People

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

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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

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

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:

1. 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".
2. 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.
3. 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

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

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