What “Real Advice” Would You Give Your Company?
In a minute, I’m going to ask you to answer that question. So please be mulling your most unvarnished, naked-truth advice — plus a pseudonym under which to comment, if need be.
But first, let me explain where I’m coming from. Earlier this week, Merlin Mann struck a chord in my productivity-tips-loving heart with this piece:
The crux of Mann’s advice is captured in the tweet with which he opens the post (he’s quoting himself):
Somewhere, a sad, obese man in pristine ASICS scarfs cookie dough over an unopened _Runner’s World_, complaining that he needs more “tips.”
Obviously, Mann’s fictional subject needs to hear the hard truth, not quick-fix tips.
Candid doctors will tell you that many of their patients would be best helped by . . . guess what? Sensible eating, regular exercise, no smoking, drinking only in moderation, and regular check-ups. Not tips but an overhaul in their daily habits, which, you might have noticed, is hard.
Yes, sometimes a well-placed piece of advice — a key concept, a mantra — can swing the balance for someone who’s already primed to change. But usually, we need get off the couch, have a salad, go for a long walk, et cetera, and we need to do it over and over. It’s not about tips-’n'-tricks, but about lifestyle — or, maybe, mindset.
The Seduction of the Quick Fix
More than ten years ago I had a colleague who asked me if I could recommend books or sites with “tips and tricks” for better writing. I suggested a few of my favorite writing books — Strunk and White’s, The Careful Writer, my own teacher’s Writing with Style. Then I told him that after he had read those, I could recommend others, but that the real way to get better was to practice, and to work with editors who could make him better. He seemed unsatisfied, and told me that he was “really just looking for some tips and tricks.”
I told him that Strunk and White was short and helpful, and left it at that.
At around the same time, I worked for a woman who would sometimes ask my opinion about things in the vein of “What would you do in this case?” and “How’s morale among the staff?” It took me not very long to realize that what she really wanted was answers in the form of tips-’n'-tricks. A good answer to “What would you do in this case?” had to be short, and it could not include questioning the fundamental premises by which our department was run. “How’s morale among the staff?” would ideally be answered with brief specifics about which staff members were the most unhappy. It’s a shame that such a good-hearted person took such a terminally shallow approach to serious issues.
Even good managers can succumb to the temptation of thinking that changing one key thing — removing one sorehead, implementing one piece of software — will make a mountain of troubles go away. It’s far more painful to assume something that I’ve found to be true in just about every setting: that changing the habits of an organization is at least as hard as changing the habits of that obese, ASICS-clad man looking for weight-loss tips.
From Knowledge to Action
Quick fix = easy.
Tips-’n'-tricks = easy.
Actually doing things better = hard.
As I write this from my desk at home, I have by my side Terry Pratchett’s novel Making Money, the protagonist of which is a con-man-turned-banker. (Insert your own joke here.) At one point, our hero thinks back on the psychology that made his cons work so well:
Back when he’d been a naughty boy he’d sold dreams, and the big seller in that world was the one where you got very rich by a stroke of luck. He’d sold glass as diamonds because greed clouded men’s eyes. Sensible, upright people, who worked hard every day, nevertheless believed, against all experience, in money for nothing.
Even the best of us can fall for this illusion some of the time. In the business world, managers of high quality don’t believe in money for nothing. But even they can fall into the chasm between knowing that a problem exists and acting on that problem. This was brought home to me this week by two comments from a reader named Roy on my post about e-mail use and abuse. Here’s part of what he said:
. . . I have lived in a place I’ll call “email hell” for many years. The company I’m referring to is hooked on email as if it were a drug. . . . I had this conversation with a VP two nights ago. They realize it’s a problem, but don’t know how to get off the drug. . . .
It’s going to take more than tips-’n'-tricks to get them where they need to be. It requires real advice, which is hard to give and hard to hear.
YOUR Advice
So, that brings us to you.
- If you could offer it without fear of recriminations . . .
- If you knew that it would be heeded and acted upon at the highest levels . . .
- If you knew that your organization was willing to go through the hard slog of making itself better . . .
. . . what REAL advice would you give?
Feel free to anonymize your comments. I look forward to learning from what you have to say.
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Related posts:
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Photo by laughlin.
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14 Comments so far
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Nice post, Tim.
I see this in the “lifehacks” websites. How many people compulsively consume hundreds of these hacks without actually getting more done?
It reminds me of something a former French teacher told me. He said that when most adults try to learn French, they buy every book, tape, and guide in hopes of picking up the language. They’re always on the lookout for a better tip or tool, but they never really learn anything. What they really need to do, he told me, was to buy one good book and learn it.
What’s the problem? Your formula explains it:
Quick fix = easy.
Tips-’n’-tricks = easy.
Actually doing things better = hard.
Thanks for a great site.
Bob
Bob — The language-learning example is spot-on, and has parallels to many experiential tasks that also have lots of publishing/broadcasting around them: cooking, gardening, crafts, fitness, travel, etc. It’s easy to read about these things or watch TV shows about them, but it’s not REAL until you take some ACTION on them.
My advice is exactly what you wrote!
Execution.
