Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Triggering a full reorganization

How often do you stir things up in your company? I was turn to this topic by a conversation I had about operational efficiency. I was thinking about how often you should look at what you are doing and look for ways to improve it. If you go by the Kaizen methodology, then you are doing this constantly... this works great for small changes but not for big ones. Full-on reorganizations can be triggered by traumatic events but the price you pay in organizational stress is great.
I recommend you are always on Kaizen mode; it is a great way to do business and life in general. But, how do you decide is the right time to do a full-on reorganization? The conditions I think could trigger a full reorganization are:
  • Financial results are not there for 3 quarters or more. You are underperforming and it is not the result of a disaster, and the recovery trend is not there.
  • You tried incremental enhancements and they are not having enough impact.
  • Your key decision processes are convoluted or ineffective.
  • Key players leave or arrive into your organization (for example, after a merger or acquisition).
  • Your market conditions have changed dramatically (new and strong competitors; new business models)
These are a few of the conditions; your individual reasons may vary and add to this list. If you decide that a reorganization is in order, just be careful to fix the issues with a holistic approach.

Monday, June 7, 2010

What to do with self-sabotaging people – Part 1

I was just in a discussion with one of my Linkedin groups as to how to handle people who are self-sabotaging. First things first, how do you spot a self-sabotaging person? Here are a few of their characteristics:
 
  1. Self-sabotaging people are aware of what needs to be done, but do something else.
  2. They stop learning and listening - they believe they already know what they need to know.
  3. They stop asking for counsel or use the wrong advisors [we should use only wise and trusted advisors].
  4. They spend their energy in menial things and events; they don’t pick their fights – they sweat the small stuff and everything is a conflict to the death.
  5. They’re forever looking at the past: what mistakes they made, what [they think] people did to them, how they were wronged.
  6. They are always looking at the future [but do nothing to achieve it] – they wish upon every star but never lift a finger to make things happen.
  7. They make excuses for their behavior and don’t take responsibility – my parents treated me bad, my [condition] excuses my [behavior].
  8. They believe the labels they apply to themselves – I am [neurotic, unlucky, ugly, fat] so I can’t change [something]
  9. They always believe things are too difficult and find the negative in everything.
They not only waste their time, but yours. They come into your office and take precious energy away from people and things that really need it, they leave you exhausted and little less alive than before, they don’t leave anything behind but stress and desperation. But, what should you do with them? In my next post, I will present a good list of solid advice as to how to handle this type of person.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Deciding on controversial features for products

I’ve just discovered that leaving your account logged on Facebook allows CNN.com to somehow connect to it and see who of your friends have linked to CNN stories. To say the least, I was a little surprised to see a friend’s name with a link to a CNN.COM article, since I wasn’t logged into CNN and they didn’t ask for permission to connect to my Facebook account. My first instinct was to see behind my shoulder to see if the illuminati were behind me.

I did a little experimenting, logging out of Facebook and reloading the CNN page got me blank box with the caption that friends’ links would be shown there. Logging to Facebook again reintroduced the news about my friend’s link. Somehow they were getting access to my friend lists.

From the Product Management perspective, how do you decide on this type of features? I can think of several people who will love it, and a many more that will hate it. Obviously you want your product to remain competitive and offer features that go the extra mile for your customers. At the same time, if it takes a PhD to customize your preferences that would be a turn off.

To address this type of features, the steps I would follow would be:

• Prototype the hell out of it.

• Use customer’s panels and demo it in front of large groups

• Announce it and highlight it when it is shown for the first time.

• Build a “quick kill” or “shut down” button into the feature.

• Prepare for fallout in case it goes the wrong way.

Obviously I am simplifying the situation but the approach may help your company avoid Facebook-like privacy problems.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Don't steal their thunder

I was in a conversation with an HR person today and the topic turned to good and bad coworkers.  The conversation brought me the following memory:

"I was part of a team of four that was working on a new strategy for the company. We worked for several days putting together a document that would help launch the strategy effort  and sent it to the VP in charge of the new strategy. The VP, who didn't really help with the document, changed a few words and sent a message to the CEO and others saying that HE worked on the document ALL NIGHT and asking them for feedback. We would have never learned of this, if not for the fact that the CEO sent a reply to the whole team saying that the document was brilliant and thanking HIM for the effort"

