Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Settling disputes

From time to time, teams will get into conflict situations. Arbitrators will quickly recognize the issue as a 'communication gap', but the parties involved in the conflict will be overcome by their emotion and defensiveness to listen to reason.

Try this technique to take the emotion out of the conversation. Focus on deliverable (inputs and outputs) that need to be exchanged between the parties. There are good chances that the producer and consumer of the deliverable have a different understanding of the requirements. One of the parties may be having trouble explaining to the other as to why the deliverable is not acceptable.

By staying focused on the deliverable requirements and how the 'actual' varies from 'desired', the conversation can come back on track. Use patience and compassion to earn brownie points, respect and cooperation. Improve your communication skills to accurately describe the requirement, removing all emotion.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Beware the 'sound byte'

Mark Twain described sound bites as "a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense."

Sound bites (yes, apparently 'sound byte' is an incorrect usage) can be very useful to communicate the essence of a topic, problem, opportunity or issue on hand. Used well, eyes will light up and the room will reverberate to the sound of "I got it!".

Sound bites are the modern version of the dagger carried by the assassins in the days or yore. Daggers were handy to take down people who were getting too powerful, annoying, inconvenient, threatening or difficult to understand. Sometimes, daggers were used just for amusement. Over time humans became more civilized and realized that killing opponents is not a solution that will scale. Besides, law enforcement was getting better and one day, they might be killed themselves!

Enter the 'sound bite'. A few well placed bites can plant seeds of doubt to raise questions on credibility of a person, a solution, a proposal, intentions, actions or plans.

It is often debated whether humans have fundamentally evolved and become more civilized or whether they are the same. Whatever the answer, deal with reality. In executing your strategy, use 'sound bites' or be used by it.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Friction pays!

In the course of executing your strategy you will encounter obstacles, frustration and delays.

Remember the saying, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'? Problems drive discovery/invention of solutions. Problems drive the need for creativity. Without problems, there will be very little need for us to do anything meaningful.

Therefore, rejoice upon seeing problems. Problems are a reason to employ you, they are paying your bills and has potential for greater things, like immortality.

If you experience frustration, disappointment or dejection, treat that as a problem to be solved in itself. Turn to leadership principles to find the courage to deal with obstacles and to inspire others.

Why it 'stinks'

Its why we need to take a shower every now and then.
Its why we need a haircut periodically.
Its why we need to clip our nails from time to time.
Its why we need to refill the gas tank after driving.
Its why the dishes need to be washed.

In executing your strategy, there are many tasks and activities that fall in the 'hygiene' category. They require constant attention and nourishment. If you don't give them attention, bad things start to happen. Relationships need more maintenance than we estimate or desire. The non-relationship based tasks can potentially be controlled.

Creative solutions are required. Hire an admin assistant, delegate better. Proactively schedule 'maintenance' activities. Automate what you can.

If you feel frazzled and stressed and feel like you are hunting ants not elephants, look to see how well you are managing these types of activities.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Everything is interconnected: use this fact to your advantage in creating plans

This is an analogy familiar to software programmers. Code that refers to data that does not exist produces software crashes. The whole science of software engineering has spent a lot of effort on creative solutions to prevent such code from being written.

Humans also experience 'crashes' when executing their strategy. A couple of examples: (i) A process requires an input, but there is no clarity or agreement on who will provide that output. (ii) A process generates an output, but there is no clarity or agreement on who will consume that output.

Humans can tolerate ambiguity better than machines, they do this by asking questions and collaborating. When they can't or won't, dysfunctional behavior is generated.

When creating a plan make sure everything is connected to everything else. After the plan is created, it has to be tracked. A good plan that connects all the dots will make tracking status easier. The final challenge is to present the plan. Too much detail may result in the important items not getting the desired attention. Different stakeholders have different needs, so the presentation has to be targeted to their needs. Communication becomes easier when the dots can be connected in a meaningful and relevant way.

Everything is connected to everything else. Find the connection to create, track and communicate your plans to execute strategy.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Scoring points in meetings

Meetings are expensive. Consider the following costs:
  • Salary and benefits paid to attendees
  • Infrastructure: phone bill, video conferencing costs, rent etc.
  • Other costs: lunch, drinks etc.
If meetings do not have clear agendas (is it to take a decision? deep dive on a topic? build relationships?) participants will be guarded in their interactions. In addition to clear agendas, the roles and responsibilities of attendees needs to be clear (why are they here? to learn? to share knowledge? to help connect the dots?).

If agendas and roles are are unclear, almost as if to amuse themselves, the participants will use the meetings to 'score points'. After all, who wants to look clueless in a meeting with their superiors and peers! If allowed to continue, trust is lowered and coalitions for future projects will be harder to build.

Look for meetings where more time is being spent in 'scoring points' than in productive discussions. Terminate the meeting swiftly and reconvene when outcomes are clearly defined.