How to Destroy Trust and Alienate People

There are certain things I trust.  I trust the sun to rise in the morning.  I trust the lady who does my dry cleaning to always wish me a “more-nice day”.  I trust that Justin Beiber is past his 15 minutes.  I also trust that the word “trust” is a loaded word.

Often, people think that the only way to lose or violate trust is to do something very clearly wrong or dishonest.  It is actually much easier than that to destroy trust.  Trust is quite simply, managing expectations in others, and then delivering on those expectations.

This is how it goes horribly wrong for politicians – large segments of the population demand that politicians lie to them during a campaign.  Any political candidate that dare speak an uncomfortable truth, will be marginalized immediately.  Then once elected, the disconnect between the expectations that have been set, and those that are delivered becomes patently obvious, and the public feels betrayed.

Just so you don’t end up being viewed like a politician, here are five ways to quickly destroy trust:

Say one thing and do another.  Much like the politician above, this is the fastest way to ensure that no one will trust you.

Try to please all the people all the time. Life is a series of trade-offs – particularly for people in positions of leadership.  As a leader, there should be some contingent of your followers that should be marginally pissed-off at all times – because it is impossible to keep everybody happy.

Pander to your audience. Targeting whomever you are communicating to is a good idea.  However, if you find yourself targeting to such a degree that your message is fundamentally different amongst different stakeholders, you’re going to alienate someone (if not everyone).

Fail to tackle difficult issues. Every leader bears the burden of dealing with difficult issues.  They will not magically disappear or solve themselves – in fact, an issue ignored is most often one that grows out of control.

Under-value giving credit, and over-value assigning blame.  Leaders need to be humble – give away credit when things go well, and step up and accept more than your share of blame when things go poorly.  You gain a whole bunch of trust by doing so.

 

Introduction to Business KPIs

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Why Measure at All?

As part of your introduction to business KPIs, you should have some idea as to why you should bother to measure at all.

  • To know where you are in your business, and how to improve it.
  • To build a business case for a course of action, or an investment.
  • To determine the impact on clients or customers.
  • To improve objectivity, and reduce reliance on opinion and rumor.
  • To establish accountability amongst teams or team members.
  • To ensure people are not working at cross-purposes.
  • To celebrate success.

Where Performance Measures Fit

Introduction to Business KPIs — Definitions

  • A Strategy: Longer term direction or scope that differentiates you you’re your competitors. (How do you make money or if you are not in a profit business how you achieve your organizational “end”).
  • Goal: Something specific you work towards to achieve your strategy.  (What you’ll do to realize your strategy)
  • Key Success Factors: Those critical areas (or key work activities) we must focus on in order to be successful (achieve our goals).  Some generic KSFs are:
    • Quality
    • Quantity
    • Cost
    • Time
    • Safety
  • Performance Indicator: A metric that tells you how you’re doing in working towards the achievement of a Key Success Factor.
    • Result indicator: Measures outcomes or results
    • Process indicator:  Measure activities that lead to outcome or results

Introduction to Business KPIs:  Good indicators

  • Simple to understand and use
  • Aligned with corporate strategies
  • Promotes continuous improvement
  • Controllable or significantly “influenceable”
  • Examples of Good Performance Indicators:
    • Tons per hour
    • Absenteeism rate
    • Time loss numbers
    • Overtime as a % of salary

The Business KPIs you choose must be within your sphere of control or your sphere of influence.  You may measure some things that are in your sphere of concern, but they will not drive your business the way that Business KPIs in the other spheres will.

Introduction to Business KPIs:  Bad Indicators

  • Are too complex
  • Are not specific enough
  • Not connected to larger goals
    • Lousy production
    • Bad attitude
    • Bad safety
    • Good overtime control

Introduction to Business KPIs:  3 things to remember

  1. There is never one perfect measure – look at a variety of things.
  2. Don’t let your metrics take on a life of their own.  They should enable decision making and action.
  3. Let your indicators change over time.  As you learn more about your business, and as your business changes you should allow your Business KPIs to change too.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Business KPIs (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Metrics 101: Introduction to Business KPIs

Join Jed and Bob as they define many of the terms related to measurement in business, and explain how to get started on measurement in your business.  They also describe the difference between a good performance indicator and a bad one, and as always, they will leave you with three things to remember.

