Steel Kaleidoscopes

Money Matters TV Appearance

On a hot September evening in 2004, I entered the CN8 studios on Comm. Ave to appear on a career advancement panel for the TV show "Money Matters Today."

I was told there would be two other panelists. Problem was, they ran into travel issues and couldn't make it in time. Looks like it was up to me to fill the entire half-hour segment.

I found this out at the last minute.

No worries. Other than a lot of "it's very important" and "it's very critical" utterances, I hung in there.

Roll the tape (there are three segments):

 

And more:

 

And even more:

 

Generation Flux

Baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials and now ...

Generation Flux.

Interesting read.

The best managers are adaptable and resilient.

Pulling a T-Bone

Career advice of the day:

When you make a good point in a meeting, excuse yourself and move on to your next activity.

It's called pulling a T-Bone, made popular by the affable George Costanza.

5 Things Great Managers Do

As you go through your career, you'll always remember a great manager. And, unfortunately, you'll remember the bad as well.

Leading a team is a serious, important, life-changing responsibility. Do it right and your team will flourish with productivity. Do it wrong and they'll look for ways to rebel, and most likely will underperform.

Here are five key things great managers do:

1. Set a Positive Tone.
If you're happy, there's a better chance your team will be happy. If you're grumpy, you can bet your team will follow your lead. Show up to work with a smile on your face and a song in your heart. And don't fake it. Be genuinely happy, see the best in others, and get to work. 

2. Be Consistent.
Don't say one thing and do another. If you change your mind, acknowledge it. It's OK to make mistakes. You wouldn't be driving change if every move you made was perfect. If you need to change course, let your team know. Even if it means acknowledging that your initial plans didn't work out.

3. Set Realistic Expectations.
Yes, you're under pressure to improve margins. And stretch goals are part of building and growing  a business. But be careful how you set expectations. Don't set up individuals to fail. Think clearly through what you're asking. If the challenges are too great, roll up your sleeves and step in to help, whether it's providing resources or additional guidance.

4. Play Fair.
Never throw a team member under the bus. Deal with problems directly. If it's important to single someone out, do it kindly. And don't throw someone into a catfight. Resolve it at your level. Setting up a fireworks show and observing on the sidelines is not managing.

5. Acknowledge and Reward Skill Sets.
You've hired someone, you've worked together well and you notice  he or she displays skills that could help the team in ways you hadn't considered. Revise the job description. Let the job branch out in new and creative ways. This provides empowerment and job satisfaction. When the time is right, be sure to compensate accordingly.

Brand

Consistent voice.

Consistent fonts.

Consistent messaging.

Alignment in tone and style.

Recognizable. Familiar. Seamless.

Traveling for Work

The makeshift, outdoor pub community of London.

The hot-baked heat and strained Southern hospitality of Atlanta.

The expanse of Dallas.

The plastic fantastic feel of LA.

The quizzical, hokey, bizarro-world of Indianapolis.

The dry heat of Phoenix and the table misters in Tempe.

The tall icy buildings of Chicago.

The fresh, dew-drip air of San Francisco with the drop-dead views from Mill Valley.

The multimedia complexity of New York.

The spinning, dizzying, zydeco nights on Bourbon Street.

The vacation mindset of Tampa.

The rain, fog and dark-roast feeling of Seattle.

The nothingness of Detroit.

The large-scale political pinnacle of D.C.

The bright lights and smell of money in Vegas.

5 Ways to Annoy Your Manager

If you're reporting to someone (and most of us are), it's best to stay on stay on his or her good side. A fractured relationship with your manager is never productive and almost always leads to the door.

Here are five things to avoid:

1. Sending e-mails early and late in the day.
This is an old trick and a good manager is well-aware of what you're doing.  If you're an early riser and there's a reason to fire off a 6 a.m. e-mail, by all means do it. But it's not the time to send a link to "an article I thought you may find interesting." If you send me an e-mail at midnight, I assume you aren't going to be well-rested the next day. And unless it's urgent or you're in start-up mode, avoid e-mails on the weekend.  I don't assume you're working on the weekend. I assume you took a break from updating your Facebook profile.

