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From GRS: 5 Career Moves with Exponential Returns

mikelally — Mon, 30 May 2011 22:13:10 +0000

I am a big fan of the site: Get Rich Slowly. The other day they ventured into career territory with a post from April Dykman (I like her bio): Five Career Moves with Exponential Returns. If you earn and spend money you should be reading GRS. It has helped put me and my wife (and family) on a MUCH better financial path.

Anyway….love the tips here.

Send out hand-written thank you notes on nice stationery. I still have the last one I received – from Jen Sertl.
Invite a mentor out to lunch. Yes! And I need to do this. I realized the other day that I have been lax in following my own preachings.
Keep your resume current. Seriously, if I have to tell you why you need to do this please leave now and don’t come back.
Keep a brag folder. I like this one because its not included in lists typical of this nature. April points out: “keep positive notes, e-mails about a job well-done, and kudos from your boss, and file them away in a folder.” Do it. Refer it. Often.
Read an industry-related book. Love it. Or a magazine or a journal. Keep current. You have to keep feeding your brain. Don’t get stuck.

April goes on to remind us that we are the CEOs of our selves. Indeed. Thank you.

I am in the woods. I don’t know how to get out just yet. But at least I know I am in the woods.

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Books: As You Think/As a Man Thinketh

mikelally — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:11:21 +0000

I just finished reading James Allen’s As You Think. Originally published in 1904, this is one of the original self-help books. Although I go to Ben Franklin. I think I am going to re-read the Autobiography as a matter of fact.

Anyway, you can get through this book in an hour or so. In a nutshell – there would be no “The Secret” without James Allen. This is the “power of positive thinking” – “positive mental attitude” – “positive visualization” and whatever else you’ve got.

He gets a little carried away when he starts talking about health. If you think healthy thoughts you will be healthy. If not, you will get some horrible sickness and die. You could probably rip those pages out of the book and not miss them.

Otherwise, a very solid book. An easy read. Very good for a “tune up”. I’ve been involved in a lot of change recently which always breeds uncertainty. I found this work to be comforting. It helped me focus my thoughts. I think it helped me maintain a positive focus.

If you are on a path of self-discovery, this should be in your library (or on your kindle).

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A Million Miles In a Thousand Years

mikelally — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:31:26 +0000

This is a work that does not just get “under your skin” – it gets into your cells. It becomes a part of you. And it starts to gnaw at you. Slowly. Quietly. Patiently. But it is always there – you fully absorb it.

The background. Donald Miller wrote a very successful book. Then wrote others that weren’t so successful. He was asked to help create a movie about his life story. A Million Miles…chronicles that process/journey.

He realizes that he does not really LIKE his life story and sets to writing a better story for himself.

In many ways, this book is the classic hero’s journey. It is the mono-myth. It is the call to “follow your bliss”. Joseph Campbell, in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces captures this all brilliantly. Myths from all times and places essentially tend to contain all the same elements. From Campbell:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

I thought I would show you a graphical representation of the hero’s journey:

Miller embarks on such a journey. This is a book about his change process. It is about coming to the realization that there simply has to be a better way for him to be leading his life. It is about coming to the conclusion that he is not happy and then systematically making changes. Gradual changes.

But those changes are part of his journey. Miller follows the classic steps of the journey. He gets helpers in the guys who help him write the movie. Not to mention help from Robert McKee, the great Hollywood teacher of screen writing.

There are challenges, He goes through the rebirth process. I would argue that there is even a re-baptism of sorts. Anytime there is water involved in part of a growth process, I always go to baptism. It is classic. He has revelations. I don’t know if he “atones” – but there is certainly a transformation. He makes the changes he wants to make.

This is a very inspiring book. I recognize myself in the early pages.

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Book Review: Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”

mikelally — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:36:54 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed – in the last 30-50 years – the world has moved on. This has been made very clear in the last 3 years or so where the U.S. has gone through the worst financial crisis since the depression. The way we work has changed.

