A call for creativity... or not?

I am truly fascinated by the latest trends - perhaps call them hypes - about creative thinking, agile management and the like, which are highlighted, promoted and professed by top leaders and managers; albeit that a manager is not necessarily a leader and vice versa, but that aside.

Personally, I do profoundly believe in the fact that creativity is the only tool to increase your chance of survival. Mostly in dire needs, people often become more and more creative, which opens another question, why have we lost so much creativity.

Recently, a Dutch celebrity artist Youp van 't Hek, utterly frustrated by the incompetence - or be it the disinterest - of a mobile phone provider staff to help a customer, despite all acknowledgement that it was indeed their fault, nevertheless no solution was provided. The customer happened to be Mr van 't Hek's son, and when trying to intervene, unsuccessfully trying to contact eventually the managers above, the result was the same zero point zero. 

Upon being able to mobilise similar victims through Twitter - and the number was beyond any one's expectation - the big boss finally personally called the celebrity, fully apologising and accepting full responsibility. In other words, the lack of creativity ("the system does not allow this") has finally exposed the arrogance towards customers. And customers are, as we all know very well, the most important part of your business.

The ramification is not to be underestimated; for the sake of profits, much of the creativity is being squeezed out. When applying for a job, one must fit into a certain template, else one is not making it to the short list, resulting in a standard "thank you very much for your interest, but we have filled the position with a more suitable candidate".

True leaders do understand the need for creativity; it is unfortunately the majority of overly specialised managers, who seem not fully understanding the scope of this message. A recent experienced only highlighted this; where a finance person negatively communicated irrelevant information, resulting in a loss of talented candidates, which the company urgently needed, since they coped with a serious issue. The reason; unjustified and unverified bias.

Creativity in business is undergoing an unfortunate erosion; While being used as a fashionable hit, at the same time it is underlying bad interpretations, bad communication conventions, and poor true management skills.

Time to re-think what creativity really means, and if all candidates should be creative, why letting fairly inexperienced and incompetent HR assistants select experienced senior staff in the first place? Curbing creative and experienced people is going to damage your business in the long run. Many of my clients have finally admitted this mistake. Though, these are the few exceptions.

IT Nostalgia

Not only do we read various articles on IT solutions to keep informed on the latest development; cloud computing, handy tools to accommodate our complex project management projects - we simply function because of our hard- and software.

While typing this article on my cute and compact netbook, I often remember my first computer ever; an acorn electron, bought around 1985 I guess, that needed to be connected to a portable TV and a casette player. In order to load a programme, one needed to be patient for about 5 minutes, while the casette with the software in BASIC was slowly loaded. Every time again. By that time, there were portable wordprocessors (the size and weight of a small suitcase), but this was the first affordable home gadget. Just have a look:

The first PC followed a few years later - with a hard-disk of.... drum roll....... 20 MB! (Guess the RAM was 64 kB). Compared to our present day toys, now subject to much laughter.

But when we imagine what we are used to now, we've gone a long way. Even to the point, ... what happens when your internet connection is down, your laptop doesn't want to boot properly, you lost your excel sheet....

Just to add a bit of nostalgia to the cucumber season ;-)

Customers and Communication

A few days ago, I wrote an article on some observations how it feels being a restaurant visitor. Not that it was from a culinary point of view, but describing patterns how staff was dealing with customers - including myself. It is not my intention to repeat summing up deficiencies in the service - ignoring guests, poor communication, minimal willingness. The feeling, in short, was far from positive. 

What does this have to do with management if it is not a kind of Michelin restaurant guide? Well, the subject is not too far remote, as any business is constantly dealing with clients in its every day performance. The same way, as I can feel frustrated because the waiter/waitress gives me a look as if I am disrupting his/her peace or waiting in vain to get another order, a customer can feel in the event a company does not adequately respond to the customer needs. 

Moreover, I stumbled over another interesting article "People Prefer Incompetence to Rudeness". It illustrates a similar angle on the issue, how you are treated as a customer. The bottom line is, that basically customers like to have a pleasant feeling when dealing with a provider - even in the event, when the requested service or goods cannot be delivered. Better than getting what you want wrapped in rudeness.

It is therefore necessary to keep in mind when you offer services, not to hide behind SOPs or excuses of "too many mails" or blaming a sick colleague; moreover, if the excuse is in fact inexcusable being therefore a blunt lie. That's not what a customer wants to hear. Not providing the proper feedback - or in other words; not fulfilling your promise or expected response - is a big sin in communication. And radiating this image will in the end damage your reputation of the business.

Therefore, put communication high on your priority list. When promising to get back - even if the solution is not (yet) at hand - do get back. Not only is it polite, it is the customer's right - i.e. your obligation.

Change Management...

Not only have I contributed to change management, also at many occasions I had the chance to exchange experiences with fellow managers. You probably know the standard change stories; where staff gets uneasy - up to even hositle - against the announced changes and the process seems like a dragging agonising suffering towards a 'forcefully ' imposed result.

