For the purpose of this blog, let’s just call your information system EIS, and whether it’s a notebook you write in, your task list on a pc, or a full blown information system that pulls data in across multiple sites and sources, it represents something that helps you make decisions based upon your ability to collect, process and review information. We all function with an EIS system, formal or informal, whether we are in management or not, but the quality varies wildly.

Since everyone wants to make good decisions, or at least would like to avoid the consequences of bad decisions, wouldn’t we all want to have a really good EIS?  I mean who doesn’t want to be successful, avoid being frustrated, make more money, live the dream… whatever that may be?  And to do that you have to make good decisions.  In fact often, you have to make better decisions than your peers.  Whoops.  Was that a challenging thought?  Actually I’ve got a few more for you, there’s some interesting twists and turns to be navigated and road blocks to be avoided to improve your EIS.

Challenging Thought Repeated:

Everyone has an EIS, but most people’s EIS are compromised.  That’s right, your EIS and mine could use some improvement.  Maybe a lot of improvement.  New information get’s blocked coming in all sorts of way (we weren’t looking so didn’t see it, we think we already know so we forgot to ask or look again, etc.), with the result we don’t make the best decisions possible.  That means most of us need to upgrade our EIS to improve our decision making, and that also means you typically need to make better decisions than your friends, co-workers, your family.  So you have to leave your comfortable reference group and your own history behind sometimes, but that’s not the only challenge to getting a better information management system.  You see along  the way to building a better EIS you are going to run into some predictable obstacles that you need to overcome, 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.

Documenting… isn’t that close to Dieting?

It never fails, documenting gets about as many groans as the idea of dieting.  Sort of a bad tasting combination of deprivation and boredom.  I’ve already blogged about the nemesis most people run into when trying to get others to participate via documenting in their EIS at work.     But the bottom line, is that if you want to improve your information management system, you’ve got to learn to require of others and yourself that the critical thinking process and results get’s documented.  There’s a whole set of reasons for this, you can learn more about the mystery of the documenting grind at this BLOG.

Attraction Isn’t the Same as Commitment

Another common detour to avoid when upgrading your EIS is to think that attraction to the idea will carry the day.  It won’t.   First of all, what I notice about many executives is that they view/treat  the EIS 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?    If you want to know more, I talk about that and the similarity to dating patterns in this BLOG.

Ok, ready to get to connection between EIS and belly fat and your garage is?  Me too.

Let’s start with your garage… a little less personal.

Do you ever confuse the purpose of your garage and its organization?  Come to think of it, that sounds like a potential marital dispute.  Back to the point.  Hopefully you realize the purpose of your car is to house your vehicle.  As long as you can drive it in and park, your garage has fulfilled its primary mission, whether its a mess or not.

Here’s the point, some people confuse the mission of their EIS with organization.  Don’t look around, it could be you.  You know the feeling of satisfaction of having everything organized, folders set up in Outlook, color coding somewhere else, new labels on your file folders.  Ok, ok, you get the point, right?  Organization is a secondary feature its not the main purpose of your garage or your EIS.    The purpose of your EIS is to make good decisions.  Now being organized can help, but it isn’t the primary determiner of having an effective EIS.  You need to be accurately tracking the right information, and that usually involves metrics, but I’ll get to that in a second.

Let’s turn to belly fat.  This is a good one.

Most of us have a few pounds around the middle that we wish we didn’t, me included.  But as you read this, your belly fat is going to do two things really helpful for you as we are thinking about your EIS.

1.  Belly fat, like a compromised or not very effective EIS, only exists because we allow it.  The pain/gain ratio doesn’t seem worth the effort to fix it.  So for the next month, every time you feel chagrined about your belly, I’d like you to take that energy and transfer it to the pain/gain ratio of committing to getting your EIS finely tuned and really effective.  It has a much better chance of making you more money.  You can deal with your belly in June.  See you probably already feel better reading that, right?

2. Ok, so we’re going to work on your EIS, not your belly this month.  What do we need to do next?  Most people manage belly fat by regularly looking at the scale.  This the best point of the whole blog, so get this.   Monitoring your scale does about as much to remove belly fat, as monitoring your financials does to improve your P/E ratio.