Watch the ‘Metrics 101: Introduction to Business KPIs’ Video (14 mins 32 sec):


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Introduction to Business Metrics

OK… so in these pages before we’ve talked about Effective KPIs, the Balanced Scorecard, Leading and Lagging Indicators, SMART Goals, as well as many other aspects of measuring and managing performance.  We were reminded by a regular listener to our podcast that these things are only useful if you’ve got some idea of how to get started in measuring the business.  This week, join the Wily Manager guys for Metrics 101.

Monday’s Tip: There is no perfect measure – look at a variety of things. You should not have hundreds of measures, but you should have more than one, because rarely is a business simple enough that one measure will tell you the whole story.

Tuesday’s Tip: Don’t let your metrics take on a life of their own. If you’re spending more time measuring your work that you are doing your work, you are measuring the wrong way.

Wednesday’s Tip: Let your performance indicators change over time. You will learn more about your business once you begin to measure, and the business will change in time.  Do not become so committed to a measure that you don’t allow it to change.

Thursday’s Tip:Focus on those things you control or significantly influence. There are all kinds of things you should be concerned about in business, but focus your metrics on those things you control or significantly influence.

Friday’s Tip: Connect your indicators to business goals, and ultimately strategy. Performance indicators should be linked to Key Result Areas (KRAs), which should roll up into goals, that ultimately contribute towards the strategy of the business.  Make sure you have a clear line of sight for these things.

 

Managing Measurement by Best Seller

Performance metrics often provide an excellent illustration of how a really good idea can be made difficult and useless by poor implementation.  It’s a lot like watching your favourite sports franchise consistently snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Usually it goes down like this:  someone in some position of authority will read the first fifteen pages of a book about measurement.  Without reading the following 250 pages, he concludes that his organization needs to get everyone on the measurement bandwagon.  Then he strikes a committee, or hires a consultant to go forth and make this happen.

Fast forward in time six months, and a significant portion of everyone’s work week becomes dedicated to counting the number of paper clips they have consumed since last week, and calculating the annual impact of that paper clip consumption.  They then have a meeting to discuss how to reduce paper clip consumption, thereby reducing annual operating costs by $48.50, or roughly 1/100th the cost of the first meeting about paper clip consumption.

OK… that might be a bit harsh.  But here are some actual examples of performance metrics gone horribly wrong:

  • The technology company that measured sales success exclusively on dollar volume at the end of each quarter.  THE RESULT:  A whole bunch of clients went somewhere else because they were tired of being sold things they really didn’t need.
  • The grocery retailer that measured check-stand effectiveness by calculating the frequency of cashiers using customers’ names.  THE RESULT:  the customers went to stores where they measure how much time was spent waiting in line – something the customer actually cares about.
  • The restaurant owner that attempted to reduce cost by reducing the number of paper napkins provided to each customer.  THE RESULT:  I don’t know… probably sticky fingers and dirty tables – this one just seemed really silly to me
  • The lumber manufacturer that measured how much fibre it recovered from each log, as opposed to how much money they made on different dimensions of lumber.  THE RESULT:  Very few wood-chips, but a yard full of garden stakes that no one would buy (and a whole bunch of trees unnecessarily harvested)

Some people will tell you all that matters at the end of the day is how much money you make.  Not true – if you focus exclusively on this, you are in a never-ending cycle of sub-optimized decisions that forbid any long term success.  Most obviously, if you ignore safety while focusing exclusively on how much money is make, it is only a matter of time before you injure or kill someone, which beside being ethically reprehensible, is very expensive.

Here’s the bottom line about measurement:  The great thing about measuring performance is that people will adjust their behaviors to affect the outcome of the measure.  Unfortunately, the really scary thing about measuring performance is that people will adjust their behaviors to affect the outcome of the measure.

