infinite pie thinking

Honestly though, sit back and think through all of the meetings that you have sat through that ran over time.

Some agenda points, all business critical, the discussions were lively, points of views were made clear, there was some disagreement and a decision was made, all within the allotted time; fabulous.

Then, just as people were packing away their notebooks whoever is sat at the head of the table leading the meeting decides to go round the table for anyone’s AOB.

The word-hole flapping begins, it might be that there isn’t enough support, or delivery is threatened by that cut in budget, the timeframe is just unrealistic and so on.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are likely to be important and should be discussed, but think it through, if it is that important then it needs the proper forum; the right people armed with the right information.

If you are running a meeting, ad hoc or regular may we suggest the following process to ensure that everyone sat around the table gets the most out of the time that they invest.

1.       Notify the invitees about the upcoming meeting and ask for agenda points.

2.       Pull the agenda together and send it out to everyone, asking for confirmation of their attendance with the minutes from the last meeting including updates of any outstanding action points.

3.       Ensure that AOB is nowhere to be seen and remind everyone they have until 24 hours before the meeting starts to add any additional items for discussion.

4.       Run the meeting on time.

If someone then strays off topic organise a follow up conversation, get the experts in the room after your meeting has finished or allow those who are not needed to participate in the follow up leave after your meeting has finished.

It’s not too difficult; just give some thought to the amount of time and money that is being invested at that exact moment. In terms of salary alone 6 people being paid an average salary of £50,000 a year sat around a table going off agenda costs your business about £150 an hour, and that doesn’t include the cost of the facilities or the opportunities that are being missed as a result.

Ensuring that you and every other person in the room gets what they need out of the meeting that you’ve organised is one of your primary responsibilities. Do us all a favour. Kill off AOB.

 “Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.”

Peter Drucker

How can we tell the difference? We talk at infinite pie about leaders lifting themselves out of the tools of the technician and inspiring others to follow out of more than morbid curiosity, which sounds fantastic on paper but how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing and not simply following a process correctly?

It’s simple, ask yourself this question, am I doing this for me, my ego, my company or my team? As simplistic as the theory might be; if you are not looking after your team, they will not look after your business, if they are not looking after the business, you’re not doing the right thing. As for your ego, come back tomorrow to find out how you can tame that.

People tend to broadly fit into two categories, those that refer internally, and those who refer externally. Simply put, this means if you want to put a point across in a debate you can access a list of supporting arguments crafted from your own experiences and studies, or you can quote from bodies of work from respected individuals in their field. There are pros and cons for both, and of course it’s best to be practiced at both as extremes in referencing (for example always quoting others, or yourself) should be avoided so as not to give the impression that you are either completely devoid of original thought or arrogant.

So to help out, we’ve put together our top 5 quotes from popular works for you to fit into your business life, take with a liberal pinch of salt.

1.       “A leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going.” Locke, Series one of Lost

John Locke, the spiritual leader of the island has a pretty amazing story arc within the series. When trying to convince Jack that he should be the leader of the group Locke tells Jack not to return to the beach until he has finished seeking the reason behind the visions of his dead father. ‘Why?’ asks Jack. ‘[Because} a leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going,’ replies Locke.

As trite as this might be at first reading you would be surprised how many people there are that blunder from one ‘objective’ to another. Colin Powell once said that leadership is inspiring people to follow out of more than morbid curiosity. I think many of us have been in the position where our leaders have said’ ‘this is our strategy!’ So we’ve picked up our bags and dutifully followed, only to find a short time later they turn around and say. ‘No, this is our new strategy.’ So we all change direction and follow again. This doesn’t have to happen often for many of us to put our bags down and say, ‘we’ll wait here; they’ll be back in a minute.’

At infinite pie we talk about SOSTT quite a bit, that is defining your situation and objective before you can think about your strategy and what comes next. If you don’t define where you are you can’t work out how to get to where you’re going.

Leaders understand and define where they or their organisation is going, and then communicate it to those in their teams. It is the first step in leadership and is so frequently forgotten.

2.       “You don’t need eyes to see you need vision.” Maxi Jazz, Reverence

Faithless, one of the true pioneers of 90’s electronica have written more cod philosophy than anyone else I know. People tend to use the term cod philosophy with a negative connotation, but I think it should be encouraged. The lyrics to Reverence talk about growth and change, something that we all face with varying degrees of success.

In any organisation, it’s easy to see the facts, and communicating them is relatively simple. Our objective is to turn over (x) millions in the next financial year; we will ship 19 million flugelbinders to emerging markets in the next 6 months, and so on. How inspiring are these things to the people that work within our organisations? Especially if the popular theory is that the company is only making money for the shareholders. In order to lead we need to learn how to communicate our vision. This should be a real, tangible vision that can be measured for sure, but it also needs to inspire people to follow. This can be based on a financial incentive that everyone in the organisation can subscribe to, or it can be more altruistic, but whatever it is it needs to be communicated and stuck to.

