Category Archives: Operations

What color are the glasses of your perception?

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Miriam-Webster defines perception as the way you think about someone or something; the way that you notice or understand something using one of your senses.  I have had several recent conversation related to perception and having been thinking how that plays into business relationships and context.  

The first was how you are perceived by others and whether you need to change some of those perceptions to move forward in life.  I was asked to come up with 3-5 perceptions that other people have about me.  I used “cold/unfriendly” as one of those perceptions.  In actuality, I’m cautious when getting to know people.  It takes me a little while to get used to new people and open up.  Once you get to know me, you find I’m willing to talk about anything and I will be incredibly loyal.  I can see how that can be perceived as cold or unfriendly.  Ultimately, I am aware of this perception, but have chosen that caution and loyalty in the beginning works well for me right now.

The second related to how different stakeholders perceived a project status.  Some felt that nothing had been done and interest was faltering by the new users.  While there had been some issues in the project implementation that caused some delays, the implementation had actually progressed and lots of work was being done to resolve the open issues.  While both sides had responsibility for the project state, the perception of the situations were very different.

Perception comes into play every day, in every personal or professional situation.  While you aren’t necessarily going to be able to change every perception, you do need to be conscious about how others are going to perceive a situation.  Each one will be tinted by their individuals experiences.  Keep in mind that all perceptions are rooted in grains of truth.  Use this to guide your responses and actions when there are differences in perceptions.

 

 

Do you Reward Ingenuity or Punish Bad Behavior?

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This post is inspired by an incident with my 11 year old daughter.  She took an alternate bus from school into a neighborhood that was not ours, and then walked to her friend’s house.  She had the wherewithal to take her cell phone to school (despite family rules against it) and inform me where she was.  Neither her friend nor his parents were at home.  My daughter was quite a surprise to her friend’s grandmother when she arrived home.  It just so happened that grandma had picked up her grandson early from school and heading to the house.  On a normal afternoon, nobody would have gotten home until much later.

When we were having our family meeting, it was an interesting quandary for us.  Do you reward the ingenuity of my daughter being able to bypass the order and rules of school dismissal, in order to navigate a bus system other than her own and then successfully make her way to her friends house in a neighborhood she does not know? Or do you punish her for going somewhere without permission and taking her cell phone to school when she was not supposed to?  Ultimately we decided just to remind her why we have rules and what could have happened her.  We discussed trust, and how you earn it or lose it based on your behavior.  We also took away her electronics for a short time, while she worked on proving her trustworthiness.

While I was sharing this story with fellow co-workers, I realized how applicable this scenario was in business.  As a manager and leader I strive for my team to find creative solutions and push the limits.  I want my team to feel comfortable making mistakes and learning from them.  It makes them better employees and helps them grow personally and professionally.  This does mean you can miss the learning opportunities. It is imperative for the organization and the team member to understand the expectations, and the challenges that the deviation caused.  You can do this by acknowledging and praising the good points, and redirecting the energy and focus to learning from the conflict.

 

What I learned on my run about working through tough situations

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We all have all been in situations where things aren’t going your way.  This could simply be a single thing that sets you off, but more often one becomes two becomes three.  When this occurs it’s very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Everything is shrouded in a veil of negativity with no end in sight.

During these times, it is important to find one grain of positivity.  It could be as simple as acknowledging the beautiful day outside, or buying yourself a bouquet of flowers, or snuggling in the corner with a hot cup of tea and a good book.  These grains of light produce the energy for the next one.

I had this epiphany the other day while I was on my run.  I’m not a runner, but sometimes when it’s been a tough week and I feel I need to push myself and get some exercise, I will run.  I don’t run races and generally prefer to run alone.  I can comfortably run between 2 and 5 miles, and at the end of the day, I know I can walk myself home.  My coping mechanism for making it through my runs involves looking for the next immediate milestone.  This is usually a tree, street sign, fence post, etc.  I always have enough energy to make it to that next marker and once you string lots of markers together, you make it home.

I’m convinced that I can apply this to those situations where I sense myself getting frustrated after multiple frustrating things have piled up.  I just need to find that one moment of sanity and comfort and convince myself that I can make it to the next one.  This challenge is short lived  and can be overcome, just as the next one can and the next one. Before I know it, I’ve pushed through to a better, stronger place.

