Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

My latest book binge includes the following:  MIndgym - Exercises to improve your mind just as you would improve your body by following a training regimen in the gym.  Contagious - Understanding "what" makes things go viral. The Smartest Kids in the World - An analysis of the dynamics of education in different parts of the world. In Search of Excellence - For all of you management consulting fans, this is where McKinsey's 7s framework is explained. Additionally, it identifies the 8 characteristics of excellent companies and is written in such a way that you don't have to be an academic to understand it.  Thinking Fast and Slow - An explanation of the two systems that drive the way we think.  Because I can't read two words out of any of these books to my son during bedtime without him completely ignoring me, I'll add Curious George Storybook Collection to the list.  In the book, it lays out the steps...

Unfortunately, to make sense of a messy, volatile world, leaders often shoehorn people into tidy categories that don’t reflect their full range of wisdom. - HBR - The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice If you join an organization that puts you in a box is it your fault or the organization's fault?  If your manager or leader doesn't understand all that you are capable of, is it your responsibility to inform him or her?  The answer is an emphatic "yes." The big BUT is that you have to put a limit on the number of times you tell your boss or manager what your capabilities are. The reality is that the reason that you've been put in a box is not because you haven't demonstrated your capabilities, it's because people naturally categorize things into the simplest form possible that they can understand.  If you are not being recognized for your capabilities and potential it may initially be for lack of communicating what those capabilities are.  But a...

In Dan Pink's TED Talk on motivation and in his book Drive , he talks and writes about the science of motivation.  There are three drivers of motivation.  Autonomy Mastery Purpose When we have these three things in play, procrastination is an after thought.  However, the Hawthorne Effect says that motivation can occur simply by being observed.  It's probably not exactly same thing, but I know that my motivation to perform better at certain sports increased when I knew that I was being watched or evaluated. So which is it?  As employees of companies, do we perform better if we are being observed or do we perform better if we have complete  autonomy to do what we want to do? Unfortunately, when we feel we are being watched too closely we call that voyeurism "micromanagement." If we feel that we aren't being watched closely enough, then we feel that we aren't being appreciated. Employees are a fickle bunch and this is w...

In today's world you are either a consumer of content or producer of content.  If you are like me, the majority of your day is spent consuming content via phone, PC, television, tablet, etc...  Many of us suffer from what my 4 year old suffers from which is a case of the FOMS or FOMO- fear of missing something or fear of missing out. When I read about people that get millions of hits on YouTube or have millions of Instagram or Twitter followers, I realize that they are predominantly producers of content or creators of some kind of art or intellectual property.  At some point in our lives, in order to become successful I think we need to balance the consumption and production of content- or at least minimize the consumption of content to the stuff that really matters to us.  In other words, the ability to filter through all the noise becomes more important than ever.  When it comes to consuming content that really has no bearing on where ...

If you are a conspiracy theorist like I am, you believe that your company is either for you or against you. It's a ridiculous thought because a company is not a living, breathing, biological organism with intelligence. But how many times have we referred to our organizations as "the man." (For those of you that can remember that term.)  Because companies are made up of people and run by people. And because people naturally judge others and label them, it's only natural, by the transitive property, to say that companies judge and label their people.  Whether it's under the guise of the performance review or just blatant nepotism, all of us in an organization of measurable size - say greater than 100 people - see and are a part of factions, cliques, and social groups.  From an employer perspective, employees are probably on one list that's associated with one thing - cost.  But from an employee perspective, you probably see yourselves on one of these t...

When you are in a challenging personality situation at work, is it a good idea to bring all of the right people together and lay all of your cards out on the table? For example, you know that you are not in a good political situation and from a career perspective, there is limited upward mobility, or any mobility in general, because of it.  What do you do? Any smart and aware person knows and feels when the situation is not a good one.  Any smart and aware person would instinctively want to have that difficult conversation with the right people in order to clear the air and either affirm what he / she perceives to be true or work to close the gap between the perception of the situation and what others think. Unfortunately that is a very, very bad idea.  Many of the environments that we work in are not safe environments. Or, as Simon Sinek likes to refer to in Leaders Eat Last , there is no circle of safety. Many leaders, when put in a ...

