No-one is indispensable

There are plenty of indispensable people in the grave yard, even those who thought they were the most powerful.....

A farmer has an ox and a mule pulling his plough. The soil is stony, and life is hard. The ox is clearly the biggest and strongest animal, but is tired of shouldering more of the burden than the mule.

One winter's morning, it's dark and frosty outside, and the ox decides to throw a sickie. It lies in the hay, pretending to be ill. The farmer is full of concern, mixes up a bucket of warm oats, wraps him up in a blanket, and sets off with the mule to plough the fields. That evening when the mule returns, the ox says "Did the farmer say anything about me ?" The mule replied, "No, not a word. He helped me pull the plough, and it's late now but we got the work done."

Next morning, the ox was warm and comfortable in the hay, and decides to act ill again. The farmer wraps him up warm and leaves him hot oats, and spends the day with the mule in the fields. When the mule returns, tired out, the ox asks again: "Did the farmer say anything about me ?" The mule replied, "No, not a word. But he did have a long talk with the butcher on the way home."

How to set up a productive strategy/planning session

Some people shudder when they hear the word strategy. To them it means expensive days away in chain hotels, management consultancy jargon, endless opinionated chatter, well-rehearsed disagreements, and back in the real world nothing changes. Because poorly managed planning sessions can be so frustrating and pointless, they avoid them, and stick with the day job: however hard it is, it's easier than herding cats on a strategy day.

But without plans, things only change by accident, or when they're so broken it's easier to change than not. Many companies are like a ship of fools, management's perpetually rushing around, doing what they’ve always done, busy working in the business, but with no time to work on the business. I actually heard someone say once: ‘Yes, I have a plan, I just haven’t written it down yet.’

However, if you keep the language simple, and reframe the word strategy for both yourself and your team it’s possible to reset attitudes and arrange a positive, productive planning session.

• Reframing for you: ask yourself: ‘Does my company respond to strategy, or pain ?’ Of course you want it to respond to strategy: instant attitude shift.
• Reframing for your team: Don’t describe the day as a strategy day: in the invitation, call it ‘A meeting where we’re going to agree what we will do differently’.

As you start the meeting, insist on laptops and phones being turned off. Then...

• Go round the room, and ensure everyone (including you !) has 10 minutes to say whatever they want. Ensure everyone can speak their mind without interruptions or discussions (although questions for clarification are ok).
• After each 10 minutes, summarise their input and get their agreement you’ve understood.
• Then have a 5 minute tea and pee break to get your thoughts together.
• When you get back, summarise everyone’s thoughts, and set the agenda for the meeting using the theme ‘Here are the areas where we're going to do things differently.”

What to do if good staff aren’t performing

If something in your car is broken, you can press and press the accelerator and all you get is more engine revs, but no movement: something may be broken in the machinery.

This happens with even the best people: for no apparent reason they can sometimes become less effective, and you know your words aren’t making any difference.

Sometimes…

• peoples’ attention is fragmented, continuous swapping between jobs means lower output: they need help in shutting themselves away, preventing interruptions, taking control – or possibly you’re putting them in an impossible position, and you need to make changes elsewhere to reduce the interruptions
• people have information overload and are confused: perhaps you need to help them rationalise the data and refresh their plan and deliverables
• even the best people can be overwhelmed, and their wheels start spinning, they start to flap and productivity drops: they need help prioritising, and then setting others’ expectations of when deliverables will be appearing
• people trying to please impatient bosses end up letting them down because they hadn’t been briefed properly (or didn’t ask the right questions) but now don’t want to admit they weren’t really ready to start.

Time to take a different tack. Take the person to a quiet room, with the list of what was expected of them, and go through it, slowly, one by one:

• Was she briefed well enough for each task ?
• How long did she think it would take her ?
• How long did it actually take her ?
• If it took longer, then why ?

Once you properly understand the detail, rebuild their work plan with them, change processes if you need to, and refocus them. Yes, this takes time. But you’re a good manager aren’t you ? You’re in control of your time, aren’t you ?

How to make big changes happen when you're busy

A Zen master was asked how to make big changes happen in a busy world.

