My Afternoon/Evening of Volunteering

February 4th, 2010 Steve

Yesterday was a special day for me! I spent the afternoon leading a team of judges for Haley Elementary Science Fair and the evening talking to parents about projects. I want to share the journey from setting up getting the volunteer judges to judging and finishing up with the evening events.

Getting volunteers sometimes is difficult. Especially since this has to happen during the workday. This year I used my internal social media tools to get potential volunteers. I blogged about needing some judges – what it was about, what they would be doing and last year’s experience. Updated my status – looking for judges.. Tweeted out on Twitter. Got my list of candidates month in advance. I always make sure to get plenty because as time went on, priorities change and work gets in the way – so we lost some judges.

The day of the event! I was nervous about the event – will I have enough judges and will they all show up kept running through my head. To start the day, a couple judges had to conflicts that they just could not avoid. So, I reach out to a few friends just in case. Before I knew it, it was time to travel to the school. On the way, I had a few calls to make – getting some judges on speed dial… Arrived and checked in – I then walked through the tables of 5th and 6th grade projects. I was pretty impressed with the level this year (overall better than last year). As my judges showed up, we got together and split up the judging into teams and attacked the judging just like any other project. Each team spent the next 3 plus hours reviewing over 25 science project reports and boards. Using the supplied scoring sheets to help us guide through what needs to be reviewed. The top 6 get selected to go onto the next review. Wow, my head hurt at the end. This year, I saw a few projects that were out of the norm for 6th grade (very nice to see). At the end, the judges were tried, but were very happy with the experience.

Next up is - an evening viewing of all grades science projects, where the students, their siblings and parents come in and get to share in their science project experiences.  Watching the students show off their work to mom and dad - priceless. What I really enjoyed were the number of parents that expressed their “I’m impressed, job well done” to their kids. Simple words that go a long way…

This year, the Haley teachers and staff added many different items to make the evening really special.

  • Math breakout sessions where the students and parents could learn fun new ways to help teach math at home.
  • A reptile exhibit were the parents and students could touch. Well, the students did most of the touching. That snake was huge!
  • Out on the sport court, telescopes set up for planet viewing.
  • The student council was selling snacks – all proceeds donated to Haiti Relief efforts.

It was just a great day for the students, teachers and staff of Haley Elementary. My team enjoyed themselves… And I definitely had a great time. I am looking forward to doing this again next year…

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Positive Leaders And Their Examples

February 2nd, 2010 Steve

I am only a few months away from 28 years with my current employer. That is one long time. When I started back in 1982, I would have never thought that I would be here for that long. When I look back over those years, I have been blessed with a couple of items. First, I have had opportunities that have allowed me to move to many different areas to help me increase my overall skills and knowledge. Second, I have worked with some amazing people. Since my blog is mostly about leadership – I want to focus on the amazing leaders that I have been around and what makes them amazing.

It is far too easy to point out the negatives in people. We can easily spot the stuff that we don’t like. I do it some of the time and it kills me when I focus that way. So, I am going to focus on the stuff that I like and admire in true leaders.  What makes them special? Why do I want to follow them? Even to the point of taking a position that was not as enjoyable. Below you will see the list of items that I feel as the best of the best:

  • Setting a clear vision – and communicates to everyone. It is like a map to help me get to where I need to go. I don’t need the exact route, I just need to see the overall map. The great one’s in this area, set that vision and clearly and get the troops rallied on that vision.
  • Knows and understand their organization - it is mostly about people. Time to understand your organization and how to get the people engaged and charging to meet the org’s goals. I have seen, one leader in particular, meet and greet everyone in the organization – every time they are face to face. Call out the person by name, discuss what they are working on and how is the family. This leader knew every person, their work and the family. This personal touch was called out by many folks as rare, very rare.
  • Setting the example – doing just as they speak. Every opportunity to interact with people, gave them a chance to be the example that they wanted the rest of the organization to be. They treated everyone with respect and dignity. Praise was very public. Anything negative was very private. Celebrate when we won! They were all about actions, not the words. One particular leader told me, “All eyes are on me, all the time. I have to be the example. I want to be the example.”
  • Represent the group – with every opportunity. The words “we” and “us” are used more that “I” or “them.” Everyone is in this together. Calling out the organization over their name associated with an activity.
  • Facilitator of learning- pushing the organization to continue to learn and grow. Learning is something that each person needs to do, but sometimes the day to day activities will push that to the back-burner. With the true leader, this is not the case. Learning and growing were just as important as getting the job done. In fact, most made this part of the job. Using every opportunity as a learning opportunity; for themselves or for their people – did not matter.

