Marketing and Business Strategy

If you have sat through a few bad meetings, you must have experienced the following traps. Here they are and how to fix them.

1) People think they are experts.

Many people tell me that they know how to hold a meeting. Actually, all they do is host a party. They invite guests, provide treats, and preside over a conversation. People talk. People eat. And nothing happens. Or, if they somehow manage to reach an agreement, no one implements it.

> What to do: Learn how to lead a real meeting. Schedule a workshop or buy a book. When results really matter, hire a facilitator. Recognize that there are modern tools that help people make methodical progress toward results. These tools are practical and easy to use. Of course, you have to know what they are in order to use them. Call me (714-528-1300) for details.

2) People think they are inspiring.

Many people believe that long-winded announcements impress others. Actually, it’s the opposite. A long lecture quickly becomes a boring (and sometimes offensive) harangue. Why? Most employees want an active role in contributing to the business, and thus listening to a speech feels like a waste of time.

> What to do: Design meetings that give the attendees opportunities to contribute. Plan questions that direct thinking toward the results that you want. Use activities that help people make decisions. Distribute announcements in letters, memos, or E-mails. Or, if you must use a meeting, keep announcements brief (less than a few minutes).

3) People think others agree with them.

Many people rely on nods, smiles, and eye contact to measure acceptance. Actually, most employees will do anything to appease a boss. And if the boss seems to be upset, the employees will become even more agreeable. Then, once the meeting ends, the employees will do one of three things: 1) forget the lecture, 2) ignore the message, or 3) sabotage the idea.

> What to do: Conduct meetings by a process that everyone considers to be fair. Use consensus to reach agreements and make decisions. People will accept decisions that they helped make.

4) People think others are clairvoyant.

Many people call meetings without an agenda expecting that everyone will arrive sharing their vision for what needs to be done. Actually, everyone brings their private hopes, fears, and vision to the meeting. Without a clear agenda, the result is something between chitchat and chaos, depending upon the complexity of the issue.

Note: A vague agenda, such as a list of topics, is almost as useless as no agenda.

> What to do: Write out your goal for the meeting. Then prepare an agenda that is so complete someone else could use it to run the meeting without you. Specify each step and provide a time budget. Send the agenda at least a day before the meeting so that the attendees can use it to prepare. Call key participants before the meeting to check if they have questions or want to talk about the agenda.

5) People think meetings are necessary.

Many people respond to every emergency, surprise, or twitch by calling a meeting. Actually, a meeting is a special (and expensive) process. It should be used only to obtain results that require the efforts of a group of people working as a team. A meeting is NOT a universal cure for everything. Meetings held for the wrong reasons, waste everyone’s time.

> What to do: Challenge every meeting for its ability to earn a profit for your business. That is, make sure the value of the results is greater than the cost of holding a meeting. If any other activity can accomplish the same result, use that other activity.

Caged eagles-individuals who lack the authority and autonomy they need to make effective use of  their skills and experience. They are often underutilized in the organization and represent a potential waste of human resources. Take the following two steps to strategically empower these members:
First, ask the members to come to the meeting prepared to discuss representative situations in which he has had difficulty performing his work because of his lack of authority. Perhaps the member:
• Was not permitted to pass on information to other groups
• Had to wait for your approval to make routine decisions
• Lacks sign-off authority for documentation that is an important part of her job
• Is not permitted the flexibility of creating her own schedule, or selecting her own work methods.

During this conversation, listen nondefensively to the member and remain open to critical feedback concerning your management style. Next, discuss options for shifting additional authority over to the member, while minimizing unnecessary risks. Look for an option that will serve as a brief and timely mini-experiment for testing the individual’s ability to handle additional responsibility.

Fully empowered-workers with both the competence and the authority they need to achieve top performance. They are operating close to their maximum performance level and usually make the greatest contribution to your team. When working with such an individual, you should:
• Periodically meet to look for opportunities to broaden and extend her contribution to your team
• Make certain you’ve removed all empowerment roadblocks that could hamper her performance
• Consider work experiences that would enable him to serve as a successful role model for other members.

Close escape hatches. Whenever you challenge your team to test its performance, you are likely to encounter resistance from some members. Quite frequently this resistance will not be presented directly at the start of a job assignment or project but will begin to emerge subtly only after a work effort is well under way and the performance pressure begins to build.
Closing escape hatches means anticipating the types of excuses and rationalizations you are likely to encounter for the team’s failure to achieve its goals and eliminating these excuses well before they have an opportunity to delay or derail a project.
One of the best methods for closing escape hatches is to have your team play the role of devil’s advocate and for each stage of anticipated project identify the following:

• • The types of problems or roadblocks it is likely to encounter.
• • How these roadblocks or problems might affect the success of the project.
• • The types of actions that could be taken to prevent these problems from occurring or to get around them after they’ve occurred.
• • An agreement regarding when and how you will alert each other to changes that could affect progress on a project.

