Knowledge Management: Managing in an era of knowledge

21st Century Management- The book

2010-12-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

And now- One year after I finished writing this blog, it is published as a book.
The book includes all post, and all talkbacks added, both here and in the Israeli blog site where the posts were published as well (in Hebrew).
I thank you all for reading the posts, and invite you to purchase the book:
21st Century Management

All the best,
Moria

Epilog

2009-11-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

I have been through twenty years of management and two years of writing this blog. I am not giving up management, but I think this blog ought to be closed. I think most topics have already been covered and additional posts are bound to repeat existing ones.

Am I the ideal manager? Obviously, not. Do I make mistake? Sometimes, even when I follow the path outlined in this blog. I know that real life is more complicated. There are issues that not be covered by any post; Different values, contradicting each other, can be covered, by different posts, but in real life they have to be faced together and the dilemma has to be resolved. There are times that I stick to what I planned, but being only part of the situation (even if it is the manager's part), I cannot control others' behavior having things done my way.

Does this imply that my observations are impractical and do not yield results? Not at all.
They improved my performance and I think that, at the end of the day, they contributed to my success.

I hope that reading these ideas, adding them to you own experience and implementing them in real life scenarios, will assist you as well.
I can say for myself, that developing these ideas through the years, testing them and even formulating them for this blog, has done and is still doing a great deal for me.

I thank you for reading this blog and for the encouraging replies I received. During these passing two years of blogging, besides the written talkbacks, I received additional support in other forms.

Thank you.

Yours,,
Moria

p.s. I may return with another blog. Goodbye for now.

to the Hebrew version

Leadership

2009-10-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

Close your eyes, and think about leadership. What comes to mind is the tern charisma and names like Ben-Gurion, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jeff Walsh, Rudy Giuliani, Lee Kuan Yew and many others. The impression is of something beyond reach. Not people like us; we are people and perhaps managers; they are leaders.

Peter Drucker, in his book, "Managing for the Future: The 1990s and Beyond " (1992), discusses the importance of leadership to organizations. James Surowiecki, in his book "The Wisdom of Crowds" (2004) came to the same conclusion. Managers, so he claims, turned during the nineties to leaders, or even to superstars. Think about this name list and what became of them. Most managers failed in other organizations, after leaving the one that they excelled at. Political managers were not re-elected or ended their lives in solitude.
Reading this Drucker book reveals that despite the title about leadership, the book is actually about economics, people, products, marketing, managing and organizations. In the few pages dealing with leadership as we know it, Drucker writes about lack of managers charisma and about charisma as a curse for managers.
Heifetz and Linsky wrote an interesting book about leadership ("Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading", 2002) and they, like Drucker, shatter the leadership myth. What is leadership? It is the activity of leading a group through change.
As I write this, I feel this post is different. I quote a lot of others, instead of talking about myself. And, indeed, compared to giantss like Drucker and the others, I am humbled.
Am I a leader? If we take Drucker, Hefez and Vlinsky and remove charisma. Then I can say I am a leader, a change leader. I lead change in the perception of knowledge management in Israel, and about its professional implementation. I am not alone in this process, but I have done my share: in developing methodology, teaching it through seminars, articles, newspaper and portal, and by actually implementing it in many organizations.
I lead my firm. I move it forward to success and to stay in the lead.
In other areas I am not a leader. I am satisfied with what I have.
Of all the things I read and learned about leadership, I find some to be most important:
First, the understanding that leadership involves sharing. Despite the "lone rider" impression of the leader, lack of emotional and practical support will make change management very difficult; It would make leading people more difficult.
This item is first for a reason. It is not trivial and I don't want to create the impression I wrote it just because it is "the right thing to say". If we fail to understand we are part of a partnership, we lose twice: We will fail in business and it will be easier to fall into the arrogance pit.
Belief in the cause is important. Leaders lead non trivial changes; If he change was simple, it would have happened by itself. The leader must have fate, willingness and motivation. Belief about the cause, belief about the way, belief about his own willingness to lead the change and belief about his ability to do so.
It is important to understand that leading change is not a "9 to 5" day job. Leading change requires total 24 by 7 dedication. We must be willing to put all of our time and energy into the organization and the change we are leading. It has a price tag. The price is spare time, quality family time. There are no free lunches, and we must be aware of that.
It is important to know proper change leading methodologies. We won't get into details. I wrote a specific post, and even there could not cover the topic. Some people have good intuition and can lead change without proper study but for most of us, success in leading change can be improved by learning.
Last but not least – setting an example is important. We must set an example of hard work, proper conduct, set an example by implementing what we require of others. Leaders who fail in exercising their own teachings will not have long-term followers. As Lincoln said "You can't cheat all the people all the time (in all matters)".
In the Bible we read about different leaders. It is interesting to see some negative details about the great leaders, even though the Bible is very poor in details. The best example is David. A great king, conqueror and believer. Along side these characteristics, the Bible tells of his improper behavior towards Bat-Sheba. Some scholars try to explain David's behavior, and insist he did not sin. I prefer others who say he erred and sinned. I think the Bible tried to show leaders as flesh and blood, capable of mistakes, in order to make it easier for us. So that we understand, leaders are not far from us. We can be leaders as well, even if we have our faults. Each s us managers can be a leader. We must want this. We must be determined and not despair in spite of resistance (and there will be resistance). We must be wise in our leadership.
We must be 21th century managers.

Yours,
Moria

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Flexibility

2009-10-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Kyuzo Mifune is one of Judo's experts (after Jigoro Kano, Judos founder). When asked about Judos essence, Mifune said: "Judo rests on flexible action of mind and body. The word flexible however never means weakness but something more like adaptability and open-mindedness".
Like in many other management topics, we can learn about flexibility from the art of Judo. I think an organization that offers flexibility to its employees has a great advantage. In fact it seems to me to be one of the important aspects of working in an organization. An employee who experienced a flexible organization will have a hard time in a more rigid workplace.
In this post, part of a blog about managing employees, I'll concentrate on flexibility toward our subordinates. There are other aspects of organization flexibility. An organization that easily adjusts to market trends, for example, will succeed. But, as I stated, this will not be the subject of this blog, and I will focus on flexibility in managing employees.

Why is flexibility important?
Operational flexibility makes employees' life easier. It reduces vacation time spent on everyday chores, and increases effective work time even if the employee is a parent to little kids and has to leave work early. More than that, operational flexibility enables employee evolution. It helps managers answer different employee ambitions, as well as their unique needs as employees and human beings. The result is improved organizational achievement as well as better employee development toward his or her goals. Most important, flexibility leads to better employee satisfaction, and this in itself is part of their promotion.

How can flexibility take place?
Operational flexibility can mean flexibility in the place of work (such as part time work from home); the time of work (night time, morning hours); flexibility in authorizing special expenses (such as return of money when receipts were lost); flexibility in using vacation days and allowing leave without pay, etc.
Managerial flexibility can mean flexibility in the level of control over each employee; flexibility in the training program assigned to each employee; flexibility in employees' career building path; flexibility in job description. The list is endless.
Every organization needs to be flexible according to its abilities. There are some areas where a big organization can be more flexible, such as defining many education programs and allowing employees to choose between them. In other areas, small organizations find it easier to be flexible, since the chain of command is shorter and the bureaucracy can be reduced. The meaning of this is that there are no winners and loses. Every manager in every organization must understand the potential for flexibility and exploit it as best they can.

Where must we refrain from flexibility?
Like in any other aspect, too much flexibility can damage. I try to put three limits to flexibility:
Don't be flexible when there is a chance to break the law (work hours report for a public organization);
Don't be flexible as an excuse to giving up on our principles;
And don't be flexible when it can be interpreted as favoring some employees at the expense of others that were not treated in a flexible manner.
How do you know when to be flexible and how not to cross the line? I don't have a concrete answer. Who said life is easy?

Above all, flexibility implies that we trust our employees. Do not worry: even if some will misuse this trust, most will repay out trust and flexibility in kind.
It is worth it.

Yours,
Moria

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Excellence

2009-09-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I know of no organization that does not list excellence as one of its core values.
Everyone wants success, each organization according to its mission and goals. Ask any employee, from the senior manager to the junior employs, what is excellence, and they will know what you mean. Some can articulate their understanding while others are less clear about it. However, everyone understands excellence.

I will take some of it back. It is said that "perfect is the enemy of good". This saying implies that too much investment in quality could be wrong: It might do more harm than good, it might have only marginal benefits and, in other cases, it might not be cost effective.
We must refine the definition of excellence to include more than quality: product quality, service quality etc. We must include cost (money and other resources) and define excellence as the combined success of all these elements.

The million dollars (or maybe more…) question is: "What creates excellence?" How do we implement this marvelous value? How do we create an excellent organization, where excellence is employees' goal and they manage to achieve it?

I recently read a book about excellence called: " Outliers: The Story of Success". It was written In 2008 by Malcolm Gladwell. I discussed the book with my daughter, who read it as well, and she highlighted an interesting point: The book talks about out tendency to attribute success and excellence mainly to talent. It shows, one example after another, how other factors, unrelated to talent, are the makers of success. I tried to learn from the different examples what to do as an individual and as a manager in the 21st century who stated (yes, me too) excellence as one of the four core values of my firm. My daughter pointed out the pessimism in this book. It gives a lot of credit to opportunity and cultural heritage in achieving excellence. These two factors are driven by chance, not by brains. This is indeed a pessimistic approach. But, despite this tone, opportunity and heritage hide many other parameters that influence success: hard work, patience, education and discipline, meaning (see also "A whole new mind" by Daniel Pink), communication etc. I counted a long list of about 15 elements affecting success and excellence.

I do not believe in long lists. I believe in Pareto and in our need, as individuals and as managers, to focus on the top three elements. I tried to compile my own excellence factors list. Three was not enough but I managed to stop at four. My excellence creating factors are:
a. Professionalism. A combination of talent, education and experience.
b. Hunger. Never being satisfied with what you have, ever wanting more.
c. Meaning. The knowledge that a mission is important; that it will give me satisfaction (Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
d. Teamwork. Collaborating with people of different background and complementary experience. Simply – with other people.

The first and last factors are those I can influence as a manager. Giving meaning to our work can be done at a top level, even if it is not easy on a day-to-day basis. Creating hunger is not easy at all. We can give role modeling, set challenging goals, but our influence is limited.

And I almost forgot – positive feedback. Complementing people for their effort and success are always factors that motivate to try and succeed next time.
To sum up, let us look at a different point of view, proposed by Marva Colllins (in spirit of Aristotle): "Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you do the best".

An excellent day to all of you.

Yours,
Moria

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Vacation

2009-09-10T20:22:00.000-07:00

Last week I took three days off. Three full days (or maybe two plus) in which I did not work. I was on vacation.

Maybe some of us have not noticed, but in the past few years, as technology has developed, the lines between work and home are not as sharp and bright as they used to be. If in the past, people worked on constant hours, today the situation is quite different:
Many people hold personal computers belonging to their workplace. They connect after formal working hours from home. Others connect through their personal computers, answering emails and helping on other urgent matters. Even banking and defense-based companies, which cannot reach their materials outside the organization, as to total separation due to security, find themselves answering to phones on various hours (we all have cellular phones nowadays). Those who work in global companies, or with global connections, experience non ending working hours as a routine.

Vacation, therefore, is the only time when the worker absolutely rests from work. There are organizations where weekends can be considered as full rest, but I have seen to many organizations, where people partly work on weekends. Some, belonging to homeland security, others, preparing proposals for towards deadlines. Furthermore, weekends are too short for people to really rest and stop thinking about work. Most of us continue thinking about work every weekend, also if we do not actually work.

It is important therefore, that we, the managers, will see to it that our employees do take vacation. It is important, that we, as well, will take vacations ourselves. Of course, it may seem, that for the organization, it may be more profitable that employees work more, and we pay them for the vacation days.
Intensiveness of work, in this knowledge era, and working also on non working hours, make this need for vacations so essential.

Some tips I can share from my experience as a manager:
First, I never enable my employees to amass their vacation days, not using them within the ongoing working year. Those who do not go on vacations will erode within time. In some rare case, the manager even has to force some employees to take a vacation. Such should be done.

Three days are the minimum for declaring a real vacation.
Furthermore, it is recommended to separate between vacations and arrangement days. Taking off three days, but using half of them for arrangements, is not a good idea, and does not help the employee really freshen up and rest. Enable your employees to be flexible, and from time to time, settle their arrangements on working days, enabling them to work on non-standard hours. Enable the employees work sometimes from home, letting them to get service and repairs from home while working. Try encouraging the employees to take vacations "serving their soul". Of course, not all vacation can serve as so, but try seeing to that at least one vacation every year is for fun and rest.

Above all these, and please forgive me parents for children that do not agree with me, remember that vacation with children can be enjoyable, important and positive, but is not equivalent to personal vacations or vacations with our partners. A parent, taking two weeks vacation on August, is not a person that rested and truly took vacation. He or she just worked somewhere else. Try encouraging your employees, if possible, to take at least one vacation a year without their children. And my dear children; if any of you are reading this please know: I love you so much, despite what I wrote.

In between, treat your employees with equanimity. Once in a few months, enable them to start late in order to have a good breakfast with a friend, or leave early in order to go out and see a daily movie. Not exactly a vacation, rather a mini-mini one.

And again, do not forget looking after yourselves as well.

Yours,
Moria

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Neogotiation

2009-08-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

I must admit that there are many things that I enjoy doing as a manager, yet negotiation is not on my list. The term always reminds me of some unpleasant associations that occurred in the past.
Do not misunderstand me; I know to negotiate. Sometimes I benefit, sometimes I loose. Like in other issues on life, we experience both. However, knowing I have to negotiate does not turn me happy.

Negotiation is a process we carry on for thousands of years, from the early days of history. We tend to relate it to commerce, however almost every discussion between two people or groups, no matter on what issue, includes some negotiation.

As this blog deals with managing people, I wish to examine the issue of negotiation through this perspective of negotiating with employees.

The first negotiation we handle as managers with the employee occurs even before s/he starts to work; we negotiate with the potential employee regarding his/her salary and terms. As I believe that negotiation turns on bad associations, not only to me, rather to many people, I believe that negotiating with the new employee to be, is not such a good idea:
If I set the employee down from his requests, even if from the correct reasons, the employee can live years with the feeling that s/he have lost.
If I accede, wishing to start the relationship with best feeling, people will hear and know, and I will find it more difficult to stand on what I think is right in the future.
Even, if after negotiation, we will compromise and reach agreement, the employee may always stay uncertain, thinking that if s/he only argued more, or maybe using other tactics, thing would end in a different manner.
As I am in the working business already several decades, not always running a business of my own, I can say that as an employee, I think I experienced all three scenarios...
Coming back to the starting point: good it is not.

What is the alternative? I try to lessen, as much as possible, situations of negotiation with employees. Negotiation outside the organization is possible, sometimes even a must, but inside the organization- less is better; less times; less powerful.

How do I manage?

With potential employees, having the issue so sensitive (salary), and having the time so sensitive (trust has not yet been established), I avoid negotiation at all. I listen to the employee, and evaluate his/her abilities, knowledge and experience in comparison to existing employees in the organization, offering a fair salary, as I understand, relative to the others. Working this way, I benefit twice: Once with the potential new employee, preventing the negotiation; in addition, towards all other employees, knowing that someone else does not earn more than they do as s/he argued better.
Do I also loose? Of course I do. It is naïve to think otherwise.

However, this was only one process in the lifetime of many processes and many situations. As much as I may wish to avoid negotiation at all, I know it is both wrong and impossible. Every person has his/her opinions, interests and ways in which s/he understands life. Negotiation is necessary.

A few tips I use when negotiating:

First, I remind myself that negotiation is a process of trade: give and take. If I entered a negotiation, obviously, I will have to give something. I think in advance, what I am willing to give and where do I put my limits.

I manage the negotiation openly and fair: Openly- sharing the person I am negotiating with, in early stages of the conversation, where I am willing to concede; fair- suggesting limits that I think are fair (and I know I am subjective), not biased, even if I have an advantage point.

I know that I am willing to pay for results. Doing this is not as simple as it may sound, but it puts me in a better position. If I leave for a minute the manger-employee relationship, a good example demonstrating this is negotiating on a working contract with a potential customer. I start the negotiation, knowing my red lines, knowing they are fair for both sides, and knowing that if I loose the contract, because the other side insists on moving the line, it is OK with me. I do not work if the price is not reasonable.

I listen to the other side, trying to have a professional, yet pleasant and calm conversation. Many researches have been conducted, teaching that handling negotiations with positive feelings, may only help. We know it is indeed true. Nevertheless, there are situations in life where conversation turns loudly. In some occasions, this happens without control, in other situations, as a way to impress and pass a message. No matter why this happens, it is important to bring the conversation back to positive atmosphere and as soon as possible.

And always, but always, I try not to take the anger to far in any negotiation. Also if I seem angry, also if I feel angry, always I remember the positive things I know regarding the person I am negotiating with and try to go back to base line positive atmosphere.

I also know that negotiation is the bridge to agreement. Therefore, it is not as horrible as it may seem.

Yours,
Moria

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Winning

2009-08-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

Life is never only routine. It is full of wins and loses. Winning is usually related to competition against somebody else. Winning is related to zero-sum games; I win, therefore somebody lost. This is different than success that is not relative to somebody else but focuses on the achievement.
The first asociation that comes to mind when thinking about winning is wars. The six-day war win (1967); the Hasmonaim win that Jews celebrate on Hanuke (winning 2000 years ago); the American win in the Gulf war etc.

However, the concept of winning is no stranger to organization and business life. You can win a bid for a new contract and you can win a business lawsuit. Usually, in everyday life, in organizations you win a debate.

Debating is natural; It is natural that different people will have different interests, different perceptions, and, sometimes, only different reality interpretation that leads to different conclusions.
The thing is that when we debate, be it a customer, employee, colleague or a new applicant, we sometimes digress from debating and decision making to a competition that ends with some people feeling they "won" while others feel they have "lost".

Naturally, I love winning, as a person and as a manager. If there is a win-lose situation, I'd rather be on the winning side.

2,000 years ago the term "Pyrhus Victory" was coined – a victory that is actually a defeat. Pyrhus was king of Epirus who won the 279BC Asculum war with the Romans (thanks to Wikipedia). When congratulated for his achievement, Pyrhus said: "one more such victory would utterly undo me". This reply was due to the loss of most of his army and some of his best friends and senior officers in the battle. I think that today, in the 21th century, some of the victories we experience against those closest to us – customers, employees and colleagues – have a lot of loss in them.

How come? Every time we achieve something, and somebody else feels that he lost because of out achievement, then in fact we lost as well. The other person is bitter, maybe angry, and his pride might be hurt. Going back to military jargon, we can say that we won the battle but lost the war.
What do I suggest? No way should we chose an "always give up" policy. It is contrary to human nature as well as a bad business approach. It is nice to suggest a "Win-Win" strategy, but this cannot always be practical. Hereby are a number of tips:

First, try to balance. Give up sometimes, if the loss is not too expensive, in order to give the other person a good feeling.

Second, look for "gray" solutions. Furthermore, even when the answers are very clear, you can, and sometimes should, create ambiguity and gray shades in the way you communicate these answers.

We must not forget, however, that sometimes the bottom line is important and sometimes we want to put the other person in his right place, even at a "lose" feeling on his part. In those situations, it is vital that we are aware and willing to pay the price of the other's "lose".

In no case, no matter what, do not brag. Remember this is zero-sum game and bragging can cause bad feeling of the other.

One last tip: "Winning is a dangerous intoxication" (Echad Haam). Take care.

Yours
Moria

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Empathy

2009-07-27T11:03:00.001-07:00

How many times did you get so mad at someone, wanting to burst, shout and tell the other person exactly what you think of him, but managed to hold back? It happens to me and I guess it happens to everyone else as well.
The thing is that the anger remains after we hold back. Many times it is still there and even if we settle down a bit, the problem was not really solved.

As adults and as managers we know that sometimes you just can't say everything to the other party. Sometimes you have to wait for the right time and, in some business circumstances, the right time might never come.

The challenge is tunneling anger, and other emotions coming of disagreement, to a productive place. The challenge is calming down.
Empathy is the ability to identify others' emotions and share those emotions. Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy deals with the emotional side of identifying others' hurt or joy. Empathy is the cognitive ability to understand and be aware of emotions the other is going through and as a result to sympathize. Empathy can help us in several ways:

First, by understanding our employees, customers and other surrounding us, we become more relaxed and less angry. It helps us see the whole picture, and sometimes recognize ours is not the only just perspective. Even if we are certain of our position, understanding the other side weakens negative sentiments.
Second, by understanding we can improve our performance: If you understand why a potential customer is hesitant about getting a service, it will be easier to get into conversation and offer a better solution, and thus increase the chances of you becoming a preferred service provider. If you understand your subordinates, it will be easier for you to care for him, to avoid some crisis and to better handle other crisis.
Understanding, when used properly and not as a manipulative tool, improves our morality. The organization gains, but first of all we gain.

How can we be more empathic?
I will start by saying empathy is a personal characteristics from birth. Studies show some babies are empathic to other baby's (non-hunger related) cry. (See Hoffman's studies on the subject). Empathy, at some level, can be seen to exist in other mammals as well. However, it is also important to note that empathy can be acquired.

The first step is intent. We must really want to understand the other in order to succeed.
Other people, like us, are motivated by needs and values. If we are to understand their meaning, we must come up with several alternatives to needs and values that drive their actions / decisions / behavior. Analysis of these alternatives will bring us closer to understanding.
The last step has to do with our actions. After we understand what others are going through, we must decide what is the right management and ethical course of action. It is not always about canceling our previous decisions, but maybe the way we implement them, the tools that accompany them and yes, sometimes even changing the bottom line.

We must remember: empathy is a cognitive process, but it involves emotion.
And, unlike many other situations, in empathy there are no losers. Empathy is an all-winning game.
So let's be more empathic and gain.

Yours
Moria

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Silence

2009-07-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have been invited last week to give a lecture at the Israeli accountant annual convention. This event was unique in its length – I had to make a continuous two-hour presentation. Some tine during the lecture I felt that I am not using my voice properly so I started pausing between sentences. Suddenly I understood the obvious: There are advantages to these pauses, other that relief to soar throat. I tried again and noticed that people are paying more attention. Silence echoes the spoken words and gives audience time to understand. I was reminded of my childhood swimming lessons. The instructor showed us four motions. The last one was a "no-motion", relaxing the body before the next set of motions; same as the silence effect.

Silence is a human and management tool. It amplifies the others' attention to our words, and improves their understanding. However, silence can serve other objectives as well.
When we are on the defensive, we prefer to keep silent. If we are not sure of our deeds, silence will prevent further complications. This is not always an adequate tool, and should be used with care, only when appropriate in a broad perspective, and not only from short-term considerations.

Silence enables listening to other people. Not only hearing, actually listening. If we are really silent, not just keeping our lips still, we can concentrate and listen to what is being said and more than that – how it is being said, what is the body language saying, what is not being said and why it is not spoken.

It is interesting to note that silence is an alternative to shouting. Roaring silence is heard in the distance.
What I find most fascinating is not the power in silence, nor the scream it replaces. It is silence as a means to get others to act that make it such a special tool.

It is claimed that sales people use this tool. When they feel the deal is close, and the customer hesitates, they will take out the contract, mark a small 'x' where a signature is required, turn the paper to the customer, and silently wait. Hard to believe, but most people will sign at this stage.
This technique can be used in other circumstances as well. By being silent, we invite the other side to act. Human nature makes it difficult (at least for most of us) to react to silence so everyone will try to act when the other is silent. The beauty of this tool is its fairness simplicity.