If this is indeed the case, then obviously something has been applied the wrong way. Many mechanisms in every day business life are subject to a real time response requirement: If you see your stocks plummet on the market, you are expected to get rid of them as soon as possible, else you face a big loss - unless you are a gambler-type, relying on a full bounce-back. Or if demand is high and commodity scarce we know that prices go up... 

Yet in other areas, which should equally respond more dynamically to market changes, this assumption seems almost non existent. Only after a decade or so, a department realises, it is applying inefficient or over outdated processes. Why does management - and it happens often enough - underestimate needs for changes, such that when it becomes unbearable a thorough turnaround becomes imperative - and is unnecessarily adding up to the distress?

Understanding, that e.g. on the technology side, one is to a degree limited by a status of hardware implementation for a set life-span. Nevertheless, many changes are a sign of reacting too late.

Businesses should understand that a business process or a philosophy may be just a temporary desirable state, needing adjustment the moment the external factors shift. Darwin's theory would also easlily apply here; not the strongest survives, but the fittest - the one, who knows immediately to react adequately to a change. Keeping this in mind as one of the business objectives can prevent much pain and agony from costly and too complex change management exercises. Better to regularly visit your doctor and take his advice to heart, rather than waiting too long, where perhaps in the worst case even the doctor would no longer be able to help the patient. 

Workable partnerships

As an interim manager, one has the opportunity to see and compare a number of clients - either simultaneously or at least within relatively short time-intervals. It provides a person with many valuable insights and experiences on how management ticks; different styles in different situations, for different branches of industries, and the like. No schoolbook is able to provide such a rich baggage to a professional.

When getting better acquainted with a new business, one always discovers the overall functioning of the place. In fact, the role of the interim manager implies that (s)he blends in as smoothly as can be - and not only with regard to the designated portfolio. The (short-term) duties and responsibilities require a very pragmatic but most of all a very critical point of view, which should avoid falling into hidden trap that could lead to a grave problem.

The expectation nowadays in general is that candidates are team-players, and taken from experience, this is usually dangerously misinterpreted as a jolly get-along-well conformist attitude. It reminds me sometimes of a teen-age couple, who fully infatuated dream of days of wine and roses. When two business partners get together, like in private life, one should be equally accepting the fact, that even the most "beloved" partner will have a flaw, and maybe especially the apparently less ideal types will turn out to be the most loyal and contributing most to the business. 

In real life, businesses will always have weak links, and this is a reality, which we all need to accept. These weaknesses, are not exclusive for any level; they do occur even at the top. Therefore, assuming that the 'perfect' stereotype profile exists in a candidate; when looking around, I sometimes wonder about the congruency of a company's expectation and the existing culture inside. And yet, this rich variety of profiles is more efficient in the long run than the opposite, as it makes the business more flexible and able to yield external threats. Yet, why do so many managers require the latter instead? Though I know the answer, I leave it as a purely rhetorical question for now.

Understanding (and accepting!) each other's position, input and skills is very important. A team member (down or up), not getting sufficient room - to expand either skills or talents - will soon become a drop-out risk, which is always a drain for the company. Business only succeeds, when both company and a team-member/candidate find a workable partnership A workable partnership is based on mutual acceptance, and especially accepting the enriching variety. Sadly enough, we focus too much on too many irrelevant details, and are no longer able to see the overall strategic objective. Learning to re-gain this ability is the only way towards a win-win situation. And believe me; happy people make happy bosses.

A false Sumo comfort - a failing HR in time of crisis

In the past few weeks, I have had many interesting discussions with several headhunters, HR managers and top management consultants. It could be perhaps sheer coincidence, but when discussing certain trends within the HR area and comparing these to the ideal world, all of them were in a strikingly similar agreement. One would say "well of course, as professionals they should be since certain matters depend on basic common sense". I could agree, were it not, that what they identified as being preferable, is - generally speaking - exactly the complete opposite of what is happening in today's HR.

Despite the fact, that we can find many indeed very useful articles and discussions on the internet, which sufficiently highlight certain pitfalls, hiring processes and managing staff development seems to be rather an area, which seemingly hardly any business fully understands. An astonishing paradox. But a paradox, which is not merely a philosophical chat around dinner table, but can potentially be of danger to your business, and therefore shoudl not be underestimated.

The current level of most (please note, I say "most" since there are some exceptions fortunately) HR processes is conducted by people, who do not have the necessary predisposition to control this. Not just that a junior HR assistant is doing an intake interview, just following a standard check-list, but the senior level hardly being concerned about development and having a feel for the feedback of staff. A check-list, no matter how well assembled by experienced people, is hardly a guarantee that the interview's outcome is indeed reflecting a correct image of the candidate. Is this to be blamed on the junior assistant? No, it's the management's responsibility. 

Management, on the other hand, seem to be over-indulged in either reporting and/or trying to blindly comply with the directives from above, mostly without any true responsibility of strategic ownership of the problem. Do you really believe, they will report failures as openly as you would wish? 

