Rocks Are Hard

Everybody in the Pool!

There are so many things I love about running an agency -- this agency in particular.  Probably the biggest joy though through the day is seeing people we work with -- in the agency, at our clients, with our partners -- move forward towards their goals because we helped them.

While it might not feel this way at traditional firms, I think this is a universal truth: there is no incentive to NOT want your employees to succeed and achieve and advance. Truly. Advancement , when done well, means more throughput, more capacity, more good stuff, more opportunity for others. What's not to love about that?!

At the same time, just because we're incented for everyone to advance to where they want to be, does not mean that everyone gets there on the schedule they imagined.  Advancement is hard - and it doesn't usually happen within the confines of the work day. Business conditions may limit growth, but hello when flat is the new up, everyone puts on a different pair of glasses.

Remember when everyone with a pulse got a job or a promotion? Or when Sally came in with another offer, and you had to match it? Well...not that advancement left people high and dry when the dot com bubble burst and when the economy tanked in late 2008.  Social promotion -- what we get conditioned to throughout grade, middle, high school and college - does nobody any good.

What you need to be sure of is that you are in a place where real, earned advancement is valued. Because when it's earned you have lots of options. And when you have lots of options your career blossoms, even when you stay at the same company.

Everybody into the pool! Learn to swim, Don't let your colleagues drown, coach everyone to their edge and everyone wins.

Everything Is Feedback

Controversy always surrounds performance reviews -- to do them at all? how to do them? 360? top-down? self evaluation comparison? What does the form look like? and it goes on and on and on.

One thing I think is universal is that no review should be a surprise - your employees should have a good sense of how they're doing, what needs to be worked on, where they are excelling and how they can keep improving in that area (does a coach ever say - great job, no need to work out today over and over again?), and how their overall presence is perceived.

They should know this because we should all be having a constant stream of feedback, positive and constructive, throughout our day-to-day work lives.

The challenge is that everyday feedback is not necessarily heard - the positive or the negative.  I'm struggling with why this is true, but I know that it IS true. (Hell, one of the reasons we started Double Forte with a 10-year experience minimum was to remove ourselves from the constant barrage of social-promotion-conditioned inexperienced people who thought that they should all advance regardless of performance just because the calendar turned over.)

I don't believe we should stop providing feedback ALL THE TIME -- and hello, no feedback should mean that you're doing good.  But I do think we need to take the time to make sure the feedback is felt as seriously as it's intended. I'm not happy about it, but I know we need to shift something so that everything is HEARD in the way it is intended.

Feedback must not be given to tear down, but to help someone improve.  Really. If you don't want your staff to improve, go sit in a closet with a phone and a computer.  At the same time, we all need to LISTEN and ABSORB what we're told.

Everything is feedback. Everything counts. And if you're listening, nothing should be a surprise.

And I'll just keep riffing off of Nany Duarte....

Nancy Duarte is a BRILLIANT presentation designer -- she is probably the only designer of an Oscar Winner Slide Show  -- as she is the brain and hard work behind Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" .  She has written a new book slide:ology which I read part of the comps for many many months ago and which you can see here. I've just ordered my copy and will probably get it for my whole staff. 

So she talks about the "dirty work" of designing presentations. And I'm just going to keep expanding this to our work of media and blogger and analyst relations. It's hard. It's never neat. It takes a TON of effort to make the plan work. And I have to say that I'm proud of the fact that we do it over and over again, and are generally proud of our work.  The great work comes from great people and in the end the dirty work of running a consultancy when the work is hard is FINDING the RIGHT people and then KEEPING good people and making it VALUABLE to being here and doing the work we do.

Nancy tweeted on this presentation from Mike Rowe who is the star of "Dirty Jobs" which is my son Liam's favorite show (but he calls it "yuck!") and I want to share this here.  I love this presentation and his point of view that "we've declared war on work" -- Nancy thanks for sharing.

This is great!

Bring on Your A Game - Part Deux

So let's just acknowledge that it's going to be a tough year. The Media is shrinking, clients are looking for (justifiably) excellent return on their more limited investments, the economy is in trouble, which in turns makes us all nervous, I could go on, but I won't. 

Still now is the time to SHINE. Now is the time for your A game.

So, specifically, what to do?

• Be helpful -- to each other, to the media, to our clients, to our partners. If we help others, others will help us.
• Be nice -- say hello, and goodbye, Say please and thank you. You will feel good and the person you're talking to will feel good.  More "feel good" vibes in the world is a good thing.
• Dress the part -- now is not the time to just be comfy. Be comfy at home. At work, make an effort to be professional -- whatever professional means at your workplace. Unless you work at a surf store or in a flip flop shop, leave the damn flip flops at home. Take some time with your hair (I saw a few doozies on my way into work today). No rips, no wrinkles, no dirt -- pretty simple.  I'm considering putting up a sign on our building (not our office!) that says "if you didn't shower today GO HOME." 
• Act with a sense of urgency. What needs to be done by when? Work backwards and with a sense of getting it done RIGHT the first time (and hello RIGHT includes ON TIME). 

Do these things and you will be ahead of the game.  AND you will make the world a nicer place to be in. 

A Sense of Urgency

Now this may be repetitive, but it bears repeating - a sense of urgency (as opposed to panic) is the KEY to great service.

Urgency -- that it be done well

Urgency -- that you prepare for a good meeting, call, interaction

Urgency -- to deliver what you promise

Urgency -- to think AHEAD

Urgency is what separates us from all the crappy PR firms out there.

Be Urgent NOT panicked. Be planful and not knee-jeck. And secure your place in the ecosystem forEVER.

