Answer: Present counterparts in other functions awards for service to your group—hold an “All-Star Supporters [from other groups] Banquet.” (Stupendous!)
Answer: When someone in another function asks for assistance, respond with even more alacrity than you would if it were the person in the cubicle next to yours—or more than you would for a key external customer.
Answer: Do not bad-mouth … “the damned accountants,” “the damned HR guy.” Ever. (Even in the privacy of your bathtub.)
Answer: Share more information than you think you “need to” … ASAP & Always.
Answer: Whenever you are dealing with peers in other functions, ask repeatedly: “What do you think?” (Remember!)
Answer: Twenty more things like this that boil down to establishing and maintaining and enhancing social-human bonds with “the ‘thems,’” as I label it.
Answer: Frequency! Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!
67. Getting Along and Going to Lunch: Solving the Cross-Functional Cooperation Problem.
Time and time (and time) again, from the battlefield to the fast-food outfit, we are tripped up by nonexistent or contentious cross-functional communications/coordination/lost opportunities for Earthshaking Change.
There’s a lot to say (and I’ve said it elsewhere and in this book—and will keep saying it), but I want this one to stand by itself.
Do lunch!
I don’t care what your “priorities” are. Ignoring my powerlessness over you, I nonetheless demand that you … devote a minimum of … five lunches per month … to dining with folks in other functions.
Tell ‘em the truth when you proffer the invitation: You’re tired of all the botched communications and lost opportunities—and you are determined for both your sakes to develop a … Big-Activist-Intimate Network Across the Organization.
Do it!
Schedule the first one right now!
Put the book down!
N-O-W!
(Trust me!)
(This is big!)
(Very big!)
NB: Fact is, on a personal as well as a professional level, you’ll find in … 9 cases out of 9 … (okay, 9 out of 9.7) that you have a lot in common (six degrees of separation, etc.) with your first-date lunch partner from Logistics, and that he/she is also irritated by the same cross-functional maladroitness that you are. Well: The hell with your bosses and the megabuck schemes of the IT guys—fix it at lunch. (If 70 percent of staffers would do it as a matter of routine, measured routine, the organization would have developed the sharpest competitive arrow possible!)
BATTER UP! MAKE EACH “LUNCH DATE” COUNT
Consider each workday lunch an “at bat.” (I’m an unrepentant baseball nut.) Four workweeks at five days each adds up to about 20 “at bats” each month.
20 opportunities to start New Relationships;
20 opportunities to nurture or extend Old Relationships;
20 opportunities to patch up Frayed Relationships;
20 opportunities to “Take a Freak to Lunch”—and learn something new;
20 opportunities to test an idea with a potential Recruit-Alliance Partner;
20 opportunities to get to know someone in Another Function;
20 opportunities to … PURSUE or MAKE A SALE … to gain a Convert-Champion for your idea or project.
I ‘m not urging you to ignore the pals you usually go to lunch with. And if you “use” all 20 monthly lunch “opportunities” to the utmost, I’ll be tempted to call you “over the top.” (Or determined to become the next Donald Trump. Or U.S. president in 2012.)
But I do urge-beg you to consider Lunches as a/the/your Most Precious Resource.
Each lunch gone is gone for good.
Lunch opportunity utilized effectively = High R.O.I.R. (Return on Investment in Relationships.)
20 per month. 240 per year. To a major-league baseball player, EACH AT BAT IS PRECIOUS. To a “determined-to-build-a-matchless-network-and-collect-cool-outsiders-and-useful-allies” … EACH LUNCH IS PRECIOUS.
Agree?
So?
Invite someone interesting/potentially useful to lunch … tomorrow.
If it’s before noon, how about lunch today … TODAY.
SPECIAL SECTION
The Equations
An Engineer’s View of the …
Secrets of Effective Implementation
Engineers live for mathematical and/or algebraic representation of any and all things. Hence, I, an unrepentant engineer, offer this set of “equations” aimed at helping you, engineer or not, boost your odds of success at implementing damn near anything.
