Cause and Effect Map: Creating and Using a Fishbone Chart

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A Cause and Effect Map is a simple tool that can assist you to direct your action when solving problems.  Below we discuss:

  1. Why you would use a Cause and Effect Map.
  2. The Five Steps to creating a successful Cause and Effect Map.
  3. The three things to remember when using a Cause and Effect Map.

Why Use a Cause and Effect Map?

  • A Cause and Effect Map will help you to find and address root causes of a problem, not just the symptoms.
  • To identify cases where multiple causes for a problem may exist.
  • A Cause and Effect Map enables a team to focus on the content of the problem, not on the history of the problem, or the differing personal opinions of team members

5 Steps to a Successful Cause & Effect Map:

  1. Create a clear problem statement
  2. Brainstorm possible causes
  3. Draw Fishbone Diagram
  4. Ask Why
  5. Move to Action

Create a Clear Problem or Goal Statement for Your Cause and Effect Map

  • What is the problem (use specific terms)?
  • Where has the problem occurred?
  • When has the problem occurred?
  • How much?  How can you quantify the problem?
  • Use data wherever possible.
  • Ensure all participants have a common understanding of the problem statement.  Your Cause and Effect Map will be useless if people don’t clearly understand what problem they are attempting to solve.

Brainstorm Possible Causes to the Problem Statement on your Cause and Effect Map

  • Start with “Green Light” thinking.  Your Cause and Effect Map will be much more effective if you generate ideas without judgment at first.
  • Do in advance or as a group.  You may want participants to lend some thought in advance to potential causes, but if can still create an effective Cause and Effect Map by doing it as a group.
  • Use Post-its.  One alternative for your Cause and Effect Map is to have participants write down one potential cause on each of several Post-It notes.  This will allow you to more easily group and move ideas between categories.
  • Put brainstormed causes into potential categories.  You can do this either by labeling causes, and listing causes below the label, or conversely they can be grouped into categories, and then create a label based on the ideas contained in that grouping.
  • Apply more critical or “Red Light” thinking as you are sorting the potential causes into groups.

Draw a Fishbone Diagram and put in categories

Your Cause and Effect Map will begin to take shape when you draw your fishbone diagram, and label the individual “bones”.  Here are some standard categories found on a Cause and Effect Map, but don’t feel bound by these:

  • Materials
  • Machinery
  • Method
  • Policy
  • Measurement
  • People
  • Information (or lack there of)
  • Performance standards (quality, cost, etc)
  • Plant or facilities
  • Training and knowledge
  • Procedures
  • Environment

** Customize categories to meet your specific needs of your Cause and Effect Map

If you used Post-It notes, you can stick them on the appropriate “bones” of your Cause and Effect Map.

Ask Why

  • Start your Cause and Effect Map by looking at each “bone” and asking:
    • What else could be a cause?
    • Why does this happen?
  • You will now have a series of causes listed on each “bone”.  For each of those causes, you now need to ask “why”.
  • Continue to ask why for each cause until the appropriate level of detail is reached.

Move to Action on Your Cause and Effect Map

Your Cause and Effect Map is nothing more than a pretty picture, unless you choose to do something about it.  In some cases, several hundred causes may have been identified, in which case you will have to prioritize.

  • Look for causes that appear repeatedly across categories.
  • Look for causes that occur frequently.
  • Address causes you can do something about.
  • Make diagram available after the meeting for further input.

3 Things to Remember About Your Cause and Effect Map

  1. Make sure you clearly state a problem or goal.  If you have an ambiguous, or misunderstood problem statement, you will waste a considerable amount of time.
  2. Make sure you’re at the appropriate level of detail.  In some cases a Cause and Effect Map may take several hours to complete.  In other cases, it can be done in a few minutes.  You need to decide the most appropriate level of detail.
  3. Prioritize what action to take.  You should focus on one or two causes you wish to address, and leave the others for a later time.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about creating and using a Cause and Effect Map (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Cause and Effect

Learn how to create and use a Cause and Effect Map (Fishbone Chart).

