March | 2011 | Dan Marbes

Archive for March, 2011

The workplace symphony

Posted in Leadership, Music, Roles on March 20, 2011 by danmarbes

Maybe it’s the wisdom of age or possibly just my mid-life crisis grabbing me by the lapels but I’m really starting to notice amazing parallels among seemingly unrelated areas of my life. My life journey has taken me through three distinctly different professions (public school teacher, touring musician and currently IT systems engineer) and it’s fascinating how the lessons of the past continue to be not only relevant but extremely poignant in the present.

As I reflect on this today, I am going to assume that you the reader have seen a symphony orchestra at some point in your life. Maybe it was live or maybe it was televised, but at least the term ‘symphony orchestra’ means something to you. If in fact it is totally foreign, take five minutes to find and watch an online clip of an orchestra playing something. Anything will do. You needn’t be a classical music afficianado to appreciate the discussion but the points below will make more sense if you’ve seen an orchestra in action.

As you watch a symphony, you’ll see instruments of all sizes and shapes being played (hopefully well….maybe I should have given a recommendation in the above paragraph….sorry if you were scarred). You’ll also see a conductor, the individual standing in front of the musicians frantically waving a small stick.

What’s fascinating about the orchestra performers is that within this team, they are all subject matter experts. The bassist knows how to manipulate his instrument in such a way that the music in front of him is realized with accuracy. The cellist does the same, though her instrument is slightly different. The flutist uses a completely different set of techniques to get the correct sound to emanate from his instrument. The percussionist has an even different set of challenges, sometimes playing upwards of ten different instruments in a single piece. Some of these performers may be skilled performers on other instruments, but aside from percussionists it’s relatively uncommon that you will see them changing instruments frequently in a single performance and when they do the additional roles make sense (you may see a flutist that also plays piccolo but you’re not ever likely to see that same flutist grab a tuba).

Standing at the helm is the conductor. This individual, more often than not, is also an expert performer but in the orchestra has set this aside to provide leadership. Some of the conductor’s tasks are relatively simple, such as giving a signal to the performers indicating when they should begin. Some are more ethereal such as conveying the emotion of a piece and guiding the players’ efforts through facial expression, body movement or manipulation of that little stick (the baton….now you know!). While the conductor likely has a base understanding of the techniques used by all of the performers, she is almost certainly not a virtuoso on all instruments represented in the orchestra. Again, her job is to provide leadership and combine all of the individual instruments into a team to realize the ideas of the composer who wrote the piece being performed. Understanding that composer’s vision and intent takes dedicated study and preparation away from the orchestra and an ability to convey that knowledge both in rehearsal and during performances.

So what about the parallels that I mentioned earlier? Think of a team in your workplace. That team probably has a large number of different tasks and responsibilities requiring many different skills and personality traits. Ideally, these tasks are performed by people with the specific expertise needed to do them efficiently and accurately. These people are like the performers in the symphony. Each has specific skills and knowledge. While some may be able to fill multiple roles (like the percussionist), others may be a considered a virtuoso in one specific skill. Much as it does not make sense to ask one of the violinists to play clarinet, does it really make sense to ask someone known for doing fantastic accounting work to function as a lead salesperson? Maybe they do in fact have the moxy for it, but wouldn’t we be better off finding a resource who can really excel at the task (and is passionate about it)? Not only do I suspect we will have better results, but when given a chance to do work they believe in, team members’ effort and dedication is likely to be much higher.

As a team leader or manager, the challenge is to set aside previous accomplishments and focus on this leadership role. I would guess that the manager at most car dealerships was probably a pretty darn good salesperson at one time. However, if that manager continues to try being the best salesperson at the dealership, not only is there likely to be conflict with the actual sales team, there’s probably not enough time being spent on the leadership tasks. Much like the conductor, leaders have to understand the vision. As a conductor studies the composer’s work to find the meaning in a piece of music, a corporate leader must analyze the company’s strategic vision and translate those objectives into relevant and meaningful direction for his team.

Armed with this knowledge, leaders must be able to evaluate the activities going on around them and offer guidance where needed. If the trombonist is playing too loudly, the conductor must give direction to correct this or it detracts from the quality of the performance. If a team member is devoting significant resource time to a task that falls outside of the established strategic direction, the leader needs to work to refocus that effort and help the team member understand how these choices impact the ability to execute the overall strategy. Also, as a conductor would not ask one musician to play violin, cello, harp, and trumpet simultaneously, a corporate leader needs to realize when there simply aren’t enough “performers” to make the music happen. Rarely will you see a professional orchestra with less than 20 violinists. The conductor knows that to get the sound that’s needed a certain number of players are required. And while a lot of wonderful sounds can be made by 50 violins, they alone are not enough to accurately perform Mahler’s First Symphony. Sometimes it’s not just a matter of the number of team members, but ensuring that we have the ones with the needed skills to execute our strategic vision.