As managers, we must consider employees' silence. When an employee is expected to speak and keeps silent, what can we deduce?

First, all that was previously said is true about employees as well. It might be silence as alternative to shouting, it might be a way to better listen or be heard, and it might be an attempt to move us into action.

Nevertheless, we must consider other options as well. When an employee does not answer, he may have misunderstood what was said and too embarrassed to ask. We must analyze the silence and if this is reason, try a different explanation.
It might be that the employee disagrees with us and is reluctant to argue. I am not saying we should encourage employee resistance, but we must be aware of this option and assess the situation to decide if to accept this silence or try and break it.
And maybe they just had nothing to say and we are speculating to much…

Communication is 20% verbal and 80% non–verbal (body language, intonation etc.). In silence, we don't have even those first 20%.
We must try harder. But if we listen, there is a chance we will understand. When people are silent, they are saying a lot.
Silence is a powerful management tool, and we must learn to use it more. I am finishing now.
It is silence time.

Yours
Moria

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Course as a training tool

2009-06-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Woody Allan is quoted as saying "I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia". This joke, apart from being just funny, reveals a lot of skepticism about the value of courses as a learning mechanism.
It is clear to all of us that we need training in every line of work. When we hire new employees, we must not assume that they have knowledge sufficient to perform their duties. Two reasons for that:
The first has to do with the organization and its environment. Even if the knowledge worker had a similar position in a different organization, we must assume that in our organization the job will have different characteristics and will require different skills.
The second is continuity. Knowledge related jobs evolve over time. Training is required in order to continue and meet tomorrow's knowledge challenges.
But, as Woody Allan hinted, there are two main challenges related to courses:
The first is unrealistically high expectations. We expect to read "War and Peace" in twenty minutes; we expect students to be more skilled coming out of courses.
The second is the question of answering a real need. Is speed reading the requirement or is it the assimilation of new knowledge? Are we sending our employees to have their minds filled with procedures, while forgetting the essence?
I would like to concentrate on the first challenge of this post. Not on the subjects of training but on methods to achieve effective training. How can we touch each and every student, ensure that they absorb, understand and assimilate the training material, and improve the chance that they will have better performance coming back to the organization. After all, this is the purpose of all training, as Peter Jarvis defined as early as 1958: "Learning is an improvement in performance when the stimulation, the situation and the motivation remains unchanged".
I'll start by saying that courses are complementary tools for training, learning and knowledge management. If sharing and developing knowledge, the building blocks of knowledge management, are daily events, then courses are the peaks whose aim is to boost employees' knowledge and performance.
How can we get effective training through courses? I think the key lies in understanding the four learning styles defined by David Kolb:
1. Concrete experience – A chemistry teacher illustrating an idea by a lab experiment.
2. Active Experimentation – An athlete improving his performance thorough many running practices.
3. Abstract conceptualization – Reading an article on prisoners' rehabilitation.
4. Reflective Observation – Listening to a case study analysis of a certain organization.
It is interesting to note that we, as humans, learn through a combination of the four styles. Even more interesting is the fact that some of us prefer certain styles and find those easier to learn by. In other words, the mix of learning styles is individual.
What can we learn from this?
Let's go back to the course and its' instructor. It is reasonable that this instructor prepared to course combining his preferred learning style, his preferred teaching style and his understanding of management expectation from the course.
It might be that this three are actually one style.
If we want effective training, we must demand that instructors equally combine the four training styles in their lessons. They must acknowledge that the students in the class have different learning styles.
And on a practical note:
Training by abstract conceptualization: In explaining concepts and grand ideas;
Training by concrete experience: By going into details and explaining how these details implement the grand idea;
Training by reflective observation: Including in the training a lot of stories and case studies;
And last-
Training by active experimentation as much as possible.

Seemingly, this is nothing new. I attended a training conference this week and heard there that we should change from lectures to active, "hands on" experience (Active Experimentation). It was said that this could be proved by looking at babies who are learning by doing, not by sitting in the classroom.
No friends! Do not follow this, or any other, trend. It is not wise to choose one style and rule out the others. Combine. And remember that each one of the students has a different learning style, and we need to create the best combination, one that will enable every student to match his personality.
In this way, I believe we can improve students' understanding and produce effective training aimed at meaningful learning. I do not believe we will read "War and Peace" in twenty minutes following a speed reading course. I do believe we will read it faster than before and we are sure to remember more than it involving Russia…

Yours
Moria

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Setting an Example

2009-06-12T02:16:00.000-07:00

"Practice what you preach", is a common saying.
In the twentieth century, people worked all their lives in the same place. You could have hated your manager; you could have considered him a tyrant or a lazy slob. You could have attributed any negative characteristics to your manager. None these were reason enough to leave your work place. Some would even say that these were the roots of employee common culture.
I would not say that everyone today loves his or her managers. Nevertheless, a manager's behaviour is important, very important. It is claimed that people join organizations for the promise of an interesting job, but they leave because of managers. We expect, and rightly so, that our managers will set an example for us to follow. As managers, it is important for us to set such an example.

How to set an example and in what area? An organization is a complex system, and it takes different people working together to create the engine that drives it forward. Even in my line of work (managing a consulting firm) I soon learned that employees of different expertise are required in order to enable progress. The conclusion of all this is that setting an example is different than expecting everyone to duplicate your actions or your results. Such an imitation is not necessarily the correct way to a positive example.

So what needs to be done? In a post I wrote about measurements, I presented an idea that is suitable for this side of the equation as well, for setting an example: Measure values as you measure results, I wrote. Values represent the strategy by which we wish to act. If those are correct, and people are following them, we are on the right path.
It should be the same for setting an example. I think the key to good example is values and hard work. It is important that we set an example by getting results, but the lesson to be learned is the road to those results rather than the specific results. We set an example by demonstrating correct values.

I try to work a lot. I believe that luck and talent are components of success but hard work is not less important. I work in the early hours of the morning and I work at night. I find time to rest but my work takes most of my time, even during weekends. I don't expect my employees to work as hard, but it is important for me to set such an example.
I follow our company values. I try to project professionalism, innovation, humanity and collaboration in my actions. I admit it is not always easy. I am, for example, individualist by nature, and it took me years (actually, it is taking me years; I haven't completed the mission yet) to learn how to share. I put a lot of effort into it. I do it because it is right to share but also because it important to set an example. As I wrote in the beginning, to practice what I preach.

There is another aspect of setting an example. David, King of Israel, committed one of the most horrible sins: He took another man's wife, and then had her husband abandoned to his death on the battlefield. We could have asked why God gave us such an imperfect king. Why didn't we get a perfect king, one that it will be easy for us to take his example?
Those who thing King David is not a positive example, misreads the Bible. Ours is a complex world, and nobody can be perfect. Giving us a perfect king, or writing only of his good qualities, would set to high standards, standards that we would find hard to relate to. If this were the case, we would have no standard at all because of the major gap, because of the thought that we can never be as perfect so why bother.

A manager setting an example can and should expose his weaknesses as well. He does not have to be proud of his shortcomings, but he should not hide them. We all make mistakes. All of us, as employees, even the very professional ones, occasionally take wrong decisions. Setting a positive example includes, in my opinion, showing the less positive aspects as well. It is not that we are proud of these aspects. We are not happy with them. It's just that, like King David who sinned and repented, we admit our mistakes and try to learn from them. This is a positive example in my mind.
It is also important that we remember, as managers and as parents, that setting an example does not always result in your employees following your exact footsteps. Remember that values are the important issue. If we plot the correct values, and to set an example by following those values, there is a good chance that out employees, even if their professional decisions differ from ours, will take our example.

And as Albert Einstein said: “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.”
Setting an example is important. We should do so.

Yours
Moria

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Employees' Commitment

2009-05-31T12:31:00.000-07:00

A famous joke tells about a pig and a chicken walking together and discussing the possibility to open a restaurant. "How shall we name the restaurant?" asks the pig. "Simple", answers the chicken "We'll call it 'Bacon and Eggs'". "I am not sure about this idea", says the pig. "It's true that we are both partners, but while you are involved in the business, I am committed".
What is commitment and how should we create organizational commitment? These are the questions I would like to dwell on in this post.

Thinking of organizational commitment brings to mind issues of job satisfaction, feeling part of the organization and similar concepts. All these are related to commitment, but are not identical. Organizational commitment is a psychological engagement of the employee to the organization.

Why should an organization work towards such commitment? There are several reasons.
First, commitment improves employee retention. We invest a lot in Knowledge Workers; we spend many hours nourishing and deepening their knowledge. An employee that is leaving forces us to re-invest. Furthermore, we depend on many of our employees. In some organizations, employees have strong relations with customers, making the personnel change unpleasant to the customers; in many organizations employees hold invaluable information, which will be lost if they leave. If employee commitment to the organization reduces turnaround, no doubt that we should encourage such commitment.
We could settle for this reason, but apparently, there are other benefits to an employee that is committed to the organization.
A committed worker is more productive during his working hours; a committed worker, according to studies, works more hours and has better performance. A committed worker is less absent; and a committed worker identifies with the organization and better assists in meeting its goals (see Dr Sigal Weisner's PhD thesis on the importance of an individual's commitment))
In order to understand how to get employee commitment, it's important to understand the different types of commitment.

Commitment can be characterized by several dimensions: One dimension deals with the nature of the commitment: an emotional commitment that the employee develops, verses a beneficial commitment (the benefits of staying within the organization), verses a moral commitment.

This can be viewed also as intellectual motives affecting commitment, like a high chance of not finding an alternative job or the comforts of the current job; verses emotional motives affecting this commitment, whether positive (liking the people we work with) or negative (fearing from the need to get use to a new job).
Yet another aspect is the subject of commitment: An employee might be committed to the profession and thus (partly) to the organization; or an employee might be committed to people in the organization, either to top management, direct management, to colleagues or to customers; and some employees are committed to the organization itself, seeing themselves as part of it and wish for its success.
We can also refer to the scope of commitment: inter-personal or organizational. In the personal level, researches have found that older people are more committed than youngsters, women more so than men, educated professionals less committed than laymen. We also see personal character as an influential parameter of commitment.
The organization and its organizational culture play a major role: a culture of sharing, teamwork and participation in decision making enhances employee commitment.

The professional aspect has great influence on the level of commitment: Job description clarity, volume of activity and personal ability to develop, all affect commitment level.

If I had to choose one parameter affecting commitment, just one tool, I'd choose reciprocity: be committed as a manager to your employees and to their wellbeing. The rest will follow.

Yours,
Moria

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The physical work environment

2009-05-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

In his book "Thinking for a Living" that deals with how to achieve better performance by the knowledge workers, Prof. Tom Davenport dedicates a whole chapter to the issue of the physical work environment of the knowledge worker.
When I think about an invested work environment, the first example that pops to me is Google's offices. The slides, the fire pipes (enabling one going down fast) and the various games and entertainments, all leave me with the impression is a place with fun. The massage booths (with professional massagers), as well as the settling areas (arm chairs and aquariums), enable any employee rest also on formal working hours. And the list is long.

Fifteen years ago, I worked for a short period in a Start-up. If there is one thing that I won't forget from there, it for sure is the kitchen. The kitchen in this place was always full. The refrigerator always seemed to be overloaded, having every type of delicacy one could dream of. The closets were always filled up and twice a day, someone in charge, came in to refill. People arrived to work very early as breakfast seemed much more appealing there than at home. People left later, staying for dinner at work, and of course, discussing work at the time. I always thought that this is a cheep and easy way for the organization to see that its workers work more and produce more: Give them the right conditions and they shall stay more and produce more.

The interesting question is what influences the performance of the knowledge worker in terms of physical work environment? How is it right to organize the workplace?
In the mid nineties, as Knowledge Management emerged as an independent discipline, some organizations invested in building special complexes nurturing knowledge sharing and development. It became popular to invest in many cozy coffee places, encouraging the employees to speak more one with another. The assumption which led to this, was that when an employee encounters a problem, and does not solve it by himself immediately, he will take a coffee break, meantime meeting a colleague and discussing the issue. There is a good chance that the conversation can help, whether because the colleague has a good idea, or whether because the employee has spoken about it, and found a way to progress. Coffee areas turned to be part of the trend of organizational Knowledge Management efforts, enabling informal knowledge sharing.

Another phenomenon that developed at these years, also witnessed nowadays is designing special areas for knowledge development. Skandia, for example established its future center in this perception, back in 1996.

Do plants and lightening encourage thinking? Are colors as red, blue and yellow better for creativity? And, maybe, whiteboards across the office walls (with markers near them, of course), enabling one to write down every new idea as it pops, the key to successful knowledge development.

Davenport, in his book we mentioned, has researched this issue of the physical work environment. His conclusion is that even though many companies have acted in several ways in order to provide a more efficient workplace, very little can be said for certain, as to the effects of the workplace on the knowledge workers' performance. Davenport claims that the attitude towards this issue should be fit, twofold: Customized and personalized:
Customized- fitting the physical work environment to the group and its knowledge needs, based on the fact that knowledge workers should be segmented to sub-groups, each having its typical workplace needs.
Personalized- as knowledge workers like the autonomy of deciding for themselves, and if possible, choice has to be granted to them as to their workplace.
Indeed, I learned.

A new trend that I have heard about in several big high-tech organizations has to do with setting up virtual workplaces. The supporting rational is that the employees are mobile employees nowadays: They come in to the office only part of the work days, they have mobile telephones, and laptops, and a fixed workplace is not really needed. Instead, virtual work-stations are populated, every day with the employees who need it on that specific day. This solution can also be used if people do not have laptops or mobile telephones. Technology enables one to connect to every computer and log-in to his or her environment using their User-id and password, and connecting to their fixed number just dialing some instructions on the phone.
No doubt that this solution can save any organization a great deal in the short term. Rent is expensive and should not be ignored. This solution is one among a series of possible solutions, from which any organization has to pick its decision:
A private room for each employee.
Team rooms.
Open space (having a cubicle for each employee).
A virtual workplace.
In order to understand how the environment influences the performance of the knowledge workers, I believe three factors should be considered, each effecting the performance, whether directly, or indirectly:
The ability of the workers to concentrate and promote their tasks.
The workers ability to share one with another.
The workers satisfaction from work, as affected from the physical environment.

If we analyze all alternatives, we see that there is no one correct answer:
Private rooms may enable the optimal concentration, and may be most satisfactory, as a private room as concerned as part of the employee's status; they enable less sharing.
Teem-rooms enable sharing but may decrease concentration;
Open spaces give a bit from each;
And virtual workplaces are cheap.

I favor teem-rooms (3-4 people in a room). Assuming knowledge develops in teams and groups (as to Nonaka) and that fellowship/ friendship / team spirit develops with togetherness, I think it is the best solution, performance speaking. I know that concentration can be affected but there are several ways to handle this challenge:
First, remember that almost never, all employees are together on the same day in the office. The knowledge workers, as already stated, are mobile and spend a lot of hours out of the office.
Furthermore, people with laptops can always wander to other rooms, in order to hold a noisy telephone call (and not interrupt the others) or in order to work on some task where they need the silence (and not to be interrupted by others). The organization has to verify that such rooms exist, and that such a move is legitimate.
Also a request to work at home in order to promote such a task, should be treated favorably.
And, last but not least, when people work in a joint room, they develop a culture of considering one another.
What else do we need?

No matter what you decide to do, I have one wish: Do not promote a virtual work environment in your organizations, also it has financial benefits. Understand the importance of a private corner, a place for personal pictures, a plant and some nonsense on the table. They are all part of the worker, and even though it may not be proved by any research to help better performance, it surely is important for the employee's feeling and sense of convenience and comfort. At the end of the say, we invest a lot in order to give our employees a belongingness feeling, so why spoil?

Yours,
Moria

to the Hebrew version

Teamwork

2009-04-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

We live in the 21st century. IF we examine the people surrounding us as well as ourselves, we notice something that was not the same in the past century: individualism. People at life and employees at work, all seem to be very individualistic. One may say that it is almost a religion. Oscar Wilde, in his book "The picture of Dorian Gray", expressed this saying in his unique way: "being in harmony with oneself is a key to life, echoing the tenet to Aestheticism that calls for the individual to make of his own life a work of art."

Individualism conflicts with teamwork. The willingness of one to placate himself, to utilize, to succeed building a career, opposing to the need to fit yourself to the environment, to people that may work and think in a different pace that may have other perceptions and other agendas.

Organizational thinking, there seems to be a conflict as well: We were taught that teamwork is a good thing. However, teamwork costs more: More time as to the need of synchronization; and more money as duplication exists.

Yet, teamwork should not be considered part of the past. Teamwork is a value, one of the values that belongs, not only to the Human Resources department, seeking for the ideal. Furthermore; in the 21st century, when many of us are knowledge workers, and our knowledge is one of the main things causing the organization to move on and succeed, in such a time, teamwork is important, one may even say essential, threefold: From the individual perception; form the organizational perception; and from the business perception.

I shall explain:
As individuals, even though we may eager for individualism, we need a network of support and we need a belonging. These of course can be developed in an organizational level, with no teams, but are not enough as such. We need a close group of reference. One that will see us in the morning, and ask why we might seem worried. One that will share our happiness and success, and share our sad moments as well. One that we can turn to when we are in distress. A close group. Belonging can be built also within big groups, however being part of a team, conceptualizes the belonging and makes it fell reality.
In the past years, a new type of relations has emerged, similar to teams, but actually serving some other functionality: Social networks. A social network deals with relations between peoples, but focuses on week relations. In teams, we deal with tight relations. A Social network cannot be a replacement and solution providing the belonging level nor the support network as provided by a team structure.

Examining the organizational angle, teamwork is a very important value. In their book, Collaboration 2.0, Levine and Coleman write, that teamwork includes, among other benefits, the following advantages:

It strengthens the individuals commitment;
It raises satisfaction level from the workplace;
It enables advanced trust and communication.

No doubt, that obtaining even only one of these is enough for us to understand that organizational speaking, teamwork is a positive thing. How much more so, when speaking about all three.

Professionally speaking, teamwork is surprising. We could have thought that in an era of knowledge, when everyone has his or her own expertise, there is no real business benefit to working in teams. However, this is not the case. Teamwork brings better business value, than working separately. Nonaka and Takeuchi, in their book "The Knowledge Creating Company", taught us, how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. Knowledge, they write, develops in teams / small groups. Not in the individual experts' brains. Socialization; that is how they name the first stage of four in which knowledge is created. A stage that deals with transferring the tacit knowledge from the individual to a close group. The knowledge may start from the individual, but it develops through the transition and within the group. Other researchers, who analyzed learning processes, agree with this finding: Teamwork improves the quality of products and other outcomes, improves the efficiency of obtaining them, and advances the innovation and creativity related with them.

Teamwork helps improvement individual concerning, organizational concerning and business concerning.

Nevertheless, so I believe, life is not as simple as it sounds. Working in a team is not always convenient. People have to compromise and understand that the team may work or decide according to their colleague recommendations, and not as they thought.
Teamwork can cause a herd effect, where the group influences the individual, not always in a positive way.
Moreover, teamwork can yield duplication in resources cost.

How can the potential of a team be utilized? Buchel, in her article "Knowledge Creation and Transfer: From Teams to the Whole Organization", published as part of Nonaka's and Ichujo's book "Knowledge Creation and Management", writes about two main factors of the team, that influence the human capital and improved performance:

Density of relations within the group.
Bridges to the outside (organization, stakeholders, etc.)

How can a company avoid the duplication challenge? I think that the solution to this problem is by defining clear limits. Defining the tasks in which there is an advantage for teamwork, and the tasks in which it is better to be performed by one individual. Analyzing, brainstorming and interviewing are examples where teamwork should be preferred, even if it may seem to create duplications. Implementation, technical operations and documentation are examples in which teamwork may be unnecessary, and even a waste of time and money.

One last point, before ending this post. I started with individualism. Individualism has many benefits, and it must not be spared in the name of teamwork. Combining both, teamwork with place for the individual and his or her uniqueness, is a key to success. As Michael Jordan said: "talent wins games, teamwork and intelligence win championship".

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Electronic mail

2009-04-08T04:21:00.000-07:00

Israel's Defense Forces (I.D.F.) has announced that it is working nowadays on a new command that will limit email sending so that any soldier can send an email up two ranks higher than himself, and not above.
No doubt, that the electronic mail has influenced our lives, and has influenced management. This example of the new army command is one example that demonstrates how much technology influences culture and flattening of the hierarchical organization structure.
Is this something good? And if not, is it right to block it? Maybe, in the 21st century it is rather a good idea to flatten the organization or at least reduce the mental gap between the organizational ranks.

The issue is complicated; however, no matter what the final decision is, I think that two things have to be considered while taking the decision:
Technology should not dictate culture. Each organization has to analyze the advantages it could achieve from the organizational flattening, and potentially there indeed are advantages: The employee thinks wider looking at the big picture as the organization does not treat him as a small part in a well-defined organization; good new ideas can defuse better. Furthermore, in Israel, where the post is written, many people know one another from several different life cycles having different hierarchy relationships in each; etc. If these advantages are greater than the disadvantages deriving from emails to all (and on the disadvantages I will not elaborate as we were all brought up on them and know them all), then we should favor the free email usage. Of course, if this is the case, new bounds should be set, preserving the managers' place as the final decision maker.
If a decision is taken to make a change, as the one reported to be in I.D.F., then the change has to be managed. It should be communicated, explained, and not only commanded. The reason is obvious: Employees already got use to this ability. Any change will be interpreted as worsening conditions and can cause bitterness. The move and its rational should be communicated and special care has to be given to the period until people get use to the new process of work.

However, email usage has more in to it for the 21st century worker, beyond organizational flattening.

Email has totally changed our availability to work. Even though we all have cellular telephones, people do not tend to call us off working hours (and yes- working hours' definition is tricky). With emails, we have no problem. We can write whenever convenient to us, and if it is not work time, we assume that the employee, receiving the mail, will answer when s/he find it suitable. Without noticing, we reach a situation in which most of us work, write each other, exchange opinions and tasks almost 24 hours a day.

Emails have also changed our routines on working hours. Sometimes we have the feeling that email is managing us, no us managing it. It seems as if every half an hour the mail carrier arrives, with a new big sack full with mail, leaves it on our step door and goes to bring the next one. The piles turn higher, and the small message on our inbox notifying us how many mails yet have to be read and/or handled leaves us stressed, hopeless or both. Some people reach a situation when all day they reply to mails, and again, as in the beginning of the post, somehow the mail is the initiator managing us, and we are the responders.
What can I recommend? I manage the time in which I answer mails. Emails are treated mainly on evenings, nights and on the early hours of the day. Most daytime is dedicated to people. I do enjoy the mails advantages not letting it gaining control on me (at least most of the time).

A post on emails cannot end without concerning the email's content, beyond the framing (to whom and when). Email is somewhat risky. On the one hand, we regard it as something less formal, as speaking on the phone, or even speaking face-to-face. We speak unofficially and therefore, not always consider every word we use. Email however, is written. If we get an email from some colleague, or even worse, with some subordinate, and are under the impression that they hurt our feeling, we read it again, and again, empowering the insult. It is very different from a situation where someone speaks with us. The situation is even more complicated, ad when speaking face-to-face, and even on phone, the one with whom we are communicating, can sense our feelings. S/he can fix the impression, clarify things, apologize, or limit the arm level. With emails, we do not have this luxury: On the one hand, informal; on the other hand, very formal.