Watch the ‘Cause And Effect Map’ Video (15 mins):

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Creating and Using a Cause and Effect Map

How did that happen?  It’s a simple question that doesn’t get asked often, or particularly well.  Join us this week as we talk about Cause & Effect, and how Managers can use simple techniques to increase the chances they are solving problems that matter, rather than symptoms of something else.

Monday’s Tip: Have a clear problem statement. Be very clear what problem you are trying to solve.  If it is ambiguous, or not commonly understood, you will are wasting your time.

Tuesday’s Tip: Be flexible with the “bone” categories. Don’t get locked-in to the standard cause categories.  Use them as a starting point, and then customize the categories as the situation warrants.

Wednesday’s Tip: Work to the appropriate level of detail. Sometimes, you need to ask why five or six times of a cause.  Other times, the answer becomes ridiculous after three times of asking why.  Know when to quit.

Thursday’s Tip: Look for causes that appear in multiple places. If the same cause occurs several times or places on your fishbone diagram, you pay particular attention to that cause.

Friday’s Tip: Prioritize the action to take. You can’t do everything.  Pick one or two of the most critical causes of your problem, and address those things.  Do not diffuse your effort by trying to address everything.

 

How Asking for a Raise is Like a First Date

You’re out on a limb when you ask for a raise.  It’s kind of like being a teenager again, and asking someone out on a date for the first time.  The stakes are high – if you’re successful, you’ll feel good, and look like a hero to your peers.  If you’re not successful, you’ll look and feel like an idiot.

The reactions to success and rejection are similar too.  If you get the raise (or the date), you become the cock of the walk.  If you get rejected, you try to keep it quiet, or if asked, you say you really didn’t want it anyway.

The outcome of a raise request is highly personal – people equate it with their personal value.  It’s a bad idea to attach your perception of personal value to someone else’s assessment of you.  It is a good idea, however to attach your professional value to the goals of the organization.

Several years ago I did quite a bit of work with a company that conducted employee satisfaction surveys.  In addition to many questions about their leadership and work environment, we asked employees about compensation.  We discovered that there is almost no way that compensation can be a driver of employee satisfaction.

People are either neutral or dissatisfied with their compensation level.  No one is ever actually satisfied with the money they make, presumably because more is always better.

People become dissatisfied with their compensation for a variety of reasons, but one of the most prevalent is because they find out someone else is making more than them.  This judgmental itch often extends beyond our immediate peers, causing anger because of how much the CEO makes, or others far removed from our own circle.

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of anger addressed at CEOs and politicians; while we have a collective blind spot for sports and movie stars.  The CEOs have successfully equated their action and leadership with value for the organization (or they bribed the Board of Directors), and politicians, for the most part are underpaid.

If we should be angry at anything, it should probably be at overpaid movie stars who have done little else than won the genetic lottery for meeting our narrowly defined societal version of what is good looking.  However, many movie stars have a good argument that if a movie is going to make $300 million dollars, then $20 million for a pretty face has certainly contributed to its success.

And that’s the lesson for the rest of us.  We should spent no time being angry or bitter about what other people are getting paid, and channeling our energy into clearly demonstrating the value that we add to our organizations.

Either that, or ask the boss’s daughter out on a date.

I Want A Raise!

Learn how to ask for a raise … and get it.

