How Not to Manage People

CCH (a provider of tax information, software and services) have a new whitepaper, "Recruiting and Keeping Up-and-coming CPAs at Your Firm" which provides insight into what's important to young accounting professionals in the workplace today, how firms are measuring up and what firms can do to recruit and retain top talent.

The whitepaper is based on the findings of a survey of CPAs with four to seven years of experience, asking them what they wanted most and asked them to rate how well their firms were meeting these needs.

The results are the same old sad story. Fewer than one-half of firms received a very good rating on their ability to deliver on the attributes most important to up-and-coming professionals.

Amazingly, only 39% of the respondenst rated their firms as very good in providing "comprehensive resources to get the job done."

How about that for convincing your staff about your commitmtent to quality and giving them a good work experience!!

Interestingly, the three most important atrributes of firm culture in the eyes of the respondents were:

• Ethical leadership in the firm (only 55% of firms were rated very good!)
• Work / Life Balance -- Family friendly Policies (38% of firms rated very good)
• High quality feedback, supervision and performance management (13% of firms rated very good!)

What ARE these firms thinking of? What IS going on out there?

I'm close to giving up in disgust. why bother writing and talking about sensible management if these results reflect the real world?

Promoting a New Article

For some time now, I have been saying that a book is a "20th-century artifact" and that the way to serve your market (and to get your market's attention) is to write a stream of blog posts.  That way, you educate your audience to expect new ideas and thoughts from you on a regular basis.

However, once you've written the blog posts, nothing stops you from going for the double benefit of compiling the blog postsinto an article and issuing it as such.  That's the strategy that worked so well for me in launching my career.  Both of those articles were compilations of previously published blog posts, and people really like having them between hard covers.

I think I'm now ready to put together my next article, based upon the blog posts I have been writing over the past 18 months (and which are all available for download on my website).  With a little rewriting, I think I can bring out my common themes and major messages.  (Strategy as determination and courage, management as the willingness to be accountable for the managerial role, going behind the facade of people who claim to want long-term relationships, etc.)

The challenge I face -- and the topic on which I'd like your input -- is thinking about marketing the article.

Article marketing has always been a complete mystery to me.  I long ago learned that traditional publishers are useless, so I'll be self-publishing (as modern technology allows me to do) with both on-line versions (pdf) available for sale and "dead tree" versions sold through business magazines.

My past history also taught me that it's incredibly expensive and completely uncertain to hire specialist publicists.  Over the course of the past 11 years, I spent a total of $200K on publicists and publicity, and never came anywhere near getting much attention from the audiences I was targeting.  All publicists SAY they will get you interviews and reviews in key media, but it never really worked out that way for me.  There are over 50 business magazines published in Australia each month, and breaking through the clutter is very hard.

So, here's my latest thoughts:

• Self publish and send out free copies to CEOS and managing partners of key firms
• Send out free copies to every business blogger I can think of
• Send out free copies to every traditional journalist I can think of
• Send out free copies to every university professor in a professional school
• Develop a new series of "you-Tube" style videos, 3-minutes long or less

****

So, as I get ready to think about marketing my new article, what activities do you think I should be doing or preparing for?

Talking with Reporters

Yesterday (March 27, 2007) I was (briefly) quoted in the Wall Street Journal in a story about whether or not your spouse is a good person to turn to for career advice.

But this blogpost is not about the content of that story. It's about talking with reporters.

I'm a great believer in doing it out of courtesy, but unlike many of my professional firm clients, I don't believe getting quoted is a particularly powerful marketing tactic. Yes, it was nice that my name appeared in print, and also that it was mentioned in passing that I was an author.

But experience has taught me that being quoted like this doesn't really help promote my business or affect the likelihood of me getting hired.

Yet many financial service firms, consulting firms, accounting firms, law firms and so on spend quite a bit of time trying to get press coverage in places like the WSJ. Why? Is it really worth the effort and the money?

I'll grant that a story ABOUT me might be powerful, but I have been lucky to have had my share of those, but it would be very hard to identify even a single enquiry that came from press coverage. My family like to keep track of my clippings, and, embarrassing but true, I (still) get personal gratification from seeing my name in print.

But I think the marketing benefits of talking to journalists, and press coverage in general, are way over-rated for professional businesses.

Do you agree or disagree? Is there any hard evidence one way or the other?

Required Reading

If you do a business degree, they will often assign you books on marketing, managing, organisational behaviour and strategy. But many "classics" never get assigned because the topics they cover are seen as too "basic."

For example, there are lots of people (like me) who took many courses on "Management" but never really had to think about supervising another human being.