What is recommended? To read every mail we write and think if there is any chance it will be misunderstood; to use the email channel to shorten things, but better use it on good or natural issues. To remember that a third person can pass and see what was written. The bottom line: do not give up this fabulous channel, yet use it a bit less than what would seem natural.

Email indeed is a revolution, a revolution of the 21st century. A technological revolution that has influenced quality of life, pace, and ways we treat our managers. I do think that at the end of the day, it does have more advantages than disadvantages, and we should be happy with it.

And, yes, I think that organizations can be flattened, at least in most cases (of course, I do not know what is best for the army). Authority in the 21st century starts from knowledge and is less influenced by formal hierarchies only. The manager has to invest more to be appreciated and treated with honor, and it is less a case of the ability to send or not to send him or her, an email. The knowledge era builds its own balances between things.

I wish us all, to indeed benefit from the email revolution. I wish we will have many other positive revolutions as the email one.

Yours,
Moria

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Rewarding

2009-03-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

"Incentives and rewards are some of the most powerful management tools available" (Cited from "Making innovation Work", written by Davila, Epstein & Shelton).

People work against some compensation. We do not expect people to come to work day after day if s/he does not receive anything in return. Yet, when we deal with rewarding, we redefine the scope, speaking not only about salary (or self-contentment in case of volunteers). People expect to be rewarded; they expect a system that will encourage those who do well and punish those who do not).

A close examination of what I written above, can teach about two objectives in rewarding:
The first sentence was cited from an excellent book I read on innovation. Innovation deals with changing the organization; leaving the current situation and replacing it by another one. Rewarding, as to the authors, is an essential tool for aiding this change and help it turning into organizational reality. If you want to change peoples' behavior, give them incentives before and while changing, and reward them after.
The second objective of rewarding is somewhat different. It deals with the daily routine, motivating us to continually work and perform better. It resembles the gasoline, which every car needs a steady supply in order to continue driving. This need is part of our genes as people, and it only grows with us being knowledge workers, choosing whether to stay and how well can we perform.

It is obvious why rewarding is so important: To help maintaining and to help changing.
The problem starts as rewarding is not as simple as we would wish.
It is not simple to reward, as, due to researches, to much rewarding, leads to poor performance. I think the reason is twofold: First, people get used to the rewards, and the level of rewarding required grows higher. The second reason has to do, with the fact that people understand that less is required from them in order to actually win the reward, and they naturally will tend to make fewer efforts.
It is not simple to reward as no company lives in a vacuum: The employees have expectations regarding what they were use to in previous places of work; towards what they hear from friends and family; and towards what happens in the market in which the company works. It is very easy to be drawn after others and build some rewarding system that does not serve us as a specific organization. Acting otherwise and not answering employees' expectations, and un-satisfaction and de-moralization can follow.
It is not simple to reward, as rewarding should be proportional to the phenomenon or behavior which we want to encourage. As already I have written in previous posts, measuring is difficult. In many cases, it is complicated to estimate how much each individual contributed to some success.

However, the main question is not why rewarding is not simple, yet how should it be done.
First, an organization has to conduct its own rewarding system, based on its unique organizational culture; I recommend not following others, not to be drawn after the industry, nor neighbors or friends. The saying "we are unique" can lead to a positive implementation, if communicated properly. Of course, expectations should be leveled with new employees, before they are hired, and as part of the interviewing process. In case of an existing organization, wishing to change its current rewarding system, things are more complicated. I read a study, conducted by Kaplan, claiming that people tend to become fixated on existing incentive and rewarding systems and resist the change. Such a change has to be managed, according to all well-known change management methodologies.

Second, any rewarding system has to be based both on organization needs as well as on the individual needs. In general, organizational needs are in high congruence with achievements and results, while individual needs are more connected to efforts. Both need to be rewarded. Rewarding can be "hard", mainly money in all formats, starting with higher salary, bonuses, stock options, etc. Rewarding can be "soft", examples including recognition, promotion, publication, compliments, professional course, etc. Using Maslow's needs pyramid can help in designing the rewarding system. What I find important is to balance between the two, being sensitive and wise.

Any rewarding system, no matter how designed, should answer some principles in order to be effective:

Fairness. Living in a situation where other employees do understand why their colleague was rewarded and not them. Any rewarding system should aspire to reward individuals when the organization was rewarded significantly.
Answering the individuals' needs. No matter if the rewarding is for a team or for the individual, s/he has to be touched and motivated.
Balanced in scope. Too generous rewarding systems are not considered effective, and in some cases harm. To little yet communicated rewarding, will have cynical interpretations.
Flexible. Never pre-define everything. Always there are unexpected situations in which an employee should be rewarded. The rewarding system has to be flexible enough to answer these situations as well.
Stable. Do not change to often the rewarding system.

And most important-

Suitable. Fitting the organization's spirit.

I hope we all succeed rewarding our employees and motivate them to work properly and change when appropriate. At the end of the day, we have to remember, that rewarding is one of the most powerful management tools available.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Auhority

2009-03-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

Places of work are formal organizations; places in which there are importance and significance to authority. In the mid 50th, when classic management theories developed, the source of authority was clear and loud: Authority derived from organizational position. Every position had its status, and granted authority. IT was clear to each employee what is permitted and where boundaries stand.
Today, in the 21st century, terms of work have changed. The relation between the worker and in particular the knowledge worker and his/her manager turned more complicated and less definite. Also today, we are not speaking about a symmetrical relation, yet it is clear that the authority of managers is not as it was, and for sure does not derive from status and position alone.

Discussing authority includes discussion on two complementary aspects: Discussing source of authority, and discussing delegation of authority.

Delegation of authority, or delegation of power, is not the same as transferring responsibility. When I delegate the authority to decide or act to any subordinate manager or worker, they get the operational responsibility, but the managerial responsibility remains mine. One can delegate authority for permanent, for a temporary period, or as a one-time act, all affecting the responsibility of the employee. In all cases, however, the manager remains responsible.

Many managers find it difficult to delegate authority. In some cases, they literally do not pass any authority to take decisions, or even to act, that could be delegated, to their subordinates. In other cases, they do, yet continue to ask and interfere, not giving up control.
The difficulty in delegating authority can derive from several reasons:
Sometimes, we start working on a mission that indeed is part of our job, and continue on, even though it was correct to stop and pass the next stages on to one of our subordinates. This is the easier case, as awareness to this situation solves the problem.
Another reason has to do with the fact that we as managers, are usually more senior, more experienced, and hence, we feel that if we complete the task by ourselves, not passing it to others, it will be completed, faster, or maybe even better. I admit that from time to time, I also find myself in this situation.
A similar reason has to do with the energy we have to invest in explaining someone else what we want to achieve, how and why, and in being sure that we get that. We feel, that we prefer to complete the job by ourselves. In some cases, this may be the right solution, but the decision, has to be made, considering all aspects.
Sometimes, it is a task that we find more pleasant, and we wish to do it by ourselves.
In addition, sometimes, we are afraid. This has to do with the synonym of delegation of authority- delegation of power. This also has to do with the second part of this post, source of authority. We are afraid, that if we delegate authority, we loose power and loose source of authority. At the end of the day, we too, the managers, are human beings, and we wish to protect ourselves, whether consciously or non-consciously.

I can continue and add more reasons why delegation of authority is not as easy as one could expect. Yet, this is not the main issue. The main issue is that delegation of authority is important.
It is important to reduce our burden and navigate workload better;
It is important in order to develop the professionalism of our subordinates;
Moreover, it is important, in order to build trust between us and our subordinates, and let them know that we are willing to trust them and rely on them.

A few tips to do with delegation of authorities:
When you delegate authority, you must leave the employee who is in charge, some free hand, both freedom of choice and freedom of action. Do not guide him/her down to the last point and leave them to follow only.
When you delegate authority, do not totally let go. Remember that some guidance is required, and some control is requested. Remember that responsibility stays in our hands.
When you delegate authority, communicate it in the organization. Also, to ease on the operational level, but much more important, as a way to respect the person who is in charge. Soft rewards are critic in motivating employees.

The discussion on authority is not completed without examining the sources of authority. As I already wrote in the beginning of this post, the source of authority is changing as the concept of work and workers is changing. In general, the source of authority depends significantly on the manager's knowledge. Employees respect managers who know. This, of course, is not the only parameter to take in mind; employees will value a manager and accept his or her authority, if they understand what is required, and if the request and demands correlate with the organization's values as well as with their own ones.

How do these influence managers and their behavior? I am not sure.
However, in order to improve we all have to be aware of the changes in source of authority. Moreover, we have to understand that authority delegation and knowledge sharing strengthen us as well as our subordinates.

Plato, who lived many years before we started working in formal organizations, spoke about authority. He said: "The wisest have the most authority". Those who are smart, know, and have good judgment and keen discernment (definition of wise), are those who turn to be a source of authority.

It took us many years and various organizations' formats in order to go back to roots, and deeply understand his saying. There are probably good reasons, why this Greek philosopher, the student of Socrates, was one of the greater influencers on our Western philosophy.
Seeing how wise he was, he certainly was a source of authority.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Recession

2009-02-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

The whole world is now going through a difficult period. We all are experiencing a recession, in Israel where I live and write, as well as in the US and everywhere else.
Once, we used to think that globalization is a good thing; the recession has taught us that the absence of place and time limits has also its deficiencies, and globalization enables the spreading of less attractive factors, from the US to China, Europe, Israel and actually, every other place. Moreover, the US is not to blame. It could start also elsewhere (i.e. the SARS disease).

How should one manage the organization in a recession period? How should he or she manage their knowledge workers? Are there any guiding rules?
When one writes a book, s/he can choose to focus on specific areas, ignoring others, ignoring the happenings. When one writes a blog, people expect you to be connected to reality and to the existence. Not speaking on such issues may imply non-transparency and non-willing to open up.

Do not misunderstand me. The company, which I manage, while writing these lines, continues to makes its living, continues not to loose. Thus, even though we all are already four months inside an economic crisis. What will happen tomorrow? Will we continue to earn enough? No one can really know. For the time being, things are stable. Yet, this post is a necessity as we are all part of something big, bigger than us. It is important to speak about this management issue, even though it is not easy to hear, nor easy to say.

As this blog deals with managing the employees, the post will focus on the relevant issues, leaving out economic or other business aspects, all critical to the situation.

It is important to express and show transparency at this time. This does not imply that every business detail should be announced widely, and that every time we feel bad after a customer shares us with his distress, we should pass our feelings on, yet employees should be shared regarding the overall situation and updated periodically reflecting the changing trends.
I do believe that such a saying could be difficult to implement in times of growth and economic bubbles. While experiencing a recession, this might seem easier to implement. Now, employees are not so easily willing to move to another place of work, as it is probably more risky to be in a place that you do not know, that somewhere you already know and understand.
This therefore is not only a correct thing to say, but also an applicable one.

It is not less important to be sensitive to our subordinates. We must understand that each one and one of them experiences the instability differently, even though we are all in one company. The feelings may be a result of seniority in the organization, the job itself, the necessity as they sense it, and, of course, ones character.

It is important to be sensitive as each one of our employees has back at home parents, husbands, wives and other close people who may be in distress or even has maybe lost his or her job. Such an event can affect the emotional and economic state of the employee.

It is important to economize and save. Be cautious! Too much can seem as miserliness, or drive a feeling of instability. It is important to show that now is no party time; no spending time. Nevertheless, some small spending is important for our souls and we must find the right balance in between.

It is important to share the employees not only about facts regarding the recession and its impacts, rather in ways to change. Share your employees and ask them to share responsibility in bringing in new customers. Sit and speak with your employees asking them to come up with ideas how to offer more, or offer differently, considering the timing. This may result in better figures; moreover, we sense here the togetherness. People say that crisis is an opportunity. I would be happy to give up such opportunities if that's what it takes not to have any crisis. Yet, as the crisis is already here, let us drive higher cohesion between the company's employees.

It is important to be humble. To remember, that even if we think we are the best, we probably are not, and surely not perfect. Not everything is in our hands. In periods of growth and success, we as employers are captive somewhat, as we manage knowledge workers and these are free to leave and find some other place to work. Recession is employers' era. We must not take advantage! We must remain humble. We must remember that tomorrow will be a different era, but furthermore, we must remember to respect the other even though we are in charge and have the authority.

I read the lines above, and I suddenly realize; the crisis and the recess that followed teach us how to act, also in crisis time, but also in every other period. Maybe in recession it is a necessity, but it all times it is probably the proper and more dignified way to act.

Transparency, sensitivity, cohesion, sharing and humbleness. Not to much- yet everything.

Yours,
Moria

To the hebrew version

Diligence

2009-02-10T08:31:00.000-08:00

Friday morning. Seven o'clock and I step into the Supermarket near home. This is the opening hour, and within minutes I look around and the place is full. People arrive, fill their carts, say hello and goodbye and move on. Every time, this simple operation fills me with pride to the place in which I live. In Tel-Aviv for example, Before Ten o'clock in the morning, no one wakes up, surely does not find him or herself in the Supermarket. I always feel proud; we have diligent people.
Many people have spoke about the importance of diligence. Voltaire has said that "The richness of a country depends on the amount of diligent people it holds"; Samuel Johnson claimed that " '''Few things are impossible to diligence and skill". Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that "Moderation and diligence are the true cure of the humanity", and in the Bible, in Proverbs, the book of wisdom, that was written by King Solomon, we find the saying: "Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom".
Diligence is ascribed, from what is said, to wisdom and success. Yet, I have a feeling that this word, the "diligence" has to be reminded sometimes, as we hear and use it less and less. I checked in Google and found only approximately 6 million times the word was mentioned. Wisdom, in comparison, is mentioned 76 million times, success 435 million times, beauty 659 million times and love is mentioned 2 billion times!
I can continue and compare diligence to many other words, but there is no need: The case is loud and clear. Diligence has lost its glory.

I believe, that even though we are in the 21st century, it is very important that our employees are diligent and that we nurture them in this direction. Why? Because diligence is probably an essential component in good performance; however, there is an additional reason: Diligence is an essential component also in entrepreneurship and in the organizations ability to maintain not only in the presence but also to step towards the future.

The interesting question is what is diligence in the practical level and how do we achieve it. I will share with my understanding of diligence and my way to it.

There are several aspects to diligence:
First, a diligent employee works enough hours and does not tend to miss hours or days of work. I speak with people who I interview to work, and explain that the work is at minimum nine hours a day. Many times, more is required. The truth is that I do not really require much more, unless we experience peeks. Organizations who demand 11-12 hours a day, do not deal, to my opinion, with diligence. I believe it is more like taking advantage of people. Diligence is positive, yet our body and souls need the rest so we can continue contributing also on the next day and week.

Another aspect to deal with diligence has to do with the time in which we respond and act. If missions are delayed up to the last moment, or performed almost as they are held out. I have learned that missions that are performed rather early take me less time, twofold: We remember the setting and all related details and therefore save energy of re-entering the subject. Furthermore, remembering we have another task, and trying to remember all details (until we start) takes energy and attention. A diligent person starts early. In the Bible, we find two people that started early: Abraham, who got up early in order to fill God's request to sacrifice his son Isaac; and Bilam, who got up early running on to curse the people of Israel.

The last aspect, regarding diligent, as I see it, has to do with the work we carry on. In every job, in every role, there are parts that are enriching, parts that challenge us intellectually and other parts are less cherishing. Sometimes we think a less skilled person could fill in, sometimes it includes parts we do not like to do.
Even though it may be not the definition of diligence, I found out, that diligent people never say no to a mission, also if they do not fantasy it. They never say they are overqualified, or that they were not hired for this type of missions. Diligent people are prepared to work. Even if it is work, and not fun.

How do I achieve diligence within my employees?
I do so in two simple ways:
a) I demand diligence from all employees, in all three aspects mentioned.
b) I try to give them a good example. Role modeling.

Does it work? I believe so. Even though we are in the 21st century and diligence is not a sexy or trendy word, the employees are diligence. I indeed appreciate them for that.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Employments leaving work

2009-01-27T20:05:00.000-08:00

It is natural, in a blog dealing with management issues, to deal also with employees who leave. I admit, that I always was too frightened to write a post on this A live blog is not a book on the shelf. I knew that no matter when I will decide to write about leaving employees, the timing would be bad. Once, an employee decided to leave; some other time, someone did not fit in and we announced that s/he should leave. Even if not all these situations are relevant, I may put the existing employees under pressure, just by writing such a post, fearing from some unannounced plans.
Yet, I believe there is place for such a post, as the blog tries to examine all aspects of management. Therefore, I sat and started writing.

There are three types of situations of leaving employees: There are employees who retire; there are employees who leave in order to work in some other organization; and, there are employees who we decide to dismiss. An organization who nurtures a close relationship between the organization and the employees, hurts when the employees leaves, no matter what the circumstances are. An uncomfortable feeling exists among everyone: The employer, the employee who is leaving, and all surrounding employees.

Yet, different emphasis should be put in each of the three types of leaving employees:

When an employee retires, the main risk, organizationally speaking, is loss of knowledge. An employee, who retires, in most cases, has spent many years within the organization. In most cases the knowledge s/he has accumulated, is unique and valuable. It is true, that within the many years of this employee with others in the organization, s/he had built relationships. However, toward this coping, both the leaving employee and his/her friends in work, have time to adjust. From the day we join an organization, we know, that the day will come, and we will retire. Nowadays, that people live longer, and turn older later, many people wait for this opportunity of retirement and plan carefully their second life, after retirement. The emphasis, as has already been noted, is on knowledge retention. The organization has to prepare itself and manage a well order process: deciding what knowledge will be prioritized for retention; deciding what will be documented, and how; deciding what will be accessible to all in an organizational website; deciding what will be transferred to other employees through conversations; deciding whether one employee will fill all job components, or will the role be divided down and passed to several employees. Such a process should be managed. The responsibility of the direct manager of the leaving employee, includes: Initializing the process, prioritizing what knowledge is to be kept, and more important, what knowledge can be dismissed (one can never pass all knowledge). The manager has to decide who will take in place (one or more); how soon should the process start before the employee leaves; and, when the knowledge transfer takes place, to see that it actually happens in the right quality and pace.

We should not degrade the complexity and importance of this process. We are speaking about employees who work many years in the organization, and knowledge retention is not as simple as we wish. Knowledge transfer will not happen by itself. We must understand, that if we even do everything possible, the expertise is lost, and parts of the knowledge remain, The objective of a knowledge retention process, is too retain, as much as possible of the knowledge. In many cases, the manager is not aware enough, and knowledge transferring takes place, but not in the right pace or effectiveness. There are written methodologies how to handle this issue, and I will not elaborate about the "how", just say- it must be done.

There are organizations in which the retiring employees turn to be consultants after they leave. In many cases, these employees earn more as consultants, and managers have to understand that this is not a healthy situation, as these employees tend to keep their knowledge to themselves in the years toward retirement. Our dependency grows bigger every generation.

There are employees, who leave the organization, on their own will. It is very common, as we witness nowadays, changing careers and changing places of work. Yet, organizations feel uncomfortable from these moves. The employees who stay in the organization, feel that maybe, outside there are better opportunities, and maybe they are mistaken for staying. The managers find it hard to accept. I once had a manager who was insulted from every employee who decided to leave her. After their decision to leave, she remembered mainly their faults, and we all have faults, even if we do a good job. Israel is a rather small country, and in such a market, people probably meet again in conferences, exhibitions, as suppliers or customers. In some cases, they even find themselves working together again, in some other place. Also if not, the manager has to know to control his/her feelings even if they feel betrayed from the move. Business-like behavior and no expression of positive feelings are the best in this situation. Even if the employee left after the organization has won a new project depending on this employee; even if there was an understanding with this employee on a planned promotion, leaving others behind. Behave business-like and express no bas feelings. Do not say any bad word, not even to the other managers. Of course not to other employees. Difficult, but recommended.
In this situation, knowledge has to be transferred, but it usually is much easier than in cases of retirement.

The most difficult situation, as I see it, is when we as managers, fire an employee. Sometimes such a situation is a necessity, whether because of economic circumstances or because the employee is not the right man for the right job. Certain issues should be addressed in this case:
First, we as managers must consider whether to enable the leaving employee stay in the office after the announcement, or do we disconnect him/her immediately asking them to take their belongings and leave. The answer is complicated and varies from one situation to another. It depends if the employee works in connection with customers and how the immediate leaving will influence the organizations connection with them; it depends how unique is the knowledge the employee carries and how critic is the knowledge retention process. It depends on the risk of knowledge theft by the leaving employee; and it depends, on how immediate leaving will ease the departure, or make it harder.

Another important issue to be addressed is how to prepare an employee to this traumatic situation?
There is no doubt that every dismissed employee experiences a trauma, at some level. I was once dismissed, and I believe this a situation that I will not ever forget. Above the insult, work is our major source of income and stability. Without work, most employees cannot continue. When we here such an announcement of loosing our job, we feel as in an earthquake. What can I suggest as an employer? When possible, prepare the employee before. If the circumstances are of someone less suitable for the job, speak about it a few times with the employee, urging him/her to improve explaining implications of not improving. If they improve- everyone wins. Even if not, at least we partly prepared them for the coming. I do admit, this is not as easy as it may sound. I find people having a hard time passing the message. They try to be nice to the person, with whom they are speaking with and tend to soften the message, leaving the employee with a different understanding. The receiving person, on the other hand, also may misunderstand the message even if things are said, again, as it is not a pleasant message. I do not have solutions for all cases. I just think that passing the message and preparing the employee towards the announcement of him/her leaving. If I did not speak myself with the employee about leaving, I call to say good-bye and good luck. I find this behavior very important and assisting.

Another issue when we dismiss an employee, is how to communicate the leaving to customers and suppliers. How do we communicate it to other employees? Also here, I must admit, there is no one simple answer, but one leading thought: We must be honest, while keeping the employee's honor. It is important to communicate something true, yet leave respect. We can give part of the details, yet we must speak. Customers will understand.

It is important to communicate the announcement to all other employees, almost immediately. I do this, by writing an email at the end of the day in which the announcement took place, A formal, yet supportive email, speaking about the circumstances, and expressing my real sad feelings.
We must remember, that things that we do not communicate, will be passed by rumors. It is also better if we pass the message and leave as less as we can in the open.
In rare situations, I even spoke about the situation with groups of employees, taking advantage of existing staff meetings, enabling people to share their feelings. It all depends on the situation.

The last question to do with this issue concerns knowledge transfer. Most dismissed employees will not find it appealing to help the organization preventing the knowledge loss, and to transfer on what they know. As this move is a planned one, part of the planning has to speak with the direct managers of the intended to leave employee, and decide how to handle the critic knowledge, parts of it shared even before the announcement takes place.

The issues are out there, they are not simple, and therefore I find myself writing such a long post.
If I have to sum it all in one sentence- knowledge to the organization, honor and sensitivity to the employee.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Organizational Structure

2009-01-13T22:41:00.000-08:00

Henri Fayol, a French management theoretician, defined, already in 1916, fourteen management principles that have turned to a well-known list for all managers. Among the list are principles of rewarding, the management chain, the fraternity of the group, and more. One of these principles, that we find discussed also by many other management theoreticians, is the principle, that every employee has one manager instructing him and in charge of him. This sounds as a very natural principle; multiplicity of managers for a single employee can confuse him, can decrease efficiency (caused by holes in time when each manager is partial in charge) and can raise organizational political problems when conflicts develop. The list of potential problems is long, and it is reasonable therefore, that organizations were based many years on a hierarchical structure.

