Performance Controller

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"...WC Print

As a consultant most is know that much of our work is detailed and exploratory. Making change means we need to study and discuss the gaps in the “what is” position so you can have a discussion about changing that state. This takes planning thought and collaborative skill to get people to dig in to the detail and then go a new way to fix the problems we find. That process can be both continuous and radical.

Either way it happens best if the process is fun so people enjoy engaging to get detail information and explore looking for solutions and best practices.

I read something recently about teaching, and it seemed to me the parallels with consulting are similar. The article about teaching in an Asian culture pointed to quite different approaches needed to what we see in the so-called traditional west. A British teacher posted this in the Naked Farang entitled Working teaching Thais

In it he reinforces to be a successful teacher, the best advice is to steer away from boring lectures, long explanations and tests. Like we find also in consulting workshops, making your classes interactive and fun works best. Then not only do students enjoy the classes, but they also learn from them by being involved. The post goes on to explore some great examples that are thought provoking for every culture. It well worth a read.

We have to take all of this into consideration when we decide how we are going to manage change too, In addition to human cultural difference there always different business cultures which vary from business to business too. The common thread however is that people everywhere like to have fun, even at work. The corollary truism to this makes sense. “If you are not having fun it is very hard get things done”

In a work place it important, like it is with most students to win them over early. If they think that learning about change is going to be too serious, people involved will mentally switch off, turn up late or skip sessions and make minimal progress. The flip side is people will be more motivated to be productive and learn effectively if they enjoy the work and have a rapport with the leader.

This is deeply ingrained into Asian cultures more so than the west as following is more encouraged rather than making direct contributions at the risk offending or losing face. In fact, why should we want to change it? We should be flexible enough to adapt the way we teach or engage with people in any cultural styles.

In a workplace these cultural differences can be used to advantage as people who work in silos have fun with to joining the dots when you get them together.

As an example an Asia culture with students and what westerners regard as cheating in class can be of great value, In Asia this is almost pathological. As left to their own devices Asian students will typically gather round to just copy their answers. The counter-productiveness of this has absolutely no logic but you can do nothing about it.

Knowing this means at work however getting people to work things out as a group can be used to great advantage when they are given a problem to study and naturally relax under the protection of group discussions.

Another aspect of leading for results I have found useful, being foreigner is to set the scene in the common language of English then allow it to debated out in the native tongue. This can be very effective in facilitated workshops if it is allowed to run under this protection. By contrast to large passive participation in lecture style workshops, allowing time for discussion in the native tongue sees the noise levels and participation very high from all levels with occasional so called clarification feedback so you can keep it on track. That can be a tough call if your local language skill is not good. But other signals and natural group dynamics tell most of the stories as you just watch while people get comfortable and to the point. It is far from boring with the challenge to get agreement to move to the next steps.

The spoken language too is not the only tool. As we all know speaking is based on not only being cohesive with words and body language but also on the history in local cultures that have much deeper meaning. So unless you are stupid and use a Shakespearian style straight forward English is common use and widely accepted as the written structure format. Most Asians in business now have better understanding of written English even more so than a locally expressive document. Hence we often find people at all levels ask for a document before they ever ask for an explanation. The trick then, as with everyone, is it walk them thru it and allow learning process to take its course.

Another wonderful example of understanding rote learning is in the Naked Farang post.

He says, “When I was in high school in England, one of my favorite subjects was history because I enjoyed hearing about how important events and people changed the course of history.  We would analyze these lessons to see what we had learned and how they affected the present. It was, to me, fascinating and stimulating. In contrast, I hated maths because it just seemed too inflexible and boring.

For Thai students, history is one of the least favorite subjects simply because of the way it is taught. The students are simply expected to memories names and dates without actually attaching any significance to them. There is no wonder they find this boring. In contrast, moths is a popular subject. Why is maths so popular? Well, instead of rote learning names, words or dates, maths offers the students a relative degree of academic freedom because they can learn formulas and experiment with them. In an environment where everything else is so rigid, this is their chance to express themselves.

In our business world of consulting to identify problems and find solutions is always a challenge. But as always the biggest challenge is implementing in diverse cultures that by nature don’t really want to change. The process of learning how to do this is constant and ever stimulating to me

I am always fascinated reading and taking to others about their insights and experience. If you feel inclined please share your experience. I would love to hear about it.

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This week in Melbourne, I had a great lunch with my son. He talked abut his city based vocation as a building construction manager It is not without hazard when it comes to parking he told me. Later he sent me a very funny letter written to the Melbourne City Council about a parking issue written by one of his aggrieved mates.

I send it to my very good friend, Lawrence Berezin for an opinion, being he is Lawyer in New York. He in turn sought  wider views in his regular web publication “New York Parking Ticket”. In this he very kindly added some great publicity about our National Song Waltzing Matilda. Plus he got some great comments from his readers including some nice ones about us Aussies. Here is his post that included my son’s message. He headed it The-Wacky-World-of-Parking-Tickets

In this fun site Larry takes what to most is an emotive subject and makes it not only advisory and educational but practical too. Although about New York City Parking,  it has huge appeal with everyone who parks their car in any city anywhere in the world.  Go and make yourself known to Larry (as he prefers to be called by his mates) and let him know what you think about the things he writes. He always replies so you wont regret it.

