We completed a survey this week on what are the biggest “pain points”
incurred in a position where you have to get work done through others,
e.g. you manage people (in addition to whatever else) for a living.
Guess what was number 1?

Well first let me tell you what was the 3rd most frequently cited pain:
#3 – Overwhelmed by incoming email and trying to use it to manage
people, but still not able to get updates in a timely manner.  Sound familiar?

And #2 – Linking work effort to a plan, particularly a strategic plan.
“ Once strategic goals are set or projects launched, it is difficult to identify
and track what the action plan is and how it is progressing.  And if it isn’t
progressing well, to have the data available to determine what the
course correction should be.”

Have we covered what you thought was going to be #1 yet?  Here it is,
the #1 most commonly reported pain in managing people, is

“Getting people to spend a bigger % of their time generating
revenue, getting done what’s important.”

So why do we get so little productive time out of employees? 
Here’s some thoughts about the reasons why:

1. Being too responsive to email.  Yes I said, “too responsive”. 
Whether that’s checking frequently, or worse, getting notified as
soon as you have new email… it all creates a gigantic interruption
to staying focused on getting done what’s important.  Check out
this bit of statistics.  Bottom line, if you check email hourly or 8
times a day, you’re losing 2 hours of productivity…
after you finish the email.  Yikes.

In 2007, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average,
15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, such as
writing reports or computer code, after dealing with incoming
email. They wandered off to reply to other messages or browse
the Web.  New York Times, 3/25/2007

2.  70% of us are working harder, but on what?  The Houston
Business Journal, 2/27/2006 reported that “In general, a third
of all American workers could be viewed as chronically
overworked.” Check out these two data points:

Are you too overworked to focus on your job?
Yes, 62.8%; Sometimes, 23%; No, 14.2%.  
Boston.com Internet poll, Spring 2005

71% of white-collar workers feel stressed about the amount
of information they must process and act on while doing business;
60% feel overwhelmed.   Institute of the Future, Menlo Park, CA

It looks like we are working harder and longer, but not at
what generates revenue, but at managing information and our
access to others, with all the interruption that creates in our
work flow.  We’re overworked… but get this, not focused on
our job.  So what are most people focused on, if not their job?
Fill in the blank, but I bet if you look it will be off managing the
next crisis, the next email, the next request, attending the next
meeting… you get the point.

It’s very apparent that working on what generates revenue is no
match in competing for out attention with the incoming email, IMs,
text messaging and meeting time on our schedule.  Time to spend
on priorities, on what moves the business concretely forward, just
loses over and over when it comes to a battle for our time and attention.

Guess what?… I going to get to a suggestion about how you can
change the game.

Part of the reason that time generating revenue gets de-prioritized,
is that most of us on any given day, don’t have a set of “move the
business forward” priorities. 

Guess what else?  Most people don’t naturally create that set of
priorities for themselves.  If you manage people, you have to.

Well actually you don’t have to, and you may in fact have all sorts
of reasons why “you shouldn’t have to,” but in fact if you want to
change the game, if you want to have your direct reports spend
more time on what will generate revenue, you have to make the
priorities really explicit.

You not only have to make priorities really clear, each day,
 you have to have a system for them to easily respond to the
priorities… so that you can easily check to see if they got done. 
(Yes you have to check, to follow-up, otherwise the request or
deliverable loses intensity as a priority.)

Are you yelling, “No, it can’t be!” yet?  Most managers I know
don’t want to spend even a few minutes a day setting priorities
with their direct reports.

Bottom Line:
If you are in a management position, if you have to get work done
through others, than you’ll probably resonate with what we found
to be the biggest pain in the process, and that’s getting people to
spend a bigger % of their day on what generates revenue. 

In order to change the game, to get a bigger % of time spent on
what’s important, you have to reduce access to information
process (emails, IM, time spent in meetings), and increase the
vividness of today’s priorities… for each person you manage.
BTW, there is no better program that I have found to manage
people, than ManagePro.    The ability to see the whole field,
all the projects, but then in one click to see what the person
walking through the door is responsible for and what they’ve
accomplished to date (including what they have done on
what you assigned them)… is priceless.

What’s the dollar size at which you first recognize value?  Would you
believe that’s easier to assess value of an offering at the $1 number,
then the $1 million?  Follow along for a quick blog on appraising value
and see if there aren’t a couple of tips that will help you be more
sensitive to when and how you create value.