The End.

2009: Year of the "A" Game

Ok People - it's a new year and as with all new starts (a new month, a new year, a new page, a new notebook, Labor Day when I break out all the new pencils) it's time to cast a theme to help guide us.

And it occurs to me, among all of the turmoil in the economy and unpredicability around us that once again, focus is our friend and that if we control ourselves we will be FAR ahead of the game.

And what does control mean? It means BRINGING YOUR "A" GAME EVERY DAY.

We can have bad calls or less than stellar plays, but we MUST play an A game every day.

Decide what your A game is and play it.

The Golden Rule At Work

"Treat others as you would like others to treat you." 

The Golden Rule -- taught in schools and in houses of worship around the world. Often forgotten in the workplace. And a standard of interaction -- a modus operandi -- that builds teams, eliminates confusion and creates a positive, productive work environment.  And as importantly a standard that fosters a great client-agency relationship.

How does this show up?

• Always Provide Context With Instruction: Always provide reasoning and context for instructions, due dates or projects so people understand what they're doing and why, this allows them to better do the work you've assigned.  You probably don't like it when you don't know why you have to do something, so:
  • a) make sure you always provide context -- especially if the instruction is different than orginally discussed;  and
  • b) ask for context if you don't have it.   
•  Always Give the Whole Picture: Most of us operate better when we understand the ultimate goal (see above bullet). When working together under deadlines, make sure your teammates have all the information they need (what else will preclude you from helping? what is your schedule? what resources do you need to accomplish your task?) so that project leads can plan accordingly. Nothing is more frustrating than adjusting a schedule to find out that that schedule won't work either because you didn't have the all the information.
• If You Have An Issue With Someone Tell Them First. He said, she said. She said, she said. He said, he said. Not constructive. If you have an issue with someone, find a quiet place to talk it out RESPECTFULLY. If you aren't getting to a good resolution, bring in someone else to moderate. The Reasonable Person Theory is put to test here. Be reasonable. Be respectful. Treat the other person like you want to be treated and resolution will come. 
• Tell People When They Do Well. AND When They Can Improve. 'nuff said.
• Tell OTHER People When Someone Has Done Great Work. 'nuff said.
• Answer every inquiry with "How Can I Help You?" What if every time you needed something from somebody they said "How can I help you?" and they meant it? What if you said it every time someone came to you? What a difference this question makes.
• Never Say No. No immediately puts up a defense. If you think 'no" evaluate what you're thinking. Say, "let me get mull it over and get back to you." Say "interesting. Let me think about how to accomplish the goal." Say "cool idea. Let's knock it around the team and we'll come back to you with a plan."   The answer might be "no" to the question presented. But there is usually a way to get to the goal that is actually YES to the intent and NO to the immediate action plan. Think Yes.

If we can treat our team mates and our clients the way we'd like to be treated, we will be so far ahead of the game that no one will be able to touch us -- in client service or in the workplace.

Artificial Boundaries

For a while now the 4 guiding principles for selecting clients has been

1. is someone other than Lee interested in working with this company? (Based on the premise that you're more effective working on things that interest you)

2. Are we the right fit for a client? Service mix + style + ability to listen + expertise.

3. Can they pay us? Because we like to eat.

4. Are they good people? Or better said are we sure they're NOT assholes. Because who likes to be beat up everyday? This does NOT preclude, have high expectations which I think is mutual exclusive to the asshole who usually has impossible expectations.

Of course 2 and 3 will always be important -- because if you take on a client you're not a good fit for, that relationship is doomed from the start and you know you'll have to churn it soon (or it will churn you) and of course cash is king - getting paid allows us to pay our employees, etc.

1 and 4 though are TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL boundaries to the business. We've all worked on business we could care less about and we've all worked for assholes. By choosing to adhere to 1 and 4, we artifically constrict the business.

And there is value in that -- in very low employee turnover. In very low client turnover. In a pretty good deal in terms of work.

Imagine what we could do if we stretched just on number 1? I'm not sure I want to ever stretch on number 4 as an independent business.

mmmmmmm -- gets the wheels turning.

Politics in the Office

My whole career, I've thought it was imporant to separate my personal political & religious views from my professional life. We don't do lobbying (in the political sense but hey I'll lobby you any day about coffee and energy bars and .... you get the idea.)

In the last presidential election, frankly there was too much going on in my life to think twice about this rule, rubrik, thought (my mother was dying, my partner was leaving the business to pursue life long passion that was/is not what we do, my son was diagnosed with multiple disorders).

This time around, the political arena -- the communications strategies surrounding the candidates has pushed me to the edge of declaring myself professionally.

And Facebook is what has pushed the issue.  I love Facebook and I manage it pretty tightly. But at this age I have lots of friends from different parts of life professional and personal -- and on Facebook I let them mingle. 

At Double Forte we've decided that Facebook is personal and it's up to each person to manage it well. How that impacts the business we've yet to see. But I think we're at a whole new decision tree on personal and professional collision now.

Doing What's Right For the Client...ouch

Last week we went to see a client to tell them NOT to spend some money with us this year. OUCH (hello as we go into the last 4 months of the year)

But the money was earmarked for a program this client can not deliver the critical success factors for us to hit it out of the park.  It's not like they can NOT, but we don't think they will given recent history.

I think they were a little surprised -- it's not insignficant to us or them -- but quickly I think we proved again that we are here to SERVE them the best we can.

I've always tried to hold onto 2 principles here:

1. do what's right for the client first and the business will follow.

2. find and hire the best and most talent you can and the business will follow.

On paper, hard to see. Over time the difference between long term relationships and churn.