Success at GTD/Getting Things Done Is a Function of …
S = $$(#&DR, -2L, -3L, -4L, I&E)
Success is a function of: Number and depth of relationships, 2, 3, and 4 levels down inside and outside the organization.
S = $$(SD > SU)
“Sucking down” is more important than “sucking up”—the idea is to have the entire “underbelly” of the organization working for you.
S = $$(#non-FF, #non-FL)
Number of friends not in my function, number of lunches with friends not in my function.
S = $$(#FF)
Number of friends in the finance organization.
S = $$(#OF)
Number of oddball friends.
S = $$(PDL)
Purposeful, deep listening—this is very hard work.
S = $$(#EODD3MC)
Number of end-of-the-day difficult (you’d rather avoid) “3-minute calls” that soothe raw feelings, mend fences, etc.
S = $$(UFP, UFK, OAPS)
Unsolicited Favors Performed, UFs involving coworkers’ kids, overt acts of politeness-solicitude toward coworkers’ spouses, parents, etc.
S = $$(#TY, #TNT)
Number of “thank yous” today, number of thank-you notes sent today.
S = $$(SU)
Show up!
S = $$(lD)
Seeking the assignment of writing first drafts, minutes, etc.
S = $$(#SEAs)
Number of solid relationships with Executive Assistants.
S = $$(%UL/w-m)
Percent of useful lunches per week, month.
S = $$(FG/FO, BOF/CMO)
Favors given, favors owed collectively, balance of favors, conscious management of.
S = $$(CPRMA, MTS)
Conscious-planned Relationship management activities, measured time spent thereon.
S = $$(TN/d, FG/m, AA/d)
Thank-you notes per Day, flowers given per Month, Acts of Appreciation per Day.
S = $$(PT100%A“T”S, E“NMF”–TTT)
Proactive, timely, 100 percent apologies for “tiny” screw-ups, even if not my fault (it always takes two to tango).
S = $$(UAAR, NBS-NSG)
Universal accountability-acceptance of responsibility for all affairs, no blame-shifting, no scapegoating.
S = $$(AP“L”S, LFCT)
Awareness, perception of “little” snubs—and lightning-fast correction thereof.
S = $$(ODIRAAS)
Overwhelming, disproportionate, instantaneous reaction to any and all screw-ups.
S = $$(G)
Grace.
S = $$(GA)
Grace toward adversary.
S = $$(GW)
Grace toward the wounded in bureaucratic firefights.
S = $$(PD)
Purposeful decency.
S = $$(EC, MMO)
Emotional connections, management and maintenance of.
S = $$(IMDOP)
Investment in Mastery of Detailed Organizational Processes.
S = $$(TSH)
Time spent on Hiring.
S = $$(TSPD, TSP-L1)
Time spent on promotion decisions, especially for first-level managers.
S = $$(%“SS,” H-PD)
Percent of soft stuff involved in Hiring, Promotion decisions.
S = $$(TSWA, P/NP)
Time spent wandering around, purposeful, no
n-planned.
S = $$(SBS)
Slack built into Schedule.
S = $$(TSHR)
Time spent … Hurdle Removing.
S = $$(%TM “TSS,” PM“TSS,” D“TD”“TSS”)
Success is a function of: percent of time, measured, on “this Soft Stuff,” purposeful management of “this Soft Stuff,” daily “to-do” concerning “this Soft Stuff.”
*************
I’ll conclude with three more “equations”—oriented toward organizational success-effectiveness-excellence:
O(B) = $$(XX)
O(B), the “blueness” of one’s “ocean” [think “competitive advantage,” as defined in the popular book Blue Ocean Strategy] is directly proportional to one’s eXcellence in eXecution/XX. [If one finds a “strategic” “blue ocean,” one will, especially in today’s world, be copied immediately; the only “defense”—possibility of sustaining success—is XX/eXcellence in eXecution. Think ExxonMobil; they and their rivals know where the hydrocarbons are—but ExxonMobil handily out-executes the competition.]