Do you have Resources or Resourcing Problem?

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As we approached the end of 2013 I participated in numerous conversations around resources. Do we have enough to support existing business?  Do we have enough to support our sales pipeline?  These are very common conversations that happen in corporate america, regardless of organization size.  I would argue that in many cases, the challenge has more to do with resourcing rather than resources.

Contrary to what most of colleagues thought, I opined that we did not have a resources problem but rather a resourcing problem.  For the number of existing customers and existing work we should have enough people to do the work (resources).  I could provide numerous examples of resource availability.  Unfortunately the resources available did not have the skills required to fulfill the need (resourcing).

This yields an interesting predicament.  If you have smart people but have not given them the skills needed to provide value, whose failure is that?  Additionally, what is the cost of that person to the organization and the customers?  And what’s the fastest, most efficient way to resolve this?  Is it to provide training?  Is it to hire additional resources that have skills more aligned to what’s needed? Both of those come with additional costs and concerns.

I don’t think there is a simple answer.  I do challenge each of you as you are having those conversations about whether you need resources to look closely and figure out if it is truly a problem that can (and should be filled) by additional employees, versus training, role alignment or other steps to resolve resourcing issues.

Does long hiring processes drive better results?

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I have interacted with two companies in the last couple of months that have very distinct cultures.  This in itself isn’t unique, however their approach to hiring as a means to make sure they find the right people is much longer and more intensive that I’ve seen before.

The first is a game development company based on the west coast.  This company has an incredibly flat organizational structure and has an incredible pool of very talented software engineers working there.  They have a handful of senior managers and tech leaders, but it is individuals who drive how they want to lead.  It seems you excel by stepping up and offer to fill a gap, find a solution, rally the troops.  The team members I interacted with definitely play hard and work hard.  They work late, the play their own games and work on side projects to resolve real technology issues.

The second is a consulting company based on the east coast.  This company works with clients to solve really complex business problems.  They also hire very smart people and encourage them to find their path and expand into the role they want.  It was very bluntly stated that this company is a relationship company.  If you do not make a personal connection, you will never successfully get passed the systematic screening.  This applies for both jobs and business partnerships.

Both of these organizations have interesting hiring practices.  Recommendations from existing employees goes a long way to getting you in the door, but it is not the end of the process.  The gaming company has a 4-6 month interview and decision making process.  The consulting company has a 6-8 month interview and decision making process.  And this is for people who have established the connections and deemed worthy of an initial look.  Multiple phone and in person interviews occur.  I’m sure there are situational questions and aptitude tests that go along with this. The gaming company requires a unanimous vote from everyone that participated in the interview process.

This all seems a little bit crazy but I guess it is not, especially if it works.  Both companies believe strongly in their process. As I heard from the consulting company many people stay for extended periods of employment in a time where this becomes less common.  The gaming company is younger, but seems to have fairly little turnover among their ranks.

Should other companies follow the leads of these companies? I’m not sure.  I’ve always thought that hiring quickly and firing more quickly were better approaches. I wonder if that’s because my background tends to be with smaller companies where there is more immediate need versus luxury of forward-thinking?  Is there a certain culture or structure that this works best in?

Technology and the Job Search

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Today I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion on using social media to find a job.  I took a slightly different approach and wanted to highlight what is going on in the job market related to employment and skills from both a job seeker and recruiter awareness perspective.  Additionally, I wanted to provide some concrete tips to attendees on using technology to stand out, which could have immediate impact.  This post is my general commentary to go along with the slide deck (posted up on slideshare: Technology and the Job Search).

What’s wrong with the job economy?  It is a fact that the economy is growing very slowly, which means people are getting jobs slowly and the unemployment rate is stagnating.  It is also a fact that this breeds frustration.  We see and hear this constantly, from friends or associates who are actively searching.  Yet we also hear from companies who insist that they cannot find qualified candidates. Something has to be able to explain it.  Is it:

  • Unreasonable expectations?

