Month: October 2012

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Getting To Know Your Technical Writing Department (Part 1)

Young writers in a meeting

What happens when your new job is to manage or reinvent a Documentation Department? Where do you begin? What do you need to know? Here are some tips on getting to know your Department and Technical Writers without stepping on any toes and without being too forceful. There is a lot to talk about here, so this is the first of two posts. Even two posts may not be enough, but I will share what I can for now. Let’s begin.

During the first meeting with the Technical Writers and team members, let them know why the meeting was called and present your ideas of what makes a viable Documentation Department and simultaneously, gather the following information from each member of the meeting. You can ask the following questions (if the group is small), hand out questions at the meeting (and arrange a follow-up meeting), or email the questions prior to the meeting (if the group is large or global).

By getting to understand the current processes, you familiarize yourself with the team members and you can determine whether or not changes have to be made.

Projects – What projects are the technical writers involved with?

  • Are we included on project plans or charters?
  • Do the writers also create their own project plans?
  • Who sets the writers deadlines?
  • Are more than one writer assigned per project?
  • What projects have they worked on?
  • Estimate how many documents are needed for each project.

Writing – What is involved?

  • What documents are each writer in charge of?
  • Do they write mostly for content or the web?
  • What format are most documents produced in (docx, pdf, html, xml, etc.) ?
  • What departments and whom do they meet with for gathering their information?
  • How often do they meet with others and are they helpful?
  • Is it difficult to set up meetings with Subject matter Experts (SME’s) to get the needed information?
  • Estimate the turnaround time for each new document created.
  • What happens when a document is late?

Collaboration – How well is the department working with others or vice versa?

  • What meetings do the writers attend for gathering information?
  • Are they part of status meetings?
  • Are they given enough time to produce their documentation?
  • Do they attend meetings when a project begins?
  • How are they notified of changes/updates to documents?
  • How are they handling conflicts or bottlenecks?
  • Are they given enough time to make necessary changes to their documents because of a change in process or development or any kind of adjustment that impacts the document?
  • What road blocks or bottle necks do you face daily?- such as – Delays about notification changes or when there is too long of a lag in time between reviews.

When you have gathered all this information, create a mapping or matrix for yourself and try to see the whole picture of how the current Documentation Department operates. See if there are trends or cycles of heavy and light workloads or when more resources are needed. This should help you get a clearer picture of your Technical Writers functions, the Department performance, and where improvements are needed.

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The Freedom to Be Foolish

a-woman-in-a-business-meeting-doing-a-presentation

What separates good leaders and masterful ones? Between those who just meet their organization’s and team’s expectations, and those who invite transformation into their organizations and teams? Between those whose services are viewed as a commodity and those who are known to be indispensable? The differentiator? The spirit of the fool.

Surrendering to Your Fool

Masters of all disciplines willingly embrace what George Leonard describes in his book Mastery as, the spirit of the fool. If you’re a leader who wants to have impact, it’s time to learn to embrace the spirit of the fool.

(Noteworthy point — this is different than the spirit of being foolish – showing up uninformed, unprepared, or trying to claim expertise outside your purview are several foolish behaviors of a leader).

The spirit of the fool is the willingness to be clumsy and awkward as you relinquish a hard-won competence in favor of a higher skill. It is the willingness to tread into unknown waters to courageously implement innovative ideas.

The Four Steps to Finding Your Fool

We resist embracing the spirit of the fool because it’s uncomfortable – it makes us feel silly and vulnerable as we flounder between competencies. Yet, just as building the strength of a muscle takes time, tenacity and practice, so does becoming comfortable in this liminal – and essential – space.

Here are four steps to finding and celebrating your inner fool:

Step 1: Come from Curiosity

The journey of the master is never complete nor should it ever be stagnant. Curiosity is the hallmark of one’s joyful desire to be a continual learner, always questioning if there is a better, more precise, more refined or more profound way.

Step 2: Create Emptiness

Like a full vessel with no room for more water, a full mind has no room for new ideas. Creating emptiness is an essential practice on the path of mastery. Implement a regular practice during which you to turn down the noise, clear the debris, and find the calm, fertile, still-point within yourself from which all creativity and innovation spring.

Step 3: Cultivate the Beginner’s Mind

The ‘beginner’s mind’ frees you from expecting an outcome based on what you have experienced in the past, and allows you to continually see possibilities in the current circumstances. It allows you to be innovative and dynamic in support of your team and its goals, instead of studied and rote.

