New Case Study Discussion feature at BusinessWeek.com

BusinessWeek.com has a newly launched "Managing Channel", which replaces its popular Careers Channel. Among the terrific new features are interactive case studies which feature a story, a column, two videos, a reader poll and an opportunity for visitors to engage in substantive discussion of a real-life business case.

The very first case study zeroes in on a controversial management decision made by Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, who skipped over 78 general managers with more seniority in making a key staff appointment without even consulting the rest of his management team. Lafley says "there was almost a revolt" over his decision. The case study includes an analysis by Noel Tichy, the leadership maven and University of Michigan professor.

It's worth checking out!

How to be a Customer

In the latest online issue of Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge professor John Quelch argues that, as a customer, it is possible to get preferential (or at least better) service from your vendors, suppliers, etc, if you know the right approach.

He lists the following as the keys:

1. Be Demanding
2. Be Respectful
3. Be Reliable
4. Be Surprising (eg reward a job well done)
5. Be Engaging.

You can join John's discussion, or we can start one here.

We've had discussions here before about what we providers seek in an ideal client, but would you agree with John's starting list? Do you agree that these are the keys to eliciting better reactions from providers?

Dynamos

In this video clip we're going to look at the issue of energy, excitement, and ambition in a different way and talk about the different states of drive that you and I might experience at different stages of our career.

About Women

I'm still at the Australian Institute of Management Convention. A number of speakers have made a central point: that women are INHERENTLY better leaders than men, or at least are better at the type of leadership that the emerging society and economy requires: relationships, empathy, the long-term view. Again, and again, the point is being made here that numbers, logic, science are "masculine" approaches and are inadequate or insufficient for progress.

Most insistent on the issue has been Tom Peters. he basically said "You can disagree with me on many issues but not this one: I'm right and you're wrong." (To see Tom's arguments, go to his website www.tompeters.com and download his slides. He's very generous in making them freely available.)

Over dinner, I heard practicing businesspeople (and those in local governement) increasingly willing to comment on the ability and desirability of hiring females as opposed to males. According to what I was told, young males are less loyal and committed, harder to handle and are more demanding as employees.

Is it me, or are people increasingly willing to make generalisations about male/female differences? Isn't this dangerous territory? Or is it just reflecting statistical realities? Do you feel comfortable listening to (or participating in) discussions about why women are better/ different than men?

I don't. I'll listen and try to learn, but it feels like the opportunties for bias and gross exaggeration are boundless.

Outcomes and Behaviours

I have just listened to an interesting interview with David Morgan, CEO of Westpac -- Australia's oldest bank and oldest company. (I'm here in Sydney as part of a convention organised by the Australian Institute of Management.)

Among the interesting things he had to say was a description of how Westpac enforces its values. For each person, from the CEO on down to the lowest front-line person, each individual is evaluated according to two dimensions -- what they accomplished (their outcomes) and HOW they accomplished them (their behaviours.) The behaviours evaluated include "doing the right thing", integrity, apolitical behaviour, thinking of the best interests of the bank rather than just the individual's own operating unit, etc. According to David Morgan, the system which feeds directly into a person's remuneration, is a key mechanism for ensuring that the values are lived.

I've heard that GE also has a similar system.

Has anyone out there experienced such sytems (ie lived within an organisation which uses this approach)? How effective is it in ensuring compliance wit organisational values?

How Much Standardisation?

Here's what I hope will be an interesting question for many people. A correspondent of mine wrote in as follows:

***

I work for a firm of about 20 people (15 consultants.) We all work independently, the consultants rarely meeting up -- if we do, it's for training sake. We are sole practitioners at the client site, coaching and leading client teams. Our projects get little or no oversight, as long as the client is happy and we are getting results. We do have "standard methodology", a standard project roadmap, some standard analysis tools, and some standard training presentations and exercises that we use, or at least they are available to us.

Compliance to the standard methodology is low. The tools are typically used, but there is huge variation in the exact project sequencing/schedule and the training presentations. Many of us in the group were hired in from different companies and we have different backgrounds and we all bring something different to the table.

Most of us personalise and adapt the training material based on what and how we like to teach. I think some of the training material is either incomplete, inappropriate, or unprofessional. So, I spend time customising the slides, sharing some of them with co-workers in an informal way, but, again, nobody is really watching to see HOW I do my consulting work, just to see if I'm delivering results (which I do).

Recently, we had a very frustrating week-long offsite meeting as a team. There was a lot of contention and confusion about this idea of standard methodology, namely who defines it? How much standardisation is enough?