There is an abundance of information easily available today.  Jobs are posted online and off.  Have we made it so easy to find and apply for jobs that we no longer spend the time to find the right opportunities?  In “Why you Keep Applying for the Wrong Jobs”, Vivian Giang wrote “Job Seekers spend an average of 49.7 seconds deciding that a job isn’t right for them, and an average of 76.7 seconds if they feel the posting matches their interest and skills.  They were only able to identify good fits at a rate of 38%.”  This might help account for why hundreds of resumes are being submitted for each job and why you might not have gotten that call back. 

This is not to say that job seekers maintain all the fault here.  Job titles vary wildly and job descriptions can be quite cumbersome and difficult to discern what you will actually need to do. Furthermore, recruiters are making decisions even more rapidly.  They are only spending 6-7 seconds on resumes or online profiles (Weber).  70% have passed on candidates because of what they find online (Hopkins 06/18/13).

  • Fictional jobs?

After seeing the same job posted on 3 different job boards, linkedin, twitter and the company site for months, you start to think that these jobs do not really exist.  This is especially true in DC, where so many companies are government contractors.  You start believing that this were listed to solely collect resumes or meet government requirements.  I suspect some of that is true.  But, I also suspect that the jobs exist and in many cases, are being filled.  They are just being filled by internal transitions or lateral job moves. According to Lou Adler (“Hire Economics” 6/12/13), 45% of jobs are being filled by networking and an additional 10% by internal moves.  My experience tells me jobs are out there.  The challenge is finding the right job through the right person, at the right time.  80% of jobs are found through networking (Hopkinson 6/18/13).

  • Skills gaps?

While I do think parts of the country suffer incredibly from the skills gap, as a whole I believe there are people who have the skills to fill open jobs.  This gets complicated by many of the issues raised above.

How should technology play into your job search?

This is the fundamental question.  Technology is a tool, that if used correctly, can help you.  The opposite is true as well – If you use technology incorrectly, it will hinder you and in some case severely hurt you.

  • Research

We have a wealth of information at our finger tips.  Corporate websites give you a wealth of information about what companies do, but sites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor and others provides you that endorsement of the organization by others.  You should be heavily relying on your network, through LInkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date on industry and organization changes.  These are great ways to figure out where organizations are going to be available for those one-on-one interactions (job fairs, forums, open houses, etc). 

You may also want to come at this from the opposite angle as well.  Look to your network for feedback and commentary about organizations they are interacting.  You may find an interest somewhere outside the scope of where you might be inclined to look.

  • Cultivate your online presence

Your online presence is an extension of you.  It is what people can find after interacting with you.  This could have been as a result of a meeting, hearing you ask a question at an event, an interview, your resume, etc.  This is your opportunity to influence your network and showcase your skills and expertise.  Do this as much or as little as you want.  Start by figuring out how you want to present yourself.  Make sure it aligns with your skills, but plan for the opportunity you want, not your position today.

Next figure out how much you want to invest.  It is time consuming to manage your social presence. The more you participate across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc the more difficult it becomes.  I have made a personal decision that LinkedIn is where I share industry information related to what I am specifically doing and management or business articles that I think my network would find interesting.  I have joined groups related to my current or former professional experience  (i.e. consumer product goods, alumni groups, technology, innovation) as well as my external interests (i.e. my association to Women in Technology “WIT” and role as Co-Chair of Workforce Development as it relates to job groups).  I am also on Twitter, but I use that to primarily share my interests of women & girls in technology, and startups.  In both, I highlight upcoming events mostly related to WIT.  These are things that interest me as a professional, but are not what I am looking to showcase as my primary focus.  I’m first a technology & operations executive who is interested in issues impacting women & girls and startups.

The most important thing you can do is google yourself.  See what comes up!  Hopefully it will be you and it will be something positive.  One simple thing you can do to improve these results is to make sure you are customizing everything.  Take advantage of LinkedIn’s custom URL instead of the random alpha-numeric assignment.  Use your name in your email domain, blog, and social media sites. 