Step 4: Take Courageous Action

It is one thing to think about being bold, innovative, and reaching for the next level of skill on your path to mastery. It is another to bare your vulnerable and inspired self to your colleagues and clients through action. THIS is where the spirit of the fool is most alive.

In an old parable, you have a cup in your hand and a quart on the table. In order to grab the quart, you must be willing to let go of the cup.

Are you willing to let go of the cup?

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Quick Crisis Management from O2

A-business-woman-addressing-her-colleagues

Quick reaction and the right moves pay off

UK mobile provider O2 found itself experiencing a bit of deja vu when, just months after a 24-hour service disruption left hundreds of thousands without a cellular connection, yet another widespread outage hit its system late last week.

The company actually came out of that incident fairly clean, having issued a quick and public apology, as well as handling the situation in a relatively small time frame. They even successfully redirected stakeholders seeking information to the company Facebook and Twitter feeds when the main website crashed due to overwhelming traffic volume.

Would a second bout of network crisis management knock O2 off course? From the looks of it, not even close. The company was the least complained-about UK mobile network in Q1 of 2012 according to the telecoms regulators at Ofcom, and with complaint about cellular service being honed almost to an art by many, that’s no small achievement.

Although a disruption in any valued service, from cell phone or internet to closed highways, will raise some outraged voices, the vast majority just want to be informed, and for you to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Once again, O2 pulled through with a near-instant mea culpa, followed up by strong social media customer service. Not to ignore the traditional media, the company also had press spokesmen working hard to answer any questions the major news outlets had.

Improving on this summer’s outages, O2 managed to keep its website live, and even published a running Q&A that used relatively plain terminology to explain quite thoroughly what had caused the outage, and what was being done to fix it.

The dust is still settling from this one, but we feel confident in saying that O2 made the right moves, and despite the brief flare of anger that many customers surely felt, the majority will come out pleased with the level of communication and information coming from the company in the midst of crisis.

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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, 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]

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Merit Pay Doesn’t Work

Person opening an empty wallet

I have written multiple times about he ever hated performance review. This dreaded ritual in many companies is also often tied to the annual salary increase. An increase that often times is given within a tight budget constraint somewhere between 2-4%. It also often called a merit increase or a pay for performance compensation system. Those who are top performers may get a 4% increase while the poor performer may get the 2-3% increase. The result of this system actual keeps employees at very close salaries. And my guess is that if the top performer in a particular position or team has a little less tenure than the bottom performer, the bottom performer could still make more money.

How exactly is that pay for performance?

Dow Scott, PhD, compensation consultant and professor of human resources in the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University discusses this very topic in a recent article. According to Scott, these systems are outdated. (I absolutely agree!). He lists a number of reasons including the minimal range of the raises, supervisors rating employees similarly, and increases in salary that do not always align to business performance. His suggestion is base pay adjustments that are market driven. He further suggests that rewarding performance can still occur through other reward systems and these systems.

So how do you get there?

Scott provides a few thoughts on this as well. He suggests that you start with convincing managers and employees that merit pay is not the answer. I personally think this won’t be too difficult since most employees already realize this. Another suggestion is to replace it with short and long term incentives that are ties to performance goals. This is sometimes one of the most difficult, but it the definition of pay for performance. He also mentions how little resistance organizations will have with the new system. I couldn’t agree more. As mentioned before, employees already know the system doesn’t work.

What do you think?

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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Hotel Hacker Exposes E-Vulnerabilities

three-hackers-hacking-a-computer-system.

Modern technology creates crisis management risk

While our never-ending quest for modernization has simplified many common tasks, it’s also spawned a new breed of crises related specifically to vulnerabilities in technology. The most common involve computer hacking, either as straight out attacks or a means of professional or amateur espionage, but it’s easy to forget that much more than PC’s and laptops are run on processors and microchips these days.

Take your average hotel room for example. When’s the last time you used a physical key in your door? Now all of the locks are operated via electronic keycard, which makes it very easy for ownership to replace or recode for guests as needed. You might think this is even more secure system as well, no keys for nefarious types to copy and return with later, but check out this quote from a Forbes article by Andy Greenberg and see if you still feel the same way:

A trio of hackers have built a tool that appears to be an innocent dry erase marker, but when inserted into the port on the bottom of a common form of hotel room keycard lock triggers the lock’s open mechanism in a fraction of a second.

