My good friend and associate Gareth wrote a piece this week called ‘Conversation is the New Currency’. I think the post is interesting and I disagree with his assertion about newness. Long before social media ever existed and (insert religious being of choice here) willing, long after too – conversation will be vital. It is indeed a currency older than the Roman Sestersius. The fag break, the lunch break, the hello on the way into work, the goodbye on the way out – all these and more existed long afore ye twitter and ye olde Facebookke.
Rob Jones has written a piece called ‘The One With the Wrong Era’, in which Rob challenges Gareth’s assertion through the lens of his father. Both these posts are well worth a read, and if you’re not already following Gareth and Rob on Twitter, I think you’ll get a lot of value from doing so.
I’m sitting in the sun, reading and absorbing all this stuff when I spot Matt Alder (yeah follow him too) tweet about Rob’s post. Matt said, ‘Agreed, we’re just going back to being human.’ I love it, we’re just going back to being human. If I was some kinda inspirational tweet guru I’d stick that top of my list, or at least on a t-shirt.
Before Frederick W Taylor came along and fucked everything with his well meaning and bonkers ideas around command and control, we used to get stuff done at least partly through talking with each other. Talking, learning, sharing; skills, ideas and methods. And as Rob’s post shows us, we still managed even though FWT’s ideas became widely adopted. Some of the best examples of engagement in the broadest sense and between the broadest range of stakeholders, occurs through the art of conversation. Yes we need to listen, do, feedback, improve, loop the loop and all that. But we’ve all been there. The best places we work are the ones where useful conversation helps to make work better, where the art of conversation is seen as inspiring, not inconvenient, winning not wasteful.
We’ll be talking more about this stuff at the upcoming Stop Doing Dumb Things event on June 27th if you’d like to join us (I couldn’t resist!), and it’s the subject of my talk at the Ohio SHRM in September, although Matt’s title is waaay better than the one I’m currently using (note to self – change it!).
Last night I had a dream. You remember that note I sent to the CEO yesterday? I dreamt I got an out of office reply which read:
Dear colleague
I’m sorry I can’t reply to your note personally right now, I’m managing by walking about (MBWA). I find MBWA a great way to listen to colleagues and learn from them. I really enjoy taking action based on what I’ve heard, and seeing this action make a difference to the working lives of us as a group of staff, and in turn, our customers. Of course we don’t get it right all the time and that’s fine, with creativity and innovation come mistakes, and from these mistakes arise further opportunities to learn and improve.
I will call you when I’ve finished today’s MBWA and arrange to pop by and see you soon. Alternatively give me a call and come and find me, if that’s easier for you.
Hope to see you very soon.
I awoke from my dream imagining the possibilities sparked by such a reply. And like all dreams I have, things fade quickly from my memory as reality bites. I’m glad I wrote the note down before I forgot it.
Just over three years ago I had a reality. I was working for a new divisional CEO brought in to clear up the mess left by the previous one. To be clear I didn’t work for him directly, there were two layers of confusion, oops sorry I meant management, between him and me. When the new CEO arrived he asked, nay he begged for people to be open, to lend him ideas and help. “Please drop me a line with your ideas; I can’t get us out of this mess alone”. Encouraged by this appeal I began to look for and suggest ways of making work better. I found real cost savings, small in comparison to the size of the hole we were in but we were told every little helps. I found opportunities for growth too.
I received replies to my notes. Not from the CEO, but from people on his team reassuring me that although he is very busy, all these things were being looked at. And without fail that was the first and last response I received to every single note I sent. I used to write a blog for the business so I would recall some of these ideas on there, and I often found out via blog comments these ideas were really being considered, and in some cases actioned. But I never found this out via the CEO or any of his cronies.
Then all replies from the CEO office stopped, just like that. I kept the ideas flowing for a while with no clue if they were even getting through. What was I to do? I wrote one more note. I titled it “Are You There?” and I politely asked if I was ever going to get a reply directly from the CEO to any of my notes. I was as encouraging as I could possibly be, and I got a reply. It read:
Thank you for your note to Bert (name changed to protect the ignorant). Although he is too busy to respond personally he appreciates you being in touch blah blah blah.
Based on these experiences I’m heading back to dreamland for my next dose of inspiration. If you have news of where the boss has engaged and created a positive outcome I’d love to hear them. Surely the news ain’t all bad?
When I first started running a business after a gazillion years in employment I guessed it would be tricky. I was right, though at the time I had no idea how difficult it would be. The result was a pile of mistakes and an uncomfortable first year which I scraped through and which provided valuable learning for me. As some of you will know, I am shortly going to open up the business and share information around how it runs. By way of introduction to that experiment I would like to share some of my experiences with you. Michael Carty and the good people at XpertHR have been kind enough to join me on this stage of the journey. You can read some of what I’ve learned over at their place this morning, and some here. I hope you find this collaboration useful.