However, in the past years new needs develop questioning the correctness and fitness of the classical hierarchical organization structure for all purposes and for all circumstances. As many workers are knowledge workers, an important parameter influencing both on the needs and on the implacable solutions.
Knowledge workers are workers that knowledge takes a significant place in their activities. Developing the knowledge is a central component of their professionalism.

How does such a worker learn and develop his knowledge? Knowledge develops through personal experience, through team working, and by having a guiding manager pushing one up:
Personal experience exists, independent of the organizational structure. If we want to leverage it, it is preferable that the experience is diverse.
Working in teams enables us to learn from our colleagues who may have different education, skills and characteristic. The organizational structure does have influence on teams in which each employee is assigned.
The manager and his ability to guide are surely influenced from the organizational structure.
All three are intensified when the organizational structure is not hierarchical, when the worker has an opportunity for more diverse activities, taking part in several teams (including different people) and working with several managers, each manager adding his observation.

Based on these, I have set, several years ago, a heterarchy organizational structure, in the company, which I manage. The Internet defines a heterarchy organizational structure as a form of organization resembling a network or fishnet, where authority is determined by knowledge and function. Such a structure resemble the matrix known organizational structure (also called "M-form"), but is rather loose. It is a network, but not as strict as the classical matrix having employees assigned to two well-defined dimensions of managers. I have adopted this structure, and it may seem like cognitive dissonance, but I see its advantages every day.

The managers in my company each have a different combination of education, experience, skills and character, all relevant to the profession in which we specialize. In each project, we decide ad-hoc, which manager will lead and who will be included in the team of work. We will always recommend part time participation, enabling the team workers to continue their participation on other projects at the same time.

In practice, this project assignment method brings to a situation, in which every employee experiences diverse activities, is assigned to several teams, in which he learns and shares every time, his knowledge with different people. Furthermore, the professional manager varies from project to project, and the employee benefits learning from the experience of various managers (usually more senior).

Six month after I ruled this organizational structure, I found out its name (the heterarchical organizational structure) and learned that a researcher, named Hedlund, wrote an article, already in 1994, claiming that knowledge based units, as R&D, should be managed according to this structure. Hedlund defined principles for heterarchical management, and coined this method "the N-FORM", N standing for novelty, or new.
The novelty of this model compared the classical M-FORM, is:

Combination of issues and people in the N-FORM, compared to defined distribution in the M-FORM.
Temporary constellations of people and units in the N-FORM, instead of stable fix organizational structure in the M-FORM.
Importance of staff in "low" organizational levels and importance of dialog between functions and groups in the N-FORM, rather than managing the interface in high management levels, in the M-FORM.
Wide organization communication in the N-FORM, instead of top-down communication in the M-FORM.
A role of catalysts and architects of communication infrastructure, defined for the higher management, preserving the investment in knowledge in the N-FORM, rather than guiders, controllers, monitors and resource allocation definers in the M-FORM.
A heterarchical organizational structure.

How do I protect my employees from confusion, inefficiency and organizational politics? I admit there is no full answer, but these challenges are addressed by assigning one (managerial) manager for each employee, to whom this employee reports regarding vacations and sickness, with whom s/he consults with when some high-level conflict rises, and with s/he speaks when they need to share their thoughts or feelings.

As everything in life, there are no advantages without disadvantages. In order to help the suggested method actually work, good work-team between the managers must exist. They must know how to cooperate; moreover, they must show good will. When good will is missing, the difficulties grow bigger, and the advantages are not as promising.

When managers work in cooperation, everyone benefits. The employee benefits from improving development of knowledge and professionalism, as to the diversity in all dimensions described; the organization benefits improved quality.

For the time being, I am an exception in this method of management. It is interesting to know how organizations will structure their knowledge-based units ten years from today.
Until then, let us wait with patience.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Tradition

2008-12-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

As a Jewish Israeli child that has been brought up in US, I remember back at home, the same songs, played repeatedly on my parents' gramophone. One of the songs I remember brightly is "Tradition" from "Fiddler on the roof". The musical is a personal story in a world of traditions, back at the beginning if the 20th century in Russia: The Jewish tradition, the classes' status tradition ("If I were a rich man"), the tradition that grants different rights and different authorities to genders, and the tradition of matchmakers, a tradition that Tzitel, the fiddler's daughter, tries to break.
The song on "tradition" returns to me, again and again, and leaves me with nostalgia and a good feeling. Yet, if I stop and listen to the words, there is not even one sentence that I can see that I identify with. The issue folds in it a conflict: On the one hand, tradition produces feelings of a warm and friendly environment; on the other hand, as the Etnix band have sung: "tradition is the enemy of advancement and progress".

What is the place of tradition in organizations? Is it right to nurture it and how should it be done?
I am celebrating, these days, ten years of running my company. A decade. I have gone through a long journey and yet it went so fast, and seems rather short. Again, the conflict rises:
On one hand, there is so much yet to do. we came here to work, innovate, earn and lead a change. Why look at the past? Why spend time and effort on traditions and memories that take us back? What could it help?
On the other hand, I feel, both as a manager, and as a person, that tradition and memories do have their place in the organization and should be honored rather than swept out.

Tradition has clear advantages: It enables people to strength their belonging feelings, to feel part of the organization in another dimension: Not only part of some offices; not only tools and methodologies; and even- not only values. Tradition is something shared that passes in the air very simply. It makes us feel better. It makes us feel belonging to something bigger.
Tradition also crystallizes.
Tradition, so I hope, is another factor that makes people prefer and stay in the organization and not look for other opportunities outside the organization. Tradition makes the people, when they are part of the organization, deal better with daily difficulties (and we have no choice, difficulties always exist). Tradition makes them feel better. Tradition.

How does this stand in one line with "the enemy of advancement and progress?" We, as human beings, need probably both: both Tradition and revival; both anchors and stability together with the ability to change; both the feelings that tradition produces together with legitimization to create and fly high and far.
The challenge of tradition, therefore, is more complicated. It should enable, but not block; It should be part of the background but should not gain control. We have to remember that few are the organizations that survive due to tradition only.

How do we produce tradition in the organization? I will start from the bottom line: Money here is not the main issue. One cannot order tradition, pay for it, and mark it with a V sign. One must invest. Invest and be consistent. And after all these- wait. Time is an important part when speaking about tradition.

What and how? Hereby are several factors that produce and nurture tradition:
Holidays. Naama, one of the managers under me, taught me and insisted repeatedly, until I understood and assimilated that every holiday must be celebrated. I always came with a pragmatic attitude that every company meeting, and every minute in it, should be utilized: More methodologies, more teaching people, more professionalism. Tradition is important, so she always reminded me: It is important to eat an apple with honey together before the Jewish new-year, and we must finish eating together all the ""Hametz" before Passover. From year to year, the place of tradition in the company, based on celebrating Jewish events, grows greater. From two celebrations a year, we started celebrating more holidays, and in between, we find new opportunities for additional celebrations, from all kinds of types.

Tradition can also be nurtured through simple ceremonies and customs that are repeated from time to time. The ritual produces the tradition. Smoking breaks, of part of the people together produces tradition (in this case, tradition has also disadvantages). Tradition evolves through our monthly ritual of giving, every month, a symbolic prize as to something special he or she did the passing month. Tradition evolves only because it is done consistently every month, already for years.

Tradition evolves through building new memories together and speaking about existing memories. We see to it that in every company trip or company event, we take pictures (so easy nowadays), and in the last years it even turned more sophisticated as we make a clip after each event. It is much more pleasant to remember, and much easier too. In relevant events, we turn back to the past and share the memories. Share those who took part in past events, and share and explain to those who were not there yet. Share through stories, through pictures, through feelings. Build and strengthen the tradition.

I am celebrating, these days, ten years of running my company. I surely can say that we produced a company tradition. A tradition inside the company and a tradition in larger groups, both with our customers, both with the Israeli Knowledge Management community. We went a long way, but do hope that the main way is still in front of us. We hope we smartly combine tradition and advancement. We hope to continue marching in the pace, and making others follow. We hope to produce many more (good) traditions that make all feel belonging, feel sharing and feel good.

Sorry for being so sentimental today. I promise to come back to myself in the next posts.

Yours,
Moria

to the Hebrew version

Measurement

2008-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

A known saying among management people, speaks about measurement:
Whatever cannot be measured cannot be managed.
The importance of measuring is obvious.

Measurement enables us, first if all, to examine if an activity we held, succeeded. We measure whether we succeeded in achieving targets we defined in advance. As our world is not white and black only, measurement deals not only with examining if we reached targets, but also, as a way to measure how close have we reached.

However, measurement has several additional advantages, above the measurement of success and targets achievement:

Measuring is our way to examine the path we have chosen, in order to help ourselves refining the path and learning how to proceed, instead of waiting for the end, and possibly even fail. Early measurement can point out ways how to fix problems before they grow large, and show us the way for improvement; Measurement, hereby is defined against methods and techniques, not only against results.
Measuring is our way, on the ongoing, to identify trends and changes that pass nearby, without us noticing them otherwise.
Measuring is our proof to authorities or customers, external and internal ones, that we act as declared.

Measurement is a positive step. It takes us forward and is a base for comparison.

Yet, a few points should be noticed, clarifying the essence of measurement and the way it is obtained far more complicated than we would like it to be:

Albert Einstein said: "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted…" What can we learn from this sentence?
We have to be cautious not to search the coin under the street lamp. Too many times we rush our way to measure, ending with a set of indicators and measurements that measure what is simple, rather what is important. Start with targets, and measure the important factors regarding these targets; do not yield for the easy way.

Another complexity drives from it being easy to measure results, but not as easy to segregate the various factors of the result and understand how much our activity contributed to this result. For example, if there was a successful activity held by the company, yielding positive business results, and we decided to reward all employees involved. A month later, we measure the employees' satisfaction and find it high. How can we know, from the satisfaction measurement only, whether satisfaction is triggered from the bonus or maybe from the professional success they took part of? Moreover, the opposite can happen as well: We can proceed successfully, yet an external result, such as the economic crisis we are experiencing now, will shade turning the business results negative. It is possible, that if we would not hold the company activities, results were worse, but we really cannot know; segregating is difficult. This complexity is one of the reasons that drive qualitative measurement. Qualitative measurement deals with the impression created: What impression did people get from the activities held? To what point did the activity contribute to success? To what point was it successful, even though failure? In most case, people are intelligent enough to segregate factors and give us a reliable answer.

Complexity drives also out of the measures and measures' indicators we set. Naturally, we as people are subjective, and our assessment differs from the one of our colleagues. If they would run the activity, possibly we would have a different list of measurements, and a different list of results yielding. This challenge turns greater when we evaluate people, rather than activities. A person that may think he is friendly and a teammate can be considered from the viewpoint of his manager, as a soloist. And this is only one example among many.

A last tip regarding while managing people and activities:
Measure values, at least as measuring the results. Values represent the strategy by which we wish to act. If these are correct, and people work by them, we are on the right road.

After all these, I wish to end with a proverb. This time, not a quote of Albert Einstein, rather a old Indian proverb: "You can measure how deep is the well, but cannot measure the deepness if the heart".
The people and their hearts are important as least as the activities (the well).
Let us measure; however, let us remember and cherish the deepness of the heart.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Conflicts

2008-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

Conflicts are natural; it is natural that different people will have different opinions; it is natural that different people will have different agendas which they wish to promote. Therefore it is natural that conflicts will take place.

We all tend, and so do I, to refer to conflicts as a negative issue. Nevertheless, as our world is complicated, we must notice, that there are also good results caused by conflicts (and I wish to thank the leading and control guide and the free library of management):
Conflicts help to sharpen and to bring some issues to our awareness;
Conflicts drive people to act upon their truth;
Conflicts trigger organizational and personal energy; if it is channeled correctly, it leverages us.

Yet, if conflicts are not handled and managed, we loose control, and the conflicts can damage both the activities as well as the organization's morality.
Hereby are several factors that can cause higher level conflicts in organizations:
Competitive atmosphere in the office.
Encourages conflicts.
Uncertainty period (low level of security).
Enables conflicts' eruption, caused by the high level of tense.
Unclear definition of job definitions and overlapping between jobs.
Causes people to interfere one in each others job, because of the unclear definition and sooner or later, drives many conflicts.
Low level of communication between people.
Does not cause conflicts directly, but surely enables it, as when there is any suspicion, it turns into an unwanted direction if it is not clarified fast enough,
As best as you can, examine this list and see how you can deal with it. Prevention is always far better than dealing with an existing problem.

Many people speak about finding a win-win situation as a way of resolving conflicts. The idea is based on that, that many times contradicted opinions come from personal interests of the people holding them, but analysis of the interests can build some new shared decision that does not oppose (or only opposes a little) each sides' interests. The idea of mediation is based significantly on this concept. What do I think? A great idea, but surely no "magic maker" as people may tend to believe. Sometime it resolves the conflict, sometimes partly and sometimes it does not do the job. In some cases the conflict is deep-seated and win-win solutions do not exist.

Of course that speaking one with another helps to handle every conflict, and could be a very effective tool. A tool for communication; a tool for being attentive; a tool for understanding differences; and even… a tool for ventilation. Simple- but works.
And, of course that preventing a conflict from being spoke loudly can help, as well as preventing blaming, preventing turning the conversation form issues to people, all these are trivial, yet always correct and surely do their job.

Two tips, I found, that help me:
First, willingness to concede and to give up upon part of the issues that I think are right, not because I am convinced that I made a mistake, but as part as showing the person with whom I am in a conflict that I am trying to find a way to go towards him or her. People act reciprocity. If we go towards them, in many cases, they will come towards us. Simple, but works. This way the conflict can turn smaller and may be handled.

And secondly, another tip, that helps me: Respecting the other person and opinion, even if I disagree with them and do not resolve the conflict itself. There is some issue, which I disagree with one of my workers, how and in what way it should be handled. I tried, two years ago, to give up and let that person handle some big project according to her way. I won't say that there were not good aspects and good results. Yet, as I believed in the first place, there were aspects that I liked less. Now, when a similar project, with the same issue, is again to be handled, I decided to lead it my way. But I do it, both then and now, while respecting the opponent opinion and the person holding it. I am not trying to state that there is no conflict; there certainly is, and we live with it. Not even bad, I believe.

As I said in the beginning of my post, life is complicated. Us understanding the complication and that we have to live and strive not always resolving every issue, and not always having win-win solutions, turn down part of the frustration, and assists us with living with conflicts. Maybe it even weakens some of them.

I wish us all pleasant life, and if possible- Good energy driving conflicts, not annoying ones.

Yours,
Moria

to the hebrew version

A good manager

2008-11-13T08:16:00.000-08:00

I am writing this blog, now, over a year. Every time, looking at another aspect, another issue concerning management, trying to highlight it for myself, as well as for the readers. Doing so, I find myself wondering: If we collect all the written literature, here, in other blogs and over the web, in hundreds and thousands of management books, it seems as if, the list of skills required for being, what is called, a "good manager" are...endless.
I feel as if anyone who wishes to fulfill this list and turn into a good manager, should be a superman; some virtuoso that is a and b and c, and so on.

It is important, I believe, to discuss the issue, for two complementary reasons:
The first, as a tool for examining myself, seeking where I should focus my efforts on improving; the second, in order to better choose the subordinate managers and help them develop better, so they best manage their employees.

If I would have to choose five and only five skills of a good manager, I believe I would choose the following list:

A manager is a person who knows to take decisions. To listen, to understand, to ask; to agree, to disagree. But at the end of the day- to take a decision. And to know, that I am responsible and later on, I will not blame my partners nor my employees; not my customers and in no way shall I blame the weather. To take decisions and to be responsible for these decisions.

A manager is a person who knows how to motivate people. Motivate people to act; motivate people to act effectively; motivate people to work with sparkles in their eyes and enthusiasm in their hearts. Motivating people is important in a stable environment of work, however it is much more critical in a changing market as we are experiencing, now, in the 21st century. The changing market causes us to check and recheck our decisions, to refine or even change them due to the circumstances, and to motivate people to act upon these changes.
A manager is a person with a presence; a person, that people actually want to listen to what he or she says, and to follow.

A manager is a person who acts. This has several aspects: Acts- does not find it undignified to work, and to even to perform some dirty jobs. Acts- is connected to the field and continues to deal, even though less, but deals, with the professional discipline, in which the company specializes. Acts- analyzing the past and bringing the future.

A good manager is somewhat different. Creative, knowing how to think out-of-the-box, sometimes thinking otherwise than other people think. Your employees do not expect you to think exactly as they do; the organization needs you to think somewhat different in order to burst out and lead. Moreover, you have to find the right way to proceed, however not always the trivial one. Willing to take risks, and knowing that sometimes we will pay for taking them. Innovative.

A good manager is a person. Empathic, attentive, laughing sometimes, other times angry. Also, having weaknesses. Externalize the person whom you are.
Some of the readers may ask: Does humanity (us being people) compensates for professionalism, for the skills of taking decisions, etc.? The answer is, definitely, no; with no doubts. Being human, and even externalizing it, resembles the attitude to the aero digit. A zero, if it comes before a number (01, 079, 013456), adds nothing. However, a zero digit, added after a number (10,790, 134560) adds a magnitude. It multiplies by factor 10. I believe that humanity acts in a similar way: Without the other skills, it is useless. When it comes above them, its what makes the difference.
Be human. Teach your employees whom you manage, to do the same.

If I succeed to stick even only to this list of skills, I hope and believe that I can be in a situation where I navigate the ship, in the right speed, having smiling sailors on my deck.

I surely try.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Motivation

2008-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Shaye Feingboum, a known Israeli Football couch, once explained the reporters: "People say I am a 'motivator'; that means someone who injects motivation to his players".
No doubt, that in every profession, starting from football and reaching teachers, through manufacturing, medical cares and art, the worker's motivation is an essential factor of his or her productivity. No doubt, that motivation cannot be purchased, by a check any manager is willing to sign.

There are many theories that speak about motivation that triggers activity, and hopefully, assists in achieving desired goals. Two of the more famous related theories are Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and John Adam's equity theory. Maslow defined a pyramid of needs, starting with physiological needs, through safety needs, love/belonging needs, esteems' needs and up to self-actualization needs. The individual's behavior is influenced from all. In order to achieve motivation, we should fulfill all five levels of the individual's needs. The lowest level of unfulfilled needs will be the one to block the individual's motivation. For example, if an individual will not feel safe in the place he or she work, then they can be respected thoroughly (esteems' level), yet will not feel motivated. And vice versa; The more we invest in supplying the necessities of the individual, in more levels, our chances to gain motivation of our worker, will rise.

Adams speaks about another aspect: equity. In order to achieve job motivation, the individual wants fair treatment. Fair is defined by comparing what the person invests in the organization, to what he or she receives; and fairness is defined by comparing what the specific person receives comparing it to what other colleagues receive, the near colleagues (in the same team / place of work) and the more far defined colleagues (working in the same profession / friends, etc.). The Adams theory enables us to better implement Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory: Also, when we give the workers a partial answer for their needs, if they feel that what they receive is relatively fair, these partial answers may be enough for triggering motivation. Even if the business is experiencing difficulties (economical or others), what is important is the relative answer we give to the individual rather than the absolute one.

Above all these wise and important theories, I use various tools in order to motivate people:
First, I understand that there cannot be a uniform level of motivation for all employees and for each employee every day in the year. Motivation is triggered also from character, and people are different one another. Motivation is also influenced by external factors, factors that we cannot control: Coming angry to work, someone in the family sick, separation, etc. We have to be empathic to our employees and compare each one of them only to himself and to no one else. If we feel a motivation decrease, we should give it place, and watch in order to learn if it is an external passing problem, or a trend teaching us there is a motivation problem of the employee in the organization.

On the individual level:
I try to delegate authority. When a person knows that he or she are trusted, motivation increases. Of course, we have to prevent them from feeling "suckers" or helpless. Delegating authority must be accompanied with guiding, and should be conducted in an atmosphere of "big thinking"; not abuse.
I try to challenge my people. Challenges draw motivation;
I try to fit part of the assignments to things I know the person to fill it relates to, or likes to do. I try to highlight these aspects in existing activities;
Moreover, I try to respect and thank. Cherishing people for successful activities and good results is the fuel for motivation in the next activity to come.

On the personal level I try to show people how motivated I am, as much as possible. I try to show a good example, to serve as a role modeler. If we, as managers, are motivated, and if we are out there with sparkles in our eyes, we enhance the chances of our people to be motivated; and vice versa.

On the organizational level:
Two related tips;
First, a good organizational climate; the second, Share the employees in what is happening.
There are only few things better than causing our employees to want to come every morning to work, smiling and with motivation to work. In the company I manage, we held, a few months ago, our yearly satisfaction review. Naturally, the people included criticism too, and naturally, even though the "big picture" was good, these comments turned me sad. The day after we published results, one of the employees knocked on my door. He said: "I want you to know, that even though people included also less favorable comments, I come to work every day, smiling; I like to come to work; and I certainly am not the only one that feels that way". We cannot always have people only say good things and thank us. People tend to want better, and that is a good thing, because it turns the organization into a better one. Yet, we have to remember, to see that the climate is good, that the atmosphere is positive. We have to see to that, that our employees are happy to work in our organization, and happy to start their day with us.

What has it to do with sharing the employees? Employees that are shared in what is happening, feel more safe and less threatened (rumors are a recipe for trouble) and feel more belonging to the organization. Safety and belonging drive motivation. Did we mention, by any chance, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory?

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Words

2008-10-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

"Life and death are in the power of the tongue", said King Solomon, in the Bible (Proverbs 18:21). Sages of blessed memory added: "silence is a fence for wisdom". Not always, speaking is the right thing to do. Not in all cases, using words, adds.

No doubt, that words are significant. They always had. However, it seems, that regarding to work, the power of words turns to more powerful. Why is it so? For two reasons:
First, in the reality that existed one hundred years ago, the employee had less interaction with his manager. Therefore, also if words were powerful, there were fewer opportunities for using them, when speaking about employee-manager communication. Secondly, the relationship between the manager and the employee have turned in the last years, in some aspects to be symmetric, and in others not. This lack of balance drives the word said or written to have much more influence. I will explain:
Today, employment is symmetric. This issue has been dealt in previous posts, but I wish to return to it and explain its consequences on use of words. In the past, a place to work was a choice for life. Today, people are regular to move on every few years, changing their employment. The initiative for such a change could be the manager, but could come also from the worker. This is the symmetry. If, as a manager, you have said something non-positive to an employee, or even you have been understood that way, it is easy for the employee to remember and turn angry and bitter. These can be translated, within time, to people not wishing to stay in work. It is not easy to know about such things. As in other aspects of life, it is easier to rune than to fix. In the former situation, also if such feelings would exist, their influence on the employees stay was minimal. As employees know that they are staying for many years, they knew how to ignore, not to take every issue and empower it. It resembles the relationships between a married couple. We know that the relationship is important; we know we want it to last. So we learn, as adults, not to get insulted from every said by the other. It is obvious that two grown people cannot see everything in the same way, yet it is not worthwhile heart breaking. The fact, that we see a specific place of work as a stage only, eases its breaking.
Yet, there is the a-symmetric part of the manager-employee relationship that was and is to stay: The word of a manager has more power. It has more influence. It flies far.

