Excellence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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