Tag Archives: management

June 11, 2015 · 11:36 am

Don’t Tone Me

My youngest child had an expression she would use when I would say something to her in a manner she didn’t like. You know – things like “wash your hands and come in to eat” or “don’t put makeup on the dog”. She couldn’t really find fault with what I was asking but she would look at me and say “don’t tone me.” Turns out it’s an apt business expression.

I was chatting with a former colleague this morning. Things aren’t going particularly well at his current gig and I had my life coach hat on trying to help. He shared some internal emails to illustrate some of what was causing problems and my mind was blown. Obviously I can’t quote them but the gist of the issue wasn’t what the guy’s boss was doing. It was the tone.

The memo I read was to a bunch of recipients who are not kids.  Most are over 30 and have lots of work experience.  The note outlined how they were to spend every moment of their working day and was focused on process not on results.  Well, that’s not true.  The results expected were filling out forms, making phone calls, and which font to use in presentations.  There was nary a mention of actual results.  The message was an obvious confusion of activity and progress.

More importantly, the tone was demeaning.  I don’t know the author but I found it offensive.  It would be one thing if it was a summation of what had been discussed in person as a group but this apparently came out of the blue.  With an emphasis on accuracy in the presentations the staff was to make, this note was written in multiple fonts (cut and paste job!) and had errors in it.

The takeaway is that email – and all writing – generally lacks nuance.  The recipient can assign whatever tone seems accurate and in this case vaguely threatening and demeaning seem accurate.  Moreover, never implement new procedures without a team discussion as to why you’re putting the new stuff in place.  People are willing to follow when they’re led; they’re much less willing to be pushed.  “Toning” them isn’t leading – it’s pushing (or kicking) them to a goal.  Getting out in front of them and showing them the way is a lot more productive.  You agree?

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June 4, 2015 · 9:50 am

Where The Devil Lives

I received an email this morning which asked me to enter a sweepstakes. Since it involved golf I was all ears and quickly filled out the form – name, and email. This led me to a second form which read “Just answer the following four questions and your entry wil (sic) be complete.” Let’s put aside the typo for a second. That request was followed by a form with three questions, not four. After scratching my head, I answered and received a confirming email. That read, in part, “We’re announcing the winner July 31, 2015, until then we wanted to let you know how you can start…” Another typo/grammatical error.

I can hear some of you saying “stop being so picky.” Here is the problem and it’s one that affects anyone in business. These mistakes demonstrate a complete lack of attention to detail. They have me asking myself if I want to do business with this company and would I trust them with my personal information? If you’ve ever run a sweepstakes you know that everything must be scrutinized carefully – the FTC and others are NOT happy when you mess something up. Multiple people must have reviewed these materials and yet…

Ask yourself how many pitch decks you’ve seen with typos or errors in grammar. Then ask yourself how many websites you read with the same sorts of mistakes. I get apps updating every day for “bug fixes.” Sometimes they’re just fixing things that should have been caught in the testing and quality control phases of development.  You can’t QC something by releasing it, not if you expect to keep a customer base.

I don’t mean to be harsh here but the devil really is in the details. To me this stuff is like going on a job interview dressed in a t-shirt and cutoffs. It’s a horrible first impression, one that is usually disqualifying.

As businesspeople, standards are one of the few things we CAN control.  We need to make sure everyone on the team is clear about the standards and then we need to hold them to those standards, especially when we’re dealing with marketing materials or anything else destined for external viewing.

Details matter.  You can call that picky.  I call it putting your best foot forward.  Do you agree?

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June 3, 2015 · 1:01 pm

GenY And Their Managers

If you follow tech at all you’re probably aware that Mary Meeker‘s annual report on the state of digital came out a couple of weeks ago.  It’s always a great read and gives excellent thinking on where we’re all heading on the technology front.  As an aside, by now I hope we all recognize that no matter what business we’re in, what’s happening with the internet and with technology will affect us, so this is probably worth a few minutes of reading.

Buried in the report is a nugget that’s our topic today.  It has to do with what young employees ages 18-34 (often called GenY or Millenials) want out of their jobs vs. what their managers believe those Millennials want.  The differences are startling and I believe have great implications.  Let’s see what you think.

If you have a look at the chart, you’ll see that managers are pretty clueless.  They believe that most younger employees are after big bucks while the truth is that only 27% of actual Millennials report that as an important factor.  Granted, the data is a couple of years old but I doubt things have changed very much.  Where the Millennials say they want “meaningful work” and the importance they place on feeling a “sense of accomplishment,” mangers dismiss those factors as being important almost entirely. Quite the disconnect.

I suspect that this is due to a couple of things.  First, I’ve known many managers who rarely interact with people several layers “beneath” them.  Maybe a “hello” at a holiday party is as close as they get.  One could write that off to the demands of the job and the lack of time in the day.  That’s crap – you need to make an effort and the people who make the actual work happen are worth the effort.

More importantly, I suspect that for many of these disconnected managers this is how they treat their customers as well.  They don’t make an effort to understand the truth about their customers’ needs and wants, believing that they have a full understanding already.  And we wonder why businesses fail…

What your staff wants, how they value work, and how their priorities might differ from yours is something about which you shouldn’t be guessing.  Are you?

 

 

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