What?  Yes, to have a really effective EIS you need to measure and track what drives your outcomes just as much as you tracking your outcomes.  

Ok, got that?  So in order to have an EIS that helps you make better decisions, you need to track and measure the kind of information that contributes to your decision process.  Your EIS is drastically incomplete if it doesn’t have metrics and assessment of trends that will drive your ultimate outcomes.  Let me be more specific, here’s a couple of suggestions for what to track in your EIS to make it really valuable, especially at work:

1. Make sure your EIS tracks in a measurable way your top 3 outcomes.  Find a way to measure it, and do it monthly.  And when you measure it monthly, write a summary comment about why you think the metric is what it is.
2. Go down a level and track what the top two drivers are that influence each top outcome.  This ensures you’re looking at the right information.  If sales are one of your top outcomes, make sure you are tracking at least two variables that drive sales.  Your information system suddenly gets much more effective at helping you make the right decisions.
3. Make your organization really simple and use search to find stuff, instead of getting super detailed about labels for everything.  Last time I checked, labels don’t make anyone more money or help you reach your dreams.  David Allen’s “Get it Done” system just uses Active and Deferred.  Let the EIS software do the rest of the work for you.  In ManagePro I group things under a simple, topical outline structure and use Search for everything else.

In closing, check out the video below for a discussion about how to avoid these common detours to gain the benefits of getting things done and making better decisions based on the most up-to-date information.  But most of all, remember that adding regular tracking and metrics to what’s important is a huge boost to the value of your EIS.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the blog.  Quick, now what was that again about belly fat and garages?

Getting Things Done with Executive Information Systems

Let me give you a little bit more context.  Last week I was sitting in a
meeting in Redmond, working on a project with major technology players.
It was an all day meeting.  The kind you fly everyone in for, and costs lots
of money.  And you probably guessed it from the title, but yes, we used a
spreadsheet to review “all” the relevant data and discussion about next steps.

And I was thinking this is such a waste; I’ve got to write about this…
maybe to purge my soul – but hopefully to help  you avoid this common
practice.  I’m putting the headings in green, because they all represent
dollars down the drain.  Ok, here we go.

1. No History - when you use spreadsheets to present information, it
inevitably is a snapshot.  Hopefully a current one.  The problem is you
can’t very well see what the spreadsheet looked like last month, or the
month before that, and even if you could locate them to pull up, you
don’t easily see trends without having the trend data in view in one screen.
So you go back to relying upon memory for what happened last month
and the all important “Why did we get that result?” question.

What’s that phrase about those who don’t learn from history are bound
to repeat it?  Must have been talking about reviews based upon spreadsheets.

2. No Context: Speaking of the “Why?” question, data in spreadsheets
may have a comments column added to it, but most of the time there’s
little explanation  for what’s displayed in the columns.  If something is
ahead or behind, there’s  no clear explanation of “Why” that is recorded.
So that get’s handled verbally,  which of course doesn’t get recorded,
so it’s mostly lost when you go to meet next time.  Data without context
is worth less, and always risky in my book, since everything is open to
conjecture and that means conversation and posturing… more time waste.

3. No Follow-up: The typical conversation about data displayed in a
spreadsheet eventually generates some to-dos, or action items or what-ever
you call them at your office.  Guess what?  They typically don’t get recorded
in the spreadsheet.  If they did they would have to get transferred some-
where else to make follow-up easy (read happen).  Actually I notice that
mostly stating, but not recording to-dos coming out of the meeting makes
people feel temporarily comfortable that someone took on the responsibility
to do something, not that anyone is going to actually follow-up.  In the
meeting I’m writing about, I notice we hit a couple of key to-dos that were
the same ones agreed to almost a year ago.  We also came up with two
next action steps, but no one wrote them down.  Would you bet on what
will happen to them?

4. Creation Expense: Someone has to create these spreadsheet/table
presentations.  That means each one of these costs time and money to
put-together, because every spreadsheet starts out blank to begin with.
In this case I’m sure it took the executive presenting more than
a half day to research and create the spreadsheets used.  There really
are better uses of time, and easier ways to pull the data together in
a few minutes, not hours… so let me give you an alternative.