You can’t be a cog in the machine any more. Godin, urges us to be linchpins. Artists. He borrows heavily from Stephen Pressfield’s “resistance” – that force of nature that holds us back, makes us second guess ourselves.

I’ve recently gone through a process of interviewing people for a position I have open. It hasn’t gone well. Rochester, NY was once the home of such GIANTS as Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch and Lomb. These companies are no longer giants. They are mere shells of their former glory. They grew a culture of entitlement. If I stay at Xerox for 20+ years as a project manager making $100+k a year but never actually DOING anything – all is great. But enter 2008 and the economic collapse. Guess what – you’re not worth $100+k a year. I can find someone better for half that amount.

Harsh. But true. Seth, as always, is here to help.

For Godin, linchpin means being an artist. To relate it to Pressfield, I think linchpin=artist while professional=artist therefore linchpin=professional. In a VERY strict sense of the word. Getting up every day, getting your tool bag, punching the clock and creating masterful work. These are the things Godin is encouraging. Showing up isn’t enough.

The system taught us and encouraged us to just show up, keep our heads down and we will be rewarded. And that worked pretty well until globalization really started to kick into gear. Showing up isn’t going to get it done. Because for every one of you there are 5 people in Chennai and another 5 in Shanghai and another 5 in Brazil that got up before you and are better educated and are figuring out, as you sleep, how to do your job better and cheaper.

This is just one of those books. You should read it. You should read Godin’s “The Dip” right after. These two books go hand in hand.

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Zen Habits – Smile. Breathe. And Go Slowly.

mikelally — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:46:14 +0000

Zen Habits offered up a brief guide to life on Monday. You may consider this a little off topic for this blog. I will argue. Part of being a good leader is finding balance.

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

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Running A Successful Turnaround: Final Thoughts

mikelally — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:29:34 +0000

I have been working on a series of posts detailing my thoughts on how I would fix or turn around a business operation. We’ve talked about financials, how to get a handle on your customers and understanding youremployees in an effort to get them more engaged, and finally, we talked about processes.

When you walk into a situation that requires immediate improvements, you have to start the triage process almost immediately. Michael Watkins will tell you to wait 30 days of your first 90 days. I’m not sure I have ever been afforded that kind of time.

I like to get my hands around data quickly. If the data I want isn’t currently being collected, the first step is to begin the process of pulling it together. This is always coupled by what the military folks are calling HUMINT. Human Intelligence. Talk to everyone. Make sure you are getting the raw feed so to speak. Make sure it isn’t filtered by management.

You need both facts and data and the human take on things. You can make data support your assumptions. By the way, try not to have assumptions. Try to begin with an open mind. Let the stories unfold.

I like the term “Key Performance Indicators” or KPIs. I want to see

Financial KPIs:
Revenue
Operations Costs
Profit
Contribution Margin
DSO. Days Sales Outstanding.

I also would want to see the standard balance sheet/cash flow reports. But I am trying to take this from a purely operational point of view. You may not have access to the big picture. You can only control your own environment.

I want to see financials reported by customer. I want to see them reported by team. You will gain knowledge from those two views. We want to know our most profitable customers (not necessarily the customers bringing in the most revenue). I want to know who is COSTING us money. Because we may want to fire them. Gently, of course.

Customer KPIs

I know. I originally said 6 questions. Its 7. Those questions are:

1. Courtesy of the Whomever You Interact With Most Frequently (support person, billing, customer service, field service, delivery person, sales person, account manager, CEO)

2. Skills and Knowledge of Whomever You Interact With Most Frequently

3. Quality of the Resolution

4. Timeliness of the Resolution

5. Overall Experience

6. Additional Feedback – open ended feedback

7. Net Promoter Score. “Would you refer us to someone else?”

Day 1 – every customer gets these questions. Then quarterly. Sometimes monthly. Track results.

Employee KPIs
Two sets of feedback here. Sit down with everyone. One on one. Ask them 3 questions:

What are we doing well?
What are we doing poorly?
If you could fix one thing right now, what would it be?

