The Business Sensei

It Was Supposed to Fly?

“Alright, let’s see it fly.”

“We can’t do that.”

“What do you mean, you can’t do that? It’s a helicopter. Of course it flies!”

“Look at the specs. You didn’t say it had to fly!”

Imagine that you’re in a design contest to build a helicopter. You are being evaluated on various criteria such as efficiency, beauty, cost to build, and so forth. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable contest. In fact, it actually exists, although the details are omitted to protect the guilty.

The second place finishers designed a really quite excellent helicopter. There was only reason they didn’t come in first was that their helicopter wasn’t as cheap to build as the winning model. The second place model included an engine.

I wish I could make this stuff up!

The team designing the first place helicopter noticed a minor omission in the criteria: there was no rule that said that the copter actually had to fly! They saved an enormous amount on cost and weight by not including an engine. As a side benefit, their helicopter was also the most fuel efficient and the safest model in the contest.

It didn’t actually work, but that wasn’t an official requirement at the time.

While we might celebrate the team’s ability to think outside the box, there are times when being inside the box isn’t such a bad place to be. Imagine shipping non-working helicopters to the customer… possibly not a problem if the customer ordered scale models for a display or for kids to sit in, but maybe not such a good idea if the customer wants to fly rescue missions. Indeed, when dealing with customers, it’s often a good idea not to get fixated on exactly what the customer says they want: what the customer asks for is often their best guess as to what they want, not something that will actually solve their problem.

Soak Systems, a software vendor, landed a huge contract with a certain major telecommunications company. The telecom provided Soak with a very detailed set of specifications for what they wanted. The company set a team of engineers to work on the contract. Although several people wondered aloud about some of the elements in the spec, no one bothered to go and ask anyone at the telecom. After all, the reasoning went, if they didn’t explicitly say they wanted something, clearly they must not want it. No doubt it would all make sense to the customer.

After all, helicopters don’t really need to fly.

When Soak delivered the product, it was, shall we say, missing the engine.

Confronted with this, everyone at Soak, from the lowest engineer to the VP of engineering to the CEO all responded by saying, “But we gave you what you asked for. And just look at how elegant and efficient our solution is!”

Replied the telecom, “You didn’t solve the problem.”

“But you didn’t say it had to have an engine! And it is what you asked for, so stop complaining.”

Fundamentally, when a customer has a problem, they can really only imagine the solutions they wish you could provide. If you don’t know how to ask them what their problems are and then help them see how your solutions can benefit them you are likely to deliver a helicopter without an engine.

Even worse, most of the time what the customer is actually complaining about is not the problem at all: they are complaining about the symptoms of the problem. They might think that they are solving the problem, but really all they’re doing is treating symptoms. The software the Soak designed did, in fact, address some of the more irritating manifestations of the problem, carefully replacing those manifestations with a different set of irritating manifestations. They no more solved the actual problem than painting a helicopter green, making it soundproof, and providing a really good stereo system will enable it to fly. Only providing an engine will do that.

In other words, it doesn’t matter how elegant and efficient your solution is if it doesn’t work!

Thus, it’s critical to take the time to find out what’s behind what your customer is looking for. What do they really want and why do they want it?

Realizing that the rules don’t specify that the helicopter needs to fly may work fine in a contest, but it doesn’t win you friends in the real world.

The contest rules were subsequently corrected. The cool thing about design competitions is that each year you get a do-over. Soak, on the other hand, did not.

What are you doing to make sure you know how to speak to your customers?

The Secret Life of Pies

So there you are on Thanksgiving. Dinner is over and it’s time for dessert. You bring out the traditional impressive array of pies. However, with the exception of some teens, everyone is stuffed (five minutes ago, this included the teens).  The pies just sit there, and you are facing the possibility of a house full of leftover pie.

Of course, some people might not have any problem with this.

But let us suppose that you really would like your guests to eat the dessert. I’m not sure why; perhaps you don’t want a house full of desserts or maybe it involves a clever plot to take over the world (hey, it’s no less believable than many James Bond plots). In any case, how do you get a lot of people to eat the pie?

Well, if you have a lot of people there, it’s not that hard. Just bring out one pie. The moment it looks like there’s not enough dessert for everyone, suddenly everyone is hungry again. Once one person takes a piece, the rest won’t be far behind. Fortunately, the odds are extremely low that your dinner will degenerate into a frantic struggle for control of the pie, although putting out a single pastry could result in a sudden game of scones.

So what does this have to do with business? That depends on how much your company values teamwork. In some companies, teamwork is irrelevant. No one cares, it’s not important, and it’s not how you get things done. In that case, you probably won’t care about the rest of this article. On the other hand, if teamwork does matter to you, then you might want to keep reading. Teams of all sorts tend to be very concerned with pies, and it’s not because an army travels on its stomach. Rather, much like that Thanksgiving dinner, what matters is the size of the pie. Different flavors can help, but primarily size matters.

