Category Archives: Helpful Hints

March 12, 2012 · 9:28 am

Taking Out The Garbage

At some point, the garbage can in the kitchen fills up.  Unless someone takes it out, it starts to smell.  We’ve all been there – a significant other asks us to take out the garbage and so we lug the smelly bag to the trash can or dumpster or incinerator chute (for you apartment livers).  Not a pleasant task but one I’m pretty sure nearly all of us do on a regular basis.  I don’t think any of us think “it’s not my job” or “I’m too good to be doing this.”  Something is starting to smell so we handle it.

store garbage bag #1574

(Photo credit: Nemo's great uncle)

I wonder, therefore, why that attitude doesn’t translate over into some managers’ thinking when they get to the office.  I’m always surprised when I hear tales of closed doors or having to make an appointment weeks in advance to see one’s supervisor.  I’ve also seen executives who won’t call their travel department, type their own memoranda, or get their own dry-cleaning.  They insist that their assistant does it.  These would be the first people to complain if their kids were snubbed in an autograph line by a truly famous person but who don’t understand that they are guilty of the same thing on a daily basis by snubbing their own employees.

“Don’t you know who I think I am?”

These are the folks who confuse who they are with what they do.  The reality is that those of us who were privileged enough to have supervised others had our positions defined by those folks.  We were there to help them accomplish the broader tasks of the business.  Sure, providing them with sound strategy and reasonable resources was part of it, but it also meant being available, supportive, inspirational, and honest.

If you’re too damn important to take out the garbage, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to manage others.  You’ll be more of a detriment than an asset.

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March 7, 2012 · 10:36 am

Mess Effect

I don’t know if you’re a gamer (in the video game sense, not the hockey sense) but even if you’re not you might be aware that the latest installment in the Mass Effect video game series is out. It’s going to be one of the biggest releases of the year and the buzz has been good.  More importantly to Electronic Arts and Bioware (the developer), pre-sales were big.  It’s the third game in a series that has many passionate users who’ve been immersed in it for five years.

So why would I call this post “mess effect?”  Because despite all the success to date, EA and Bioware have created a release that’s precipitating a mess that has already alienated a substantial potion of their most loyal customers.  It serves as a reminder to us all.

In Mass Effect 1, gamers were given the option to create their own customized version of the main character, Commander Shepard.  Obviously, if a gamer made Shepard in their own image, they felt a bit closer to character.  At the end of the game, they could bring the character forward into Mass Effect 2, continuing the close attachment.  One might expect the folks who took the time to modify the character as well as to carry it forward to be hard-core.  Another name for that is “best customers” or “brand advocates.”

So here is ME3 (as it’s known) and although it’s a few months late, it’s met with great anticipation by those folks who’ve seen Shepard through many tough times, have helped save the Earth and have done so with an avatar that’s near and dear to them.  Except ME3 won’t import the previously created Shepard.  That’s right: for folks who are just entering the series now, it’s not an issue but for the folks who have been most loyal and brought their character with them, perhaps for five years, they have to start over.  Apparently, it’s almost impossible to replicate your existing Shepard on the new system, even from scratch.

Bioware says they’re working on a fix but will this take days?  Weeks?  Months?  Meanwhile, the gamer message boards are filling up with complaints about a peripheral issue and not with praise for the meat of the game play.  It’s a mess.  I know it probably won’t impact the overall success of the game, especially once it’s patched, but why would a company not take into consideration their best customers first?  Some of the folks who played ME1 and 2 used the defaults; others made tiny mods that are easy to replicate.  But the people who spent hours tweaking Shepard, the customers most immersed in your product, are screwed, at least for now.

As we’re implementing new versions of existing products – web sites, apps, new recipes, whatever – we need to start with those who’ve blessed us with their patronage before we worry a lot about attracting new customers.  After all, if the hard-core is happy, they’ll help spread the word.  If they’re not, no amount of marketing can totally overcome it.

Thoughts?

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March 2, 2012 · 10:57 am

Making The Doh!

Friday at last, and we’ll do our usual Foodie thing this week with a focus on doh.  That’s not a typo – it’s doh in the Homer Simpson manner:  I want to review a few of the most common mistakes we make in the kitchen.  The inspiration was a recent piece in Cooking Light.  They cited 25 common errors – I’m going to lay out a few this week and maybe we’ll get to some others next week.  Of course, the lessons they teach won’t be restricted to the kitchen either…

Homer Simpson

Image via Wikipedia

The first one is something that I’ll cop to myself : you don’t taste as you go.  Old seasonings, a particularly pungent batch of herbs, how much natural sugar is in the food can all affect the taste of the dish and no recipe can account for all of these things.  You have to taste as you go and adjust.  Of course managers often make that same mistake in their offices – they don’t taste.  What I mean is that to get where they are, managers have followed some sort of recipe and generally have written (in their own minds, if not on paper)  other recipes for how they want things to run.  That’s great, but one has to taste too.  I’ve known bosses who lock themselves away in their offices and don’t wander about among their staff speaking, listening – tasting!

Another mistake:  you don’t read the entire recipe before you start cooking.  This is how you get 6 steps into a dish and realize you’re missing an ingredient or haven’t heated the oven or don’t have the right size pan.  Figuring out a dish takes an hour longer than you have won’t make whomever you’re feeding very happy.  In business, we make that mistake as well.  We agree to deals without getting into the fine points of a contract or we begin projects without really thinking through every step.  That sometimes results in work grinding to a halt as we hit issues that arise but were very predictable had we thought things through in-depth – had we read the whole recipe.

Finally today, we don’t know our oven’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.  Every oven has hot and cool spots.  Baking or roasting without taking those zones into account can result in uneven cooking or over/under done results.  The same is true of your staff.  If we treat each team member’s work habits as the same we get projects done piecemeal or qualitatively unevenly.  Some folks need careful instruction; others need only to be told the basics.  We need to make sure we know how often to check on the progress and adjust based on how things are moving along.

Funny how a kitchen is like an office, even when you’re not a cook!  Better that we stick to making dough and not making DOH!

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