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Business people, not IT, make technology work to focus the business. The general IT role is more strategic to maintain and improve competitive positions of the business infrastructure to make people’s lives easier, It is not the other way around. Ask any CIO, he knows that. especially when he asks for a sign off on what is installed.

So why when changing a process do people go straight to IT to set up technical processes. When they do IT have no choice to do it their way, Then  they give things names that are either functional, relate to the software or are way too obscure?

There is no way this should happen in the public domain as things like product names and branded access URLs are always cleared by marketing. Then image and branding are so important. But internally that does not happen as all too IT often gets little business help or involvement.

It is like having two standards, one rule for customers and other those who service them. And that make no sense at all. Setting the service delivery culture starts with teaching people the supply chain in not about them but their suppliers and customers. So why do we still insist being too lazy to put some effort into more marketing rather than functional or geeky names.

To paraphrase from another well-known idiom.

If you feed them peanuts they will look like monkeys.

So why not give internal process the same respect you give your customers and suppliers so they will be more likely to perform and respond the way you expect. That of course needs a business person to own and manage the change process. And all too often they are missing or busy.

Most often too as learning is done in the development stage where the die is cast. “A habit of one” it is often called. When you show people something that continues to work for them they may never change even if it is improved the very next day. The process and a systems life is therefore limited by the language and thought we give it when it starts. Never mind people whom may struggle later once the initial support is gone.

http://Image076/ or some such useless ellipsis name embedded in key process URLs is unlikely to move your business forward. So why use language that you don’t understand or is not service related?

As for IT infrastructure and everything upwards it is vital for management to get involved. Once instances are set and business teams take over any plea to start where we want to end up is then forlorn and lost.  It is often too hard and too detailed for managements to consider, especially in the “lets get it done urgency” cultures to have something working and adding value yesterday. So it gets underway without good thought on the impact of a later change.

Using and understanding how to set names and use aliases in not an IT role, It is vital for business managers to break this nexus so the language of technology more natural to focus the business.

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A popular myth in business and life is that it is only money that motivates. Consider why you go to learn to play a piano or join a speech club and why you find so many professionals doing more creatively work for others for free when their employer pays them for the same type of work.

End user tools such as Gmail plus backend server tools like Lynx and Apache are some of the world’s highest used technologies. These are examples of things that would have never happened were they not motivated to be created by something other than money.

It may be true that the more money works to get better results when the task being done involves mechanical skills based on a set of rules. Then the more you scale up the pay as the  reward the more likelihood there is for a better result.

However MIT and other studies conclusively find that once a task calls from even rudimentary cognitive skills, the results most often get worse when you use more pay as the incentive to get more results. Profit motive then gets unhinged from purpose and bad things start to happen.

This is discussed in this Royal Society for encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) Animate Video – “Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us”

This calls into question that if you reward something you get more of the behavior you want and if you punish something you get less.

The video that is has had extensive viewing since it was published on you Tube in April 2010.

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and the workplace. www.theRSA.org

It bears no more comment except to say it may the best 10 minutes of essential information you can get to help you understand and pass your next creative leadership challenge.

Here also is the live version of Dan Pink’s RSA talk if you prefer to see him in action.

I wonder what others think?

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“The Last Lecture” was Randy Pausch’s December 2007 farewell to the world. It has been viewed over 11 million times on you Tube alone and still gets comments. I watch it frequently for inspiration.

Since I have also followed the University he loved and I subscribe for their updates. This week they sent me this enlightening Bangalore think tank session on inspiring innovation and how it is evolving in India.

There are so many "Gems" buried in this video entitled Carnegie Mellon presents The New Face of Innovation that apply to everyone. I recommend it to students and innovators everywhere. The discussion sees a talented articulate panel in front of a local live audience. 

I just listened to the whole thing right through and it so full of insights. It is 50 minutes long, so I suggest you bookmark it or if you prefer you can down load it and listen to it on your IPOD

And make some notes.

 

CarnegieMellonU — March 31, 2010 — On March 10, 2010, Carnegie Mellon brought together a panel of leading experts to discuss business, technology and societal innovation shaping Bangalore and the world. The panel was moderated by Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. Cohon; panelists were Subrahmanyam Goparaju, Vice President & Head, Software Engineering & Technology Labs, Infosys Technologies; Lalitesh K. Katragadda (CS96,’98), Co-Head Google, Inc.-Bangalore R&D Center; Pradeep K. Khosla (E84,86), Dean, Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering, and Harsh Manglik (TPR76), Chairman-India & Geography, Managing Director, Accenture India.

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Do you think you could ever learn to speak in foreign language. Learning at school in Australia 1960’s gave me some limited choices. I chose French rather than Latin as I figured if ever I was in France or a French speaking country I could understand people.

Since I have lived, worked and travelled in many counties. Except for parts of Vietnam, and Canada plus of course France itself, knowing French has had quite limited value.