Raise the bar. This tactic involves raising the bar, that is, setting more difficult performance standards.
In my consulting practice I frequently encounter managers who say that they’ve made efforts to raise the bar for their teams but have seen few payoffs. Upon closer observation, these failures can always be traced to one of these factors:
• The manager’s message that the team must raise its performance level wasn’t credible. This manager is like the angry parent who, upon receiving a poor report card from his child, issues vague threats that “this better not happen again,” only to forget entirely about the incident until next time it occurs. The child, knowing the game well, learns to lay low until the entire situation blows over and things return to normal.
• The new performance expectations were unilaterally presented by the manager with no input from the team.
• The new performance standards were too vague or addressed performance factors that were well outside the team’s control.
• The team felt that the manager’s new performance standards were completely unattainable.
• The manager created consequences that were at odds with desired performance.

To overcome these roadblocks, consider these two steps. First, dramatically raise your expectations on a few key performance measures. Focus your efforts on the vital few performance areas most important to your teams survival.
Second, select performance goals that can be measured. The performance goals you select should include a definite time frame, focus on discrete performance areas, be quantifiable, and be worded in such a way as to be relatively free from ambiguity. If you aren’t sure whether your performance goals meet these criteria, ask your team and a trusted associate to help you troubleshoot them.

The following symptoms may indicate that lack of commitment and effort is rapidly becoming a critical management issue for your team:
• Your members leave as soon as possible after quitting time each day and refuse to work overtime when needed.
• Members doubt their ability to perform. They feel overwhelmed by small challenges and routinely gripe about the lack of fairness in assignments.
• Members seem to feel that “it’s every person for herself.” They are unwilling to help each other on projects or to assist each other in problem solving.
• Whenever you ask members to take on new assignments or skill areas, their first reaction is to offer excuses why they can’t be expected to handle these new job challenges.
• You feel that your team is performing well below its maximum performance potential.

Strategies
The first strategy is to overcome inertia. An engineering friend once explained that 90% of a locomotive’s energy is expended during the first few minutes of start-up as it attempts to move the train from rest. Once the engine overcomes its massive inertia and the train is running at high speed, relatively small amounts of energy are needed to keep it in motion. In much the same way, the first job you must tackle will be to overcome your team’s initial inertia and get it started along the track. In this section we offer strategies for overcoming inertia by creating a sense of urgency, removing yourself as a buffer, conducting a performance analysis, and creating competitors.

The second strategy is to challenge the limits of your members. This strategy involves encouraging your members to raise their self ¬expectations, redefining performance, modelling limit-busting, cloning superstars, and using incremental successes and celebrations.

The last strategy is to get out of the way of team members. This involves removing any roadblocks that you may be unintentionally placing in their path. Managers get in the way whenever they hamstring a team’s authority and its control over its own work, send inconsistent messages about desired performance, or create conse¬quences that actually work against desired performance. As part of getting out of the way, you will discover how to strategically empower your staff, send clear messages about your performance expectations, and create consequences that support desired performance.

Before you read article below, you can also see:
Stress Situations Guide -1
Stress Situations Guide -2

Situation 2. Responding to Criticism
1. Put the person and situation in perspective. When people are under stress it’s easy for them to blow out of proportion any critical feedback that’s presented. If you find yourself criticized, remind yourself that the criticism addresses only one aspect of your performance and that there are many other areas in which your performance excels. If someone directs a general criticism at you, help that person focus in on more specific feedback.

For example:
Other: You’ve really got to improve the way you are managing your relationships with your customers.
You: When you say “not managing relationships effectively,” what exactly do you mean? Do you feel I’m being rude to customers? Are we talking about my entire customer base?
Other: No, you seem to be well liked by your customers, and things appear to be okay with your established customers. However, a couple of times I’ve felt that you’ve made promises to entice new customers that I don’t feel you can possibly meet. For example, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with ABC Corporation the other day on the phone, and I noticed that…”

2. Remember that you are not the target. If someone makes personal comments about you or criticize you too strongly, keep in mind that stressed-out people tend to indiscriminately dump on the other people. Remind yourself, “I am not the target. I just happened to be in the way when this person decided to dump on me. It’s her problem, not mine.”

3. Turn criticisms into desired aims. Criticism often takes the form of telling people what we don’t want them to do. Unfortunately, in this sense it provides little informational value because it doesn’t spell out what desired behavior looks like. Whenever you receive negative feedback, ask the person to clarify her expectations of you. If needed, provide some suggestions.