There is generally a false sense of security among businesses, believing that once a process is set, it is therefore functioning properly. Like a Sumo wrestler - the heavier he is, the most likely he will win. Not quite. For real Sumo experts will tell you, that even a lighter opponent, provided he has the agility, technique and a good sense of timing, is able to floor the heavier opponent - sometimes within seconds. 

When browsing through all possible HR related sites, it is striking, that most articles are about how the candidate should dress, how to answer, how to interpret the candidates non-verbal langauage, how a "professional CV" should look like, and so on. It is a bit alarming, that we focus so much on the candidate's presentation and hardly question the skills of our HR people: why is a capable and motivated candidate rejected? One can always find a list of reasons, but businesses should also be aware of many missed chances by rejecting the right people, who could have had contributed far beyond the companies expectations. Instead, they prefer to wait for another couple of months without a vacancy being filled. 

Recently, I came across a company, which was desperately looking for a person (on a strategical position). The company was not able to define precisely what they expected from the candidate, and perhaps half of the town's population went for an interview, with no success.

A poorly equipped HR, where people only carry out standard operating procedures (an in the long run become catastrophic for your company. Talking about the crisis is a lame excuse - especially now companies shoudl take heed and brace themselves. Without having properly competent, skilled and flexible staff, even the best leader/manager is worth nothing. Your staff and only your staff is your biggest asset - not an expense. Understanding their needs is essential.

Coincidentally, an interesting article appeared this week the Dutch media, where it clearly stated; businesses that are not listening to their employees are facing more problems. Management is not about making profits or sticking to forecasts. Forecasts should adequately be adjusted to the circumstances. Remember, it's not the dinosaurs that survived - rather the tiny mammals, who finally took over. See to it, you get really added value to your company and utilise the know-how. Not an obsolete abdstract inefficient rusty bureaucratic process. Please, show me more vision and good leadership.

If we are social beings, then why...

We have all learned that human beings demonstrate social behaviour; we interact, communicate and unlike our co-inhabitants of the earth, we have the ability not only express immediate hunger, fear or happiness, we can relate abstract thoughts as well. Since the emergence of internet the world has become a small place. While the beginning of our on-line activities was fairly limited, nowadays we have - not surprisingly - social platforms; where we can interact with people we have in reality never met, yet the interaction is direct enough, though virtual.

In school we are being encouraged to give well founded presentations, to give input in order to improve the strength of the group (team) and social networks and blogs have provided a provoking tool to express our thoughts. Seems to be a wonderful world. Until you enter world of professionals...

In many encounters with HR, I have noticed an alarming trend, where companies seem to have lost touch with human beings; respectively their workforce. When I come to a job interview, I must be able to recite correctly answers (many times to predictable standard questions). One flaw, and I will be labelled insecure. When interviewed, I am expected to dress a certain way, sit a certain way, gesture a certain way, answer a certain way, and so on. In short - the candidate must become a uniform mass produced servile product, which easily fits into the categories.

Recently, I have encountered a company, despite the fact that they were desperately in search of a certain candidate, they have rejected half the city population, but not being able to indicate their exact requirements. 95% of the candidates were perfectly fit for the job, yet for misty reasons, the HR person was not capable to make a choice (in the meantime, the vacancy was not filled, and logically this is not advantageous to the operational ability of the company... ). 

One cannot be but profoundly amazed and wonder, what is it that companies are indeed looking for? Merely cheap workforce, without the slightest imagination, submissive enough to be moulded according to the company's mindset? Then where is the potential strength that we are so encouraged during our education years?

Perhaps the market is still bad(ish) but there will come a point, where the companies could suddenly be faced with a crisis of a different kind; flexible and creative thinkers, who can make the vital difference whether the company will survive or not. We are social beings, but in our HR-world the workforce is sadly enough treated as an expense, not as an asset, and all our human treats that are in fact added value are becoming rather liabilities.

About time to take a step backwards and rethink which way we have chosen to go...

Part timers?

A few months ago, I was watching a programme on Dutch television. One of the guests was a sociologist, who made a survey on gender diversity; to be more specific - the state of women in top management positions. She presented her new book and some of the conclusions were discussed. My very own experiences in a Dutch environment has given me some materials for comparison - especially in the setting of Central Europe - but suddenly it made me realise one typically Dutch specific.

Unlike in many other countries, there are relatively more women at management positions. So has Sweden, you could argue. Right, but with a slight difference - which even never occurred to me: Dutch women seemed more content in management positions than their Swedish counterparts and the reason was; Dutch businesses offer the opportunity to work part-time. Not referring to the receptionist, working only in the afternoon. Indeed part-time for management functions. 

I shall not elaborate the gender topic per sé but what I found more striking is the given that the deadly myth, that part-time working kills one's career, seems not to be completely true and perhaps should be reconsidered as a whole. Worthwhile to think, why we have so many cases of burn-out? - managers having worked (more than) full-time seem to have landed at a limit only around their forties - even though they should still be able to perform another twenty more years... 