This is not just about younger people getting their first education: it's also relevant when large professional firms first start offering management training to senior officers appointed to managing positions for the first time.

Such organisations often arrange special executive education courses at elite universities, when what their new managers really need is to read The One-Minute Manager.

Rather than learning advanced topics such as market positioning, segmentation, etc., surely we should start by helping people understand what it feels like to sit across the table from someone who you are trying to get to hire you? Something like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends And Influence People.

Yet the One-Minute Manager and Dale Carnegie are rarely assigned texts (unless I'm out of date with what's happening.)

Here's my question for all of you: what are the essential but neglected (basic) business books that YOU think people should read that tend not to get assigned in formal courses? Where would you recommend that people read to START to understand management, marketing, and other business essentials?

Profit Formula

In business many factors lead to ultimate financial and business success. The challenge is to identify which factors tend to drive other factors and hence, where you really should start to launch the sequence that leads to ultimate profitability.

The Friendship Strategy -- New strategy podcast episode available now

The seventh episode of my new podcast series, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, is now live and available for download.

The series is dedicated to exploring the themes found in my article by the same name.  I encourage you to forward these to friends and associates who may be interested in the topics covered.

This seventh episode, "The Friendship Strategy", looks at the parallels between building trusting relationships in business and building friendships in personal life.  All too often, it seems that when people come to work, they leave behind everything they know about interacting with other humans.

We will look into the reasons why people neglect to use these lessons and what it takes to improve your personal and professional relationship-building skills.

NOTES FOR THE EPISODE:
00:14 -- Introduction
00:43 -- Understanding business relationships through personal life
02:03 -- Conversation and trust
06:54 -- Socialising in business relations
10:21 -- How do they feel about you?
15:30 -- Being supportive
18:30 -- Initiate relationships

You can download "The Friendship Strategy" or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players.  (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to
subscribe).  My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Leadership Qualities

If you don't subscribe to my (free) articles, then you won't know that I have just published a new article on my website entitled Selecting A Leader: Do We Know What We Want? (downloadabe in pdf form, as all my articles are.)

The article points out that many of the desired characteristics that firms say they want in a CEO or Managing Partner are inherently contradictory: for example, firms often say they want someone who is both decisive and consultative. It's tough to be both.

Some other trade-offs include choosing someone who:

• Focuses on working inside firm versus focuses on a high profile with clients and marketplace
• Is good with numbers versus good with people
• Leads in accordance with a strong personal ideology of his or her own, versus is the kind of person who tolerates different views, values and approaches

In the article, I describe a simple approach to debating "forced choices" between a large number of these "paired virtues", as a way of getting firms to clarify what they really want in a leader.

What contradictory or conflicting things do you see people include when they enumerate the desirable characteristics of a leader?

Is Stewardship Dead?

Over the years, I have had a lot of people ask me for definitions of (a) what is a profession (b) what is a professional (c) what is a professional service and (d) what is a professional service firm?

On the last question, I have always argued that a professional service firm, as a special type of organisation, is one where the current partners develop and pass on the firm to the next generation. (It's also called the partnership model)

In the old days, when professional firms acted like they cared, many of them ran on the principle of stewardship or "legacy." The firm was run not only for the current generation, but with an eye to building an institution that would flourish and survive in future years. Partners, so the argument went, held the firm in trust for the next generation.

This was not just a cultural issue. Under the stewardship model, equity in the firm was transferred at book value -- in at book, out at book. Partners made their money from the income they earned while working at the firm, not by equity appreciation.

I got a call yesterday from a CPA firm partner who thinks that continuing to think this way today is all hogwash. Firms today aren't REALLY run to leave a legacy or build an institution for the next generation, and firm leaders should stop pretending that they are. They're fooling no-one, he says.

Today's partners want not only to maximise their income, but also (when the time comes) they want to be bought out at fair market value when they leave the firm, not just depart with a token retirement pension.

In part, the commonality of the "stewardship" versus "if you want ownership you have to buy it from me" model depends on which profession / industry you're talking about. PR firms, ad agencies and other marketing communications firms have ALWAYS been "owned." They've always been "built to flip" (ie sell to one of the big conglomerates like Omnicom or WPP.) From the beginning, their founders ran them to create a "capital event." They didn't usually give away equity for nothing to rising young people.

On the other hand, in the profession of law (in the US, UK and Australia, but not necessarily elsewhere) there is still a history of running a partnership model, not a corporate model. The message is still (so far) "earn your income while you're here, there's no capital gains to be made from your ownership of the firm." In part, that's because in many countries there are barriers to who can own a law firm.