The combination of these two factors, the symmetric and the a-symmetric, makes life non-balanced. Make the power of the word more significant.

A few things I have learnt, part of them, the hard way:

Beware what you write to your employees. Especially when using email. Formal documents are in most cases professional, and rarely serve as part of the communication between a manager and his or her employee. When we speak with our employee face to face, we see them, hear them and sense them. It is easier to fix mistakes, if we failed in choosing our words. If we write a mail, backing off and rephrasing is much more complicated. Emails tend to be one dimensional, and the employee's impression is not supported by our facial expression, by the tone we use when we speak and by all our body language, which are, as researchers claim, the main part of what we understand in any message.
The use of email in the 21st century flattens the organization in some aspects, and should be considered as a blessing, yet it has potential faults as well. The flattening enables a channel of communication between various levels in the organization, communication that does not exist in other channels. The impact of every written word empowers, as it is not supported by the frame of all other accompanying channels, leaving the communication manly one channel, with one dimension only. Therefore, be careful! Even though it is tempting to write short and straightforward, when writing emails, consider every word and write what you decide- in more than in one way. That way, the chances of misunderstanding, decrease. Of course, we should memorize, time after time, that many issues should not be dealt by mail at all.

When you talk, and even more important, when you write, consider avoiding criticizing together with giving compliments. It is possible, but we should take in mind, as managers, that in many cases the compliment turns transparent. Nobody notices it, even if it was the major part. It does not matter if the complement precedes the critics or comes after. One time after another, I have learnt that people are selective in what they decide to catch. What do I recommend? To decide what is more important in each case, and stick to it, without adding the other part; or, take the risk, those things will be disregarded.

This is the place, before continuing, for an important tip. It is somehow natural for us to criticize, less natural to appreciate and value good things done. Appreciate your employees! When someone does a good job, do not treat it as obvious. Tell him or her, what you think, even better in writing. Even a short mail will do the work. It does not cost, but it is worth, and a lot. You would not believe as how much our employees are yearning to hear something good from us; how important it is to them. They deserve it, so give it! Say something good.

However, do not exaggerate. Write and say only the truth. The words we use, their value is subjective. If we reuse to much the term "excellent", for example, its value, as to the listener, will decrease drastically. If we do not give a complement every day, on every thing, we drive a situation, that when we do complement, its value amazingly is high. That way, it is also easy for us to give it, to say a good word, as we feel inside our hearts, that the people deserve it; that it is significant.

One last thing: When we want to pass an important message, it is best to pass it three times. Use more than one mail, or use more than one communication channel. We were born that way as people. In order to achieve more than hearing, also listening; more than reading, also heart and mind understanding, we must return and say it repeatedly.

Maybe, not in all situations, "Life and death are in the power of the tongue", but in all cases, the words are truly significant. For the better and for the worse.
On that, Sages of blessed memory said: "Wise people, beware what you say".

Yours,
Moria

to the Hebrew version

Planning

2008-09-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I was invited to some big event. Many ceremonies take place around the country, as Israel is celebrating these days 60 years of independence. This event was a military event that was aimed to saluting a large group of technical people. Usually those people are in the shadow, servicing the others, and therefore, the uniqueness of this event was in putting them in the lights and thanking them for their significant activity that donates to the complete success and security.
Thousands of people were invited to the event and most of them did show up. Unfortunately, an hour before the ceremony started, somewhere else in Israel, two soldiers were killed in a training accident. After waiting a while, the event was canceled. Five thousand people were sent back home, with no party. We are a family, the commander said, explaining the cancellation, after every one had already arrived. A family, in good times and in sad times. Today is one of the sad times. We cannot joy and celebrate.

Can we plan anything? Is there any meaning to planning? I am sure that the brigadier general that set the event in motion, and worked diligently on turning it into reality for six month, did not imagine that the event would end the way it did. I am convinced, that the families of the killed soldiers, that send their beloved ones to another day of operation, did not think that they will never see them again.

Even when we deal with less important events, we plan and not always success to stick to the original plan. In the beginning of my way, as a consultant, I remember that I received a purchase order from a client, after several months working on the lead. Two weeks later, the company was merged into some other company. I was left with an order in my hand, yet with an organization in change that was not in the suitable situation to execute the activity. The button line: zero revenue.

I have many more examples. We plan, and agree on some things, together with an employee, customer or a partner but reality is stronger than any plan. Time is an issue, something else is urgent and our activity is being postponed; replacement of managers and our plan is being canceled. In some case, activity starts and an external constraint prevents its completion. The list of reasons why plans are not fulfilled is very long.

Should we conclude not to plan? This shall we deal with changes affecting our plans?

I will start from the ending point. At "Alice in wonderland", Alice asked the cat, as she reached the intersection: "Which way I should choose?" "Where do you want to get to?" She was asked. "I don’t know". "If so", she was replied, "Any road will lead you there".

We need to plan. Planning serves us in defining the direction we want to get to; designing, the long-term direction, as well as the intermediate stations (the tasks) that will help us get there.
Planning assists us to get much further;
Planning assists us to estimate the required sources (time, expense and other sources);
Moreover, planning assists us to notice the risks, so we can prepare ourselves in the best way possible.

Yet, planning is only an introduction to life, and therefore it may be considered as a baseline for changes. I do believe that we should not stick to the original plan at every case, and never give up. It is necessary to work according to a plan, but yet to know when this plan turns to be only a plan and not anything beyond.

We should be more careful not to turn the planning and the work plans to be a target rather than an aid. Many times, I have seen over occupation on plans and their details. Updating that recurs repeatedly, drawing all management attention to it. We are limited in our ability to dedicate management sources at the same time to too many tasks. We need to remember that the goal of a work plan is to help us and it is not the project or the activity itself. It is possible that the best solution, in case of a need in change, is only the indication of a new layout without dismantling it to a repaired work plan. In other cases, it is possible that the solution include changes of a work plan without getting into details. It is possible that we will ensure a full work plan but we will guide an employee below us to deal with the details, and we, as managers, will not be involved ourselves in this assignment. We have a wide range of solutions. All we have to do is decide that we are willing to compromise. The rest is simple.

However, primarily we need to know not to trust the planning as a promise under no circumstance. You are not a start up or a futuristic project of R&D? So do not act as if you are. If there is a certain forecast of revenue, do not spend it all in advance, as if the Excels are reality. Not before we see the revenues actually in our bank account. Not as a regular expense and not as an investment. My recommendation is to remember the difference between plans and reality.

I have learned, reading Goldratt's management theories, an interesting perception: at any work plan, we save reserves, for time of crises. Reserves of time, reserve of money. In actual life, we burn them all, even if there is no major problem standing in the way. There is more time left? Let us add more features and capabilities to the built appliance, or invest more at the finishes. There is money? We use more equipment and parts, and as before, there are no reserves left out.
The situation resembles our attitude to our personal salary: If it turns higher, most of us get used to higher consuming. We fit our self to existing resources.
Planning triggers resource consuming, even if they were planned for a rainy day.
How can we improve our planning? Goldratt suggests saving all the reserves in a special bank, leaving it at the end; as a separate section, the "reserves" section. We will allow using it only when there is a real problem and additional resource is truly required. That way, we will ensure that the work plan will converge, usually sticking closer to the average need without using the reserves, part of them or all. Those, stay to the end, in the separate section. It is too easy to spend them and this technique helps managing the reserves and controls the use of them.
I make efforts to build my work plan this way. Minimal, but with flexibility. It saves money to me and its saves money for the customers.

The management of the twenty century has made us a bit technocratic, with all management control tools. In the 21 century, I believe, we are required to remember that we have to be much more flexible and creative, in many aspects. Even in planning and in work plans.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Empowerment

2008-09-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

I admit that the first time that I ran into the concept of empowerment was five years ago. Before. I was did not recognize the term. I remember, we worked on a project for some customer in the education sector. If I try to analyze the customer's organization, without too much generalization, I can say that they were afraid of computers. Some of them were terrified. Building a website and knowledge sharing was a very different process of what we recognized and experienced in other places. As part of trying to make things easier for them, we used many techniques; for example, we left many blank areas on each page, so that it would look less threatening. In addition, all graphic art was planned accordingly.
On the contrary, the home page of this website included many terms describing main values of the organization. It included terms as democracy, autonomy, activism, enrichment and more. Of course, empowerment was one of the values.

The truth must be said; I did not relate to those ideas at all; it seemed to me as if the ideas were taken from the ivory tower and was not joint in our day-to-day conception. I wondered on the polarity of my reflection to those ideas versus my reflections to computers and using it as a sharing tool. I admit that I misunderstood the importance of those ideas, being a person that defines herself as rational and practical.
I grew up; I have changed. Also today, I try to reline on the conception of practice; yet I learned the influence of the empowerment and its capability.

Dr. Elishava Sadan defines empowerment as a process that is impact is passing from a situation of manliness, to a situation of relatively control in life, fate and surroundings. This shift can be expressed by improving the sense of capability to control or by improving the real capability to set in motion this control.
The original meaning of the idea is a way of power of attorney -approval to work in the name of the company, kind of delegacy of authority in the social plane that been given to a certain one. There are four categories of empowerment: individual, community based, cooperative and professional. What is not surprising, and of course most positive, is that empowerment in one category usually affects the other categories, and they improve too.
In my terminology, empowerment is a process of development; individual/ community/ collective/ professional strengthening and handing over abilities and skills so that the empowered person could utilize his or her potential in different aspects.

How is empowerment relevant to us as managers?
One of our main roles of managers, as I see it, is empowering the managers in the scale below us and empowering the employees. I personally dedicate to this activity a main percentage of my time, management efforts and resources. Naturally, I concentrate in professional empowerment mostly, and on that I intent to write and share in this post. As one may already understand, I did not always deal with professional empowerment in the same intensity. I assume that in my first years as a manager I felt the need to be on the front stage; I concentrated on guiding workers and advancing their skills. However as a manager I thought that I need to be in front of them. I thought that it the right way to lead them forward, is by giving a good example and shouting "after me".

It is hard to invest hours, time and energy in empowerment. The goal of most of the organizations is to create or to give service. We always have missions to complete; we always have activities regarding some product, service or customer. Usually, their due date is yesterday (or in good cases, tomorrow). To stop and to invest in empowerment it is not a simple challenge. It is so too easy to postpone the important issues as we see the urgent ones.

How do I reduce the chances that it will happen?
In two ways:

First, I remind myself repeatedly of the importance of staff empowerment.
Second, I nominate workers to be responsible for empowerment, and define resources for doing so (mainly time). It is not enough to cover all the aspects of empowerment, yet it is enough to constantly and significantly advance.

I know that it is fashionable today to talk about talent management. Locating a small percent of workers with an exceptional potential and investing more in their empowerment. I am in favor of the opposite method: empowerment of all workers. From my point of view they are all talented. It is clear to me that since the resources are always limited, it means less investment in each one.
As I see it, there is a moral say here about my faith in each one of my workers; there is a say here about my faith in us as an organization. We hired talented people. They are all talented. They all have potential to be even more talented. That is what empowerment is about.

It is very important to communicate the workers how important is to us to empower them, and how important it is to us that they actually will be empowered.

There are two aspects here:
The first one is to encourage the workers to grow; to give them the legitimization to take over new territory at their work.
The second is a message to workers that we believe that they have a great potential. A person's belief in him self is the key of his or her empowerment success.

Above the formally empowerment frame, it is worthwhile to take advantage of opportunities that enable us to strength empowerment.
Recently I was ill. I was absent from work for a long time. It is unfortunate, but it was an excellent opportunity to empower workers and managers. My absence from the office gave the managers under me more place to express them selves, in different terms, that in other circumstances I would have been involved in. A simple example to that is lecturing in conferences. In many places, organizers of conferences prefer the senior person, and naturally I am the one that been invited to lecture and present. My absence required others' participation instead of my self, and suddenly they turned more known in their seniority. They moved to the front stage.

In my first years as a manager, I thought that to be a manager is to be in the front stage, to set good examples and see that people follow me. Today I know that it is right to begin this way, but the wisdom is in the next stage. To be wise enough to move aside or even to the back, and concentrate on removing all stones and obstacles, allowing the managers and the workers below me to run and lead.
This is essence of empowerment. Today I know that it is more difficult to lead when you are behind, but that way you get much further.

Yours
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Risk Management

2008-08-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

Albert Einstein has said that only those who take risks and go far find out how far they can go. As human beings and managers, we differ also by the level we tend to be cautious or tend to take risks. The truth must be said, we are even more complicated: I can say for myself, and for some close people who I know, that on some issues we are careful and others, take risks; so it is also a matter of issue, not only person.

In work, whether we wish or not, we are exposed to risks: We start selling something that seems "sure", but the market changes; we start developing a project and we have no guarantee that we end it in tine, cost or quality we planned, or be even sure that we reach its ending point. We work with a staff of employees, and someone decides to leave; we receive a large order for monthly service from a customer (working by hours), to find out a few months later that the customer does not have the time and we cannot work even close to the capacity (and income) we counted on. The list is endless. Everybody in work is exposed to risks, managers and workers, but there is a different: We as managers have to take carry the burden. We have to be responsible to the organization, to work, to workers, and to ourselves.

I can say for myself, that at work I tend not to take risks, as far as I can control it. No matter what I do, I know many surprises come with life without me asking, and as I carry the burden also for others, I tend to be cautious. Situations in which I may take risks are those where the main one to loose is me, and not the employees or customers. I know that with risks come opportunities and chances for success, but I hate it as I it means I am to risk other people. That is why I am not built to any start-up; there you must think risk-wise.

Yet, there always are and will be risks, some tips I can share from my own experience:
First, scatter the risks; do not put all eggs in one basket. Prefer several small customers among one big one. I remember, since I was a young girl, a working place, which I was exposed to, and was dependent on one large customer. I remember the day when the connection with this customer came to an ending. When I set up a business, and got my first large customer, it implied a significant growth of my company (from two to five employees). That was the day when I stopped sleeping at night. I started seeking for other customers; I was almost in panic. It took time, almost too much, until I stabilized another large activity, in the same dimensions. The same month, the first big customer collapsed and our work there almost vanished. It is very tempting to work with a significant customer, but we should be sure, that this customer is not 50% of the income, of course not more than that. If the company grows larger, the percentage has to decrease. The same goes for other risks: It is better to have a few small projects than one large one, several products, etc. See what is happening for example with the Crocks company (who sold shoes, until people got tired of them, with on real reason at all).

The risks should be managed, but do not over manage them. We must make priorities what risks we manage, and what we leave out. We must remember that we want to manage and work, not only manage risks about work. We have to decide what the right frequency to manage these risks is. As a rule of thumb, I would say that once a month is a good ratio, but if we are managing a crisis, we manage the risks on a daily basis, or even several times a day, if necessary.

It is important to decide how to manage the risk. As much as it sounds difficult, data and information should be collected, wherever possible, and used in order to manage the risk. Relying on facts and data will help us be more objective and decrease the risk. Sometimes, we think it is not worth seeking, as we probably will not find information or data that will help us anyhow. Yet, it is worthwhile trying. The Business Intelligence is based on involvement of three types: Monitoring (What is happening), analyzing (Why did things happen) and Planning (What can happen in the future). One of the main targets of planning is risk management of the future. It turns, that most of the best performance organizations manage their risks, and do so using Business Intelligence (BI).

However, as we all know, life is more than quantified numbers. It consists of many qualified, intangible facts and assumptions. We have to use other management mechanisms, above the BI ones, in order to decide upon the level of the risk (how likely is it to occur); upon its severity (if it indeed occurs); and on ways of preventing the risk or minimizing its impact.

What do I do?
Try hearing other people who naturally see reality, every one from his or her point of view;
Wherever possible, consult someone external, not emotionally involved who can see the big picture;
Finally yet importantly, do not hesitate. At the end of the day, we as managers have to decide; to cut things down. It is our decision as it is our responsibility.

We will fail. I fail in some risk I take, or are forced to manage (because of external influences). Nevertheless, with some I succeed.

At these times, I try to remember that after all, only those who take risks and go far find out how far they can go.

I wish us all to succeed wherever we are, and specifically, to succeed in managing our risks and failing less.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Competing

2008-08-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

My brother in-law is a pilot that serves in the army. More than once, I have heard stories from him, how he and his fellow pilots, serving in the same squadron, succeeded in fooling the pilots from the other squadron in the same base. One may think, that this behavior may suit the youth only, but there is something deeper into it. This is a competition; the same competition that can be observed between departments in an organization, between units in the army, between scientists in universities.

Competition develops; it urges us; it inflames our imagination and drives our motivation. No manager suspects his or her employees that these do not want to work, and will not work if we do not urge them to do so. They are responsible. Managers understand that competition is a partial answer to the endless routine, and competition can, from time to time, increase production.

Nevertheless, competition and compensation have, besides their benefits, some disadvantages.

The first disadvantage, which I experienced, has to do with how it is observed by the employees. "Don't you trust us", they may ask, "that we give the best we can, also without being rewarded by success?"
The second disadvantage, relates with our difficulty to set the right parameters for rewarding the competition; with our limitations in affecting success. We drive people to compete, sometimes against others, sometimes against themselves, and reward them as to pre-defined desired results. Yet, these results depend on various parameters, some external, not being influenced by us, no matter how we act. This may not be a problem if someone was rewarded, relying also on luck; nevertheless, when the opposite occurs, frustration can take place. The more people expect the more disappointment.
The third disadvantage has to do with negative influence experienced while the competition takes place. As it has been reported, in many management books, people want to win, and tend to make figures look better, or at least give their subjective interpretation to results. We do not have to go far to extreme examples as Enron; each one of us has seen many examples of his own.
Another disadvantage has to do with the effect of the competition on other activities of our knowledge workers. These can be someone neglected, while competing. Management focus on a specific issue enables allocating fewer resources, both of the employees and their managers, as to all other issues.
And the last disadvantage, which I experienced, is a result of most competitions being a zero-sum competition. What does that mean? If one department wins, necessarily, another has to lose. And, as in many cases, there are several departments expecting to win, we have more losers than winners. The consequence is that we not also benefit from this process.

What do I suggest? To prevent competitions? Not at all. Some recommendations, based on my experience:
Competition that is not zero-summed is preferred. Two ways of implementation-
A competition in which, every time, a different amount of people win, as regarding to their own achievements. I draw-up, every month, a competition, in which an employee is rewarded as to his or her achievements. In most cases, one employee wins the glory, but not every time. In some cases, a team is rewards, as to their mutual work; in others, more than one employee may win. It all depends on special achievements, not always to do with results that were observed in the ending month. The amount and the definition are not strict. This way, the "good word" reward is never on expense someone else. If you deserve it, and the manager knows it, you will get it, no matter what did the others.
Another "good" competition is competition outside the organization. Every organization has another organization which it competes. Incentive of people to be better of the competitors, thinking how activities can be performed in a higher level than anyone other, surely brings into the organization all the energies that we experience with inside competition. Let us invest our energies in winning others, not ourselves. Of course, we have to be careful, not to cross the lines; not to exaggerate. We have to remain dignified, and more than that, to be honest and fair. Not to find ourselves nearing the edge, enabling the target justify unwanted activities. Our inside differentiation, consolidates us; it makes us a team. This is the rational of the competition between army units. Fighting the others, makes you more connected with your teammates. It has really nothing to do with youth, just another way to compete; another way to crystallize us, just without the disadvantages of inside organization competition.

We just have to be sure we do it right; without crossing any line; without rolling down professional quality; without disrupting human behavior.

I hope we succeed.

Yours,
Moria

Changes

2008-07-27T01:20:00.000-07:00

Changes; the world around us is changing. It always did, but it seems, that in the 21st century, the frequency of these changes is getting higher and higher. This fact is true looking at the world in general, and true in organizations, specifically.

Organizations change for several reasons: First of all, the business environment outside the organization is changing. The life cycle of products is shrinking. It is true that products can be designed and manufactured, so they last much longer, but people want to renew. They want to renew because they get tired from the existing; they want to renew because they want new functionality or different solutions, as they get exposed to such in advertisement, in the communication, or by their friends, other consumers. But, that is not all. Technologies change; computing changes; and- our employees change. Not their characteristic, rather their names and faces. If twenty years ago, a person who was hired to work in some organization at the age of twenty, most probably would stay there until he or she have retired, today, we find many people who have more than one carrier, and most people choose to work in more than one organization during their carrier.
The bottom line: Organizations need to be prepared to many changes, external and internal; organizations need to know to adjust; organizations need to know how to manage the changes.

One may think I am speaking about a business, practical change of equipment purchasing, change of processes, change of pricing, etc.; No. This is something much deeper: It involves management; it is a change concerning people.

As explained earlier, organization always had to change, and to know how to change. Nevertheless, nowadays the frequency of changes is higher. Much higher. And there is another issue: Nowadays, it is much more complicated to lead a change in organizations. Hiatt and Creasy, in their book "Change Management", and Surowiecki, in his book "The Wisdom of the Crowds", speak about this problematic situation, each of them from a different aspect: In hierarchical organizations, as we were used to in the past, employees followed instructions. Today, many employees are knowledge workers. They are responsible for decision making in the area in which they expertise. The classic hierarchical structure is not the organizational structure in some organizations (i.e. start-ups) and not the power structure, in others. No matter how we examine it, people do not just do things because they were instructed to do so. I will add and say, that this attitude is even stronger, as many times, we have the feeling that the employee decides whether to continue and work in an organization, and not vie versa. It is much easier for the knowledge worker to explain why the change is not relevant for him or her, why it is inapplicable or why the timing is not appropriate.

So, what can one recommend?
Here are a few ideas. I wish to say, that, beyond my personal experience, and mistakes I have done on the way, I learned a lot from Hiaitt and Creasy's book, which deals with change management.
First, we must understand, as managers, that the personal aspect of changes cannot be managed as one unified process for all employees. Yet, It is obvious, that it is not practical to run an individual management plan for each worker and worker. I recommend analyzing the change management needs, and building a unified plan, or a plan for large segments in the organization (i.e. managers, front line workers). In parallel, to give an individual treatment to thought leaders, for good or bad. The effort seems to be beneficial: Their influence helps moving the organization towards the change. And- to give an individual treatment to feedbacks and to people who give them.

Another recommendation, to do with preparing the change: Do not impose changes on people. Give them a clue, a hint that a change is near. In some cases, it is a hint regarding the coming change, with no details; in others, it will be accompanied with knowledge about the content of the change. This tip is not so easy to implement as it may seem. The organization starts speaking about the change. As we did not announce it yet (we are preparing), more is hidden and unknown. People will tend to guess, and damage can occur. Therefore, the time of the preparation hints should be adjacent to the time of beginning of the change. The professional term is "unfreeze". This tip is also relevant for personal changes. Preparation eases the move.

As we are speaking about knowledge workers, it is very important to communicate the rational of the decision. Not to come up only with the bottom lines- what is changed and how. We, as managers, are aware to the reasons that brought us to decide upon the change. Even though we are sure that the symptoms are hung out there, and everybody can see them, and therefore it is obvious why the change is performed, most times, this is not the case. It is not that we are smarter; we just had the time to think about the reasons, to process, to think about solutions, maybe even several alternatives, and choose one of them- the change to be implemented. The employees, who did not take part of the process, it is important that they will understand the "Why"; the rational, why the change is needed. Why is it important for them to understand? To ease implementation. Naturally, people are not enthusiastic about changes, one may say, they resist changes. People are comfortable with the status-quo. Explaining the "Why" eases acceptance.

