The Cranky Middle Manager Show #311 Serial Innovators Claudio Feser
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #270 Crisis Management for Managers Neil Chapman
Posted on 28. Jan, 2011 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel talks about something we all need to know and hope never to use– how to handle our teams and ourselves in a crisis. Neil Chapman is the expert on the subject, having been in the center of the BP/Deep Water Horizon spill for the past year. You’ll learn a lot. Plus we quote Winnie the Pooh and a Canadian Heroine, which means no one’s heard of her.
Don’t forget great webinar workshops available from GreatWebMeetings.com each month!
How to Create and Manage Remote Teams February 25
Web Presentation Basics (2 parts) February 21 and 23
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome, everyone to the latest show. We dedicate this episode on crisis communication to a Canadian Heroine. Yes you’ll have to look it up so here’s the link to Laura Secord. Learn something about crisis communication, how everyone has to step up and the difference between Canadian heroes and US heroes.
3:23 The quote of the week is from Winnie the Pooh. Really. Oh quit hugging me already.
4:45 Welcome Neil Chapman of AlphaVoice Communications. His humility aside, he was an important cog in BP’s machine during the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Much to learn here today. What was it like in the belly of that beast?
7:05 What was that crisis like when the phone rang and he had to spring into action? He sounds so darned calm and sane but it had to be madness. Preparation helps and you need to be flexible and adapt. That’s where leadership comes in. He walks us through the logistics.
12:15 We know how this impacts the company, but what is the human cost of a long-term crisis? People can amaze you.
15:00 What happens when the corporate message meets values meets reality? You get the feeling Neil loved his team deeply.
23:00 Just when you think things are under control, the big bosses do something stupid. How do you keep your own team intact and positive?
25:30 What should managers be doing right now to prepare their team for a possible emergency?
28:02 As a manager you need to know the strengths of your people.Tasks need to go to the right people.
29:45 How much control can you have over people’s social media. Can you just let them tweetfacelinkblog at will?
Neil’s Resources
The Cranky Middle Manager #269 Virtual Team Success Darleen DeRosa
Posted on 18. Jan, 2011 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel is joined by Darleen DeRosa, co-author of Virtual Team Success: A Practical Guide for Working and Leading From a Distance. To that end we talk virtual teams, the guy who administered the Spanish Empire and French smart-alecks, as well as Wayne’s new book from ASTD Press… just another day in the salt mines for Cranky Middle Managers.
Don’t forget two great workshops this month!
How to Create and Manage Remote Teams on January 28
Web Presentation Basics January 24
Also a FREE white paper: Beating the Hype Cycle- how to get people to use web presentation tools you’ve already paid for!”
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we’re talking remote teams or virtual teams. A great example of someone who didn’t have the benefit of this show is Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca,who had to administer the Spanish Empire. Of course, he was a priest so taking orders without ever meeting the boss was nothing new for him…..
4:50 The quote of the week is from Francois de Rochefoucauld. Does absence from your team strengthen or extinguish your flame? Just asking….
5:30 Welcome Darleen DeRosa to the show. Her research shows that many companies throw virtual teams together without planning for their success. Harvard says 80% of remote teams don’t work? Why not?
9:00 Companies do this to save the visible costs, but what’s the cost of lost productivity or high turnover? Most companies don’t – or can’t- prove the ROI here. Do the same practices of co-located teams work? If you don’t invest in technology, how can people get the work done?
11:20 The four most common pitfalls of virtual teams are: lack of clear goals, conflicting priorities, lack of trust and lack of engagement. One huge problem is divided management or matrixed organizations. Very often people don’t even know everyone on their team! This is particularly true for managers who tend to be on a bunch of committees or task forces on top of their “real” jobs.
14:24 The one thing that comes up all the time for me is that the manager and theindividual may be fine, but it’s getting team members to know, trust and reach out to each other. The cost of this not working is high. Trust is the top quality of high performing teams. Focusing on tasks alone sometimes ignores people problems that can derail your team.
17:28 It’s simple but not easy to get your remote team on task. Good (short) virtual meetings are critical. Prework will often shorten andfocus the meetings. Choose a team-building exercise that might have people meeting up front. Some real good ideas here, grab a pen. Fun is highly underrated.
20:00 You need to use all the technology at your disposal to create a “virtual water cooler”. Answering each others’ questions or offering assistance is a great way to build trust and teams. The big question is: how do you get people to use them? You need to be specific and offer training. Oh, and model it yourself. Suck it up and do it, managers. (check out the white paper we mentioned earlier for good advice on this!)
23:00 Watch out for performance peaks- very often teams come together well but performance starts to slip. You need to monitor the team as you go, don’t wait for the crisis. What does a virtual leader do? The leader organizes the team, reports back to senior management and have to be great influencers andconflict managers. You have to help overcome the silos.