Ultimately, the degree to which team members will cooperate or compete with one another depends very much on the size of the metaphorical pie they are working towards. When the pie is perceived to be large enough for everyone, you get cooperation. When the pie is perceived to be too small, you get competition.

But isn’t competition healthy? Friendly competition can be healthy under the right conditions. However, when the competition is at work, and the “trophy” directly impacts your job, then the competition quickly starts to look like an episode of “Tom Slick,” complete with all the dirty tricks and without the humor. In other words, not particularly healthy competition.

If all this seems too theoretical, or is just making you hungry for pie, think about Microsoft. For much of their corporate existence, they practiced employee stacking:  members of each team were rated from high to low. The highest rated people got the rewards, and the lowest rated were eliminated. Now, there is a claim that this encourages people to work harder. What it actually did was encourage their top people to avoid working together so that they wouldn’t be in competition with one another. It encouraged hiring weak performers so that there would always be someone to take the fall. It encouraged team members to sabotage one another rather than cooperate. It encouraged people to become very skilled at looking like they were sharing information while still withholding critical details. To be fair, they did work very hard at these tasks. Unfortunately, it can take years to regain the trust lost along the way.

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the big pie encourages cooperation while the little pie triggers competition. If you want a successful team, and a successful company, find ways to expand the pie, and focus your competitive instincts on your real competition.

And if you’re bored after your next big holiday meal, you can always try serving a single pie and see what happens. Let me know how it goes.

The Leader Who Didn’t Play Well With Others

This article was originally published in Computer World.

 

If a leader doesn’t let anyone else shine, no one will engage

Once upon a time, for that is how these stories always begin, there was a brilliant engineer. He could come up with all sorts of creative ideas in a flash. Because of this, he decided to start a company. His company did reasonably well, although it did have some problems. One of the big problems was that this brilliant engineer, now a brilliant CEO, was not always all that skilled at playing well with others. He always had the best answers to all the technical challenges the company was facing.
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Now, to be fair, his answers really were the best, at least according to some standards. On a technical level, he understood the technology of his business extremely well. His solutions were always technically brilliant. And that is where the problem arose.

One day, an engineer in the company was charged with developing a solution to a particularly vexing problem. This engineer went off and studied the problem. He worked hard at the problem. On the appointed day and hour, he presented his solution. Everyone loved the solution except, sadly, for the brilliant CEO. He knew the technology like no one else, and he immediately saw A Better Way. The CEO proceeded to demolish the engineer’s solution. Indeed, he reduced it to metaphorical rubble. If the engineer’s idea had been a village in Eastern Europe, it would have looked as if the Golden Horde had just swept through, leaving no stone standing upon another stone nor any blade of grass unplucked.

And then the brilliant CEO explained how it could have been done better. Truly, it is said by some, he waxed poetic in his analysis of what to do and how to do it. And all (or at least all those who understood what he was talking about) agreed his analysis was brilliant.

There was but one tiny problem: When it came time to implement the brilliant CEO’s brilliant idea, there was no enthusiasm, no engagement. None felt they had a stake in the outcome. Not a soul among them dared to make suggestions, even though the most brilliant ideas invariably need modification as they are implemented. The engineer who had been eviscerated by the brilliant CEO never again volunteered to lead a project and never offered another idea for consideration. Others, who had witnessed the evisceration though they had not personally felt its bitter sting, developed a similar attitude.

In the end, the brilliant CEO’s brilliant plan languished. With no one on the implementation team to champion it, the idea remained mostly just that, an idea. The company was left with nothing. Rather than a functional idea and a staff of loyal engineers motivated and enthusiastic about carrying it out, the company was left with no plan at all. An imperfect plan — well, that can always be improved. But no plan at all? That can be a bit of a problem.

Sadly, for the brilliant CEO, this was not the first time this sort of thing had happened. Having the Golden Horde sweep across the landscape of ideas, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake, is not something that any company can long survive. In such an environment, it is not long before people stop suggesting ideas, lest they draw the attention of that aforementioned horde. The board of directors came to the same conclusion and decided that it was time for the CEO’s tenure to also come to a conclusion. He was forced out, and the company went on its way without him. Perhaps their ideas were no longer quite so brilliant, but they had ideas. Perhaps their plans were no longer quite so ambitious and clever, but they had plans. Perhaps their products were no longer quite so perfect, but they had products.

From this, we can draw several important lessons:

1. When you crush every plan or idea people propose, eventually they stop proposing ideas or suggesting plans. It is unwise for one person to be left as the sole source of ideas; just look at Apple after Steve Jobs.

2. Tearing people down does not motivate them. Indeed, it does precisely the opposite. If you want to motivate people, find ways to build them up.