We all make personal decisions about value.  We all have a sense or an
internal basis for appraising value  And interestingly, it’s easier to make
a decision at lower amounts.   E.g. it’s easier to understand the value
add for the $3.50 latte versus a $1.75 cup of coffee.   Why?  At least
one reason is that we understand the connection.  The connection
between the dollar and the value-add.

When it gets hard to understand the “connection”,
we struggle to assess the value.

Think about the late night pitch on TV for steak knifes.  As you watch,
you’re unsure of the value…. so to compensate they offer you two
sets for the price of one.  Well certainly that’s a value… is it?

Actually in a lot of circumstances we substitute a concept of value
for clearly seeing the connection between dollars and value, because
we aren’t clear on the facts.  Examples include things you
see all the time, like:

- The two for one sale
- The $10,000 value, available today for only $497
- Ramp up that lots of other people are doing it – the cool factor

So here’s the point, and then I’ll jump to you and me, we have
a sense of value, a sense of what things are worth, but we often
operate without a clear connection based on fact. So we use
some other factor to substitute for connecting our value appraisal
to facts. We muddle along without a clear sense of connection.

So now it comes to you and me.  How did you do at adding value
yesterday?  Do you believe you added value?  Will you add value
today?  You hopefully are saying, “Yes.”  And then I ask,  “How do
you know?  What’s the connection you are relying upon?”

Silence.  Do you hear your mind working?  For most of us, it’s
difficult to point to a specific dollar value or outcome from
what we do.  Our input gets blended in with lots of inputs
from others, like a bucket of water in a river.

But there is a way to use this murky value question to be a
tremendous benefit for you and the people you work with
to get things done.  It’s a different way to think about value.  E.g. instead of
thinking in terms of dollars, what if you thought in terms of
connections?

It’s surprisingly simple, for being so powerful, and very easy to
apply to whatever you do.  You see, value is all about connecting.

The more we operate in a connected fashion, and the more transparency
we have about our connections, the more value we create.
Think about it in reverse for a moment:

-  What you say must connect with how you act, the decisions you
make, etc… or it loses value.

- What you do each day must connect to the intended outcome
(the plan must connect to the goal)… or it loses value

- What’s promised must connect with what’s delivered… or it loses value

-  What’s anticipated must connect with what’s experienced… or it loses
value

- Effort needs to be connected to working smart, efficiently, effectively…
or it loses value

- You must internally have a sense of contribution or value received
of time well spent, as you attend each meeting… or it loses value

Bottom Line:
You want to create value.  You want the people who work with you
and for you to be thinking about creating value… every day.  (It
sure beats entitlement as a motivator).  But how do you identify
value when the dollar connection is often fuzzy at best?  I’m suggesting
you make it easy to see connections between inputs and outputs, between
the goals and deliverables and the plan… the schedule for today.  Make
it easy to see the connection between what you create and how customers
use it.  Make it easy to see the connection and value not only goes up,
it is much easier to verify.  Your thoughts?

Making things personal adds a positive sense of engagement to
whatever we do… and, surprise, surprise, that includes an Executive
Information System.  In fact any system you use to help yourself Get Things
Done benefits from personal engagement.  Given that, what are the top 3
things you can do to immediately make systems personal? … time’s up.
Let me help, it will pay off for you.

1. One of the quickest ways to make an EIS system more personal is
to focus it on this one area… think of the spotlight narrowing down to
the region lit up by this question:

- What frustrates me most about my business life?

That can be returns on your effort, goofy processes, delayed decision
makings, meetings, you name it… no literally you name it, and then
add that area to your information system to start planning and tracking
your success at turning it around.  That makes it personal very quick.

2. Here’s another one I like, it gets you thinking forward. Sometimes
it exposes reality, other times it exposes what turns out to be business
fantasy, but the best way to sort it all out is to plug it into your
EIS and find out using a series of basic get things done steps.
Here’s the question I focus on for this one:

What would you need to do to double your business this year?
or (if not self employed)
Double my impact on the business this year?

Think about that. That will lead to some interesting action plans, and
and if you create a scorecard about what you’re going to measure, it will
be something you will find yourself drawn to review regularly in your EIS.

3.  The third question is sort of off-beat.  But it gets you thinking in
a way that can be really helpful, as you apply it to all sorts of areas,
not to mention spawning all sorts of Getting Things Done actions.
Here’s the question, around which you will want to set up an
information and action plan tracking system:

What’s the story about you at work, your career, your business?