Any others that standout to you? Did any of these remind you of someone?

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Should Loyalty Matter?

January 30th, 2010 Steve

Should loyalty matter? Do you have a favorite grocery store, restaurant or service station?  Do you have certain leaders that you will follow? Why are they your favorites? For me, I do have many of those items that I am loyal to for various reasons, but the common theme is relationships. When I look at each and everyone of them, I see the people. When I think of going to the Basha’s grocery 0r Starbucks - I think of the cashier that I hope I get into her lane. Why, because for those brief moments each time, we have built up a relationship.

Take those brief moments and apply that to your work relationship. That place you spend at least 40 hours a week at. Importance on relationships get magnifiedgreatly. Successful organizations are built on relationships. Leadership is all about relationships. Loyalty becomes a critical subject to leaders. I have had the pleasure of working in some organizations that have really embraced relationship and loyalty. Both ways – up and down the organization heirarchy. In that situation, going to work everyday was a joy. Before you knew it, it was after 5pm and a call from home would remind you that the workday was over.

On the other hand, when going to work is difficult or seems like an endless source of frustration, you don’t have to look to fall to see the reason why. How many reports that have been produced that point to the majority of employee’s leave their current roles due to the manager that they work for. When it comes to that point – then the relationship is not good. Going back the Starbucks example, I was going to one for a really long time, because of the people. Something changed, the people were not open to building a relationship and rude for the most part.. I took my business to a different Starbucks. I am still loyal to Starbucks, but just not that store. Within work, when you have to leave that should be the most telling example.

I wonder if the management teams, really look at the number of employees that are willing to leave their teams and take on different jobs? Self-examination is a very critical piece to learning and growing. For those organizations that are losing people, they probably are not really looking into the whys. Losing good trained people is a shame. I happened to join a new organization and they were reviewing their turnover. First step, but it went downhill from there. Many of the managers, just rationalized the turnover as bad employees. Not being able to sit back and listen, I asked a couple of questions.

  • What was the performance of the employees last year, year before and so on. Get trending…
  • When were there changes to the overall organization management team? If any…
  • Are there any organization health data?

Within a couple of sessions, the management team was able to really do a better job of self-examination. Plans were put in place.. Training was delivered to the management team.. Organization got healthier.

Relationships matter, so does loyalty.

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Funny Little Observations

January 27th, 2010 Steve

I have a bunch of notes that I have done nothing with. Reviewing them, I found that they were random observations I wrote down for a reason. For the life of me, I just don’t know why. So, I am calling them my funny observations

  • Apple Tablet announcement trumps the US State of the Union address by the President. Approval ratings?
  • Overheard (OH): Why is everyone keeping me in the dark on this stuff? Answer: You don’t have a need to know. Funny thing about this – is the person in the dark is in charge.
  • Why is it a baby can run around nude and everyone laughs, but when it is older folks – people are in feel of having those images burned in the eyeballs?
  • Impatience at the airport check-in. OH: Why is this line not moving faster? I have a plane to catch. How come they don’t open up more lanes? I am going to be late… Person in front of him, turns around and says – how long did you know you were flying at a certain time? Next time, plan to leave the house a little earlier – like the night before. Stop complaining already! – Dude gets a nice round of applause from the rest of us…
  • Why do the folks at Starbucks – have to have deep discussions with folks in the morning? I need some coffee before I can get into solving world hunger.
  • People in Arizona can’t drive in the rain. We have a stupid motorist law for people that drive in flooded streets.
  • We had plenty of rain this past week.. Flooding in some areas. Why do people leave their sprinklers systems on? Your yard is flooded and the sprinklers are on. We do live in a desert…
  • OH: Are airplane seats getting smaller? He said it with a straight face.. He was a fairly large man.
  • The smart-phone debate continues… iPhone, Blackberry, Droid – okay it is personal preference - enough already. House, car, big screen TV and now, smart-phone envy…
  • Social computing is for kids. There is no need or purpose for it. Followed by, I don’t understand it anyways. I got that from the first couple of items that came out of you mouth.

Now that I have found a home for those random notes…. Not a bad home. Do you have any that you would like to share?

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Transitions Happen All The Time, So Why Do They Go Badly?

