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Asking questions, getting answers24 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Communication.
As a manager or leader today you will be called on to run meetings, and many (if not most) will be done remotely by phone, webmeeting or probably hologram, soon enough. It's just one of the new dynamics of today's workplace. It can also be quite a challenge. And to meet it, there's a new resource I'd like to introduce to you. I was thrilled to be included in the 2012 ASTD Management Development Handbook. My buddy Lisa Haneberg (of the Management Craft blog) and 37 other authors contributed one chapter on a topic of their choice. I chose to write about running good virtual meetings and thought I'd share some of it with you as a sneak peek. Specifically, one of the most common complaints is a lack of quality input from participants. How can you ensure that people participate and contribute their wisdom to the team when it's most needed? It helps to have a questioning strategy. When do you want input? There are probably logical breaks in the flow of the conversation where it makes sense to check understanding or ask for audience input. If you have a three-step process, and you wait until step three to make sure people are following you, you're likely to lose a few folks along the way. So determine the logical places to have discussion or ask questions and build it into your notes or your timeline. If you don't write it down, you'll forget to do it. Trust me. How do you want the input? Do you want people to ask by voice? Do you want them to write their comments in chat? Maybe you want them to write their ideas on the white board themselves. Set ground-rules for how you'll get their input. Control the flow of information and ideas. If you're a meeting leader, you know you have to control the flow of information. You can't have everyone talking at once. Additionally, there is a tendency for the same people to get heard and others ignored. Web meetings actually allow you to control this if you take charge. Using multiple media is a good idea. For example, many people with English as a second language feel that their written English is better than their spoken English and feel more confident contributing that way. Your group's introverts may not be comfortable interrupting to make a point. Often people will make a comment in chat and you can then give them the floor and allow them to elaborate verbally. Allowing more than one way to get input from people increases the odds they'll contribute in a way that's comfortable for them. Assume there are questions and go after them. Asking "what questions do you have?" or "what do you need more information on?" presumes there will be questions and makes some people feel better about asking for what they need. Additionally, it projects a positive attitude. Many meeting leaders ask for questions like they're about to get shot for it. Q and A is a good thing. There are three types of questions. Just as with a regular conference-room meeting there are three ways of asking for input from the audience: 1. "Can anyone tell me…" questions. These are general questions and you're looking for someone to give you an answer. In a room, people would raise their hand and you could pick a speaker. Online it's a little trickier but you can use the "raise hand" feature, or just ask people to say their name, rather than blurt out the answer. Try not to go to the same person every time (and you know who they are - they answer every darned question and monopolize the conversation). Give priority to people you haven't heard from yet. 2. Directed questions are aimed at a specific person. You might do this because you know they have the answer, or maybe you want to show how smart that person is. Either way you want to ask that question by starting with their name ("Ramona, what do you think?") for a very good reason. You want to wake them up, refocus them and give them a chance to unmute their phone before they have to answer. 3. "Anyone else?" questions are a last-resort way of telling someone they're over-contributing and you want to hear from someone new. Lessons from the USS Cole attack21 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Management Thinking.
Phrases like "It's life or death", "failure is not an option" or "plan of attack" all have become part of our vocabulary. But how would your team hold up if something really awful happened. More importantly, we have to ask ourselves how we'd stand up to the challenge. I had the opportunity to speak to, and meet, someone who has lived just that scenario and written to tell about it. Commander Kirk Lippold (US Navy, Retired) was the captain of the USS Cole, which was attacked by terrorists in 2000. He has written about it in his new book, Front Burner: Al Qaeda's Attack on the USS Cole. While I'm not one of those who fetishizes the military experience, nor am I always comfortable drawing parallels to civilian and everyday life, Lippold does make some important points with great relevance to the rest of us. The key lesson for me was that it was the preparation, training and hard work done before the ship ever set sail that allowed them to overcome the shock and devastation of a bombing that claimed 17 lives. Those activities were based on what Lippold calls his "5 Pillars of Leadership".
The key thing is that these expectations are not only of the leader, but apply to every member of the crew, project team or company. Through countless hours of repetition, discussion and mind-numbing training and drills, the crew were ready when disaster struck and for over 20 minutes there was no communication between the commander and most of his crew. The point, as far as this column is concerned, is that none of those things should be adversely impacted by the fact you're not physically together very often (if at all). The takeaway for me was much more personal. Stop whining. A misinterpreted email or a missed deadline is not good, it's easily avoided and you need to take immediate action. Oh, and stop whining you ingrate. You don't know what trouble really is. Technophobia or tech-rejection?17 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Technology & IT.