S(O) = $$(XXFX)
The single most important cause of failure to execute effectively is the lack of effective cross-functional communication-execution. Hence, Organizational Success is a function of eXcellence (X) in cross-functional (XF) eXecution (X).
S(O) = $$(X“SIT”)
In honor of HP’s all-powerful MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around, the following: S(O), Organizational Success, is a function of X “SIT,” eXcellence at Staying In Touch.
Yes
68. Just Say Yes!—Or: A Lesson from My Mother-in-Law.
My wife, Susan, and I, on short notice, invited her mom, then age 74, to come down from New Canaan, Connecticut, and join us for a Midtown Manhattan dinner.
She said “No.”
Period.
I’ve known Joan Sargent for a long time. If she’s anything, she’s self-certain.
I.e., “No” = No.
When we arrived in town from Vermont, we were therefore nonplussed to find a message from Joan, saying, “I’ll be arriving at 7.”
We were pleased. (Yes, I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law.) And surprised. We obviously asked her why she’d changed her mind.
Short answer:
“I decided to say ‘Yes.’”
Longer answer. She recalled a friend who’d had a vigorous life into her 90s. “She said she had three ‘secrets,’” Joan recalled. “First, surround yourself with good books on any and every topic. Second, spend time with people of all ages. And third, say ‘Yes.’”
She added that indeed she had not intended to drive down from Connecticut. (For those readers who’ve aged a bit, peripheral vision goes for all of us pretty early, and night driving is a pain, especially in rain or snow. And the weather was foul.) But she remembered her friend and determinedly decided to … “say … ‘Yes.’”
Message, Age 24 or 74:
Engage with all sorts of folks of every age.
Keep learning new stuff.
And just say … “Yes”!
69. For the Sheer Glorious 24/7 Fun of It!
Richard Branson’s idea of fun is going head to head in the ring with someone who has him by a jillion pounds. As Michael Specter wrote in his wonderful New Yorker profile (“Branson’s Luck”), “Branson likes to enter a market controlled by a giant—British Airways, say, or Coke, or Murdoch. Then he presents himself as the hip alternative.”
He allows himself to get pissed off at something stupid (pathetic airline customer “service”), and on the spot, more or less, starts an airline, or whatever. (NB: I happen to believe that … all … successful innovation, products or processes, are the … lived-out fantasies of pissed-off people.) With a fortune measured in billions, he commands a payroll of about 55,000 feisty folks in 200 very independent companies. (Think Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Blue of Australia, Virgin Limousines, Virgin Money, Virgin Active health clubs, Virgin Galactic space travel …)
Branson is his brand. He enjoys his nutty stunts that personify the brand’s hipness and engages in them even when out of camera range; upon discovering the car back to his hotel after a recent party (whose guests included the Google founders, half Branson’s age) was full, Sir Richard simply hopped in the trunk. Specter goes so far in his profile as to dub him the “anti-Trump,” while, around the office, “Branson’s nickname is Dr. Yes, largely because he has never been able to bring himself to fire people, and often has trouble saying no to even the most ridiculous and unsolicited ideas.”
As I read the Branson profile I let my mind wander to Howard Schultz, Starbucks founder. I like Schultz and his company a lot. But it seems that when one hears of its future, it’s almost always in terms of Howard’s goal of adding thousands upon more thousands of new shops, or some such. Branson is surely happy when his businesses succeed and grow (though not awash in tears when one fails, as long as it was a spanking good try), but his primary goal truly does seem to be the sheer fun of doing something cool to twit a giant or, more recently, by investing big in biofuels—to save the world.
In short (and long), I wish there were many more like him.
I’m not Branson by a long, long shot; but I understand the guiding impulse. The only reason that I take on new stuff, and keep accumulating frequent flyer miles, has long been the unadulterated pleasure I get from always marching “the other way”—and in particular storming after those I think have let us down, from numbers-obsessed execs to health care leaders’ lack of patient-safety rigor as measured by hundreds of thousands of preventable annual deaths in the United States alone.