Which is more important when it comes to climbing the career ladder?  Loyalty or capability?  The idealist in us would say that it's up to our company's management and leaders to recognize potential and capability and promote accordingly.  The Peter Principle states otherwise.  Look around you. More than likely, your peers are like you.  Look above you. More than likely, your leaders are not like you.  Therefore it's your job to try and be more like your managers and leaders and less like you if the gap is as wide as you perceive it to be.  The dilemma arises when becoming more like "them" distances you from your true self.   So do you continue the cycle when you get promoted and pick loyalty over capability?  Or do you break the cycle because it's the right thing to do?  Choose the latter. You and your company will be better off for it. 

I'm going to date myself and say that I've been using PowerPoint since the early 90's.  Just like kids are transitioning from the PC to mobile devices with very little effort, I transitioned from transparencies to PowerPoint in much the same manner.  It actually became a core competency of mine which is good when you are a management consultant.  We are now at a time where information is more pictures than words-- so much so that cloud services are increasing space size and companies catering to the photography generation are going out of business.  The irony is that you have to simplify the information as much as possible to get your point across and make your story that much more compelling. With this shift comes a whole  set of tools that give you instant gratification and new ways to tell your story outside of the PowerPoint templates of old. I'd recommend getting familiar with, if not immersing yourself in these tools. Otherwise, you'll be the one...

Consultants are everywhere.  There is no shortage of people wanting to give you his or her opinion.  Even the CEO of Deloitte Consulting, Jim Moffatt, says that there are too many consultants .  But as we all know, if there wasn't demand for such services, there wouldn't be the supply.  Just as there are enough people wanting to give advice, there are enough out there asking for an opinion or two.  Whether the advice is heeded or not is a topic for a separate discussion. What separates the good consultants from the so-so ones is that they think about these three questions as they work with clients.  Am I providing value for what I am charging (daily/weekly)? For example, if your bill rate is $100/hour and you work 40 hours a week, what did you provide for $4,000? I would say that a lot of us may struggle with that question which makes it even more important for you to prove your worth day in and day out.   How many productive hours did ...

This past weekend, my wife thew a party for some good friends of ours in appreciate for listing and buying their home with her as their Realtor.  Even though the fun was in the party itself, there was a lot to be learned through the planning of the event.  What I did learn is that not all cupcakes are the same. If you are planning any event at all that requires dessert or sweets -- or just food in general -- check out Lenox Cupcakes .  They have all the essential ingredients of a great business: A great  story A great product  A great product I'm sure that the owners are great as well, which checks off the "great people" category. My point is that when you are a master of a craft that people like, and do that craft better than anyone else, people will recognize this. As a result, you will create a loyal following.  Lenox Cupcakes has a fan for life in me -- and probably more based on how the people at the party loved those cupcakes....

When someone tells you that the organization is flat, be cautious -- actually don't be cautious, run away. People want structure. People want titles. People want hierarchy. It sets a natural order to things.  When everyone has the same title, it actually can cause more confusion -- especially if you fill those titles with people of varying experience and tenure.  Confusion can cause speculation. Speculation can cause disgruntlement. Disgruntlement can cause toxicity.  That's speaking from experience and not observation.  What they don't tell you about the flat organization is there is a clear delineation between the top and the bottom. We'll call it "The Great Wall."  You are better off being hired directly into the top layer of a "flat" organization rather than trying to barge through that great wall.  So before someone sells you on the perks of working for a flat organization, look past the sales pitch and ask the hard qu...

A question that I get asked a lot is, "What do you want to do?"  And every time I answer it, I have to stall and say, "Well, that's a very good question."  When you are a generalist and are used to providing answers that you think the other person wants to hear, it's an  impossible question to answer authentically. After all, a generalist has made a career by figuring out how to do anything.  I mean, if you are asking me what I really want to do-  it's win the lottery, travel the world, and have experiences that I can talk about that are once in a lifetime. Oh, and I'd like to finish  my DJ lessons too.  And then there's reality.  How do you find the place where work doesn't feel like work?  Where is that place where you know you belong and aren't wasting valuable energy trying to fit in?  The self-help answer is that it's all a state of mind.  My answer is that the self-help answer is not helpful at all. Life is ...