When you have a good percentage of the people interviewed. Start listing action plans on things we are going to fix. FOLLOW THROUGH. Seriously, if you don’t follow through, just stop reading. Go play Farmville.

The second piece is more formal – quantitative. Employee Satisfaction Surveys. Everyone can groan now. Again…short and simple. 5 questions and a section for feedback. NOT ANONYMOUS. I hate anonymous.

1. In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
2. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
3. Do I have a best friend at work?
4. In the past 6 months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
5. This past year, have I had the opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Process KPIs/Production

You have to roll up your sleeves and understand what is happening in your operation. Your KPIs will vary here – each team will have a different set of productivity measurements. Sales will have contacts converting to leads and leads converting to sales. Support will have first call closure (number of times a customer has to re-contact you on the same issue). Every unit should be tracking their local version of the company focused numbers: Revenue, Profit, Contribution Margin, ESat, CSat, DSO.

I just watched a show that follows the New York Jets (football) around through Training Camp. The first episode starts out with the head coach, Rex Ryan, listing the teams goals for the season. WIN MORE GAMES THAN ANYONE ELSE. The defense’s goals for the year: WIN MORE GAMES THAN ANYONE ELSE. The special team’s goals for the season: you guessed it. I love the singular KPI. The One Number.

Another handy tool I forgot to mention in the process post is a SWOT analysis. You may even want to bring in someone from the outside to facilitate this activity. I’ve found that bias can certainly creep in. You can steer the analysis to support your theories. Facts and data people. Facts and data.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts. It has been very interesting for me to go through this exercise. I am sure I will have reason to edit and modify as time marches on. Please discuss in the comments. Ask questions! I will be happy to take a shot at answering.

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Running A Successful Turnaround: Process Improvements

mikelally — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:25:13 +0000

I have been working on a series of posts detailing my thoughts on how I would fix or turn around a business operation. I would take a stab at a scenario an MBA candidate/intern threw at me. So far we have talked about financials, how to get a handle on your customers and understanding your employees in an effort to get them more engaged.

Today we will talk about processes. Specifically understanding your processes and then applying continuous improvement to those processes. For those just joining, our hypothetical situation is a manufacturing operation that is in need of being turned around.My background is service operations. I have spent a lot of time in call centers in the financial services, telecom, and BPO industries. I’ve run customer service, technical support, inbound and out sales operations – you name it, I have the t-shirt.

Along the way, I picked up a very large helping of quality process management. I’ve gone through an ISO certification (and passed). I’ve been through a New York State Governor’s Award application process (it’s the state level Malcom Baldridge and we came in second). I’ve embraced and almost implemented COPC standards (call center six sigma).

I want to know how long it takes us to produce the widgets. I want to know how long it takes to ship the widgets. And I want to understand how long it takes us to support the customers buying our widgets. The current quality fad is Lean. Fine. Whatever. It goes back to Drucker. Total Quality Management. Six Sigma. ISO. All essentially the same stuff. All result in a quality framework. We can get what we need without spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on a “quality initiative.”

Coming from the land of technical support – any time someone was working on ANYTHING, they needed to be in a support ticket. Assigned to a customer. With the clock running. The same principles apply to production. Where do we have defects? Where do we require re-work? How long does it take?

I want to see rolled up reporting, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. How many tickets, top 10 issues, AGING of tickets. The same principles apply to production. Where do we have defects? Where do we require re-work? How long does it take?

The big tool here is doing root cause analysis. And, really, that is what this whole series is about. Figuring out why your business is struggling and setting it on a better path. RCA is actually very simple, but you have to be honest and authentic. You have to eliminate assumptions. Assume nothing! And the best thing about RCA is that you can do it without doing math.

A great tool for identifying root cause is the 5 Whys. Get yourself a fishbone diagram. (there are templates for word and excel off that link.) And start working through each situation. Do it in groups. And I don’t mean groups of managers. Again – USE YOUR TEAM(s). Don’t do this around a big conference table with your managers. Go to the floor. Talk to the people DOING the work. Better yet, get a cross-functional team going. You will be amazed at what 3 people from different business units come up with.