The master began by putting large rocks in a pot. Only three would fit. He asked his pupils if it was full, and they said ‘Yes Master’. So he took some stones, and used them to fill in the space around the rocks. Again, he said: ‘Is the pot full ?’, and the answer came back ‘Yes Master’. So he poured some gravel into the pot. By this time the students hesitated when he asked if the pot was full, but still said ‘Yes’. So the Master piled sand onto the rocks, and shook the pot till the surface was completely level. ‘Is the pot full now ?’ ‘Oh yes Master’ they said, but were amazed when he poured water into the pot and it took a surprisingly long time before it started spilling over the edge.

‘Students,’ said the Master, ‘the pot is now full. But what is the moral of my story ?’

One student replied ‘No day is so busy that we cannot achieve more.’ ‘Yes,’ said the Master ‘that is true, but not my real point. The really important point is that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, they will never go in at all.’

And in today’s business world, with phones and emails and texts, being busy can take up all our time. If we want to achieve major change, and make big, important differences, we must regularly turn our phone off, shut down the email, and focus uninterrupted time on the big, different things we want to happen.

Be careful !

A pen and pencil together cost £1.10. The pen costs £1 more than the pencil. How much does the pencil cost ?

Most people's gut answer is 10p, but they'd be wrong.

Very few of the really good business people I've met would have been fooled. Not because they're better at maths, but because they don't take things at face value. They question, query, seek to understand, reach answers for themselves, and are not swayed by others' opinions.

Only when they feel they have a good grip of the situation do they come to a conclusion.

Got the right answer yet ?

Great interviewing questions

If you've read my previous post on great recruitment interviews, you shouldn't need these, but it never hurts to ask a few tricky questions, to gauge how they handle awkward situations.

1 What are seven sevens ? Yep, you already know it's 49, but if they don't answer it in a flash, they can't add up, and don't hire them.

2 How do you spell accommodation ? OK, here it's not so critical they get the answer right, but you'll be amazed by how many flap when asked this. And you don't want to hire someone who can't handle a bit of stress, and fear failure, do you ?

3 What shouldn't I know about you ?

4 If I were to ask your previous bosses about you, what would they say were your strengths ? your weaknesses ?

5 Describe the person you have least liked working with. How did you adapt to working with them ?

6 Let's imagine that you have increased profitability by 15% and you can increase this to 30% by shedding staff. What do you do ?

7 It's human nature to play up your strengths and play down your weaknesses...which traits are you playing up right now ?

A final tip. If you want a straight answer to a question, such as their actual earnings last year, ask it completely out of context, to give them no warning that it's coming. Eg, "Do you take milk in your tea ? Sugar ? What did you earn last year ?" You'll tell straight away if they're telling the truth (the answer will come without hesitation) or avoiding the truth (they'll hesitate). I once asked this question when a candidate was driving me to the station and he nearly crashed the car.

Great recruitment interviews

Recruitment isn't easy. How can you predict how good someone will be until they've been doing it a while ? But there are some tried and tested ways to weed out wrong folks early.

1 Ask the receptionist. If the candidate doesn't leave a good impression with your receptionist, don't hire them. If they aren't able to make a good impression when they're really trying, they'll be hopeless when they relax.

2 During the interview, don't ask how should, how would, and how could you questions. All they teach you is how good the candidate is at answering hypothetical questions. Try instead to get stories about how they've reacted under specific circumstances in the past. Ask "Tell me about something in your career you're proud of." Then drill down, look for STARs:

• Situation: what was the position before ?
• Task: What needed to be done ?
• Action: What did you do ? (keep asking: no, you personally, what was your exact contribution ? and if they say "we did this", "we did that, be especially nosy)
• Result: What was the outcome ?

Now ask ""Tell me about something in your career when things went horribly wrong." Then drill down again, look for STARs, but in this instance you'll find out how they reacted to stress, turned things from negative to positive.

3 Do they talk with interest and authority about your industry and market sector ? The folks you really don't want are those for whom this will be just another job. Good people are interested in the trends in the sector, how your market works, the products in it. With the really good ones, you're just privileged to pay their wages while their career passes through your company.

4 Ask yourself: Would I like to spend an hour in the pub with this person ? If not, then will your existing staff, prospects and customers like them ? Probably not - so are they a good bet as an employee ?

Good interviewing doesn't mean you spot the great ones easier, but it does mean you can weed out the wrong ones with much greater certainty.