I do know my limited brain somehow interferes with my ability to learn more languages.  Hence English remains my dominate choice, even though work in Asia where Thai, Indonesian, Cantonese & Mandarin all dominate as the colloquial preferences that surround me.

Even so, believe it or not I can communicate in most and more without ever attend any classes or langauge  school.  And so can you!

For example  I am reading a new book called World Class ITnow that I would recommend. Here is a précis of a book review I was sent recently that in turn I sent on to a Thai colleague.

IT gets boiled down to 5 core principles (Mitch Betts Dec 21, 2009)

There isn’t any flashy writing or trendy technology here. A new book World Class IT (Jossey-Bass, 2009), by consultant Peter A. High, provides solid — dare I say timeless — advice for CIOs trying to manage IT for business success.

The book takes the CIO’s complex world and boils it down to the following core principles (stated here verbatim):

1. Recruit, train and retain world-class IT people.
2. Build and maintain a robust IT infrastructure.
3. Manage projects and portfolios effectively.
4. Ensure partnerships within the IT department and with the business.
5. Develop a collaborative relationship with external partners.

Highsays new CIOs should tackle those issues in the order presented above, starting with people and then moving on to developing a reliable IT infrastructure. High says the journey from ordinary to world-class IT can take several years, and even then you can’t rest on your laurels.

To make it easy for my colleague I translated it to Thai by using Google translate.

IT ได้รับต้มลงไป 5 หลักหลักโดย Mitch Betts 21 ธันวาคม 2009 06:00 ET ไม่มีที่เขียนฉูดฉาดหรือเทคโนโลยีอินเทรนด์ที่นี่. หนังสือ World Class ใหม่ IT (Jossey-เบส, 2009) โดยที่ปรึกษา Peter A. สูงให้แข็ง - กล้าฉันกล่าวว่าไม่มีเวลา - คำแนะนำสำหรับ CIOs พยายามจัดการไอทีสำหรับธุรกิจประสบความสำเร็จ. หนังสือนำโลกซับซ้อน CIO และ boils ไว้ต่อไปนี้หลักการ core (ระบุที่นี่ทุกตัวอักษร): รับสมัครรถไฟและรักษาระดับโลกคน IT. สร้างและรักษาโครงสร้างพื้นฐานไอทีที่แข็งแกร่ง. จัดการโครงการและพอร์ตการลงทุนได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ. ให้ความร่วมมือในแผนกไอทีและธุรกิจ. พัฒนาความสัมพันธ์ความร่วมมือกับคู่ค้าภายนอก. สูงกล่าว CIOs ใหม่ควรต่อสู้ปัญหาเหล่านั้นเพื่อนำเสนอข้างต้นเริ่มต้นกับคนแล้วย้ายในการพัฒนาโครงสร้างพื้นฐานไอทีที่น่าเชื่อถือ. สูงกล่าวว่าการเดินทางจากสามัญในระดับโลกอาจใช้เวลาหลายปีและแม้แล้วคุณจะไม่สามารถพักผ่อนใน laurels ของคุณ.

This literally took seconds using the free Google translate tool, which has most written Languages. To do this I just copied and pasted the text to a html page and Google did the rest.

The practical implications of this are that language in business is no longer a barrier as we can communicate with literally anyone. Yes it is that simple and these days even my french has improved.

From my stats I know readers of our my blog come from many non English speaking counties. So I am quite sure they already know well about translation tools. But for most English based countries readers there, I would ventured to say, would not see the value of subscribing to and translating to, say a Russian website.

I do and  I am often pleasantly surprised by some of the high quality and leadership information I get when I translate some of these sites.

Give it a try and perhaps see if you can find new opportunities to link up and grow.

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In a context of  understanding the next generation of performance management thinking, to overcome behavioral change barriers using social networks, a recent Wikinomics debate on relationship limits got my interest.

This debate asks the question:

If its true our neocortex has a finite limit to have only approximately 150 meaningful relationships, then what is social networking achieving? Read more…

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Being flexible to take advantage of opportunity is not one of the stronger attitudes of people. In the end we are creatures of habit which is what organizations rely on, to have us do our work.

But as the markets have been changing and work place thinking reassesses its investments, options for those willing to change are now considerable, especially for people with real skill now in demand.

As one of my colleagues said to me recently,  “Having a job  sure beats working.” What he meant was,  those who avoid dole queues and the anxiety of the job search, are those who can adapt.

In organizations it is no different. Getting into different work may be as simple as using the skills we have another way. Using things like software as a service and cloud services for outsourcing to get results quickly are now reality. They are being used for such things as sales and supply chain management widely and now are starting to surface in previously hallowed areas like confidential business analytics. But even this is outside the square for so many people like Mr. Duck

But think about it.  Even the  outsource worker has  caught on to how to work on a remote VPN access; And is also doing well in this new world, as many companies still struggle with an outdated mentality that will leave them behind, as others set up new tents .

Talented people and organization that are also smart  enough to see the opportunity are going there and winning.

 This reminds  me of the good old story of Mr.Duck . It goes something like this.

Read more…

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