A team of four people volunteered to look at the issue of standard methodology -- but those of us who didn't volunteer (or weren't chosen) didn't realise how much power this group would have. Instead of looking at ALL of the variation and the ways some basic training presentations were crafted and delivered, they picked one version and made edits to it, basically ignoring the input that the rest of us would have given.

In our consulting, we preach that standardised work can't be dictated to people -- yet, we're doing the same thing within our group. Can we ever get 15 diverse people to perfectly 100% agree on what material should be presented and in what order? There are too many diverging opinions (and too much history of not being perfectly standardised) for us to all just suddenly get on board.

We're getting very inconsistent and schizophrenic "direction" from our leadership. On the one hand, they'll say "the standard is the bare minimum of content, you can add to it" and then later saying "you must all do the work exactly the same way." Is it enough to have a standard framework that we can all customise to our personal tastes and client needs? Or, do we have to be "consultant-bots" who follow a perfectly scripted program, for the sake of consistency?

I fully believe "nobody likes to be told what to do" and that it applies equally well to assembly workers, nurses, and consultants. If I am told to perfectly standardise on what I consider to be sub-par material, I'll most likely look for a new firm (or start my own). I understand the need to deliver a consistent experience to our clients, but how standard is standard enough from their standpoint? I can handle standardising to the level of "here's what you must accomplish in a 16-week project and here's what you should be doing each week, if all goes well." But dictating every single slide seems like overkill, like standardisation for the sake of standardisation. If we're all getting good results with slightly different methods, isn't that ok?

What are your thoughts? Is this a common problem in a consulting firm?

***

My first instinct is to share the view that no-one like to be dictated to on HOW to do things. In general, as you suggest, the key is to have very solid accountabiity for outcome effectiveness, and then let people do it their own way "on the day."

But let's think about this. Under what circumstances might you argue the opposite? If you're not involved and can look at it in a detached way, then you could observe that standardising the process is exactly what businesses have done for centuries to capture efficiency and get things done with lower cost workers. Does MacDonalds let each outlet decide how to do things? Should they? What about a steel mill?

Now, I'm not arguing that fits your situation. I merely observe that I know consulting operations whose entire business model is built around getting lower paid people to deliver very effective standard methodologies. You and I might not want to work there, but it's not inherently a dumb idea.

In Memoriam

This is a day to remember many tragedies and losses, and resolve to carry on nonetheless. That's what's expected of us, and it's the best we can do.

Think of Work

A core proposition in my way of thinking about business development is that you will have more success if you're trying to market things that turn you on for clients that you are truly interested in. Now this is simple to say, but it appears that it is not the case with the way that many professionals actually come to market. Listen to the following presentation and reactions.

Why Does Bad Management Thrive So Much?

One of the things that puzzles me and fascinates me is that, according to the economics and competitive strategy I was taught, companies that do things well, are efficient and achieve high standards should (in theory) drive out their competitors who are managing poorly, fail to use resources effectively, etc.

The source of all these reflections is an email I just received from a young professional describing how his firm operates. My question is: why hasn't this egregiously bad management been driven out competitively? How do firms like this stay in business?

Here's the story as it was relayed to me in my correspondent's email:

***

Over the last few weeks situations at my workplace have sent me down and interesting journey of thought. Specifically, I have noticed how distorted our perception can be in the accounting industry.

There was a particular engagement in my sector which was new to us this year. We had one staff member with less than a year experience, one supervisor who has been at our firm for less than 6 months, and a principal who has been with our firm for 3 years but has extensive public accounting and private industry experience. As the engagement went on it became very clear that work was not progressing at a satisfactory rate but nothing was adjusted to compensate for it.

Finally, last week, the young staff member stressed once again that he did not believe they would be able to finish the work on time. At this point the sugar hit the fan! The principal came down very hard on the staff and supervisor and stated she was "disappointed" in their inability to get the job done. For the rest of the week, the principal and another manager from our department stepped in and worked close to 20 hour days to complete the project. I should also mention that both the staff and supervisor had put in 60 hour weeks over the last 2 months attempting to meet the deadline.

I first became upset when the principal threw the staff member under the bus and failed to take any responsibility for the engagement herself. But what bothers me even more is that from the outside, the principal (and the additional manager who stepped in to help out) looks like she saved the day when in reality the engagement "failed" due to poor management throughout. Part of me realises that my youth may cause me to overlook many aspects of the situation but I also know that this has solidified in my mind the up-hill battle that many individuals in my generation will have in public accounting.