But what do you think is going to happen in the UK when the Clementi reforms are (finally) implemented and outsiders can buy the equity of a law firm? How long do you think it will take for the existing partners to rethink (even more than they have been doing) whether they want to admit new partners without forcing them to buy in at fair-market value? Why give away a part share of ownership in your law firm when you can sell it to Goldman Sachs?

In accounting firms, it depends on the size of the firm. Big global firms still pretend they are "passing on the heritage", while many small CPA firms owners are unapologetic in saying: if you want ownership in my firm, you have to buy it from me!

So, what do the rest of you see going on out there?

• Is Stewardship (or the partnership model) dead, even among the firms that pretend to still have it?
• Should we all just admit that the way firms are being run today is to maximise the wealth of the current shareholders?
• If you ran a firm, would you run it on ownership or stewardship principles (be honest)
• Is there a price to be paid if firms switch from one approach to another?

How Clients Can Get the Best out of Us

Here's a question from "Eric":

I am thinking of writing an article myself about how clients of consultants can create the right relationship with their consultant so that they get more bang for the buck (i.e. more insight from an objective viewpoint then they would normally get via the usually limited "statement of work").

If my company gets called in to help out (with anything from strategy through technical implementations), we end up learning so much about their organisation, how they build processes, how things really work and I feel that in some situations, the client puts barriers up that prevent effective communication.

If clients knew how to approach their consultants and their relationship with them, they could glean a lot of "insider" information that they would not normally get. We find out SO much about the inadequacies of client organisational structures, communication breakdowns, lack of effective change management etc. that I think the client management might benefit from if only they knew. Some know how to get this out of us and some don't.

I understand some of the barriers: they might consider their consultants just money grubbing stiffs, may not trust them, are politically boxed in, etc.). Obviously, a bigpiece of a partnering relationship is the responsibility of the consultant lead. However, it does take two to tango, doesn't it?

***

I think it's a great idea for an article, Eric. But you haven't really got us started.

Why don't we all try and complete the following sentence:

"To get the most out of us, our clients should ..."

(Self-serving actions like hire us some more are not allowed! The spirit of this is to avoid reinforcing the perceptions that Eric so readily identified -- that if we are not careful, clients will see additional activities by us as the work of untrustworthy, money-grubbing people. Anything we suggest has to avoid reinforcing that, right?)

So, to get the most out of us/me, clients should:

1. Help me/us understand, before we get in too deep, the real politics of what's going on in their organisation
2. Tell us/me the truth, up-front, about what they're really willing to change and what they are not
3. Meet with us/me one-on-one informally, so that we/I can pass on "off the record" and informally some of the things we think we have learned.
4. Allow for informal "what's going well and what are you learning?" conversations on a regular basis during the work, not just at the end.
5. Keep us/me informed if their priorities and goals have shifted, so that we/I can adapt along with them.

Anyone else want to join in? What could clients be doing (specifically) to get the most out of you and your firm?

An Employeer's New Bonus Scheme

Here's another reader question, from "D":

For the last nine years I have worked for a sales and marketing firm. Almost every year I have received "Incentives" and "Bonuses" (of varying amounts) for the work I do. The "Bonus" is from a pool of funds paid to my company by my client. The "Incentive" is paid directly from my employer.

This year the company is taking a 12% "administration fee" (pre-tax) from the bonus and incentive monies. I've been in this business for over 20 years and have never heard of such a thing, let alone experience it first hand.

The oddity of this -- to my thinking -- is that someone who receives a $1,000 bonus pays $120 for the cost of being paid. Someone who receives $3,000 pays $360 and so on up the scale. Another way to look at it: My client paid the company almost $1,000,000 in bonus. My company is taking almost $120,000 in "fees" from its employees (and the employees are paying the tax as well).

So, my questions are (a) Have you ever heard of such a thing in any business? And (b) Isn't it odd that the employee would pay a federal and state income tax on what the company is taking out as an administration fee? (In other words, we are paying the company's income tax before them; at least, that's the way it seems to me.)

***

D, I never expect to be surprised at the complex payment schemes that firms devise, and I'm rarely shocked that firms would put in place self-serving systems that adversely affect their employees (or independent subcontractors, in other instances.) If it's the deal they offered at the beginning, and employees voluntarily accepted that deal when they came in, then so be it.

However, it's the overnight change in the mutual understanding that would trouble me if I worked where you work. As you point out, a 12% administration fee burden on employees is a sizable sum, and if it were to be "imposed" without explanation and consultation, I'd expect a revolt. (Unless it's the same in every competitive firm.)