In defining the story, you end up looking at what are the beliefs, the patterns,
the expectations; what you’ve done, what you still hope to do, what’s been
tried and what hasn’t.  I guarantee you there is a story there.  Think about
it, because there will be one or more themes that tie it all together if you
take a close look.

When you look at the collection of your experiences and choices at work as
a story, it becomes a way to not only frame the experience, but make it clearer
as to which areas you would like to effect a change.

You have probably already figured it out by now, but tying an EIS into areas
you would like to change, is one of the best ways to make it personal,
to give it energy and to sustain your engagement.

Bottom Line:

Getting personally involved helps you actively engage at work, the process and
the outcomes. Introducing what you would like to change is one of the easiest
ways to prompt that personal connection.  Although it may not be obvious,
if you make your executive information and Getting Things Done system
personal, I think you’ll like the results.

Links:
Getting it Done and Executive Information Systems

This is the 2nd half of a blog about how people in management tend to
interact with their Executive Information System in the process of
getting things done on a daily basis.  There’s some major hiccups that
occur regularly.  In the last blog, I looked at the phenomenon of treating
your EIS like a high maintenance trophy date, and the predictable outcomes
that ensue.  See if the two factors in this blog resonate with you as well.

Ok, so beyond dating fantasies, here’s the next most common thing I see
when it comes to interacting with EISs.  EIS require maintenance, which
translates to upkeep after the initial shine wears off.  After the initial data
input and organization has been completed.  When it comes to updating,
well, most people feel like documenting, that is putting data into an
EIS system, is a big drag.  Why?

I started out thinking that maybe it is a value issue.  That is, the software is
capable, it’s just that most people don’t have the time, interest, or more
importantly, see it as valuable enough to spend the time keeping the EIS updated.

Then I noticed that most people will write emails daily, which is another
form of documenting, and not experience the same resistance.  In fact
the same person may spend hours a day responding to email, but struggle
with and resist spending 30 minutes updating information into an EIS.
Why?

That got me looking at the satisfaction curve and the types of thought
process. Stay with me, I’m not going to get technical, but emails are
completed largely because we are requesting something (the front side of
the satisfaction curve), or we are engaging in a response to another
person… again because we are in the midst of trying to get something
completed or worked out.

Documenting into an EIS doesn’t have the familiar call and response
cadence to it, and it often involves an entirely different method of
thinking… analytic thought, reflection, sorting, synthesizing and generating
a conclusion.  Boy, that sounds like a lot more work than responding to an
email, doesn’t it?  It is.  And it gets worse.

Documenting often falls on the backside of the satisfaction curve.
You’re reporting or writing up something that has already happened.
The emotional momentum is declining.

So now where are we if you’re the person in management I’m writing about?
1. You need an EIS to make good decisions,
2. You have a conflictual “dating relationship” with EIS software,
3. You avoid asking about updates because you know your people don’t want
to do them.

So now what, Mr./Mrs. manager, executive?  Even if you don’t have a formal
EIS in place, you still have a need for visibility, planning, prioritization and
follow-up.

So what happens next? I regularly see two more things… are up still reading?:

1. Most people in management are extroverted, so they engage in talking,
meetings, and more talking.  From a Myers-Briggs perspective, extroverts
need to talk to think (Introverts usually need quiet time to think).  Talking
becomes the informal EIS system.  The EIS system becomes dependent
on talking and memory, and typically a review of financials.  That’s it.  Why
update when you can talk…  or

2. Instead of engaging in more talking, executives update their EIS system
by “doing it themselves.”  They  shift focus (away from developing/
using an EIS system) and get busy  working on making money, rolling up
their sleeves, or getting directly involved.  Gerber would say they go back
to working “In the business“ and avoid working “On the business”
(which often requires a better EIS system) …  until the next pain point surfaces.

Bottom Line:

Everyone who is in management uses some form of an EIS system.  When
it comes to getting things done, you’ll have a better track record if you get
committed to developing and MAINTAINING a really effective EIS.   Along
the way you will run into some predictable distractions such as: the drudgery
of documenting after the fact; the substitution of meetings and talking for
a documented EIS system; and/or the tendency to just go get busy on
something else.   Or you might find that a better solution is simply to
outsource it to someone else.  Outsource the documenting, updating and
maintainenance of your EIS system.  Take a look at our Meeting Management
Service as an example.