As you read this, I'm speaking at a conference for project managers in Madison, Wisconsin. (I'm not bragging - it's relevant). I was asked to speak about tech for virtual teams, which is common enough. What's interesting is when I asked the program chair what he wanted me to focus on, he said "well all the latest tools for collaboration. Not that anyone will use them". This somewhat defeatist attitude (and the line between cynicism and observation is narrow and blurry, I grant you) is not unusual. It also prompted a much larger conversation with him. After all, most of the people at this conference are in IT so why wouldn't they use the tools at their disposal? The usual reason given for not adopting software or anything else is "technophobia", but since they're in IT, they are not afraid of technology. In fact, they are the ones responsible for foisting it off on the rest of us and then blaming us for not using it. The fact is, that true "technophobia" is pretty rare in a functional workplace. If someone is carrying a smart phone, owns a television without knobs on it, and can get money out of the bank without turning a blank deposit slip over to a teller and grunting, they aren't afraid of technology. They use it every day of their lives. They just pick and choose the tech they're going to use. So why don't people just use what they're supposed to use when they're supposed to do it? There are a number of reasons. In a perfect world, you'd think about these things before spending money on a solution that may or may not be successful. In the world in which we currently dwell, you might ask yourself if any of these is the barrier to getting your team to use a certain tool or solution. Do they understand what it's supposed to do or the problem it should solve? A stunning percentage of people are asked to use tools without ever being told what it can do in a practical way. For example, most people using web presentation platforms use fewer than a quarter of the features available to them. Sometimes that's because the features are unnecessary and added by the geeks who design it. More often, though, they've never seen the tool used in a way that makes sense to them, and therefore don't understand the big deal. When we teach web presentation basics, the most common comment is, "I never knew it could do all those things, this is really cool". Change happens when people understand why what you're asking them to do is better than what they're doing now. A list of features on the FAQ page of your website is seldom sufficient. Does it work? Most software and solutions work just fine. They do what they're designed to do. So whether something works or not isn't defined by whether it does all kinds of cool things when the sales person does the demo. It ought to be defined by the fact that people can use it while doing all the other stuff they have to do in the normal course of their work. So if data entry needs to be done in a completely different way than they are used to doing it, for example, there will be plenty of mistakes, frustration and throwing up of hands. Will it take a long time to learn? Learning a new way of working takes a lot longer than people think. Let's say you estimate an hour for training. Great, now add in the amount of time it takes them to do the task now, and double it. Now add extra time for mistakes and re-work. It takes weeks of doing something to become unconsciously competent. It takes much longer to be expert. If the returns and rewards aren't worth the aggravation, they will resist. Will they get away with not using the new system? People will do what's easiest and offers the least amount of pain. Is it worth taking the time to learn or can you just ask someone else to do it when the time comes? I mean, why learn to use Sharepoint if you can just ask your manager to re-send that document when you need it. If she sends it, she's in essence rewarding your current (non-compliant) behavior. Ask yourself how often you or your team get rewarded for avoiding changing behavior? It's actually pretty shocking. Of course, the obvious thing would be to consult them before purchasing or implementing the solution to see what objections they might have and get some buy-in, but what madness is that? So if you can't make the presentation today, ask yourself: what tools are at your disposal that people aren't using and why the heck not? The psychology of bad advice16 May 2012 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Psychology.