The rational issue brings me to another recommendation, to do with channels. We, as human-beings, think and act, both upon our rational, our logic, and both upon the emotional, the way we feel. It is important to deal with both channels, when managing the change. On the rational aspect, besides updating the people as to the reasons of the change, we should also give the tools for implementation. On the emotional aspect, things are more complicated: We should deal with peoples' fears, both the spoken ones and both those who people feel but fear to share. We shall enable the employees to participate, mainly on the "How". It gives the employees a good feeling, but the benefit is mainly for the organization: It leaves us with a better plan for change management and with a better implementation and chances for success.

It is difficult to manage changes, but we shall not avoid them: Changes are one of the main factors, leaving us, as an organization, relevant, business wise. At the same time, it renews the organization and makes the employees more satisfied, on the long run. As much as we fear changes, we like to change and renew. Just as our consumers.

I wish us all, easy but successful changes.

Yours,
Moria

Social Involvement

2008-07-10T02:05:00.000-07:00

I have a friend whom I like very much. He likes tigers. Not instead of people, but in addition. A few months ago, I paid him a visit. I brought him a small gift- a tiger mug filled with candies. This person has a collection of tigers (not real ones), and every time I had an opportunity to add a new tiger to the collection, I would explain him why the new one is unique and different from all others. This tiger, I explained, was prepared by limited children. The mug is a donation and we have bought a few dozens of mugs from some organization that sees to that the money will be targeted to the children's' wealth. My friend was enthusiastic. He started taking pictures of me with the mug. He filmed me as if he was preparing a book; from every possible angle. These things, he said, should become public. Everyone has to know, so others will learn too.

Donations; contribution to others. Are these obligations of the individual only or also an obligation of modern organizations? Should it be carried out secretly or publicized? On these, and other questions, in this post.

I live in Israel. We have here a lot of organizations, public and private held, that deal with contribution, as part of the formal framework. I admit, I spent many hours thinking whether this is a right strategy. Contribution has to come from the hearts of people, and not considered as another project that the team has to complete. I think that, even though, probably contribution is a good thing:
Because it is a solution for needs that are so wide, that they cannot be carried out by individuals only;
Because it can work in ways that individuals cannot always do;
And, because, most important than all, contribution initialized by organizations, gives workers, those who did not experience contribution as individuals, the opportunity to do so. And when they have the opportunity, if they indeed fulfill it with their hearts and emotions, it really does not matter who initiated the move.

How can an organization cause people to contribute from their hearts?

First, many do it, without the organization even requesting. They volunteer anyhow, or wanted to do so, and the organization gave them a good opportunity.
Some come with no preceding opinion about giving and contribution to others. Two management tools can help here to open people hearts: One, giving the employees means to influence the process and take an active part in it; let them choose to whom to donate, let them choose how to contribute, etc.. The second is direct contact with those who are in need. The satisfaction, we as people, get from the another person smiling and thanking us, is huge. Not much can be compared to such satisfaction.
And there is another group of employees: Those who are not in favor with such activities. Some speak loud, most do not. Sorely, I can say, that probably these people exist in most organizations. These people should have no place and should not be employees in any proper organization! Even if they are professional, even if they well know their job, it is better for managers not to choose such people when they hire additional staff. You may ask, why? Every organization is meant to fulfill its mission. In private organizations, this means to make profit; in public ones, the mission changes, but in all organization, excluding charity organizations, we have a well defined target that is not contribution to society. As an owner of a private organization it is very clear to me that in order to win, I need the most professional employees I can afford. Even though, I insist that from egoistic reasons organizations shall not employ workers who resist contribution to those who need. And more than ever, this is right, now in the 21st century. We employ knowledge workers, workers whom we have to trust, workers who are in some way, self managers. I for myself, had a very bad experience, trusting, a few years ago, an employee that betrayed me, left with company assets and used them in order to directly compete the company. We were facing a situation where we were going to loose money, and possibly big money. The end of that story was a good one, as I won in court and damages were halted. You may ask about the relevance of this story to the post, but the connection is simple. The main issue that bothered me was how much can I trust employees in the future, yet promising that such situation will not recur. Once, one can err, but twice?

After long thought I came up with a clear conclusion: I must continue and trust my employees. I shall not change the way I control their work and suspect future betrayal. I have to find a different way. The way I chose is to employ from today on, only workers who have personal experience in contribution to society. Such contribution softens our hearts, and whoever felt the need to help other people and did so, without requesting anything in return, can be trusted as a human been. Of course this is not instead of seeking professional people, it is an additional condition. I admit that people, when interviewed, are very confused and do not understand why these kind of questions are asked. One can see it on their faces. I do not explain. But I know that according to their answers we know if the person is a potential worker in our company. Up till now, this method proved to work. I believe it will continue, too.
As I said, egoistic reasons.

Some may notice I used the term "social involvement" and did not speak about "social responsibility" a term that is well coined nowadays. I, personally, do not feel comfortable with being responsible. It seems to me as patronizing. We, responsible for them. I think, that being involved is speaking and doing being on the same level. And so it is. We never know what will happen tomorrow and where we will be. Being humble serves good.

Speaking about humble, there is one more issue regarding the organizational contribution. Contribution, in organizations, is hard to implement as a secret, leaving it as possible unknown. Not-speaking too much has a great advantage, not because there is any shame here. Speaking in organizations may help the doing. Yet, organizations have to be very careful. Over speaking and over publication can result in a situation where we enjoy the publicity, and do not do for the sake of doing.

The end of the story I opened with, is that my friend, after all, did not publish the pictures. I was glad. I was left with the "book". The mug and me. For me, that was enough.

Blessing us all, just good.

Yours,
Moria

Specialization

2008-06-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

Specialization is considered as professionalization. Sub-specialization makes us node with our heads, stare with admiration. How far is it right to focus and specialize? Where is it right to put the limits?
As in former posts, all that is written is right for knowledge workers, and may not fit other organizations, which have different characteristics.

In the past, there were mega-organizations that did everything by themselves, because they could: They calculated costs and decided it is cheaper to in-house manage all facilities, cheaper than buying the facilities from the providers. A fascinating example can be examined in the Army: They have their own medical services (and not only for those soldiers offshore in the battle); they have their own garages, responsible for treating the cars that the officers hold. As years past, we see a change in attitude as the army and other mega-organizations understand that maybe it is wiser to work with out-services. Partly, this change is triggered by re-calculation of costs; not less, results from management considerations: handling all issues, draws our attention and leaves less time for the core issues. I will add, that I think we cannot be the best on everything. Organizational focus has several advantages:
It enables one to be the best in what it focuses (boutique rather than supermarket);
It enables one to get the co-operation from those who specialize in complementary matters; any other way, may lead to competition also on the unique and specialized subjects;
It enables the organization to pit the best resources in the right places.

Are there any disadvantages? Of course there are. Every organization serves customers. The customer does not want to order his tea bag from one supplier, the sugar from another and the spoon and mug from the third and fourth suppliers. He wants a cup of tea. When we, as an organization, define our limits of focus, we have to think about ourselves, bet nevertheless, also think and define things from our customers' point of view. It has to be well defined, where we do not give a complete solution, and relationships with other suppliers must be defined. I will not state that working with other suppliers is always a harmony, but it sure is possible, and in most case, beneficial.

The same questions reside inside the organization, and even inside the unit. But here, I believe, the answers are different. Of course we will distinguish the engineering unit from the manufacturing unit; of course the salesman does not deal with bookkeeping. I am speaking within the unit. We have reached such specializations, that many times every mission relies on bringing together many people for every decision. Knowledge working, naturally, will include a high level of collaboration between the members of a group. The question is how much. Too broad, may result in a situation where integration turns to be a bottle neck and almost impossible. Involving to many people in each task, results higher costs of each project.

How do we find the right path? We have to enlarge the understanding of knowledge workers, who specified in defined topics, also to complementary topics as well. In enlarging the understanding, I mean- operatively: To know, to implement and to further develop. Of course, consultancy of the experts is recommended, but, to some level, we have to learn from them, and consult them in this manner: in order to learn from them and know better for ourselves. So next time, we will be able to answer part of the questions for ourselves and just validate them with the expert. We speak a lot about the synergy from working in collaboration: Understanding complementary expertise enables us experiencing synergy with ourselves. And, when turning to consult others, we come with a better starting point. I am not trying to say that sales and engineering shall be performed by the same person. We have to decide where we cooperate with others. Yet, we shall not over specialize. If every expert will understand a bit more in what the others do, he or she can see a broader picture. The expert will be able to develop more innovative ideas, and will also benefit on the personal level, enriched by the new knowledge and offering our customers better solutions.

I think, that even though the initial drive for understanding others' jobs, may be cutting off expenses and management efforts, the main benefit is conceptual and turn us into better workers.

I can say for myself, that I work in knowledge management, a profession that involves organizations' cultural understanding, computing understanding, processes understanding and content understanding. Indeed four different disciplines. I grew up in IT units. I learned math and computer sciences. As the years past by, I learned to understand and implement also the other disciplines. The way I worked, is always to hire people with complementing education and experience, to learn from them and to teach them. I turned myself into a knowledge management expert: Today, I know how to manage changes; I know how to effectively organize content; I understand in organizational processes and how to draw the knowledge near the existing processes. I think that by combining these different disciplines I can give a better solution to my customers; nevertheless, the major benefit is mine. The combination enables me to better and deeper understand each discipline; the combination enlargers my horizons. I as a person, am so far from where I was ten years ago, when I specified in computers only, also computing expertise is considered prestigious.

I benefited. I believe we all do.

Yours,
Moria

Company Values

2008-06-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, I had the first opportunity to manage a group of (knowledge) workers. I served in the army in a computing unit of the Israeli Air Force. One day, a new commander arrived. He had new ideas that seemed very odd to us, back then. A few weeks after he arrived all the building was filled with big signs: "Quality counts". Today, twenty years later, I understand the rational behind this move. At the time, I did not. I was not the only one. No one explained. The signs turned to be a joke, and so did the commander.

Years passed by, and methods became more sophisticated. We started to see, in organizations we worked in, visions and missions, and we took part in teams that have helped defining parts of them. I cannot say that a vision existed, in every organization I worked in. Some organizations dealt with these issues, others did not. I cannot even state that there was any correlation between immediate business success and existence of company vision and values.

A few years ago, I decided that the company, which I established, could be considered as an organization (we reached 10 employees). We were mature enough to have our own vision and company values. We worked thoroughly on definitions. I handed in the first draft, rather excited to one of the company founders, that was not involved in the daily activities. His response was rather chilly: Why deal with values? Better deal with numbers. And do not misunderstand: the company was profitable.

This is a real dilemma. Is there place for vision and company values in 21st century organizations? Is their importance or place different from what it was before?
I spent many hours dealing with this issue. This founder, with whom I spoke, was a special man, a leader that managed several organizations and has strategic thinking. Yet, something important has been said. It could not be ignored. I examine the society in which we live; a society that seems to be materialistic and hedonist; a society in which cynicism is appraised. Is there place in such society for company values?

The truth must be said. As much as I thought about the issue, I had and have no doubt that company values are a necessity. Values are the road signs, guiding us how to appropriate work and behave; both as managers and as workers. Moreover, today in the 21st century, I feel that we need them more and not less. People move from one work to another. No one career, of course no one working place. People, wiser than me, have discovered that what holds an employee in the organization is not salary. Of course, salary has to be fair. Otherwise, the dissatisfaction will be so great, and nothing else will be considered. People, despite the materialistic shell, want to come and work in some place that they feel good in it. Feeling good is a consequence of the nearby environment- the team, and the larger environment- the organization. Feeling good- is a place with which they identify with, and are proud to be part of. This is where the company values come in. The forbidden and "must" are defined by regulations and procedure. The right and justified, the appropriate, is defined by the company values. If we do not have values, we are just a bunch of workers sitting in the same place; little will connect us one to another. Such organizations will experience difficulties in retaining employees in the long run.

The process of designing the company values starts in peoples' hearts in the first years of the organization's life, refines and becomes instituted within the next years, as the organization grows and builds its unique culture. In fact, writing down the company values, is not supposed to invent anything new, rather document the existing, focusing us; assisting us to distinguish between what is important, and what is more important; stating to all employees, that this is our way of life.

A few tips I believe in, all to do with designing and documenting the company values. Some I have learnt the hard way:

Do not define too many values. Three years ago, we worked on a set of values for our organization. We defined nine values, all reflecting the company's spirit, and way of work. One day, recently, I tried to memorize the list. I found out, that I, as the manager of the company, could not remember the whole list. If anyone will test me, I for sure distinguish between principles that are part of our values, and those that are not. Yet, I could not remember the whole list! I understood that something is wrong. If I would have nine children, I would remember all their names, for sure. I have twenty employees and I remember all their names. Etc. There was no excuse. If the entire list was that important- I should remember it. Today we are in a process of rewriting the values. The process is more difficult than the initial one, as this time we are focused on choosing the most appropriate values from this list. We limited ourselves to four values.
Share; make people part of the process. Otherwise, they may think that it is all declarations and not something we mean to act upon. Just the way I thought twenty years ago when I saw the sign (and I must state that back then, I was even part of the management team). If we want people to feel comfortable with the values and we want the values to connect them to the organization, it is obvious that they have to be part of the process. Even though it takes time; even though it is instead of other working activities.
Make sure that the values are planted in peoples' hearts. There is importance to visibility; there is more importance for assuring that the values do not stay on the wall (or in the website), rather affect practical behaviors. As part of defining the values, define desired behaviors.
Last, but not least. I spent many hours lately, going through other companies lists of values. We all want to be the same. It is natural that all companies want to be professional, but having the same lists brings us back to square one. If so, how do we convince our employees that we have a special organization, through the value list? Why to stay and not move on? Yet, the shared values are so correct. Shall we give them up, as other organizations have chosen them before we did? Examining happy families, one call tell that the common is greater than the differentiators are. I recommend, adding some values that other have, if they really define us as a company, but leave place also for some unique values, that no one else has. All this (and this is the hard part), without adding more values altogether, than defined in our limits (see above).

At the end of the day, the values are our company's spirit. Do not stay without them.

Yours,
Moria

Encouraging the doing

2008-05-25T12:37:00.001-07:00

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright, is well known to many of us as the author of the one of the kind book: "Don Quixote". This is not the only book written by him, but indeed the most influential one. In his book, Saavedra writes: "There is a big difference between speaking and doing".
Being honest with ourselves, all of us, as managers, workers and private people, are living examples. We all know that there are things that are right to be done and even though we are aware, we do not behave accordingly; we know about techniques and methodologies that were proven successful, and yet we do not take action.

What makes us concentrate on speaking rather than on doing? What makes us know more and implement less? How can we be sure that our employees, whom we manage, do more than speak? In an era of knowledge, when we rely on what our employees decide to share, and can only partly control what actually is done and achieved, it is important to give them, and give ourselves, the tools to encourage doing, and better balance speaking and doing.

I think I always tried to preach what I say. Enough? Probably not. A book I have read over a year ago, "the Knowing Doing Gap", written by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, is my guide to this non-ending dilemma.

Why do people tend to speak rather act? There are several reasons:

First, we appreciate people who speak. Sometimes even more than those who do: Because speaking wisely is here and now, and results of doing are observed only later;
Because speaking outlines the message, but it takes some thinking to understand the messages behind the acting;
Because people who speak (if they do not exaggerate) are considered as people who influence and in some cases, even thought leaders;
Because in colleges and universities in management programs we talk and write, but hardly actually do;
And...Because most of us were appointed to our jobs after checking mainly our speaking skills.

Secondly, we all were all brought-up learning that planning is essential before acting, and the more we plan, the less we need to work on doing. In some projects, we finish all resources of time, money and management care, and yet we are in the phase of planning.

Furthermore, it is easier to speak than do; it requires less energy.

The list is of reasons why to speak rather act is not that short. I will just add that it is very challenging to change existing habits of work, in order to do new things. Leading the change is so difficult, that in some cases we convince ourselves that if we speak, we also implement. Are organizational activities of building a vision and sets of values, actually turning the vision and values into reality? Is a manager stating in the company broad meeting that innovation is important, actually implementing innovation of his people? And there are many more examples.

A few tips that assist in assuring that we will also act and not only speak:

Pay attention to the balance between meetings and doing; pay attention to the balance between documents (presentation, white papers) and fieldwork.
Implement the organization's values and turn them into reality; they probably are guiding us in the right direction.
Promote mainly, workers from inside the organization; less, bring managers from outside. Encourage the incentives of employees to act.
Assure that every manager and manager works on the field level and does not purely manage others, just remembering the fieldwork from the past.
Speak simple. It is OK to have a complicated idea if it can be explained in simple words and can be translated into simple actions. If people understand what is expected from them, there is a good chance they will actually do it.
Distribute responsibility and authority; be patient to mistakes that result. People will not act if they are to be punished when they err.
Prevent measuring results of the individual employee. If we measure- measure processes of work rather than results. Measure teams rather than individuals. By that, we encourage work within teams (that is so important in the era of knowledge workers). Only measuring results may trigger short-term benefits, but can damage and act as a boomerang in the long term. How to measure the individual? Measure them as to how they comply with the organization's values.
Prevent competition inside the organization. Most of the competitions are sum-zero and if someone wins, we have others that loose. We all know that competition is a trigger for motivating the people and we all have examples that prove it (i.e. in sports). Competition is important? Encourage outside competition.
Nurture learning via workshops and hands-on experiencing. Lectures deal with speaking. Teach people through doing. Who learns from doing – does.

In addition, a last tip. I, personally, prepared a short list based on these guidelines and it is presented in front of me every day, pasted on the wall in my study room. At least, once a month, I check myself to see that I did not turn to be an over-speaker in one way or another.

What will we benefit? First, more doing. Later on, more self-satisfaction; and in the end- probably better performance, to our organization, our families (if we took the tips that direction), or if we are lucky- then both.

It is worthwhile. Try it.

Yours,

Moria

Time Management

2008-05-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Most of us are in a rush. We are always busy. We have to prepare a proposal for the day before yesterday, to give an answer to an open question for our boss, and we are three hours late, and to accomplish another mission within one day. We live in a "no time" reality. Once, we used to believe that this is a result of the bubble age, but the bubble exploded and yet we have no time. Still we experience requests ASAP; yet in every project, we work around the clock up-till the due date, and many times, even after.
Lee Iacocca, the former CEO of Chrysler Corporation, once said that the ability to concentrate and smartly take advantage of time- is everything.
Without being as smart or successful as Iacocca, I could not agree more. I feel, on a personal level, that time is a most precious resource, and in some cases, more important even than money.
Time is a misleading resource. On one hand, it is limited; there are only 24 hours every day. On the other hand, many times, those people who seem to be busier than others are, find the time to take additional responsibilities, much more than other, less busy people.

It is important to manage time as managers, twofold:
First, the knowledge work is characterized by handling many tasks and working in parallel. Even, if we are under the impression that we are handling one task, it usually includes many sub-tasks, and these do not tend to be processed one after the other. We, as managers, surely have more than a handful of tasks, whenever examined.
Secondly, we manage people, who have to know how to manage their time, by themselves. It has already be written, that knowledge workers manage their own routine. We, as their managers, have to give them the right tools to manage the time, and to find ways to assure they actually do so.

A few tips I can share, for managing time, based on my own experience:

To understand that feeling busy and being busy are not exactly the same thing. One of the reasons that some people tend to overload themselves with additional tasks, and do succeed in carrying them out, is based on them not living with the feeling that they have no time. Coping with the feeling of "no time", is sometimes more demanding that actually having no time.
Defining regular and steady hours, in which we read and handle Emails. Reading every Email, as it arrives, disturbs and interferes our concentration. It harms, both the source task being produced and the Email now arrived.
Define in advance (and teach the employees to do the same), for every task that is meant to take longer than an hour, the time we are willing to invest in performing it. We tend, many times, to invest more, in order to achieve the highest quality level we can. In many cases it is not worthwhile the effort. In other words, we put more than the organization, or the customer, wants us to. As in other situations, dear Pareto, plays a significant role (20:80) in advising us where to stop. However, it is not good enough only to plan efforts. We must assure we do what we praise. We must assure we do not only plan, but also finish tasks within the frame time defined. Defining time is already a first step in helping us managing our time better. Our will to fulfill is the second step. Performance is the third.
Work on tasks and complete them, as soon as they arrive (after finishing the previous ones we already started). I usually say that starting earlier does not mean I spend more time on a task. Vice versa. When the issue is fresh, it is easier and faster for us to work on it and complete it. We also save time of managing all open tasks, if we keep a clean table.
Assure ourselves, that we leave time for handling, not only the urgent, but thee important as well. Handling the urgent wears us out. Handling important tasks is sometimes more important, both for the organization and both for us as individuals.
Define frame times in the calendar for working on tasks that we do not find any other time for completing. If we are strict with ourselves and do not cancel these self meetings, time after time, we can clean-up the table, from time to time, and restart managing better our time, every time we think things go out of control.

In addition, one last tip: See that your people take vacations. For us, as an organization, it is cheaper that they work and we pay them for these days. For their sake, see that they really take vacations. That will give them the strength to go on. That also, is part of time management.

Some wise person (unknown) once said: "Two facts about time management: a) you cannot control the time you are born or the time in which you die. b) all points between the two, are negotiable."
Probably we can control most. Let us take advantage and indeed do.

Yours,
Moria

Innovation

2008-04-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower" (Steve Jobs).
No doubt, that we all want to be innovators; we want to be leaders. We want the organization we live in to be innovative. By all what is said and written, innovation is a key for business success; moreover, it is exciting to work in an organization that innovates; much more than to work in a conservative organization that never changes.

However, innovation is not as trivial as we would expect. Continuous innovation even may contradict the concept of knowledge re-use. One of the challenges, that few people have dealt with, is how to define when it is right to re-use, and when innovation is preferred.
Innovation is not as trivial as we would expect. Because innovation is not only hiring a good consultant and setting an innovation team, and ending the year, we have a new product or service. Innovation is a way of life. Innovation is something ongoing, part of the routine, not a project with a beginning, some tome and an end. Innovation is one thing we would want employees to have in their blood; not only one exceptional excellent employee, or one group of managers, rather all of them.
Innovation is not as trivial, as it is not only related to products, rather relevant to various organizational layers: Operational innovation; Innovation in processes; Innovation in products or services; strategic innovation; and innovation in management.
Innovation is not as trivial, as it not really can be managed. It relates to culture. Therefore many steps can be proceeded, all in the right direction- but the aim of all is nurturing the continuous innovation and not creating it.

The task of explaining what innovation is, what its components are and how to facilitate it, is complicated and suitable for a book and not for a post. However, I think it is possible to share some of the tools I use, in the organization I manage, in order to nurture and encourage innovation.
There are two types of activities: practical ones, and cognitive one. Both are important and I do not believe one type can be skipped.
Practical activities include:
Working in teams; small teams that enable discussion and strengthen innovation.
Employing different people to work together on the same team/project/type of job. Formal job definition may lead us to the "ultimate". There is no such thing. Several years ago, I found myself employing female managers, one after the other, with two many similar characteristics to those of myself: women, mission oriented, very energetic. Today, the staff is heterogynous. So are all other employees. Heterogynous in their characteristics, heterogynous in their education (for the same job) and heterogynous in the experience they had in life.
I make efforts to assign each employee to more than one project (in parallel), and as much as possible, to different types of projects, and with different contexts. I make efforts to mix people, so that every employee has the chance to work with and see different perspectives of different employees.
I make efforts to enable my employees to be independent; to distribute the power and the decisions. I encourage the managers under me, to act in the same way.
We professionally enrich all workers on a regular basis (twice a month- six hours altogether). The things we teach and share include practical knowledge together with higher-level knowledge, knowing that what is not relevant for the employee today, will help him or her tomorrow. Help on a different project, or even help in understanding and seeing more perspectives to what is done today.
We demand our employees share new knowledge and good ideas, on a monthly basis. When the company was small, we did it as part of our face-to-face meetings. As the company grew, this became very impractical, and we now renewed the new sharing in some other routine formats.