“I guess we wanted to show that this sort of attack can happen with a very small, concealable device,” says Matthew Jakubowski, one of the three hotel lock hackers and a security researcher with the consultancy Trustwave. “Someone using this could be searched and even then it wouldn’t be obvious that this isn’t just a pen.”

The device is literally encased inside the shell of an Expo dry erase marker, the same type found in just about any conference room, and its only tell is that instead of the standard tip under the cap, there is a metal connector.

Obviously, this has serious financial implications for the hotel industry, which is looking at having to replace or upgrade millions of locks. It also raises major reputation concerns. A break-in with this device would look no different than if a maid or other employee had simply entered the room and taken someone’s belongings, and even if it is caught by cameras, affected customers will blame the hotel as much or more than they do the thief for not keeping their establishment safe and secure.

E-vulnerabilities are a fact of business today, and often the fixes are going to cost. Our advice is to bite the bullet and pay to keep your business and your stakeholders protected, the up-front cost will not even scratch the surface of the expenses should you be found at fault in neglecting proper crisis management.

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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, 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]

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Hopelessly conflicted? – a dilemma

Business executive in office working on her computer

Rina has asked for your advice. She is a long standing director of a holding company for a large group of companies. The holding company Chairman, Quentin, has been a friend and mentor to her over many years.

Recently the holding company bought a stake in a small listed company and Rina was appointed to the board as Quentin’s nominee. She was aware that some of her co-directors believed that Quentin wanted to gain control of the company without paying a premium and worked hard to demonstrate her independent judgement so as to win their trust.

Robert, the CEO of the listed company is an outstanding individual with a commercial flair and detailed but quick grasp of the key issues facing his company. He is vitally important to the company’s success. Rina has often praised Robert in her talks with Quentin. Now Quentin has decided to offer Robert a position as CEO of one of the large wholly owned subsidiaries of the holding company with a clear indication that, if he performs well, he can become CEO of the holding company.

Rina is torn. She knows that she has a duty to the listed company that includes acting to retain key staff and protect the IP that exists within the management team; she has a duty to the shareholders of the holding company which would include ensuring that each subsidiary had the best management it could find, and she also feels beholden to Quentin, who has helped and advised her in her career thus far.

Quentin has asked Rina to urge Robert to accept his offer but she is not sure if that would be ethical and, indeed, feels partly responsible for bringing Robert to Quentin’s notice.

What should Rina do?

Many readers of this blog will be familiar with my newsletter The Director’s Dilemma. This newsletter features a real life case study with expert responses containing advice for the protagonist. Many readers of this blog are practicing experts and have valuable advice to offer so, again, we are posting an unpublished case study and inviting YOU to respond.

If you would like to publish your advice on this topic in a global company directors’ newsletter please respond to the dilemma above with approximately 250 words of advice for Rina. Back issues of the newsletter are available at http://www.mclellan.com.au/newsletter.html where you can check out the format and quality.

The newsletters will be compiled into a book. If your advice relates to a legal jurisdiction, the readers will be sophisticated enough to extract the underlying principles and seek detailed legal advice in their own jurisdiction. The first volume of newsletters is published and available at http://www.amazon.com/Dilemmas-Practical-Studies-Company-Directors/dp/1449921965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321912637&sr=8-1

What would you advise?

Julie Garland-McLellan has been internationally acclaimed as a leading expert on board governance. See her website atwww.mclellan.com.au or visit her author page athttp://www.amazon.com/Julie-Garland-McLellan/e/B003A3KPUO

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Using Graphics in Your Proposals (Part 1)

business team members working on graphics for business proposals

Don’t forget your proposal graphics! They can be, and usually are, important elements of persuasion. But too many grant proposals have poor graphics, too few graphics, or none at all.

Graphics are Important
Graphics are far more than entertaining diversions. We know, from considerable research on the subject, that good proposal graphics (appropriately integrated with the text) can help reviewers more easily understand what you are proposing.

The cliché, that a picture says a thousand words, is correct … for visual AND non-visual learners.

As Mike Parkinson and Colleen Jolly (of the 24 Hour Company) have pointed out, your graphics must be interesting enough to hold your reviewers’ attention and yet must be clear and simple enough to communicate your major points.

According to various studies, good graphics:
• Take 40 percent less time than text to explain complex ideas.
• Improve retention 38 percent.
• Communicate up to 60,000 times faster than text alone.
• Improve learning 200 percent.

