I Share, Therefore I Work

One of my staff made an off-hand remark to me, "No one knows what you've been doing lately." After I got over the initial shock of the message, I immediately suppressed my inner voice that was saying, I don't know what you've been doing either. I've heard that part of leadership is putting a good filter on that inner voice.

But more importantly, I started to explore this troubling statement more deeply as a symptom of a more fundamental, pervasive problem.

From the situation, I deduced the following:

1. My staff member doesn't know what I'm doing. (This is a euphemism, because another way to say this is that my staff member doesn't think I'm working.)
2. This is likely because my staff member has not seen or heard of any productive activity that can be attributed to me.
3. Obviously (or perhaps not so obviously), I have been working.
4. So, why doesn't my staff member know that I've been working? Simple: I haven't updated him.

You may jump to the easy and reasonable question, "So, why haven't you updated him?" My excuses would be equally easy and reasonable:

• I manage 10 staff, including 4 direct reports, overseeing quality control of our products and support of personal and enterprise technology in the workplace
• I manage a CRM implementation project with 10 team members having a May 13 deadline
• I manage an online admissions application project with 7 team members having an April 30 deadline
• I manage a customer and partner single sign-on project with 2 team members, institutional partners and outside consultants having a June 30 deadline
• I manage countless unmet needs and high expectations coming from all departments, including my own
• I am trying to hire additional staff on a tight budget to take on vast responsibilities
• Blah, blah, blah...
• In short: I have no time.

Well, now... How very self-centered of me, to say that "I have no time." Do others have more time? Probably not. What's so special about me that makes my lack of time so significant? Nothing. And if I am already time strapped, what the hell am I doing writing a blog post complaining about not having any time? Because I'm supposed to be a leader who solves departmental and organizational problems, and right now I believe we have a big problem that I am partially addressing with this post.

And that problem is inefficiency. How much time do my staff waste complaining among themselves that I'm not doing anything? How much time do my staff waste by going down one path only to find out later that I am heading in a different direction? How much productivity is lost because my staff feel lost and suffer from low morale? I don't know the magnitude, but my gut says I'd probably pop a vein if I saw the numbers.

I believe that great work comes from happy staff, and if their happiness and productivity depend on knowing what I'm doing, where I'm going and why, then I must prioritize the communication about my work, even above completion of the work itself.

Communication leads to coordination. Coordination leads to responsiveness. Responsiveness leads to adaptability. Adaptability leads to a competitive advantage that will help us not only to operate but to grow, transform and even persevere in a challenging economy and an unsettled industry.

And in a modern Web 2.0 environment that demands efficiency in all processes, including communication, meeting synchronously with each staff member or even with all my direct reports at once is simply not sustainable. The channel is too narrow, time consuming and logistically difficult to setup due to its synchronicity. But thankfully, we have an alternative channel that has completely opposite characteristics: Salesforce Chatter.

Chatter is broad, allowing me to potentially reach everyone with every post and comment. Chatter is fast because I'm typing and my audience is reading, compared to me speaking and them listening. And Chatter is easy because I can share my thoughts immediately, asynchronously without having to pull people together to gather at a specific location at a specific time.

So, I need to communicate broadly and frequently to keep my staff happy, coordinated and productive, then I believe I need to share, post and comment more on Chatter. This activity is no longer optional; it's a matter of the organization's strength and long-term survival.

You've probably heard, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" How about: If a man operates in an office and no one knows about it, did he actually work? What was the real, net value of what the man did? And who gives a Mars bar about it?

Impertio Ergo Operor. I share, therefore I work.

How to Lose Weight and Change the World

"Happy New Year!" Between saying it and hearing it said, the phrase must've popped into my life over a hundred times in the past 24 hours. Yes, it's a new year. But while I sincerely wish my family, friends and colleagues the best possible start to the next 365 days, at the same time a question starts forming in the back of my mind: What will it take for me to have a "happy" 2013?

Perhaps the answer starts with identifying what left me less than happy in 2012. A pretty simple task, considering 2012 was by and large a very positive year. So, what left me wishing for different outcomes?

Off the top of my head, I think of two tangentially related challenges: Mastering all the responsibilities in a new job position, and weight management. Without going into all of the details, the gist of the matters are that I still have personal skill gaps to bridge in my new position, and I now have many more pounds of excess flesh to shed in order to return to a healthy weight.

Without anything obvious between them, I'd like to offer two connections shared by the two items above: First, both are roadblocks in my personal mission to build a more harmonious world. Second, and perhaps more significantly, both challenges are rooted in habits that could use revisions.

I look at the challenges I face at work and the weigh control challenge I face at home, and it seems to me that one thing is clear: If I want to tackle and overcome more complex problems at work and in the world where I don't have direct control, I should start by proving that I can completely own a process over which I should have full control: maintaining a healthy weight.

In contemplating the weight problem (and by extension the larger problems), I think back to one of the books I added to my favorites list in 2012 was The Philosopher's Diet by Richard Watson. Watson offers a simple idea: Losing weight and keeping it off is one of the most difficult projects a human being can undertake. And if one can achieve consistent weight control, one can achieve anything. So, if I want to succeed at work, one way I can seal that deal is to succeed at reaching my target weight and staying there.