First of all I think of information as recycle-able, something you
leverage.  Are you with me?  I want to manage information, to record
it,  to display, to analyze it… all in such a way that it’s reuseable.
That is, I want to put it in one time, but have it be available for multiple
purposes, all without having to create new documents for every purpose.

You’re never going to get there if you manage information in spreadsheet
tables.  You won’t get there if you manage by email, because it’s just
another form of the same problem.

This is why I use ManagePro… why I’ve been using it for 20 years.
It’s one solution for dumping in all the information I have
to manage, and then reusing it for 101 purposes. And that can
range from having the information at your finger tips to answer the next
tech support call, to defining requirements and deliverables for the
next project, to mapping out strategy and scorecards.

Bottom Line:
Managing information via spreadsheets, acting as tables, is
an overly expensive, inefficient process on lots of levels.
When it comes to a general management tool for managing
information, ManagePro is a much better solution.
Take a look at this video, it says it better than I can write it, and
do yourself a favor and use spreadsheets to crunch numbers and
ManagePro to manage everything else.  Let me know if you feel the same way.

First of all, everyone’s brain’s is different.  You got that, right?  That’s no
secret.  Or is it?  Well, actually it seems to be for most of us. We spend our
day talking and writing with the implicit thought that people understand
what we are communicating,  because they think like us… well pretty much.

But actually we all have  our own way of thinking, drawing conclusions and
making evaluations, and  that definitely includes software and what we
think about it.  David Rock’s book, Quiet Leadership, does a nice job of
capturing that.  So no, everyone  doesn’t think the same, and they pretty
much need to think things through in their own unique way.

But it gets more interesting.  Remember the Quadrant I created for
people’s preference for thinking and organizing their world?  In blatant
self promotion I call it Brim’s Quadrant, you can find it in this blog.

By the way, others write about this as well.  Check out Dr. Ann Herrmann’s
“Whole Brain Thinking Model for Project Management.”

But my point is that we tend to choose or view software as valuable if it
matches up with our brain preference.  Here’s Ann’s model (interestingly
it correlates up directly with mine).  “The metaphoric model, developed
from research done by Ned Herrmann at GE, divides thinking preferences
into four  separate quadrants. A more logical, analytic, and bottom-line
style appears in the Upper Left A quadrant (Blue). The planned, organized,
detailed and sequential thinking is in the Lower Left B quadrant (Brown).
The interpersonal, emotional, kinesthetic and feeling thinking is associated
with the Lower Right C quadrant (Green).  Finally, synthesizing, integrating,
holistic, and intuitive thinking is in the Upper Right D quadrant (Red).

The colors are part of my system, a lot easier to remember, but get this;
Greens tend to like software that helps them organize their thoughts and
make presentations.  They typically don’t want something more
complicated than that.

Browns want something that tracks deadlines, and does totals.
They’re liking stuff that tracks how much time is spent, dollars used and
when’s that due date coming up.

Blue’s tend to like stuff that let’s them do larger scale planning and
analytics.   Systems, strategies and projections are all important to them.

And Reds, well they like everything to tie together and something flexible
enough that they can tie it together differently when that seems like the
best creative option.

Which color are you?  And does that fit as to what software you like, and
what stands out as differentiated to you?  Does this color system match?

BTW, check out the rest of the ManagePro release we wrote and see which
color or colors it is trying to address.

“SMITH RIVER, Calif., March 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Today Performance
Solutions Technology, LLC announces the newest release of the company’s
flagship product, ManagePro™ stating, “ManagePro™ 11 supports you
and your multi-demand work day in a brain friendly way.”

Your brain processes a lot of different tasks and incoming messages every
day, from within one workspace.  But perhaps more importantly, as David
Rock cites in his book “Quiet Leadership“, our brain is constantly pulling
together and cross relating data, making connections between incoming
data in the form of predictive maps.  Our brain likes to fit every piece of
new information into an existing map, but at the same time is constantly
getting rewired in response to everything going on around us.  “You might
even say … making new maps… is it’s favorite activity.”

That process of cross relating data, continual updating, and working from
larger patterns is exactly what software needs to do to best support your
brain.  However, most software we use does just the opposite.  Instead it
focuses on solving a particular task, but doesn’t easily connect information
across multiple purposes, adding to our information management work load.