There is a term in economics known as creative destruction.  "Creative destruction describes the "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." - Wikipedia In layman's terms, something new comes in and destroys something old. Think of the evolution of media from 8 track to cassette to CD to mp3, and so on.  Piggybacking off of that, there is a term that I'll coin as "destructive destruction."  This is when something old destroys something new and innovative. An example would be when an owner of a company destroys new and innovative things that are making his company profitable because either he can't understand it, or things were getting out of control.  Or it could be a leader that lets initiatives stagnate into extinction because it's not the way things have always been.  There are leaders today that destroy ...

Who you tryin' to get crazy with ese? Don't you know I'm loco? Cypress Hill - Insane In The Membrane    Sometimes the only way to deal with people you think are crazy is join them in the craziness.  The one thing about company culture is that you can't fight it.  The more you fight it, the more of an outcast you become. It's draining.  Fighting it can become toxic. Toxicity becomes negativity. Negativity can lead to ostracism.  If you think that everyone around you is nuts, guess what? You are probably the crazy one.  And nobody likes to be around the crazy people -- the ones that just.don't.get.it.  Therefore it's decision time. Decide if you want to join in and pledge, or keep your head down and waste time in the quagmire.  The choice is yours. 

In the management consultant profession, consultants are paid for 1 of 2 things: to solve problems; or do something that clients don't have the resources or capabilities of doing themselves.  If you stay in the profession long enough, you begin to develop a false sense of confidence -- something along the lines of, "whatever your problem is, I'm sure that I'll find a way to solve it -- I'm THAT smart."  After all, who wants to go the consultant that says, "I don't know."  Sometimes, as consultants, it's actually in our best interest to say, "I don't know." The alternative is that we provide our clients with a half-baked answer that that ends up making a client's situation the same or worse, rather than better.  It's like asking your family doctor to solve an eye problem when the best recommendation would have been to send you to an ophthalmologist.  As you progress though the consulting profession (or probably ...

Have you taken the time to think about your competition?  I mean really think about who your competition is and where it's coming from.  More than likely, you are keeping your eyes on the usual suspects-- the leaders in your industry.  In some cases, maybe because you live in another reality, you are keeping your eyes on the wrong suspects.  There's an article in Fast Company  about Oreo's ability to tap into pop culture. Remember the blackout during the Super Bowl? Oreo had a tweet that went viral.  In the article, it says,  "If a person waiting in line at a convenience store is going to spend an extra dollar in the spur of the moment, she's now more likely to buy a power-up in the mobile game she's staring at than pick up a sleeve of cookies from the rack near the register."  Think about that. A pack of Oreos is competing with a power-up in a mobile game.  When you are doing an assessment of your competition, expand your po...

When you are in an undesirable situation, it's probably more "you" than you think it is. One of the books that I've been trying to finish is Carol Dweck's Mindset .  In it, Dr. Dweck introduces you to two fundamental mindsets - growth and fixed. In a fixed mindset, you believe that "your qualities are carved in stone...[it] creates a sense of urgency to prove yourself over and over..."   Having a fixed mindset prevents you from taking on new challenges for fear of failure or looking bad.  Having a fixed mindset makes it easy to blame your environment and things around you when things go wrong.  A fixed mindset also draws you toward tasks and projects that you know you'll accomplish more easily-- all because in the past you were probably told that being able to pick things up quickly is what makes your smart.  The growth mindset is "based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your...

In Leaders East Last , Simon Sinek provides reference to a Circle of Safety.  Our biology hasn’t changed in fifty thousand years, but our environment certainly has. Today’s workplaces tend to be full of cynicism, paranoia and self-interest. But the best organizations foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a Circle of Safety that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside. The Circle of Safety leads to stable, adaptive, confident teams, where everyone feels they belong and all energies are devoted to facing the common enemy and seizing big opportunities. - Amazon Summary In the past couple of organizations that I have worked in, there has been no circle of safety -- only a ring of fire.  How do you know when there is no circle of safety?  You can't speak to leaders with candor without instigating defensiveness.  Leaders are more concerned with the impressi...

