Diamonds to You

“June is bustin’ out all over …”  Hopefully some of you remember that song.  I feel as though it’s true for this June as well.  So many things are happening – in so many different directions, it’s hard to know where to start.  I guess I need to start by saying, it was a busy month for my computer guru Pete as well.  He just returned from vacation and so this June issue isn’t getting out until the beginning of July.  We apologize.

I’m happy to report to you that I am ghost writing a book for a Professor and former CEO.  I can’t tell you more about him because than I’d cease to be his “ghost.”  But, he is a prolific writer on management topics and so he asked me to take his material and turn it into a book.  His management ideas and mine dove-tail nicely, so this is a fun project.

The chapter in “The First Mile” that I am also working on is currently on hold because my co-author is up to his eye-balls in other projects.  We do have deadlines to meet though – and we’d better finish our “The Human Equation:  people Are Your Greatest Asset” soon or we are going to run past our major deadline….hint, hint, hint.

My articles are being published in so many places, I can’t keep track of them all, except to say that I’ve received my copy of the Malaysian magazine “Outsourcing” which contains my article: “Team Building Strategies” which is about working with distant teams and building trust among the team members.

Again, I was the guest blogger for a week on the Silicon Valley Project Management Blog (www.SVProjectManagement.net.) during the week of May 21st.  You can find my musings there along with that of many other Project Management bloggers.

I’ve been speaking at a number of venues about my research on Managing for Creativity – and thought I’d share some of the information with you in this month’s newsletter. 

But, first, a thought about managing managers and committee chair….See below.

Are you doing the right thing?

Efficiency, Peter Drucker stated is doing the thing right,
But effectiveness is doing the right thing… through enabling others
To reach their potential, both their personal potential
And their corporate institutional potential.
Quoted in DePree, 1989, pp. 19(2)

In today’s complex business climate people are often thrust into situations where they are expected to figure out for themselves what is required and how best to accomplish it.  Not only does this lack of structure and guidance harm the bottom line and plans of the company, it hurts the self-esteem and therefore the growth potential of those falsely empowered to “figure it out.”

Creating job and project descriptions is important to both the success of the project and the success of the persons involved in carrying out the assignments.

This is true for committee work in volunteer organizations as well as for people in salaried positions. 

Management – or the board – or the executive committee – is responsible for making sure that people know what is expected of them.  Set the guidelines, parameters, and expectations as well as providing the necessary resources.

Check on people frequently to make sure they are moving in the right direction.  Left to their own devices and without the proper guidance people will frequently do what they know how to do, rather than what needs getting done.

Two examples from non-profit associations and two from the corporate world follow:

• A committee formed to write grant application requests was chaired by a man whose background was in Information Technology.  The first several meetings of this group were spent finding the right software for them to communicate with each other as a group.  During this time no work was conducted towards applications for grants.

• In another non-profit, the people responsible for fund-raising chose instead of planning projects and programs, to attend a course in graphics design, since it would enable them to design brochures better.  Some of these volunteers came out of the marketing department of a High Tech firm here in Silicon Valley.

• A group of Human Resource professionals when trying to solve the problem of employee retention chose to do a salary compensation study although they had agreed, during the same meeting, that to do so was a waste of time.  The discussion had included the facts:

• that by the time the survey was complete they would be six months down the road and the information would be stale;
• that compensation information was available immediately on the internet and so no new study was necessary and, most importantly that:
• the primary cause for lack of retention was not salary but other reasons, such as respect for management and the company, feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment, being respected and appreciated, etc.

Why did they decide to do the compensation survey?  Because that’s what they knew how to do!

• A marketing group at a very large High Tech firm continued to sign up for trade shows through out the world and allocated time, personnel resources, and money to staff them.  This was continued even though they had concluded from significant research of results that attending these shows yielded no new business.  Why did they continue?  According to their manager – who was responsible for the decisions – because they were not told what else they could do in its stead and so were afraid that if they didn’t continue to do what they knew how to do they would be out of their jobs.

In all four examples, the people involved were dedicated and hard working.  They did not set out to fail their employers – they were failed by them.

