You Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends

There's no shortage of internet articles and books about toxic workplaces, toxic co-workers and how to avid them. But I rarely see articles about the best people to work with, so I've put together my own set of stereotypes of the best sorts of people to have around you in the office. If you can't choose your work colleagues, and you know the types of people to avoid, this guide will help you gravitate towards the folk who might make your working day that little bit more bearable.

The Realistic Optimist

The Realistic Optimist is an ideal change agent. Unlike the perpetual pessimist who argues against change and only sees the negatives (usually before even knowing what is changing), the Realistic Optimist understands the arguments from both sides, and generally accepts that things are going to change regardless, so the best thing to do is make the most of the opportunity. At the same time, the Realistic Optimist is quite happy to argue their corner with management - they aren't going to roll over backwards and let management walk over them. The grass most certainly isn't always greener in their eyes, but it is still green and grass and not a car park.

You need to look after the Realistic Optimist. It's hard work trying to see the best in everything, and when they fail they will come back down to earth with an almighty bump.

The Go-To-Guy 

There are always some people who seem to know everything (whilst actually knowing very little that is correct and even less that adds value). To counter these toxic individuals who just like the sound of their own voice, seek out the Go-To-Guy. The Go-To-Guy is the person who just knows stuff without making a big deal out of it. They've probably been around for a while and have been in a number of different roles - maybe some very senior roles - and have large networks and understand how things get done.

The Go-To-Guy might not have all the answers, but knows the right person to talk to. The are typically affable, entertaining and self-effacing people who genuinely like to help, and see others thrive in the workplace. They don't need bragging rights and they left their egos behind them a long time ago.

On the downside, the Go-To-Guy may be a little bit of a 'company guy', and may be just a little hung up over compliance for the sake of it, or even just a little too attached to the status quo. Which after all is what he knows best!

The Beamer

The Beamer is just that person who is always smiling. The person who laughs at all the right jokes (at the right time and in the right places). They are probably quite quiet, diligent and just get on with their work, but their bonhomie is infectious with being tiring. Every office or team needs a beamer!

The Influential Unleader

The Influential Unleader is the person who always steps up when needed. Voids are usually uncomfortable, and the Influential Unleader sees to it that voids get filled. When management asks for a volunteer it's the Influential Unleader who takes the job on, or is volunteered by their colleagues. They don't need to prove themselves - they've already earned the respect of their peers. They take things on from a sense of duty, and probably to stop an alternative solution being thrust on them and their colleagues.

They are unleaders because they don't have formal leadership roles, and they don't act as despots or dictators in their leadership style. People look up to them, and know that they are in good hands.

Influential Unleaders will never make it to the top levels of the organisation, and even though this is often through choice, they will eventually become disillusioned and move on as they see under-performers and less able people take over the key positions.

The Spokesperson

The Spokesperson is similar to the Influential Unleader (they may be the same person in a small group). They will fill a void of silence, but probably don't have the confidence to take the next step and actually perform the leadership role. But they are incredibly articulate, passionate and have the best interests of the team at heart.

When the Spokesperson starts a challenge with "I think I speak for the rest of the team when I say...", they usually do. They will be acutely aware of how the members of the team feel, and will not be scared of taking the flack for saying it out loud. But beware of the False Spokesperson who is only speaking for themselves, but hiding behind the team.

The Man For All Seasons

Clearly not an exclusively male role, but a Person For All Seasons or even (Wo)Man For All Seasons doesn't really work. The Man For All Seasons exhibits all the above traits. If you have one of these in your team it should let you off the hook as there will always be someone in your team that has your back.

But you still need to build your personal skills and aspire to become the Man of All Seasons yourself. When you find yourself in a new team without one, who are you going to call?

Key Attributes of an Effective Process

When I used to cut code for a living there were a number of attributes we used to look for in a 'good' program (application!). Maintainability, Efficiency, Readability, Flexibility, Reliability, Reusability, Portability and Testability are some of these non-functional or quality requirements that spring to mind. A programmer today may have a slightly different list as development environments have changed and technology has advanced. Security probably trumps portability for example.

A couple of days ago I started writing a post whinging about processes that, at least from a user's perspective, appear to be constantly changing. These are often pretty, bureaucratic changes but are exceedingly frustrating for those on the receiving end of the changes.At the same time I was documenting an existing process as part of the day job, and I started thinking about the quality attributes for a process. What makes an effective process?

I know that many folk would argue that there is no such thing as a good process. but for the rest of us here's my list - written from the perspective of a process user (not purely as a process author)...