ManagePro™ provides a single, multipurpose software workspace that
supports you and your brain in optimally getting things done.  Need to get
stuff organized? ManagePro does that.  Need to plan out a project?  It does
that.  Need to recognize someone?  It does that.  Need to work email next;
dragging them into your calendar to be worked later, and others in as
progress updates on current projects?  It does that.  Need something that
everyone can contribute and be held accountable too, so that you build
engagement?  It does that.  Need to track your strategy, link it to existing
projects, and display in score cards?  It does that.  Need something simple
enough that a Ph.D. in project management isn’t required, but powerful
enough that it can help you deliver results, not just more to-do lists?  It does
that.  Need it to make your coffee?  It doesn’t do that.

But you get the point, ManagePro covers your most common tasks, all while
leveraging the information within one workspace, connecting and updating
data throughout the day across various tasks.

Designed around how your brain likes to process information and the
psychology of high performance, ManagePro is unique in that it simplifies
and combines project, performance, task, document, strategy and recognition
management into one seamless application that delivers results.  It helps you
leverage and cross-connect information so your brain can see the big picture,
with the details only a click away.  Think of it this way: it works like your
brain likes to think, like your brain best handles information.

ManagePro grabs the tools that commonly reside in separate programs and
combines them in one app that helps: you:

• You get back in control, organized, more productive, working what’s
  priority.
• You get great transparency, accountability and follow-through when
  working with others.
• You and everyone using it get more done with less effort and less
  frustration.

Finally its display can be custom configured for each user (because we all
want to see… just what works for us), while flexibly adapting to work as
well for an individual as it does for an entire organization.”

Bottom Line: First of all what color did you guess?  If you guessed Red,
you were right.  ManagePro is structured to appeal to all the brain
preference quadrants (that’s what differentiates it), but in doing so, it brings
the synthesis component that’s always indicative of the Red or upper right
quadrant.  After reading this, you, like me, will probably see people’s
brain function behind their software choices.

Link:  Brim’s Quadrant

Engagement is sort of a funny thing, the very things that set us up to feel
disengaged, you know where you go to work because its a pay check,
doesn’t nearly cover all the things required to build engagement.  Let me explain.

First off, what kills engagement?  It’s pretty simple.  Whatever you say, it
probably has a big D word in front of it:
- Disillusioned
- Disappointed
- Dissatisfied

Typically one or more things happen in which something doesn’t feel fair.
Not feeling fairly treated, not feeling appropriately recognized, not feeling
included, not feeling like you have a voice, a say in the decision making,
not feeling like you get access to available opportunities… it all leads to one
of those D words, which translates into you feeling and acting less engaged
where you work.

Ok, we got that defined, let’s flip it.  What creates better engagement,
what builds it up?

If you look on the web, you might think engagement was based upon
recognition and reward programs.  Getting a Starbucks or Amazon gift card,
or maybe a star or an award next to your name in the software directory.
Don’t get me wrong, we all need recognition, and almost no one gets enough
of it, but come on, really, that’s the key to building engagement?  There’s got
to be more.

I had a conversation with Richard Axelrod today, the author of a book you
should read, Terms of Engagement.   He uncovers a number of myths about
engagement, reports success in a number of organizations by focusing on
the following four actions, which you would be advised to look into:
1. Widening the circle (getting lots of people involved, and having a voice)
2. Connecting people to each other, stripping away power differences
3. Create communities for action
4. Promote fairness

But let me give you something in this blog to work with, it might just be
the best paradigm shift you encounter today.

You see I don’t see engagement as one phenomenon.  It’s multi-sided, if
not separate forces that feed into what we might think of a engagement.
Take a look at this image for a second.  First of all engagement can be
thought of in 3 different perspectives and actions unique to each:

1. Engagement with others – acting in a proactive, accountable, positive
manner with others.
2. Engagement with the work product - being really involved in the quality
of work that you produce and the customers’ experience in using it
3. Engagement with yourself – working on yourself to develope genuiness,
congruency, transparency and warmth, versus walling sides of yourself of
such that people see you one way and you see yourself another.

