Biz - Life Blog

In my work, I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies. I am always interested in learning how other people run their companies and how various functional managers approach their work. I’ve spent a lot of time benchmarking other companies in this effort. This has allowed me the opportunity to conduct some original research into how managers from different functions think and act. It has been a fascinating experience. The way I approached this study was to ask managers of various functions simply this, “What is the sum of 2+2?”I feel passionately that everyone in an organization needs to think and act as a general manager, not think and act exclusively as a custodian of their one or two lines on the P&L. 

     Networking is one of the most overused words in the career management/career search arenas and it is one of the least understood.
     The main reason networking is misunderstood, is that there are various stages from making your first connection up to the point that someone is truly part of your personal/professional network. Until that contact is part of your personal/professional network, they really only are contacts that need to be developed.
     A true member of your network is someone who knows you personally and professionally well enough that they are willing to stake their reputation on going to bat for you and visa versa. Meeting someone at a cocktail party and expecting to impose upon them next week to introduce you to XYZ Company, isn’t likely going to happen. If it does, your introduction will be tepid at best. Think about it. How would you react to meeting someone who immediately wants you to utilize your network to connect with them when you don’t really know who they are and how your association with them will reflect upon you?
     There is nothing wrong with finding a contact name at XYZ Company from someone you met at a cocktail party, but don’t impose on them to make an introduction for you. You then can make the introduction yourself. If the contact you make with the person with XYZ Company is successful, go back to the person you met at the cocktail party and tell them it was and thank them for the information and offer to return the favor. This begins the process of turning that contact into a member of your network.
     One of my network contacts and I were discussing this very thing the other day. He mentioned that he received a call from someone he hasn’t heard from in ten years. This person said something along the lines of, “Hey John, glad I got a hold of you. I’m now looking for a CFO position and I thought you may know of some openings.” While this person was not very smooth at making the reconnection, that wasn’t the biggest problem John had with the call. He doesn’t know what has been going on with the person for a decade now. Why should John suddenly drop everything and spend time redeveloping this connection just because this guy called looking for a favor?
     The lesson from this story is two fold. First, don’t let your network connections grow cold. Scroll through your contact manager monthly and keep in touch with people. Call them, invite them over, take them to lunch, or send them a snail mail of an article you read you thought they would enjoy.
     The second lesson is always being on the look out for something you can do for someone else first. It is much better to be viewed as someone who is a giver rather than someone who is a taker.
Real networks are earned relationships established using the norm of reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity is an interesting little study in psychology. It refers to the strong need many people feel to return a favor in order to discharge a debt. A person who is networking in the truest sense, then, is always on the lookout for opportunities to do favors for others that count as credits they feel obliged to pay back as part of the networking process.  In this sense, I guess Don Vito Corleone was the ultimate networker. 
     Brian Tracy, the noted motivational speaker and author, has a more honorable view than Mr. Corleone: “Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others,” he said. “Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
     Another key to networking is to avoid becoming trapped inside a closed loop. I’m referring here to the importance of branching out to people beyond your industry or function. Unless you do, you’ll have only a narrow circle to call upon when needed. By branching out and developing a broader network, you’ll have access not only to the contacts you made directly, but also to their contacts.
     Your external network can be derived from friends, social contacts, people you’ve met on the golf course, whatever. Everyone you meet is a potential network contact – as long as you remember the importance of looking out to find ways to help them.
     The Bureau of Labor Statistics did an analysis as to how people found their current jobs. The BLS results showed that 20% of all people found their job through a friend, relative, school/alumni contact or other personal connections. For those earning over six figures, the results were very different. 72% of six figure earners said they landed their positions through someone they knew.
     This has led to a flurry of articles and books all extolling the virtues of networking as THE way to land a six figure position. But, as a good manager, you know that understanding the meaning and context behind the numbers is just as important as knowing the actual number itself.
     While the 72% number is not wrong, I believe it is certainly misleading to promote this number as the only or the best way to find an executive level position. While my survey of executives is qualitative and not nearly at the level of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here is what I found.
Statistically speaking, if you are actively engaged in a job search, networking will only yield approximately a 30% success rate, according to detailed research conducted by Mark Hovind, founder of JobBait.com. This is because of the time frame we are dealing with, an active job search means you are looking for a job right now. The probability of you having someone in your network who knows of a six figure position that is open right now that is a fit for you is statistically low.
     Now if you are in a passive job search mode, meaning that when you uncover an opportunity you’ll look into it, but you don’t need a job right now, then 72% number is a very real.
     The point you have to keep in mind is that how well networking will pay off for you is dependent on your time frame (six months or less vs greater than 6 months) and how well you develop your personal/professional network.
     Just collecting business cards and calling as many people as possible will likely not yield the results some pundits espouse if you are not practicing real networking. You have to look at networking as a long-term strategy rather than as a short-term skill.
     If you are a novice to networking, don’t let this information get you down! It is better that you know the facts and developed a balanced job search strategy than frustrate yourself and sub-optimize your six figure job search. I also recommend that you start to develop your network NOW! Don’t confuse contacts as members of your network. Make as many contacts as possible, it may lead to job leads you haven’t heard of. And also develop those contacts into members of your personal/professional network. Networking is an ongoing activity that will serve you throughout your career, not just during your current job search.
     A friend, mentor and occasional supplier to me, Michael Allen of Allen Search (a retained executive recruiter) pushed me ten years ago to start real networking. Thanks Michael! The efforts have been paying dividends. Not just in career management but in everything from finding a great doctor to getting media outlets to return my call.
     If you are looking for a job right now, what is the statistically fastest way to find a quality job? Direct mail! It has an 85% success rate, according to JobBait.com.

