Category Archives: Leadership

If you are comparing companies to outsource to over a longer period of time and interacting with them regularly, which one do you pick? In my experience, I want to know which company gives me valuable and reliable information. But, that is not good enough. When people are trying, they try to impress you. I want to know how helpful people are when they are not trying. If you get to know a company over a period of six or more months, you get to the point where they are not trying so hard. In my experience, people stop trying after three or four months and then you get to know the real them — at least if you are working on projects with them.

Some salespeople tell you whatever you want to hear. Unfortunately, I’m very sensitive to that. If you promise anything, I doubt that you will keep any of your promises. Unfortunately once again, in my experience, even those that make more reasonable promises don’t fulfill them 95% of the time either. So, in the promises game just like the information game, reliable information wins the game. If you make a promise, there needs to be some way to verify that you keep the promise for your company to get a reliability rating in my book — especially for programmers who are systematically unreliable.

One truthful thing for salespeople to do is to not answer questions right away. If you ask a complicated question, it looks good if you ask a technical manager to get an answer or to help you formulate an answer. It looks like you are doing your homework. Another good thing for a salesperson to do is to make very cautious promises. The idea is that you make sure you can keep the promise otherwise your whole reputation goes downhill. For managers, it makes sense to tape record what salespeople are saying, so you can fire them if they are telling lies — unless you want them to tell lies. But, if you want your company to have a good reputation in the long run, tell the trush — always. Because truth builds trust!

When thinking about cultural differences, people look at superficial things first. Indians eat samosas and have arranged marriages while Americans love hamburgers and freedom. Although there is a lot of truth to these statements — or at least there was a few years ago as Indians are now mostly having love marriages and Americans have given up the idea of due process in favor of having the government engage in kidnapping and torturing suspected threats to national security. But, putting aside my snide remarks and cheap blows to American values, culture is complicated. One could say that culture is an evolving body of commonly embraced ideas and practices in a particular geographic area or social circle — or both. Cultures influence each other as they merge and the study of how they influence each other is quite complicated.

In any case, what I found in India — samosas aside, is that there is a vast shortage of leaders and followers. Few in India lead, and even fewer follow. So, how does business get done? Many companies have self-managing employees. What a concept. Is there a system of checks and balances? Additionally, there is very little question and answer as it is bad manners to question your authorities in India. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to question your authorities to clarify their instructions, ask for opinions if there are multiple ways of tackling a task, and sometimes it is good to criticize them when they are off base. As India is a very authoritarian culture (the opposite of America) it is hard for the locals to ask enough good questions and to have meaningful interactions between people of different levels in a company.

So, just how do people interact in Indian companies? I am not so familiar since I have only observed as a customer. They seem to like to get together to have chai time every day as I also do. I have heard that the lower level employees like to huddle around a higher placed employee or boss. Perhaps they think that their physical proximity to him/her will help the greatness of the boss rub off on them. Or perhaps they feel they will gain more privilege at the company if they do.

But, what if Indian companies adapted a system of letting inexperienced employees lead the entire company? Most people think that their job lacks job satisfaction and meaning. I know a way to give your job meaning. You get to run the entire company for a day or a week. Of course you can’t just let anyone do that. You have to train them and give them smaller responsibilities first to build them up to the level where they can handle an entire company. Additionally, let’s try to remember back in time when we were taking driver’s education. I remember that my teacher had a brake pedal on his side of the car so that if I made a mistake, he could intervene and take over at a moment’s notice. What if running a company were like that and the boss could let someone else manage everything, but if he saw something bad happening, he could step in. It is an interesting concept and I think it would make great material for a reality show, blog, or just plain meaningful gossip. I bet Donald Trump would love a scenario like the one I just described. But, if you mess up…

“You’re FIRED!”

If you run a business, you need advice even if you are really intelligent. But, what types of people are best to give advice? Sometimes it is not so obvious. The guy who hangs out at the bakery might give you good advice, but more often than not, you will need the types we are going to discuss below.

1. Someone who knows you
Someone who knows you well might not understand your business, but they know what makes you tick. They knew how you were as a child, and know what works for you and what doesn’t. Their input matters and you should consider it although they don’t know enough to make final decisions for you.