January 25th, 2010 Steve

Over the years, I have been involved in many transitions; as a leader coming into a new situation; as a member for a team getting dissolved; as a member of an existing team getting a dissolved team. There is one thing that is definite, they cause all sorts of churn. In these types of transitions, we are dealing with people. From the years of experience, I have come up with a list of items that I feel are must haves in order to make everything seem okay.

  • Communicate, Communicate and Communicate – When communication is timely and real, most folks will move forward quickly and not worry too much about what is happening. It is also, the first thing that breaks down or never is established fast enough. Set up immediately the communications channels, set aside time in your calendar to be more open, never miss an opportunity to just walk around and be visible.
  • Get the top folks together, quickly – With all organization transitions, there are the top folks that must come together and get to know each other quickly. Getting the “A” team in place and moving forward together – will help greatly with the rest of the organization. There will be people on either side that carry the leader role in folks minds, you need to tap into those folks. If there are people that are not going to workout together, time to make changes. Don’t be afraid to change the overall structure at this time. Don’t just fill a gap with a strong person. You need to put the right folks in the right places.
  • Start small and start fast – What I mean here is really get some wins under your belt. Those wins could be as simple as removing roadblocks or changing the way things always have been done – that people complained about. It is important to demonstrate to the new organization that hitting the ground running and winning is first! The longer times goes by and the shape and form has not been clearly set – the longer it will take folks to move forward as well.
  • Shape “your” vision with the new team – As a leader, the vision is critical for setting the path that the team will be going on. Using your “old” vision from the old team may work, but frankly the new members will just not see why the transition needed to happen. Revisit your vision, tweak it if necessary and really get that vision out to all of the team.
  • Build your support network- there are always folks that you can lean on for real information. Those folks that just tell it like it is. Some from within the organization are nice, but make sure you are getting some of the key partners, support and customers. Need to have a complete 360 view. Nothing worse than having some blind-spots.

There is no perfect solution to any transition. Remember the majority of the churn comes from people, be aware and stay connected. I have witnessed many that had the leader go underground to work out all of the details, by themselves. Come up with the magic sauce and pass it out to all. Then later asks, what is so difficult, I did all the hard stuff…. Well, the magic sauce maybe good, but you forgot that people were out there.

Anyone else have anything that they do that eases transitions?

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Halfway Point

January 24th, 2010 Steve

image from Coach via Flickr

For most youth hockey teams you have reached or just past the halfway point of the season. What does that mean to you?

As a coach is it time to take a short break and look back on the season:

  • Reviewed your progress to your goals.
  • Reset your course to set up the upcoming playoffs (everyone loves a champion).
  • Changed or modified your practice plans based on the overall team progress
  • Too early to worry now, but the season is almost over – and things are going to change. You will get your nights and weekends back. You will be staying closer to home. Many worries will be off your head. All of this, till next season.

As a player there are two paths.

  • If the season is going well, you continue to look forward to every game and the upcoming playoffs. Winning and success make going to practice, dry land and the rink – fun. Everything is good!
  • If the season is not going well, you try your darndest to continue to get better, continue to work as a team and fight through all of the negative feelings. Well, that is what the coach would say. For most players it becomes not fun. It is up to the coach and parents to continue to motivate and make fun the rest of the season.

For the parents, this is simple. Just keep on support your young athlete. Support comes in keeping a very positive outlook on all situation. Continue to challenge them to get better. Encourage and reward as much as possible.

The season is long. Right about now, most folks are more worried about when it is going to end. The travel, the practices, the games and the cold weather will be coming to an end. Focus has to remind with each element of the team (coaches, players and parents) in order to make the complete season a success.

I had a team that finished in last place in the regular season. We were struggling throughout the season. The players were trying, but some things just were not clicking. I changed up the practices and added some more fun activities – like soccer balls, tag and whatever else would have hockey skills in it. By the last week of the season, we started to be very competitive (wins – some). Playoffs hit – they were a double elimination tournament style. So, we kicked off the first game to the odds on favorites. We lost, but barely. Fought through the loser’s bracket to face the odds on favorites. This time it was not even close – we won the title (6-2). The moral of the story was – we all hung together (coaches, players and parents) and kept the right positive pressure in place. It worked.

Good luck the rest of the way!