Yes improving engagement is more than a rewards program; it’s more than
a town-hall meeting, etc, and yet it includes all of them.  Richard’s book
gives you a number of illustration and tips for working on engagement
with others and to some extent with your self.  You’ll find that
personal scorecards and close connection with the customer experience
will drive the engagement with work product.  Probably the biggest sleeper
I find in working with people is engaging with themself as source of building
engagement.  I repeat often in person, so let me repeat it here in my blog:

You can’t take people (read improve their engagement) to a
higher level without having already gone there yourself.

Bottom Line: Employee engagement easily founders through
experiences of lack of fairness, trust or consistency.  The good news
is that you can improve employee engagement across three different
channels, each with their own set of actions.  If you research engagement at
all, you will find there are terrific incentives for improving engagement.

PS. Give us a call at (877) 487-3001 if you are interesting in building
up engagement where you work, we have both the consulting services
and software (ManagePro) to help you do exactly that.

Being good at giving feedback, both positive and challenging is something
that just makes life work better, not to mention makes you and me more
likely to reach any objective, or any result we target.  As you are reading this, I
wonder what your mind associates with the word feedback.  Is it a positive
thought, a negative one, a memory of someone coming along side to help,
or perhaps someone being critical or frustrated.  There are certainly two
sides, an affirming and a  sharpening side, to feedback.  Let’s cover both,
so you know exactly what I’m talking about and how to gift yourself.

On the positive side, feedback is a welcome, even a pleasant, and yes
unfortunately, all to uncommon occurrence.  Instant Turnaround, by Harry
Paul & Ross Reck, is an excellent quick read on the value of positive
feedback, citing research that being positive and giving positive feedback:
- Improves productivity
- Improves engagement
- Improves quality of work and accountability, etc.

Actually there’s quite a bit of research and a  long list of the benefits of catching
people doing something right and praising or thanking them as Ken Blanchard
and Spencer Johnson would say in One Minute Manager.

Here’s what I want you to take-away.  Increase the amount of positives
you hand out and see what happens. You won’t be over-doing it.
Almost no one gets enough positive feedback, recognition, appreciation, or
thank you’s in their life.  Probably not you either.  Even though we now
know that there are all sorts of benefits:
1. People get more done when they get positively recognized,
2. People are more loyal to their team, their boss, their company when
they get recognized and cared about,  and that
3. Our brain actually needs positives to learn and adapt to change readily.

So how is this a gift to yourself?

Well handing out positive feedback to others, is a gift to you in lots of ways,
starting with your sense of well-being, to your health, to even your career.
Note: There’s even a Harvard Business Review study that validates that
likability trumps competence when it comes to your career path.

But being good at giving and receiving, “this isn’t working well” or negative
feedback is also a gift.  It’s essential for establishing boundaries, setting
performance goals, challenging people to operate above the defensive vs.
accountable line.

Most people I work with have a lot of fear around giving this type of
feedback and avoid it.  Don’t!  Avoid it, that is.  If you don’t give this to
yourself you won’t learn as fast, will likely prematurely limit your success,
and you’ll end up with putting up with a lot of negative stuff in life that
you’ll look back and wish you hadn’t.

Bottom Line: Get good at giving and receiving FEEDBACK.  Especially
get good at giving positive feedback, that skill comes back to you in spades,
and it makes the workplace a lot more fun and productive.

PS. Being in the software and consulting business, I get asked regularly if
ManagePro has all sorts of features, such as resource allocation, or integration
with Outlook.  Guess how many times I get asked in a year about
ManagePro’s ability to capture feedback and recognition?  Yes, you guessed
right… if you guessed Zero; yet it is directly tied to profit and engagement.
Makes you wonder doesn’t it – Food for thought.

You see, in my opinion, management is the work area that most needs an
INNOVATIVE overhaul in today’s world.

But you (you get this, right?) and I are not the only people who see this.
Check out Gary Hamel’s video on TED on the topic.  In 16 minutes he
presents some compelling evidence that our management models are
outdated, and actually stand in the way of being innovative and nimble.

His concept of reverse accountability, e.g. management is accountable
to direct reports, is a note-worthy thought.  He makes a case for front
line employees being more important (having more value) than customers
or managers.

But whether you watch the video or not, let me get you thinking by
sharing one concept I use when thinking about management innovation.

Gary suggests the classic organization we all work in, looks like a
pyramid with the top people, management, well on the top.  They are
the most valuable.