We focus too much time on short-term profits, which is proving frequently as failure; getting maximum yields, squeezing out all possible resources, but hardly have a feeling for the long-term strategic stability, which is the only assurance for business continuation. A more comfortable work-environment creates an additional loyalty of employees, which is another valuable asset, if not vital.

Part-time work could be rather a healthier concept to a more effective career than we have assumed till now.

Home office

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do" a song by Billy Joel, based on a popular saying. The meaning of the proverb is quite clear, I think. Yet, as having lived in various countries, my activities in the CEE region give me a certain culture shock. Even though, modern technology has brought the whole globe closer together, and business practices either from California, Hong-Kong or Malta are not so distant any longer, some differences in practices are still apparent. 

Commuting to work is a bothersome part of your day. Perhaps in most cases inevitable, yet it depends, whether that is an absolute truth. The Dutch government, for examples, for years faced urgent problems regarding the overly crowded highways, causing every morning hundreds of miles of traffic jams. The problem is not merely an "annoying feeling" of being stuck and coming late to work by a couple of minutes. Economically, it is a drain of several billions of Euros on a yearly basis. Challenges of a crowded country, where space (for infrastructure) is relatively scarce.

One of incentives given to employers by the state was to encourage working from home. Not necessarily full time, but one or two days, would made a considerable difference. Not only diminishing traffic jams - and thus the fluency of the supply chain is less obstructed - but equally the CO2 emissions of exhaust fumes is reduced.

The Dutch have a widely accepted working from home concept. When discussing this in Slovakia e.g., this is still regarded very exceptional - only for the CEO, or suspecting the employee is lazily dodging his job. The contrary is true; in practice, the home-worker will be relieved from wasting his time and gasoline in a traffic jam, feeling less stressed, perhaps be even less disturbed by his colleagues - continuously barging into his office. Less stress and better focused (Sitting in the office a number of hours, is never a proof of being productive all the time).

My own experience with home-working is very positive and I can highly recommend to implement it. But as with everything, it takes time before society accepts a new trend. It certainly improves your work-life balance (another subject to write about).

Networking... or notworking

Business in the old days used to be a bit different - though the principles should have been, generally speaking, similar. Let us imagine an ancient Greek market-place, where local goods were traded (olives, sheep, cloth and the usual stuff). A merchant would sell his products, for which there was a certain demand, and accordingly he expected a price to be paid, such that he could subsist. Even in this most crudest form of business under the warm Mediterranean sun of those days, the main core of doing business was ... mutual trust. A buyer not trusting the quality of the olives would not buy them. Even if the merchant were to fake being trustworthy and the consumer found out later, the reputation of the merchant would put him out of business. Clear enough.

Nowadays, we send mailings, deal with online marketing, including blogging in order to present our merchandise to potential clients. But one of the intriguing tools for doing business are networking platforms like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Xing and the like. On a daily basis, I do wonder, what in fact people expect from them. I shall briefly describe my feelings regarding LinkedIn:

One can find one's potential contact either by group membership (e.g. belonging to European IT Consultants, of UK HR Professionals) or by regional searches (all CFOs within 15 miles of your residence). Up to the user... so it seems. 

While I have miraculously found ex-colleagues, whom I worked with ages ago, and it was nice to re-connect, I have gained some very interesting contacts of people, who have an added value either because they give essential contribution to discussions, some provide a lead. In some cases, I wonder, what the objective is.

Unfortunately, there is a whole host of users, who simply seem to acquire as many contacts as possible (prestige i.e. status?), but when sending a short message to actively communicate, there is no response. Most annoying are people, who 'portray' themselves as being open to business contacts, then suddenly turn your application down with "I don't know the person", giving the applicant a bad reputation of being a kind of a spammer.

This comes back then to the Greek market place. Perhaps as if because of all these hi-tech gadgets and tools, business (people) seem to have forgotten about the "trust-aspect". If users on social networks behave in such a way, which does hardly do any good to mutual trust, it gives not only a clear signal what kind of business people they are, it also pollutes the place. Communication is the only tool to create that trust. Without it I don't know what you want, they do not know what I want, so what's the use of linking? But are they really lacking true interest, or is the quantity of contacts simply an overkill of information, which they're no longer able to handle?

In my case, from time to time I filter my contacts - those who seem only link-collectors with no demonstrated interest for communication shall be eliminated. Simple as that. Never mind the 500+, 1000+, or more champions.
Meanwhile, when writing this article, I got a craving for Greek olives. Cheers!