You may have to do some brainstorming. Don’t roll your eyes at me! It works. Sometimes you have to help people shake the cobwebs off. Sometimes you have to help them make the transition from step by step process thinking to stepping back to a broader view. Get yourself a whiteboard and start drawing the mindmap of the brainstorming session. You will quickly get to cause and effect relationships.

So there you go. Get your non-manager people together. Give them some tools. And let them have at it. Don’t be afraid to use your fancy watch and do some simple time studies. If it takes you 20 minutes to enter an order while the customer is on the phone – you have a problem. If your widget making machine is down for an hour out of every 8 hour shift you probably have a problem. (I can’t say for sure, maybe that is normal.)

Next time, I will wrap this series up with some final thoughts. I hope this is proving beneficial. Please leave a comment or tweet this out into the internets!

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Jason Fried: Why You Can’t Work at Work

mikelally — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:29:09 +0000

I really enjoyed this video from Jason Fried of 37signals fame.

He explains the farce that is the modern workplace. Where no work actually gets done. This is well worth the six minutes of your time. Fried is a visionary.

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Running a Successful Turnaround: The Employee View

mikelally — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:05:50 +0000

Its all about ENGAGEMENT. TP is a huge fan of employee engagement. Go figure – so am I. An engaged employee is a productive one. I read an article recently (can’t find it) that said U.S. working population is 26% engaged, 55% not engaged and 19% actively disengaged. in your 40 person shop, 20+ could care. 8 of your people are actively trying to screw you up. Are you listening now?

Oh…and those 8…they aren’t who you think.

I like a two phased approach coupled with a very strong helping of genchi genbutsu or MBWA (Management By Walking Around). Get yourself seen. Have breakfast with people. Have lunch. Fruit roll ups. Just do it. Then, the first step is to sit down with everyone and just talk. The second stage is to do a formal employee satisfaction survey. Depending on the size of the team, you may not get a chance to sit with everyone. But you can devote 30 minutes to each interview.

I love Capt. D. Mike Abrashoff (ret.), who wrote an EXCELLENT book on leadership -It’s Your Ship. (This is a great book for new leaders by the way.) Mike lays out a very simple plan in this book that has served me RIDICULOUSLY well over the years.

3 questions.

What are we doing well?
What are we doing poorly?
If you could fix one thing right now, what would it be?

Short and simple. The best part about this process is that once you have a decent sample size, you will know the top issues facing your team and you will have some pretty good ideas on how to fix them.

From a process perspective it is pretty easy. Gather everyone together and tell them you are going to meet with them individually. It is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to them and put them at ease. You don’t want to just start randomly calling people into your office. (Although – that tactic has its merits.)

From the long term approach – start conducting Employee Satisfaction Surveys. A long time ago I referred to a great set of questions that really get at Employee Engagement – the 12 Questions That Matter:

In hindsight, twelve questions seems like a bit much. Some of them are a bit redundant. Here are a solid 5 to get you started:

4. In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
9. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the past 6 months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This past year, have I had the opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Number 10 stays because there is a lot of research on the benefits of having a best friend at work.

5 questions and then leave room for feedback. And I hate anonymous surveys. They are pointless. Guess what though…if people aren’t comfortable filling our your employee survey and attaching their name – YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

You are not going to get all your answers the first time you do one. But that is ok because you’re already doing the 3 Question meetings. Do the E-Sat quarterly. You could do them monthly if you like but quarterly has worked for me. You have to be consistent. The WORST thing you can do is drop this survey on your people and then not do another one. Actually, the worst thing you can do is conduct the survey and not follow up on the results.

You have to be very clear in communicating your intent. That is: you want to make things BETTER. Make YOURSELF accountable to action items created out of the survey. And do it publicly. You have to share the findings. You have to share the actions you plan to take to correct problem areas. You must be c-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-t. You must be patient. It takes a bit of time to build trust.