As a coach and consultant, I’ve worked with a number of executives
on the process of “Getting it Done” given their business realities.
One of the strongest indicators I have found for predicting success…
and self  destruction, was the maturity of  their “Executive
Information System (EIS).” I think we all need one and make use
of one, in one form or another.   See if  the next couple of observations
help you get more value out of your EIS.

Think of an Executive Information System (EIS) as something that helps you
make good decisions based upon your ability to collect, process and review
information from a GTD perspective.  We all function with an EIS system,
formal or informal, whether we are in management or not.

But I’m talking to people in management in this blog, and the further up the
management chain, and the more far reaching the impact of decisions being
made, you might think that there would be more sophisticated EIS’s being used.

You might think that; I used to think that.
Think again and let’s look at why.

There certainly is a more likely chance that the executive team will have
purchased some type of EIS system.  Some way to keep track of it all. But
when it comes to actually confirming it is current and being actively used,
as Ira Gershwin penned it, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Three observations have emerged that have changed my thinking about
what’s going on in this process, let’s see if you agree.

1. First of all, what I notice about many executives is that they view/treat
Executive Information Systems they buy, like ManagePro, as sort of a
conflictual, high maintenance dating relationship.  They want it,
and yet they struggle with it.  They engage and then pull back.  They idealize
about how great it will be, and they struggle with the effort required
(hassle factor) to get people to maintain it – isn’t that built into the software?

This creates sort of a “serial dating” process with software (love ‘em &
leave ‘em, or love/hate – whichever phrase works best for you).  Each time
there’s this attraction, idealization phase in which the preson is thinking
the EIS software is going to be wonderful.  And then there’s the reality
at some point that all relationships involve work, and everyone else isn’t
as infatuated with your “new software date” as you are.  It becomes work,
and work does not in any way resemble the glamerous date envisioned
above, does it?  So it’s on to next.

This leads to part of what Joe Stangerlone noted in a recent blog, ”
According to a  recent survey, the cost of unused software on US
businesses alone is a whopping $12.3 billion a year.  Shocking, isn’t it?”

Serial dating is pervasive when it comes to management and Executive
Information Systems.  It is driven by that common whipsaw of excitement
and fantasy surrounding the new purchase, followed by the tedium of
entering data.

It’s expensive and it impacts the culture (the observing kids), where staff
get reinforced for not getting too attached.  But if you pull back the sheets,
there are two additional forces that also impact executive’s relationships
with their EIS.  I’ll cover that in a follow-up blog tomorrow.

Bottom Line:

Everyone who is in management uses some form of an EIS system.  When it
comes to getting it done, you’ll have a better track record if you get
committed to developing a really effective EIS.  However one of the forces that
stands in the way of everyone in management is the love-hate relationship
people often form with software, leading to the “serial dating” experience
and buying yet “another” package.  Is this you?  If so, it’s a pattern you’ll
want to break out of if you want to excel at Getting Things Done.

 

 Getting Things Done & Executive Information Systems: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You’re probably familiar with David Allen’s concept of the “fundamental
thought process”e.g. “What’s the desired outcome? And, what’s the next
action?”  But in this blog, I’d like to pull back the sheets and show you
something really powerful that happens in the GAP between those two
processes.

Something really powerful occurs between the idea, the opportunity, the
desired outcome and THE NEXT ACTION.  Interestingly most people
I talk to see it, but sort of miss it.  What I’ve had fun cataloguing lately,
and am going to describe, is that what happens in the GAP turns out to
be not only influential in getting things done, but also a powerful
evaluation tool or back-drop for looking at new opportunities and the people
attached to them.  Something every person who has an Entrepreneurial
thought can take advantage of.

Here goes. First off a word of warning about the desireable outcome start.
The opportunity, the innovation, the new insight, the next big thing.
Whatever words you use to describe the start, starts always seem to
share some remarkable similarities.  Let me list a couple of my
favorites:

1. A start has or paints a desireable outcome that’s incomplete.  An outcome
that you can see happening for yourself, an outcome which is only partically
defined and you and I quite readily fill in the blanks… with positive attributes,
of course.