He then flips the pyramid and suggests management innovation looks
like shifting direct reports to the top, with management supporting them.

Makes sense, but then flipping or reversing the order isn’t all that
innovative.  It’s a take-off on the Servant-Leader model that has
been written a lot about.  So let me suggest something else.

Let’s assume for the  moment that this is all about value. From Gary’s
position, either the managers or the front line people are the most
valuable.  But what if value needed to be looked at much differently.

You see I think  the phenomenon of “strange attractors” in quantum
mechanics, or the model of electrons in a gravitational universe around
an atom is a much more accurate model of what the connection to value
needs to be if we are to get innovative with management.

In this model, we would all represent electrons revolving around something
in the middle.  An atom, that itself is moving and changing locations.

The big question is… What’s in the middle in most organizations?
If it’s value, what’s the ultimate value?  Yes people are employees, and
management and customers all have their relevant value.  And yes products
represent value, as does Intellectual Property, etc.

But this isn’t like the game of pin the tail on the donkey, or at least
shouldn’t be.  The goal isn’t to decide who is most valuable today.  You see
if you truly want to reinvent management you need to adopt a different way
of thinking about value.

First of all, the focus, for everyone, is to CREATE VALUE.

You see, if we are all represented as electrons, what are we revolving
around?  It usually isn’t a clear representation of what creates value.
In fact most of us only have a fuzzy connection to an abstract idea about
what creates the most value on any given day.

Instead of revolving around value creation, I think most people look like
they spend their day at work revolving around:
Their role,
A schedule,
A set of tasks,
How things are (have always been) done,
Incoming calls,
Their boss’s next request,
The next customer walking in the door…

Notice that I didn’t write VALUE.  I bet if you watched and interviewed
100 people at different organizations, less than 2% would describe what
they do as create and manage a moving mass called VALUE.

So guess what management is supposed to do?

If you truly set out to innovate Management you leave behind the power
structure and orient management to focus on the role of creating and
maintaining value.   Yes, management innovation is all about:
- Defining value, and tracking it’s changing course in the market, because it
does move,
- Helping other’s stay focused and prioritize what creates value… today
- Eliminate anything that reduces value creation and be first in line to
provide recognition for value creation.
- Continually encourage, push, challenge others to pursue and grow
the value proposition.

But then how do you do that practically?  And how do you use a
technology like ManagePro to make that possible?  Sounds like
another blog, this one has already gone long enough.  Thanks for
reading stay tuned, I’ll have the next one out soon.

#1 The first secret is that small and big companies, (and we work with
some of the biggest), all make the same mistake when things get going fast.
Perhaps you’re asking, “What mistake is that?”

Well as the pace increases, we notice there’s more time spent in commun-
ication activities.  People talk, they email, they attend more meetings, more
talk, more phone calls, pretty soon their entire day can be one
communication activity after another.  But, and here’s the drum roll….
they stop (or never start) documenting what they expect and what they
accomplished in a central place.

In fact as  we all get going faster, it’s easier not to document our
expectations much less critical details for a project, our action plan for
addressing what’s next, our summary of what just happened.  We’re think
and we say to our self if not to others, “we are too busy… don’t have time.”

And guess what, more talking and less documenting means things are going
to get done slower, painfully slower… especially  frustrating when you are
running fast.

If you add in the effect of that as your department size increases, that means
you have that many more places information can get captured, as people
tend to document in emails, their own Word docs, Excel files and who knows
where (as opposed to in  ManagePro, as a common workspace to work from).

You know what I’m talking about.  I had it happen to me today, where
someone didn’t update the password change on a major server, and they
are out today, yikes!

The consequences are painful and expensive, and unnecessary.  Hand-offs
get dropped, time gets wasted running down the wrong path, things get
surprisingly behind and over budget.  You know what I mean.

In fact you’ll probably have a better way to capture this than I have, but
the mantra in my head goes something like:

More talk, less concise/centralized documenting = more frustration and less speed.

Ok, you got that one, it’s true whether you work in a large or small
company.  So what about the second secret?  Beyond documenting
(in something like ManagePro) how else do you get more performance?

#2 Ok, so here’s the second secret. Almost everyone does better if
they use a scorecard to track their performance.   And the people who
don’t do better with scorecards… well you should be taking a second look.

