We Bring You Synergy

“The Synergies are Working”

I have two colleagues with whom I discuss various management issues. Both work for the same organization and within the past two years have encountered a buy-out and a merger. Of course job security is an issue, but I am more impressed with the communication plan instituted. This past week on two different occasions both told me independently “the synergies are starting to work.”

That’s right, they pulled out one of the 1990’s million dollar buzz-words. You remember those right, paradigm, synergy, boundarylessness (thanks Jack). The words that were high value until they were put in the hands of bad management. This reminded me of cobuyitaphobia, the term referenced in the Dilbert episode, The Merger.

Asok: Why don’t we merge with a company that is less dysfunctional than we are? They could spend the money for us.

Pointy Haired Boss: A merger? Hmm. That might get us some synergy!

Asok: I didn’t realize Alice suffers from cobuyitaphobia.

Loud Howard: I know what that is. No, I don’t.

Asok: It is the fear of synergy.

– Management Recylcing –

Just like bell-bottoms and micro-minis, bad management styles have a tendency to recycle and since change is happening at a faster rate than ever, we can expect these instances to occur more often. Adrian Savage points this out in his post, Beware of Management Fasionistas.

Following the latest management fashion has several advantages for Hamburger Managers. It looks “hip” and up-to-date. It makes you seem to be innovative, without needing to have a single creative idea in your head.

In management, look at the rush to benchmarking, comparisons with “industry best practice.” and the way that every public statement contains the same, tired jargon. Values are “in.” Let’s have a mission statement and write it like we’re a charity. Let’s follow political fashion and babble about family values and getting “back to basics.” Work/life balance is fashionable. We’ll establish a fine-sounding policy and guidelines (just so long as we don’t have to act on any of them). Let’s do what everyone else is doing. Who’s setting the fashion? Quick, get on their bandwagon.

I experienced this first hand with a prior manager. Unfortunately what seemed to start out as a fresh new business model ended up being written from a 1990’s consulting playbook of spin-selling. This also meant that a majority of information which was being contributed on foreign markets was also from circa 1996. Even life-long learning and development struggles to keep up with the rehashing of old fads. We all know the old adage that those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it. Sadly by the time most employees have cut through the clutter and glitz, figuring out the repackaged goods, it’s time to move onto ‘the next big thing.’

Best practices definately need to be followed and emulated while at the same time groupthink, not-invented here (NIH) and bad management need to be kept in check. Cost-cutting can only get an organization so far and following the leader is not an appropriate strategy. Figure out what you are offering, the process to get it to the customer, put the process in the hands of the right people then stand back and watch the real synergy. Of course, that’s the real trick isn’t it?

 

Office Linebacker Revisited

Now that football season is over, I wonder how much productivity increase there will be with the decline in fantasy leagues and Monday morning quarterbacking.  Regardless, here is one football player we can take with us year long.

Dealing with change management, I’ve lost count how many times I wanted to add an office linebacker to my team.

 

Quiz – What kind of manager are you?

Here are some good time wasting quizzes courtesy of Fortune and CNN Money. My personal favorites:

What kind of manager are you?

Are you a good decision-maker?

How good a boss are you?

Surviving office politics

What’s Your EQ (emotional intelligence) at Work?

Of course you can’t base your management strategy solely on a quiz and they are only effective so far as you don’t figure out the methodology, but, if honestly answered, they could provide some general insight into your management and corporate environment. Of course if you want honest feedback you should ask subordinates, superiors and friends. If you work in an organization where such things are frowned upon, that should tell you something.

 

Employee Appreciation Day

I will admit there are some things of which I was just not aware. I read Dilbert fairly regularly not just for the humor but also as a window into corporate culture and, yes, sometimes it does boarder on depression. Today however, Catbert, Evil Director of Human Resources, speaks about Employee Appreciation Day. I was unaware this even existed. Apparently it is the day (March 9th) you are supposed to thank your employees and inspire them to keep up the good work. This runs counter to everything I have advocated, but apparently you only need to encourage your employees once a year (in case you didn’t pick that up, yes it’s sarcasm).

Here is a brief list of some ‘appreciation days’

Administrative Professionals (formerly Secretary’s) Day – April 27th
Boss’s Day – October 16
Nurse’s Day – May 12th
Doctor’s Day – March 30

The fact that we have so many of these “Days” is a direct reflection of how appreciated some workers feel, or perhaps Hallmark is just working overtime. Just one note, thanking your employees or team is not something that can just be scheduled, it must seem genuine. I had one boss, who every week typically around the same time, would walk around and thank everyone. After a while it just became another meaningless exercise.

 

The Best Team I’ve Worked With

I wanted to take some time out to speak about the best team I’ve worked with thus far in my career. We are continually shifting to a team based environment. With this change in organization so must we develop better ways to rate and reward teams for the accomplishments. Throughout his career, Deming alluded to the detrimental impact of direct competition with those we need to cooperate and Liz Ryan at BusinessWeek describes this force ranking of employees in todays workforce.