In Bizarro World , I am starting a business with some of my best friends and colleagues.  It's a place that works with clients that want our products and services. It's a place that does meaningful work.  It's a place that inspires me and the company's employees to wake up each and every morning to do great work. For many of us, the true definition of Bizarro World (not mine) is the one that we are living in today.  If that's the case, we need to ask ourselves "why?"  Then we need to ask ourselves if there is anything we can do to fix it.

At the recommendation of Tim Ferris and Ramit Sethi , I read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.  It's a great book that demonstrates how a simple thing like a checklist can save lives and automate routines so that you can focus on the stuff that matters.  Though the book may be about checklists, Dr. Gawande also manages to work in a definition of professionalism that will resonate with many of you.  Professionalism is a code of conduct defined through a few expectations: Expectation of selflessness - Are you looking out for others or looking out for yourself?  Expectation of skill - Are you doing everything possible to become a master of your craft? Are you staying on top of trends? Are you looking at the skills that it takes to be the best in your field and honing those skills on a continual basis?  Expectation of trustworthiness - Do you do what you say? Is your word bond? Do you make a promise and make good on that promise?  He g...

Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage an organism.  In business, look at your organization as an organism under a microscope.  There are a variety of ways that toxins can get in, but the primary way would be through the people that you hire. Companies that have lax hiring standards, no real onboarding program, and free-for-all processes have a higher risk of absorbing negative toxicity.  Companies that have very stringent hiring standards, an in-depth and prescriptive onboarding program, and a culture that helps its employees thrive are usually toxin-free. A person that is a stimulant in one organization can become toxic in another organization. Is that the fault of the employee or the employer?  Culpability lies on both sides of the table. The problem is getting both parties to admit it. 

In my stellar career of management, I've had a couple of memorable quotes from my team members.  I had one direct report tell me, "Don't manage me!"  I had another one say, "Leave me the f*ck alone!" (Acronym of the title of this post.)  Ben Horowtiz has WFIO (We're f*cked, it's over).  I have LMTFA.   Many organizations today have created a LMFTA environment.  Or, maybe it's not the organization, but the employees that view the company they work for as a means to provide for things like benefits , or work/life balanc e, or a paycheck .  If that's the case, then it should be no surprise that apathy and indifference are in abundance in the workplace.  God forbid people work to make an impact or doing work that matters.   Whose responsibility is it to create a job or career that's enjoyable?  Yours or your employer?  That's probably a discussion for another post and one wher...

For those of you raising children, ages 4-5 are when your child is establishing his or her independence.  It's a period of reward because you are watching your little one become a person.  It's a period of frustration because your pride and joy begins to test boundaries and push buttons because he's known you all of his life. It gets worse when it's someone else's kid.  As an example, I coach an Under 6 soccer team and one of the kids clearly wasn't listening to me. So I told him to go run a lap around the field. He proceeded to look at me with disgust and sit down on his butt making it a point to ignore my directions. Fast forward a few decades and being a manager is not any better.  Direct defiance is replaced by passive aggressiveness.  Tantrums are replaced by "escalation" to an executive.  In the world of middle management, you have absolutely no leverage-- just like my situation with someone else's kid.  I...

The worst thing that can happen in a job is being asked to leave without knowing why.  In the past I've written about being rolled off of a project and describing it as one of those life failure moments.  In the world of management consulting where failure is not an option, being asked to leave before it's your time is the kiss of death from a career standpoint.  But we all know that that's not the case.  At least from a"being rolled off" standpoint, the Partner was good enough to sit face-to-face with me and tell me that I wasn't meeting his expectations. It didn't really feel good at the time and I still look back upon that moment as one that completely sucked, but at least I got honest feedback.  But what do you do if a client fires you and does not give you any reason whatsoever?  Is that and should that be acceptable?  In my opinion, as a grown adult, there should be reasons as to why someone is fired or rolled off. How likely is it ...