It's one thing advising an individual about an important investment choice. But when you're advising a large number of people – if you're an investment analyst, for example - even greater care should be taken to ensure your advice is accurate. Sadly, however, this is often not the case. In fact according to new research by Sunita Sah from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and George Loewenstein from Carnegie Mellon, advisors confronting a financial conflict of interest actually give more biased advice to multiple, anonymous recipients than they do to single, identifiable recipients. The reason for this seems to be driven by increased intensity of feelings toward individuals; advisors have greater sympathy for and more motivation to reduce bias in their recommendations to identifiable individuals. As the researchers found in their experiment, advisors turned out to be much less biased if they were giving advice to just one person that they knew something about (such as their name and age) than if it was for a group of five advisees or a person they knew nothing about. According to Sunita Sah , the research can shed light on the behavior of stock analysts who gave recommendations they themselves didn't believe during the dot-com boom, that of auditors during the Enron debacle, and of bond raters during the housing market bubble. In all of these cases, he said, these advisors were giving biased advice to large numbers of investors who were anonymous to them, so the damage they were causing had little reality for them. "When advice affects the welfare of a greater number of people, greater attention and care should be taken to ensure its accuracy. However, many advisors face conflicts of interest and next time you need advice on a particular stock, don't read the public recommendations but speak to your advisor one-on-one." The full report to this research is published the May issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science. Happy Defender of the Motherland Day14 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Team Working.
If you ever need to be reminded of the fact we live in a multicultural world and function on a calendar other than the one your fathers and mothers used, just try arranging meetings in the merry, merry month of May. It's frustrating, but can also be a teachable moment for those of us whose teams span international boundaries. A look at the list of national and bank holidays this month will tell you that somewhere, someone is not at their desk, and allowed by statue not to be there. Is it Memorial Day (US), Victoria Day (Canada, the UK, parts of the old Commonwealth not yet fully detached) Defender of the Motherland Day (Kazakhstan and I'm not kidding), Mothers Day, or something even more obscure? My daughter's birthday is the 19th, the banks are open but I will probably be in a store somewhere looking miserable and not at my desk where I should be. The point is, that the craziness of scheduling anything just gets amped up a notch this month, and that's okay. It's a chance to use it to your team's advantage. Here are some of the ways you can take all these holidays and make it work for you. Try to learn a bit about each others' customs and culture. Odds are your Romanian counterparts have holidays and traditions you don't know about, and vice versa. This is a chance for a bit of bonding and getting to know each other. What will they do with their time out? What foods are part of the celebration? Help your team get to know each other a bit. Make sure that your team communication plan is up to speed. Do people know how to reach each other? Do they know how long to wait for a response before nagging the person. Where to go in case one person is unavailable? These things should be common knowledge for any team but having a good excuse to talk about it, update the information and remind people how to work and play well together is seldom time wasted. If you haven't had a good team check-in, maybe you should. Has it been a while since everyone talked to each other? Offer people the chance to say "hey, does anyone need anything before I disappear for 3 days?" Use downtime for training, learning or neglected projects. Rather than sit around and stew because you can't get the outputs from your team in Kazhakstan , use the slow time to do some of that "important but not urgent" stuff you've been putting off. Yes, the world is a big place and working remotely is full of inconveniences. It is also full of opportunities to learn about people, do a conscious check-in of your team's processes and actually communicate. If you're planning time off, enjoy it. If you're reading this on what should be a holiday or time off, stop - cut it out. Defender of the Motherland Day only happens once a year… What makes a great remote team10 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Flexible Working. Team Working.
Most of us have remote teams that are functional. After all, we get stuff done. Kind of. Mostly. But what separates great remote teams from those that are merely functional? Here are five differentiators of great remote teams. In her very good book, "Virtual Team Success", Darleen Derosa has a lot to say, but one of the most helpful is her "5 Differentiators for Top Virtual Teams". It's based on lots of research but has the added value of being true on a gut level as well. Here are the five ways great remote teams are probably operating at a higher level than yours and mine: Commitment and engagement:When everyone's pulling in the same direction for the same reasons, everything falls in line. When they don't, you have trouble. I would submit that many of us start off with everyone on board. After all, good project managers always have a plan. Of course, as Clausewitz once said, the most brilliant battle plan is only good until the first shot is fired. Constant checking in and explicit commitment to the goal is part of the ongoing process of alignment. Shared process for decision-making:different types of decisions require different processes. Is you team going to do everything by vote? You might wind up with compromises but not the best solution. Taking everyone's advice then making the decision yourself? Good luck with that. According to Derosa's research the best teams explicitly state how decisions will be made and vary the approach depending on the needs of the moment. Getting the right information to the right people:This involves not only good tech (can people find the information they need on demand or do they have to wait for someone to answer an plaintive email?) but a willingness to share information and an ability to proactively volunteer information before problems develop. Task-based trust:we've talked before about the difference between faith and trust. Faith is believing it will happen, trust is built over time. While beginning a project or working relationship some faith is called for, what really gets the job done is trust built on how people work. Do commitments and timelines get met? Is quality what it should be? Does the way you work encourage your teammates or get them gossiping and planning for your failure? When people are able to be successful early on, it builds an aura of trust around everyone's work. Build short-term wins and measurable in to your timeline and tasks so people can see each other at their best. Collaboration:is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot. At its core is the queston: "how well do your people work together to achieve quality outcomes?" Her research indicates that top performing teams not only understood their individual roles, but had a good handle on one another's roles and responsibilities and that the team as a whole had clearly defined team objectives. They also had clearly defined processes for working together. How's your team doing in these areas? Have you stopped and really thought about it? How to stop wasting 600 hours a year07 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Communication. Productivity.