Things take time
The business is set up, I’m out and about and I spot and begin to develop a few opportunities. I also register with some invitation to tender gateways for public sector work and start to see interesting things emerge here too. It takes time to jump through the hoops associated with tendering, lots of time. I begin by enthusiastically putting my best foot forward and “having a go”. There are deadlines to meet. You need to deliver all this stuff to us by a date so we can narrow the field by b date and so on. What happens is that b date, and the others that follow in the chain inevitably slip. Folks are great at not allowing enough time for things to happen.
The trouble I had in dealing with this meant I clouded my thinking around “I wonder when so and so will be back in touch?” I wasted loads of time wondering, and then worrying about this stuff. In time I realised that whatever the opportunity is, it’s only one of a number of things going on in the customer’s world. How important it is to me is irrelevant so prepare and deliver your proposal, then get on with other stuff. Or in the case of local authority tendering, choose not to play here in the first place…
Broaden your focus
Attractive sparkly ideas and conversations are very seductive. I mean, who doesn’t like sparkles eh? The trouble is they can be blinding and when I first started out – I became absorbed by the “next big thing” and the sparkles distracted me from other stuff. I was invited to apply for a position of external adviser to the board of a local authority. I was also encouraged to engage with another local authority who were keen to learn more about the connections between an engaged workforce and improved customer service. In the case of the first opportunity I eventually came second. The second one, which started in spring 2010 – is still rumbling along….somewhere. I used to be far too patient and wait for these things to move along. I’m much more comfortable with the what goes around philosophy now. And yet…
Patiently impatient
Because people can take so long to decide, or not decide, or decide and decide not to tell you, things drag. There are reasons for this and one of them can be your decision not to remind folks that you are there. It’s tough to get the balance right and it’s important to be on the lookout for other valid reasons to re-establish connections on things that have gone a little cold. I don’t think it’s worth hassling about the same thing all the time – letting go is important. And it’s just as important to occasionally remind folks you are still there, ready to help.
Deep dive with care
Good preparation enables me to help create a relaxed and flowing atmosphere for the people I’m working with. When I was working on the creation and delivery of my first major conference, I worked with an event company who attracted sponsorship and used their extensive mailing lists to help attract an audience. I invested weeks and weeks of planning time writing engaging copy for the event site and attracting some very good speakers. I wanted this event to be as good as it could be so I left no stone unturned as I sought out good people and tried to write the very best website I could. I became so focused on these things I “forgot” to sort out other stuff. Stuff like – how much was I going to be paid for my efforts.
After a few weeks I broached the subject and we agreed I would take 20% of the gross profit. The event was a big success, we attracted over 80 delegates and some hefty sponsorship and the buzz on the day was great. I used music through the day to intro speakers and other sessions, and played with some visual cues too. The post event feedback showed people really appreciated what we’d laid on for them. A few days after the event I received a cheque for around £2,500. That was my financial reward for around four months of hard slog. I subsequently found out that the event company had made a load of mistakes in their bookkeeping which left me somewhat short changed. They refused to share information, then got very aggressive and I took what at the time was the tough decision not to pursue the matter. I believe that doing so would have cost me more money and time than would ever have been recovered and though I don’t know this; I expect taking that path could have been curtains for the business. I learned some valuable, very expensive lessons. Don’t focus on one thing at the expense of all others, insist on making robust transparent financial arrangements upfront, and know when to let go.
On the gas
I confess I felt bitter about my naivety around the conference. From the outside it had been a success and yet it had drained financial and emotional resource from me. I struggled to get over it and I nearly missed the point. The point was – follow up, and quickly. I contacted as many people I could who had given good feedback from the event and arranged several meetings to explore…possibilities. One of these possibilities led to the piece of work which ensured the company survived its first year and started year two in much better shape. Follow up quickly.
Eager to please
I like to please folk; I think most of us do. Trouble is if you try and please everyone you quickly end up being taken for a mug. Through trying to help a good friend with their hopeless broadband customer experience I managed to displease the Group CEO of BT a while back. And though there are folk who will tell you “you don’t want to make enemies with people like that”, it helps to have a few people you haven’t pleased.
Flow
Balance sucks. I learned this from falling off bicycles. Flow is much better. Flow is when time flies, and when you are absorbed in what you are doing, and when you are able to move from work to social to family and give generously when you are there, and move to the next place with focus and presence. Rather than trying to achieve balance – try and achieve flow.
Last minute
Be adaptable. Very early in my career I planned for a day of facilitation which went horribly wrong. Speakers didn’t show, and were hours late, and were poorly briefed. I wasn’t directly responsible for any of these things but I hadn’t planned for them. I managed to salvage a useful day for this team and I learned a lot from it, primarily to expect the unexpected. Have a plan B and a plan C too. Better to go along for the ride with too many things to do than not enough.
Practice practice practice
Pretty much anything worth anything takes practice. If you really want it, keep practicing, asking and listening. In the summer of 2010 I nearly gave up. Am I glad I didn’t! I love what I do and I continue to search for and find inspiration in the likeliest, and unlikeliest of places.