• Stable - whilst the whole point of continuous improvement is to ensure that processes are kept up to date, there must be a period of bedding down a process before you start changing it. Constantly fiddling with a process, even in the minutiae, irritates and confuses users, and will inevitably lead to some kind of failure before too long as people simply don't know what's right and wrong anymore. Unless a process is shown to be fundamentally wrong (in which case it there should be big questions about how or why it was published in the first place), let a reasonable amount of time pass before updating it. And where processes are cyclical, e.g. monthly, don't make changes every month, especially at the point of execution!
• Complete - there are plenty of great examples of how to document a process, but all too often these are ignored, and valuable or even critical information is missing from the process definition. For example, entry and exit criteria are often missed out, sometimes inputs and outputs are only partially listed. Attention to details gives users confidence in the process
• Understandable - if you document all your processes as essays, don't be surprised if people struggle to follow them. It's also important to get the level of detail right - don't mix up process definitions with work instructions. Few users actually need to read a process end to end if they are already familiar with it. They are more likely to want to find elements within the process like process inputs or specific roles and responsibilities. If using web based descriptions, draw on good user interface guidelines to hide or show levels of information that people can focus on. If your using more traditional document based descriptions, a tabular approach is often a good way to present information.
• Current - people expect to be able to access processes that are up date and relevant for the work they are currently doing. Old, irrelevant processes should be withdrawn and archived if necessary. And publishing process changes is simply not enough - there needs to be communication that processes have changed, and how they have changed
• Usable - in the age of corporate intranets, wikis and even SharePoint, there is no excuse in not making processes easy to find, navigate and access. Libraries of documents are no longer relevant nor desirable as vehicles for users to access information. The best process libraries are those that users can interact with, even to the extent of having processes describes from different user perspectives according to their role or function. More importantly, thing about how the process flows from a user's perspective - something obvious to an author may not be so obvious to a user, especially in the heat of the moment when they are battling against a deadline
• Simple - many working environments are already unnecessarily complex so your processes need to be documented to help remove the complexity as much as possible, They need to be clear and precise, and focused on the people who do the work - they should not attempt to showcase the author's writing talents!

I'm sure there are other attributes that you may want to add to my list - drop me a note or leave a comment and I'll include them in a future post

Why The Shareholder Should Not Be At The Top of the Food Chain

Earlier this week I read yet another article about the imminent demise of Yahoo's leadership team due to a letter from an activist shareholder group - who in this case owns less than 1% of Yahoo. OK, 1% of a multi billion dollar company may well be more than I'll ever earn in several lifetimes, but it's still a very small stake-holding compared to all the other investors.

What struck me was how such a tiny stakeholder thought it had the right to make such demands on a business and why, if it was so unhappy with the business why it simply didn't divest itself of its stake?

(Picture borrowed from Kristen Maxwell Texas Enterprise)

When I first started working, there was a very clear mantra that was drummed into my head with remorseless frequency. The shareholder is the king of the jungle - the only reason you are in business is to make money and return the investments of the shareholders. Nothing else matters - not even the customer, and especially not the employees.

That always seemed to me to be a bit of a perverse way of looking at the world, but everybody was saying the same thing, so it had to be right - and I was a newbie and at the very bottom of the food chain, so what did I know? But the concept has nagged at me right through my working life like a dull tooth ache that won't quite go away completely, and occasionally rears up and hurts like heck.

In my world I always had the naive perspective that if you treated your staff with dignity and respect they would work their socks off to please the customer (and their managers). The customers would increase their support for the company with increased spending and referrals, and the benefits would be realised by the executives, and ultimately the shareholders. A positive reinforcement loop if every I saw one!

Finally, it appears that I'm not alone in that ridiculous notion. A reasonably successful businessman called Richard Branson talked about the concept in a recent interview. Peter Leeson speaks from the same perspective in his book Orchestrated Knowledge

"Unfortunately, in recent years, many management teams have started believing that they work for the shareholders rather than the clients"

and then suggests that shareholders are often only ever interested in short term speculation (usually with each other) and rarely bring any real value to the company.

The downside of raising the importance of the shareholder above everyone else is that, ultimately, people start equating the value of stock with the quality and viability of the business (look no further than Apple and the performance of its stock which is completely divorced from the profitability of the business and totally at the mercy of Wall Street analysts who live in a completely alternative reality distortion field). Once you start people thinking there are potential risks to the future of the business, you set a negative feedback loop in progress and the vicious downward spiral begins.

Meanwhile, global IT giants like HPE and IBM continue to treat their people like mediaeval serfs, constantly under threat of redundancy, and being squeezed of every ounce of loyalty left in them by one-dimensional strategies which are focused purely on cutting costs, rather than improving the business (and their customer service).

The relentless march towards corporate capitalism will be our downfall and the balance needs to be  redressed towards putting real people first, namely employees and customers. After all, what's the point of empowering people by creating agile environments and then making them redundant simply to generate more money for people who can't actually do anything to make the business better?!

Think Global, Act Local - How To Sub-optimise Your Global Operation

I think it was sometime in the early 2000s when I first came across the expression "Think Global, Act Local". The phrase has been attributed to Patrick Geddes, a Scottish town planner and social activist, and originated way back in 1915. These days it is a rallying cry for global corporations, and it has appeared in nearly every leadership presentation I have seen over the last 10 years.