I'm enough of a capitalist to say employers are allowed to structure their pay offer any way they want to. But I'm also enough of an idealist that I, personally, wouldn't continue to work at a place where the mutual trust was broken in this way.

What think the rest of you?

The Balanced scorecard on YOU may be coming soon

Bruce MacEwan (blogging as Adam Smith, Esq.) reports on and discusses a article by Guy Beringer, a senior partner at Allen & Overy, the major UK law firm, on the inadequacies (and unfortunate consequences) of using PROFIT PER EQUITY PARTNER (PEP) as a measure (or, perhaps more significantly) THE measure of firm performance.

This is not a new debate, in the law or in industry generally. The weaknesses of PEP are largely the same as the weaknesses of return on shareholders' equity measures. As Messrs Beringer and MacEwan point out, many games can be played with both the numerator and denominator of PEP, but it's not exactly news that companies can and do play games with both reported profits and invested equity, in order to bolster earnings per share numbers.

Welcome, leaders of professional firms, to the wonderful world and revered tradition of managed earnings and media games!

The problem with PEP is not that it's a bad financial measure. ALL measures, especially financial ones, can be gamed. As a lot of people have pointed out over the last two decades, the problem arises when financial measures are not used as part of a "balanced scorecard." It's always been true that a firm needs to serve three constituencies to flourish: clients, people and owners.

Industry makes the same mistake that Mr. Beringer cautions us against: focusing on financials to please Wall Street, hoping that no-one will notice that (initially) degrees of client satisfaction and employee morale are allowed to slip. He's absolutely right to propose the broader use of client and employee satisfaction measures.

One of the things that may cause this to actually happen would be if someone REALLY developed and put up on the web a "JD Powers-like" evaluation system which basically said: "evaluate your law firm and your lawyer here," allowing ready access for future clients and people to check out prospective firms (and individual practices) they might consider working with.

There are beginnings of this out there: Vault.com tries to rate the employee experience, and Chambers (in the UK) has print and on-line versions reporting firm's and people's reputations. But it could get a LOT more explicit, and high profile. I suspect there's a great business available for anyone who wanted to develop that "Rate your law firm" web site.

Of course, I'd be nervous about a "rate your consultant" website, but that's coming too, of course! Someday soon, we're ALL going to be held accountable to a balanced scorecard, whether we like it or not.

Lead Generation Tactics

Rain Today.com has published the Future Of Lead Generation, in which they report on the answers given by over 700 professional service firm leaders about their lead generation activities -- what works, what doesn't, and what they are planning to do in the future in regards to tactics, offers, and budgets.

There is an excellent 20+ page free summary available and you should check it out. It offers the 6 key insights that come from the study:

1. Brand Matters. Firms that said they were very well known in their target market were also more likely to say they were good or excellent at generating leads.
2. It helps (a lot) to know the names of the key decision makers in the organisations you are targeting (and many firms do not.)
3. Cold calling can work -- if you use it to set a meeting to introduce yourself and to learn about the prospect, not to go into a detailed sales pitch.
4. The most effective mix of tactics reported were "warm" phone calls to existing contacts, speaking at conferences, running the firm's own in-person events, becoming members of an industry association and (most surprising to me) connecting with the press to gain PR.
5. Firms reported that 25% of their leads were considered "sales-ready", 50% required further nurturing and 25% of their leads were disqualified.
6. Actually, as you'll see when you look at the free summary, insight number 6 is a well-designed "teaser" entitled "Indicators of the Future of Lead generation" which does a good job of making you want to buy the full report.

Apart from offering substance, Rain Today.com does a superb job of marketing itself. They targeted me as a blogger to mention this report, and kept in touch (politely, but insistently) with helpful reminders until I responded with this blog. They can (and DO) give lessons in how to be effective marketers!

Do My Ideas Work?

It's always gratifying to hear stories about people who did (or did not) use your advice, and to find out what happened. Here's an interesting tale, received by email yesterday:

Dear Richard, It's extremely unlikely you will remember me, but I attended a management development workshop you ran in London in 1998. I had already read your articles and found the time spent with you very valuable. After one of the sessions you and I had coffee and you recommended I start my own market research company. Subsequently I returned to Australia, ran Taylor Nelson Sofres for a while, and then took the plunge.

We started Celsius Research in 2002. We carefully thought about our positioning (heavy-duty quantitative market research with a strong predictive component) and stuck to it. Things went great and I bought an Aston Martin.

In 2003 we recognised the opportunities presented by on-line data collection and, in line with your opening chapters, launched a separate company, Information Research Management, instead of attempting to use the Celsius skill set and culture to undertake the more operationally focussed tasks associated with fieldwork. Things went well and I travelled around the world with my family.

