MgmtWatchSM Helping you manage

If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. Volume 6, Issue 6      In This Issue:   You Schmooze, you win   Mastering disaster   Tearing up the Jack Welch playbook   A conversation with Warren Buffet   Twenty dumb things organizations do   Set them free: two musts for employee motivation   Trust rules: The most important secret about trust   Best Interview questions   The two most important management secrets   Eight tips for better brainstorming   When Not to trust your gut   The morning meeting ritual   Make the most of your off-site   Peter Drucker on managerial courage   Negotiating challenges for women leaders   Four ways to get more out of your annual planning and budgeting   Its time to sell: Do you know where your references are?   Executive Onboarding: That tricky first 100 days   How to survive a takeover   Sun protection secrets   Are you marathon material? You Schmooze, You Win Those rehashings of American Idol with your office buddies are actually good for productivity. Your research shows that people who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged on the job. Why? Tom Rath, head of research and leadership consulting at the Gallup Organization, whose new book, Vital Friends (Gallup Press, 2006), draws on more than 8 million interviews: Close relationships and friendships are the single most important human need when it comes to our satisfaction with life. When people leave an organization after a short time, they often talk about how they weren't able to connect with someone. On the flip side, there is something about those relationships that keeps people in jobs, too... Read the article.  Back to top Mastering Disaster The worst is yet to come--and, believe it or not, someone is preparing for it. Is it warm in here, or is it just me? SAS Institute Inc.'s Pandemic Task Force is crowded around a conference-room table, packed with execs from the company's travel, security, health-care, and risk functions, among others. Its members are seated so close together that it wouldn't be hard to catch a cold--or worse. Which, in an eerie way, makes the point. The scenarios on the table aren't imminent; there are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of avian flu. But SAS, a $1.7 billion software company, has to acknowledge the possibility. Joanna D'Aquanni, the continuity of business program manager, keeps a mushrooming list of questions: How to persuade SAS's legendarily loyal employees to stay home if catastrophe strikes? How to pay people if the payroll system can't be accessed? Which decisions belong to the company's CEO, Jim Goodnight? As the threats to companies proliferate, business-continuity planners like D'Aquanni are acquiring new organizational stature--and much tougher jobs. Amalgams of blue-sky thinker, military-style logistics guru, and professional worrywart, they're the folks who make your palms sweat when you see them approaching. "Sometimes people call us the 'doom and gloom people,'" says Marie Johnson, business continuation analyst at Target, "but we have to ask, 'what if?'"... Read the article.  Back to top Tearing up the Jack Welch playbook The Six Sigma master was once the undisputed authority in management. But Fortune is finding that today's smart CEOs are following a different set of rules. Once upon a time, there was a route to success that corporate America agreed on. But in today's fast-changing landscape, that old formula is getting tired. Even now, nearly five years after his retirement from General Electric (Charts), Jack Welch commands the spotlight. He is still power-lunching, still making the gossip columns, still the charismatic embodiment of the star CEO. His books are automatic bestsellers. More than any other single figure, he stands as a model not just for the can-do American executive but for a way of doing business that revived the U.S. corporation in the 1980s and dominated the world's economic landscape for a quarter century. Just try to find an executive who hasn't been influenced by his teachings. What came to be known as Jack's Rules are by now the business equivalent of holy writ, bedrock wisdom that has been open to interpretation, perhaps, but not dispute. But the time has come: Corporate America needs a new playbook. The challenge facing U.S. business leaders is greater than ever before, yet they have less control than ever - and less job security. The volatility of the markets is so unpredictable, the pressure from hedge funds and private-equity investors so relentless, the competition from China and India so intense, that the edicts of the past are starting to feel out of date.In executive suites across the country, a dramatic rethinking is underway... Read the article.  Back to top A conversation with Warren Buffett FORTUNE EXCLUSIVE: Editor-at-large Carol Loomis speaks with Buffett on why he sped up his plan to give away his money and why he chose the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In an exclusive interview, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO speaks with FORTUNE's Carol Loomis about why he shifted gears, his relationship with Bill Gates and what it feels like to give away so much. Question: “Coming from you, this plan is pretty startling. Up to now you haven't been famous for giving away money. In fact, you've been roundly criticized now and then for not giving it away. So let's cut to the obvious question: Are you ill?”