Have you got 600 hours a year to waste? Yeah, me neither. Yet numbers show that's how much time is wasted in bad meetings, both face to face and virtual. It doesn't have to be this way, it just usually is. The numbers come from a number of studies, the most credible of which comes from MicroSoft (and as the purveyors of PowerPoint, let's assume they're the experts on wasted time and energy). Their numbers are fairly conservative, but easy to do the math on:
So what can we do to stop wasting all that time? Well, we could quit meeting. I'm partly serious here. Stop it. Holding meetings because they are scheduled, and not because you have anything important to accomplish is a huge problem. Feel free to cancel meetings and release people to get work accomplished. Tell them I said so, if it helps. Assuming you do have to meet, there are a couple of things that will help:
The truth is that many of us know what works and what doesn't, but we don't always take the time to do them. Those 600 hours or so are not completely in our control, but a heck of a lot of them are. Hiring new remote team members03 May 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Flexible Working. Recruitment. Team Working.
One of the big challenges of remote and virtual teams is that the team seldom stays intact from beginning to end. People get shifted in and out, they leave and new people are brought on board. If you're lucky enough to be in charge of the hiring, how can you find people who are prepared to work in a remote/virtual environment? Interviewing is tough, because you often are doing that remotely as well, and you largely base hiring decisions on the answers to the questions you ask. The problem is, your interviewee is programmed to give you the answer they think you want to hear. If you ask "have you worked remotely before?" they are likely to say they have, even if it's only the occasional Friday. It's not that they're dishonest, it's just that the definition of the truth stretches the longer you've been out work. Here are some things to ask prospective remote workers: What has been your experience working as part of a remote team? (Shut up at that point and let them answer. Keep the question open. They may tell you about technology challenges, they may tell you about working relationships, let them start where they are most comfortable then you can drill down.) What technology have you used in the past as part of working remotely? This is a good question for several reasons. You'll get a sense of their comfort level (listen carefully to tone of voice. Does their tongue drip with venom when discussion firewalls and connection speeds?) You may also learn about other tools they've used that can be of value to your existing team. New hires are often thought of as blank slates, but people bring valuable experience to your group. Based on past experience, what concerns do they have or challenges have they experienced that they'd like to avoid when working with you and your team? This might be a subset of the first question, or it might be a completely different topic. It may also help you prioritize training and onboarding. What is their work environment like? Are they working in a home office? Specifically, what does it look like? We all know (again, definitions become more elastic as the unemployment benefits are closer to expiring) that a home office might be a secure location with great connection, a door with a lock and a comfy chair. Or the person could be working with a cell phone from the north end of the dining room table. What is their work style? What you're trying to determine here is, how this person likes to work. Are they a loner? Do they like frequent interaction? If they know their Myers Briggs type, or their DISC profile, terrific (and you may have an assessment you give all your team members). The key is to find out what they'll be like to work with. If you're the kind of manager who likes frequent contact, will they view you as micromanaging? If you're the type that thinks "no news is good news", will they think they're being neglected? How proactive will they be reaching out to other team members? Remember that the past is the best indicator of the future. Ask what they have done or experienced, not what they think should happen. Who tells you they expect to melt down when faced with a deadline or that proactive team communication isn't important. The question shouldn't reflect what they think or know should happen, it's been what their experience has been and how they've responded to it. History has an annoying way of repeating itself. Resumes are fine for screening, but as a leader you have to get a sense of how the person will respond when they are on the job, not just looking for one. 5D Business: Conscious wisdom for tomorrow's leaders02 May 2012 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Management Thinking.