3. If it can’t or won’t be built, it doesn’t matter how perfect it is. Insert whatever you’d like for “it.”

4. Having the best mousetrap today is less valuable than having a consistent, repeatable process for developing good, solid, buildable mousetraps.

5. Point 4 will only happen when you know how to connect with your team and build them up.

In the end, playing well with others might not guarantee that you will live happily ever after, but it helps.

Outrunning the Ballmer

There’s an old story about two people walking through the woods. One of them, Pete Ahtear, is a track star. The other, that famous dessert maker Eaton Flanagan, may be an expert in the kitchen, but is not otherwise known for his speedy movement. As the two men are walking, they hear behind them the unmistakable sounds of a very hungry bear.

“That doesn’t sound good,” says Flanagan.

“That sounds like a hungry bear!” replies Ahtear. “Don’t you have a pot of honey or something you could toss at it to distract it?”

“Sorry, fresh out of honey.”

At that point, Pete Ahtear sits down, pulls his track shoes out of his backpack, and quickly puts them on.

“Even you can’t outrun a bear!” exclaims Flanagan.

“I don’t need to outrun the bear,” replies Ahtear with, it must be admitted, a somewhat smug tone to his voice. “I only need to outrun you.”

Indeed, were we to look at these two men, the truth of Ahtear’s statement could hardly be more obvious: one, a slender athlete in prime physical condition; the other, well, let us just say that Eaton Flanagan is a man whose skill at making desserts is exceeded only by his enjoyment of eating those desserts. Losing weight, given the time available, is not an option. Although quite possibly as large as that pursuing bear, regrettably Flanagan is sadly lacking in the sharp teeth and long claws department. On the scale of bears, Flanagan may be more closely likened to “Teddy” than “Grizzly.”

Speaking of bears, it’s getting closer.

Thinking quickly, Flanagan knocks Pete Ahtear to the ground, kicks him, and then uses the window of opportunity thereby created to tie Pete’s shoelaces together. Flanagan then lumbers off. He may not be able to outrun a bear, but he can now outrun Pete Ahtear. What follows is best left to the imagination.

As a further exercise of the imagination, consider how this philosophy might play out in a large corporation. What would outrunning the bear look like? What would such a competitive atmosphere do to employee cooperation and collaboration? How about problem solving and innovation?

Unfortunately, according to a number of articles about Microsoft, we don’t need to use our imaginations. Microsoft is one of a number of businesses that practice the fine art of “employee stacking.” In other words, employees are rated on a performance scale. The top performers are highly rewarded, while the bottom performers are… not. Sounds good, right? After all, won’t this push people to constantly push themselves to excel, and won’t it weed out the weakest performers?

Sadly, that’s not what’s happening at Microsoft. Excelling and taking on a risky project or trying something new are often mutually exclusive. Furthermore, what constitutes “excelling” can vary with comparison to others. In fact, as more than one Microsoft employee observed, they quickly learned to look like they were cooperating with their teammates, while actually withholding critical information or otherwise sabotaging their progress. In other words, when the performance review bear is approaching, all I really need to do is outrun you. That can happen in a great many ways: as Eaton Flanagan so ably demonstrated, not all of them involve actually being a better runner.

The side-effects of the Microsoft Way are far-reaching and not always immediately obvious. It goes well beyond employees sabotaging one another in order to make themselves look good. Hiring is effected: will you really hire someone more skilled than you are if that might push you down the rankings? Or will you prefer to hire people less skilled so that someone else will take the fall? What will that do to the overall level of employee skill? What about problem solving? When the goal is to make sure someone else trips and falls, are we going to fix the problem or merely fix blame? How about team work? Are you really going to ask to be on a team with other high performers?  It’s much safer to be surrounded by bear food than it is to work with someone who might be able to run faster than you. How badly will that reduce collaboration, creativity, innovation, and product quality?

Now, one might make the argument that Microsoft’s approach can’t be that bad. After all, they became the world’s largest software company and still dominate the PC market. Indeed, outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer was quoted in one article swearing by employee stacking. He thinks it’s wonderful.

It is possible that during the 1980s and 1990s, when Microsoft was surfing the great PC technology wave, that Microsoft’s review process really did produce high performance. Possible, but unlikely. Far more likely is that having a hot product in a rapidly growing market protects you from a lot of errors. When Microsoft’s stock was doubling practically every year, it was easy for them to constantly hire the best people. Most of those people were motivated to achieve not primarily because of the employee stacking system but because they were excited by their work, the company’s vision, and, yes, the stock options. So what if some of them become bear food? There are always more where they came from! Even if your teams are performing at only a fraction of what they are capable of, being in the right place with the right product can be enough for a long time.