... Read the article.  Back to top Twenty Dumb Things Organizations Do... Even the best organizations periodically make mistakes in dealing with people. They mess up their opportunity to create effective, successful, positive employee relations. But, there are twenty, especially dumb things that organizations do, to mess up their chance to develop powerfully positive relationships with the people they employ. And organization after organization tend to repeat these mistakes, despite their known impact on employee morale. You'll want to check out these twenty employee relations mistakes... Read the article.  Back to top Set Them Free: Two Musts For Employee Motivation Every person is motivated. The challenge at work is to create an environment in which people are motivated about work priorities. Too often, organizations fail to pay attention to the employee relations, communication, recognition, and involvement issues that are most important to people. Find out more about two important factors in employee motivation: Set Them Free: Two Musts For Employee Motivation... Read the article.  Back to top Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret About Trust Trust. You know when you have trust; you know when you don’t have trust. Yet, what is trust and how is trust usefully defined for the workplace? Can you build trust when it doesn’t exist? How do you maintain and build upon the trust you may currently have in your workplace? These are important questions for today’s rapidly changing world. Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. Learn more about what trust is, how to build trust, how to keep from injuring trust, and how to make trusting relationships build a successful workplace. Read: Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret About Trust. Quotations about Trust and Trustworthiness... Read the article.  Back to top Best Interview Questions The job interview is a powerful factor in the employee selection process. You can use behavioral-based job interview questions to help you select superior candidates. Ask interview questions that help you identify whether the candidate has the behaviors, skills, and experience needed for the job you are filling. Positive interviews provide less than a two percent increase in your prediction of a person's eventual success in a job, but why waste the face time? Get to know your candidate; let him or her get to know you. Interviews are a time to let your corporate culture shine. These interview questions will help you select the best candidate for your job... Read the article.  Back to top The Two Most Important Management Secrets Your expectations of people and their expectations of themselves are the key factors in how well people perform at work. Known as the Pygmalion Effect and the Galatea Effect, respectively, the power of expectations cannot be overestimated. These are the fundamental principles you can apply to performance expectations and performance improvement at work. Learn more about the Pygmalion and Galatea Effects Read the article.  Back to top Eight tips for better brainstorming A recent Wall Street Journal story took on the hot topic of brainstorming. Titled "Brainstorming Works Best if People Scramble For Ideas on Their Own," the piece quoted research showing that people are "more creative" when they "brainstorm" alone rather than in meetings and offered supporting testimonials from managers. This is a subject I am quite familiar with. Along with Andy Hargadon, I completed an 18-month ethnography in the 1990s on how the innovation consultants at IDEO do creative work, and we've both spent much of the past decade studying other innovative organizations. At the time, Andy was my PhD student, and now he is an associate professor at the University of California at Davis. We agree that badly managed face-to-face brainstorms do stifle creativity and we agree that, even when brainstorming is done right, people probably can still generate ideas faster when they work alone. But it is total nonsense to conclude that if you want creativity, you ought to keep your people in solitary confinement where they can't "waste time" listening to and building on the ideas of others. Here's the problem: Most studies of brainstorming are rigorous but irrelevant to the challenge of managing creative work. For starters, comparing whether creativity happens best in groups or alone is pretty silly when you look at how creative work is actually done. At creative companies, people switch between both modes so seamlessly that it is hard to notice where individual work ends and group work starts. THEORY VS. PRACTICE. At group brainstorms, individuals often "tune out" for 5 or 10 minutes to sketch a product or organizational structure inspired by the conversation, and then jump back into the conversation to show the others their idea. In another typical scenario, I recall an IDEO brainstorm about a cool haircutting device, after which one participant, engineer Roby Stancel, ran off to build it. Drawing a hard line between "individual" and "group" creativity in these and dozens of other examples is pointless. What really matters is... Read the article.  