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specialists in enhancement and management of human performance |
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In recent months I've been knocking about a number of high tech companies in Silicon Valley. Two experiences among many similar.... I led a management training for a company adding ten staffers a week to their population. 22 people were booked and "totally committed" for the 9-5 seminar. At 9:15 two people were present. By 9:30 four more had shown up but two had stepped out for a phone calls. At 11:45 we had the highest count, 14. Throughout the day, people left indiscriminately -- other managers and execs pulling them out for conferences and phone calls. Ten-minute breaks took 20-40 minutes for reassembly. The one-hour lunch lasted 95 minutes. Half the group joked their way through the role-play exercises. The training was on interviewing and is recognized as one of the most effective in the industry now and for the last fifteen years. Its costs are per participant but with minimum numbers required. It ain't cheap. Another company I observed an all staff meeting led by the CEO. A regrouping and rallying meeting. Not making the street numbers and ensuing staff cuts the previous week had battered morale. The gathering included teleconferencing two satellite offices. The CEO's executive "team" was loitering in the back of the room. When one was called forward to explain a portion of the "moving forward plan" he would come up to the front, mutter a few words, apologize for no presentation slides and make a hasty beeline to the back as soon as he finished. The slide showing the company's financial condition was a spreadsheet (a perfect eye chart for an eagle). Did I mention that the teleconference link broke down four times and that the conferencing mike was set up on a table BEHIND where the CEO was standing so he had to linger over the mike to be heard by the conferenced offices. After the meeting, I inquired about the logistical breakdowns and was informed that this sort of thing was "business as usual". These kinds of jeans & t-shirts, hyper fast-paced, flexible hour, highly innovative, out-of-the-box-thinking, ready-shoot-aim wunderkind companies have been the darlings of Wall Street and business media for the past decade. However, in the last few months the proverbial bloom is off the rose. Tighten the funding a bit. Press for that rarity called break-even. Request a cogent report of actual results. Call a meeting with a set time and agenda. Better yet, wander around the designer cubicles with a simple, concrete to-do list and a deadline schedule. What do you find? A total and complete lack of any operational competency. Accurate customer lists are nonexistent. Account service reps switch endlessly. Promises are not kept. Voicemail default reigns. Calls are not returned except to potential clients and "strategic partners" who are neither profitable nor strategic. Paper in the restroom is often an up stat. The techno-anointed will dismiss this operational neglect as trivial detail -- insignificant in the new order. As long as programs boot and bandwidth expands, real world mishaps are insignificant. But, as my old mentor often said, God is in the details. By the way, customer service is in the real world details. Profitability is in real-time minutia of numbers. And financial math is ultimately an exact (and exacting) real world science. Now in many of these cyber-club startups, one of two things is happening. They've started up and staff numbers have expanded beyond 130 (the sociological maximum of a club or "tribe".) Beyond this number casual personal relationships cannot be individually tracked. Like it or not, a company with departments, regulations, legal liabilities and employees must replace the loose configuration of associates or partners calling themselves an "enterprise". The other thing happening is that companies are failing. Their killer applications are weak solutions to problems nobody has. The business plan is fairy tale not essay. New talent is seeking more provocative challenges elsewhere. And the competition's flawed product seems to be "good 'nuff" for most of the market they hoped to capture. The sad part is that since the worm turned last Ides of March these companies have tried to clamp down -- become more productive. And they can't. They don't have the ground since necessary. And they all have one thing in common. Their executives have been "stepping over the trash" for way too long. And when the chips (and stock prices) are down these kids are not simply getting grounded for a week. They are getting ground up and laid off with stock options worth little or nothing. This is the shake out and if it hasn't hit you or your company yet, bless your stars. And know that getting unsloppy quick just might be your executive edge. Also, know the job will not be easy. Here are a few starting places. First, stop the casual chats and project presentations that masquerade as meetings. Start insisting on meeting agendas and track action items. Keep starting and ending times. Drop into other managers meetings. Make your executive team exemplary by making them responsible for daily operations, logistics and supplies. Continued mistakes in simple logistics need to be pointed out loudly and fixed immediately. Pick up the trash. Straiten the chairs whenever you leave a room. Second, start demanding specific feedback and records about your clients, their contact information and their payments. Check your marketing letters' and emails' effectiveness with measured response rates. Scrutinize project plans and to-do lists. Discover your sales cycle phases and average timeline down to the day. Insist that everyone in your company doesn't "sort of" know about your business value proposition, but rather that they can articulate it briefly, simply and eloquently. It's okay to praise speed. Just be sure the fastest thing in your company is not your burn rate through other people's money. Third, let managers know training in people skills -- interviewing, sales, customer service and effective teamleading -- is just as important as technical certification. Put teeth in this. A simple way is to charge a department the fee for anyone who is absent from a scheduled training because of "workload". Double or triple charge if the manager causes the absence. Insist that trainings contain measurable objectives, exercises and quizzes. Stop multi-hour info dumps and "presentations". Finally, start treating agreements like promises because that is what they are. Acknowledge when you fail to keep an agreement with your staff. When you make a strategic change, say so loudly and clearly. Try, "Listen up everyone. This is a strategic change." Do not let people slide on their agreements with you. Stop accepting good excuses as substitutes for results. Before they blithely reschedule or delay, ask your direct reports to acknowledge that they are breaking an agreement. Let people know their word counts for you. Treat their word and your word to them as sacred. Personally intervene when anyone breaks his or her word to a paying customer. Get a reputation for noticing shabbiness and fixing it immediately. Get a reputation for integrity and impeccability. Casual and relaxed does not mean sloppy. Freewheeling does not necessarily mean creative. New is not automatically innovative. Fast does not always equate with good. (A rat racing in a maze is leading a fast-paced life.) And busy does not mean productive. In the coming return to fiscal and management responsibility, such understanding just might be your executive edge. (NOTE: Allies Consulting offers a menu of programs that can help you become masterful at your performance skills, or your staff to do so. They will meet or exceed your expectations: they are designed to deliver real results. They also leverage our other programs, magnifying your ROI!)
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POBox 9635