Watch the ‘Asking Your Boss for a Raise’ Video (14 mins 25 sec):

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Asking Your Boss For A Raise – How to Ask for a Raise … and Get It

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When asking your boss for a raise, there are a number of things to keep in mind.  You need to prepare in advance and choose your timing well; focus on the value you add, and anticipate counter-arguments.  Before asking your boss for a raise, you should give each of these areas more thought, with the help of the points below:

Prepare for Your Conversation Before Asking Your Boss for a Raise

You do not want to improvise in the meeting where you will be asking your boss for a raise.  Here are a few preparatory steps:

  • Look at industry benchmarks when good data is available.  In many cases it is difficult to establish a market value for certain skills, but in other cases, there may be data available.  Before asking your boss for a raise, check to see if such information is available.
  • List your accomplishments. You need to be able to articulate what you have done for the organization and its success.  This is perhaps the most important ingredient to success when asking your boss for a raise.
  • Have a number in mind. When asking your boss for a raise, you will know s/he is at least considering it when you are asked for a number.  You should not be caught flat-footed when this question comes up.  In some cases, you will have a specific number in mind.  In other cases, you will want to offer a range when asking your boss for a raise.

Focus on the Value You Add When Asking Your Boss for a Raise

Just because you want a raise, doesn’t mean you should get one.  You need to direct attention to the tangible value you add to the organization and its goals when asking your boss for a raise.  If you cannot clearly articulate the value you add, you should reconsider asking your boss for a raise.

  • Illustrate the mismatch between your current salary and your value.  You should draw attention to your accomplishments and growth.  If you have recently taken on more responsibility, then ensure you highlight this when asking your boss for a raise.
  • Don’t bad-mouth others. You should never compare yourself to others in a negative frame.  It is fine to point out that you have more responsibility, but to promote your own interests by being negative and critical of others will reflect poorly on you when asking your boss for a raise.  It is quite likely your boss already knows about others’ performance anyway.
  • Connect to the big picture. Draw a line between your efforts, and overall organizational goals and results when asking your boss for a raise.  It is hard to argue with a request for a raise if it is blatantly obvious that the results you produce contribute significantly to organizational success.
  • Don’t invoke guilt. You should speak rationally about what you feel you deserve when asking your boss for a raise.  Do not talk about your higher mortgage payments, or cost of living increases.  Your boss has these pressures too.  You need to convince your boss that any more money spent on you is a wise investment in future success, NOT just an added expense.

Choose Your Timing Wisely When Asking Your Boss for a Raise

You need to carefully consider your timing when asking your boss for a raise.  If you know your boss has had a particularly frustrating day or week, you may want to put off the conversation.  Examples of good times for asking your boss for a raise are:

  • Soon after a good performance review.
  • Soon after some other form of recognition.
  • When you know extra dollars are available.
  • When you’re asked to take on more responsibility.
  • When the decision maker is relaxed.

Anticipate Counter Arguments

Don’t underestimate the element of negotiation when asking your boss for a raise.  You should anticipate potential counter-arguments when asking your boss for a raise.  Here are some standard reasons for denial, and how you might counter them:

  • Seniority. Seniority is not an appropriate measure of value.  There are many examples of people who add more value their first day on the job than someone who has been there for decades.
  • Time since last raise.  Perhaps it has only been six months since your last raise, but time is not relevant to value.  If you have taken on more responsibility, or are adding more value, then point out that these elements are not dependent, and neither should qualifying for a raise be.
  • Time as an employee.  Perhaps you have only been on the job for three months, but have contributed significantly in that time.  It is not appropriate to measure value by the time on the job.
  • Can’t afford a raise.You need to decide whether this is true or not when asking your boss for a raise.  Is there possibly something else that you could ask for instead?
    • More time off?  Could you negotiate extra vacation time?
    • Flex hours?  Perhaps you could work more time from home?
    • A raise at some future point.  If the organization can’t afford a raise now, at what point in the future would a raise be conceivable?

Close the Conversation, and the Details When Asking Your Boss for a Raise:

  • Confirm effective dates.  When does the raise take effect?  You need to nail this detail down.
  • Confirm follow up dates.  If there are follow up actions, you need to specify the date.  For example, your boss may say he needs to think about it.  This is reasonable, but you should ask what date you need to follow up with him/her.
  • If you get nowhere, you need to start looking for alternatives.  Never threaten to leave if you don’t get what you want.  However, if it is clear you will not get the raise you want, it is time to begin a search for something new.