2. Then there’s that visceral, Pavlov dog thing.  Most entrepreneurs I work
with  start “slobbering” when they come across an innovative idea or product,
or when they see some service or product gap in the market.  They can
taste it, and the more they talk about it, the more they can get themselves
and or others worked up.  “This is going to be great.  Everyone needs
this.  We’re going to rule the world, make a killing”… or fill in your own
perferred “rush” word.  It’s not just a thought, it’s got physical and
emotional momentum to it.

Ok, so we got all that heat going on, and then we get to the 2nd half of Allen’s
fundamental thought process.  What’s the next action (to get us closer to
the desired outcome)?

Here’s where it gets really interesting to me.  It almost doesn’t matter
what the next action step is. Yes I know there are good plans and bad
plans; “What were you thinking?” and really very clever action plans.
But stay with me, and take a look at the GAP between the thought and the action.

Facing the fact that innovation and new opportunities and the plans to
achieve them aren’t nearly as  tightly correlated with making money as
one would think… I have come to appreciate that often what’s most important
when looking at opportunities and likelihood of success… is what happens
in the GAP.

So what happens in the GAP between having the idea of the great outcome
and the next action step?

Exactly.

What?

What happens in the gap between the idea and the action step, is what
you want to pay attention to.  It defines others, it defines us.  It
charaterizes us, it paints our stripes.  Is a pattern, whether we jump in,
put off, focus,or focus on something else, personalize, refer, defer, forget,
obsess, etc.  You see there are all sorts of ways to fill the gap.   And we all
fill it pretty consistently with our MO (method of operation), our enduring pattern.

Guess what?  Here’s my big insight for this blog.

People will show you and me their stripes, their pattern, how they are going
to operate long term, in the first few interactions with them.  If we simply
pay attention to how they manage the first couple of gaps between ideas and
talk surrounding it… and action steps.  It’s right there, and what you get at
first, usually doesn’t change much over time.  It certainly rarely ever gets
better… in case you were wondering.

What you do in the GAP, is my best predictor for your likelihood to get
things done.  Not only is it that simple, it’s a predictive pattern that most of us
don’t vary much.

Bottom Line:

The GAP between David Allens two fundamental thoughts processes,
the outcome and the next action step, turns out to be a rich area for
observation.  I believe it is one of the best predictors for what’s going
to happen next in every business opportunity and relationship.
It’s a consistent pattern and if you pay attention and don’t ignore or
rationalize over it, you’ll find it is revealed in the very first couple of
interactions for all of us.  The good news is that it is a pattern.  It’s
not concrete.  You can change it.  However I guess that would depend on
whether or not you could get excited enough about the positive outcome
to actively engage in the necessary action steps   There’s that GAP again.

Recognition is power. Do you use it?  Do you get enough… of either?
Most of us report we don’t get enough recognition.  Watching it play out
in several interactions this week, got me thinking about recognition.  If it is
powerful, and in demand, why do most of us seem to get tripped up at
being good at dispensing it, much less  accumulating it?
Recognition Cues

So how does that work, and how does recognition relate to getting things done?
How is it that we not so skilled at using something that’s so powerful?  Why don’t
we don’t we give recognition to ourselves or others often enough?  If we all
increased the amount of recognition we provide in a genuine way to ourselves
and others, we would probably be elated with the results…  yet we miss the
opportunity.

We certainly aren’t in the dark about the value of recognition.  If you do a
quick search on the web, there are lots of links referring to the value and
power of recognizing others.  Here’s an example in real time, as you’ll see in
this appreciative blog written about the power of  recognition in response to
recognition from Citrix.

If you search on the phrase “the power of recognition” 6 out of the first 10
links are all about using recognition (as a power tool) to boost the
performance of  others.  Ah ha, that’s how it relates to getting things done.
The concept is widely known, widely written about.

OK, so we all know that providing recognition is a powerful tool in working
with others…  so why don’t we think to do it more often?  If it works so great
why do only a few actually include it as a regular part of their conversation,
their interaction style and habit with others?

In our management software, you can easily put in to-do reminders to prompt
you as a manager to recognize the work of team members, subordinates,
even your boss, but I see such entries in less than 5% of the organization’s
databases I have worked with… why?

While you’re thinking about that one, let me ask you a 2nd question, which
is the one I want to get at in this blog… “Why don’t you and I provide
more recognition for ourselves?”

We all need more recognition, we typically brighten up when we get it, so why
don’t we provide it for ourselves?  What are we… you, waiting on?

Oh… the last question gets in there, doesn’t it?
It’s about… it’s tied into the wait.

