March 2012 – Page 2 – Management Library

March 26, 2012June 17, 2022

G is for Gracious

Here are some of the words starting with the letter G that we can use to describe a highly effective speaker. See which ones you resonate with, and then let me know if you can think of others.

Gracious. I know it sounds obvious, but when we are speaking we often become terribly self-focused. Instead of thinking about yourself, imagine what you would do if you had special guests coming to your home. You would clean and tidy your home, put yourself into a receptive mood, and then greet them at the door. You would be welcoming, friendly and kind. In other words, gracious. Somehow we get into the mindset that our special guests (audience members) are boors and we have to be on our guard at all times. Afraid of what questions they might ask. Afraid we might be boring. Or worse, wrong. What if you relaxed, smiled and treated them with warmth and graciousness? Make the people connection. It is far more important–at least at the beginning–than the data.

Greeting. Quick! What is the first thing you should say when you begin a presentation? When you pick up the phone you say “hello” or “good morning,” so why wouldn’t you start with a greeting in a presentation? Without a greeting you can sound cold and set an unfriendly tone. Take time for a smile and a hello. But no need to go overboard with gratuitous “thank you for being here” comments. Especially if people have been told they must attend, or feel they must. Instead, how about a warm and sincere “Good morning! I am so glad you are here. Let’s get started.” Ten seconds. Bam!

Gestures. When we are at ease, we rarely think about our hand gestures. They just happen…naturally. Somehow when we stand up to speak, we are struck with an odd kind of awkwardness and self-consciousness. Suddenly we don’t know how to use these appendages which had been doing just fine without our attention. We clam up and shut down, jamming hands into pockets or clasping them tightly. Not good. Begin to pay attention to what your hands do when you are engrossed in a conversation. Try to allow the same thing to happen when you are presenting or speaking in front of a group. Great gestures are descriptive, varied, and expressive. You can’t “make” yourself gesture, you can only let it happen.

What other words come to mind when you think about highly effective speakers? Next time–the letter H. Any suggestions?

March 26, 2012August 29, 2022

Social Media and Your Next Crisis

social-media-communication-connection-concept-

Protect your business, be prepared for social media crisis management

Let’s face it, social media isn’t going away. People love to talk about what’s going on in their lives, and now that they can do it with millions of others right from the smart phone in their pocket, it’s practically irresistable.

What this means to your organization is that your employees will use social media during your next crisis.

How then, do you turn this seeming vulnerability into a crisis management tool? That’s exactly the question that social media crisis specialist Melissa Agnes answers in her blog post, “How To Empower Your Employees For a Social Media Crisis.”

Here’s a quote:

Fact #1: Each one of your employees has an active social media presence.

Fact #2: Each one of your employees has their own social graph (social connections).

Fact #3: At any point throughout a crisis, your employees may:

Choose to mention or discuss the situation online
Be approached with inquiries about the events unfolding
Be sought out by reporters or bloggers covering the crisis

Fact #4: Their answers may innocently result in further damage and/or complications for your brand.

Fact #5: This is not what most people would call advantageous in a troubling matter!

Fact #6: There are precautionary measure that any and all companies and organizations can take to help eliminate this threat.

Make no mistake, these are FACTS, evidenced in many, many crisis situations. As with any other crisis, the best way to prevent serious social media damage is by being prepared, so what’s holding you back?

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

March 26, 2012May 4, 2022

A Human Resources Fable

A HR Fable.

You get a resignation notice from a top performing manager. You weren’t prepared. You have been talking about succession planning, but other priorities got in the way. Now you have the notice. So what do you? This is an important role and will be key to the future success of the company. Knowing the spot can’t go vacant, you take a look at the team and offer the position to the top performer. The top performer tells you he’s not ready. You know that he will be fine. You tell him that, hand him a set of keys and get busy on those other priorities.

A couple weeks later, the newly minted manager calls you. He has an issue. Actually, he has a couple issues. As you listen, you can’t help thinking to yourself, “why would he do that?” Instead of asking him, you tell him how to handle the situation. You even complete all the necessary paperwork for him and have it ready. You tell him that you will sit in on the conversation he needs to have with his employees if he wants. He says he’s not ready to do this on his own, so you take over and have the conversations. You already did the paperwork, so you might as well.

A few months later, you get another notice. This time it was from the top performer you just promoted. You think to yourself, “I need to get to that succession plan.”

There are so many lessons one can take from this scenario. Here are just a few.

