. Projects that I’ve worked on that seemed like drudgery were because there was no leadership, no goals, and no planning. I guess my biggest pet peeve would be working with people that don’t make themselves experts in what they need to know and don’t contribute to solutions.
I was recently invited to a meeting to define a new energy product. The team was told that they had to come up with an offering in an energy management technology space and it seemed that nobody knew where to start. Not one member of the team had come from the energy delivery industry nor did anyone spend time researching companies that did. Man was this a disaster waiting to happen. We had to step back and assign areas to research and send the team out to explore what was needed but the passion and excitement just wasn’t there. You really need the right people in the right roles to be successful.
I’ve written many times about putting down on paper what you like to do and the kind of environment that you want to work in. This Pecha Kucha gave me an opportunity to revisit the types of people that I wanted to associate with and who to look for when building projects. Its not enough that you have smart people. You have to have the RIGHT smart people if you’re going to be successful.
I saw a great article in the Wall Street Journal that I wanted to highlight, “Fine-Tuning Your Resume for Maximum Impact“. It really focuses on the important aspects of your resume. I’ve been thinking a lot about this because I’ve spent a lot of time looking at resumes over the last 2 months and helping friends to focus on what’s important. Your resume is a sales brochure that should entice the reader to want to talk to you. It should give the reader enough information about you to understand your unique talents and experience and should convey your understanding of your value to the business.
Many resumes I read describe people’s activities but not what they contributed to the business. As people become more senior they start to craft their resumes around business objectives and measurable outcomes. I’ve said many times on this blog that there are only two reasons that people pay us money, to increase revenue or decrease cost. Oh, sure, there are infrastructure roles that are more difficult to measure their contribution but there are ways.
I work with engineers a great deal and they often struggle with estimating their contribution. I have heard many of them complain that to estimate their contribution is not honest, that it is often immeasurable. This is not true at all. I have worked with many to make good faith estimates about both their relationship to the total revenue of a product or the likely cost savings of features relating to operational improvements. Engineers struggle with the lack of preciseness but they have to understand that good faith estimates are honest and do indicate an understanding of their value and relationship to the business.
Remember that our jobs are “responsibilities” not a series of tasks. Successful resumes must reflect our understanding of why that person was paid and how much return on investment their salary was. You have to map out the story you want to tell and have it reflect your understanding of business and your role in it. Once you’ve mapped out your story and have developed a solid resume, outsource the function to a professional expert. Once you know you’re story have the experts create the final copy.
The economy seems to have stopped its free fall and is wallowing at a bottom. Individual savings has increased as a percentage of earnings and the housing market looks like its begun to stabilize. Unfortunately, credit has not been as readily available as the government policies have promised and businesses are not expanding their infrastructures in anticipation of growth. Jobs are still tough to find and employers are viewing it as a “buyers market’ for talent. With that in mind, job seekers, at all levels, need to be prepared for behaviors that were not possible a few years ago. Hiring managers view the current economic situation as an opportunity to upgrade their talent but some of the methods that are being used will not instill excitement and loyalty from their hires. Sure, some will be proud have having gotten through the interview rigor but many will feel commoditized.
Phone screen interviews used to be an initial scoping of a job to an interviewee and a quick check of appropriate experience and skills of a candidate. Some employers are using phone screens as a first interview (The New Trouble on the Line). The phone screen used to be a “meet and greet”, which consisted of a description of the company, the department, the role, and some clarifying questions to expand on the candidates resume. Many hiring managers and HR departments are using the telephone interview to scrutinize a candidates experience and examine how they respond to extensive questions. This can save time for the hiring manager but they miss the intangible reactions that body language and facial expressions provide. This method only gives voice tone and the responses themselves.
Some companies are using the current situation as an opportunity to try creative approaches to identifying the best candidates. These unorthodox screening methods can be interesting and fun or they can be intimidating and demeaning (What Won’t You do for a Job?). Some candidates are asked to participate in a business case study or to create an ad hoc presentation on an unexpected subject. I had a friend that was asked to develop a presentation that communicated her value in “pirate talk”. Initially, my friend thought the exercise was fun but it wore thin after some time and her enthusiasm for the job dwindled. Another friend of mine, interviewing for an executive manufacturing role, was asked puzzle questions, such as “how many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?”. Potential employers are feeling comfortable experimenting with hiring methods because, again, its a buyers market and they feel they can risk upsetting the candidates because there are so many.
This is an odd time for job seekers because there are too many applicants and not as many jobs. Employers are trying to find ways that identify the absolute best candidates but they are also taking risks with their reputation and the loyalty of those that they hire. As a hiring manager, you have to be mindful that this glut of talent won’t be permanent and that you want to build a team of people that are the best talent around and excited about your product and the role they play in building the business. As a job seeker, you have to be flexible and, if you’re confronted by an unconventional job screening process, try to understand the goal and spirit by which these methods are being conducted. Its a tough economy but business does continue.
The economic downturn drags on and the job market has gotten tough. There is a lot of speculation that the economy is at or near a bottom of this slump but how long will we stay there until recovery begins? Companies continue to let very talented people go as they hunker down against slower sales. Companies that are hiring have changed the way they’re hiring. Instead of finding an excellent candidate that have strong credentials but will grow into their new responsibilities they are hiring people that have enough experience that there is little room to grow. Sure, these folks will hit the ground running but business is a marathon, not a sprint, and they’ll be the first to leave when more exciting opportunities for growth and greater responsibilities arise.
I’ve talked to several people in companies around Silicon Valley and in other areas of the company who are seeing the same trend. One friend argued that the job market is flush with very good people so he has the luxury of hiring someone that would have never taken the job 2 years ago. My question to him was “do you really want someone who is just happy to have a job or do you want someone who is excited about the opportunity?” That excitement is infectious and is absolutely necessary for a leader to get people in their teams motivated and other organizations enthusiastic at new directions and ideas.
I’ve recently seen an organization led by someone who was in the “happy to have a job” mode. The group was performing a function that was important for the company 5 years ago but needed to update its mission significantly. The group sank deeper into obscurity over time and was either ignored or ridiculed within the company. The entire team advocated methods and activities that they’ve ‘always done’ but they didn’t understand why they did them. The leader didn’t inject a passion for the job and eventually the group went away. What a waist of people.
Hiring leaders is about hiring future capability and future growth. Companies have to be very cautious that they bring in the right talent and that they’re there for the right reasons. Sure, you can find immensely qualified people but will they help guide you into the recovery and on to healthy growth? Fear keeps people motivated for a little while but the culture created by “captured talent” will be lackluster and temporary. If your people feel trapped, they will always be looking for an exit.
|
|
Recent Comments