Microsoft today is in an interesting position. As I’ve written about in several articles and books, they lost their way in 2000. While some people have argued that employee stacking is the reason for Microsoft’s malaise, it’s really only one factor. Granted, it is a very serious factor: at a time when Microsoft most needs to regain the innovative vision and energy of its early days, that pursuing bear means that few people indeed are going to be taking any chances.

But wait! Shouldn’t the creative vision come from the top? If that were to happen, wouldn’t that solve the problem? While vision may come from the top, leaders are more creative when they are surrounded by creative people. People staring at the ground, looking for an opportunity to trip up their colleagues, are not looking ahead and imagining the future. That’s an awful lot of psychological inertia for a leader to overcome.

In the end, when employees are forced to compete with one another, your productivity gains are brief and inevitably cost you far more than they are worth. It’s always easier to outrun your buddy than the bear, particularly when tripping your buddy is all it really takes.

At least the bear eats well.

 

Stephen Balzac is an expert on leadership and organizational development. A consultant, author, and professional speaker, he is president of 7 Steps Ahead, an organizational development firm focused on helping businesses get unstuck. Steve is the author of “The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development,” published by McGraw-Hill, and a contributing author to volume one of “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play.” Steve’s latest book, “Organizational Psychology for Managers,” is due out from Springer in 2013. For more information, or to sign up for Steve’s monthly newsletter, visit www.7stepsahead.com. You can also contact Steve at 978-298-5189 or steve@7stepsahead.com.

The Missing I

As published in MeasureIT

 

“There is no me. I had it surgically removed.”

— Peter Sellers

At one high tech company that I worked with, I watched an interesting scenario unfold: after completing a major milestone, the engineers were high-fiving and taking some time to brag about their accomplishments. Enthusiasm and excitement were running high when a member of senior management decided to interrupt the gathering with the reminder that, “There is no ‘I’ in team.”

This utterance had an effect not dissimilar to that of a skunk wandering into a fancy dinner party. On the scale of wet blankets, this was one that had been left out in the rain for a week. Within a few seconds, all that enthusiasm was gone, vanished into the ether. Properly harnessed, that enthusiasm could have catapulted the team into its next milestone. Instead, the team approached its next milestone with a shocking lack of energy, especially given the successes they’d had to that point.

The problem is that while there may not be an “I” in team, a team is made up of individuals. There are three “I”’s in individual. What does a team do? Well, in most situations we hope the team will win. There’s an “I” right there in the middle of win. Oddly enough, you can’t win if you take out the “I.”

While it’s critical for a team to be able to work together and for members of the team not to be competing with one another, that’s only a piece of the puzzle. It’s equally important that each member of the team feel that they are an integral part of the team’s success. Without that personal connection, it’s extremely difficult to get people excited about the work.

Unfortunately, I see companies far too often treating team members as interchangeable parts, not as unique individuals. Not only does this undermine the team, it is also a tremendous waste of resources: a major advantage of having a team is that you have access to multiple eyes, ears, hands, and brains. Each person brings unique skills, knowledge, and perspective to the problems the team is facing. When a company fails to take advantage of those people, then they are spending a great deal of money for very little return.

In the Mann Gulch disaster, Wagner Dodge failed to appreciate the perspectives and opinions his team brought to the table. He relied solely on his own eyes, ears, and brains. Had he bothered to obtain information from the rest of his team, it is highly likely that most of them would not have perished under Dodge’s command. When the team has no “I,” the team cannot see.

On the flip side, some companies go too far in the other direction. One company, that shall remain nameless, spends so much time on “I” that there’s no time left for “we.” There have no team; there’s only a group of people who happen to be wandering in something vaguely approximating the same direction. Meetings are characterized by constant jockeying for position and arguments over turf. Different groups in the company see themselves as competing with one another for the favor of the CEO and for the eventual rewards. Oddly enough, the level of excitement and commitment in this situation is about the same as the one in which there is no “I.” When you have too much “I,” no one can agree on what they are seeing. In other words, too much “I” or a missing “I” produce much the same degree of blindness. That’s not good for the individuals, the team, or the company.

So how do you make sure you have the right “I?”

Start by creating something worth seeing. Paint a vivid picture of the company’s future, and show each person how they, as individuals, matter. Remind employees of the skills, knowledge, perspectives, and abilities that led to them being part of the team.

Show each person how they fit into the overall picture, and how their colleagues fit in as well. Make sure each person has a clue about what the others are doing. Ignorance breeds contempt.

Strengthen individual autonomy: find opportunities to allow people to decide how they’ll get their jobs done. Don’t regulate anything that isn’t absolutely necessary to getting the product out the door.

Always praise successes. Highlight significant contributions, remind people of their strengths.

Encourage and provide opportunities for team members to continuously develop their strengths. Improving individual skills dramatically improves team performance.

For a team to win, it needs to see where it’s going. That requires the team to have “I”’s and something to look at. How can you provide both to your team?