On 6 June in central London, Management-issues is bringing together four inspirational speakers to share their insights into the new 'disruptive perspectives' that are shaping the future of business. They will explore how you become adept at recognising patterns, spotting trends, making connections and discerning the big picture in this changed landscape and how can you can leverage volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity to positive advantage. This half-day event will stimulate your thinking in radical and profoundly important ways and present practical approaches to help navigate this new business landscape. Where?The Grange Tower Bridge Hotel,43 Prescott Street, London E1 8GP How much?£199 + VAT
Event Speakers
Through a series of case studies he will explain how business leaders can use this principal to take a more holistic perspective at any level.
Slackers are wired to be lazy02 May 2012 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Engagement & Motivation.
We've all come across the office slacker. But it seems that it isn't a lack of motivation that's their real problem, it is that their brain is simply wired differently from their more motivated colleagues. According to a new study by a team from Vanderbilt University, there are significant differences between "go-getters" and "slackers" in three specific areas of the brain. Using a brain mapping technique, the researchers found that "go-getters" who are willing to work hard for rewards had higher release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in areas of the brain known to play an important role in reward and motivation, the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, "slackers" who are less willing to work hard for a reward had high dopamine levels in another brain area that plays a role in emotion and risk perception, the anterior insula. Michael Treadway, one of the researchers, said that while past studies in rats had shown that dopamine is crucial for reward motivation, this was the first time that a connection had been made in humans between dopamine and the desire to work. The research, led by Professor David Zald, is part of a project searching for objective measures for depression and other psychological disorders where motivation is reduced "Right now our diagnoses for these disorders is often fuzzy and based on subjective self-report of symptoms," he said. "Imagine how valuable it would be if we had an objective test that could tell whether a patient was suffering from a deficit or abnormality in an underlying neural system. With objective measures we could treat the underlying conditions instead of the symptoms." Is internet usage making us stupid?30 Apr 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Technology & IT.
If you're managing a remote team, you spend an unholy amount of time online. If you feel that this might be impacting your brain, you're right. If you suspect those changes might not all be for the better, you're right there, too. Check out this full (and fun!) inforgraphic on the ForensicPsychology.net site. Some of the highlights include:
Here's where the conclusions get a bit fuzzy and we have to process them carefully (if we aren't too ADD-addled to function at that level). Since we need (or feel we need) to access more information than our brains can hold, we need to use technology like the web and really, does it matter if you remember that contact information as long as you can access it when you need it? On the other hand, having a fully functioning brain is never a bad thing, and memorizing information actually helps your brain make connections that help creativity and problem solving. So here's the deal, reading this article, then checking out the infographic we spoke about is a good thing. Odds are, though, you flipped back and forth and if there was a quiz you'd probably not retain much of what I just said. So how about trying to slow down, reducing the number of open windows and actually completing one task before tackling the next one. (Just saying!) Is no news good news?26 Apr 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Communication. Team Working.
The one thing I hear more than anything else from project managers is, "no news is good news". But is it true? When you're a busy project manager, or your team is scattered hither and yon and you're constantly tethered to one electronic device or another, a little peace is a good thing. There is even some rationale to the idea that it is desirable (although it's probably been a while since you've experienced a break in the torrent for reasons of comparison). If I've made one mistake in my management career, it's clinging to the idea that a lack of bad news gushing like a geyser means that there's no bad news to be found. And it's an error that has bitten me more than once. What's taken me so long to learn (and I pass this on to you out of the goodness of my heart) is that an absence of information isn't the good news, it's the absence of unpleasant surprises. Ironically, you need a lot of news to make that judgment. Rather than not hearing anything from anyone, a good manager receives a manageable stream of good information they can actually use to prevent, mitigate or at least see coming in enough time to duck and cover. Notice that the word we're using is "information" and not "data". This is an important distinction. Data is raw numbers. You have a certain number of things coming in and going out but by itself it doesn't mean anything good or bad. Information is data with context—"We have X things backed up and that's bad news because it means we'll miss a deadline". Data is important, but it's not enough. Rather than a lack of information, then, a good project team handles information in three ways to make it both useful and manageable: 1. Information should be accurate: you can't do much without accurate information, and sometimes this means not accepting data at face value. Take deliverable dates, for instance. Very often you don't hear that you'll miss a deadline until you miss the deadline. "Almost done" is really hard to quantify. 2. Offer context along with data: practice adding the words "and what that means to us is…." To your updates and information. Just because one person (usually the person most familiar with the data) understands all the implications doesn't mean everyone else does. Everyone on the team needs to understand what's going on. 3. If information isn't there, go after it: and here we come to the topic of proactivity. A highly functional team has multiple ways of providing information. It's not enough to wait for the weekly status update. You need to have multiple ways to pass on information. Sometimes you need to be able to share it with the team when it occurs to you or crops up. Sometimes you need it stored where the people who can act on the information can see it on their own. Here's where shared file sites, common databases and the like really prove their value. Of course what's really critical is an environment where the people who have the information are comfortable, or at least willing, to provide information rather than have it pried out of them. You also need to have team members who will proactively seek information (knowing it might not be good news) in order to see trouble coming. To be fair, going after information can also calm nerves and reduce suspicion on the team, and that's a good thing. So it's not a lack of news that is the good news. It's being able to get it in a form that's useful, in time to be actionable and in multiple forms. Five ways facilitation makes meetings easier23 Apr 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Communication.