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Judgement Error’s

January 22nd, 2010 Steve

Awhile back, I wrote about the project that just never ends. The other day, I got the news that it is in hibernation and will be coming back in 2011. This got me thinking about all the time that was spent and all the time that gets spent on projects or work that amounts to very little, other than a waste of time. As leaders it is easy to ask a question or maybe attempt to gain some knowledge on a subject – that simply sets the organization on a whole new effort. I can safely say that I have been on both ends of those situations. Looking back, I have a few examples:

  • The never ending project or sponsoring something that is too early on to move forward. To clarify these, they are the ones that the leader may see, may hear about or just have a question as simple as “why have we not looked at X?”. These projects take on a life of the own. Everyone wants to do a awesome job and provide the level of detail to what they are being asked. I think, we take that a bit too far. Why? I know I have made the assumption that this could not be real, so give it about as much time as necessary. Only to find out that my assumption was wrong. So, the next time – I am off on the complete analysis. Only to come back with the same answers as the quick way. Either way, the work is not really used for much or considered by many a waste of time.
  • Every team has a “star” player, overload that person. Every manager that I have had (and me included) have one or more (hopefully more) stars on the team. They are the go to person that gets stuff done. They seem to have endless capacity or just make it look easy. Fact is, those folks don’t know their limits and just keep on, keeping on. Until the work is not getting done or complaints about the person start showing up.
  • Not managing performance, quickly and effectively. I have had teams that have been pretty high performing teams, but not everyone performed the same. When performance is slipping, there is something wrong. Addressing it quickly and effectively, will help everyone.
  • Labels. It is so easy to put labels on people and projects. Once you do that, the label will stick forever. Projects that start off wrong and struggle – get the label of failing. What happens when the team gets their act together doing the middle. Most leaders have already given up on that project or project team. Performance is usually documented once a year, labels come with that. Could take you a year to shed the label! Referencing my performance management  posts – just in case you want more detail.

Being leaders is not easy, during the day to day activities; there are times when error’s in judgment happen. It is the good leader that is able to quickly see that they have made a slight error and correct it. Work has to get done and the people in the organization need to feel enriched for the experience as well. Wasting time, helps no one. Look at the long term stuff, rather than the short term. Remember to keep your goals in front of you.

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Command & Control vs Collaborative

January 20th, 2010 Steve

I have struggled with this topic for quite some time. I have pretty much worked in 3 organizations all my life (2 large ones – US Army and Intel; 1 small – Myron’s Service Center).  No one will argue that the military is anything but command and control… Oh, don’t get me wrong there is some collaborative work going on, but in the heat of the battle – command and control wins. As long as the order is lawful, the simple answer is to carry it out. I remember my drill instructor say, “If I say jump, you ask how high. Got it?”. That seems to wrap it up.

I wrestle with the notion of when is it time to skip the command & control and move towards a move collaborative approach. When you look back – command and control seemed to work well, when the boss knew more or had more access to information. Those times are changing. Information has become available to just about everyone, thanks to the information revolution. Teams today are more globally dispersed – where it used to be the company (where most groups acted independently) that was global. Things need to change – or maybe – things are forcing the change. In order for me to get my work done, I have to be more collaborative than ever before. I have to be willing to give up some command & control. What makes me think I can do it better or faster?

What are helping drive these changes?

  • Enterprise 2.0 technologies – Speed of communications and collaboration. Information is available and shared with all.
  • People – are demanding these tools. Technology is a funny thing, the more comfortable you are growing up with it, the more you demand when you get older. I am afraid that I am an exception to the rule. But, when I look at the workforce today, this is a definite trend.
  • Micro-managing scares folks away - we all know the workplace studies that show that people leave because of their boss more so than their job. I have come across this a couple of times in my career. I have left very good positions that I loved doing, because the person that I reported to was a micro-manager. I have stayed in terrible positions because I have worked for some amazing people (the job, I can make better).
  • Workforce is more global - For me, this is extremely true. I have people that I work with everyday – and only one of them sits in the same general physical location as I. In order to keep everything going – we have to use these tools. We have to be willing to make it fit within our normal work flow.

Will large established corporate culture change overnight? Will it happen at all? Overnight, no way. Resistance is always going to be there. Giving up command & control is not easy. It takes people to change. Moving their cheese is not a good thing, at least not to them. The shift has to happen. Many small to medium size companies are doing it and finding some great results within innovation and great places to work. When that happens – all the great people will come running. So, the big ones have to shift or stay the course on the path that they are on. That path does lead to a slow and painful death – I believe folks have some examples they could share on that…

Thoughts?