2. Throwing others under the bus.
Take accountability. If you find you are defending yourself for something you didn't do, there are tactful ways to explain yourself. Immediately naming names never goes over well. And if there's no way around it, soften the language. Take the high road. Always.

3. Being late for meetings.
If the meeting is in a neutral location, show up a few minutes early. If the meeting is in my office, show up right on time. Managers get annoyed when you're early, even if it's a few minutes. They don't expect you early. Never be late, regardless of the location. Time is money.

4. Typos in e-mails.
There's never an excuse for a poorly written e-mail. Take your time. E-mails are a digital footprint and could end up as part of a larger thread or on the CEO's desk. Typos reflect poorly on you. When I get an e-mail from a direct report with a typo, I assume they don't care. And if you're applying for a job to work for me, your resume goes in the garbage before I finish reading it.

5. Lack of updates.
Unless your manager specifically tells you not to send updates (unlikely), it's always a good policy to update your manager of what you're working on. A quick bulleted e-mail is fine. Managers are busy and don't always have you top of mind. A quick, succinct update is a welcome read.

(The author has been managing for 24 years and at one crazy point in his life had 22 direct reports. Blame that one on his manager.)

April 1, 1997

 
It was the mother of winter snowfalls.

On April 1, 1997, Boston was slammed with more than 2 feet of snow just a day after temps had been in the 60s.

This was before the age of easy telecommuting — hence VPN — so I trudged into the office from the suburbs on the commuter rail. I was in a relatively new job, and we were launching  a groundbreaking arts and entertainment Web site for Microsoft.

Slowly, my teammates joined me. One woman walked from Charlestown on snow shoes. As we settled into content creation, image uploads and database cleanup, the swirling snow continued to fall.

We did a Starbucks run early in the afternoon and Faneuil Hall was like a science-fiction movie — hardly anyone in sight, no cars, just the quiet wisp of newly fallen snow. I still remember how good that cup of coffee tasted as we headed back into the warmth of the office.

Days gone by. Fourteen years to be exact.

Now I see the weather forecast for Friday, April 1, and the weather guy is talking snow. I hope he's wrong. My driveway markers are still up, but I have a tee time Sunday.

Caught between two worlds. The promise of spring and the threat of winter.

It's a bad joke.

Results, People and Process

It's a conference room debate. Of results, process and people, rank your priorities as a business owner.

The answer is simple.

If you're running a business, you won't keep the doors open without results as the top priority. Without profit, there's no business. Without margins, there's no growth.

That part was easy.

But there's renewed debate about where process and people play out.

Again, it's a simple choice.

Employees are your greatest asset  if you've hired correctly. It's those employees who will drive results. But a team that misses its number isn't sufficient. Change is inevitable. And you'll need to make the change.

Process? It's a distant third.

I've worked in companies that are rigid about governance and rules. You need to have structure to some extent — a proven foundation of best practices is invaluable, provided there's flexibility — but you also need to be open-minded.

If you're not careful, process can kill innovation.

Hire good people. Meet and exceed your goals. But don't stress about how you get there.

It's 2011. With millennials and Gen-Xers rising into leadership roles, the '90s playbook is outdated.  Mobile technology and social media is embedded into the corporate fabric. Remote access and global intimacy are standards. Real-time, two-way communication through bits and bytes, both internally and with customers, is a way of life.

Results, people and process. In that order.

Chaos

If you pull the traffic from those social media links we can find out what's working and pull what isn't.

Just build a landing page and point those new users in the right direction. We need to give them a reason to stay.

If you look at those apps, go ahead and create a plug-in and we can just upload those videos into a contest.

And then build a landing page.

Yeah, we can just sink those apps into the wireframes and create separate e-mails for each one.

And then we'll build a landing page.