Tag Archives: business thinking

October 30, 2014 · 10:51 am

Better, Not Busier

The NYC Marathon is this weekend.  I used to be a runner until my knees gave out although the longest race I ever ran was a half-marathon.  One thing I learned while running in that and other races was the importance of pacing yourself.  We all have a limited amount of energy and it was almost possible to go faster by slowing down as the energy banks were always there when I needed them.alarm-304042_640

Business is a marathon yet sometimes we get focused on the “busy” part that we forget the “better” part.  One client’s office has little signs posted with a red circle over a fire alarm.  In other words, no fire drills.  I like that.  The point is to maintain focus on the long-term business goals of the organization (the marathon) and not lighting fires by chasing short-term distractions.  It means a focus on process and planning which permits better execution.  When someone pulls a figurative fire alarm what inevitably happens is that those processes break down, the work is less than optimal, and often everyone walks away angry.  We were busy but we weren’t better.

More isn’t always better.  I don’t know about you but I’ve cut way back on many of the social media channels I use.  I’ve begun cutting back the number of newsletters I see – many of them were just regurgitating the same news anyway.  I want to finish the marathon hand in hand with my clients and not have either of us hit the wall many miles from the finish. I want to be better, and while it’s dangerous for a consultant to say they want to be less busy, I want to be less busy with “stuff” and more busy with substance.

How about you?

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October 23, 2014 · 10:47 am

One Mistake You Can’t Make

There are many things that go wrong in any business and even more that possibly can.  Today I want to talk about the biggest mistake a manager can make and how to avoid it.  Those of you who are regular customers here on the screed might be thinking I’m heading into a rant on accountability.  You’re not far off.  People must be held accountable once they’re clear about what their responsibilities entail.  That, however isn’t the mistake.

Let’s agree up front that stuff is going to go wrong.  Even if it’s not totally wrong, things might be done in a more efficient manner or in a way that resonates more loudly with your customers.  When whatever it is goes wrong, the first instinct is often to burn (figuratively) the responsible parties at the stake.  I’ve worked for managers who would dress down an employee loudly and publicly for an error.  Part of the reprimand was often something about how mistakes are unacceptable.  Period.

Bingo.

You cannot have employees thinking that failure of any sort is bad.  Yes, those responsible should be held accountable.  They can’t, however, feel free to create, innovate, and push the envelope if they perceive the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads at all times.  That’s paralyzing and inefficient.  It’s also a sure route to stagnation and failure.

The demand we can make is that people learn from whatever the mistake is and not repeat it.  I’m very comfortable chastising someone for doing the same thing wrong.  I’m less so when they tried, failed, and learned.  Good ideas happen because people follow their instincts without second guessing.  They speak up loudly when they have a new idea.  That’s the kind of environment in which I want to work.  You?

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October 22, 2014 · 11:56 am

I Am Not A Crook

Ben Bradlee died yesterday. For anyone who lived through the Watergate era I think it’s impossible not to know how important a figure he was. For those of you who only read about that time in history class (or worse, those of you who haven’t), Mr. Bradlee was the editor of The Washington Post during Watergate and he was the man who allowed the investigation and reporting of a break in at the Democratic headquarters (located in the Watergate complex) to go on even though everyone thought it was, in the words of the White House press secretary, a “third-rate burglary.”

Why should you care?  Let’s begin with something from the obituary his paper ran:

From the moment he took over The Post newsroom in 1965, Mr. Bradlee sought to create an important newspaper that would go far beyond the traditional model of a metropolitan daily. He achieved that goal by combining compelling news stories based on aggressive reporting with engaging feature pieces of a kind previously associated with the best magazines. His charm and gift for leadership helped him hire and inspire a talented staff and eventually made him the most celebrated newspaper editor of his era.

Let me add something to that to put it in perspective.  The August Harris Poll found that 76% of U.S. adults surveyed believe that celebrity gossip and scandal stories receive too much coverage, while 49% believe that entertainment news in general gets too much attention.  The kind of journalism practiced by the Post in the Bradlee era is almost dead, having given way to partisan bickering, “advertorials”, and reprinted press releases.  The real lesson for all of us in business is the last sentence I quoted: leadership.

It is very easy in the realities of business to take the easy road.  It’s easy to let a local robbery story go when the pressures to do so from your management, your advertisers, and the Executive Branch of the government are telling you to do so.  Bradlee didn’t, nor did he when he decided to print stories based on the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam War.  That is leadership – doing what is right, setting standards, and inspiring those who work with you to do so as well.

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”  It might have been at that moment that the notion of trusting one’s president and government fell apart forever.  Ben Bradlee and his commitment to excellence and the truth, even if the face of his own doubts and fears, opened our eyes.  The business standards he lived by are mostly gone now in his field which is a damn shame.  Maybe we can all work a little harder to keep them in our own?

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