Business in the old days used to be a bit different - though the principles should have been, generally speaking, similar. Let us imagine an ancient Greek market-place, where local goods were traded (olives, sheep, cloth and the usual stuff). A merchant would sell his products, for which there was a certain demand, and accordingly he expected a price to be paid, such that he could subsist. Even in this most crudest form of business under the warm Mediterranean sun of those days, the main core of doing business was ... mutual trust. A buyer not trusting the quality of the olives would not buy them. Even if the merchant were to fake being trustworthy and the consumer found out later, the reputation of the merchant would put him out of business. Clear enough. Nowadays, we send mailings, deal with online marketing, including blogging in order to present our merchandise to potential clients. But one of the intriguing tools for doing business are networking platforms like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Xing and the like. On a daily basis, I do wonder, what in fact people expect from them. I shall briefly describe my feelings regarding LinkedIn: One can find one's potential contact either by group membership (e.g. belonging to European IT Consultants, of UK HR Professionals) or by regional searches (all CFOs within 15 miles of your residence). Up to the user... so it seems. While I have miraculously found ex-colleagues, whom I worked with ages ago, and it was nice to re-connect, I have gained some very interesting contacts of people, who have an added value either because they give essential contribution to discussions, some provide a lead. In some cases, I wonder, what the objective is. Unfortunately, there is a whole host of users, who simply seem to acquire as many contacts as possible (prestige i.e. status?), but when sending a short message to actively communicate, there is no response. Most annoying are people, who 'portray' themselves as being open to business contacts, then suddenly turn your application down with "I don't know the person", giving the applicant a bad reputation of being a kind of a spammer. This comes back then to the Greek market place. If users on social networks behave in such a way, which does hardly do any good to mutual trust, it gives a clear signal what kind of business people they are. But are they really lacking true interest, or is the quantity of contacts simply an overkill of information, which they're no longer able to handle. In my case, from time to time I filter my contacts - those who seem only link-collectors with no demonstrated interest for communication shall be eliminated. Simple as that. Never mind the 500+, 1000+, or more champions.

Business in the old days used to be a bit different - though the principles should have been, generally speaking, similar. Let us imagine an ancient Greek market-place, where local goods were traded (olives, sheep, cloth and the usual stuff). A merchant would sell his products, for which there was a certain demand, and accordingly he expected a price to be paid, such that he could subsist. Even in this most crudest form of business under the warm Mediterranean sun of those days, the main core of doing business was ... mutual trust. A buyer not trusting the quality of the olives would not buy them. Even if the merchant were to fake being trustworthy and the consumer found out later, the reputation of the merchant would put him out of business. Clear enough. Nowadays, we send mailings, deal with online marketing, including blogging in order to present our merchandise to potential clients. But one of the intriguing tools for doing business are networking platforms like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Xing and the like. On a daily basis, I do wonder, what in fact people expect from them. I shall briefly describe my feelings regarding LinkedIn: One can find one's potential contact either by group membership (e.g. belonging to European IT Consultants, of UK HR Professionals) or by regional searches (all CFOs within 15 miles of your residence). Up to the user... so it seems. While I have miraculously found ex-colleagues, whom I worked with ages ago, and it was nice to re-connect, I have gained some very interesting contacts of people, who have an added value either because they give essential contribution to discussions, some provide a lead. In some cases, I wonder, what the objective is. Unfortunately, there is a whole host of users, who simply seem to acquire as many contacts as possible (prestige i.e. status?), but when sending a short message to actively communicate, there is no response. Most annoying are people, who 'portray' themselves as being open to business contacts, then suddenly turn your application down with "I don't know the person", giving the applicant a bad reputation of being a kind of a spammer. This comes back then to the Greek market place. If users on social networks behave in such a way, which does hardly do any good to mutual trust, it gives a clear signal what kind of business people they are. But are they really lacking true interest, or is the quantity of contacts simply an overkill of information, which they're no longer able to handle. In my case, from time to time I filter my contacts - those who seem only link-collectors with no demonstrated interest for communication shall be eliminated. Simple as that. Never mind the 500+, 1000+, or more champions.

Understanding reports

Reports are a daily occurrence. A handy tool to keep track. That is... provided you understand what is behind the statistical figures. Simply a table with numbers may look very impressive, and many like to add a few colours and 3D-effects as well. Yet it might surprise you, how superficial they are being dealt with. Despite being too busy, this is absolutely no excuse, because a wrongly interpreted report can lead to fatal decisions.

In a real-life situation, a colleague came to me, complaining about a slow team member and hinting, to get rid of this employee. As it was my 3rd day on the new assignment, I promised to have a closer look. For the meantime, I didn't see any point in taking too drastic measures, especially since we didn't have an alternative person with similar skills. I sat down and both with what I received as feedback from the team-member and my own previous background, I started to design a report in order to measure what was really going on.

The first step - obviously - was a huge table of data, which needed some sorting. Thanks to the advanced possibility of xls-sheets, this was accomplished within a few mouse-clicks. It depends however, what you are looking for to finally come to the final report-output. Now comes the skill of give the appropriate interpretation of these figures to the reality; to erase any possible wrong assumptions or prejudices. The conclusion was a bit different from the conclusion of both the client and my colleague.