In my wandering around associations and companies I often find similar situations.  These are situations in which well-intended people are floundering and working hard, but not effectively at all.  My guidance to their upper management is always the same – these people are the results of management abrogating responsibility for providing the right parameters, expectations, training, structure and resources necessary for ambitious and dedicated employees (or volunteers in the case of non-profits) to do their best.

We do not empower people by throwing them into the trenches without teaching them how to dig, or which way to hold the shovel.  Leaving them to figure it out by themselves (the old military story) doesn’t always work.

Project Management:  Typical Oversight Areas

Last month I promised to write about Typical Oversight Areas and Process Improvement.  I’ve decided to offer the first topic this month and save the balance for July.  So here goes:

• Engineering teams fail to take other variables (such as political, community, marketing, goodwill, funding, etc.) into account before going from overview planning stage to implementation stages.

• Business Project Plans are not clearly developed to include marketing, product/project requirements, personnel, quality, technical support, operations, timelines contingencies, and the realization that nothing happens as you plan it.

• Human factors are often ignored, those that have to do with the creation and implementation of the project/program itself, as well as those having to do with the ultimate users.

• Project plans are often too narrowly focused, failing to include other elements. For example, they are often focused almost exclusively upon engineering tasks, and do not represent project milestones from other members of the project team.

• Engineering managers, put into the position of project managers, consistently badly under-estimate project milestones.

• Product/project requirement priorities are often not clear.  Projects are not developed with risk management in mind, nor are the most critical features developed first – with other elements designed to support the critical features.

• Project schedules, usually poorly constructed at the outset, are often forced to be compressed at the end.  There is often “a gun held to the head” to reach completion.  Consequently, final review, quality control and de-bugging are not adequately completed.

• Process considerations, such as procedures, rules of engagement, duties, how conflict is handled, etc., are not planned in at the beginning and grow by topsy – often badly.

(Next month – Process Improvement – Streamlining – Re-engineering tips.)

I’m Available for New Projects – Keep those Referrals Coming

A few big projects (management training, compliance training and O-D consulting) have recently been completed – and I am available to take on some new large contracts   I’m also available to take on one or two individual Professional Development clients, having just completed working with two professionals individually.  Rather than bore you with all I do – and have this sounding more like a commercial than it already does, please either call me or visit my website (www.DiamondAssociates.net) for more details.

I really thrive on your referrals to me.

Managing for Creativity – Part #1

When I met with the 50 C-level executives to learn about how they managed creativity I spent between two and five hours with each of them having them answer an extensive open-ended interview questionnaire I’d designed.  With one exception (someone I’d known previously too….) they all thanked me for the opportunity to discuss the issues and said that just by the process of interacting with me about the topic they’d learned much and were going to implement some changes in their organizations.

For purposes of the research I created operational definitions of innovation, creativity, and the creative environment.  Briefly – creativity is the process, innovation is the product and the creative environment allows for the freedom to experiment and play.  The actual definitions in the questionnaire are more detailed.

My respondents wanted creativity everywhere in their organizations – although they certainly didn’t want people to necessarily make process improvement changes without going through a clearing process. 

On the other hand, rarely was there a process in place that allowed for process improvement or other creative suggestions to come forth.  The reward and recognition systems in most of these companies was based on quantity of output and didn’t allow for experimentation or new ideas.

Managers and HR personnel were blamed for stifling creativity throughout the organization.  However, as has been pointed out to me during the Reason Weekend presentation of this topic (thanks to my friend Carolyn Gannon) managers are working under constraints to meet their production assignments and are thereby forced to keep their workers working as previously assigned.

Although Carolyn is correct, in addition to the constraints placed on managers and therefore on the people they manage – there is also fear of change, of allowing someone to color outside the lines, of the talented newcomer taking their job, etc. 