You can’t predict every turnover situation. You will get surprised. Life happens and people leave for a number of reasons. Be prepared.
The best individual contributors aren’t always the best solution to an opening. They don’t always make the best managers. Build the model. Whether it’s a competency model or other model, you have to know what skills, knowledge and attitudes are necessary to succeed in key roles. Develop those skills in your high potential employees. (Oh and make sure you have a way to identify high potentials)
Make sure the employee wants the job. If they think they aren’t ready, they might not be ready. If you think they are ready, help them find their confidence.
Have a plan for those who are newly in positions. Have a mentor or a coach available to them. And don’t do for them what they need to do for themselves. Guide them. Coach them.

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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March 22, 2012January 26, 2022

Are We All Here?

Two years ago I was deploying a high-technology project for a client. It was a worthwhile project, whereby we were going to give sales people the ability to communicate instantly with their developers in Asia. A few weeks into the project, the client’s own Security organization became very interested… and proceeded to shut us down!

We have written a few times in this blog about the importance of understanding a project’s justification, or business case, before plunging into planning and implementation. Why is it important that this project be deployed? Why now? What are the essential features needed? Who is the ‘management sponsor’ interested in seeing the project succeed? What we don’t discuss as often, but can also be critical –as illustrated by our now defunct project− is an early Stakeholder Analysis.

Stakeholders are people (or organizations, such as the aforementioned Security) who are involved in the project or who are affected by the project. When we mention ‘stakeholders’, it is quite easy to limit ourselves, and just think to include the performers and the customers of a project. In truth, we must look further afield and consider other indirect persons or groups that may not be as obvious, but who are still being impacted by our project. For example:

1. Customers of the customer – It may be that the ultimate user is not the group who commissioned the project, but customers of theirs who have additional needs. If the project’s ultimate customer may or may not speak English for instance, we may want to include symbols along with written instructions, to increase clarity.

2. Regulatory Groups − Our analysis should incorporate functions which may not be obvious, but who would indeed have the authority to terminate our efforts. They can reside in the customer’s organization or in society at large, eg, Procurement, Security, the city’s Health Department, Fire Department.

3. Managers of our resources − We should stay in touch with those who manage key individuals in our project. They may have their own set of measurements, timeframes or constraints and possibly impact someone’s availability while we still need them.

There are others of course. By introducing these categories though, we hope you can manage direct and indirect stakeholders’ expectations, and avoid unpleasant surprises.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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March 22, 2012April 11, 2022

Managing a Geographically-Dispersed Grant-Proposal-Team

Business colleagues working on grants proposals

Until recently, most government grant proposals were developed in a defined physical space. The proposal team worked near each other, had frequent face-to-face contact, and used conference rooms in its work.

The New Virtual World of Grant Proposal Construction

Today, however, this traditional model of proposal development is rapidly changing. An increasing number of government grant proposals are virtual efforts – they involve a geographically dispersed proposal team that works and communicates (for the most part) electronically, rather than on a face-to-face basis.

Virtual proposal managers must ask themselves (and answer) four basic questions:
1.  How can I provide support to a geographically dispersed team?
2.  How can I distribute information, documents, and tools?
3.  How can I provide training and support to people whom I have not met?
4.  How do I produce and submit the proposal?

How can I provide support to a geographically dispersed team?
Besides plenty of e-mails, telephone calls, and conference calls, a proposal manager should establish an electronic site where proposal team members can upload, download, and review proposal documents. Many organizations have SharePoint already in place, which is easy to use, access, and administer. It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also provides the security you need to work remotely.

How can I distribute information, documents, and tools?
As the proposal manager, you can use SharePoint to post documents such as resumes, past performance write-ups, drafts, and templates to team members.

How can I provide training and support to people whom I have not met?
Using SharePoint, you can post training videos, instructional materials, your organization’s style manual, and other documents.

How do I produce and submit the proposal?
Nowadays, most government grant proposals are submitted electronically. At the very beginning of the proposal effort, you should arrange to produce and upload your final proposal. If you wait until the last minute, you risk torpedoing the entire proposal because there are often problems uploading proposals, especially to government agencies using their own Web sites.

Answer these four questions before the proposal effort begins, and you will avoid a great deal of unproductive, low-level administrative and repetitive work in the expanding world of virtual grant proposals.

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Dr. Jayme Sokolow, founder and president of The Development Source, Inc.,
helps nonprofit organizations develop successful proposals to government agencies. Contact Jayme Sokolow.

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If you would like to comment/expand on the above, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page, click on the feedback link at the top of the page, or send an email to the author of this posting.