We were speechless. He had passed our work as his own! Nobody, but me, in the team confronted the VP and he ended up taking the glory (and later, a promotion). Our associated continued for several years, and I never forgot the incident. I was very cautious as to what material I sent him, and always made sure that people who needed to know were CC'd.
My takeaways are:
  1. Always make sure to let the right people know the job you are making - there is nothing wrong with proper self promotion.
  2. Give credit where credit is due. People will ALWAYS remember if you steal their thunder.
  3. When in this situation, confront the person. Don't shy away from establishing your role in the effort. It is not humility to let somebody steal your credit.
Has this ever happened to you? How did you manage/resolve it?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Blog post for Author's Globe & customer's rights

The blog post for Author's Globe was published yesterday here . It was a tremendously informative conference by Dan Ariely. I had a lot of fun writing the post.

On a separate note, I have been having a difference of opinion with a service provider and wanted to share it with you. The situation is this, I have contracted a series of services from provider "A", and for the past 3 months one of the services has been unavailable, after a lot of going back and forth I found out that the service in question is subcontracted and the reason for the lack of availability has been that the service provider "A" hasn't been paying the subcontractor - according to service provider "A", they forgot to pay (for two months the story was very different and I did everything I could to help restore the service). Now, service provider "A" has paid his past dues and the service will be restored in the future (there is a built in one month delay to reactivation).

After learning all of this I substracted the amount for the services that I did not receive from my next payment and informed service provider "A" of the adjustment. The amount substracted is less than 5% of the total service bill. Service provider "A" is now in a tiffy as to the amount substracted - mind you that he didn't complain about getting paid for services he was not providing.

This situation got me thinking: What are your customer's rights? Does your company offer a customer's bill of rights? Explicity stating what your customer are entitled to (friendly customer service, 24 hour response to inquiries, automatic deductions from lack of service provided) will help create trust in the relationship . Think about how you are today defining your relationship with your clients; and how clear statements about how you are offering to treat your customer would go a long way to create a mutually beneficial association. In this case, service provider "A" has ensured that I know he is not interested in keeping me as a customer, and that I will be looking at every aspect of the service and payments with a magnifying glass. Ours will not be a relationship with trust in it, and may end up being cut short as a result.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Three quick notes

I will be guest blogger at the Author’s Globe blog – my blog entry will be published on Monday May 10th. The conference I will be blogging about is: Predictably Irrational: Hidden Forces Shaping your Decisions given by Dan Ariely from Duke/MIT and is on May 7th at 12 PM.

I will publish a longer post later but I just have to comment. The economy is still creating unusual situations: a friend of mine was told they didn’t have any projects for him anymore… after only three weeks on the job. How would you explain that at your next job interview? In your company, who is in charge of determining resource acquisition and demand? Also, I have learned of another IT executive leaving Miami for colder beaches (North Carolina). Need to find a way to stop the brain-drain affecting the area.

Last, but not least. I will be becoming a Venture Coach for the The Launch Pad at the University of Miami. The Launch Pad is a UM program for promoting and helping entrepreneurship in the area. (Hopefully) I will be coaching several of their startups. Helping new companies find their way is a great way to keep your edge. Will keep you posted.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Do you taste your own service?

How do you know your service? Do you test it? How do you test it? When I speak to companies about testing their service I usually get a positive answer ("yes, we do QA"). Excuse me, but testing the service is more than doing QA. I propose that you taste all aspects of the service from OUTSIDE your corporate wall - that means: experiencing the service using conditions similar to your clients, and calling customer service with real problems. To see how good do you taste, do the following:

  • Use your service from outside your corporate network - use your customer's PC/device if possible. What if there are problems with their ISP? or some other thing outside your corporate network? Do not use any corporate advantage or identify yourself as an employee - do not seek preferential treatment. No VIP pass for you.
  • Taste during high peak times - no experimenting at 3 AM when the servers are at 0.0001% utilization (unless that is your peak time). Do not use an super-machine with an infinite bandwidth connection (routed through NASA and a private line to the president).
  • Call customer support with real problems - but use the customer's line (don't listen from the call center or call from HQ). I recently had a call with a company's customer service. I am pretty sure my call was between me in the US, one customer rep in India and another company's customer rep in the US. The quality of the call was horrible and it dropped several times.
  • Do experiment with different ways to use the service: PC, iPad, Laptop, old PC... and call from landlines, cell phones, international phones (get your overseas relatives involved). 
Live your service from the outside. Get the real picture and the real taste.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Balancing growth is a must!