Are you a meeting facilitator? Are you sure? Do you make meetings easier or not? If not, then you're not a facilitator. Let me explain. I'll be honest. When I'm in a meeting or class, and someone introduces themselves as "the facilitator", I get a bit of a twinge. Usually, that's code for "I'm the instructor or meeting leader but it's politically incorrect to say so". Truly, though, the word "facilitator" comes from the Latin for "one who makes easier". Here are some of the things good facilitators do to, well, facilitate. And they apply equally well online as in the same room: Keep the meeting objectives in mind. This sounds obvious, but the biggest complaint meeting participants have is about too much time being wasted or spent on things that don't accomplish the stated goal. A facilitator is responsible for getting everyone where they need to go. You have to help keep things on track, rein in those who want to take off on tangents and monitor the time. If the discussion is moving towards your goals, great. If not, call a process check and move things along. Watch for who's participating and how often. Too often, we're so grateful when someone pipes up in a meeting or on a conference call that we let them say their bit. The problem, as most of us know, is that the people who are first to speak up aren't always the ones we want to hear from or will add the most value. A real meeting facilitator respects input, but also limits it when it becomes repetitive or impacts other participants in negative ways. Don't just pay attention to those who put their hands up. Repeat and clarify as necessary (and it's frequently necessary). We've all been in meetings where we can't understand the person talking…and it's even worse on line. I don't mean you just can't hear… I mean you can't make @#$%@ sense of what they're saying. Since your job is to make it easier for others to understand and take part, you may be required to help translate, clarify or simplify. Online you should repeat or rephrase questions anyway, since not everyone can hear clearly when they are in an airport lounge with a phone pressed to their head. One technique I've learned is to always listen as if you'll be called on to repeat the key points…because as a meeting leader you often are. Help people help themselves make sense. Many of us start to speak, thinking we have a point to make, but often have trouble getting there. As someone responsible for moving things along it's tempting (but seldom constructive) to just shout "what's your point!". A much more positive idea is to summarize for them (sometimes as soon as they stop to take a breath) and check that you have it right. Very often when people are rambling, if you just stop them and ask "so how does this impact _____" they can often spit it out in a much clearer fashion . Help them help themselves. Choose the right method to reach closure. If the point of a meeting is to achieve something like choosing a course of action or solving a problem you need to help people do it in a way that achieves the goal and doesn't involve endlessly circling the topic until people scream from frustration. There are different techniques for reaching different kinds of solutions. For example, if you just want a solution that everyone can live with, you might call for a simple vote. If you're looking for the best possible solution regardless of egos, that might require something like using a ten-point scale, or a multiple-solution voting method like the "Nominal Group" technique. Learn more about those and understand how to get the best from your people. Being a facilitator and making things easier is ironically hard work, but will get you and your team the best results. Teach people what they actually want to know16 Apr 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Training & Development.
