Monthly Archives: September 2013

September 9, 2013 · 10:36 am

Testing The Visual Field

Every so often my eye doctor has me take a visual field test. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, this is an accurate description:

The patient sits in front of an (artificial) small concave dome in a small machine with a target in the center. The chin rest on the machine and the eye that is not being tested is covered. A button is given to the patient to be used during the exam. The patient is set in front of the dome and asked to focus on the target at the center. A computer then shines lights on the inside dome and the patient clicks the button whenever a light is seen. The computer then automatically maps and calculates the patient’s visual field.

It’s actually not so easy to stare at the target and the machine knows when you’re moving your eye around to look for the white dots (which is cheating, kids!).   Other than the fact that I went to take this test this morning, why do I bring this up?

I think we need to administer this sort of test to our businesses.  Every business has blind spots just as does every human.  It’s important to know where they are and to make sure that the overall vision the business enjoys isn’t impacted.  Assessing the limits of our vision – how well we see light as it gets dimmer and how well our peripheral vision is working is important to understand.  Unlike a human, the business can’t simply compensate by moving its gaze around.  It needs to strengthen its sight through better intelligence, by doing a better job of listening, and by making sure the assumptions under which it operates still hold true.  Our own biases (yes, we all have them) can often lead us in a direction that’s seriously out of touch with reality.  That belief system can be a huge blind spot and unless we evaluate things carefully we might miss opportunities or problems.

I get my eyesight checked fairly often.  I’d suggest we need to do the same sort of business testing at least as regularly.  Do you agree?

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September 6, 2013 · 9:06 am

The Sous Chef

Foodie Friday! I’ve been watching Top Chef Masters (I know – huge surprise) again this season. The twist this year is the presence of a sous chef brought into the competition by each of the masters. For those of you unfamiliar with the pecking order in a kitchen, a sous chef is, literally, an “under” chef. They’re the number two person in kitchen. While the executive chef or chef de cuisine sets the menu, it’s the sous chef that make sure that menu is executed daily to the chef’s standards.  The sous chef also creates the daily specials but this is a real understatement of their responsibilities.  Frankly, the main task of the sous chef is to keep the kitchen from falling to pieces.

The competition this season revolves around how well the sous chef performs in a series of contests  among the other sous chefs.  A sous chef not doing well can dramatically impact the master chef’s chance in the main competition.  Conversely, their sous chef winning can give the master chef immunity from elimination without them having to lift a finger.  Pretty sweet when your subordinate can throw that kind of protective wrapper around you!  Which is of course, the business point.

Throughout my professional career I was blessed with incredible sous chefs.  Of course, in the business world they’re called something else – assistants, secretaries, whatever.  They made me look good when I was having a bad day, they kept me on task and on time, and when I wasn’t able to handle a task directly they had the knowledge and intelligence to step up and get things done as I would have.  In a kitchen, the sous chef’s role is to back your chef, no matter what, at least to the rest of the world. What we would discuss or fight about was for us and never (to my knowledge) made it to the rest of the staff.

The best assistants were of the rest of the team but not really in the rest of the team.  Everyone loved them but respected their positions as well as the fact that they could speak for the boss when the boss was otherwise occupied.   Why do I bring this up?

Too many executives underestimate the value of a great right hand.   It could be your assistant, maybe it’s another executive on your staff.   No matter what, every great executive I’ve known has someone who can stand in their stead and make sure things run smoothly until the boss can step back in.  If there is no one with whom you work that can do this, you need to do one of two things:  find someone, or get ready to get replaced.

Here’s to sous chefs everywhere – in kitchens and in cubicles!

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September 5, 2013 · 8:34 am

Shana Tova Time Again!

A shofar made from a ram's horn is traditional...

A shofar made from a ram’s horn is traditionally blown in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish civic year. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy New Year!  I’m thinking about making this post an annual thing.  I know I don’t often repeat content but as I was thinking about what to write as Jews around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah, I went back and checked out another post I wrote on the topic.  It seems to cover it pretty well, so I’m posting it again (in case it seems at all familiar as you read!).

Last night marked the start of the Jewish New Year.  I didn’t go down to Times Square to see if they were dropping a giant knish at the stroke of sundown – probably not.  L’Shana Tova – a happy and healthy New Year to all of you.

One of the things Jews do over the next 10 days (or at least are supposed to do) is to reflect on the year gone by and think about where it took you on life’s journey.  It’s not really as much about looking back in my mind as it is about looking forward.  Oh sure, one is supposed to think about where one strayed from life’s path in terms of dealing with other humans and human codes of conduct.  We get a day of fasting next week to get that sorted out.  But it’s also a time to think about a fresh start.  Which, of course, promoted a business thought.

When do businesses stop and enter a period of reflection?  It’s obvious when they’re changing – witness Facebook last week – but I, for one, certainly wonder sometimes if those changes happen due to the momentum of previous (maybe not so good) decisions or if they’re the result of a pause, some reflection, and a willful thought by the entire organization as to the direction.  Often, I fear, it’s the former.

Jews are to use the next ten days for reflection and repentance.  I like to think of them as ten days of self-improvement.  I’d also suggest that it would do many businesses a lot of good to build the same sort of period into their corporate calendars.  Some do – they call it the budget process – but I think that’s too selective in terms of participants and goals to do much good.  Some smart CEO needs to declare it New Year’s Day for the company once a year and get everyone to do the same sort of professional reflection that many of us do on the personal side.  Identify your sins (figuratively speaking) and atone.  Faulty customer service, weak brand identity, bad employee relations, products that aren’t optimal, fostering an atmosphere of fear – these are all good places to start.

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