Another book I'm reading, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, suggests that habits can be generalized into having three components: a cue, a routine and a reward. In this sense, I know there are at least a few habits that are hurting me continuously. Thankfully, Duhigg seems to be empowering me by asserting that everyone has the power to change components of those habits to produce completely different results, ones that are desirable and exceptional. Duhigg believes in the power of self, and that's a comforting reminder to people who feel that much of their lives are outside of their direct influence.

And finally, hearing Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" on the radio gave me added conviction to tackle everything systematically in the new year, following this chain of thought: improve my physical self, then raise my work performance, then advance my larger mission. Each success lays the foundation for the next success. "I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. ... If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change."

So, at the moment I find myself and everyone else in a new year filled with many new challenges to come. And with the new challenges I believe there are at least as many new opportunities to match. Then, to welcome the new year, I'd like to make a toast to stronger economies and communities in 2013, starting with a focus on improving what we ought to hold in complete control: ourselves, and specifically our weights. Cheers!

Align email rules with Chatter to maximize ROI

At work, I face many regular communication challenges: some daunting, others frustrating, and still more that are just annoying.  In broad categories, some general pain points are:

• "Who has knowledge about __?"
• "Who can answer this question, __?"
• "How do I communicate this news: __?"
• "How can I tap into the collective intelligence of the organization for __?"
• "How do I work remotely with __ to accomplish __?"
• "Why am I answering the same question a second (or third, or fourth, ...) time?"

If you look at Salesforce's pitch for "Why Chatter?" you will see answers and solutions to many of these questions and problems.  And Chatter's promise of higher productivity is clearly communicated, with fewer meetings and email reduction presented as the first two benefits.  These are the promised ROI's from using Chatter.

But after reading about topics such as, "Is Email Dead?" and the ambitious Zero Email plan from visionary CEO Thierry Breton, I am beginning to believe that I can do more to lead the way toward email reduction and, if I dare to dream like Thierry Breton, internal email elimination.  If Chatter can take the place of internal email, then I believe we will be close to maximizing ROI from institutional adoption of this new communication tool.

To that end, I suddenly realized a way to align my own technology with the adoption of Chatter and elimination of email:  Create an email rule that will "hide" all non-Chatter emails by moving them into somewhere, anywhere, that's not my inbox.  As a result, the "move non-Chatter to email folder" rule was created.

The idea is simple.  In the short term, I anticipate that internal emails will be reduced and that Chatter will become the preferred method of internal communications.  So, raising visibility of Chatter activity and lowering visibility of non-Chatter are natural ways of not only preparing for the future but also accelerating our transition toward it.  If I always see Chatter first when I open Outlook, then I would be subconsciously cued and trained to use Chatter as my primary communication tool, right?

Some of my colleagues have already formed an ambitious group to tackle the challenge of defining communication protocols for Chatter.  Should the "move non-Chatter" rule be included as part of the protocol for handling Chatter?  I think it's time to convene the jury.

What do you think?  Will this rule help an organization achieve the promised ROI from adopting a social communication platform?

Worktime Expectations of an Ideal Employee

How does an ideal employee spend his or her time?  This is a question that I have to think about more deeply as I'm contemplating my own job responsibilities and those of others around me.

I suppose it helps to first define what "ideal" is, and of course, as with the definition of many buzzword terms, the answer is:  It depends.  Specifically, "ideal" depends on the mission and values of an organization.  What's more interesting is when you throw in another buzzword value that every organization wants: innovation.  How often have you heard that an organization wants to be innovative?  Most of us have heard leaders say, "We must innovate, because the alternative is to be left in the dust."

Coincidentally (and fortunately for me), innovation is being championed at Granite State College.  But just saying that we value innovation is not going to make it happen.  We have to first know ourselves what it means to be innovative and then to be able to teach others how to do the same.

In order for continuous innovation to occur, it must be built into our culture.  And in order for it to be built into our culture, we have to recognize that innovation and the continuous improvement driven by innovation needs to be adopted as every individual's responsibility.  To that end, I propose the following distribution of time for an ideal employee.

During normal work hours over the course a fiscal year, the ideal employee spends his or her time on the following activities:

• Running the trains: 60%
• Self-reflection: 2.5%
• Directed learning; structured training: 5%
• Innovation; self-directed with approval from manager: 20%
• Giving and receiving feedback up, down and across: 5%
• Engage larger external community of professionals: 5%
• Engage customers: 2.5%

In addition, I believe that a truly engaged and happy employee will spend further time above and beyond the scheduled work hours (perhaps during breakfast, lunch, dinner, nights and/or weekends) to:

• Connect more personally with colleagues
• Take advantage of employee benefits such as tuition waivers

I feel fairly strongly that this worktime configuration will work for individual contributors, but I am not sure how well it applies to managers and leaders.  However, one thing is certain to me:  Innovation is the key to sustainable growth.