At the time, I was working for a major IT outsourcing company, whose business was truly global, and where corporate shared services were already being farmed out to 'low cost centres' across the world. In Applications Development and Maintenance, we were also beginning to talk about 'follow the sun' development, whereby developers would work in relay teams around the world to build software systems 24x7 in a factory model - but that's another story for another day.

I remember being quite excited about the 'Think Global, Act Local' paradigm, mainly because I had my fingers in many pies. I was a member of a number of global task forces looking at various elements of our software development activities, whilst being responsible for all business improvement activities across Europe, and also looking after a team of UK based process improvement experts. And for a while things were hunky dory...we achieved an enormous amount, it was fantastic collaborating with people from all over the world and we actually worked in an environment where people understood how the paradigm should work but more importantly what the limitations were.

When I came across the phrase more recently, I started thinking about how jaded it now seemed, and more importantly how it has been so poorly interpreted by so many management teams that it has probably caused more harm than good. On top of that I realise how naive I was to be taken in by some of these slogans, although I'm pleased that I now finally see them for what they are and that I'm able to think around the consequences of these and other management hypes, although that is largely the result of seeing how things have evolved in the real world, and the problems that have ensued.

I have two main examples of where the paradigm breaks down. Both involve the transfer of work to places with relatively lower cost bases, which is possibly a very desirable thing to do if you are an accountant, but less desirable when seen from other perspectives.

In the first example, let's consider the situation where highly skilled knowledge workers form an operational hub in a low cost region. Depending on the location, it is possible to hire very skilled people (often contractors) at slightly lower rates than they might expect from their home base, but who benefit from the reduced costs of living abroad. The company benefits from lower wages bills and generally lower operating costs by setting up such hubs. A win-win situation it would appear.

It's only when you start working that the problems become evident. And in my experience the single biggest issue is that all collaboration and communication is done electronically. You rarely, if ever, meet the people you support, and your lives are spent working in sound bytes of information, struggling to catch people for a few moments of their time.

In other words, support staff can only provide a sub-optimal service to their front line colleagues. No matter how hard we try, we are limited by the problems inherent using in electronic communication alone - technical issues, misinterpretation of messages, misunderstandings, language issues - all of which are potential issues when working face to face, but compounded horrendously when our only interface to our colleagues is through a computer.

[The irony of this situation is that often the work could easily be done by contractors tele-commuting thereby dispensing with the need for office space and the associated costs of doing business. Personally, I would be perfectly comfortable working from my own home, on a lower day rate, than having to relocate to an office on the continent, incurring the costs of renting an apartment, paying management companies to represent me and still not having face to face collaboration with the people I support]

In the second example, whole functions are relocated to a low cost centre. These are often administrative functions, such as invoicing, procurement or payroll. It may seem quite obvious that these ‘self-contained’ functions can work remotely, servicing requests from across the globe. However, this assumption fails to take into account the biggest single weakness that is inherent across all organisations, regardless of size, longevity and maturity. Most organisational dysfunction occurs at departmental interfaces.

Some organisations have taken this relocation of function to an extreme. Payroll is located in country 'x', procurement is located in country 'y' and invoicing is located in country 'z'. And of course, all the transactions originate locally and then start their long and intricate itinerary across the world. Even some seemingly trivial activities that used to be performed locally in a matter of seconds now take a week or more to fulfil, assuming there are no issues with the original request. If an issue does arise the error has to be backtracked through it's travels and then start all over again.

Many of the organisations who have divested their back office activities across the four corners of the world are simultaneously embarking on 'Lean' and 'Agile' initiatives. Because they have no real understanding of what 'Lean' or 'Agile' really mean, they fail to see the irony of their actions.

Think Global, Act Local, in many respects, is the antithesis of Lean and Agile. Saving money by relocating certain functions at the expense of operational efficiency and effectiveness is almost certainly not going to lead to a net gain against the bottom line. People in higher cost centres are being hindered by the delays in transactions preventing them from realising their own operational effectiveness. Time is spent chasing up requests, often being passed from function to function, as there is no longer any clear overall ownership of the process. In fact, the whole thing smacks of an exercise in job creation, whilst at the same time, hundreds of skilled people with unique domain, customer and product knowledge are being made redundant (before being re-employed as much higher cost contractors).

If businesses took a moment to map out their end to end processes, looking at such things as value chains and process topography and topology, before they shipped out their support functions, they may realise the potential folly of their actions.

As usual, there are more dimensions to executing business processes than that of cost alone! And any Lean expert, worth their salt, will understand that optimising all your sub-functions in isolation, out of context, and without a holistic overview, will lead to the overall process being completely sub-optimised...and probably completely dysfunctional...especially to the people who depend on it!