. Someone who understands business in general
It might be hard to find people who understand your exact industry or the current technology that you are using. But, basic business aptitude never goes out of style. Even a general from the 1400’s might be a good business coach for you as they know how to deal with soldiers which is a little like dealing with employees. Some with business knowledge understands hiring, firing, marketing, management, and a lot of other very basic types of business skills.

3. Someone who understands your industry or business
It is good to also get advice form people who know the type of business that you are in who did well. If you are in the plumbing business, someone older and more successful than you might be able to give you quite a few pointers.

4. Someone who understands parts of the technology you use.
If you need to focus on innovation for a year or two, that might not be the core of your business, but someone like Steve Jobs would be perfect to help you out assuming they were alive and had time. If you were doing more marketing with social media, someone who was a crackerjack with social media would be helpful to guide you along your way. Although those “specialist mentors” might not understand your business well, they could be very helpful with specific types of endeavors.

Having the right mix of mentors is critical to your success, so don’t overlook this. Additionally, having high quality mentors in all four of these departments is another huge issue. There are people who are shortsighted, in a hurry, or limited in their thinking. Those people will not help you see the bigger picture or isolate what is important to think about. You need mentors who can help you make two or three really important decisions that will change your entire business around. Sure there will be other decisions too, but it is the life changing ones that count the most. If you get the wrong mentors, they will suggest petty changes here and there, but your overall success will not change much.

It is common for employees to become distracted. There are many forms of distraction at home and in the office. Social media and web surfing in general are two of the most common forms of distractions. But, if you work in an office with many people mulling around, that can be distracting as well. Hard workers can get distracted by their email account as they often want to keep it up to date every five minutes.

Offices vs. Working From Home
If you are trying to focus on getting work done, it is better to be isolated from any people, animals or other distractions. But, most offices are not designed for this. Working in an office makes it easier to get coaching from others, work on group projects or attend meetings. Working in isolation makes it easier to focus on getting work done. I personally work from home and I get a lot more work done than most others. This is true partly because I work with a sense of purpose, but also because I have developed patterns for efficiency over the years.

Managing Distractions
As a manager, it might be a good idea to restrict the use of the internet at work. If it were possible to cut people off the web, that would be one solution. Another solution is to tell them that they are forbidden from using the web for anything other than job assignments. It might be good to monitor people’s computers to see what sites they are visiting on the web as well. However, there is a unique twist you are not thinking of.

Lunch Breaks Decrease Distracted Working
Workers who work too long without taking proper breaks tend to become mentally agitated. Their circulation will be deficient if they don’t walk around much. They might also be hungry if they work too much without eating. But, their minds will experience what Buddhists call “Monkey Mind” after a while as well. Having a lunch break, having a change of scenery, or socializing can decrease distractions. But, having a lunch break is also a great opportunity to catch up on personal emails, Facebook, and other social media. If workers can get the internet out of their system during a generous lunch break, they might function a lot better throughout the day!

Summary
Personally, I would not allow a worker to surf the web during work time because they might get very distracted and the efficiency of their work could really suffer. However, reading an article during a break might make sense. It is more sensible to get your eyes off the computer screen and take a walk. We spend far too much time in front of computers and it is really bad for our eyes, neck, shoulders, and overall circulation!

When you started your business, you were thinking about offering a service. You were thinking about having a room filled with productive workers and managing them. But, were you thinking about conflict resolution? In real life, when you have a bunch of different personalities in a room, there will be conflicts. The key is learning how to resolve them early so they don’t get out of hand. Or, just fire the person causing the conflict!

One of the issues with conflict management in the workplace is that business owners are not trained in this art. In many companies, employees are often not satisfied with how managers resolved their conflicts. It may just not be a priority, or perhaps the managers were not trained. It might make sense to call in some professional help. Hire a consultant. It is that important. How will your team function as a team in the long run if you continue to have arguments and personality clashes going on?

In many cases, certain personalities just cannot get along with other particular people no matter what managers do. It is important to understand the personalities on your team, so you can quickly figure out how to solve any personality clashes they get themselves into. It might make sense to test your employees out. Have them work in conjunction with other employees and then rotate them. That way you can get some practice seeing who gets along with whom and how to resolve the various conflicts that arise. Other than that, read more articles on the topic and hire an expert!