In 2004 Celsius undertook a segmentation study for Microsoft Xbox in Australia and New Zealand. Our advanced analysis produced a fresh view of this market, which Microsoft embraced. As a result of this success, Microsoft sent us a RFQ for the building and management of panels of gamers in 20 countries. The brief called for a large amount of sample build, with quite simple data collection, although on a grand scale. There was little need for Celsius Research's skills, although they appreciated our knowledge here.

Anyway, my partners and I had a meeting where we concluded that, "Richard Wood would say we shouldn't pitch on this work because it does not fit into the mission statement of either company". And, yes, you guessed it, we decided that you were probably wrong in this instance, and, after all, a $2.2 mill contract was very attractive. We pitched against the world's biggest firms, and we won.

I can detail for you the rest of the story, but it ended in us losing $250k, our attention was taken away from our core competencies, no-one here enjoyed the work, and the only good thing to emerge out of this is that our reputation in Microsoft's eyes is good.

You were right!

Please feel free to use this case-study as you wish. Maybe someone else won't make the same mistake; maybe they will listen to you! Next time you are in North Sydney, let's catch up for a beer. I owe you many. Regards, Martin. (Prof. Martin James, Managing Director, Celsius Research Pty Ltd.)

*****

For those of you who are not aware of the reference, the advice of mine that Martin is referring to was subsequently written up in my article Strategy Means Saying "No".

Does anyone else have examples of my advice gone right (or wrong?)

How to Set Fees

A reader asks:

In light of some things you teach, ideas from Rob Nixon, and the VeraSage institute; it seems a very bad idea to bill by the hour, especially if you are a new consultant just beginning your practice. Yet, most smaller clients one would probably start with would think in terms of hours. Ultimately, you would want to find some way for them to pay you according to value added, right? But how is this done?

The best I can come up with is offer a free consultation (a few hours or whatever) just long enough to show them you are worth your fees and long enough to find out if you want to work with them). Have in mind what your time is worth to you. Estimate with them the length of the project. Come up with a (fixed price) estimate. If they feel like the price is worth it to them, then you are essentially measuring the value added (maybe lower than value added). Then if it takes longer or shorter, it was based on their value and not your hours. And in the future, as you get more efficient, you still bill the same for the project.

Is this the right approach for a beginning consultant?

***

So, what does everyone think? This seems to be toay's conventional wisdom on pricing, but would anyone else provide different advice?

Strategy as Portfolio Management

A primary form of strategic competition among professional firms today is NOT the (direct) competition for clients, nor the (direct) competition for junior employees, but the competition for senior lateral hires who come in to the firm with a ready-made book of business, i.e. "warlords with a following."

Building client relationships one at a time is a long slog, and takes persistence and patience. It's hard to break in to new markets and locations solely by organic growth and patient investment: besides, market opportunities might move too fast to take that opportunity. How much easier to grow by bringing in people with pre-existing practices!

This approach is not unique to the professional sector -- it reflects what corporations have long tried to do: increase their corporate return on equity by buying their way in to profitable businesses (and dropping unprofitable ones.)

The success of this approach in the corporate sector has been mixed. The real success of this "portfolio" approach to running (and defining) a firm is not a superior ability to acquire successful businesses, but a superior ability to help them grow once they have joined the "corporate" family. How many corporations have met this standard? How many professional firms, with their focus on attracting "already successful" lateral partners, know how to do this?

My own observation is that firms are playing with fire with this approach. By building the firm on bringing in a high percentage of lateral hires, they compromise the identity, the group cohesiveness, the loyalty that defines a firm. When a firm is managed as if it were nothing more than a portfolio of practitioners, it is unstable. The VERY approach of bringing in lots of laterals works against the thing that would be needed to justify it -- the ability to exploit firmwide relationships and connections to expand and build upon the newly acquired practice.

Yet firms cannot have it both ways: they cannot be a cohesive unit and compete primarily by bringing in outsiders who "grew up elsewhere."

Or can they?

Do You Really Want Relationships? -- New strategy podcast episode available now

The sixth episode of my new podcast series, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, is now live and available for download.

It is dedicated to exploring the themes found in my article by the same name.  I encourage you to forward these to friends and associates who may be interested in the topics covered.

With "Do You Really Want Relationships?" we will start to look at Fat Smoker principles in the realm of client relations.  Businesses regularly claim to have a strong sense of "client focus" yet more often than not their client relations plans are in actuality, only sales plans, designed to get business.  We will look at ways companies can build true client relations plans and ways to build and nurture the asset that is a long-term, trust based relationship.