Three Things to Remember When Asking Your Boss for a Raise:

  1. Be forthright and positive – don’t invoke guilt or resort to blackmail.
  2. Don’t be chatty.  This should be a short meeting.  Catch up with your boss on the weather and other trivia at a different time.
  3. Take personality out of the equation.  Focus on facts, and come armed with as much information as you can.  Also don’t take it personally if you don’t get what you want, but rather act rationally to figure out what ever is next for you.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Asking Your Boss For A Raise (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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How to Ask For a Raise

The economy is getting better, and organizations are beginning to lighten up a bit.  Is this a good time to ask for a raise?  When and how should you make your request?

Monday’s Tip: Do Your Homework. The more data and information you have that supports your case for a pay raise, the more likely your success.  Look at both internal data, and industry data where it might exist.

Tuesday’s Tip: Clearly link the value you contribute to the organization. Nobody cares how hard you work. They care what you get done.  What have you done for the organization, and how has that helped them advance their goals.

Wednesday’s Tip: Never sewer others. If you insist on pointing at others’ ineptitude as the main reason you want a raise, you will not be successful, and end up looking spiteful and stupid.

Thursday’s Tip: Don’t make threats. If you threaten to quit if you don’t get a raise, you may very well end up getting fired.  No one is indispensible, and you stand a much better chance of success if you lay off the threats.

Friday’s Tip: Anticipate counter arguments. There are lots of reasons not to give you a raise.  If you brainstorm some of those in advance, and then build responses to those arguments, you are much more likely to succeed.

 

Generation Gap: Millennials in the Workplace

If you’re from a different generation, how do you lead and motivate Millennials?

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Millennials in the Workplace: How to Lead and Motivate Generation Y

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“The Children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for adults, and love to talk rather than work or exercise. They no longer rise when adults enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter in front of company, gobble down their food at the table, and intimidate their teachers.”  – SOCRATES (469 -399 B.C.)

So perhaps generational friction in the workplace is not a new phenomena.  However, proactively managing Millennials in the workplace will reduce workplace conflict, improve productivity, and generally make your life as a leader more easy.

First, we should define the various generations currently at work:

  • Traditionalists:  1925 – 1945
  • Baby Boomers:  1946 – 1965
  • Generation X:  1966 – 1980
  • Millennials:  1980 – 1999

Who Cares About Millennials in the Workplace?

There are a variety of reasons a good leader will want to proactively manage Millennials in the workplace:

  • Clashes between generations can directly affect turnover. If team members do not feel like they fit in, or that their values are not reflected in the workplace, they are more likely to leave.  Millennials in the workplace often have specific skills that can be difficult to replace.
  • Different generations have been influenced by different life events and thus have different perspectives that can impact motivation and performance.  For example, Millennials in the workplace often have:
    • Unique ways of viewing quality.
    • Distinct and preferred ways of managing and being managed.
    • Different priorities that effect how and when they show up for work.

What has Shaped and Influenced Millennials in the Workplace?

Every generation or cohort has been affected by its life experience.  It is important to understand cultural influences when managing Millennials in the workplace:

  • The Trophy Generation. Millennials in the workplace often expect their work lives to be similar to their upbringing.  They have constantly been acknowledged and reinforced their entire lives.  They expect the same at work.
  • Millennials in the workplace can baffle other generations because they were raised with an entitlement and “rights” perspective.
  • Millennials don’t really remember a time without the internet
  • They have not known a world without microwaves, cell phones, CD’s, laptops and iPods.
  • Millennials were raised on reality television.  They believe anyone can be a star.
  • Many Millennials in the workplace were in high school during the Columbine tragedy.
  • They know never ending war, and don’t remember a time without terrorism.
  • Scandals – OJ Simpson, Monica Lewinsky

Expectations of Millennials in the Workplace

  • Lot’s of positive feedback.  Millennials in the workplace expect the same reinforcement they were brought up on.  Feedback is not optional to them.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect to win and are optimistic.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect a work/life balance.  They will work hard, but also expect to play hard as well, and will quickly leave an employer that insists on constantly interrupting their work/life balance.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect to be listened to and collaborated with.
  • Hierarchy doesn’t matter to Millennials in the workplace.  The pursuit of titles and status has far lower value than it does for other generations.
  • They expect to be able to work with the latest technology.