Two examples from my research:

• A new President  was brought out to run the west coast branch of an international insurance call center.  Among his staff were about 50 telephone operators, responsible for customer service and responding to customer queries.  This President decided that there needed to be changes to make working conditions better, improve morale and increase customer satisfaction.  He set up a “Suggestion Box” and asked his management team to review the suggestions and bring him the good ones.  Over a period of several months, no “good ones” were ever brought to his attention.  When he questioned his managers he was told that none of the ones reviewed were worthwhile.  He didn’t believe it was possible to not receive any good ideas and so asked to see all suggestions that had come in – and personally reviewed them and all further new suggestions.  There were many wonderful ones that he implemented – and for which he rewarded the person making the suggestion.

• A General Manager of a division of a huge semiconductor company told me that he and his team could not trust their Human Resource Department to bring them good candidates.  After much frustration the GM demanded that all resumes be brought to him.  HR sorted the resumes, giving the GM those they thought most worthy on top.  Over time he discovered that the better candidates were on the bottom of the pile – and from that time forward, he and his management team always reviewed the resumes from the bottom up.  HR was sorting by the strictest definition in the job descriptions.

I’ve many other examples of the stifling of creativity – rather than encouraging it.  Some of this comes about, as Dilbert so clearly teaches us, by living in cubes.  Other problems arise because of the mis-appropriation of time, funds, and rewards. 

We need to establish a climate of creativity – an environment in which there is room for experimentation and new ideas to emerge, be talked about and tested.  I’ll talk more about this in subsequent issues – and of course, talk about it extensively in my speeches and workshops on the topic of managing for creativity.

Prior Newsletters

Several people have asked for information about my prior newsletters.  Rather than list all the articles here, let me refer you to my website, where Pete has published them.  (Pete is my great computer guru.)  To find these newsletters please visit:  http://diamondassociates.net/articles/Newsletters.shtml

Workshops and Speeches

Starr Salon – June 30th
Jeanie Starr has asked me to speak about my experience at the Reason Weekend as well as to talk about my research on Managing for Creativity.  This is an invitation only event and so I can’t tell you exact location etc.  If you are on Jeanie’s list, I’m sure you’ll receive her invitation.

July & August
I do have some dates available during the summer to speak to your management team, association, non-profit or other groups about a wide range of management and professional development topics.

Recent Publications

Four of my articles have been published in dozens of e-magazines and newsletters.  These articles are being published so frequently that I can’t list all of the references.  Instead, I suggest you Google:  ArLyne Diamond.

• Team Buidling Strategies: In Outsourcing, WORDlabs MEDIA, Kuala Lumpur., June-July 2007.
  
  
• Building Trust in Distant Teams, in Management Issues Feb. 20, 2007.

• Workplace Conflict Resolution:  What’s Creating Workplace Conflict and 9 Easy Ways to Resolve it appeared in Impact Articles:  The Business and Coaching Network on January 26, 2007   With my permission, this article will also appear in a series of newsletters created and marketed by Haley Marketing Group to their staffing industry clients.

My two published books are available at www.ProductivePublications.com.

• Training Your Board of Directors:
  A Manual for the CEOs, Board Members, Administrators and Executives of Corporations, Associations, Non-Profit and Religious Organizations
• The “Please” and “Thank You” of Fundraising for Non-Profits:
  Fifteen Essential Ingredients for Success

So, how can I help you?

You spoke to your audience with great sensitivity and empathy and shared many excellent concepts.  Your dialogue with the various Pro-Match members was truly fabulous.  Not only did you come up with workable solutions for painful situations, but your advice was real and gul level, pertinent to their individual needs.           
Helen Gracon, Facilitator – ProMatch

Your degree of knowledge on the subject matter – Sexual Harassment, Myth vs. Facts – was extremely impressive and your delivery of the material equally skillful.  The feedback from our employees has been wonderful.  Thank you for making a subject that, in someone else’s hands, could have been very awkward. Not only was it not awkward, but I have actually received requests for additional training sessions, from those same employees who felt they didn’t need it in the first place. 
Ellen R. Fox, Personnel Director, Tichenor Media Systems, Inc.

 

 

Let me be your Aufin—your advisor to Kings.

 

ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D
ArLyne@DiamondAssociates.net