In Seth Godin's startup school , a lady asks whether consultants are or can be entrepreneurs.  Godin, after clarifying the question, says that almost always consultants are freelancers.  According to Godin, the return on equity is low in the consulting industry. Per one of my previous posts, consultants also trade time for money (see Donkey Strategy .) In addition, the only way to scale is by adding more people which in the long run is sustainable with A LOT of work.  A some point in a management consultant's career, he or she will get what I'll call the "itch."  Whether it's the itch to hang out your own shingle, or the itch to see if you can build a product yourself -- a consultant will get the itch because 1.) He gets tired of telling clients how to do things better without them listening; or 2.) She's just tired of serving two masters-- I'm sure there are many other reasons as well. If / when you get the itch, remember that the gap betwee...

There is a constant struggle between Strategists and Operators.  Strategists wax lyrical frameworks, charts, rigorous analysis, smart sounding assumptions that go into recommendations that will transform the organization.  As an Operator, it's hard to understand what all of that crap means.  Everything with a Strategist is high level -- middle management can fill in the details.  The Operator wants details and wants to understand why any of it is important -- in layman's terms. The Strategist makes recommendations based on logical structuring and fact based thinking.  The Operator makes decisions based on emotion.  The most effective consultants are the ones that can bridge strategic thinking with the emotion of operating at any level.  It's those consultants that effect meaningful change. 

Are you a Consultant or a Contractor?  The Contractor has a skill that is easily commoditized.  The Consultant has skills that can become commoditized with education if he or she does not continue to grow. The Contractor is never on time and does not respect a customer's time. The Consultant lives and dies by meetings and calendars because they respect the client's time. The Contractor shows up, does the job, and collects the check.  The Consultant's job is to deliver value every time she shows up. The Contractor only thinks about the immediate next task in the context of a particular job.  The Consultant thinks about his or her activity in the context of the bigger picture. The Contractor never asks what you are trying to accomplish and why you need his services.  The Consultant always asks about your goals and objectives and should know why you need their help.  The Contractor could care less about a customer's well-being. The Con...

I've observed executives use a rhetorical question as a way of thinking out loud to themselves.  Unfortunately, to the casual observer or a management consultant, the rhetorical question can be misinterpreted as an opportunity to provide an answer as quickly as possible. The first step to answering a rhetorical question is to not answer it at all.  Over time, and through some hard knocks, I've learned that silence is your most powerful ally when a rhetorical question is asked.  If you are like 9 out of 10 consultants that feel like you need to fill in the quiet space, you will end up soliciting more questions that you really don't want to answer. Management consultants want to jump to conclusions and solutions as quickly as possible.  Executives typically want to think through the problem at hand and assess all of the options before making a decision.  The rhetorical question is one way of doing this.  So do yourself a favor. When you hear a...

You only need one.  One client.  One methodology.  One point of view.  One follower.  Even though there aren't a million people reading this, there is at least one. That's the person that I write for.  To start your own thing, all you need is someone to be inspired and committed to what you do.  Eventually that inspiration and commitment becomes contagious -- or it may not.  But at the very least, you know you are not on an island in feeling the way that you do. 

As a middle manager is it your responsibility to keep your people busy?  For the longest time, I felt like the answer always had to be "yes."  After all, if your people aren't busy, then that reflects on your ability as a manager to plan the work. Why would you need that person anyway if he or she doesn't have enough to do?  When a person comes to me and say, "I'm bored," or "I'm being underutilized, " my reaction is first defensiveness and then I quickly think about how I can get him or her busy.  However, part of being a good management consultant - or professional for that matter- is to find ways to be productive and not be bored and not be underutilized. You can make a contribution to the office. You could work on your start up idea. You could do all the administrative stuff that you don't do to begin with.  There is always something to do.  The relationship between a Manager and a direct report is a tw...