Unfortunately, this industry will continue to reward those who sacrifice their time, their family and their lives over those who find ways to manage effectively, and become more efficient. The end result is that current senior management will label my generation as lazy and arrogant (both are partially true). If you tell me that I can achieve success, as my superiors have, by working 3,000 hours a year I would see it as a failure. If I have to work as much as someone else did 20 years ago to accomplish the same results have we really progressed at all?

I always thought that a fun experiment would be to tell someone that they only had 45 hours this week to accomplish their work. I bet we would all be surprised by the efficiencies and innovation that would come out of it. The fact that this profession will permit, and even worse, reward those who work such ridiculous hours exposes a fundamental flaw in the collective thinking of the industry. After all, we are not teaching our young staff to find better, more effective ways to do anything. But rather, we are simply showing them how to put their career before their family and personal life. We do not encourage that people take risks, try something new, or go out on a limb. We take the easy, safe route ... we just work more. In the process we are rewarding many who are poor managers, poor developers and are stagnant in their own development.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

***

I'd like to hear everyone else's thoughts: How do firms that manage this way survive? Is it simple that EVERYONE is equally bad, so there's no penalty?

The September Carnival of Trust

Welcome to the fourth Carnival of Trust, originally launched by Charles Green at Trust Matters.

My job was to choose the top 10 for this month. So, here are some interesting items that I think are worthy of your attention.

First, in the category of trust in society, the economy and politics, look at Marty Lederman's frightening discussion of The Rosetta Stone of the Detention/Interrogation Scandal, in which he explores the role trust plays in the interrogation of prisoners.

Next, Tiffany offers what she unabashedly calls a "political rant" about the recent Lead in the Children's toys events.

Annalee Hewitz explores issues of anonymity and trust in the use of Wikipedia.

Alan Weis tells an interesting story about being approached by PR firms to be an expert for the media on the Minneapolis bridge collapse story -- and why he declined.

Then there is Rajesh Setty's advice in his ongoing series on "How to Distinguish Yourself" The latest in his advice series is Watch Who You Refer.

In The Secret Sauce for Virtual Teams, Anne Truitt Zelenka provides a stimulating discussion about how to make geographically dispersed teams function through the use of trust.

Also in the category of trust in managing, take a look at Bruce McEwen (who blogs under the name of Adam Smith, Esq.) who reports on a Harvard Business School Study of an advertising agency that tried to manage through "values", but found it harder than it first appears!

Rob Millard reports on a study in Harvard Magazine about the relationship between Trust and Betrayal in the Process of Strategy.

Paul Pedrazzi, of Oracle, provides a stimulating explanation of "Why Social Networks Don't Work for Business."

Michelle Golden offers an interesting twist on client portability and trust. She discusses the provocative view that the fact that a member of the firm COULD walk away with one of the firm's clients is a mark of appropriate client intimacy!

Thanks to everyone who submitted blogs for consideration and for those looking for more about trust, the first, second and third carnivals should satisfy. If you'd like to be submit an article for consideration for the next carnival of trust you can do so here.

The Importance of Appearance

Back in February, I blogged about my experience being a juror. As part of the follow-on discussion, Penelope Trunk (who has a fabulous blog called "The Brazen Careerist") commented: "one thing I learned is that fat women don't have a lot of empathy and defendants usually try to strike those jurors."

Yesterday, Joseph Dunphy reacted by saying: "On behalf of many, I suspect, I'd just like to say WHAT? Did I really just read that? Unbelievable. That's just terrible."

I understand Joseph's initial reaction, but I don't think Penelope was advocating anything -- she was just sharing her real-world experience that appearance matters a great deal more than we like to admit openly.

For example, last week I was conducting a workshop for a global corporation that had concentrated a number of its in-house services into one "shared services" unit. One service line in particular received much higher client satisfaction ratings than the others. We discussed why, and focused on the traditional client service topics.

During one of the coffee breaks, one of the participants came up to me and said, "The real reason that unit does so well is that it explicitly sets out to hire attractive young women. No-one likes to admit it, but that makes a huge difference." (The unit was in a South American country, if that makes a difference to your reaction to the story.)

Of course it does. I know of more than one top-flight professional firm that takes appearance into account in its hiring of both males and females and gives its young people lessons in how to dress well and how to behave with sophistication.

Should appearance, youth and manners matter? Maybe not, but they do -- a lot. To pretend they do not is just unrealistic.

Yet in many countries this is called discrimination and is legally barred.

All of this raises some interesting questions:

Should more firms continue to include physical appearance in their hiring, even to the point of preferring some ages and genders?

Are we naive to believe they are not already doing that?

Are discrimination laws fighting a losing battle against human nature?

Should I get back on the treadmill and worry more about my clothing in order to enhance my career prospects?