Back to top When Not to Trust Your Gut Illustration of two tables © 1990 Roger N. Shepard In past issues of this newsletter, we have highlighted a variety of psychological biases that affect negotiators, many of which spring from a reliance on intuition. Of course, negotiators are not always affected by bias; we often think systematically and clearly at the bargaining table. Most negotiators believe they are capable of distinguishing between situations in which they can safely rely on intuition from those that require more careful thought—but often they are wrong. In fact, most of us trust our intuition more than evidence suggests that we should. For a simple example of this tendency, look at the following diagram from Roger Shepard's book Mind Sights: Original Visual Illusions, Ambiguities, and Other Anomalies (W. H. Freeman, 1990): How do the two tables compare in size and shape? If you're like most people... Read the article.  Back to top The Morning Meeting Ritual Is your organization plagued by inefficient communications, finger pointing, and lack of accountability? Get all key decision makers to the table—same time, every day. Welcome to Marty Linsky's The Morning Meeting. From Harvard Management Communication Letter. “Issues cannot be covered over, and people can no longer hide.” A global petrochemical company struggling to create a coherent strategy after a merger with a very different kind of firm. A small advertising and design house trying to manage itself during a time of rapid growth. A public agency facing a series of budget cuts that threaten core services and deeply held values. An established bank losing market share to new boutique players coming into its market and cherry-picking high-margin products. As diverse as the challenges facing these organizations seemed, when my colleagues and I looked closely, we recognized that they shared two closely linked underlying causes: chronic communication problems within the executive team and a lack of shared accountability. When communication is stifled and turf protection the order of the day, an organization's senior leadership team is less than the sum of its parts and cannot grapple with strategic and operational challenges most effectively. Expertise and energy go untapped: less than frank communication sometimes means that team members do not know the full extent of one another's issue; and a lack of shared accountability leads some to think, "Hey, that's his problem and he's got to fix it." In contrast, two qualities characterize high-functioning leadership teams:... Read the article.  Back to top Make the Most of Your Off-Site The key: advance preparation. This means restricting in advance the scope and number of issues to a manageable few. And don't invite too many people. An excerpt from Harvard Business Review. “The meeting is not the place to plod through data.” “If most companies have too many participants, they have too few off-site sessions.” A strategic off-site's success is largely determined by what happens before it convenes. To make sure the meeting generates tangible results, its designer must do three things. First, answer the most basic questions:... Read the article.  Back to top Peter Drucker on Managerial Courage Each product, operation, and activity should be justified every two or three years, wrote Peter F. Drucker in 1963. But that's a hard step for managers to take. A Harvard Business Review classic. Unfortunately I know of no procedure or checklist for managerial courage. I do not propose to give here a full-blown "science of management economics," if only because I have none to give. Even less do I intend to present a magic formula, a "checklist" or "procedure" which will do the job for the manager. For his job is work—very hard, demanding, risk-taking work. And while there is plenty of laborsaving machinery around, no one has yet invented a "work-saving" machine, let alone a "think-saving" one. But I do claim that we know how to organize the job of managing for economic effectiveness and how to do it with both direction and results. The answers to the [following] three key questions . . . are known, and have been known for such a long time that they should not surprise anyone. 1. What is the manager's job? It is to direct the resources and efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite—and it is. But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to "problems" rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimum impact on results. 2. What is the major problem?... Read the article.  Back to top Negotiating Challenges for Women Leaders If you don't negotiate for your salary, they walk away happy that they paid you less but wonder why they hired you.                     — Kathleen McGinn Women don't have a problem developing an effective leadership style. What they do struggle with more than men, however, is claiming the authority to lead, according to Hannah Riley Bowles and Kathleen L. McGinn. The gender gap in leadership is the focus of "Claiming Authority: Negotiating Challenges for Women Leaders," a chapter in the forthcoming book Psychology of Leadership: Some New Approaches, edited by David Messick and Roderick Kramer (Lawrence Erlbaum Press). As influential experts on negotiation who examine these questions from an economic perspective, Riley Bowles and McGinn believe that negotiation skills are crucial to closing the gender gap in leadership. Riley Bowles, who earned her doctoral degree from Harvard Business School, is an assistant professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. McGinn is a professor and a director of research at HBS. Below, excerpts from an interview. Lagace: What is an example of an experiment you've conducted that looks at differences in how women and men negotiate? McGinn: One of the interesting first pieces of data we looked at was job offers to MBA graduates. Once we controlled for a whole bunch of things such as industry and other variables, we found that men and women didn't tend to negotiate very different salaries, especially in industries where salaries were normative. But men and women did negotiate differently for other packages. And a question comes up: Why would that be? Why, when women were going in and getting the top salary on the list when they knew what the range is, wouldn't they be negotiating as big bonuses, as generous moving allowances, those sorts of things? One of the big differences that Hannah first realized was that there are some situations that are much more ambiguous. If you go back into economic sociology studies and studies of wage gaps, you find that you can pull out those situations that are fairly unambiguous and say that there aren't gaps. But if you go into those situations and industries in which there is quite a bit of ambiguity, you start to see wage gaps... Read the article.  Back to top Four Ways to Get More out of Your Annual Planning and Budgeting In our days of youth, we dreaded the end of summer and the return to school. Now, as marketing and business managers, we have the equally dreadful annual planning and budgeting process that for many starts toward the latter part of summer. CFO Magazine reports that almost half (45%) of financial executives say "budgeting and reporting are contentious, political, and time-consuming." If the number-loving finance group has this view, you're not likely to find marketers' opinions to be any better. Since planning and budgeting are not going away, you may as well make the effort to get more value out of the process. It's actually an ideal time for putting basic ROI analysis to use. Here are four ways to use financial insight to create more profitable strategies and tactical plans while building greater credibility with your executive team... Read the article.  Back to top It's Time to Sell: Do You Know Where Your References Are? A reference management system (RMS) is an important part of customer relationship management, but if you're waiting for this functionality to get added to your CRM system, don't hold your breath. This is the first part of a two-part article that examines the importance of an RMS and the choices available for incorporating this functionality into your technology infrastructure. Monday morning: Scott fails to locate a few reference quotes for an upcoming tradeshow presentation while searching the sales portal; he calls you for help. You tell him you will call him back after you've located them—you know there's a quote file either on the server or somewhere on your own computer system. Jennifer calls to ask for help setting up a site visit for a healthcare prospect in her territory. Your list of customers that have agreed to host site visits is sketchy and scattered between email, spreadsheets, and yes... Post-Its. This will take some time, and Jennifer promised her client to have this set up by the end of the day. The Sales Ops meeting is at 11:00, and the VP of Sales asks you for a detailed report of references that influenced deals this quarter, including increased revenue figures. Can you get away with presenting the top three and finding the rest later in the week? Read the article.  Back to top Executive onboarding: That tricky first 100 days The business of helping executives get off to a good start is booming. Being boss of an American firm may be fabulously well paid, but never has the position of top banana been harder to cling on to. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a consultancy, 728 chief executives left their jobs in the first half of this year—some willingly, many not. That was 6.9% more than during the same period in 2005, a year with an all-time record high of 1,322 departures. Many of these changes were at smaller firms, but there have recently been several sudden, high-profile exits at firms including Kraft, Novell and Williams-Sonoma. With increased turnover comes reduced tenure in the top job—and, indeed, in other senior positions. Executives are now being judged more quickly than ever, it seems. This trend has spawned a business designed to help newly appointed corporate leaders to hit the ground running. “The average CEO is in the job for under four years now,” says Rich Rosen of Heidrick & Struggles, a recruitment firm. “So firms are looking for a new CEO to make a quicker impact, and are prepared to invest in making sure it happens.” Reflecting the management industry's addiction to jargon, this process has been named “onboarding” (that is, helping a new executive successfully climb on board)... Read the article.  Back to top How To Survive A Takeover At most any company, few things are more unsettling than a new set of suits showing up at the office. And yet that's just what's happening at an ever-increasing clip, as private equity firms gobble up more and more companies, creating prolonged periods of suspense and uncertainty for existing managers and other employees. This week's announcement of a $33 billion private buyout of hospital chain HCA (nyse: HCA - news - people ) by Bain Capital, Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) and Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts is the biggest deal yet in a year that's already seen a record $158 billion worth of corporate takeovers by private equity groups, according to data from Thomson Financial. Private deals now account for about a quarter of all M&A activity. [For a manager whose unit has performed at or below par lately]... Read the article.  Back to top Sun Protection Secrets If you think slathering yourself with sunscreen will keep you from getting skin cancer, think again. No, the sun protection industry hasn't been waging a misinformation campaign. The fact is, "sunscreen" is not the same thing as "sunblock." And if you don't know the difference, you're not alone. It's one of the many misconceptions and unknowns surrounding sun protection--and unfortunately, ignorance in this area can cost you. Most of us are guilty of some form of sun worship. When the weather is bright, we lounge at the beach, run out for a round of golf or putter in the garden. Such simple acts of leisure can lead to more serious consequences than sunburn. Daily exposure to ultraviolet rays can add up to premature aging, wrinkles and skin cancer... Read the article.  Back to top Are you marathon material? Runners start the New York City Marathon last November. The running of the 36th annual road race featured one of the most competitive fields ever, including 35,000 participants from 99 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Endurance events are trendy, but crossing the finish line is still tough. Jacob Havenar ran his first marathon in 2000 with some soccer buddies who were looking for a new challenge. His motivation to keep up with the guys — and earn bragging rights — helped him make it to the finish line. But his main drive came from deeper within. "It's nice to be able to say you've done a marathon," he says. "But for me, the part that meant the most was the sense of personal accomplishment. It changed my life. It made me feel like I could do anything in the world." Like Havenar, more and more first-time marathoners are getting in the race. Statistics from USA Track and Field show that more than 400,000 runners now compete in an estimated 400 U.S. marathons each year, up from about 236,000 participants in 1990. Marathon running is increasingly popular for several reasons, Havenar and others say. Some people are inspired by success stories common in the media and want to achieve such a big personal goal. Some are hoping to improve their health or lose weight. Others want to do a good deed; more participants are now competing to raise money for their favorite charity. And why they decide to participate may make a big difference in whether they'll succeed, according to new research by Havenar, now a doctoral candidate in physical activity, nutrition and wellness at Arizona State University. Going the distance isn't for everyone... Read the article.  Back to top Forward to a Friend: Do you have a friend that would like to receive MgmtWatchsm? Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did! If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from MgmtWatchsm simply change your status, or send a letter requesting opt-off to: The BusinessWatch Network Privacy Mailbox, 1321, Marblehead, MA. 01945 DISCLAIMER: MgmtWatchsm and the BusinessWatch Networksm are service marks of DMS. All other trademarks or service marks contained in this email are the property of their respective owners. At the time of publication, all links in this e-mail functioned properly. However, since many links point to sites other than businesswatchnetwork.com, some links may become invalid as time passes. DMS Inc. supports the DMA Privacy Promise and Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. We are committed to the proper use of email and to protecting consumers from fraudulent or inappropriate offers. Privacy Policy