With the right people in the right place doing the right things for the right reasons, we set ourselves up for as much success as we can. Facilitating that is one of the great challenges of leadership but with careful preparation we can deliver results that will have the audience on their feet.

I wish you many standing ovations.

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Time efficiency and the nature of meetings

Posted in Leadership, Meeting Etiquette, Time efficiency on March 13, 2011 by danmarbes

Time. It’s that one mystical, magical resource that almost everyone says they never have enough of at some point. It’s a funny statement since everyone is given the same 24 hours in each day and the same number of days in each week, month and year. It’s what we DO with this time that we can control.

I think that an adequate discussion of time efficiency (using one’s allocated time in the most effective manner) will take several posts but I think that the topic is incredibly important. With that, I would like to dive into one of my biggest corporate pet peeves, the meeting.

Let’s talk about meetings for a moment. My experience in corporate culture is that meetings are the great black hole of resource allocation. Time and money are poured in and very often light itself cannot escape. I’m sure everyone can think of a meeting (and likely many more than one) they attended which started late, ran long, was disorganized, and in the end didn’t get much accomplished. I respectfully submit the following tips for consideration for dramatically improved meeting results.

1) Understand whether the meeting is needed at all.

This is huge. In corporate culture we have this tendency to set up recurring meetings for projects and staff teams that run for many weeks. As the meeting organizer, understand the difference between items that can be resolved on an individual basis versus those needing group discussion. It is perfectly acceptable to cancel an occurrence of a standing meeting if there’s nothing to discuss. If there’s some non-critical information, maybe distributing that via email is more efficient. People will appreciate not having their time wasted.

2) Invite the right people and only the right people.

Again in many project meetings, the organizer may invite 20 or more people who represent a variety of interests in the company. It is unlikely in many meetings that topics which pertain to all of these individuals will be discussed. If we value the time of those on our teams, we will not ask them to attend meetings simply for the sake of attending.

Conversely, if the necessary resources are not present when needed for a specific discussion point, this section of the meeting will be ineffective. For each discussion topic, know which resources are needed and be prepared to table a topic if the required attendees are not present.

3) Set an agenda.

This ties in with the first two points. Have a detailed agenda for the meeting and send it out at least one day in advance so people can review it to determine whether they need to attend. This allows for some margin of error in understanding which resources exactly need to attend. Allowing attendees to review the information and potentially provide feedback in advance may allow the actual meeting to run more efficiently.

4) Start on time.

This is my single largest frustration in the workplace. If you schedule a meeting that starts at 11AM, you owe it to the attendees to be in the room or on the phone prior to that time with all of your materials prepared. To me nothing says “I place no value on your time” more than a meeting organizer who doesn’t arrive until 7 minutes after the hour which means it’s 10-12 minutes after the hour before things get rolling. By starting things on time, you communicate professionalism.

5) End early.

This is the partner to the point above. Many of us who work in corporate environments get back-to-back-to-back meeting invites and if the first meeting in that chain runs over it throws our schedules into chaos. In addition to allowing others to get to their later appointments on time, ending a few minutes early may allow attendees to take a bathroom break, get a drink of water, catch up on email or simply prepare for the next scheduled meeting. At the very least, aim to end 5 minutes prior to the scheduled end time. In an environment with shared meeting rooms, this will allow the organizer of the next meeting to get in and set up so his/her meeting can begin on time.

6) Avoid distractions.

This is really tough to do in our world of constant interruption by email, IM, Blackberry, iPhone, and myriad other technology. While this is enough of an issue in itself, we must be as diligent as practical about sticking to the meeting agenda. While free-form discussions are often a great creative outlet, as a meeting leader you have to have a sense about when it is appropriate to rein in a discussion that’s going off the rails. The new topic may have significant value, but it may be occurring in the wrong forum. There’s nothing inherently evil about tabling a discussion and resuming it at some point in the future with the appropriate resources.

An additional point on this topic, and I hope it doesn’t come off as being cold. I think generally most people care about the welfare of their co-workers, but in these meetings it’s not appropriate to spend time talking about someone’s vacation or pet cobra. Stick to the agenda and have those discussions at lunch. Especially in larger meetings, some of these “detours” will cause attendees to mentally disconnect and they may miss something important.