Timeline:
00:39 -- Introduction
02:28 -- The benefits of trusting relationships
07:44 -- Relationship building within the firm
10:10 -- Relationships vs. Transactions pt.1
14:36 -- Special Announcement:  The "Give A Copy To Management" Campaign.
15:06 -- Relationships vs. Transactions pt.2
16:17 -- Expert or Advisor:  Which are you and which do you seek?
23:11 -- Converting the firm

You can download "Do You Really Want Relationships?" or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to
subscribe).  My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

We Don't work for Jerks

As I reported in my article Practice What You Preach, one of the hallmarks of the most successful professional businesses is that they recognise that, for long-run success, you must not only delight your clients but also provide interesting, challenging work experiences for your people.

That seems simple enough, but too few firms understand (and implement) the logical consequence: that you must say "no" to clients who treat you or your people badly. Not only must you not employ jerks (as Bob Sutton keeps reminding in his new book), but you must also not accept them as clients.

Richard Ennis, the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Ennis Knupp Associates (a 100-person consulting firm which provides advice to pension funds and other major investors on how to invest their assets) reports that the key to his organisation's success is that they have been very selective as to which clients they will take on. (They pursue only about 50 percent of the requests to propose that they receive.)

"Let's face it" he says. "Some clients are nasty. And you can't expect to hold on to good people, at junior or senior levels, if you bring in work where they are not going to be treated properly."

Oh, if only more CEOs and managing partners understood that simple principle.

Does your boss?

When you're the boss, do you always live by that principle?

The Three-Month Rule

Plans and reviews ought to be conducted on a once-every-three-month cycle.

Once a year is, of course, too infrequent. Saying I'll accomplish something in the next twelve months is like setting New Years' Resolutions -- the pressure for accountability is too little at the beginning of the year, and too intense at the end. Examining whether I did what I promised only after 12 months of effort is unlikely to ensure that I stay on the diligent execution path.

On the other hand, meeting with me and reviewing plans and activities once every month is micromanaging and doesn't allow for unforeseen circumstances. I can't ABSOLUTELY promise I'll get something done in the next 30 days. Who knows what existing client demands will change, what new client opportunities will arise, what staff emergencies and ill-health will affect output? Or (to be honest) how the ups and downs of personal intensity will flow -- as my clients keep telling me, you can't be a dynamo, learning new skills, every month.

But three months is ideal. It's long enough to work around the world's unpredictabilities both at work and in people's personal lives. It's a long enough leash to make me feel that I have a lot of autonomy in allocating my time, while still keeping me accountable in a period of time that won't let me go off the rails.

On the other hand, to make it work, the three month-review system mustn't slip. It must be scheduled, planned for, actionable commitments made and the review actually held. If you want to treat me like a true professional, hold really thorough reviews with strict accountability for action promises made every 3 months -- and get off my back in the intervening time period.

Ban monthly budgets!

Abolish annual performance appraisals.

Manage to a 3-month cycle!

(By the way, this rule works on client relationships, too.)

***

Agree, disagree?

Hold Issue-Solving meetings

I still get calls to help with planning retreats and other kinds of meetings. Alas, it's still the norm to schedule a lot of speeches and force people into listening mode. Worse, there really isn't much time planned for serious Q&A.

There's a better way. Hold meetings where you pose a subject and ask for everyone's input. Then build from there. People will get involved, they won't feel threatened and they'll come away understanding the subject. Even if there is not total agreement, there will be a greater consensus and willingness to try. Because, they always know there will be a point where they can challenge point/issue, etc if they feel the consensus point is not working.

This form of meeting also works to building loyalty -- everyone feels they have played a part in the development of a solution. When they feel that what they are doing is their idea -- they take pride and ownership in it and are more apt to work harder and be more dedicated to making it work.

Of course, if you're the boss (or an outside speaker) and see yourself an "expert" in the field, it can take great self-discipline to do it this way! YOU always want to present YOUR latest and greatest idea. Tempting, but ineffective, usually.

I'd like to thank the academy

With the entertainment industry spilling over with award ceremonies in the past few weeks, there have been a lot of thank you speeches flying around. Well, I'm taking my turn to thank the academy, too.

Following on yesterday's post about the audience participation that drives the top 5 posts of the month, I'd like to take a moment to offer a genuine and heart-felt thank the many people who comment and link here, and also the "silent participants" who may not leave a comment but are loyal readers, for your support and engagement in the month of February. You truly make up an academy of passion, people, and principles.