Most people aren’t adverse to giving recognition, they’re just waiting…

Waiting for what?
- for a big enough achievement, for something truly outstanding,
- for completion,
- for when they have time, e.g. their time isn’t consumed with solving problems,
- sometimes we’re not waiting for some threshold to be crossed, some rule
about providing recognition to be satisfied…
- sometimes we’re just waiting for it to  occur to us…
- then again some of us have been raised/learned to be just stingy about
handing out recognition, and have probably constructed a bunch of
internal defensive statements to prove why we should have to be more recognizing.

If you find yourself more in the waiting group then the dispensing group,
first of all think about relaxing the threshold rules before recognition can be
applied.  But most of all, think about using a cuing system to prompt yourself
to recognize… as waiting seems to the biggest obstacle to overcome in getting
better at putting this powerful tool into play for your self and others.

Here’s how recognition can help you and other get more done.
Recognition serves a double purpose.   It provides feedback that:
1. You’re doing something right, something of value, and
2. You’re doing the right things, headed the right direction, in
sync with what creates value.  E.g. recognition has a directional value to it.
Two for one – when you know that you’re doing something right,and that
you’re spending your time on the right activities greatly reduces time wasted
on unimportant tasks.

Bottom Line:

Recognition feels good.  It’s a very powerful that if used correctly can help
ensure that the right things get done. Most of us don’t give it to ourselves or
others often enough.  The biggest obstacle standing in our way seems to be a
cuing problem.  We’re all waiting until… we think to do it, or some other
threshold is passed.  Instead of waiting, do yourself and others a big favor
this week and “calendarize it.”  E.g instead of leaving it to memory, use something
like ManagePro and put in some to-dos to remind yourself to recognize yourself
and others… you’ll like the results.

Links:
Performance, Personal Branding and Follow-up

You may not believe this, you may not even see it, but avoiding the
face-plant of no follow-up is the single biggest move you can make to
avoid losing your own personal power or brand at work.  This is true
whether you are the leader or the led.  By-the-way, your likelihood to
focus on next can be your downfall when it comes to follow-up.
First let me share two quick stories, and then I’ll explain what I mean.

Story 1:  The first story (these are both true), occurred when I was in high
school.  I was in the “out of town” high school bleachers, which means they
were about 1/10 of the home side.  It was a football game with the cross-town
rivals, and during half time some guys ran across the field from the other side
and apparently tried to steal our cheer leader’s pom poms, or goose them or
something.  It was hard to tell amidst all the yelling and commotion.

They ran back across the field and one guy on our side stood up on the
sidelines and yelled to everyone, “Come on guys, we’re not going to let them
get away with that.”  He then wheeled about and began walking across the
50 yard line toward the home town bleachers.  The band hadn’t taken to the
field yet for half time, so he had an open path.  Can you picture it?

He was intent on next, looking for some justice if not vengance.  Thousands
of people in the stands staring at him didn’t seem to shorten his stride.

He did, however, forget to check (follow-up) on whether or not anyone had
heeded his call and was following him.  Thankfully apparently somewhere
mid-field this thought must have occurred to him, as he was seen peering
backwards over his shoulder, only to see no back-up.  Where are  those
legions when you need them, anyway?

He was last seen veering off to the shadows behind the goal posts on the side
of the field.  I thought, “Boy that must have been embarrassing.  Could have
been worse!”  It made an impression for the rest of my life… obviously since
I’m telling you this story.  But let’s go on to story 2, it gets better.

Story 2: I’m working with a CEO to launch ManagePro as the management
software for their business.  As we enter and exit the launch meeting with
the management team, count the number of no follow-up face plants that
occur:
1. The CEO hasn’t followed through on completing the final adjustments
to the business management design in ManagePro, so the layout looks
incomplete and not sufficient to their team.  Score one face plant.

2. The CEO starts the meeting late and leaves early, without clarifying
exit expectations, nor following up on the fuzzy expectations the next day
or the next week.  Score two for one.

3. The staff, sensing they have landed in no follow-up land, act out in
the most common three options: direct defiance, passive-non-compliance
and engaging in adolescent distractions… its a circus, but then that’s
what happens when there are no follow-ups.  I’m busy trying to not get
stepped  on by the elephants or in the stuff they leave behind.  Score
multiple face plants and counting.