Strategy is a unique game plan designed to gain a position in a specific market. It is unique because it takes advantage of a company’s specific strengths while minimizing or neutralizing its weaknesses and exploiting the weaknesses of its competitors. 

OK, “no duh”. Obviously, this is easy to say but very hard to do. Strategic development is complex because markets are fluid; they change rapidly and they change all the time. This is what the military refers to as the “fog of war”.However dense the fog, a plan does need to be developed, tested, implemented and revised as circumstances dictate. As I see it, there are six steps in developing a business strategy:
1.Development of a concise mission statement
2.Articulating a clear vision
3.Developing a hypothesis of how to achieve that vision
4.Testing and revision of the hypothesis
5.Implementing and executing the strategy (the outcome of the hypothesis)
6.Tuning the strategy as circumstances warrant. Unfortunately, where most business strategies go awry is in three areas:
1. The mission/vision development is either skipped or is so broad and full of feel good fluff that it means nothing to the employees or the customers.
2. The business jumps directly from its strategic hypothesis right to implementation. Thus skipping the appropriate due diligence that would dramatically increase the odds of success.
3. The business spends far too much time on the due diligence. Getting stuck in paralysis by analysis and thus missing out on the opportunity.

What is that one or two tasks you have to do today that turns your stomach? You know the ones I’m talking about. Those tasks that you, with all good intentions, put on your “To Do” list but they either don’t get done or you just let hang over your head like a black cloud until you finally get around to doing them late in the day.
            A few years back I was talking to a friend of mine (who also is a mentor) and lamented about one of those tasks. I don’t know why, I guess I just wanted to whine about it to someone. Everyone knows how productive whining about things can be, so I thought I would give it a try.
            Well, my wise friend said to me, “Rather than complaining about it, why not just do it now and get it over with?” I thought for a moment that he was channeling my long departed third grade teacher who tried to give me the same advice when I was 8!
            He went on to explain that he attempts to maintain the discipline of doing the one or two tasks that he least wants to do FIRST everyday. Then the black cloud parts, the sense of relief of getting it over with sets in and everything else seems easier and more enjoyable adding to productivity for the rest of the day.
            Great advice! I’ve set out to be as disciplined as my mentoring friend. I have to admit that I probably am not as good at it as he is but I can testify that it really works. Sometimes I just don’t get to the ugly tasks until mid-day or early afternoon, but when I do get it done, everything else seems better… and I regret not having gotten it done earlier in the day.
            So today, right after I post this entry, I will be doing three things that I just don’t want to do, don’t like to do and have been putting off. I can’t wait to get it done so that I can have a fantastic day!

Do we work to live or do we live to work? The answer is “both.” We need to work in order to provide for our families and ourselves. We also work for personal fulfillment. All humans need the sense of accomplishment that comes from a job well done.

Things go awry when our personal and working lives go out of balance. Not that it’s possible to maintain a state of equilibrium at all times; sometimes it’s necessary to spend a period of time highly immersed in one area of your life or the other. The operative phrase is a period of time. Let’s face it; the working world is much more demanding than it ever has been. Hours worked per week have been creeping up and days of vacation taken have been shrinking.

So what’s a person to do? To maintain balance, I recommend that you develop specific goals and priorities set around areas of your life that are import to you. Don’t just say, “I want to spend more time with my kids.” You have to be much more specific if you are going to succeed. What are your personal objectives or goals for the day, week, month or year? Are you scheduling time to focus on your family, friends, hobbies and, importantly, your health? 

I am the father of three daughters, a husband, executive, author and a public speaker. Time is a precious commodity to me – one that I take care to manage precisely.

So, for example, my wife and I actually sit down to do weekly planning together. After all, my wife depends on me to free up time for her as much as I depend on her to help me – though I have to admit she does most of the heavy lifting for the family. We also plan our two family vacations a year and get them on the calendar in January, if we can.