About a year ago, I was having a casual chat with a business analyst. We talked about various things and I cannot exactly recall how we ended up with this, but I started to elicit one of the assumptions about life in the Middle Ages. I like the example, since it nicely illustrates our remote knowledge of it, and underlines how preconceptions create a totally false image therefore. Beginning with the fact, that "mediaeval man had an average age of 35", makes us assume (in fact believe) that people of around 70 were practically non-existent. The numbers are a bit oversimplified, but they act only as an example. But the opposite is true. Despite dangerous or poor conditions, old people did exist. It was rather the high infant mortality rate (fatality at childbirth or hardly reaching the age of 3), which caused the average age to dramatically drop. His surprise to this revelation was in fact my surprise of why he doesn't know these pitfalls of statistics.

When using reporting data, it should be natural, that a manager takes time to know the context of the data. Know what you measure, know what lead to the given output and make sure that one does not use incomparable parameters. Equally, there is also - sometimes - the possibility to deliberately misinterpret the data. 

But at the end of the day, correct understanding - i.e. interpretation - is vital for your business (and your own professionalism). Thus, it needs more than just staring at colourful numbers.

Managing Projects - be practical

Some years ago I entered a project, which was already half-way. I travelled to my foreign assignment, expecting the promised briefing, and would proceed from there on. Seemed normal to me. But what I witnessed then, made my jawbone drop.

Instead of a briefing (although promised) - in fact just a 15 minutes chat - I immediately ended up in entering a video-conference with the highest chiefs and a medicine man, where the project leader delivered an assuring monologue to the headquarters. Not only was my proposed-by-them calendar of my trips around Europe a complete mess, some alarm-bells started to ring in my mind. This was my first day on my new assignment, so I didn't want to be a spoiler. Fully trying to be open minded, I felt increasingly getting uncomfortable. My intuition however proved right after all.

Ever had such kind of feeling? One might be surprised, how often similar scenarios might occur. And most surprising is, it is caused by people, who seem to have a long record of prestigious projects, yet the deliverables are dramatically below level. In order to be well prepared, regardless of your previous achievements, top-notch courses, or whatever; here are more or less six basics of Project Management.

1. Do your research thoroughly: No matter how successful your previous job turned out, the new project is always a new planet. You're in a new environment (organisation), other colleagues, other customers, other hard- or software. Take it as a blank page. Find new materials - even by merely googling or dedicated websites you can obtain plenty of info on anything, and make sure your data is fairly up-to-date.
2. Find pitfalls from other projects and try to understand them: Mistakes occurred in the past, and by analysing them can make you anticipate possible dangers ahead, saving you from a lot of unnecessary headaches
3. Design a road map - Planning: Believe it or not, I did witness projects which came from down the sleeve. By designing a plan, you identify your goals and can systematically fill in the steps in between. Be aware, that many organisations often enough do not have sufficient documentation to support you. It is you, who must be prepared for that.
4. Adequately communicate with all involved: It cannot be overstated, but good communication will contribute to proper co-ordination. Understand the customer's expectations, liaise with your team(s) to align all chores and be updated on milestones. Ignoring these, you might find yourself suddenly being far off road, with considerable damages to the stakeholders (and yourself).
5. Plan your milestones realistically: creating estimates for certain steps in the process is not merely applying a mathematical addition, multiplication and division. Two people do not necessarily half your project time, and it is best to allow more time to avoid missing sufficient testing or other necessary requirements. It's better to work extra time and deliver quality rather than impress with speed and fail in the end.
6. Test: Whatever you design, you need to test it - and not just once - in order be assured of its quality. Be thorough and any change, no matter how minute, needs repetitive exposure to pass the check.

Like a good wine, a project needs full attention and time to mature. In all, whichever assignment you take, these practical rules should not be overseen; so just be practical, and it will make you and your customer happier, when you sign off the job after implementation.

Interim Management - a new chance

Despite a few decades of globalisation, still a regional diversity can always be found. While on the one hand, Interim Management may be fully known to some people, it was quite surprising, that when arriving in Central Europe (including Austria) it was far from common. Companies needing urgent advise would address perhaps external consultancy giants. The advice was perhaps not only costly, whether it would be correctly and adequately implemented was still to be seen. And as experienced, a certain level of conservatism in many companies is quite rampant, sometimes even leading to reversal of advice.

Interim Management adds a certain dimension, when the concerned professional is not merely an external advisor, bringing in just extra expertise (whichever field that may be), (s)he is part of the decision-making hierarchy in an organisation - albeit for only a definite period of time, yet perhaps long enough to make a difference.

And it is perhaps because of this far reaching impact, that could be interesting to companies, especially in times of crisis. The crisis brought us the necessary confrontation, whether our management-styles, or business in general was efficient enough, and perhaps we realised having ignored or ousted (cost-saving?) certain too essential areas.

Interim Management offers many benefits as the scope and duration can be absolutely tailor-made and without the constraints of a traditional employment of senior positions, and therefore in this region is having a potential of becoming a boom shortly.