Lastly, I think that when possible meetings should be conducted face-to-face. While dial-in technology is wonderful and can bridge geographic divides cost effectively, the risk of distraction for attending members is high. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else when attending meetings by phone and have had to force myself to either close my email or even lock my computer to keep focus on the task at hand.

7) Be consistent.

The key to driving change and building new habits is consistency. If we commit to scheduling the right meetings with the right people and running them efficiently, we can drive positive change and show our co-workers that we value their time. Old habits die hard, though, so it is imperative that each meeting adheres to “best practices”.

I don’t think of myself as a time management expert, but I hope these ideas will allow you to run better meetings and get more out of them. Along the way, hopefully we empower those we lead to make better choices with respect to their own time management.

Lessons in leadership: #1 – It’s a people business

Posted in Leadership on March 5, 2011 by danmarbes

Recently, I’ve had a number of discussions with my peers (both immediate colleagues as well as close friends) about the many dynamics of leadership. The essence of these discussions seems to me worth sharing so I hope to capture the many facets I’ve discussed and thought about in upcoming posts.

While traveling with my brother today and discussing employee management and training, I found myself coming back to a central tenet. Dealing with people is a “people business” and you will be far more successful if you can stay focused on that, rather than emphasizing the work.

People want to feel valued. It’s central to our human nature and when we feel, honestly and truly, that the people we work for care about us, we are willing to go many extra miles to repay that feeling. Conversely, people who come to feel that they are just another cog in a corporate machine detach themselves emotionally from their work and are likely to detach themselves physically as well when the opportunity to move to a new company is presented.

How do you accomplish this as a leader? In many ways, it’s as simple as just telling your team this very thing. It doesn’t have to be fake or contrived, but finding time to tell someone “Hey, thanks for your work on that project earlier this week. I’m really glad that we were able to leverage your experience to help us come up with a solution for that problem” or if you see one of your team members looking tired, frustrated or disconnected take five minutes to pull them aside and ask them what’s going on. If they’re feeling overwhelmed or frustrated with assigned tasks, see what you can do to help. Maybe you’ll discover a process failure that can be corrected, maybe you’ll find that tasks aren’t being assigned correctly in terms of team members’ individual skill sets. If it’s personal stuff, let them know that you’re available if they need to get something off their chest. They may not take you up on it, but you continue to build and reinforce a culture that says “I care about you as a person and value you as an employee”. Building that culture will go a long way to establishing better relationships and will likely be reflected in improved morale around the office.

People also want to know that their employer is vested in their individual success. A leader who can identify that an employee is frustrated with assigned tasks but doesn’t do anything to help the employee has failed. This doesn’t necessarily have to manifest itself in the form of external training/seminars, etc. (though that may be the most effective solution). It could simply be finding a teammate with experience in the issue to mentor the frustrated one or the leader taking time to work with the employee to find a solution.

My brother, who manages a staff of personal trainers, has seen this first-hand. Often, he will get a new trainer who is dynamite with clients, is very personable and knows the fitness end of the job very well. Many of these trainers, however, have a difficult time with sales which is an important part of the job. If he were to say simply “You’re not making your numbers. If you’re going to continue to work here, you need to bring in $xxx per month.” Now that trainer is panicking, thinking they’re going to lose their job. Since their sales numbers directly influence their take-home pay, it’s safe to assume they would like to do this well. If that’s true, they’ve probably tried to improve their skill. If that hasn’t worked in the past, why should we think that it will work now with the added stress and pressure of losing the job? Consider this alternative response “I noticed you’ve had some difficulty closing the appointments you’ve had in recently. When I first started out, sales was tough for me too. Why don’t we find some time to talk about sales techniques and I can share what I’ve learned and save you some of the mistakes I’ve made?” Now the subject has been addressed in a non-threatening manner and a growth opportunity has been presented.

Where the rubber meets the road for me on this is that being a leader in the workplace is so much more about being a leader of people than being a taskmaster. I find it to be a direct parallel to my former life as a high school music teacher. Walking into a room of 50+ high school students with instruments of all shapes and sizes who were there as volunteers (band was not “required” in the district’s curriculum) knowing we had 2 months to prepare a concert program and that MY efficacy would be judged on the result was a large dose of reality. The only way that was going to happen was if I got everyone to buy into what we were doing and do their best with the tasks I had assigned them. Along the way, many of them stumbled but I paid attention and did my best to help them through the challenges they encountered. By working together, the students were able to exceed what they assumed they were capable of and the band as a whole put forth a very high quality product. This success built upon itself and allowed us to undertake more difficult music with each successive performance.

I hope that some of these observations resonate with you and allow to to foster your own culture of success.

All the best,

Dan

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