Sometimes the common sense, the simple approach, can be the best approach. Maintain a weekly/daily to-do list. You can do it on your computer or do it the old fashioned way – hand written on lined notepaper. Better yet, use a journal that will become a permanent time management record.

Creating the list brings some needed discipline and organization to the tricky life-work balancing act. It will become a routine exercise that will allow you to not only organize your time but – and this is important – to prioritize your time commitments. If you find yourself with more than five or six MUST-do items for a given day, chances are they’re not all must do items. As basic as this is, it’s amazing how well it works. I look at my to-do list often and try to remain focused on it. By the end of the day, I usually have the must-do items accomplished.

Keep in mind, however, that quite often your gut instinct can be a more reliable measure of work-life balance than your reasoning mind. Most of us tend to rationalize an imbalance when we look at things from a “logical” perspective. Why? Because we either don’t want to face issues in certain areas of our lives or because we’re doing what we think we should be doing according to some unrealistic standard. It pays to take a few minutes every week to clear your head, review your business and personal lives – and listen to what your gut has to say.

We’ve all endured them … PowerPoint presentations that drone on forever.

The most critical job of a manager, when you boil it all down, is communication. To be successful, a manager has to be effective in communicating one-on-one, in writing and in groups. While weakness in any of these three disciplines will compromise the ability to lead, the weakness most often seen in managers is in group communication. And it’s the most conspicuous.

Group communication can be one of a manager’s most powerful assets. When presenting to a group, he or she has its full attention – at least at the start. The trick is to keep it.

Rather than dreading presentations, managers should seek out opportunities to present to anyone in the company. The best way to develop any skill is through repetition. This particular skill also helps to increase personal and professional exposure.

Unfortunately, corporate presentations are usually either:
1. Mildly competent, or
2. Career killers

If a manager has a propensity to dig a hole for him or herself in a presentation, PowerPoint can be an earthmover on steroids. On the other hand, managers who are adept at presenting and public speaking can communicate even more effectively and convincingly with PowerPoint.

One of my near-death by PowerPoint experiences occurred during a plant review of a company that I used to work for. After touring the plant with the staff and making the general niceties with the production folks, we settled in the conference room for the homestretch … the PowerPoint presentation.

The projector warmed up, the presenter clicked on his computer, and I saw something that almost killed me on the spot – the little box in the lower left corner of the frame that read, “Slide 1 of 101”. That’s right, 101 slides!
I didn’t have the heart to pull the plug on their presentation and ask them to get to the point in 20 slides or less. The team had worked very hard to improve that factory, and they deserved the chance to relate the pride of their accomplishments on their own terms. So there I sat, contemplating forms of suicide to end the pain of nonstop listening.

All we walked away with from this presentation was that they presented 101 slides! Beyond that, I couldn’t have recalled three things they had tried to communicate to us 15 minutes later.

The Ten Elements of a Great Presentation
1. Before you do anything else, identify a maximum of three key points you want the audience to remember.
2. Determine why your audience should remember these points, so you can communicate that, too.
3. Open your presentation with the “why” in such a way that it takes no more than one minute to explain. If you can’t explain to the audience why your presentation is important to them within one minute, you’ve lost them.
4. Never forget that the audience cares less about what you have to say than you do.
5. Speak at an appropriate rate. Not too slow or too fast. And project your voice.
6. Communicate broadly through body language as well as spoken language.
7. Don’t use the podium. It’s easy to create the impression you’re holding on to it for dear life. Speakers who don’t use a podium show more confidence. Walking, talking and gesturing at the same time also is a great way to hide the yips because all the adrenaline doesn’t go to the throat.
8. Be so well-rehearsed that it doesn’t sound rehearsed. There’s no substitute for preparation.
9. Review your presentation with a trusted colleague or two to ensure it says what you think it says and is easily understood.
10. When using slides -
§       Organize your presentation so the titles of the slides alone tell the story. Any other text or charts should simply support the title.
§       Don’t overuse slide animations.
§       Never read the slides word for word. Their only purpose is to reinforce what the audience is learning.
§       Never spend more than two minutes on a slide.
§       Finally, and most importantly, prepare your presentation so that you don’t actually need any slides. If you can do that, your slides will enhance your presentation, rather than being a crutch.

I can’t emphasize enough that if you want to succeed as a leader, you must master the art of group presentation. If you just aren’t comfortable with it, there is only one way to cure your discomfort… do as many presentations as possible! Comfort and controlled self-confidence will only come from experience. The more you avoid developing your presentation skills, the heavier this anchor will become on your career.

Take a course, join Toastmasters, or buy a video/CD on the subject. Start with easy small group presentations and continue to work your way up until you are comfortable regardless of how many people are in the room.