So measurement (like other recreational drugs) should be used cautiously and in moderation.  Second, you should never have only one number you are tracking.  And finally, you need to understand why numbers are trending the way they are, as opposed to (over)reacting to one data point.

Let’s be careful out there.

 

Changing the Paradigm of BS

When I first started researching the Elevator Pitch for publishing this week, I was amazed to find out it was a whole industry.  People take this stuff seriously – there are even whole companies dedicated to help people and organizations perfect their Elevator Speech.  Then I came across this one:

“We add value to our customers by maximizing the value of human capital to leverage their assets to change their paradigms in order to transform their business.”

Wow… that is just exquisite bullsh!t.  If I were playing Buzzword Bingo, I would have won the grand prize with that single sentence.

I suppose a certain amount of BS jargon is inevitable in a knowledge-based economy.  It not as easy to describe what we do, as when we were all making something tangible.  So, as a public service to Wily Manager readers, I’d like to deconstruct this sentence.  For the record, the irony of a having guy who makes a living chatting with his buddy about how managers should manage comment on this, is not lost on me.

We add value to our customers. This means you may or may not serve any useful purpose, so you have to make sure everyone thinks you “add value” by stating it explicitly.  It’s quite possible that no one is more amazed than you that you’re getting paid to do whatever it is you do to “add value”.

Maximizing the Value of Human Capital.  This necessarily means that most of the people you work with hate you.  You’re either involved in reducing headcount, or annoying the crap out of people to get them to do more with less resources.

To Change Their Paradigms. Really?  I didn’t know anyone still used the word “Paradigms” anymore.  What this probably means is that you stand up in front of groups of employees and rant at them like one of those ethically-challenged Sunday morning televangelists who asks for money to refuel his personal challenger jet.  You have about the same level of credibility, too.

To Transform Their Business.  A transformation is when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.  In the business world transformation means that you’ll recommend and initiate a corporate reorganization that will result in the good people quitting to go work somewhere else, and the poor performers promoted three levels past their threshold of competence.  Then when it goes horribly wrong, you arrange to hire back the good people as consultants at three times what they were getting paid previously.

You should be able to describe what your business does in concise terms – just make sure it doesn’t set off the BS meter ever time you open your mouth.

 

Describing Your Business: The Elevator Speech

If you’ve got 30 seconds to win someone over to an idea, a product, or your organization, are you ready to do so?  Thinking what you should have said after the fact won’t do you a lot of good.  Join the Wily Manager guys this week, as they discuss how to make your elevator pitch.

Watch the ‘Describing Your Business: The Elevator Speech’ Video (13 mins 12 sec):


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Describing Your Business: The Elevator Speech

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What is an Elevator Speech?

  • A short, highly focused statement selling an idea, course of action, or a description of your business.
  • The name comes from the scenario of bumping into an important decision maker, and winning her over in the short duration of an elevator ride.

When to put an Elevator Pitch to use in Describing Your Business:

  • When trying to persuade people as to a course of action.  It may not be that you are attempting in this first meeting to close a business deal with someone, but rather likely that you would want to persuade them to meet with you to begin such a discussion.
  • At networking events.
  • When selling something – a product, idea or a business relationship.
  • Whenever the opportunity presents itself – so be ready.

How to structure an Elevator Speech:

  • You need to catch your audience’s attention immediately
  • When Describing Your Business, discuss benefits, not details or features of your business
  • When Describing Your Business, pre-empt the question, “So What?”.  You need your audience to understand what is in it for them.
  • Move people to a specific action when describing your business.  Are you looking for an appointment with a decision maker?  Do you want them to order a trial offer?  Be very clear what you want them to do.

The Delivery of Your Elevator Speech

  • Target your audience carefully.  What does your audience what to hear?  What type of language would they be most receptive to?
  • Speak in your own voice.  You can’t fake authenticity.  Although you need to prepare and rehearse your elevator speech, the words you choose must be appropriate to who you are, and how you wish to be perceived.