Kinds of Graphics to use to help convey your major points:
   Bridge graphics are pictures of a metaphor that depicts the connection between actions, concepts, or entities. It can be used to show transitions, operational flow, and systems integration.
   Chain graphics depict linked sections, concepts, or entities by literally using chains to show the connection between different organizations or activities.
   Conveyor belt graphics are pictures of a repeatable linear process. It effectively shows forward movement as a series of steps.
   Dashboard graphics present multiple metrics in one consolidated picture. It presents a holistic view of related information.

To give you an idea … two commonly used graphics are the Light Bulb, for innovation, and the Lock, for security.

For Further Help, these web sites and books have many ideas for good proposal graphics:
   www.BizGraphicsOnDemand.com
   www.images.google.com
   www.visual-literacy.org
   Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2001)
   Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations (1998)
   Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information (1990)
   Michael T. Parkinson, Billion Dollar Graphics: 40 Powerful Ways to Show your Ideas (2006)

Good visuals help reviewers picture your text and good pictures promote improved comprehension and persuasion. Devise good icons, symbols, and pictures for your win themes and you will help reviewers better understand, and more easily accept, the essence of your grant proposal.
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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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Have you seen The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
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If you’re reading this on-line and 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. If you’ve received this posting as an email, click on the email link (above) to communicate with the author.

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Key to Productive Teams: Who are You Being?

A-woman-addressing-a-team-

I’m always inspired by Jeffrey Swartz, former CEO of Timberland Co. He understands that who you are being at work matters just as much as the activities that you do.

I’ve often pondered the interplay of Beings and Doing. Our work world puts waaaaaaay more emphasis on doing- being productive, keeping busy, meeting deadlines, accountability for performance. How many performance appraisals give weight to Who You Are Being at work? …..What gets rewarded gets repeated.

So why not reward who you are being that supports a positive workplace? Think of how many projects get derailed because people don’t get along or can’t stand each other! If managers and executives paid more attention to who staff are being , it would help teams be more productive.

Notice this week how much energy you give to what you do vs. who you are being.

  • Are you being kind?
  • Are you being gracious?
  • Are you being open-minded and open-hearted?

I love to share this story of how Jeffrey Swartz realized that who he was being as CEO of a Fortune 500 company was just as important as what he was doing.

Enjoy! Leave a comment below to let me know what you think of his moment of awakening.

Here’s a Special Bonus– This interview with Jeff shows his commitment to his faith and his belief that businesses play a vital role in social justice. He shares his views that engaged consumerism is the key to social change- “Interview with Jeffrey Swartz”

I am grateful for his commitment to corporate social responsibility and his understanding that work and spiritual life are interconnected.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Sign-up on Linda’s website- www.lindajferguson.com to receive other valuable tools for living and working with heart.

Click to buy Linda’s 10th Anniversary edition of “Path for Greatness: Work as Spiritual Service”.


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’Development’ And ‘Fundraising’ Are Not Synonymous

The following, provoked by questions to this blog, is a revision of a posting from April, 2010.

Development is the process of creating and enhancing relationships with (potential) donors … hopefully leading to the solicitation/acquisition of (contributed) income.

“Development” directly references the relationship between the donor and the nonprofit, and how that relationship satisfies the needs of both.

It is, ideally, the introduction of (prospective) donors to a nonprofit organization, building their interest in the organization’s mission/services, developing in them a passion for the mission and a commitment to the organization’s future, getting them to make-the-gift, and maintaining the relationship so that they will continue to support the mission … and continue to give.

Development may also have little-or-nothing to do with the NPO’s mission, and may focus primarily on the needs of the donor. If, for example, the (potential) donor has no interest in the organization, but wants/needs to see his/her name on (a wing of or the outside of) a building, the relationship that is built is designed to get the donor to want his/her name on your organization’s building.

Very often, a person may give because they want to please the person who is “asking,” or because they want to see their name listed alongside the names of recognizable personalities. That is fundraising, but not necessarily “development.”

“Fundraising” only addresses the “income generation” aspect of the process. It can include fee for services, product sales and so-called “fundraisers,” as well as the generation of contributed income not based on a relationship between the donor and the organization.

People give to satisfy their own needs. If the (relationship building) process results in having an individual want to give … feeling good about giving because his/her needs are being satisfied, and having that giving advance the organization’s mission and services, that’s a desired result of the development process.
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Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating or expanding your fundraising program? With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, I’ll be pleased to answer your questions. Contact me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com
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Have you seen The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
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If you’re reading this on-line and 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. If you’ve received this posting as an email, click on the email link (above) to communicate with the author.