However, beside the practical activities, there is the cognitive perspective.
The cognitive perspective includes:
Us recognizing, as managers, that knowledge and ability do exist, and mainly in the field. The first consequence of such understating is that everyone has to be some part of his or her time in the field, including all managers, top down. The second one, is recognizing (and that is not as simple as one says it) that our employees, even though they are younger, even though they have less experience, still, are those to innovate. Not tomorrow, rather today. Moreover, not only adding new but also contradicting what we successfully did yesterday. Dealing with Knowledge Management so many years, it indeed took me some time to open myself to learn from my employees. The change- was in me.
The employees recognizing that innovation is expected from them, and even as a demand. Innovation is not only a nice value declared as part of the company's mission and strategy, rather practical. Recognizing that innovation is a right, that innovation is an obligation, enable and ease the minds to start innovating.

More than all, personal example is required. Never, never stop renewing and innovating myself. Innovation is an organizational engine for growth, but not less a personal growth engine.
It contributes me, and a lot.

Yours,
Moria

People

2008-04-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

I have a long drive today, as I am giving a lecture somewhere far. Long trip means lot time for thoughts. My thoughts are wondering, thinking about a friend, a customer who has passed a significant surgery. Will she recover? When? The questions stand open, and no one has an answer. The hours go by, and we are all waiting. Tensed.
People.

Yesterday, several people have told me that they are looking for a job, as the organization they have worked in is experiencing a reduction in force. Last week I spoke with another colleague, who spoke about a near re-organization, and again, reduction in force. For two or three months now, everything seems sad there. Even though, in his division there is a lot of work to be accomplished, people are not as in the past. They leave early, speak quietly, and every week a few more people leave, as they found themselves a new place to work. My heart is with the people laid off; my heart is with the people who have to fire.
People.

In the 21st century, it seems as if we became more sophisticated; the advertisements and rating have led us to places we did not dream of. Communication and media consultants of politicians lead strategy and we stare and do not believe. Is everything fake? Where does reality stop?

In this same century, the working relations have changed radically. The information and knowledge era, we are to give more out of ourselves: Not only our time (which seems to be 24 hours of work with the cellular and laptop); not only our brain (even a more precious resource); but also our hearts. People who work technically only, succeed less. Work of the 21st century is composed of partnership. Partnership while working in teams in the organization; partnership while working with suppliers; and partnership, real win-win situations working with customers. Every other alternative will leave us far beyond.
This behavior triggers opening. The way from opening to exposure is short. We enable other people, who we would lock out of our thoughts after 17:00, to continue and stay in our hearts 24 hours a day. When they hurt, we heart; of course, it is much easier, to be happy when they joy.
We turn to be less strong and more vulnerable. But we also turn to be more human-beens. People. Purified.

Steve Jobs spoke this week in the graduation ceremony of the Standford University. Listen to what he said (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA). He shared three personal stories in which he exposes himself been adopted; himself dropping from university; himself walking once a week seven miles to have a decent meal; his cancer; his being fired from Apple. All these stories are relevant. There purpose is not to make people feel sorry for him or to think he is a hero. They all are part of guides of life he tries to share with the graduating students.

I think we are gifted to live in such an era. With the risk of being vulnerable, comes a big chance; I am not speaking of the chance of greater success. That, also. The bigger chance is personal for each one and one of us as a person. As being a human-been.
We are lucky. Work may on take over our personal life; but work in these conditions helps us being people.

Educate your workers to be people; Let us all be people with whomever we work. Not only with our friends back home.

Let us wish everyone health.

Yours,
Moria

P.S. Day after- to all those who wish to know- my friend is better; the surgery succeeded.

Democracy

2008-03-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

The origin of the word democracy comes from Greek (Δημοκρατία) and its literal translation to English is "rule of the people". Indeed, this translation guides us on what democracy really means.
A business organization is no democracy. It is ruled by the shareholders and their representatives, and is managed by a small group elected for that purpose. The managers are those to make decisions and not "the people".
Winston Churchill said once that "democracy is the worst way for ruling, expect for all other ways that were already experienced". As other things said by him, this is a wise sentence. Even though democracy is not a good way to rule (a country), other ways are worse.
Usage of the term democracy has expanded and does not serve us only in the political region. We use it in many other cases as a way to speak of taking decisions based on the majority.
Many times we ask ourselves why don't we succeed in building the same atmosphere of will and passion in the organization as people have for home, friends, sports and other topic outside the office. The issue has many perspectives. Let us look, for example, on Blogging. We see people Blogging and collaborating outside work, much more than in. I am cautious. This is not an issue of white and black. People do not suffer in work. It is not a situation, I hope, in most organizations that people do not like the place in which they work. Yet, there are differences between the office and outside it, and there place for improvement. The more we are a place that our employees want to come to every morning, the more they stay (and that for itself is worth a lot). But more important than that, if people like the place they work in- they perform better.
Enabling people to take decisions indeed helps. We like to be involved; we like to have influence on others. This is reciprocal: the more the organization enables employees to be involved and to influence, the more they give back from themselves.
Yet, let us remember that we are a business; a place with defined business goals. Making decisions based on majority can contradict with shareholders favor. The process of taking decisions, involving many people, takes much more time, than if a small group only is involved.
Many organizations, find therefore, other ways for satisfying their employees, and leave democracy out of the organizations door.
However, it is important to understand, that the benefits of sharing in the process of decision-making, go far beyond involvement and good feelings of employees.
Professionally, it is better to take decisions asking many people. This is the wisdom of the crowds. This term, was coined by James Surowiecki back at 2004. He wrote a book by this name. From the full name of the book "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations" we can understand the relevance to our topic- democracy of decision-making. Consulting more people- brings better results. We have learned this from Wikipedia, that turned to be the leading Encyclopedia wide world and we can learn this from many experiments that people and organizations have performed comparing the wisdom of experts and the wisdom of crowds. Every time we are surprised again to see that in most cases crowd beets experts.
The bottom line: It is beneficial for organizations to involve employees when taking decisions.

When and how?
In decisions that are related to new ideas for strategic moves;
In decisions related to forecasting market trends and wills;
In organizational decisions related to the people as a group (where there is no conflict in interest between the people, or between them and the organization);
When designing user interfaces of products;
Were brainstorming is needed in order to understand a problem or suggest solutions.

The criteria: Where information is not classified; where quality is essential; where it is worthwhile comparing to resources (time, cost); where our future lies.

I, as the owner and manager of a company, got use to, in the first years of the company, to decide on my own. As time passed, I learned to involve larger groups of people. The sharing may take many formats: sometimes as the first stage, sometimes in consulting on the way, sometimes in openness to changes- after. In some cases, the group is larger, in others, two or three people take part, No one recipe.
The name of the game, as in many other issues is working gradually; of course if wanting to change an existing organization.

The personal indecision is always there: fast versus comprehensive; wisdom of experts versus wisdom of the crowds. We, as managers have to decide- when alone, when with small group, when as democracy.
On the end of the day, we will be those to pay or profit. We will have to be responsible. Responsibility is no democracy. It remains ours.

Yours,
Moria

Asking

2008-03-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Jewish people, read the "Hagada" in Passover. The story speaks about four sons: The wise boy, the evil one, the innocent and the boy that does know how to ask. Wise and evil, are easy to understand; maybe even we follow when the "Hagada" speaks about the innocent; but why "The boy that does not know how to ask?"
Knowing to ask is a skill, basic for learning. Without curiosity, without seeking what is missing in an existing product, service, or even situation, it is difficult for us, as workers and as people to advance from the present towards the future.
I wish to focus in this post on the issue of asking, from the perspective of being a manager.
The technique of asking questions can help us as managers, for various needs:

Asking as a tool for control.
Knowledge workers are independent workers. We, as their managers, are not involved in their daily work, and are not always aware of the full picture of the activities they are in-charge of. Furthermore, as I have already written in the past, we understand less than they in part of the topics, they work and expert on. Asking questions can assist control in two ways:

Asking can assist in emotional matters, as part of understanding how our employees feel as human-beans, and not only as workers. The trivial questions, "what's new?", "how do you feel?" or "what's up?", turned to be of saying "hello", or "good morning". Most people do not answer these questions with care, and even when they do, most people do not listen to what has been said. We, as managers, are responsible for knowing how our employees really feel and to be out for them, especially when it is not a shiny day. Our responsibility as managers is to ask, to mean it when we ask and to listen to the answer.
Asking can assist in professional matters, as part of understanding where issues stand and, maybe, problems exist. Even if we understand less than our employees, a few innocent questions can point to holes in solutions, where people are not to sure. Over confidence, just as lack of confidence, are sticking out evidence for places where we should probably dig in more. I remember myself, twenty-five years ago, as a math student. The professor was stand near the board, showing us a mathematical proof. One hundred students were sitting silent, trying to catch up with him. Then, he suddenly stopped, thought for a minute or even less, and continued on filling the board. After he finished, I raised my hand, and asked him to explain the line, where he stopped, five minutes ago. He looked at the board for a minute and erased all he has written. I did not mean to harm, but I felt something was wrong, as he passed on this message by his behavior. People tell us in so many ways; we have the task of listening.

Asknig as a tool of guiding and teaching.
The technique of asking questions as a tool for guiding other people, or even advancing on ourselves, is familiar and used for decades. It is a significant element of the reflection process, where we go out (mentally), stand and look at things from outside the situation, ask questions regarding, and understand how to perform better.
There are two main advantages in using the technique of asking questions as a tool for guiding and teaching:

If we as managers ask our employees questions and leave the answering part to them, we diminish the resistance that can grow in some cases, using other techniques. It is not easy for any of us to absorb criticism, and if the questions are indeed innocent and not dissembling, this technique of asking questions, may turn out to be effective.
Asking questions open minds. We here give our employees the tools to turn out to be even more professional than they are now. This, after all, is the essence of guiding.

There are many other situations, in which we as managers are to ask: When strategy planning; when planning any future; when selling (whether ideas in to the organization or products and services to our out-of-the-organization customers). Actually, asking may assist in almost every process we carry on.

There were times, when employees would come to ask, and I would answer. Nowadays, I try to hold myself (and believe me, it is not that easy for me) and return with a question: What do you think? What are the alternatives? Why? Of course, this takes more time on the short term, and every one who knows me personally will testify that I never have time, but I try reminding myself that this is the proper way to act, and surely, on the long term, it is less time, not more. I try holding myself. Sometimes, I even succeed.

Before ending this post, some open questions, for further thought:
How much to ask: Asking to much is a burden.
How to ask: Asking wrong is worse than not asking at all. Do not patronize; do not dissemble; do not ask "closed" questions; do not ask to "open" questions (if the target is guiding, some guiding has to take place in the question).
Moreover; to understand, when it is wrong to ask questions. To leave our employees with space. They need it (as we do).

Your opinion would be appreciated.

Yours,
Moria

From evaluation to feedback

2008-02-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

It is not that easy to manage knowledge workers. It has been discussed; knowledge workers are very independent. In their specific job, they have more expertise than we do, as their managers. The knowledge workers even decide when to share us, and how much we will be shared. This is normative. This is their job. Nevertheless, it does not make our job of management and control easy or simple.

Once a year, many organizations evaluate the performance of their workers. This activity is not a substitute to the ongoing evaluation process that takes place all year long, as we comment, thank and appreciate our workers. The yearly evaluation is different. We stop to think and give an overall evaluation; the evaluation is written down. The yearly evaluation has a ceremonial importance.

The evaluation process; we are not aware to most of what our workers do on a daily basis. In places where we are, many times we hear what they do through their perspective, as they are the ones to report. In the specific job they are in charge of, they are the experts. That is what makes them knowledge workers. Performance is not measured only in quantitative perspective. The bottom line- the evaluation is not an easy task.

The problem is clear, what could and should be done?
I shall start by confessing: I evaluated many workers; knowledge workers. I tried evaluating based on my wide overseeing. I tried evaluating based on quality measures and not only quantitative ones. I tried using many techniques. Sometimes, I succeeded. There are workers that listened, understood even thanked me and changed. The truth has to be said, more times, I failed. Workers, in the evaluation session, always had answers to whatever I commented on. They knew to describe instances where their behavior was the opposite from what I explained. Workers found different meanings to shared reality. Workers did not agree with what was said. Workers did not understand. In some cases, they decided to ignore. I have seen it all. I have been hurt and disappointed; them too.

Until some wise person taught me, how to turn the evaluation process into a feedback one. I know this is not possible in all organizations (or at least in its full transition), yet, wherever possible, even partly, I think it is worth considering.

First, let us redefine the goal of this process: Not evaluating, rather directing the worker; helping him or her working better. We all are not perfect, and each one of us does some things better, some things less. We all have place for improving. As part of the process, it is the right time also to appreciate. As it has been stated earlier, this is an activity with ceremonial aspects, and appreciation here has its importance. Nevertheless, this is not the main goal. The main issue is helping the worker improve.
Several insights to think about:
We are speaking about a feedback process, not evaluation.
Although we may know about many faults, and behaviors that need improvement, we will focus only on two or three. People are not capable to internalize too many changes together.
It is not wise to concentrate on the most sticking-out behaviors. It should be considered what affects the workers performance.
There are things that are hard to be changed. We are not in a justice process, rather in an improvement one. We have to focus only on weaknesses that can be improved.
Every feedback has to be accompanied with a practical way for implementing the change. If I do not have such an idea, sometimes I will not give the comment at all. Yet, the decision how to change is a decision of the workers themselves. We have to give them one alternative, they shall decide whether to implement the change based on it or on any other path, they choose.

In addition, one last tip. When preparing the feedback, think of the organization's values. These values are there to direct us on what is correct. They were built in thought of leading us to the organization's vision. The values are to be examined, and the weaknesses, as points of appreciation are to be derived from them.

Do these directions improve the process of evaluation? I believe so, but some years have to go by, before it is stated clear and loud. Will it always bring success? Of course not, but the chances will be better.

Moving from evaluation to feedback improves the process, improves the output, but also makes it easier for us, as managers of knowledge workers, as we cannot fully evaluate the performance of our workers.

It is a complicated task to be a manager. Complicated, but challenging; and rewarding.

Yours,
Moria

Between acting emotionally and acting rationally

2008-02-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

Many years, many of us were educated to think and act in a rational matter; to be logical and ordered. I can testify that I was brought up learning in a very strict high school and things surely got even more logical and rational during the university as I learned in the Mathematics and Computing department. No doubt, that rational management has significant benefits: It enables consistent progress to achieving company goals; it enables existence of uniform processes in organization; it enables us control.

A known saying regarding to sales, speaks about 80% of every sale to be emotional, and 20% to be rational, justifying the emotional.
Even if we think this saying is exaggerated and radical, yet, a substantial portion of every sale is emotional indeed.

I took part, last week, in a convention that dealt with decision making; most lectures were based on game theory, psychology of decisions making and the combination of both; we combine ordered processes with personal emotional decisions.
I wish to claim, that emotional and rational combined management, is not a constraint or weakness. Emotional and rational combined management is better. I am sure that some may think (and they may stand correct) that what I say is exactly the proof that cognitive dissonance works. Maybe I am trying to justify myself, as so I act.

Yet, here are some points in favor of emotional management and the combination of it with rational management:

We work with people; whether if customers, suppliers, managers or employees. In an era of knowledge, more people work a greater portion of their time with people. The recommended way to work with people is to be a person ourselves: to speak with those we work with, not only as professionals, rather, as people. To be sensitive to others. To support and take interest in what they go through. Not to be arrogant. Combining emotional aspects, enables me to express the "me".
Intuition seems to be the opposite of rational management; deciding from "guts feeling", not brains. However, when examining the issue more carefully, we understand that the experts, those who have deep smarts, work a lot using their intuition. They take many decisions without even thinking. Even when they analyze alternatives, many times the first alternative considered, turns out to be the best. That is intuition. How does intuition work? Maybe, the decisions are not really "guts feeling" decisions. The expert does think, does analyze and does decide rationally. He or she runs this process unconscious and therefore we have the illusion that it was emotional and not rational. The uncertainty gives us the feeling of something irrational. That does not stand correct.
However, above all, the main point is that combining emotional and rational management aspects together, gives us a broader view. It enables us to take into consideration, not only what is profitable, but also what is right to do. Emotional thinking, gives us the opportunity, many times, to think not only "business", but also "values". Emotional management does not necessarily mean getting angry and acting impulsively, externalizing all our week points. Emotional management is first and mainly, doing what is right in our eyes (not only regarding our conscious brain).

I am lucky to run a private held company that belongs to me. Managing in such terms, I do not have any directorate who may guide me to concentrate on money and business profit only. I can act involving emotions and logic, and no one can complain.
Yes, I am lucky. I thank god every day for that.

Yours,
Moria

Learning by teaching

2008-01-26T11:13:00.001-08:00

The coming week, I am starting another series of our Knowledge Management course. Theoretically, I could have be feeling mixed emotions: Feeling happy that another fully booked course is starting; feeling delighted that another group is learning the subject, where we find so many amateurs; but feeling disappointed, as I have to repeat a task, in which I teach content so many times, over and over again. That is not the situation; the opposite: Dave Snowden, in his blog "The cognitive edge" shares us in his post "Musings between flights" how surprised he is, that he never gets bored, when he teaches some material, over and over again, Every time, he shares with us the readers, the audience changes his experience, and the ideas refine. I could not agree more. I gave the opening lecture of the course "Introduction to Knowledge Management", maybe one hundred times already, but it still is getting better almost every time. Moreover, not only the lecture; also my understanding of new insights to deal with people and organizations and how knowledge is to be managed.
We learn when we teach. The same, as we learn when we write an article or a summary on some topic. When writing or speaking up in front of audience, we have to organize our thoughts, and by doing so, we build another layer of knowledge on it (see Nonaka and Takeuchi "The Knowledge Creating Company", on internalization). When we give the lecture, and the audience asks questions or comment, they make us think; they sharpen our understanding. Teaching is an important instrument for learning.

Learning, even one must say, continual learning, is a significant part of the job of our employees. The changing reality, the developing technologies, and mass of information, puts us in a situation where our employees should learn and develop repeatedly, and suit the way they perform the job to as result of what they learn. Those who do not proceed, withdraw.
However, life is not that simple. How and when can we enable our employees teach as part of their learning process?

I will start from the bottom line. There is no one answer. This dilemma requires gentle balance: On the one hand, it is obvious that tutoring or giving lectures will definitely improve the workers' learning. On the other hand, when we stand before an audience, we want to give the best we can, and put upfront the experts, not the learners. Reality is even more complicated: Many of my employees know how to lecture, and even do it well. They know the materials thoroughly, and have day-to-day examples, which they have learned from their own experience. Nevertheless, the audience expects what they think is the best: The senior among all seniors.

How should we act? There is no only route.
External lectures and tutoring, I give myself, or with the help of employees who already are known as experts, regarding to topic spoken about.
I think that inside the organization, there is an opportunity to enable learning by teaching: in apprenticeship processes. When enabling employees, not only the managers and experts, share their knowledge with new employees, we profit twice:
Once, as already has been written, by enabling the teacher to learn by teach.
In addition, it is easier for the learner to learn. In their book, Deep Smarts, Leonard and Swap, explain that it is easier to learn from someone that the gap of knowledge between them and yourself is smaller. We are regular to think that it is best to learn from the experts, those that already have deep smarts. Vice versa; when we learn from someone close to us, he understands us better, and for us, it is easier to ask questions.
Such a process requires our control, as managers. We have to ensure that the learning process is indeed appropriate, and try not to stand in their way to much, trying to fix it to much.

So who said that our job as managers is boring?

Yours,
Moria

Decision Making

2008-01-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

In the bible, there is a known story, about how the Jewish people leave Egypt. Time after time, they ask Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to set them free, and he insists on holding them on as slaves. The lord, sends his hand, and punishes Pharaoh and Egypt. Ten times, we see this cycle, of requesting to leave, Pharaoh remaining stubborn and God punishing. After eight times, Pharaoh's servants understand the theme and recommend Pharaoh to change his mind, based on the information they have. Pharaoh insists on taking the incorrect decision: "And Pharaoh's servants said unto him: For how long shall this man (Moses) be a snare unto us? Let the men go and serve God their God! Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is lost?" (Exodus, 10, 7). The servants already know. Pharaoh does not.

Decisions were always taken. We made decisions in the past and we make decisions today. However, within the years, and our employees becoming Knowledge Workers, decision-making gets complicated: More decisions cannot be taken without relying on the information and knowledge of our employees; some decision-making we distribute to our workers. It is much more difficult to manage and control decisions made by our employees.
These are the issues I wish to share within my post.

Three main points, independent, but interconnected, characterize decision-making, whether taken by me or by my employees:
First, people take many decisions. Job descriptions are widely defined, and employees are expected to decide for themselves on many daily issues.
The second point has to deal with the information and knowledge assisting the decision making process. We are over-flowed with data, information and knowledge. The worker, while taking a decision, or even when bringing us the information, for our decision, filters the proposed information focusing only on the most relevant parts, as he or she understands.
Last, but not least, in most cases there are no right or wrong answers. The world is complicated and answers are not black white colored. Most alternatives include pros, cons, and many gray variants in between, all influencing the right decision.
In result, we the managers, have a difficult time trying to control quality of decisions taken by our employees. This stands true, before the decision is made, as in most cases, we have less information and knowledge than our employees have (and what we have is subjective, as they, when handed to us, filtered it). It stands true, also after the decision is made, as in many cases, we do not have the tools to examine how good was the chosen alternative as compared to other alternatives. To make a long story short, our life as managers trying to manage decision making of our employees is not that simple.

Several tips I can share from my experience:
Do not try to control each decision made. Let the employees act independently and let us focus on controlling only main decisions.
When trying to control and taking part in a decision made, ask not only about the decisions recommended, but also about the rational that caused this recommendation. A technique, for complicated decisions, may be, requesting the employee to describe others alternatives, their pros and why after all they were not recommended.
High level observe, along time, the mechanisms of decision making of the employees, to be sure our employees know how to make decisions. Maybe even bring someone in and tutor them. We should remember that decision-making is a central part of our employees' job.

Easy? Not at all. Possible? Of course. However, I can say for sure that we are not permitted to try taking the decisions instead of our employees. It is tempting, but forbidden. Making decisions by our employees is right professionally, and is part of their personal development. Sometimes, our employees will take decisions other than what we think is correct. In most cases, however, this is not an excuse for changing the decision and overriding them. This is not an easy process (I can speak for myself- not easy at all to stop myself from telling them what to do!) but it is part of being a manager of a Knowledge Worker.

Who said life is boring?