Commentors

Susan Abbott, Roma Ahuja, Greg Anderson, Andreas, Basquette, Richard Becker, Harry Binswanger, Austin Bob, Wally Bock, Pepita Bos, Jerk Bosses, Bob Brown, Eric Brown, Duncan Bucknell, Shawn Callahan, James Cherkoff, Chuck, Geoff Considine, Ctd, Krishna De, Kathleen DeFilippo, Deborah, Chris Denny, Stephen Downes, Lance Dunkin, Francis M. Egenias, Heidi Ehlers, Eoecho | Greg Magnus, Christopher Marston, Esq, Jordan Furlong, Tom Future, Adrian G., Edward Gabrielse, Heather Gallegos, Gautam, Michelle Golden, Marcel Goldstein, Phil Gott, Mark Gould, Charles H. Green, Greg, Lisa Guinn, Sudhir Hasbe, Gl Hoffman, PreSchool Hopeful, Dominique Hubart, Alan Hudson, Huey, Carl Isenburg, Jennifer, Jill, Timothy Johnson, Rami Kantari, Tim Khaner, David Kirk, Delaney Kirk, Alexander Kjerulf, Ed Kless, Ed Kless, Howard Krais, Greg Krauska, John Labbe, Dave Livingston, Stephanie Lunn, Carolyn Manning, Jim Markham, Andre (Redbeard) Mazerolle, Pat McGraw, Jim McHugh, Peggy McKee, Francine McKenna, Patrick J. McKenna, Merusavarni, Mike, Warren Miller, Maggie Milne, William Moon, Janet H. Moore, Karen Morath, Kobus Muller, Tom Nixon, Pd, Peggy, Robert M. Randall, Anne Reed, Lyman Reed, Steve Roesler, Sarah, Bryan I. Schwartz, Shamelle, Mark Shead, Steve Shu, Andrew Smith, Dan Smith, Srini, Alan Stevens, Terry, Kathleen OBrien Thompson, Todd, Tom, Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Penelope Trunk, Rick Turoczy, Peter Vajda, Marjorie Vincent, Ashutosh Wakankar, Ashutosh Wakankar, Ellen Weber, Susie Wee, Joerg Weisner, Ian Welsh, Mary Wynne-wynter, Mary Wynne-wynter, Liz Zitzow

Trackbacks

A Passion for Result
Accountants Round Up
All Things Workplace
allinthemind
Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms
BIZ GROWTH NEWS
Book Novels
Bryan C. Fleming
Burst Creativity
Business for enjoyment's sake
Client Service Insights (CSI)
Connecting Technology, Strategy and Execution
CPA Success
Creating a Better Life
CRM Lowdown
Cultivate GREATNESS | Personal Development
David V. Lorenzo
Deliberations
DIGITAL STREET JOURNAL
Frontline Leadership TRENDS
Gautam Ghosh -- A Management Consultant's Blog
GNIF Brain Blogger
Hakim Abdullah
Half an Hour
Health Care Law Blog
Home Business Opportunity
HomeBusinessWiz.com
Innovate Rotary!
Innovation | Trust
InsureBlog
?????????? @ ????
Johnnie Moore's Weblog
Kent Blumberg
Kishore Balakrishnan?s Blog
Laura's Winning Ideas
MabelandHarry
Managing the Professional Services Firm
Managment by Matrices
Mary Books
Mighty Bargain Hunter
Misleading Advertising Law
More than a living
MyRetailCareer
Online Guide to Mediation
Peter's ponderables
Pick the Brain
political Calculations
Possibly?maybe?.baby!
Reading Recommendations by Stephen Hicks
Redbeard Marketing
SalesMotivation.net
SalesTeamTools
Savoir pratique
Searchlight Crusade
Simplify This
SmartCoolRich
Software Project Management
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
StartupSpark
Strategic Design | marketing & branding thoughts by Nick Rice
TamsPalm-the Palm OS Blog
texanomex
Text Books
The AntiSyphus Effect
The Book's Den
The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life
The Engaging Brand
The Organic Leadership Blog
The Probabilist . com
Thoughts & Philosophies
Three Star Leadership Blog
Towards Better Life
TrackKnacks: Aptitude Wizard Watch
Uncommon Knowledge.
Unjustly
Verve Coaching
Web Worker Daily
Widows Quest
Working at Home on the Internet
Young-Manager

Podcast Trackbacks

Accountants Round Up
All Things Workplace
Burst Creativity
Cultivate GREATNESS | Personal Development
Frontline Leadership TRENDS
Home Business Opportunity
jbstens
MabelandHarry
Managment by Matrices
SalesMotivation.net
SmartCoolRich
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

Admirable

I don't usually pay attention to press releases that I receive, but this one I thought was worth passing on:

PITTSBURGH, February 28, 2007 --Bob Gallagher, a Pittsburgh CPA and management consultant to CPA firms nationwide, appears on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Friday, March 9, 2007, with author/movie superstar Denzel Washington and WNBA/Detroit Shockers basketball all-star, Swin Cash. This show originally aired on October 31, 2006 and the producers have decided to re-air the show.