3.       “For there is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” Hamlet, Hamlet

It’s in keeping with the theme that in the play Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard the characters often stumble across quite complex philosophical ideas, but then skip past them as quickly as they find them. Shakespeare wrote the line above to demonstrate that two people can see the same thing and call them differently. In this instance Hamlet comparing Denmark to a prison and Rosencratz disagreeing but I’ll go one better, I think we can have that dialogue internally and depending on what else is influencing us at the time is how we will colour our perception. Sounds simple, but we need to make a concerted effort to look for the hidden opportunities.

We are faced on a daily basis with information; it usually comes with a back story, a supporting cast and dramatic intent. We didn’t turnover (x) millions last year, the emerging markets are manufacturing their own flugelbinders, I’ve just been promoted, the coffee machine has broken down. It would be simple for us to say that’s bad news, bad news, good news and bad news in that order, but if we stop for a moment to think about it these are none of those things until we apply our own sensibilities to them. They may very well bring opportunities to adapt, to grow, to discover that something that we didn’t know was broken needs fixing, or cut back on our caffeine intake. Sometimes the urge to look at something new bleakly is overwhelming, gut wrenching at first glance, but take some time, look at whatever it is again and remember you have the ability to change it from bad to good.

4.       “No such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Billy Connolly

Life just is. It is neither good nor bad. This follows on from the previous point. We can stand at the water cooler and blame the weather, the recession, the boss, the team, but eventually we are going to have to take responsibility for our own actions. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but how we react to it is what sets us apart from those that can take no responsibility for what they do.

You will also hear people bleat on about how they are just not very lucky, but again I have found that the harder we work, the more prepared we are the luckier we get. That’s simply not true in itself, it’s just that as we prepare the greater chance we have of taking advantage of things that come our way.

5.       “Back off man, I’m a scientist.” Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters.

There’s only so much you can do about process. It’s a model, it’s a diagram or it’s a quote from a respected business school. The application of the process is what makes it something that we can communicate to our teams and inspire them to follow us. For all external referrers this can be an issue as the application of a quote or a model is invariably not part of the quote or the model. For internal referrers this causes an issue if it is all application and no process. You have to have both working in synergy. We work with processes to give us a common tool kit and language to work towards a common goal; inspiring people to follow us out of more than morbid curiosity.

I wonder if there are any quotes out there (notwithstanding the Star Trek Next Generation school of Leadership) that I have missed.

MD

infinite pie

Bob worked for Jack, but they didn’t get on very well, Jack was the Sales and Marketing Director, and Bob had just been taken on as a Marketing Manager for a small manufacturing company in the Midlands. Jack, in all fairness, didn’t like Bob because he thought he was too cocky. I suppose that Bob could be fairly annoying, but he was pretty good at his job.

The company decided that they wanted to work towards a recognised quality standard and sent a mail through the business asking for volunteers to form a team. “Ideally”, the note said, “we would like one person to represent each department.”

Bob thought this was perfect as at his previous job he had sat on a Total Quality Management team and his previous company had recently been recognised by the standards authority. Whilst he didn’t think that he knew everything there was to know about quality standards, he was fairly sure that he would be able to make a substantial contribution, and he wanted to show Jack that he was more trousers than mouth. He replied to the email volunteering for a seat on the team, and went to see Jack to lay out his proposal.

Pretty soon an email was sent out to the entire business detailing the names of those that would sit on the team and Bob was a little dismayed that his name was not on it. In fact as he scanned the page for the names of those who would make up the team, he noticed that a couple of departments were represented twice and there was no one from marketing.

Swallowing his anger he chatted idly to one or two people who were scheduled to sit on the team and was even more surprised to find out that they had been press ganged into the team by Jack. Furthermore, they didn’t see the point in this nonsense recognition and they were too busy to give it any of their time.

Bob decided to help out anyway and after talking with his two colleagues he wrote an introduction to the quality team, making specific references to each department and listing a number of issues that he thought would be good to start investigating. He illustrated the presentation with a number of models that he had used in his previous role and spent quite a bit of time putting the whole thing together. He printed copies out and bound them, put the presentation on a dozen USB sticks and mailed it to his two colleagues suggesting that they might want to present it at the first meeting. Bob felt happy with his initiative and was confident that Jack would not only see that he had something to contribute but that he deserved a permanent place on the quality team.

On the morning of the first meeting Bob made himself busy in the office by the boardroom where the quality team sat. If he was being completely honest he was waiting for someone to come out of the meeting clutching one of the print outs apologising for the error of not inviting him to join the team in the first place. Time marched on and his frustration grew, especially as he heard laughter and chatter coming through the door.

When the meeting eventually broke up and they came out Jack walked straight over to Bob and asked him about the two projects that Bob had been working on and were due at the end of the week.

Bob sullenly replied that he was a bit behind, but was confident that he would deliver on time.

“You’d be on schedule if you didn’t waste time on crap like this.” Jack said, putting Bob’s presentation in the bin at Bob’s feet before walking off.