Ranking people is not like organizing screwdrivers in your toolbox by size. Andre might be a good worker, but teamed with Rajeev, he becomes a great one. The leadership talent that inspired you to put Tiffany, Gretchen, and Thuy together on the product-launch team has made all of them stronger contributors and brought great benefits to the company. What the heck could be the benefit of ignoring these interdependencies, and lining your team up in a zero-sum game of “Who’s Better Than Whom?”

The team (below) I worked with was only capable of meeting project objectives by maintaining a structure which assured mutual respect and understanding. This could not exist under a Best, Good, Average, Poor Likert rating that exists in many organizations.

(From Left to Right: Anthony Riley (me about 30 lbs ago), Gene Hodges, Dave Davis, Greg Carreon, and Tompie Hall)

In addition to project specific knowledge, individually our backgrounds included management consultants and school principal, a restaurant manager, IT manager and real estate. While this may seem like an unrelated series of skills, collectively we possessed the following traits and competencies developed from our various experiences.

• Ability to work and communicate in multiple locations virtually
• Respect
• Ability to laugh at ourselves
• Manage conflict
• Distributed and shared knowledge

When you have several people all vying for the top spot, either trying to be number one in the department or fighting for the biggest bonus, teamwork eventually breaks down and people start hording information often to the detriment of the department and eventually the whole organization. Traits like those above disappear and the concept of the team becomes nothing more than lip service.

Related Articles:

Deal with ‘bad apples’ before they spoil your team

 

New Rules of the Middle Class

I came across this article from Pat Regnier at CNN Money. It makes several points I have been arguing for quite some time.

Old Rule: “Success required a high school diploma.”
New Rule: “Success requires a college degree.”

Old Rule: “Climbing the ladder meant rising up the ranks within a single company.”
New Rule: “Climbing the ladder means chasing opportunities with multiple employers.”

Old Rule: “Wealth was managed on behalf of workers.”
New Rule: “Workers need to manage their wealth.”

Old Rule: “Most mothers expected to stay home.”
New Rule: “Most mothers expect to work.”

Old Rule: “Competition was limited.”
New Rule: “Competition is fierce.”

Now these rules are quite controversial because they force people outside their comfort zone and into the protectionist zone where unions hold sway and the government should do something about “all these foreigners.” I am reminded of a piece of research I came across several years back discussing the shift in American manufacturing to foreign locations as well as the need for persons to continue education longer into life (given you have to learn what your parent’s did, plus everything that has been discovered since).

Some would think this research was written in the past five years since there are a large percentage of people who continue to deny the rapid increase in social and economic change, which eems to increase daily. It was in fact written in 1977. So how much longer do we need to start making fundamental change to the way we educate and train this generations workforce to cope with these ‘new’ rules?

 

What Are You Doing Right Now?

Most might assume I’m talking about Twitter. The site that asked that very age old question, that no one seems to care about. Despite being a fairly basic concept, there are ways to productively use this site. Unfortunately this is the mantra of several managers. Constantly popping in and asking what you are doing.

On a recent project, the engagement manager simply ran out of ideas, so every thirty minutes one or more of the team was asked, “what are you doing? Are you working? Make sure you document that.” No wonder the project took twice as long to implement as other locations where the manager was not present. I even recall an incident where we were chastised for taking a two hour celebratory lunch on the last day of the project, that incidentally came in one week ahead of schedule and under budget.

Many, including Alvin Lim, call this slave-driving.

I’m sure most of you have heard of the term “slave driving“. It’s a term widely used in our world today, especially in the IT industry where competition is stiff. All the companies want to deliver a project in the shortest time possible to please the clients. However, the only way they can do this is to “force” their employees to work more and longer period of time….which means “slave driving“.

In some big corporations, “slave driving” is a norm. It is something they used to measure an employee’s commitment. I used to work in a company where going back on time is not encouraged. Everyone will be looking at you whenever you choose to go back at 5.30 or 6pm…..including your bosses who might be taking some “personal notes” as you walked pass. Well, as expected, I didn’t do well in the company because I was considered not committed enough even though I used to work > 14 hours a day for them.

It seems incredible that we have to develop management tools and fads like the FISH principles not to mention the writing of countless management how-to books to remind everyone that you should treat employees, clients, and yes even consultants like human beings. Of course we have structured our systems to make this 1980’s Command-and-Control style a safe-haven for the sociopathic and narcissistic managers.

The lack of institutionalized strategic planning, integrated processes, and the development of necessary infrastructure has plagued the implementation of several organization change projects. In an era where technology should promote the sharing of ideas across functional departments to facilitate the response to changing conditions (Hamlin, 2005), processes remain anything but seamless and operations are still extremely manual. Departmental silos are dense, usually by design, and virtually impenetrable, making interoffice communication and coordination nonexistent. Department heads within the same divisions do not speak to one another; staff members are not consulted about goals nor are they given an opportunity to share strategies with key decision makers. Inferences are made in a vacuum with staff quickly becoming victims. Morale plummets and motivation to improve is driven by a survival imperative rather than thoughtful, data driven decisions.  It’s time to get back to common sense managment, and most of the time that can’t be found in a book.