It is not one meeting and boom – you are an execution oriented organization
It is a day to day and deliverable by deliverable slog.
work more effectively together. independence is nice, but impacts would be greater with more collaboration.
My “if nobody fired me for saying it…” advice: Listen to your people. The people who have spent years working with these technologies and business areas really do know more about the subject than you do, Mr Manager, and it would behoove you to trust them.
So don’t override your staff when they write a long e-mail message explaining why their action is a remarkably stupid idea. Don’t go into a meeting to “sell” an idea to the staff when it is apparent that the idea will kill the company — and then get upset when you, as manager, can’t make the staff happy with the policy.
We want to make our division and our company a success, and not just so that we can keep our jobs. All of us are motivated by pride in our work, and we want to believe we are making a difference in the industry and in the world. But by refusing to listen to the people who have the actual hands on expertise, you tell us that our opinions and wisdom don’t matter. Let’s see… and how will that motivate us to give you our best effort?
But nope. You want quick fixes. You’ll take short term solutions even if everyone knows they will backfire.
And I am out looking for another job, so I don’t have to work for you anymore.
Thank you for the great post. What advice would I give to bosses?
- Learn to trust the professionals you have hired and listen to those who disagree with you.
Micro-managing every single project and believing that those that disagree with you are disloyal creates a culture of fear and kills the very initiative and creativity you claim to seek among employees. GET A CLUE!
Tim, I often see businesses go after that quick fix through best practices. Not that best practices themselves are bad, it’s just the blind adherence and implementation that leads to poor results. I like your thoughts about algorithms and refocusing how we can develop better ways to improve processes and the work experience.
I could conjure up many words of advice, but I think a important one is this: seize every opportunity to be unique, and that includes being unique in your people-systems. Businesses may get lulled into thinking only short-term survival mode or that today its an employer’s buyer market for employee talent. But these are just excuses for doing things the same old way, thinking of employees merely as resources, ignoring opportunities to attract the kind of talent needed for future success. Organizations need to remember that they are – at the core – a humanistic social enterprise. Without that, there is little hope for sustained, long-term growth in today’s world.
The challenge is…which company wants to run with that?
After reading this, two things come to mind:
1. Tips-’n’-tricks = easy:
I’ve seen way too many instances of “Consultant-itis”, meaning that a bunch of smart people get thrown at a problem without having much context or background on the problem, and the company that hired them expects a quick fix. The result is an enormous PowerPoint slide deck that cost million$.
2. Actually doing things better = hard:
Short term thinking from public companies, all trying to meet quarterly expectations without focusing and taking ACTION on longer term items that would drive deep VALUE inside/outside the company.
1. answer the phone (to quote seth goodin)
2. listen to your customers
3. don’t explain away or accept mediocrity
Tim always enjoy your provocative posts. I’m going to replace the word “company” with client and lend this thought.
1) Better management starts at the top and trickles down. If you’re not running your company well, well, then y0ur company is running away from you. And so will your freelancers and eventually, your clients.
2)Clear direction saves time and money. Get your act together before you get other people involved in your process.
3) Don’t be afraid to say “no.” Your clients value good counseling, which is why they hire you. If you kow tow to their every wish, even when you know it’s a bad decision, you will end up bent over so far that…
(sorry about number 3 Tim; needless to say, I am in the thick of it.)
Most of the best advice I could give certain organizations without fear of recrimination would be to sack / remove from authority specific senior managers.
Unfortunately that advice doesn’t generalize well. In fact, it’s hard to see how advice which is general enough to be applicable to anyone is likely to be more than mere platitudes.
I’ve given companies advice like this in the past, usually after I’ve given notice.
MinnesotaWorkingGrl said: Learn to trust the professionals you have hired and listen to those who disagree with you.
I second that.
I’d add:
Set up a revolving “advisory” team from inside the company, heavily weighted toward “regular” employees more than managers and with few (or no) “senior director” types. Let your employees tell you the state of the company from their point of view.
Implement a suggestion box – and read the suggestions. Make them public (possibly anonymous) and allow everyone to vote and comment on them
Put the “annual employee survey” on line and let people submit it at any time and as often as they like. Gather and review the data constantly.
Communicate openly and honestly with staff (as much as the SEC allows)
Provide excellent internal support. Treat employees as you would treat paying customers. (After all, if an employee can’t do his job, the bottom line suffers.)
Do away with the Annual Performance Review and work on Now instead.
Stop treating employees like interchangeable parts.Your employees are your most valuable asset.
Prioritize the real issues. Instead of blocking employees from using IM, for example, spend your energy on real questions, such as “Are they getting their projects done? Is Quality high? If so, it doesn’t matter if they occasionally chat with a friend. A happy employee is a productive employee.
Follow many of the above recommendations – advisory board, suggestion box, satisfaction survey, communication – with your Customers as well as your employees!
Communicate. Trust. Listen. Form partnerships.
Thanks for the super comments, everyone — I’ll be following up on these in subsequent posts.
Phil Jones — I encourage you to read the advice that’s contained in the other comments. Yes, some of these things are apothegms that could be taken as platitudes (not that that makes them untrue or unusable), but plenty of suggestions here can be turned into action items immediately by senior managers who want to operate better.
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