Now ask yourself a question. Are you Bob or Jack in this scenario?

There are many times when we feel that we have something to offer and are overlooked, but what can we, in fact what should we do about it? Bob’s priorities were all over the place because his need for recognition and validation overwhelmed his passion for his day to day job. He was so caught up in proving to his unresponsive boss that he had something to add to the quality team that he neglected the day to day needs of running the business. Yes he would probably put in a handful of long days and nights to get the two projects back on track, but think about it, he is the sort of guy that would then stand at the water cooler telling everyone about how dedicated he is and how little Jack appreciated his work.

On the other hand, Jack may well be trying to recognise other people within the organisation by appointing them to the quality team, but his communication to others seems to be lacking somewhat. Ignoring the fierce put down at the end at the moment, if he had taken Bob to one side and told him that he recognised the potential for Bob’s involvement but that the two projects he was working on were a priority they would both have reached an understanding. As it is collaboration wasn’t possible because of the secret compromise that Bob had worked towards. Also consider who else within the organisation felt equally as passionate about joining the team.

Good Leadership is about understanding where the business is and where it is going, but equally important it is about communicating that to the organisation as a whole and to individuals. Recognition works in two ways, it can be used to encourage individuals within your team, but just as powerful is an absence of recognition which will deflate anybody’s self worth.

Leadership and Communication are intrinsically linked, you simply cannot have one without the other. 

MD

infinite pie

It's not a habit that we want to get in to, however, this blog from the Harvard Business Review is exactly the sort of thing that we are trying to promote. Here a very respected leader and entrepreneur found himself in a relatively common predicament. Having enjoyed success for a number of years experienced a seismic shift in his business life the author goes through how he addressed the change in needs and the actions that he took. Great reading, I would be fascinated to hear your comments on how you have faced similar.

Enjoy

"What the Heck Is Wrong With My Leadership?"

10:00 AM Monday January 23, 2012 
by Pekka A. Viljakainen

In 1998, I sold part of my company (which I had founded in 1986, when I was 13) to the Finnish IT services firm Tieto. Two years later we made it a full merger, and I joined the Tieto management team.

I was used to managing 200 Finnish nerds, with whom my straight-ahead approach (my nickname is "Bulldozer") got great results. But Tieto was growing rapidly and going global. Before long I was managing thousands of nerds in Russia, China, Germany, the U.S., and other countries. And it wasn't working. Tieto gave managers a leadership score (formal name: Leadership Index/VCC Value Creation Capital) every year, based on surveys of the people who worked for and with them. The best score was 100; I had started out, in 1998, in the 90s. By 2002, I was down to 54. A year later, not long after Tieto's leadership (myself included) decided that anyone with a leadership score under 25 should be fired, I got a 27.

It was a true leadership nightmare. Despite my years of experience, monetary success, and the fact that I had not changed a thing in my daily executive routine, I was lost. To figure out what had gone wrong, I traveled around the world and met with my employees, usually in hotel meeting rooms. "What the heck is wrong with my leadership?" I asked them. The answers varied a lot between countries. With people in China, whatever I asked, they said, "Yes sir." But there were some common themes:

1. Influence. They said they expected to have influence on company leadership. They wanted somebody who owns the game, but they wanted influence, too.

2. Equality. They really expected that everybody in the company would be treated equally. Of course there will be salary differences, but the way people have impact should be same everywhere — and the opportunity to share in the value of that impact should be the same, too.

3. Understanding. One thing they said that was surprising to me was that they expected the board to be really on the ball as to what was going on in the company. They couldn't understand how somebody could decide on a strategy without knowing specifically what to do.

So I changed how I did things. I began to arrange company events and announcements to be made in Beijing or Moscow, with headquarters in Helsinki joining in only later. I changed my time allocation to spend 80% of my time on the front line with customers and employees. It was not very environmentally friendly, because I was living 260 days a year in a jet.

I also started actively, some would say overactively, using digital videos, webcasts, and an internal blog to make sure everybody around the world knew what I was doing, and to get feedback. My blog was called Bulldozer's Blog. I had a policy of posting everything that I had that was related to the business on it, as soon as I had it. Not pending contracts or other things that had to remain secret, but when I was working on draft presentation I was putting it in the blog.

Bulldozer's Blog was not about broadcasting information. It became more like a Wiki than a blog. Other people in the company began commenting on it, adding additional materials. Five thousand colleagues per week were downloading material from it. They were not going because it was mandatory, but because they saw the value. The interaction was the most valuable part of it. Also, the mistakes. Everybody loves to see mistakes, especially when a leader makes public mistakes. If there are no mistakes, no failures, it doesn't work. It's not social media.

When I retired from the company in 2010, my leadership score was back above 90. More importantly, I had learned that leading a global team of what I call "digital cowboys" is not about command and control but about listening and communicating — and about learning, which I am still trying to do.

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center, The Next Generation of Global Leaders.

MD

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