Tag Archives: managing

April 22, 2013 · 11:38 am

How Many, Not How

Mondays are no fun.  As you might know if you’ve been on the screed on a Monday, I spend most of my weekends when the ground isn’t covered with snow playing golf.

English: Golfing in Ontario golf course, Oregon.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mondays are the days when my obsession with the game (and my lack of golfing prowess) usually shows up here.  This Monday, it’s about a thought I had while I was playing in a tournament on Saturday.  I was playing on a team with a person who had clubs that were at least 10 years old.  Golf technology changes very rapidly, and his driver was the size of my five wood (meaning it was way smaller than any modern driver).  The shaft of the club was slightly bent down by the club head and I had no clue how he could hit the ball.

Hit the ball he did – some of our team’s best drives came off that club.  In fact, he hit some amazing shots both good and bad.  My favorite was a worm-burner that rolled and rolled and rolled maybe 150 yards until it stopped rolling 10 feet from the pin.  Which reminded me of the old golf adage “it’s not how, it’s how many” which is my business thought today as well.

It seems to me we spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing the tools we use in business just as there’s an equipment obsession in golf.  Those are really about the “how.”  No matter what tools you’re using, none of them matter if you’re not being consistent and clear about what you’re trying to do with them – the “how many.” It’s easy to get caught up processes and in so doing you miss a focus on achieving the real goal.   If you haven’t clarified the things you want to accomplish over time, there’s little chance of success.  The tool or app is less important than the way you use it.  The process isn’t the business.

We’ve all had bosses who focused on when a report was delivered and then never read it to see what was inside.  Woe be to those who missed a deadline, even if the work was crap.  That’s “how”, not “how many.”  Take an extra day and achieve perfection is my preference.  Hit one long and straight with a crooked driver.  Make a par with an awful shot that winds up next to the pin.  There are no pictures on the scorecard, folks.

You with me?

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April 11, 2013 · 10:09 am

A Riff On Transformation From AI

I’m pretty sure that each of you has a guilty pleasure or two. One of mine is American Idol which, despite its diminished viewership and declining influence, is still the only singing competition that regularly puts out talent making hit recordings. Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood are the two biggest musical names that also won but Jennifer Hudson, Chris Daughtry, and a slew of other musical names have come out of the show.

American Idol logo 2008–2011

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the things I enjoy most about the program, besides watching unknown singers turning into stars, are the times when a truly memorable performance occurs. Last night we had one and it actually made me think of an important business lesson.

Most of the really great performances on Idol have come when a singer takes a song and remakes it in his or her own style. Over the years, Adam Lambert took a Tears for Fears song (Mad World), slowed it down, and stripped the arrangement to feature his voice. Brilliant, although the fact that he sang it out of the park helped too! The year David Cook won, he transformed a song almost every week to make it his own. Last night, one of the contenders, a young woman named Candice Glover, did the same with The Cure’s “Love Song.” She performed Adele’s re-imagination of the song and took it to another level.  Which is exactly the business point.

While it’s hard to say, as does Ecclesiastes, that there’s nothing new under the sun (not in technology anyway), many of the best new products and services are transformed versions of things that have come before.  In some cases it’s optimizing a service or product for a digital world (for the digital voice, if you will).  In other cases, it’s transforming something altogether to make it better – mp3 players to iPhones are the most obvious examples but there are many others.

The lesson from Idol is that whatever you do, make it yours and make it spectacularly good.  Seems like some excellent business thinking as well.  You agree?

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April 2, 2013 · 10:27 am

Coach Knight

We’re down to The Final Four (Go Blue!) and so what better place than the Golf Channel to have a chat with a great college coach?  That’s exactly what aired last evening as part of Feherty, one of my not so guilty pleasures.  David Feherty interviewed Bob Knight, best known as the coach of Indiana University.   He’s the sort of coach that many people love to hate – they respect his accomplishments but can’t understand the screaming, chair-throwing, and general misbehaving that he did.  The interview helped me to understand it – and him – a lot better.

Bobby Knight (en), coach of the Texas Tech Red...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Early on in the show, Coach Knight said something that really resonated with me as a businessperson and it’s our topic today.  It seems kind of simple but it often gets lost:

The role of a coach or the role of a teacher is to get the player or student to be the best that they can be.

Exactly.  Not “to get them to achieve some impossibly high standard that even professional athletes can’t reach.”  Not “to win a championship at all costs.”  It’s centered around understanding each kid and the potential for greatness that’s in each of them to whatever degree it exists.  Even if the kid doesn’t get it.  Then the challenge is to fulfill that potential.

Think about it in a business context.  How many managers are focused on “winning the championship” and not on getting each employee to be the best that they can be?   Instead of using the initial interview process to determine what that potential might be, many managers think about it as filing a box on the org chart.  They don’t think about complimentary skill sets, the potential to advance, or how well the candidate will fit into the group.  Instead, they assume the people are fungible.  Big mistake.

If we take the time to think carefully about Coach Knight’s standard, it becomes obvious that the key to success lies in looking hard for potential, especially if that potential is untapped to a great degree.  After all, if we’re focused on getting people to be the best that they can be, we want that bar set pretty high so the organization as a whole is elevated.

What do you think?

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