26:00 What are some of the signs that a virtual team might be in trouble? Quality slipping, increased conflict, or people just skipping meetings and making lame excuses.
Check out OnPoint consulting’s site.
Also check out Netage.com.
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #268 Built on Values Ann Rhoades
Posted on 11. Jan, 2011 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel talks to author Ann Rhoades about her new book: “Built on Values, Creating an Enviable Culture That Outperforms the Competition”. Can you consciously create a culture or is it something that happens by accident? How do you decide on your values and how can your company actually stick to them? Good questions. We also look at the founding of the RCMP and a quote from a well-meaning fraud, Henry David Thoreau.
Don’t forget two great workshops this month!
How to Create and Manage Remote Teams on January 28
Web Presentation Basics January 24
Also a FREE white paper: Beating the Hype Cycle- how to get people to use web presentation tools you’ve already paid for.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we’re talking about starting a company with values in mind, which puts in mind the RCMP and its founder, George Arthur French. Standards and style either get determined on purpose or they happen in spite of you.
4:25 The quote of the week is from Henry David Thoreau- not one of my favorites but occasionally said something worth hanging onto and he’s a more impressive credit than quoting me….
5:10 Welcome Ann Rhoades to the show. She’s going to talk about building a company on values…but since she helped start Jet Blue she knows a bit about the topic. I’m a bit jaded on the topic so why should we care?
7:15 Ann left SouthWest and helped start JetBlue.How do you go about blue printing your values and the behaviors that exemplify them?
11:00 Hotels and airlines lead the league in complaints and bad experiences so how do you incorporate values into the business plan? Admittedly it doesn’t take much to exceed expectations but you have to try. What do you do when someone just doesn’t fit in?
14:45 What do you do as a manager with something like “safety” as a value. How do you manage to it? It’s all about identifying behaviors then keeping people accountable for it.
18:30 There are real bottom-line results to this theory…. and they’re impressive. What do you do when something bad happens to test the values? Can you recover? Here’s a case study you might not be familiar with but should be.
24:10 How do you identify people who will fit with your values during the interview process instead of getting surprised? It’s all about behavioral interviewing rather than skills interviewing. A players have skills, but that’s not how they get to be A Players.
Anns Resources
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #267 Radical Management with Steve Denning
Posted on 04. Jan, 2011 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Okay, after 267 shows the term “radical” might be a bit of a stretch, but what WOULD be radical is if we actually acted on what we know needs to happen. As managers it’s our job but it ain’t easy. We talk to Steven Denning, author of “The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace For the 21st Century”. Oh, and we look at what happens when you try to get radical and don’t follow through like poor Alexander Kerensky and we get a quote from Mark Twain. That is what’s known as eclectic, people.
Don’t forget two great workshops this month!
How to Create and Manage Remote Teams on January 28
Web Presentation Basics January 24
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the 267th show. After this many shows and this many years I’m a bit skeptical about using the term Radical to describe management theory. Then it dawned on me that it’s not the theory that’s radical, it’s the notion that someone can actually pull it off. For that reason we dedicate this show to Alexander Kerensky, the poor SOB who tried to initiate radical change in Russia without changing the way he went about it. When you can tick off both Left and Right you’re not radical, but you’re probably on the right track.
4:27 The quote of the week is from Mark Twain. Today’s radical is tomorrow’s conservative…true in work as well as politics.
6:00 Welcome Steve Denning to the show. What’s so radical about his ideas? Management as it’s practiced, particularly in the Fortune 500, doesn’t work so well. Rate of return on assets is about 1/4 of what it was and the average life span of a company is under 15 years. 4 out of 5 people aren’t engaged in their work. So what can we do and isn’t this a natural evolution?
9:50 All of this means huge (dare we say radical?) shiftsin the balance of power. The 7 principles of his book are:
- Focus work on delighting the client
- Do work through self-organizing teams
- Do work in client-driven iterations
- Deliver value to clients with each iteration
- Be totally open about impediments to improvement
- Create a context for continuous self-improvement within the team
- Communicate interactively with stories, questions and conversations
12:18 What does “delighting the client” really mean? How delighted are people really expected to be? You need direct line of sight to the customers.
14:30 What does working in “client-driven iterations” really mean? It means short bursts of change and constant feedback as you go. The bigger the project the less line of sight you deliver and the easier it is to go horribly wrong.
18:53 How do you have the conversation with your boss about changing the metrics? The whole discussion needs to focus on the impact on the customer. Illustratrive stories are the best way to tell your side of the situation.
22:00 One of the deceptively simple ideas in the book is the concept of pointing out the barriers to improvement. He tells us a story about what happened at the World Bank(which didn’t go too well) as well as with Ford Motor Company (with much better results).
26:28 What does he mean by “creating context” that allows us to do good things AND stay on track with the organization? It’s all about having clear goals and being able to tell the story. What’s the velocity of your team?
Steve’s Resources