Ignoring your customer

A few days ago, I found a discussion on LinkedIn, whether it has become an acceptable habit not to respond to mails or phone calls; companies become unappreciative or disrespectful. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I read this rhetorical question (and I really hope, that most of you would agree, that there is only one answer possible) Such outcries are fairly common these days, and even when speaking to people, it is perhaps one of the most heard complaint nowadays. 

Doing business is all about trust. Seems an open door, but fully true. Unless there are indeed pressing reasons (like the person is ill, the network is down) responding to communication is the most important basic a business should stick to. And even I myself am often quite shocked how disrespectfully companies behave these days. And one always asks; for what reason? 

Remembering a phrase from a British comedy "Keeping up Appearances", where one of the protagonists frequently utters "it doesn't cost anything to be a bit polite"  - in various different wordings, it is clearly a true statement. When thinking of it, last week only, I had about 4 such instances. I am not talking of an e-mail which remains after one day unanswered, but rather a third or so attempt to get feedback, while getting read receipts, but no other reaction follows.

I can find some interesting tips for candidates on the internet, to write a 'thank-you' note after an interview in order to remain visible and creating a good imago (aha, so it is important!). But,  from experience, do I sense that this is not applicable for the businesses at all??? To be honest, a company, which ignores me is definitively not interesting to me - whether an e-shop, client, a bank, or whatever. Sadly enough, we have improved our communication lines - just imagine how business looked like 30 years ago. And what I hear most often as an excuse; high workload. Come on, be realistic!

By making the whole world more better accessible has indeed also complicated communication in a way. Yet a basic politeness is essential and vital to your business, and it really does not slow your business down. I rather get a quick mail, telling me "sorry, we are busy, but try to find out" (even if they forget afterwards) rather than having the feeling of being treated like garbage. So the benefit will always be yours. It's not rocket science, but it will positively reflect your attitude on basic ethics.

Best Practices... really?

Every walk in life undergoes developments, and man is usually inventive enough to optimise anything around him. This includes even every day's business processes. Recent attempts in the past few decades, have somehow systematically bundled improvement ideas into nowadays acknowledged philosophies. Labelled with BPIs, Best Practices or whether with more specific names like Six Sigma, even Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen, A3, all are focused on eliminating a certain redundancy to increase measurable output - quality-wise, but equally quantity - while decreasing the costs.

The most important understanding is that it serves not so much the very own reputation, but should be beneficial to the customer. No matter, what so-called internal KPIs are being regarded as, the content of the customer is ultimately what matters. Poor quality, high price will make the customer to go to the competition, and you will be out of business. 

A big misunderstanding on this concept I once came across, when dealing with a partner, who approached me for a service. We agreed to a price and signed a contract, until.... the company stopped communicating. After attempted to address the issue, I received an e-mail, where I was bluntly told, that due to internal regulations for each external contract a tender is to be required. Assuming, that it was perhaps a misunderstanding, since the deal has been signed already, the response was the same: "Sorry, forget about the whole signed contract". Maybe a common practice in Slovakia, it is a behaviour, which to a westerner is a bit unusual. At least, from where I come from. Despite a few meetings, to come to an agreement, the opposite party was not willing to give in.

Deducing the whole development, it was quite apparent, that an over-eagerly Best Practices Manager of the said company, found some ways to figure out additional savings. Perhaps a job evaluation was pending, or whatever, but it seemed a fairly inexperienced attempt to squeeze out some lousy euros.

Best Practices, in my humble understanding, is a way to do the 'best'. But provoking breaches of contract to impress management seems far from a best practice. Ironically enough, it was one of my acquaintances, who conducted a best practices project with this company. Knowing him, I cannot imagine, that this was what he taught them.

New thoughts / business philosophies can easily be misused and thus becoming utterly counter-productive. The company in my view lost a considerable credibility and such tiny mishaps can result in creating a bad reputation to the outside world. News usually travels very fast, especially in our global virtual world. Such practice, and especially such incompetence to compensate for it, can be a huge business risk. New areas could perhaps be an interesting specialisation for young(er) generation managers. But never take this task too lightly. It takes more to manage portfolios than just superficial enthusiasm.

Web 2.0 and Business

Web 2.0 has almost completely penetrated out daily lives. The very mere fact, that I am an active blogger, demonstrates this more than enough. At the same time, I must also admit, that I do have acquaintances, who perhaps are not even aware of this and maintain a certain distance. For those, who are not fully informed; Web 2.0 is not a software update - it is basically the same conventional internet but instead of just surfing for information, booking a ticket, order a book, it has some additional platforms, which offer a more dynamic networking possibility: To directly and real time interact with anyone, no matter where both parties may be. Communication by only e-mail has been extended to another level - the social platforms.

