Tag Archives: managing

June 24, 2014 · 9:13 am

Skills

One of my clients has a few of their summer interns starting this week.

Film poster for Napoleon Dynamite - Copyright ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If they’re like most of the interns I’ve ever met, they’re eager to start learning about the business world because they feel a bit like Napoleon Dynamite.  While in his case he’s concerned that no girl is ever going to date him, they are concerned that no one will hire them for the same reason:

Napoleon Dynamite: Well, nobody’s going to go out with *me*!
Pedro: Have you asked anybody yet?
Napoleon Dynamite: No, but who would? I don’t even have any good skills.
Pedro: What do you mean?
Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

OK, maybe the interns aren’t worried about THOSE skills, but a recent survey by the Econsultancy folks asked about the skills necessary to succeed as a modern marketer.   You can read a summary of the report here.  I found it encouraging because in addition to the specific technical skills the job requires, many top marketers are now emphasizing the “soft” skills I’ve always advocated as being the most important set of requirements in any job.

When respondents to our survey were given a pre-selected list and asked to rate which softer skills were most significant, those that scored most highly as being ‘very important’ included the ability to embrace change, to spot opportunities and adapt strategies quickly, and also being passionate, curious and hungry to learn.

In other words, the “skills” you can’t teach.  It’s not about a high IQ (although that’s not necessarily a bad thing) but about an ability to learn.  Scratch that.  It’s about a candidate having a passion to learn – the ability to be a self-motivated learner.   The key softer skill mentioned most by interviewees was articulation and persuasion but I don’t think you can be either of those two things unless you can ingest and digest the raw information you need to make cogent, coherent arguments.

I’m looking forward to working with the interns and to teaching them some of the technical skills they’ll need as they begin their business lives.  Hopefully their parents and teachers have already done the hard part by nurturing their natural curiosity about the world and getting them to be open to new ideas and information.

Do you have interns working with you this summer?  What skills have they brought?  What are you bringing?

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June 19, 2014 · 10:30 am

Decision making

How do you make decisions?  We make many of them every day.  Some are as simple as what to wear or what to have for supper; others involve far more complex thinking and input from many sources.  The folks over at The Economist Intelligence Unit released a study on decision-making and I thought you might find some of what they discovered of interest.  You can read the entire thing here – it’s a 15 page document.

Let’s start with the conclusion:

Data are a highly prized commodity when it comes to making decisions. As The Economist Intelligence Unit’s survey shows, more senior managers consider themselves to be “data-driven” decision-makers than any other available option. And when asked what would improve decision-making, most choose “better ability to analyze data”…Intuition is also valued highly, even among decision-makers who consider themselves data-driven. Evidently both intuition and analysis contribute to effective decision-making, in business as in life. Rather than a weakness that must be avoided, intuition should instead be seen as a skill that is appropriate in the right circumstances.

I find that fascinating since many of the folks with whom I’ve worked over the years have gone out of their way to avoid “I think” in favor of “the data shows.”  There is a term in aviation – spatial disorientation – that refers to when a pilot’s perception of direction does not agree with reality.  They must use the aircraft’s instruments or risk flying themselves into trouble (as in “the ground”).  That’s an instance where intuition is a really bad idea – you must rely on the data.  The same is true as we fly our businesses.

There are business circumstances where data-driven decisions have to rule.  We as human business people don’t seem to like that:

“When making a decision, if the available data contradicted your gut feeling, what would you do?” By far the most popular response, with 57% of the sample, is “Re-analyze the data”. This is followed by “Collect more data”, chosen by 30%.

Who are you going to believe – me or your lying numbers, to paraphrase the old joke.  Maybe this is the art/science debate.  Parts of marketing should revolve around data (science) and some decisions must be based on your gut – art, in my mind.  While finance may be data-driven, designers need solid intuition.  Sometimes we don’t have the data we need or want.  Sometimes what we have overwhelms us or conflicts with itself.

I think the best outcomes are decisions made by people with vast experience who have seen reams of data over the years and understand when it’s relevant, even if it conflicts with their feelings.  I agree with the conclusion that intuition is a useful skill.  What do you think?

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May 30, 2014 · 9:07 am

That’s Just Rude

Foodie Friday and I hope you had a chance over the past week to go out to eat.

Waiter

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe it was to a holiday barbecue to begin the Summer or maybe you just needed a night off from the kitchen.  I’ve spent the week dining out a lot and it gave me a chance to reflect on something I see as a truism in life and in business.

Have you ever dined out with someone who is abominable to the server?  They treat someone who is doing their job with indifference at best and outright rudeness at worst.  Most servers, as you might know, are working for minimum wage plus tips.  It’s obviously in their best interest to keep their tables happy and I find it rare that a server warrants anything but polite, respectful treatment.  If you don’t like the food, the server didn’t cook it (or order it).  If they hover and you find it distracting, they’re probably just doing as their manager is instructing them.  Yet some people treat the wait staff as indentured servants, ordering them around without a “thank you” or “please.”  It embarrasses me, but it does something else.  It tells me a lot about the person with whom I’m dining.

You know that I subscribe to the “customer is almost always right” theory.  That “rightness” ends when they stop behaving like a reasonable adult.  I find that the people who need to demean other people generally have issues themselves – insecurity, low self-esteem among them.  So why is this on a business blog?

Bad managers can be like bad customers.  They treat their staff as “that guy” does a server.  Instead, just as you won’t get fed without a server doing their job, managers forget that it’s the work of their subordinates that makes their job necessary.  Just as servers can make a meal memorable or a disaster, staff can make the boss look great or incompetent.  I’ve always felt that we get what we give in both instances.  Which will it be for you?

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