Get this, the scorecards can be done on amazingly simple stuff.  We’ve seen
this boost performance by such things as simply targeting your top 5 or 10
tasks to complete each week in ManagePro.

But the secret within the secret is:
1. You need to  make the scorecards public, and
2. You need to respond to the scorecards of your direct reports, regardless
of whether they score great or poorly.

Public display generates good peer pressure, and response from your
supervisor  adds meaningfulness to the process, and it all can add up to
an amazing boost to individual performance.

When you think about it, which of the people working with you or for you,
don’t you care if they accurately understand what’s critical to get
accomplished this week?  No one, right?

And adding tracking and scorecards to the process of getting done what’s
critical adds visibility, accountability and recognition for “knocking it out of
the park”.  All the right kinds of stuff to make things happen at work.

Bottom Line:

Sometimes you don’t need high powered analytics, heavily researched flow
charts and ever more insightful power point presentations to improve
performance.  There are two powerful enhancers to every-one’s workforce
performance that are simple and straight-forward to apply.

1. Practice centralized, concise, documentation.  Document what you want,
what you expect and what happened through to completion.

2. Practice identifying, tracking and score carding what’s critical each week,
or every two weeks.

Try it out, you’ll be glad you did.

I know, maybe it sounds like a dumb question, but a majority of the people
in management I interface with actually don’t know the answer to that
question, if you watch what they do each day.

If someone were to track what you do, and derive from your behavior a
definition of how you create value, what would they write?

You see I think most people suffer from an unclear connection with what
they do that creates value, not just management, but I’m focused on
management in this blog.

If most people were paid on the value they created, as if value were widgets
that came out of a production line, that had a sales value, I’m afraid a lot of
people in management wouldn’t even know where to find the widget production line.

So what happened, that the connection to value gets lost?
Hm… good question, but I better cover that in another blog.

Let me get back on track.  Ok, so if you’re in management, what would
someone observe about value creation by tracking your behavior?

Would they think that you create value by attending meetings?
Expressing your point of view?  Being good at debating?
Having the gift of restating the obvious?  Holding court?

Or would they think that you create value by building cool looking power-
point decks for meetings, with fascinating trend lines for derivatives of
someone else’s output or lack thereof?  Or maybe you create value by
reviewing those multi-slide power-point decks.

Or maybe they would think that you create value by your email activity,
or your capacity to cc people in the dozens or hundreds because
of your position.

Is it starting to dawn on you as much as it does for me, that most of what
people do in management has very weak or non-existent direct ties to value
creation?  This isn’t good.  But then, you’ve probably already noticed this and
I’m just late to the party.

What if management gone amuck is all about losing touch with what
creates value?  Losing touch, or getting diverted by all the other stuff that
can so easily fill up our schedule, inflate our sense or importance or power…
because it’s there, at the door, waiting to intrude into your life, your time.

So quick, if this is you, and actually I think it’s all of us to some degree, let
me give you a couple of points of reference for what creates value to chew
on, and then I’ll share one of my own… because work really goes much
better when you maintain a direct connection to value creation all the time.

John Kotter, in his book New Rules, says the following about creating value:
“Success in managerial jobs increasingly requires leadership.  Leadership is
differentiated from management by the ability to produce useful change.
Management is defined as the ability to monitor organizational results versus
plans, spot deviations, and quickly get activities back on track… and

1. The number one managerial objective in most firms should be
creating a revolution
2. The goal of the revolution should be to become much less hierarchial,
bureaucratic, inwardly politically focused, and a more a flexible network.
3. Create an organization that feels and operates like a smaller business,
yet retains the resource advantages of bigness.  This means operating
with speed and simplicity, having employees feel a sense of ownership,
and orienting everyone to the customer.
4. The number one impediment to cultural change in large organizations
is a lack of urgency fostered by too much historical success and not
enough bold leadership.

Ok, that’s pretty conceptual, but good stuff.  John’s saying you create value
in a management position by leading, by revolutionizing the status quo to
continually push the organization to be flatter, more nimble (that means
everyone is more directly tied to value creation, not removed from it).
But let’s take it down one notch and get a little closer to the ground level.