It doesn’t take much skill at guessing to estimate what the effect was on the
power of that launch.  The face plants decimated the launch.  No one took
it seriously.  One person was even doing hand tricks on the side.  I’m not
kidding.

Lack of follow-up can lead to embarrassing outcomes, and to inadvertently
teaching those to whom you assign tasks, that they don’t have get it done …
at least not until you begin following-up.  Either way, the performance
outcome is not good, and what’s worse, we lose personal power, our requests
and intent lose leverage, and our respect meter slips downward.

So, enjoy my stories, but it would be even better if you and I learned not to
do the face plant of no follow-up.  It doesn’t matter how tantalizing
“Next” is, don’t skimp on the follow-up. I know this is hard for all of
us entrepreneurs, visionaires, deal guys, sales people… the list goes on.

If I could flip this in reverse, I would write it this way.  It’s very simple.
To avoid losing personal power when working with others, only assign what
you are prepared to follow-up. Maybe that will register better.  There are
any number of things to do to build your personal brand (be brilliant, be
timely, deliver big outcomes, be insightful, be trustworthy and connected),
but this is the big number one thing to avoid so that you don’t lose the
personal power you work so hard to acquire.

Bottom Line

Not following through when it comes to our own commitments, and not
following-up when it comes to tasks we assign to others, are both must-avoid
face plants that dramatically reduce the power of our personal brand.  In
fact its one of the quickest ways to lose power and teach others to disregard
what you request.  Do yourself a favor, only assign (to yourself and to others)
what you are prepared to follow-up.

How much does defensiveness cost?  How much does it take out of your
budget at work?  How much is it, costs and all, tolerated in your organization?

Besides defensiveness being a source of frustration for others, you might
be surprised, maybe even shocked, if I told you that I believe most
organizations would experience less of a loss if they had an increase
in internal theft of 10%, than 10% in defensiveness.

Does defensiveness really cost that much?  What if we all had a meter
that monitored our defensiveness with others and we had to pay for
the cost incurred… what would that cost look like?  A dollar a minute,
$10/minute, sometimes $1k/minute, if you’re high up in an
organization it looks like $1m or more/minute.

Can we really afford it?  Although sometimes it’s easy to point the
finger at management when it comes to assessing the cost impact of
defensiveness, defensiveness can exist at all levels of the organization.
It exerts its cost at the top and the bottom, at the decision making
and at the implementing phase.

What does defensivess look like?  It may feel frustrating or comforting,
based upon whether you are on the receiving or giving end.  I encounter
defensiveness a lot in organizations.   You may as well, if you’re responsible
for improving processes and projects.   To me it regularly looks like a
blocking function, that reduces the ability to get things done. To be
defensive is to block, not integrate new data points; to stop listening to
feedback, to block what’s uncomfortable or that which we don’t want to hear.

I run into it partly because I’m involved in presenting and deploying new
management tools and processes as part of ManagePro.  It happened
this last week.  Gourville’s research at Harvard, predicts that
people I present to, will have the tendency to over-rate the current
tools and processes they use by a 300% factor, in the process of
defending why they should stick with the status quo and the costs of
doing business in a manner that’s comfortable for them.  He also predicts
that the presenter of new ideas and processes will have the tendency
to over-rate the value and ease of the new solution by 300% if they”re
not careful.

In the situation I was in, status quo means managing by email,
meetings and paper and pencil. There’s lots of unnecessary costs
incurred with those legacy tools.  I’ve seen it run into the millions on a
given day.  Were the people who were defending, and staying with their
defended position, blocking moving ahead… costing the company money?
You bet.  Stealing?… interesting way to look at it.  Might make
everyone have a different level of tolerance for defensiveness.

Defensiveness can look like a lot of things; blocking innovation,
over-valuing the past, the current, and what’s comfortable, even
exaggerating the value and benefit of change.  In every situation
it looks like two things to me, no three:

1. It looks like a departure from being realistic and to the extent
others are prompting for more realism, not listening and arguing
with those voicing that perspective, and in so doing, blocking progress
and plugging up the works.

2. It looks very expensive.  I’ve worked with two multi-billion dollar
companies recently.  Both have people in high positions, making
defensive choices that block progress with very large, but obscured,
costs.

3. It looks undiscussable. Most organizations don’t talk about it.
In fact I’ve never run into an organization that talks about it or has any
idea of how much the tolerance for defensiveness costs their profit margin
each year.  It’s not addressed, not measured, very costly and pervasive
in many organizations.  Interestingly, making defensiveness discussable,
and directly addressing the costs, though obscure, is often the important
first step in lowering the impact and prevalence in the work place.