Cash lovingly calls Gallagher her "Paps" and writes:

"He was always telling me to give back, always preaching about the cycle of poverty and bad decisions and hardship ... He's always in the background, always just a great cheerleader and supporter ... Bob never had an agenda other than to help me become the person, the basketball player, and the woman I am today ... There's so much that comes down to race in our society today. But a beautiful story like this one -- a white man reaching out to help a young African-American girl -- had nothing to do with color of our skin."

Gallagher and Cash met through the Western Pennsylvania Youth Basketball Club, Inc. (www.usagirlshoops.com), which he founded in 1990. At the time they were introduced, Cash was an 11-year old living with her single mother in McKeesport, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

After Cash's developmental years in McKeesport, she went on to play basketball at the University of Connecticut, winning two national titles; captured a WNBA title in her second season with Detroit; played in the 2003 WNBA All-Star game; and won the gold medal with the U.S. women's basketball team in the 2004 Olympics.

Gallagher is the former managing partner of a CPA firm in Pittsburgh, and a former partner with a Big Four firm, and for the past 20 years has consulted with more than 700 CPA firms as well as led many workshops for more than 1,200 CPAs on leadership, business development and management.

Gallagher has continued to support the basketball club by raising more than $1 million to help it continue to fulfill its mission. He has maintained this passionate support in memory of his young niece -- his twin brother's daughter -- who died in 1992. His over-arching goal for the past 16 years has been to provide inspiration and better choices for underprivileged girls.

Feb Top 5 Roundup

In Trite Formula? I asked why performers always thank their audience. Sometimes, it's actually because they ARE grateful! And sometimes it's because the audience really is a major part of the experience and the show!

So I'm going to offer a special thank you here to all those who contributed to make these posts the most read, linked and discussed ideas here in the month of February. And to the "pure audience" members: don't just sit there, clap your hands!

1. Perspectives on Careers
   Twelve tips to seize control of your career and take responsibility for your own success, with a collection of great responses and reactions from readers.
2. What Managers Do Least Well
   A discussion of why managers are perceived to do such a bad job of dealing with underperformers.
3. Ayn Rand
   Ayn Rand's philosophy of enlightened self-interest remains a major influence on my thinking -- and clearly resonates with many readers of this blog as well.
4. Self-Promotion
   A lively discussion about why we find it hard to market ourselves, and what we can do about it. (Don't miss out on the Business Masterclass podcast episode, Self Promotion which incorporates reader's contributions on the same topic.)
5. A Case Study in Professional Ethics
   Do you have the guts to "take it on the chin" for mistakes on your team, even when it is a junior's fault, or your client hasn't noticed the mistake?

If you still have ideas or opinions to add in to these or any other discussions on the blog, please join in!

Watch out!

A manager I once worked with said that his key talent was not listening to people, but WATCHING them -- clients, colleagues, superiors and subordinates -- and understanding them better than other people would be able to do just by listening.

I was reminded of this insight as I reflected on my experience as a juror. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I had been put into a strange situation for me. For the 5 days of the trial, I was forced to be an OBSERVER, not a participant.

Until the time came to deliberate on the verdict, I could not ask questions, I could not intervene, I could not discuss things. I was forced to be a WATCHER as well as a listener.

It taught me a lot. I earn my living through words, but I am increasingly coming to believe that we don't best reveal ourselves (or judge others) through words, but through other means.

I've never been trained to "observe", I've never read a book on it, and I don't have a natural proclivity for it. My wife can be with people at a party or family gathering and tell you things about what they are feeling that were never said out loud. She just "notices."

Try this exercise: Just watch people in a meeting and see if you can answer these questions about them:

• How self-confident is this person?
• How would you describe their level of optimism or pessimism?
• What emotional needs do they have?
• What type of role would they function best in?
• Is this someone you would trust?
• Would other people want to work with this person?

Even if you've never been trained in psychology and never read a book on body language, I'll bet you'll get very close to the truth.

Which raises a series of interesting questions:

1. How good a watcher are you?
2. What makes someone a good observer?
3. Can YOU figure someone out by observing them?
4. What do YOU look for?