March 21, 2012March 27, 2023

How to Make Your Video Go Viral

Viral Videos Need a Boost to Get Started

OK, so you have a video on YouTube that you think could go viral. It’s short, clever, shocking, challenging, controversial, funny or touches your emotions. You gave it an attention-grabbing headline, an intriguing thumbnail, and you tagged it. You’ve also gotten lots of comments, your own and others.

How Do You Launch it Into Viral Land?

Marketing. You must give it an initial push in order to capture your audience’s attention.

It may surprise you, but some of the best and biggest viral videos are the result of careful marketing plans. And if someone else did it, so can you.

Here’s how to market your video:

Blast it out to your email list
Tweet about it.
Embed it AND share it on Facebook. Ask friends to share it.
Submit it to other big social networking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Slashdot.
Do the same on your blog and website.
Ask high profile bloggers to write about it.
Go to groups and forums that are relevant, post it, and start threads about it.
Include a link to your video in your comment on a very active thread.

Cost of a Culture of Fear? $500 million for starters

SAIC, a major government technology contractor, just agreed to pay the City of New York $500 million to settle charges of fraud in the development of an employee timekeeping system. Yes, a couple of employees were the real bad apples, engaging in fraud, kickbacks, and money-laundering.

But SAIC’s real crime, the actions that cost it one-half BILLION dollars, was its inability to deal with this issue when it occurred. SAIC was not aware of its culture-based risks…and it is paying the price.

As quoted in the press:

“Some SAIC managers failed to perceive or ignored significant and pervasive irregularities,” the company said in court papers. “SAIC’s failures resulted, in part, from an overemphasis on the financial and operational success of the project.”

The project’s senior manager, Gerard Denault, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges. SAIC said that Denault’s managers had missed or ignored his creation of an atmosphere of fear in the office that discouraged subordinates from coming forward.

When some employees went to Denault’s supervisors with concerns, they “reacted with inappropriate skepticism, shifted the burden to the employees to prove their assertions, and failed to pass on the concerns to the proper company personnel for investigation,” the company said.

A “check-the-box” compliance program would not have prevented this problem then, nor will it prevent it from happening again. SAIC must look deeply into its organizational culture: which employees are hesitant or disengaged enough to not report what they see, and why? And if managers are not taking swift enough action to address these risks, then why are more senior leaders not being held responsible.

A $500 million cost is not one that any company should have to pay once…and certainly not twice

David Gebler is the President of Skout Group, LLC, business advisors helping global organizations measure and manage culture-based risks to performance. David’s book The 3 Power Values: How Commitment, Integrity and Transparency Clear the Roadblocks to Performance is available from Jossey-Bass.

March 20, 2012March 22, 2023

How To Say No Comment Without Saying No Comment

business-people-discussing-team-rolesw-in-a-meeting

When it comes to crisis management, choose your words wisely

One of the most common requests from clients of ours are for ways to “say no comment without saying no comment.” Yes, communication and transparency are crucial in today’s business environment, but sometimes it’s just not in your best interest to discuss a particular topic. That’s why Stephen Rafe’s take on the situation caught our eye, and drove us to ask if we could bring his tactics to our readers.

Without further ado, here is a quote from Stephen Rafe’s forthcoming book on news-media interviewing:

Saying the same thing in different words doesn’t help. Following President Clinton’s news conference in May, Susan Page (USA Today, Friday, May 1, 1998) described his “no-comment” efforts as “a convoluted game of TV’s ‘Jeopardy’ in which the questions and answers somehow had been drawn from completely different categories.” Arianna Huffington, (The New York Post, May 5, 1998,) wrote: “…my personal advice is that he (President Clinton) advise his lawyers to advise him not to hold any more press conferences until all his legal entanglements are disentangled….”

Indeed, the President did come up with some creative ways to avoid saying “no-comment.” Here are some of the 15 he used — to the total of 29 questions he was asked:

“I don’t have anything to say about that.”
“I can not comment on these matters because they are under seal.”
“I … have nothing to add to my former answer.”
“I have been advised, and I think it’s good advice under the circumstances — but I just — I just don’t have anything else to add about that.”

The lesson learned for spokespersons? Elegant variations can not replace good technique.

Techniques that Work

So how should one respond to questions when tempted to give a “no-comment” answer? Here’s the approach I’ve refined to help my clients address such situations.

First, always express a desire to cooperate, and follow with a reason why you can’t respond directly to the question. You might open by saying: “I wish I could comment on that (or “help you,” or “share that information with you,” or something similar and relevant), (use reporter’s name).”