You could deploy this survey using the 5-scale or the 3-scale. In a 5-scale, you can look at Strongly Disagree-Disagree-Neutral-Agree-Disagree. Only the top two boxes matter. That is why I can say go with a 3-scale:
Disagree-Sometimes-Agree. And then only count the “agrees”. Just seems simplier and eliminates ambiguity.

Our next installment will talk about Processes and continuous improvement.

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Running a Successful Turnaround: The Customer View

mikelally — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:39:47 +0000

Last week, I started as series of posts detailing my thoughts on how I would fix or turn around a business operation. Inspired by a promising MBA student that is doing an internship with us, I thought I would take a stab at a scenario she threw at me. Last week-ish we talked about financials.

This week, let’s talk about getting a handle on your customers – specifically their level of satisfaction. A few years ago I linked and commented on a great approach to customer satisfaction (csat). The original article talked about the 5 csat questions you will ever need but it was service operation focused. I think the questions are still very relevant and can be used in almost any business.

It is really 5 questions and a 6th which asks for verbal feedback. I also throw in another question – a net promoter score question. So really….7 questions. Here they are (in order of importance):

1. Courtesy of the Whomever You Interact With Most Frequently (support person, billing, customer service, field service, delivery person, sales person, account manager, CEO) – Your customer deserves and and expects to be treated in a courteous/professional manner. If you are scoring poorly here you need to make sure you have communicated the absolute importance of service and satisfied customers to your team. You may also need to specifically train customer service and customer experience skills.

2. Skills and Knowledge of Whomever You Interact With Most Frequently – While a courteous employee is nice, it won’t make a bit of difference if they can’t solve the customer’s issue. Your customers want confidence in the employee’s skills and knowledge to resolve the issue at hand. This is the best way to measure your team’s skill and knowledge level. Weaknesses here go back to the hiring and training process.

3. Quality of the Resolution – Again, courteous and knowledgeable employees are really nice to have, but they need to be actually addressing customer needs/questions/issues. Customers calling back for the same reasons over and over again is a customer that is going to churn on you.

4. Timeliness of the Resolution – Time is money! Fix your customer’s problem the first time they call. Two things happen if you don’t: you drive up your total cost per incident and you irritate your customer’s…see churn above. This is a process problem. Break it down step by step. No step is too small. Trouble lies in the handoffs.

5. Overall Experience – This is really the weighted average of the first 4. Keep in mind that customers will weigh each of the above differently. If you have a low score (bottom two boxes out of 5), CALL THAT CUSTOMER AND BEG THEM TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU CAN DO BETTER!

6. Additional Feedback – always, always, always allow your customer to give you open ended feedback. Let them vent. Not only will they tell you what is wrong (and right if you are lucky) they will tell you how to FIX IT.

Additionally, I have become a fan of the net promoter score. Net Promoter basically asks one simple question – “Would you refer us to someone else?” You take all the people that say yes and subtract all the people that say no and you end up with your score. It makes for a great measurable. And it is easy to create goals from it. If you’re NPS is 55 – set a goal to increase it to 60.

Ask these questions to your customers as soon as you get into your turnaround. Then do it quarterly. Track and compare results. If you have a lot of customers, you can outsource this task. If you have a manageable number of customers, keep it in house. If you have a handful of customers, you should be doing this yourself, on the phone or in person.

Each of the top 5 questions should get a scale of 1-5. 1 being completely off the rails broken and 5 being Superbowl win. I would label the boxes specific to each question. For example: Courtesy of the person would be a scale of Christian Bale/Mel Gibson to Miss Manners. Or you could let HR rule the world and do a scale of 1 to 5. If you do 1 to 10, then top two boxes are good. I like 1 -3 – easier to get through and eliminates ambiguity.

Ideally, every customer gets some kind of sponsor. Positive responses should get a follow up of thanks. Negative responses should get a follow up to work through the issues. It doesn’t even have to be an “executive” sponsor. In fact, you could kill two birds with one stone here….you can find out which of your employees are engaged too. (See next week’s installment.)