Yours,
Moria

Trust

2007-12-29T10:51:00.000-08:00

A week ago, in the middle of the week, I went on vacation with my husband to a ski-school. Do not misunderstand me; I did not travel to Switzerland or some other pastoral place you may imagine, just to a big hall, with some big simulators, near Tel Aviv, in Hertzelia, Israel. To those interested in the idea, this is probably a useful way to exercise ski skills for those who are not skiers, leaving the trip to ski sites enjoyable as possible. However, this is not the topic I wish to share today on my post. I will only add, before continuing, that I am not big sport and when I tried once to ski (really, in Switzerland), it was not as easy I would wish. Well, this time I found myself, twenty minutes from the beginning of the lesson, holding the trainer with both my hands, begging her not to let go. This young woman was someone that half an hour before I did not even know her name. And here I find myself putting my faith in her, and trusting her more than I trust people whom I know months and years.
Trust. Trust is something that usually is built up after a long period; after some acquaintance. It is true that in extreme cases (and fear) this period may be shortened. This is a usual technique performed in various workshops. However, we are speaking about a process. A process in which, step by step, we open to others and enable them reach us, starting the trust.
Trust is a significant component helping the knowledge workers performing their job. All Knowledge Management philosophers have spoke on trust and its influence on our readiness to share knowledge. I have written, in one of the first posts, on the importance of knowledge sharing to the success of the job of knowledge workers. Trust, of course, is an important component aiding the performance of all workers, also those who stand in the manufacturing line and feed in materials. Nevertheless, the significance of trust grows in the case of knowledge workers. For them, the motivation and the integration with other employees are key factors for success.
As we understand building trust, or more precisely nurturing it, is not that simple. We are speaking about a composed process, very sensitive one, hard to build, but too easy to destroy. The process turns even more complicated as the manager has to nurture three separate zones of trust, to do with the knowledge workers they are in charge of.
First, a trust feeling has to be built so that employees believe and trust the manager and the organization. Nurturing values as authentication, honesty and organizational transparency can be practical ways to built up trust. Bringing to minimum, the times in which we speak and act differently, being honest not only to employees but also to customers and competitors, aid and may bring the employee to trust the manager and the organization. I believe that the best way to bring employees to trust me is to trust them.
However, trust should not only be aimed to the manager and organization. The manager has to nurture an atmosphere of trust between the employees. Tools that can help here are diverse: Encouraging shared activities after work hours, or activities not related to the job (trips, eating together, etc.); building cellular billing programs so that conversations between employees do not cost them. Informing employees when their colleagues are missing from work, wherever possible, bringing them to take an interest one in another; reminding birthdays; publicity of professional successes; running events with families etc. The trust is built in enlarging circles, where the most important circles are the close one, those where frequent interfaces take place. It must be noted, that this is the easiest circle of trust to nurture as people hold face-to-face meetings.
The last zone of trust is with the customers. As has already been written above, when elaborating on trust toward managers, reciprocity is critical. In order to have a customer trust us, I should be authentic and honest with him or her. To really want their benefit. To trust them. There is no place here for fakes. If I do not dignify the customer, if I do not open to him or her personally, if I do not treat them as a person and not only as a professional, it will be hard to buy in their trust. Unless, of course, I find a way to bring them to some extreme situation, as the ski story in the beginning of this post. This strategy is not recommended!
The journey to trust is long, but the results are very satisfactory. The effort is worthwhile! Not only for the knowledge worker. For me.
Yours,
Moria

Working from home

2007-12-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

Working from home. This is a capability born thanks to technology, but not less, thanks to many of us being knowledge workers. Production workers, having all wonderful technologies of Internet, laptops, Emails and cellular telephones will never be able to work from home. Also some knowledge workers cannot work at all, or at least, part of the time, from work. Appointments with customers, meetings in the office are still part of the tasks, better performed out of home. Yet, it is obvious, that we have advanced regarding to ten years ago or more.
I’ll state in advance, that I’m not speaking about full time working from home. This is possible sometimes, it is more common in some places in the world, but this is not the subject of this post. Here I write about working out, in the office and/or with customers, but combining working from home from time to time.

Why to enable working from home?
For many reasons. First of all, it saves the worker or the organization travel costs. But more important than that, time is saved. For most of us, that do not live near to work, time saved can sum to two or three hours. Indeed, very significant regarding our free non-sleeping hours. We live in an era where life and work are mixed and almost blended. We receive private calls on work time. We get and send SMS’s during meeting, trying to see what’s happening back at home, or why the Pizza did not arrive on time. At home, we continue to receive calls from work, and mainly, to write and receive Emails, many times, until the late hours of night. Those of you who dream to cut these relations and imitate the way our parents used to work, will probably be disappointed. Work-life-balance experts say that the levels could lower; It is recommended to turn off the phone and computer when having guests, going to parties or to the movies. But true reverse is probably impossible. What can be done, is to compensate; to enable technology that brought all these, to work in our favor as well: To encourage our employees to work in more flexible hours, so they can take the kids out from the kindergarten or school and continue working later out; to enable our employees to arrive a bit later, after rush time and start the first hour from home; to enable them to work, one day a week, from home.
Working from home gives us much more than time savings. The organization benefits, in some level, by operational savings. In most cases work is more effective, comparing to the same work done in the office. But the main benefit is in the change of spirit and the good feeling for the employee. I personally, from time to time, take a day off, and work from home. When I see that the day I planned is near, and was not yet cancelled by some urgent meeting added in the last moment, I admit to feel happy. On regular days I wear suits to the office. On days I work at home, I always wear jeans; deliberately. It is part of the making the right atmosphere. For some employees, the ability to work at home enables them to accomplish arrangements and fixing at home without taking a vacation day.

When is work from hope applicable?
The first condition, of course, for working from home, is that there is a back office work that can be performed at home with no specific software unreachable from home, no tight work with colleagues or meetings everyday with customers. It is not wise to work at home and speak all day on phone with the office or the customer.
Not less important, is the ability of the employee to be responsible to work from home. Not to stay in pyjamas; not to peek on TV; not to go in and out of the kitchen 20 times a day; to know to say no to the children who do not understand how is it that Mom or Dad are working and unavailable, even though they are home.
Knowledge workers are highly independent employees. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they will have work to be done at work. Therefore, it will also be assumed that they have the responsibility required for working from home.

What is the manager’s job?
The manager should not enable, automatically, working from home, to all employees, in all conditions. The manager has first to clarify the responsibility required and check if each employee indeed can work from home, effectively.
The manager’s responsibility (or this can be defined organizationally) is to decide how frequent to enable work from home (once a week, once in two weeks, or once a month).
The manager’s job is to supervise the work from home and see that the employee does not postpone important tasks, just to be at home, and to see that the employee indeed knows how to work from home effectively.

By enabling working from home, we tell our employees, in one more way: We trust you!

Working from home is beneficial for the employee, and not less, for the organizations.

Your opinions are welcomed.
Yours,
Moria

Thoughts regarding Knowledge Management

2007-11-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

For those who don't know me, I work, live and breathe Knowledge Management, for the past nine years. Knowledge management is not the same as managing knowledge workers. It deals with preserving, sharing and creating the organizational knowledge, using well defined methodologies and focusing on organizational business needs.
A week ago I met a colleague that was in the KM industry for many years and left. He is busy nowadays in some totally different area- the entertainment e-business. The truth is that I was surprised. The person was one of the first people in Israel that dealt with knowledge Management, and he ran a successful company in this area. His PhD. was about knowledge maps. I was even more surprised from the speech I was to hear within a few minutes:
You are brave, so he said; Knowledge Management will fail as a discipline. On the one hand, he flattered me having the strength / the will / the innocence to continue on with Knowledge Management; he was very happy to hear that I am working nowadays on my PhD. in Knowledge Management. On the other hand, he recommended me to leave and find something else to earn my living on.
Why leave? I asked. The Knowledge Management discipline, he explained, is against human nature. People do not will to share; Organizations are afraid, especially from the power that comes with managing KM. Most organizations that started large projects of Knowledge Management, he added, stopped after two or three years and in many cases even fired the CKO's who led the process. I started running scenes from the past years in my head. Yes, there were several organizations that did not continue on; and yes, there were CKO's that have left their job, not always in best circumstances.
There was something in what he said. Too many times I remembered Knowledge Management projects ending because of problems and struggles between people. The more I thought, KM was in all cases the victim, not the trigger for these struggles. One time, there was this CEO who believed in KM (and some other great ideas) but did not believe that he had to communicate any of his ideas to the managers who were supposed to actually share. The day he left, and one of these managers took his place, all the good ideas, including KM, were cancelled. In a different case the CEO worked directly with the KM activities manager, although there was a manager in between (the boss of the latter). The intermediate manager was not part of the process. At the first chance he had, after the CEO was replaced, he cut the budget off. Sorry to say, but there are more examples, and at least in both organizations I spoke about, there were already success stories and benefits yielding from the Knowledge Management activities.
Isn't knowledge an important asset, critical for organizations' success? I asked this colleague. Very important, he answered. That is why there are so many struggles around the issue. So why stay?
I left the place worried and troubled. Am I just stubborn as it is hard to recognize truth, bring so deep involved?
I find myself thinking about the issue a lot since. I do believe in people; I want to believe in them. I believe in organizations, and I believe that if Knowledge is an important asset, even critical, organizations will manage it, and even positively. It must happen, as it is the right thing to happen. It is not enough to find ways to manage the knowledge workers. Knowledge itself must be managed. The two are interconnected, and of course there are even overlaps. But these are two defined disciplines: Management and Knowledge Management.
I learn a lesson here regarding management of knowledge workers. Many of the ideas these workers will come up with, will not be trivial. Precisely these innovative non trivial ideas will be the ones most difficult for the organization to accept. There will be people in favor, but probably more not. People and organizations are afraid from exchanging the existing with the new. People are terrified when a good idea comes from someone else and try to object, many times until the idea is proven, and even sometimes even later. Our job, as managers, is to enable. Not only to enable the idea itself and help its progress in the practical level, but also to enable it's acceptance by people. And that is not easy.
I hope I did not leave you with a melancholy impression. I promise to some happy and smiley posts in the future. I promise, for those that wondered that I am not leaving Knowledge Management. Not now. Too much yet has to be done.
Yours,
Moria

Employment absorption

2007-11-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

Recently, one of my employees has left. The hiring process was successful. He fit. He contributed the company and the company contributed him. He left as he received a better opportunity elsewhere, managing a staff.

I am sorry and a bit sad. He could have developed and achieve professional success in our company. Life continues on. We will continue developing with the others.
I could have let go and say that always there will be better opportunities, no matter what we give or do. That is correct. But one must not stop there. That is an easy way out. Every process of changing place of work includes two sub-parts: Part of leaving the existing and part of entering something new.

No doubt, that leaving us, in this situation, was a result of not good enough absorption. You may ask how long did this employee work in the company? Indeed, this is a fair question. He was with us nine months. So long? How much does it take to take someone new in and teach him or her the job?

That is the topic I wanted to discuss and share: Employee absorption.
Hiring a knowledge worker and teaching the job takes a year, at least.

Why?
Because nowadays, most jobs differ from organization to organization. Think about the knowledge workers in your organization, or even better, think about yourself. Try to remember what you did before, and before, and how different it is from your current position. This is the era of knowledge: Processes of work are roughly defined; the knowledge toolbox, with professional, organizational and market defined aspects, are those who make the job what it is. And these change rapidly.
That is why employment absorption takes time. That is why employment absorption is not a trivial process.

The best way to learn, as researches have discovered, is by experience. But this process is expensive, risky and not satisfactory by itself. Expensive- because if performed in a radical way, it does not take existing knowledge into consideration; risky- because of the performance results, in the apprenticeship period; and not satisfactory by itself, as different people learn differently. Every person needs a different mix of: learning from ideas and concepts, learning from case studies, learning from seeing others (reflection) and learning from doing (See Kolb- "Experience as the source of Learning and Development").

The way a new employee has to be taught includes training; both general unified training, with which we start, combined with personal training, catching a more significant role later on. The general training gives the essential foundations of knowledge, necessary for better understanding of the job. The personal training fills in the specific absences, but more important than that, it is tailored to the learning style of the person to be trained.

Some points to emphasis on:

Expectations of the new employee have to be adjusted, so he or she understand that it takes at least a year until the job is understood thoroughly, and one can step forward.
The manager's responsibility is to analyze what the worker does not know that he does not know (that is the tricky type of knowledge). This is not a one time analysis, rather a routine. Practically, it is recommended to set training meetings in which, through open conversation, professional topics are revealed and dealt with.
Stepwise loading of tasks. The sooner we appoint diverse tasks, the more time it will take to adjust. Tasks? Yes; loading? All right; but diverse? Stepwise. Otherwise, the absorption process will turn out to be longer. This may sound trivial, but if we rethink the issue, and remember it as a 1 year process, it is less trivial.

And the last tip, maybe, the most important: There are no shortcuts. I knew about all the points above, and usually, that is the way I manage. Yet, I made a mistake. I forgot (or chose to forget) that there are no exceptions and no shortcuts.

I paid the price.

Yours,

Moria.

Hiring people to work

2007-10-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hiring people, like any other management process, is not new, whatsoever. Today we read many articles discussing the matter, as we are again in a growing environment and companies are hiring a lot. I personally, as much as I hate bureaucracy and always look for the short and practical way to do things, feel that I myself am part of turning the hiring process in my company to being complicated and not so simple at all. Why? As everyone else, I am afraid of a hiring process that is not successful enough. First of all, I see the employee that may be asked to leave. Setting off an employee is always a very unpleasant situation. Companies should not hold people who do not fit in; but we always have to do everything we can to avoid taking people and replacing them. Every time we fire someone, I believe, we leave a scar in his or her heart. I admit that I have fired several people in the past years. When I do so, I try doing it while leaving the employee with their dignity and I try learning a lesson from each episode, in order to make the chances of the next time I'll have to stand in a similar situation, smaller.
Beside the personal sadness, firing people in order to replace them with others is a business loss. It also is a personal loss for the people left in the organization. We encourage our employees to develop an informal relationship one with another. Some of us (like me) call it "family value"; others use different superlatives. Good inter relations develop into good working environments and trust. Trust enables sharing and knowledge development, besides it giving each one of us as a worker a good feeling when we enter the office every morning.
The bottom line- We hire not to fire. Indeed simple. So why to write on it? And what is new looking in a knowledge perspective?
Looking in a knowledge perspective can give us some points to emphasis on:
In an era of knowledge, a worker has to learn a lot during his or her stay in the organization along the years. Sometime, the amount of learning exceeds the practice with which the employee arrived. The ability and desire of the candidates to learn are not less important than their professional experience.
In an era of knowledge it is important not only to know, but to be able to teach others and learn from them. It is not enough to learn from books and from the Internet. The ability to work with others, teach them and learn from them is essential to choosing the right people.
In an era of knowledge the workers choose the place they work in, not less than the organization chooses them. Adequacy between the organization's values (the real ones, not those on the office walls) and the personal values of the worker, will aid contribution of the worker to company's goals in the future. We have to remember that people do not stay for money only. There always will be someone somewhere else that will offer more. Employees want to feel that they are achieving their goals and working the "right" way; Organizations have to have the same feeling regarding the employees working for them: The managers have to have the feeling that each employee is part of the progress of the whole. A personal conversation with the candidate can be the way to test the adequacy. A conversation about goals and wishes; a conversation about what the employee likes to do in his or her free time and what make them happy. Such a conversation should not be held by the HR department. Organizations are built from smaller groups, each with its sub-values and ways of doing things. A conversation held with HR, seems too theoretical. It is better that the manager of the group will hold such a conversation and personally take such a decision.
Yes, there are other points that can help, but I tried to put down in this list the major ones: Learning ability, sharing ability and value adequacy.

Did I fall when hiring people? I sure did. But, I improved. And I'm still working on it.
I would appreciate hearing from your experience too, especially from the knowledge perspective.
Yours,
Moria.

Who is the worker that we manage?

2007-10-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, while in the army. I managed a group of ten employees. I wasn’t trained, I hadn't learnt how to manage, yet I believe I did a fair job. Today I manage people and I feel as if it is an altogether different job; a different type of management. I especially identify with the saying that managing ten people is not 1 times managing 10 but 10 times managing 1 person. Every person has to be managed differently, every employee needs to be spoken to and heard in a unique way. It took me several years to understand that the way I manage my employees is no less important than developing the KM dogma (my profession). What has changed?

At first I thought it was me. Over years I have matured, some would say I grew older. This is true. I look today differently on life and what is important. But I don’t think that explains it all. Workers in the 21st century are not the workers we had 20 years ago. Industry is changing. These workers, that Druker called knowledge workers, act and develop differently from the manufacture workers that were so typical in the 20th century. In this post I shall try to define the profile of the knowledge workers. How did I learn who they are and how to work with them? Partly from experience, partly intuition, a lot of reading (especially in this context from Druker's books) and some things I still do not know. Like many others I also make mistakes. I err and try to improve myself; sometimes with success, sometimes with less.

The knowledge worker is an independent worker. He makes most of his decisions by himself and first of all he decides every day whether to continue to work in the same place. If in the past people came to earn their living and were dependent on the organization, today we stand in a totally different situation. Salary is not enough for the knowledge worker. Don't misunderstand me they indeed get a nice salary. But the knowledge worker is seeking for more: professional satisfaction, a nurturing environment and possibilities for the future (see Herzberg's theory on hygiene conditions for work). Druker states that we have to treat our knowledge workers as volunteers. We have to convince them, almost on a daily basis, to continue and work voluntary with us. This is definitely not an easy task and one that we would be happy to reject but probably that choice is not ours.

What else can be said about knowledge workers?
A knowledge worker needs a lot information and knowledge in order to perform his job. This of course is no surprise since he is named "knowledge worker". Yet it should be clarified that the information and knowledge are not static. What characterizes the knowledge worker is that his knowledge is developing constantly and not just from doing his job. We must leave time for the knowledge worker to read and learn: to learn from professional magazines, from reading books, from wandering in the internet and from conferences and inter-organizational meetings. A knowledge worker who does not develop his or her knowledge will eventually experience difficulties in achieving success. I must confess that even 5-6 years ago i tried to maximize the business working hours for all of my employees. LAter on, I learned to include professional training on a monthly basis. Today I know that this also is not enough. I encourage my people to write articles. Working on an article includes in addition to the writing itself also reading, analyzing, arranging thoughts and materials, and building a concept. I doubled the training hours; I include other types of learning in addition to lectures and probably all of this is still inadequate. Is this only because I deal with an innovative developing profession (Knowledge Management)? This is partly correct. Around me I see my customers all of whom are dealing with developing professions and innovative aspects: Hardware engineers are dealing more and more with software and integration; pharmaceutical researchers are constantly developing chemistry expertise knowledge and also knowledge from biology, genetics etc. Insurance agents, who used to offer me exactly what was told them from their Insurance companies, work today with many insurance companies. They offer different types of life insurances, loans, health insurances and other financial products; all, working with various companies and offering me the best suit (for me or for them). One of my customers, dealing with child fostering, spends important time learning the models of fostering that work best in other countries. I can continue and give many more examples from various content worlds. The picture is clear: Workers are knowledge workers and those that do not constantly develop, no matter how experienced they are, will find it hard to continue progressing. Without relying on existing wide knowledge future success is not guaranteed.

An interesting fact, deriving from the above, is that the knowledge worker knows, for his or her specific tasks, more than the manager in charge. Even if managers have grown in the same area, they cannot be experts on all of the sub-areas within their responsibility. Always there are some in which they have no experience, always the knowledge they have was correct at the time it was learnt, but is not necessary enough today. As is well known, the world is developing fast. This indeed is a challenging situation. Most of us managers, up till today, have our managing authority based on professional authority. For myself, I can say that I learn from experience and actually know knowledge management methodologies (my professional expertise). I have learned at university math and computers. I always lack the knowledge of my employees who learned industrial engineering or organizational behavior. I always lack the knowledge that my employees developed yesterday and the day before while I was busy managing the company.
The knowledge worker is autonomous. Even though surrounded by teams, each one has to specialize in specific tasks, collecting, filtering, analyzing and deciding according to the information and knowledge gathered. But the knowledge worker has to know how to share. Not only share decisions but to share information and knowledge that can help others perform their job better. Sharing, and even teaching, is part of the knowledge working job. It helps others and it also helps the knowledge worker who understands better his or her knowledge after discussing it with those who were taught.

Knowledge workers manage their own time; they make their own decisions; they multi task much more than in the past.
In more than one manner we, the managers, manage managers. This of course changes the way we ought to manage.

Is this good? I believe it is. Not because we don't have any other choice but to adjust. I believe that we, as managers, develop personally from this challenge of managing knowledge workers. I can say for myself that I do.
And I know that when I succeed the satisfaction is enormous. And so I also benefit.
Tired but satisfied (and now you know why).

Yours,
Moria

Why Blogging? Why me?

2007-09-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hello.

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Moria Levy, my age is 43, and I am the founder and manager of ROM Knowledgeware, an Israeli firm focused in Knowledge Management. I founded the company nine years ago. I also have a husband (Ran), four children (Or, Sapir, Tomer and Kfir), a dog and a parrot.

I write a lot, mostly in the Hebrew KM magazine 2know. I write many years (nearly a decade). I write on what I do- Knowledge Management. Up till now I wrote as I was educated in the university. My writing focused on Knowledge Management methodologies and was aimed mainly to people in organizations that deal with KM. As I wrote in Hebrew, this meant a unique group of a few thousands of people. My writing never spoke about me. I kept a distance leaving "Moria", the person, behind. So I was taught to be honorable. The person is of no interest; what is interesting is what he or she are writing.

The last year I'm feeling a change. One can find a lot of personal writing on the net. This trend started before, but on 2007 it has expanded rapidly. Like in other disciplines, we assimilate the understanding that connection between the rational and the emotional has a special potential. It enables synergy. Writing in a personal style gives every person the ability to better express him or herself and therefore better purify thoughts and ideas in this style of writing. The bottom line: This out-of-the-heart style writing triggers good quality writing.

This blog will be focused on management; Management in an era of knowledge. The 21st century is characterized as a knowledge century and we are knowledge workers. In other words, knowledge is a central component in workers occupation and success. The first to develop this perception of knowledge workers and knowledge workers management was Peter Druker. I will not broaden here on his ideas, as there is much to be said and it justifies a list of its own.

We, as managers, should act differently than as we did a world where knowledge was less central. The knowledge is so important nowadays, for proper work, that it affects all aspects of work and management: We must take it into consideration when we hire people (how do we choose appropriate employees when existing knowledge is so important, sharing it into the organization and expanding it is critical); We must take it into consideration when we think how to develop and cultivate worker and we deal with employees retention. We must take it into consideration when we analyze our core competences (yes, we are one small global village); We must take it into consideration when we think about our relations with our customers (think about the sick person coming to the Doctor with a list of medicines recommended in the Internet and specific knowledge that even the Doctor didn't know about); We must take think differently when we analyze our competitors (understanding that it is so easy for them to know what we know and what guides us in our activities); etc.

When I blog, I bring with me three dimensions of myself:

Me as a manager, dealing we all of these issues like each one of you, every day, every hour;

Me dealing with Knowledge Management and therefore very aware to the needs, the possible solutions, but also aware to how hard it is to really implement them into the organization;

And me, being a person, with values I was brought up to and over years crystallized me to whom I am today.

I do hope this blog interests you the readers and helps you thinking and dealing with management in the era of knowledge.

I hope to receive your comments and learn from them, as the talk backs do give us an additional dimension and enrich the readers and the writer.

I will be happy to hear from you ideas and issues concerning managing in the ear of knowledge that you wish I blog on in these lists.

It takes time for a good blog to materialize and find its place. I thank you in advance for your trust and patience.

Yours,

Moria