Next, if timing is your concern, continue by saying something such as: “However, once (name the event that controls timing) is no longer at issue (or “has been resolved”) I would be pleased to discuss this in detail with you.”

If the issue is your concern, substitute words such as these instead: “However, doing so would give proprietary information to our competitors.”

Follow with a point or fact that is relevant and “safe,” such as: “What I can tell you is that the (name of trade association) has said (and complete your response with related, but generic information from that source).”

Structure your response this way and you decrease the chances that you will “loop” back to the question you were trying to dismiss. Looping frequently occurs when spokespersons try to ad lib. When you use this technique, you also increase the likelihood that the reporter will move on to the next question.

For more information, contact Stephen Rafe at Stephen@rapportcommunications.net.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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March 20, 2012March 23, 2023

The Top 7 Interviewing Mistakes: Are You Making Them?

business-leader-interviewing-job-candidate

Have you ever hired someone who did not live up to expectations? I’m sure many of us have at one time.

An effective interview can prevent that from happening? The purpose of the interview is to obtain good information about an applicant to make a wise selection decision. It may sound simple but then why are there so many poor hires? Too many people rely on gut instinct in their hiring decisions.

Be aware of these seven common interviewing errors that prevent you, hiring manager or business owner, from getting the best

1. Focus on the right stuff.
Pinpoint the specific skills necessary for success in the job. Develop behavioral interview questions to reveal whether the candidate has what it take to match the job requirements.

2. Never begin an interview saying:
“I haven’t had time to really review your resume…so tell me about yourself.” Before every interview, study the person’s resume to zero in on qualifications, to decide on what questions to ask and to make efficient us of the allotted time.

3. Don’t ask for information you already have.
You ask, “Let’s see, how long have you been in your current position?” This is a wasted question because you should know the answer from the application. The interview should be used to obtain new information and hone in on the applicant’s capabilities.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions.
If you uncover anything during the reference checking or employment history review that raises red flags, ask about it during the interview. It is important that you clear up any concerns before you reject or hire the applicant.

5. Prevent interruptions unless there is an emergency.
Your office door should be closed. Put calls and messages on hold. Remember, the key purpose of an interview is to determine if this person is a good fit for the position. Don’t waste this precious time on other matters.

6. Make sufficient notes.
Relying on memory gives the first and last candidates an unfair advantage. Be aware of the “halo effect”. Placing too much emphasis on first impression or one characteristic can overshadow everything else.

7. Keep score with the right goals in mind.
Develop a rating system to analyze and compare each candidate. It could a simple scale from one to five with (1) being poor to (5) being great. Rate each person immediately after the interview, by matching the person to the job description. Narrow down your list to no more than three or four finalists. Then develop another list of questions and only then start comparing one candidate to another.

Management Success Tip:

Make the next interview count. Think back to previous interviews you have conducted. Did you make any of the above mistakes? If so, what can you do to improve your interviewing skills the next time around?

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March 20, 2012August 29, 2022

When Do You “Tell the Truth” During Coaching?

worker-interviewing-female-candidate-about-job-offer

A hallmark of coaching, whether coaching oneself or others, is to ask generative questions — questions to help clarify a current priority, to address the priority and learn at the same time.

However, are there times when a coach should “tell the truth” — to assert the coach’s perspective without the use of questions?

In his seminal book “The Road Less Traveled,” M. Scott Peck writes:

“… the act of withholding the truth is always potentially a lie,” … (p. 62)
“… the decision to withhold the truth must always be based entirely upon the needs of the person or people from whom the truth is being withheld.” (p. 62)
“.. the primary factor in the assessment of another’s needs is the assessment of that person’s capacity to utilize the truth for his or her own spiritual growth.” (p. 63)

He adds (p. 151)

“But the reality of life is such that at times one person does know better than the other what is good for the other, and in actuality is in a position of superior knowledge or wisdom in regard to the matter at hand.” (p. 151)

He adds (p. 153)

“To fail to confront when confrontation is required for the nurture of spiritual growth represents a failure to love equally as much as does thoughtless criticism or condemnation and other forms of active deprivation of caring.”

In my coaching, I will “tell the truth” if I perceive any of the following — if the client:

Speaks of hurting her/himself
Speaks of hurting others
Does not make progress on his/her priority over numerous coaching sessions
Continues to show very strong emotions over numerous sessions

My “truth” might be the strong suggestion that he/she get a professional evaluation from a trained therapist.

What do you think?

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For many related, free online resources, see the following Free Management Library’s topics:

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, and Strategic Planning.

Month: March 2012