  • Tag cloud generators

This is my geeky tip for the day, and one of the best pieces of advice I have seen.  If you google “tag cloud generator” you will find all these free web apps that will allow you to plug in content and it will give you a visual representation of words in the content, highlighting the most frequently used words as compared to the least frequent.  This will allow you to look at a single job description and figure out what the “right” key words are, in order to customize your resume and improve your probability of being looked.  I can also see this as a means of looking at several different job descriptions for the same general position and figuring out how to position yourself – what skills do you highlight; what topics do you focus your time on to showcase your expertise.

The bottom line

At the end of the day, technology is merely a tool to help you.  It will not solve all your problems.  It can enhance your position, showcase your expertise and keep your skills fresh on your network’s mind.  According to Lou Adler (“Hire Economics” 6/12/13), you should “spend 20% of the time responding to job postings by going through the back door rather than applying through the front, another 20% ensuring your resume and LinkedIn profile are easy to find and worth reading, and the remaining 60% networking to find jobs in the hidden market.”

Please remember to respect yourself and your network.  Don’t tell me what you had for breakfast or the big party you threw last weekend.  Provide me with valuable information and insights.  Initiate contact with new people you meet but make sure to give them a point of reference and guidance on why you want to connect.  You should extend this same thoughtfulness around those who ask you to connect.  Do not just accept everyone.  Associate yourself with people you want to be associated with.

 

 

“I love to learn.”

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I recently spoke with someone who told me they loved learning.  Not only is this a sentiment I share, but I also had just recently read an article that stated that asking about books that people recently read is a great way to learn a significant amount from that person.  I was interested in pursuing the conversation, so asked how the person preferred to learn, and gave some “gimme” prompts in there like books, user groups, forums, hands on, etc.  The person I was speaking too said that they did not read books and only learned hands on.  I was rather disappointed by the remainder of the conversation and I lost interest.  I think that it was the combination of having to balance what was said versus demonstrated.

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer hands on, one-on-one discussions on complicated subjects.  This helps me understand and dive deep into the subject matter.  I was most bothered by the fact that everyone I know who really loves to learn will take learning in any and all capacities they can.  This includes trade publications, online forums, newsletters, books, conferences, user groups, etc.  All of these have a place in the learning process, no matter how simple or complex a subject you are pursuing.  I felt as though the person I was talking to was using a catch phrase about loving to learn generically, but when put to the test to follow through, did not do it.

Would it have been different if the person had said that their preferred method to learn was hands on, but reads something else for other value (even if it was as simple as reading fiction to relax and unwind so their brain can rejuvenate)?  I think it would have to me.  Even those people I know who dabble in hands on experimentation (software programming, cooking, etc) use reference material (online, offline, tv, magazines) so they are not recreating the wheel, and also getting a broader view.  By limiting yourself to one, you lose out on a lot of perspective.

 

When the best option is no reaction!

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I recently found myself in a situation where I felt I had acted in the best interest of a group, but received criticism because a few did not feel as if they were properly informed and did not give permission.  It was a little bit baffling as the specific thing was something I had been asked to do.  I had actually taken the initially idea and expanded it to apply to all parts of the organization, rather than just 1 or 2.  As I went down the path of explaining my decision, first as simply as stating who made the original request to diving into more detail about the progression of the conversation, I saw that it could very easily go down the path of finger pointing and justification.  I chose not to follow the path.

I realized as I was reading the longer, more elaborate explanations for why I was “out of line” that I was getting frustrated with the email strings.  At that moment I chose to step back and not respond. While I did feel that the people who were involved in the initial conversations should have stepped up and participated in the conversation given that they were there to support both parties.  That did not happen.  However, I did use that time to take a step back and think about the situation.  I realized that the best course of action was just not to respond.  The other party’s piece was said and I had responded with all I had to give, which was really what my intent had been all along.

I had never before interacted with the person who engaged me in this conversation.  I do not know if she was having a bad day. I do not understand the pressures of her position in the group or even if this was a first grievance of this nature or if I was just the last straw of frustration. There was nothing gained by me to continue the conversation.  I could only deliver on what I had set out to deliver.  So I walked away.

But I’m not in sales..

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I’m sure you hear it a lot. “I’m not in sales. I do customer service, IT, operations, HR, etc.”  At the end of the day everyone is in sales.  But I didn’t always understand what that meant.  Are we still holding grudges against the used car salesmen of old or is it the telemarketers who disturb our dinners?  I have come to view sales as the ability to speak authentically about something you believe in.