Bottom Line:

Defensiveness is very expensive and an all-to-often pervasive trait in the
work place.  Gourville has even quantatized the effect of defensiveness
as it relates to the introduction or blocking of new software tools.   If
we had any idea of the cost involved, if we really saw it as stealing,
I don’t think we would be nearly so tolerant of it.  Making it open for
discussion and beginning to track the cost of it are two important steps
for reducing its impact at work and the ability to get more done.

Ask about the benefits of Web 2.0 and most people nod their head.
You and I are probably nodding along with them.  Instant access to
information, to people, to availability, to chat, to videos…  it’s all great
at helping us find the information we need to get things done.
But what about access to more profit?  What?  You didn’t keep nodding?
Keep reading.

McKinsey published a recent study, really a survey, polling organizations about
their use of Web 2.0 and its benefits.  In this article, The rise of the networked
enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday, they found widespread reported
benefits from using Web 2.0.

The benefits were clustered around internal efficiency and getting things done,
customer related purposes and working with external partners and vendors.  
Increased access to knowledge and decreased cost of communication
were routinely cited as the most common benefits.  But the interesting thing to me,
is how many organizations tied Web 2.0 into making more money.    Take a
look at one of their charts.

Do you see what’s last on the list in each category?
What 76% – 84% don’t get, don’t see, didn’t experience?
It’s the correlation between Web 2.0 and an increase in revenue,  in profit.
And unfortunately, the correlation with innovation is almost as bad.

Wouldn’t you think having better access to knowledge would be
tied more closely to things like revenue and number of new innovations?
Why aren’t they?  What’s missing for most organizations who completed
this survey?  What’s missing for you and me?

I mean why use all this Web 2.0 cool stuff at work if it doesn’t help you
make more money?   Well there might be  a number of reasons, and just
because we can’t see a correlation, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  But if
you step outside the box a little, you might even consider that using Web 2.0
could be related to making less money, even being less innovative.  I know,
sacrilgious.  But hang in here with me for a  couple of more thoughts and
one suggestion, before you make up your mind.

I think there’s a very interesting clue about the relationship between
Web 2.0 and profit and innovation.  First of all, when it comes to focusing
on what will drive profit, versus what you and I likely do when we come
to work each day, what do we actually focus on each start of the day?

I would bet that you and I don’t naturally or easily know what
will drive profit, create the absolute most value, or any similar
value proposition.  In fact I see the following three drivers commonly
shaping our focus and our behavior:

Avoiding Pain – That’s in part why we all check the calendar and email
first thing each morning, we want to avoid missing a meeting or a to-do,
a request from a boss, an embarrassing moment…

The Comfort of Familiar – Much of what we fall into looks suspiciously
like we are engaging in familiar actions, actions that fulfill our job roles,
but perhaps only have a vague tie to profit or innovation, but… get this,
often have a strong tie to communication.

What’s Next – This is the third common driver I see, whether it’s picking
up on unfinished projects from yesterday, or responding to what’s in your
inbox, or going through the paperwork on your desk.

Guess what? Web 2.0, with its increase access to people, to meetings, to
more requests, to more information on what’s getting done by everyone
else,  actually seems to add to the distraction capability of the three
drivers listed above.   In terms of attention cues, Web 2.0 is like drinking
out of an even bigger fire hose.

So back to that question (remember I promised a suggestion)  on what’s
the best thing I can do right now to create the biggest value, the most profit…?

My suggestion is to hang on to that question very tightly.  It will serve
you well.  Plaster it all over your mind, reference it regularly, not your
inbox.  If you’re not sure, use the old fashioned approach of asking your
boss, your colleagues, your customers… what would the answer to that
question looks like from their perspective.  Then use Web 2.0 as its
applicable… just a thought.

Bottom Line:
Web 2.0 tools and capabilities continue to grow and become better
integrated into the work experience.  They improve access to knowledge
and information, and reduce the cost of communication, but for the
majority are not tied to improved profit and innovation.  When
it comes to profit and innovation, Web 2.0 can actually be a distraction
if not managed well, a distraction from you and I can do to create value…
but then again who asks, “What can I do to create the most value today?”

Links:
Tips to Up Your Game
The 30 minute appeal