 

To Suit or Not to Suit?

Is it casual Friday yet?

When it comes to business, I’m generally a laid back person. I can dress to meet most any situation, but is there still a need to adhere to professional dress in the office? Some would argue that a standard must be kept, after all there was a report out earlier this week that claimed people who are comfortable are less productive.

Blog Maverick Mark Cuban provides his alternative view on suits.

Someone had once told me that you wear to work what your customers wear to work. That seemed to make sense to me, so I followed it, and expected those who worked for me to follow it as well.

When Broadcast.com was sold, the suit went out the window completely. I vowed to never wear one again other than weddings and funerals, and only then because it wasn’t worth the hassle to deal with people asking why you didn’t wear a suit.

If you are a CEO , are there not better things your employees could spend money on than multiple suits, ties, dress shirts, dress shoes, dress socks, dry cleaning, and all the other associated costs ? Gee, no suits would be the same as giving your employees a tax free raise.

This past year I interviewed two people, one showed up (Starbucks) in the State of Texas polo shirt and hat, the other in University of Michigan shorts and t-shirt. On those two occasions I just happened to be in business dress (shirt, tie, etc.). I was initially taken aback, but after reminding myself these things shouldn’t matter and giving the individuals a chance, attire aside, I ended up offering both positions. They did of course have to adhere to our clients dress standard and turned out to be exceptional hires.

At one point I had a manager who went one step further and required everyone dress slightly better than the client because we were consultants, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s just how we were treated – consultant outsiders. Despite Mr. Cuban’s call to eliminate all suits, it seems for now business dress will remain part of our culture, making an appearance wherever culturally appropriate. Who knows though, if I ever become a billionaire I’d probably stop wearing one too.

 

Avoid Bird Flu, Get a Good Friend

With the recent death of several thousand turkeys on a farm in Britain, it appears that avian flu (bird flu) is going to be back in the news cycle for a while. Today a report was released detailing the need for companies to formulate contingency plans in the event of an outbreak, including allowing employees to telecommute. ExxonMobil reported has a plan in place to allow some refinery workers to live at various plants to avoid going home and risking infection.

“We don’t have the option of shutting facilities down. We have the obligation of providing energy,” said James McEnery, deputy vice-president for human resources at Exxon Mobil Corp. “We are going to ask some employees to come in and live in the facility,” McEnery told the conference.

Given that a worldwide pandemic would likely take months to recover from, I am curious to hear more about Exxon’s psychological countermeasures to deal with employees who have sick loved ones at home while they are working. It is likely the first employees selected or volunteering will have discussed the ramifications with spouses, children, if in fact they have any. Despite what screening or counseling may be available in the event of a national emergency there are no guarantees it would be effective, just take a look at the recent NASA astronaut incident.

While some will think of this as an afterthought, it may be of critical importance. The following selection is from Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence regarding the research conducted by Ohio State psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and husband Ronald, an immunologist. On the study of ten women who tend to Alzheimer’s stricken husbands,

they have shown that the effects of continual stress research all the way down to the level of gene expression in the immune cells essential for fighting infections and healing wounds.

They also found that these individuals,

were under relentless strain, on duty twenty-four hours a day-and feeling terribly isolated and uncared for themselves. An earlier sturdy of women under similar stress had discovered that they were virtually unable to benefit from flu shots; their immune system could not manufacture the antibodies the shot normally stimulates.

In addition to these negative effects on the stress of sick loved ones (the same stress can apply to work stress under normal circumstances by the way), being near our close friends and acquaintances, with whom a positive relationship exists, will actually boost immune function. Of course this is not to say that if you feel on top of the world you should avoid taking necessary risks when it comes to potential avian flu infection, but companies should consider more than just security and operations when developing their respective strategies to combat a potentially serious problem.

Related Articles:

Indonesia May Sell, Not Give, Bird Flu to Scientists 

 

How to Spot the Worst Boss in the World

Mr. Angry over at Angry 365 Days a Year has the following 8 tips for spotting the worst boss in the world:

1. Be Inconsistent
2. Criticize publicly and give no praise at all
3. Refuse to accept responsibility
4. Avoid making decisions
5. Don’t defend your team
6. Claim credit and apportion blame
7. Be ignorant and proud of it
8. Be a slave to “the rules”

I know I have certainly run into my share of individuals who exhibit all of these qualities and have been promoted to higher levels on the mantra “accept no responsibility, accept all the credit, receive all the benefit.” No wonder workplace stress is at an all time high, but then again, that makes us more productive right?

Related Articles:

Managing Up Part II:  Narcicist, Psychopath or Manager?