Look at what the Dibachi’s say in their book, Just Add Management:
“On the basis of our experience… it’s clear that a well-functioning workplace
depends on three things…
1. Establishing a professional (accountable) work culture with grownups
in charge.
2. Following basic concepts regarding priorities, processes and measuring
progress, and
3. Always striving for transparency”

Maybe you’re noding your head, thinking I’ve got to print this out, or boy do
I wish our people acted this way, or maybe you’re thinking “I still don’t get
it, now what am I exactly supposed to do to stay in touch with value creation?”

Ok, one more cut. I’ll make this my bottom line statement.

Bottom Line: If you are in management, it is incredibly easy and
pervasive to lose touch with what creates value and get involved in
a long list of other activities. To create value in management, it
boils down to doing the following:

1. Be very clear about what creates value every day and make sure
that gets done,
2. Make sure your people are working the same value-based
agenda, as they work within their culture (the way they talk to each
other), process (the way they manage information and tasks) or
customers; and when they are not on track steer them back…
when they are on track, stay out of their way,
3. Remove obstacles for everyone who works for you.
4. Be liked for being good at providing recognition, be feared
because you hold yourself and everyone else accountable.

Time leaks.  Think about it as the process of putting in time on something you
get little or nothing back in return for.  Whoops, that’s too conceptual.

Try thinking of it in the following two ways:
1. It’s anything you do, that you have to do over, or do extra follow-up
because the first time you did it or requested it, wasn’t sufficient.

2. Time leaks are also the time it takes to re-orient.  You know, you’re focused
on a task and then someone walks in, or calls you, and after dealing with that
issue, you find yourself thinking,”Now where was I?” because you’ve lost the
flow and you now need to refocus and gear up again.

Actually, if you stop, you would probably come up with a whole list of time
leaks.  Here’s a couple that have already hit my schedule today.

- Meetings that started late and ended later.
- Having to repeat a request for the upteenth time to a direct report.
- Following up on a request because I didn’t hear or see what the status
was after handing it off.
- Having to rework an issue because someone else didn’t finish what they promised.

I bet you could easily add to the list.  In fact once you take a quick review
of your own personal time leak list, let me ask you this question:
“Do you notice any themes from your time leaks?”

I do, I bet you do as well.  Here’s the top 5 that pop to mind.

1.  Time leaks cost money.  But it’s not immediately visible money.  You
don’t actually see either time or money leaking away, but they are.

2. Time leaks are often laced with frustration. They are mini-aggravations
through the day, not joyful moments.

3. Time leaks, especially recurring ones, exist because I’m avoiding
taking some next step, often a confrontation, which will then need to
be followed by a consequence.  Time leaks are a more comfortable
choice for non-confrontation, and/or not moving to next, instead of
addressing the leak and getting it plugged on a personal process level.

4. Time leaks just seem to be a regular part of getting work done through
people.  Maybe God assigned time leaks to Adam and Eve, as part of the
reconstruction of life as having pain and frustration post garden.

5. Time leaks accompany the “easy” choice when it comes to coordinating
with others.  It’s easy to:
- pick up the phone,
- make a request in a meeting,
- send an IM,
- send an email…

None of those easy forms of requests and hand-offs generate equally
easy follow-up, hence you get back into wasting time or leaking time
following up, repeating, re-inquiring, stepping in, etc…

Funny how documenting and then reviewing what’s been posted, although,
it takes time initially, saves me a lot of time leaks after the fact.  That’s
probably why I like ManagePro so much.

Each day, I’m hitting multiple targets, yesterday it ranged from the US to
India, from Alaska to Florida, from staff, to customers, to vendors, all
around the world and I’m easily frustrated by time leaks, so it pays for me
to spend the time documenting in ManagePro and having it be the central
place I can manage all the moving parts from… because it plugs a lot of
time leaks for me.
Summary:
Time leaks.  We easily slip into accepting them as part of our regular
work life, in a way that we would never accepts leaks in other areas.
5 major themes characterize time links ranging from time is money,
albeit not immediately visible money… to time leaks are linked to the
“easy” choice when it comes to getting work done through others.
ManagePro is my personal solution for plugging the links, that and being
actively assertive and living beyond my comfort zone to address
issues, not slide by with one more follow-up or meeting.