Have you ever been frustrated with trying to train your team members or employees on technology? When you mention training do you get heavy sighs and eye rolls? I heard a great idea yesterday, an elegant solution to an old problem: how about we teach people what they actually want to know? I love when my clients and audiences are smarter than I am (which given the odds in favor on any given day is a very good thing). I was giving a presentation yesterday on overcoming the dreaded Hype Cycle that seems to haunt most technology launches. When I asked the audience what they've done to help people speed up the time it takes to adopt a piece of software and the quality of the work they do with it, one of the women in the audience spoke up. She was a IT project manager who was sick and tired of people complaining about the software training she was offering. In desperation she asked them, if you could have the trainer all to yourself, what would you want to learn? The answers were surprising, although they shouldn't have been. People want to learn what they need to know right at that moment to get their job done. Some people need to start right at the basics. You can imagine how experienced users would react in a class of people whose first question is "where's the ON switch, again?" Training frequently doesn't work because the newbies are intimidated by their more experienced peers and the experienced folks get all cranky because they're having their time wasted. Many people have simple questions: "how do I find the data I'm looking for right away?" They don't want to know everything the software can do. They frankly don't care. "Teach me to do the one thing I can't do now and I'll figure out the rest when I get there." So caught between these two extremes, with numerous points in between, she came up with an elegant solution: everyone gets an hour with a trainer. Ask what you want, learn what you want, but make it good. The response was amazing. Not only did people like the individual attention, but they learned what they felt was important to them. Those who were comfortable with the software got their questions answered, were happy and went back to work. They were more productive and considerably less miserable than before. The newbies were able to start where they wanted without feeling like idiots in front of their coworkers. Even Finance was happy, because they weren't losing entire days of productivity. If you're having heart palpitations about the cost of bringing in trainers all over the place, stop and think about it. One expert can make the rounds of several people in the course of a day. Not all the training needs to be in person, of course. Using WebEx or similar screen sharing tools there are often no travel expenses at all, and you can cover multiple offices in a single day. More to the point, which is more valuable: training that doesn't cost much, or training that actually works without making people miserable and encourages them to use the tool right away? What simple learning solutions are lurking in your company to help people adopt tools faster and use them better? Five simple, curmudgeonly email rules10 Apr 2012 | Permalink
Wayne Turmel | Communication. Technology & IT.
Many things in life are necessary but annoying. In business, nothing seems to fit both categories at once like email. I am old enough to remember when no one had email so I know that it is possible to live without it, but it does seem unlikely we'll have the option any time soon. Based on that, here are five simple things everyone can do with their emails that will help make everyone less generally cranky: 1. Is it too much to ask that the subject of the email actually reflect what the email is about? Most of us make snap decisions about whether to read or act on an email based on a quick scan of the subject line and maybe the first paragraph in the preview pane. Sending me an email in response to a previous email when it has nothing to do with it is counter productive. 2. If the relevant information isn't in the previous email, don't assume I'll look through the past five to find it. We've all been there. Someone wants you to CC someone on a reply, or click a link but you have to go through a long thread of the previous emails to find the one you need. Look, it takes less than 2 seconds to copy and paste a link into the email the person is actually reading. (I know, I've timed it) Take the time and make someone's life easier. 3. Email is not a synchronous communication form. Even though we know we're busy and don't instantly respond to every email we receive, we somehow expect everyone else to jump at the little "ding" when we send one. Someone actually called me the other day within five minutes of sending an email demanding to know why I hadn't responded. I told them I thought I might finish toweling off and putting my pants on first, since I was in the shower and I only jumped out to grab the phone. The general rule in civilized society is that you respond to Instant Messages immediately. If you require an immediate response, make it clear. 4. I am glad your mother raised you well, but I don't need a thank you to the email I sent thanking you for your email. I looked at a client file and found that over half the emails in that folder consisted of "thank you", "no problem" or "cool". Really? 5. If you cc me on something I'm going to read it. You'd better make sure I know why. Increasingly, people are included in email discussions "just in case". You know and I know that it's usually a way of ensuring plausible deniability or ratting out someone who isn't responding to them in the first place. So just know that if you CC me on an email without letting me know you're doing it, I'm liable to either respond to both parties or have to spend time asking you why I needed to be brought in. This results in more email for both of us, and you're likely to be a little embarrassed when you have to explain your reasoning. Don't make this a big deal and please be a grownup about it. Yes, we could survive without email, then how else would my father send me anti-Obama jokes and my coworker bust my chops about how badly the Blackhawks will do in the NHL playoffs? We're stuck with email, let's just make it a little less annoying for all concerned. Okay? 
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