3 Things to Remember about Describing Your Business Using an Elevator Pitch:

  1. Write it out.  You shouldn’t improvise your elevator speech.  You need to write it out in advance, and refine it over time.
  2. Be prepared at all times.  You should have the key points of your Elevator Pitch committed to memory.
  3. It’s more than a slogan.  Your Elevator Speech must leave no doubt what you’re in business to do, and what’s in it for them as your audience.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Describing Your Business (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

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How to Create Your Elevator Pitch

If you’ve got 30 seconds to win someone over to an idea, a product, or your organization, are you ready to do so?  Thinking what you should have said after the fact won’t do you a lot of good.  Join the Wily Manager guys this week, as they discuss how to make your elevator pitch.

Monday’s Tip: Move beyond the jargon. Speak to people in English, not buzzwords.  Give them layman’s terms so they know what it is you are telling them.

Tuesday’s Tip: Catch people’s attention immediately. Don’t say, “I’m an Accountant”, but rather, “I save people thousands of dollars every year through creative tax planning.”  People want to know what’s in it for them.

Wednesday’s Tip: Discuss benefits not features. Describing GI Joe with Kung Fu Grip is only meaningful for the most nerdy of nerds.  Tell people how the Kung Fu Grip will change their lives.  Again… people want to know what’s in it for them.

Thursday’s Tip: Speak in your own voice. It is good do research, and ask for feedback on your Elevator pitch, but make sure the words you choose sound like something you would actually say.

Friday’s Tip: Write it out. Writing your Elevator Pitch down will better allow you to view it critically, and be consistent in your delivery of it.  It also helps to align multiple people around a single Elevator Pitch.

5 Reasons Performance Reviews Suck

In the past fifteen years, I’ve been in and out of dozens of organizations, all of which had some process for conducting Performance Reviews.  Of all of them, only one organization did them consistently, and did them well.  The rest of them conducted performance reviews that ranged between ineffective, and highly offensive.

This got me to thinking what all these organizations have in common when it comes to Performance Reviews, so here are the top five (of several dozen) reasons why Performance Reviews usually suck:

1)   Everybody wants more feedback – as long as it’s good. Yep… as much as your Gen Y types tell you they crave feedback, they really only want it if it confirms their worldview that they are beyond fantastic.  Any suggestions for improvement are usually met with a thud.  It is only the most elite of corporate cultures that have overcome this aspect of human nature.  These organizations train and encourage people to constantly seek out feedback that will make them better – which sometimes requires facing up to the fact you don’t do some things well.

2)   Performance Reviews are non-specific. They often contain broad sweeping statements about someone being “good with customers”, or “needing improvement on follow through”.  These observations are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.  If it’s not specific, don’t bother.  Bring data or specific behavioral observations.

3)   People are too polite.  Most supervisors hate performance reviews more than the employees.  So they try to get through them as quickly as possible, without hurting anyone’s feelings.  Great organizations, and great leaders use performance appraisals as catalyst for improvement.  This actually requires giving people feedback on how they can improve – rather than just trying to keep the peace.

4)   Performance reviews are structured too much like report cards. If the performance review is simply “the year in review” without any mention of the future, or developmental opportunities, then it is a waste of time.  Even more of a waste of time is a 4 or 5 point rating system that employees are graded on with little thought or explanation.  No wonder people hate them.

5)   They are disconnected with what people do every day. The big problem with performance reviews is that they are designed by HR people, or external consultants who have absolutely no idea what people in a particular role do everyday.  Hence people are assessed on things they rarely or never do, and the bulk of their efforts are not captured by the criteria or format used.

Employees don’t have any accountability for the Performance Review process.  OK… I said five reasons, so this one is a bonus.  In most organizations, the employee merely shows up for a performance review meeting, having lent no thought or effort to outcome.  Great organizations and great managers insist that employees complete some form of self-assessment in advance of the meeting so that the success of the process is shared.


 

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