Each and everyone of us exists to solve someone else’s problem.  It might be as simple as giving a status on an order, or resolving a customer complaint to as complicated as designing or developing a complex product or service.  You still have a customer you are serving and you still desire to do the best job you can (or I hope you do).  Every one of these interactions are a “sale.”  You are talking through a problem and identifying tangible steps to take to resolve it with the best time and resources you have available.

I credit my time at Soundpath for this enlightenment.  This was a business, created by lawyers to service law firms.  The founder knew her market and the pain that conferencing and conference call billing caused for these firms.  Prior to establishing the business she reached out to her connections and asked about their pain points.  Her vision was always to create a business that took the inconveniences of implementation, training and billing away from the law firm administrators.  Sometimes this meant that we had to admit we made a mistake and work with the client to resolve the issue, and rebuild that trust.

The first iteration of what ultimately became our customer portal was simple but not particularly pretty.  But it solved an immediate pain.  We continued to work with law firms and their billing vendors to understand their systems and design our products to better serve our clients.  I can say by the end of it, every feature of that application was attributed to a specific pain of our customers. I know this because they told it to me and my team.  There was a time that I could name the IT administrator would raised the inquiry and led us down the path of finding a solution. I have been away from it for several years and can still recall a few.  How many can say your product was built 100% based on customer feedback?

We layered products and services over core data and processes to solve immediate needs.  I could comfortably and with confidence speak about our what our company had to offer. I had established the relationships to take new ideas to our customers and ask for their input. They valued my opinions and asked for best practices.  To me this is sales.

The On-Demand Workforce

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It is true that there is some critical mass at which real problems get solved.  The evolution of causes has proven this.  I find that the constant chatter and conversations about women on boards, women in technology, women in STEM jobs, women in senior positions are all good.  The more we talk about, the more it is seen as a critical issue and the more ideas batted around will result in long term solutions.  While some might argue that some conversations are healthier or more positive than others, even the extreme points of view can drive further conversation and creative thinking around the problem.

One of the more interesting commentary I found has come from Jody Greenstone Miller, Founder of Business Talent group.  She has been promoting her viewpoint that time is the real issue for women.  She promotes moving away from quantity as a deciding factor in “A Team” designation, as well as a critical factor in project workload.  Once you remove minimum time as a requirement for professional or project success, you must think about and plan work accordingly.  This is not to say that professionals would not be available outside the defined times.  It is the requirement of time that is removed.  Ultimately, jobs must be designed around how much someone is willing to work, with a structure so that the job or project can get done in that allotted time while still helping those individuals meet their professional goals.  Ms. Miller has validated her approach in her business model.  She works with top talent to define their constraints and find work that matches their skills and limits.

I’m living this approach right now.  I’m choosing my projects and setting my goals on my terms as a consultant.  I provide my expertise in technology operations, process and project management to a small company that needs those skill sets.  The number of hours I work shift depending on the shift in workload at the company and the lifeload of stuff that happens outside of work.  I make myself more available when my family is at work and school, and less available when they are home.  This does not mean everything ceases.  I will still take calls, and periodically scan and respond to emails, but I’m not sitting in front of my computer actively acting on my task list. I add value to the organization for which I’m consulting.

Wingham Rowan, Founder of Slivers-of-Time, spoke about this new type of job market at a TedSalon Talk in November 2012. His premise is that employers can absolutely use a pool of extremely flexible, talented, skills workers.  While his focus leans toward service oriented businesses, however I think the premise can be expanded to our entire economy.  Business fluctuates and it would be beneficial for organizations to have access to talented, skilled employees to fulfill projects and processes.  The ability to have access to this pool of people on relatively short notice would be incredibly beneficial.  This would allow businesses to stay lean and enhance skills and talents as needed.  This model is being supported by services like Guru and oDesk (I’m sure there are several others, but these are the ones that come to mind).

At the end of the day, does it really matter how or when you complete tasks or accomplish your goals?  It does require that the expectations are clear and goals are aligned.  It’s all about the on-demand workforce to support the on-demand economy.