My advice?
This is strategic: Do your darnedest to “make it fun,” “make it a ride to remember,” “make it a bloody ball”!
It ought to be sheer-raw-unmitigated fun to scramble and ramble to go two or three or six country miles out of your way to get a computer system up in a flash with a diabolically clever fix that buggers the imagination—if you’re in the computer service business. It ought to be sheer-raw-unmitigated fun for your gang to puzzle out innovative ways, in the face of long, long odds, to deliver a quirky custom order a week ahead of time. And so on.
Aiming to upend conservatism as a cohesive-committed team of rebels, a team of brothers and sisters with a sparkling new approach to first-line supervisor training that will set-the-world-on-its-ear-it’s-so-cool-and-so-good … now that’s what I call Great and Grand and Glorious 24/7 Fun. And I believe that it is … your job … as boss-leader to set precisely this set of “outrageous” challenges to your seven-person, two-month-duration project team, or your 46-person IS department.
Sir Richard Branson “gets it.”
(So do I.)
(Even though my wallet is anemic compared to his.)
And you????????
(Please, please, please: Don’t dismiss this as “motivational bullshit.” Act as if your life depended on it; in fact, your professional life—and personal sanity—does.)
DILBERT IS NOT FUNNY
If you have chosen to read this book, odds are you work pretty long hours—and give a damn about what you do.
Ideas like this one, if I may be so outrageously bold, are near the heart of nothing less than … what it means to be human.
From the pulpit, or the battlefield when war is absolutely necessary, there is no greater leader’s calling than … Fully Engaging Others in Quests Toward Growth and Life with Meaning. (Yes?) (No?)
Dilbert is … not … funny.
(Even though I laugh at his perfect depiction of a lot of corporate life.)
Dilbert-world is about a string of days … effectively pissed away. (I haven’t, at age 67, got the time for that.)
As leaders, we make an implicit pledge to “be of service” and to be “wholeheartedly committed to the growth of others”—like marriage vows, and the implicit vows of parenthood.
So, label such challenges as “make it fun”—that is, truly engaging and worthy and the source
of constant camaraderie—pie in the sky if you must.
But if it’s pie in the sky, then what exactly is the alternative?
Read the … Collected Works of Dilbert?
While away another day at the watercooler laughing about the idiocy of your job?
No thanks.
(And, actually, lassitude and/or aimlessness is not really an option as the labor market becomes more and more “global” and, hence, more and more competitive. A new motto, perhaps: “Only the fully engaged will survive”?)
No
70. “To-Don’ts” Are More Important Than “To-Dos.”
My friend Dennis is a prominent figure. His success in a situation that matters to us all is monumental. A few years ago he received a huge $$$ grant—and he was given the opportunity to roll out his superb program across the country. Suddenly, he was required to turn his innovative ideas into a system that could be replicated by “ordinary people.” Among many other things, he is “one of those people” who has 10 ideas a minute—and one of the very very few among such folks where all 10 of them are usually good ideas. And so his talented staff ran around madly (they loved him—and “madly” is no exaggeration) working on exciting this or exciting that. But now, to make his bold dreams come true on a broader canvas, he had a “low variation” system to concoct and run—and things promised to be different.
I attended a meeting of his advisory committee at a critical moment. The chairman had been CEO of an enormous company. And to my last breath, I will remember a single line that emerged from the fellow’s mouth:
“Dennis, you need a ‘to-don’t’ list.”
In simple language:
(1) What you decide not to do is probably more important than what you decide to do.
(2) You probably can’t work on “to-don’t” alone—you need a sounding board/mentor/adviser/nag you trust to act as a drill sergeant who will frog-march you to the woodshed when you stray and start doing those time-draining “to-don’ts.”
The Little Big Things Page 15