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Thoughts to Action

January 19th, 2010 Steve

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everyday, I get ideas or thoughts on just about everything. Whether I am sitting around the table reading the newspaper, waiting in the airport, driving in the car or where ever something pops into my head. Too many to remember during the day, so I started carrying paper and pen with me, to help capture a thought down on paper. I was reviewing my list of stuff – and let me tell you – that list was all over the place. The only thing missing, was how to solve world hunger. While reading though this stuff – I got the idea for this post, how to you take your ideas and turn them into action? I quickly scan some of the list and found that action was missing on almost all of these thoughts. Capturing the thoughts on paper are good, but action is better.

So, what to do? Here are my initial steps and hopefully some good next steps… Asking for help on this one, what would you do?

  • Decided that the first thing was to come up with categories for those thoughts. They were pretty much scattered to all topics. Some trends came out!
    • Personal -Home
    • Work
    • Writing
    • Bigger than me
    • Volunteering in the community
    • Other bucket
  • Categories needed some more help to get focused. Hate to call them sub-categories, but what else would you do? So, I have sub-categories.
    • Impossible to do
    • Definitely would like to do
    • Must do
  • Added a review of these thoughts into my weekly planning session. Need to put them into my Most Important Tasks (MIT) – or nothing will get done.

The next steps are where I think the beginning of thoughts to action could happen. During my planning, I spend some time trying to develop an action plan for how would that idea turn into action? What are the actions? Who all is involved? This vetting details should help me bake the thought some more and develop some sort of potential strategy or next steps to action. There is no action to anything that does not get to my MIT list. Just not going to happen, I have limited time and need to central my efforts on the right important tasks.

So, what to do with the others? For those that just do not make sense – I move them to the impossible to do list (impossible today, but maybe not in the future). For those that still look good, but my time is overbooked – sometimes I share them with folks to see if those ideas can help others get some thoughts and actions of their own. No one has a shortage of thoughts, but the actions that result from those thoughts are important. My list will continue to grow, that is for sure. I will be attempting to get more thoughts into action…

Any other ideas – are more than welcome….

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Next Couple Weeks Could Define My 2010

January 11th, 2010 Steve

After the holiday’s have come and gone and the first week back in the office is completed – the year gets really cracking those next two weeks. Most people I know – come back to the office refreshed and ready to go. From a work perspective, budgets for the upcoming year should be set (well, at least the first half of the year for most folks). Emails and meetings over the past couple of weeks – have laid out some of the details for 2010. Most senior leadership teams have already had their key face to face meetings to help shape 2010. Communications have gone out to their teams. The fury of activity – high! The level of excitement – high! The push for starting off 2010 is coming to a head. On the personal side, most of us are looking forward to additional changes that we are setting our goals to achieve. So, what do you do?

So simple work reminders:

  • Face to face meetings with key teams and programs are a great start to the year. Getting everyone together, especially any new members and building solid relationships help. Setting out to understand the overall objectives and priorities for 2010 – will get everyone on the same page. Look for team building exercises that help to get everyone tighter aligned.
  • Document, document and when you think your are done, document some more. Getting everything down in digital paper is key to keeping everyone focused. For me, my teams have their Management by Objectives quarterly to help (we always attempt to list out the very high level stuff by quarter in January) and we use our internal social media group site to keep all stuff in front of us – at all times.
  • Develop your teams cadence calendar for the year. Every team has certain deliverable that are due weekly, monthly or quarterly. To help with planning of the team and each individual go ahead and set the calendar up as much as you can.
  • Have some fun – get together and do stuff that takes you away from the office (maybe dinner or bowling). Make sure that you have nothing planned around work. Just go out and enjoy each others company.

On a personal note: Last year, I wanted to spend more time writing, set up this blog and give back to the community more. Each one of those, I did a pretty good job of achieving my goals. Not 100% mine you, but better than 80%. I found that if I opened up my goals to more than myself, I achieved better than expected. Like work – documenting and holding regular reviews help to make things go smoother.

This year my three goals are

  • March toward my goal weight and maintain throughout the year. The holiday eight hit me! I have to get down to my goal, stick to it and insure I do not deviate to far. As I get older, this is much harder.
  • Time for a huge change at work. I have been pretty much doing the same stuff for about 8 years. I enjoy doing it, but I need to actively change the landscape. Many would say, change does a person good or when you feel comfortable – it is time to get uncomfortable. I truly have reached the point, where I am going to do something different.
  • Get out more! I stuck my toe in the water with the community activities. For me, I started slowly to see if I could do this. Well, I have time and the passion to do more. Time to add 1 or 2 more to my list. I have plenty to give – time to give it away…

What are some of your professional and personal goals for 2010?

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