Every company dreams of getting larger and having more customers (hopefully capturing more value out of each transaction). Unfortunately, uncontrolled growth can disrupt your finely tuned-processes, it can overwhelm your Customer Support infrastructure, and thus, creating a situation where you are growing but dropping in customer satisfaction and repeat customers (it happened to Dell a few years back). So, what is the right choice? Control your growth? or Grow and fix things latter?

If you just grow and expect to fix things latter you may be in for a surprise: bad habits will have set in, your reputation may be already tarnished, your competition will be runing ads making fun of your service, and your customer will be looking for the next new thing! Internally, because of your hurry, you didn't build things the right way, you lost good but overworked persons and lost employee goodwill. Fixing things will cost you a fortune. I believe myspace would have been the Facebook of today if they had manage their growth better and kept their ears to the market.

Controling your growth may be the better answer. It allows you to keep your existing customers happy, while making shiny new customers. The difficult question for me is: what is the optimal speed for growth? The way to gauge your optimal growth speed is to use your "ears" to the market to determine when you are sacrificing quality for growth and shift your focus accordingly (hint: it isn't easy).

This is where your Product Management and Customer Service organizations are invaluable in getting a readout on the market (if you don't know what your customers think about you, you are in trouble). You need to be bold and put new infrastructure in place to support your growth, but as soon as customer satisfaction drops, you need to refocus on getting things under control again. If you keep doing this as fast as your organization is capable of, you are getting the best of both worlds. Hopefully, you will be fast enough as to not give your competitors a window of opportunity.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Don't let Customer Service ruin your customer's experience

There doesn't seem to be a customer service bone in some companies this day. I sent a scathing letter to an airline after five consecutive trips where every trip was either delayed or canceled – Their response was that they didn’t have time to answer my letter because they have received so many complaints lately that they couldn’t respond to them all.
After the initial shock was a sense that the company was no longer interested in customer service. The text of the response was neither apologetic nor palliative. It was matter of fact with no promise to address issues in the future. It was a customer’s dead end.

I have to wonder where does Customer Service at this airline sits with Product Development and Marketing – Is Customer Service even present when the company is addressing service problems. My guess is no. The communication showed no interest in their product, no Product Manager that I know of would sent that letter; and no rational Marketing person would sent such a diminishing communication. Their customer service board must have been asleep at the wheel on this one.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Negotiation - the lost art

I've been reminded of a lecture I attended at the Author's Globe because of a negotiation that I am currently involved with .  At the lecture, one of the exercises was to try to divide 7 marbles between two people. As expected most people tried to get 3 or 4 of the marbles, but there were a few participants that wanted all 7 of the marbles - and were being very vocal and proud about it.

The persons I am negotiating with is like that. They are pricing themselves out of the market, they want every benefit and they do not want to negotiate on anything. I have tried to create a win-win situation, but that means that we need to agree to divide the marbles. I understand that it may be a tactic on their part, but the offer is so out of the market and their attitude so final that I have started to wonder if what they want is for me to leave the negotiating table.

If we do not resolve the issues we will loose the 7 marbles and we will pay extra penalties, both parties will have to put extra marbles out of our pockets. Resolving the issue will create the most economic benefit to both parties, so I don't understand the hold out.

This also creates a bully-type situation, where if you concede too much (say less than 3 marbles) you are never going to be able to negotiate anything with them again - you would become a pushover. In this case unless somebody talks some sense to the other side we may have to end up leaving the negotiation table.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Business life vs. personal life - no difference

There really is no distinction now. Everything you do, can and will end up in your public profile: from that picture when you were drunk at that party to your profile in match.com (try goggling yourself). We all know that employers, business partners can look at our life footprint. Why do me still keep thinking that we have some privacy?

I was talking to an expert on managing your online presence and the conclusion we draw is that we are always "on". The paparazzi have invaded everyone's life. It is not only the high fliers of the world. Every time you go out of your house (physically or virtually) you are leaving a footprint that can haunt you for a long time - there are cameras everywhere.

This came about for two reasons: Tiger Woods' apology - BTW, he shouldn't have apologized to the golf community and media; and, the man who flew his plane into the IRS building. The amount of photos, video, texts, web pages that have been dug up and exposed is frightening. If you were involved in a high profile situation: how would your profile portray you?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:
  1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
  2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.
What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.