How to Lead and Motivate Millennials in the Workplace

Not every workplace can achieve all of the suggestion below, but serious consideration should be given to how to best manage and motivate Millennials in the workplace:

  • Make the workplace fun.  Provide an informal, digital, multi-tasking, team oriented workplace.
  • Make the workplace flexible.  Focus on the work outputs; not when, or even how it gets done.
  • Give them guidance and some structure. Millennials in the workplace are used to listening to others for advice and input.  They are used to following schedules and having routines laid out.
  • Leverage their comfort with collaboration and multi-tasking.  Give them a wide range of projects to work.  Use project teams.
  • Positive feedback is especially important to this generation. Give them on the spot recognition and public praise.
  • Give answers to all of their questions.  They expect to be well informed and they expect to be able to question you.
  • Let them know that what they do matters. They expect to make a difference “You and your coworkers can help turn this company around” can be an effective way to motivate Millennials in the workplace.

Three things that Frustrate Millennials about other Generations:

  1. Traditionalists’ hierarchy means nothing.  Often older managers cannot understand why the promise of a title and promotion fails to motivate Millennials in the workplace.  They are far more interested in being listened to, and collaboration than they are with a title.
  2. The Boomers’ resistance to technology.  Millennials in the workplace have little patience with those that cannot perform the simplest of technical functions.  Email, text messaging and social media are not optional to the Millennials; they are critical business tools.
  3. Generation X needs to lighten up.  Millennials in the workplace don’t have much patience for the doom and gloom that characterizes many Gen Xers.  They were not privy to corporate downsizing, and other challenges the Xers endured, and even if they were, they would suggest the Xers “get over it”.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Millennials in the Workplace (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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The Trophy Generation Invades the Workplace

OK… so I know I’m supposed to treat these ones differently.  They’ve never received anything but continually positive feedback, and their Mum’s and Dad’s loved them so much, they got a cake and a parade every time they didn’t wet the bed.

Unfortunately, some one has to break the news to the more entitled of this generation that:

Life is Just Not Fair.

If you are living and working in a society of more than one, sooner or later someone who is not as smart as you, not as hardworking as you, and maybe not even as good looking as you, is going to get something that you feel entitled to.  It’s horribly unfair.

It’s called “life”.

Prince Charles got himself into trouble a few years ago because he suggested that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to tell everyone they could do or be anything they wanted to.  On the surface, it is highly offensive to have a guy that was born into fame and riches lecturing people to accept their lot in life and make the best of it.  On reflection however, he is the perfect person to say so:  he never had a choice as to his vocation or ambition.  It was pre-determined for him, and few sane people would want to trade places with him.

In reality, people of all generations should try to reach beyond their grasp.  The folly is when achieving things beyond your humble origins becomes an entitlement, rather than a bonus.  There are lots of smart people out there who have worked very hard to exceed their natural circumstances, who only do marginally better than their parents or peers did.  Those that have risen above tremendous adversity go on to get their own television networks (good for you, Oprah), or have movies of the week made about their story are the exception, not the rule.

The rest of us need to be content with what fate conspires to deliver to us for our efforts.

I have a creepy feeling about a whole generation of trophy-kids entering the workplace, when their parents and society have failed to expose them to unbridled competition or at least some understanding of the harsh reality of life.  Far too many parents would storm into the principal’s office when Susie didn’t get an “A” in chemistry.

What’s going to happen when Susie’s dad wants to storm into the boss’s office when Susie gets fired?

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