In Zero to One , Peter Thiel refers to a law that his friends named after him that states, "A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed." When looking at the company that you work for, what elements of the foundation have to be absolutely on point?  Leadership? Management structure? Communication architecture? Talent management and recruiting? Organizational health and maintenance? Operating model?  Some, or all of these?  As many startups that fail because their foundation was cracked to begin with, I think that there are many companies in existence today that are built like a game of Jenga .  You pull that one piece out and the whole tower comes crashing down.  Question is -- what is that one piece?  Leadership? Management structure? Communication architecture? Talent management and recruiting? Organizational health and maintenance? Operating model?  You get the idea... 

If you stay in professional services long enough, at some point your salary is going to cap out.  For those of us that continue to trade time for money, at some point you are going to run out of time and the market is going to stop paying for you at a certain rate per hour.  It's at that point that companies make up for the cap by offering equity, incentive based variable compensation, or some other benefit that compensates for the fact that you can go no higher in your salary without the company making some margin off of you.  For some that have a "number," they may never reach that cap.  But for the ones that know that the only reason to work this hard is because there is a brass ring or a carrot that could feed Bugs Bunny for his lifetime-- realizing that you've been capped out is a frustrating circumstance.  There is no reason to make professional services a career unless a.) you really love what you are doing and feel what you are getting for your...

Recently, the entire top layer of the company that I work for resigned and started a new consulting company.  As much as I've always wanted to have a Jerry Maguire moment, this is about as close as I've come to witnessing one in real life.  People ask me questions like, "What is going on?" "What does that mean for you?" "What do you think about all of this?"  My response, unfortunately is, "I don't know what to think."  The only thing that I can do is observe and talk to people to see how they are reacting to the situation.  Since the "coup d'état" as I'll call it (only fitting since my origin is Thai), I've observed three sets of reactions from employees and only one reaction from the company's leadership.  Reaction #1, Employee Apathy - Huh? Those guys left. Does it affect me? No? Back to work.   Reaction #2, Employee Self-Interest - The leadership team left! That means more opportunity for m...

The Hard Things About Hard Things is the book I'm currently reading by Ben Horowitz , cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. I'm also listening to Zero to One by Peter Thiel. It's safe to say that I'm getting my Silicon Valley technology startup fix taken care of at the moment. I'm always intrigued by those that think differently. By different, I mean in the "business acument genius off the chart" type of way. In both of these books, I've realized that you will never learn enough about how to start, run, and manage a business. To me, good advice is something that you don't want or need to hear, but you know deep down that it's right. Both of these books tell it like it is and there is some great substance in both of them. Check them out if you have the time.

Why is taking the high road so hard?   It's because we are ruled by emotion.  Everyone demands a certain level of respect and professionalism.  When we feel that trust has been broken, that we've been disrespected, or the level of professionalism is just plain amateurish, our natural instincts to say, "Hold my stuff, I'm about to bust someone..."  Other triggers that make us want to take the jacket off and put on the brass knuckles include--  playing office politics in a self-interested manner, not communicating the whole story- only the part that is self-promoting, and taking credit for other people's work.  For once, just once, take a day and be real. Be direct. Be transparent. Be authentic. Show some vulnerability.  There would be a lot less drama and a lot more productivity in the workplace. 

These are the three most dangerous words in the business world today. The direct report says, "Well, I could do that, but I have this, this, and that to do."  The IT developer says, "The system should do that, but it's really designed this way because we worked around it."  The boss says, "I would   escalate that issue, but the time isn't right."  All three of these words reflect inaction and sub-optimal organizational performance. Remove these words from your vocabulary in the workplace and replace them with "can", "will", and "must."  The workplace will be better off because of it. 

The days of working 30+ years in the same organization are over -- and it's not because the Millenials are taking over.  Large organizations reorganize more than ever in an effort to make the numbers look good. As a result, your political alignment today now becomes a political alignment of yesterday.  Many people would love to believe that promotions happen through demonstration of merit and added value.  False.  Climbing the corporate ladder is paved with height, hair, an ability to BS, and lack of real business acumen or content-- in general.  Find the company that puts the people before the numbers, as Simon Sinek says, and you'll find loyalty and stability.  Unfortunately those companies are few and far between.