While many people utilise environments like Facebook only to post party photographs from the last weekend, or holiday, perhaps to get in touch with lost friends from the past, companies have obviously discovered this medium as a new way to promoting and propelling new business opportunity. Although the former is actively being used by businesses as well, it is more platforms like LinkedIn, Xing, or and others, which offer a more serious environments to induce networking.

In a dynamic age - in which we are - we have quickly absorbed this new tool into our lives. Whether we have done so effectively enough remains to be questioned. Lately, I noticed an urgent request from one of my LinkedIn contacts. As I could provide a solution, I immediately responded - not just via LinkedIn, but I anticipated the probability, that the said person would maybe not visit LinkedIn within a few hours, therefore I also forwarded an e-mail as well. There was indeed a prompt reaction. Some weeks passed by, however, and I inquired on the status. The response was more or less disappointing: "Hasn't received anything".

I seem to notice an unfortunate trend, where individuals sign up (for whatever reason), and assume that the crutch of the whole thing is to accumulate connections. And there it stops. The person from my previous example, was indeed priding herself with a 2000+ status. Impressive, but what did it bring? Apparently, from further correspondence it transpired, that she had a complete chaos in her work. Perhaps the fanatic acquisition of links prevented her to keep focused on her initial work. Her waste of time, and in the end, my waste of time as well.


Another example is of somebody, who frequently (perhaps over-frequently) feeds twitter-like messages, which seem fully out of context, posting video messages that rather show a certain over-enthusiasm but hardly any profound added value, and instead of getting useful info, it became rather an irritating bubble. Perhaps better presentation skills and improving the language would somewhat help to overcome this problem, but in all, the strategy was fairly unprofessional.

Social networks can have a very useful role, when utilised in a sensible way the impact can be amazing. Promoting your business there can be very effective - after all, the basic "word of mouth" advertisement is far more powerful than any prestigious marketing campaign. And social platforms serve as a kind of real-time electronic word of mouth medium. No more, no less. And as in real life, the users are just people. Those who find a proper way to get to business, and those who will not. I am fully convinced of the benefits of Web 2.0, and I shall be using it optimally. Yet, remaining critical at all times is perhaps the best approach. 
PS.: I deleted the contacts from my list...

Outsourcing Risks

Business has two contradictory interests; profit and a happy customer. While in the old days, the to-be captains of industry would start somewhere in a shed and sweated for years to reach a success, nowadays business seems to focus on short-term profits. All the involved, from your banker up to your CEO, you need to deliver a business case with impressive multi-coloured graphs to demonstrate an even more impressive return on investment as soon as possible. But, is this really what it is all about?

As business has gone global, and thanks to computers and internet the world has truly become a smaller place, regional distances play hardly any significant role any longer. In contrast, the mere fact that regionally labour costs do vary considerably, has created a trend in outsourcing. Not so much talking of outsourcing your catering or cleaning services to a specialised service supplier, rather talking about specialised processes, like HR, IT and even Finance & Accounting.

Whether such a trend is indeed justified, depends on certain preconditions, which are not in all instances correctly understood, properly defined, resulting in unexpected higher operating costs - contrary to the projected saving. Especially, when dealing with the certain "offshore outsourcing" the risks are relatively high. Technical constraints - provided the hard- and software are compatible to the customer's - are hardly an issue, as even an in-house department can equally be affected by a technical failure. 

When building a business case for outsourcing, the driver is a lower price tag, usually represented by lower labour costs more or less in combination of other lesser costs like office space. The more customers get on board, the cheaper the service. Yet this may in some cases, as I witnessed in the past with two customers, a merely theoretical model, which when put into practice, proved to be far less profitable, even incurring a loss.

My first encounter in an outsourcing project was back in 1998, when the concept was rather new. The second was in 2006, where one could have had multiple reports from prestigious audit companies, delving in detail with possible pitfalls. Yet, the project has equally been grossly underestimated, resulting in a poorly structured project, where the individual customers felt far from being content. The former company could absorb the kind of set-back, the latter, a Brussels controlled but Finnish company was less fortunate.

Some basics have been overlooked; statistical data were badly interpreted, which negatively influenced the decision-making. The low price tag, became almost an obsession, which delivered at the onset enthusiastic staff, but poorly equipped to execute their tasks in line with the customers' expectations. This dramatically changes the success of the whole endeavour, where the saving is guaranteeing only poor output. Proper training come at a cost, but it only ensures that teams are comfortable with the tasks given. Otherwise, the quality will sway and a risk of personnel outflow is hanging in the air.

Coming back to my introduction; the main interest of any service provider should be a happy customer and from there trying to be cost effective. Fully understanding the customer's needs is a skill, which comes first, and fully realising, that setting up a new service centre is an investment, which will pay itself back after some years - and not from the onset.

Keeping in mind this, to properly invest in your people and ensure that the service deliverables are acceptable to the client, then moving towards excellence and process improvement can take place, which makes the whole business profitable. If not, it will become a costly prestigious project that is doomed to fail from the very beginning. And believe me, an unhappy customer is almost no customer and without him you make hardly any profit at all.