For example:
Other: That budget forecast was really a surprise. When I took it into the director’s meeting I ended up with egg all over my face. The actuals were completely out of line with your original projections. I want to make certain this doesn’t happen again.
You: Well, as you know, given the number of project readjust¬ments we’ve been having, it’s almost impossible to provide an accurate, annual budget projection. Are you saying you expect me to increase the accuracy of our projections?
Other: I realize you can’t do that, but I would appreciate being forewarned the next time around so that I can give our director more advance warning of any increases prior to the annual budget review.
You: So you want me to generate a quarterly budget projection?
Other: It doesn’t even have to be that formal. Just pull your budget trend line out of your spreadsheet package and fax it to me for review with warning flags on those areas that are beginning to run over and a handwritten note as to why. Also, I’d really like to receive that on a monthly, not quarterly, basis.

Use humor in the workplace. One of the most effective techniques for dealing with stress is to use your sense of humor to keep problems in perspective and to elevate people when they are feeling depressed. Humor can help insulate your team from even the most traumatic work challenge downsizing: An excellent example was shared by Bevan Gray, organizational development consultant for John Allen Life Insurance. Several years ago, Bevan worked with Allied Stores, which suffered a major downsizing when it was purchased by another company. To help keep morale up during the downsizing process and to provide employees and  managers with a sense of camaraderie, Bevan and several other managers decided to invite all employees to a “pink slip party.” Party invitations were given out as pink slips, and employees were asked to dress in pink (for pink slips) and black (for mourning).

The vice president of personnel was given a crown and
honored as Miss Pink Slip (she had to make some of the difficult termination arrangements and then was herself one of the first people terminated). In condition, office jokes about the situation were encouraged: “What are they going to do about it, fire us?” Pink achievement awards were given out to selected employees to affirm that, despite the downsizings, their per¬formance was appreciated.

The purpose of all of this tongue-in-cheek humor was to laugh in the face of adversity. As Bevan says, “We created an environment that said that humor was okay and that humor was what was going to get us through this thing.” Expand your team’s range of control. A significant amount of stress research shows that the more control people exert over difficult work situations, the more they are able to cope with those situations. In the work environment, you can help regulate stress by looking for ways to place control in the hands of your team.

Teach coping skills. Supply members with books and guides which provide suggestions and guidelines for self-managing stress. An additional approach might involve looking for low-cost stress management workshops that members can take after hours or on the weekends through local adult education programs, colleges or community health agencies. Periodically audit stress factors in your environment. Conduct an audit to identify factors that may be creating stress for your team. This doesn’t have to be a tedious or expensive process.

Step 7. Explanation. Budget explanations create a lot of trouble for everyone. That’s because in most cases, there is no logical assump¬tion base. So what can you say about an expense that’s higher than the budget?
In the traditional system, you might make an explanation sound good, without really saying anything at all. For example, “Actual expenses were 12 percent above last year’s level. We estimated a 5 percent increase.” This explanation says nothing at all about the cause of the variance; it only admits that the budget was too low, a fact that everyone already knows.
Unfortunately, this type of non explanation is so common that it’s acceptable. We find ourselves coming up with new and novel ways of saying nothing, so that the corporate belief in budget review is satisfied. A real explanation, in comparison, is based on an analysis between the components of actual spending (or income), and the components of the assumption base. With this method, precise reasons for a variance are quickly and easily identified. From there, it’s a relatively easy step to take action, because a cause is now understood.
A variance exists for only one of four reasons: (1) The budget did not anticipate something that happened. (2) The timing of the budget was in error, and will be offset in the future. (3) Internal accounting created the variance. This may include a coding error, an accrual, or an allocation not included in the budget. (4) The variance was predictable, but the original budget was changed arbitrarily from above or by the accounting department-in spite of well-docu¬mented assumptions.

Step 8. Investigation. In some cases, the explanation cannot be filled in by the budget review meeting, because the person or depart¬ment preparing the review (usually accounting) does not know the answer. At that point, an investigation is in order. It might be possible to assign the problem to one department, or it might be necessary to ask each manager to look into individual budget assumptions to identify the components of the variance.
Investigation is troublesome on a companywide basis. No one will want to take responsibility for explaining the variance, or for looking into it. As an unfortunate consequence, the accounting department ends up with the lion’s share of budget-reporting duty. This means that, with or without your knowledge, your department could be criticized for a budgeting problem, even if you had nothing to do with developing that budget.

Step 9. Response. Once investigation is complete, some form of response is demanded. If an expense is running above a reasonable budget level, it should be brought under control. If the problem is strictly in one department, assignment of response is simple. How¬ever, it is more often a companywide problem and, again, no one will want to tackle the problem. So the accounting department again is given the responsibility and the power to respond and to solve. The power issue wouldn’t be a problem in itself, except for the fact that you should want to control and answer for your own budget.

Step 10. Review. Once a problem is discovered and the process of correction is entered into, the review process begins. This is a year-¬round, never-ending, ongoing effort, one that should be instituted as a daily priority and as part of your routine. The idea of monitoring the budget is too often delegated, or thought of as an unpleasant and inconvenient demand on our time. Think of the control and review process not as manipulation of rows and columns of numbers, but as real and tangible events and financial consequences-that you can and should control as part of your job.