Dealing with repetitive problems

In my opinion, repetitive problems require special attention. When problems have a habit of recurring, despite persistent attempts to resolve them, all efforts seem wasted and staff morale becomes a serious concern. Only a foolish interim manager would step in suggesting quick fixes, where caution and deeper analysis are obviously required. Of course it is through experience (or trial and error) that we learn, but I find that repetitive business problems are often linked to behavioral patterns of senior management.

A good example of this is the small company that repeatedly falls into cycles of severe cash flow problems.

Imagine you are the owner of a ‘successful’ recording studio business, you have a good stream of clients (mostly generated from adverts in music magazines, positive press articles on albums you recorded and support advertising from equipment suppliers).

Everything is going fine, except that your business is cyclical (customers tend not to want to record albums in the summer because they are off on tour or on holiday, not stuck in a dark and stuffy studio). Even so, if you spread your income and costs over 12 months, you should be able to end up with a reasonable profit from which you could live quite comfortably.

However you have four key weaknesses:

1. You get bored easily, especially with administration and tendering for new projects, you are eager to pay other people to do that work, in theory you could do yourself, but quite frankly can’t be bothered.
2. You have a deep fascination for studio recording equipment; you cannot resist buying the latest and most expensive gear (convincing yourself and those around you, that it is the fully equipped studio that makes you ‘so successful’).
3. You are bored with recording mundane local bands, you only want to record the best, so you are always looking for schemes to ‘enhance’ your business and to better fit in with your life style. (When you do not have artists that inspire you, you tend to spend more time at home, or take time off for holidays with the kids).
4. Personal image/appearance and self esteem are key drivers in your life. You are motivated by people praising you, especially those who are rich and famous. Consequently you take any kind of criticism very hard. Only the best will do for you. You like to spend money on clothes, cars and other accessories that separate you from your competitors.

The combination of the above four weaknesses can destroy a perfectly good business, especially if the key actor becomes ill or lazy. A good revenue stream can dry up very quickly. And if the business is supported by numerous bank loans, credit cards and other debts, it can fold in a matter of weeks or months, once the creditors realize what the real situation is. Some people manage to avoid impending bankruptcy by selling off tools and assets, which need to be replaced when new orders come in.

Consequently, you end up with a cycle that will create repetitive cash flow problems, because no sooner do you win more clients, or receive praise from a new customer, than you immediately feel good and invincible – thus justifying a new round of investments on borrowed money.



The repetitive cycle

This kind of cycle is just one of many but can easily be adapted to a whole array of other scenarios (for example, every time a company wins a large new deal they feel falsely confident enough to take on extra sales personnel etc).

To conclude, in my opinion, when taking decisions you need to consider the personalities of the dominant figures in the business and if you recognize repetitive patterns, then dealing with the core issue is the only way to solve the problem once and for all.

“The secret to successful problem solving begins with asking the right questions and then listening very closely to their answers” – Harley Lovegrove

The above article has been abridged from: ‘Making a Difference’ by Harley Lovegrove, published by Lannoo Campus & Academic Services

The secret to good project management lies in the detail?

My father was an architect, he designed buildings from the inside out, he realized that a building has to be functional first and aesthetically pleasing second. No matter how attractive a building, if it is not functional it will be demolished over time.

I know an architect who does not like to draw, when you meet with him to discuss an idea he never picks up a pencil to sketch it through. My father on the other hand used to draw everything to the finest detail, how one section of the building would link with another, where the coat hangers would be placed when you walked in the front door, even how large they would be and how they would be fixed to the wall. What surface the wall should be, so it could be cleaned easily. “The secret to a good design lies in the detail” he would say.

I know project managers that run their projects with only the very rudiments of a plan, like the architect who does not like to draw, they do not like to plan either. They think that whatever the problem that comes their way, one way or another it will be solved by someone (in the case of the architect, he mostly leaves it up to the builder). But when it comes to project management, someone needs to take control and to ultimately take the responsibility. And for me that is the project manager.

The secret of good planning is not to micro plan and micro control (if you do, you’ll kill creativity) but to detail enough so that you can think the project through, to foresee the issues before they appear, to calculate risks and thus to calculate budgets accurately.

In my case, I like to highlight potential issues and to ask my managers to find solutions for them, before they become a risk to either the timing, quality or budget of the project. I like to say things, in the planning stage, like ‘I have no idea how we will deliver this milestone when these tasks, according to my plan, are still only half complete’ – by handing over problems for comment or debate, early on, very creative solutions can most often be found.

It is the blend of pragmatism based on experience with the discipline of forward thinking that makes for successful and fun projects. Without this blend I find that projects tend to deteriorate into endless discussions on how best to solve all unforseen open issues waiting to be solved. Long issue lists are created and sap all they enthusiasm out of the project team – nothing but endless problems. And usually it is always the same brains left to solve the inherited mess.

I find that team members like to see a well thought through plan. I pin them on the office wall. Everyone can see what is going to happen and when and by whom. These plans help in themselves to create a sense of team and importance. People in the team like to study these plans and to try and find gaps and holes in them, adding their own expertise and comments – so much the better, this all goes a long way to foreseeing problems, way ahead of them ever becoming a serious risk. In this way the level of buy in is so much higher and a sense of team can be so much stronger. This is in contrary to many peoples thoughts, who believe that an ‘over planned’ project excludes the team members. This is only true if the project is ‘over planned’ (for example specifying the size of the hole for the wall fixing to fix the coat hook on, six months before building starts) and if the Project Manager, or Architect (in this story) does not share their plans openly with the team and encourage creative input and commitment to deliverables, quality and timing.

Anyone who has worked on one of my projects will know that I do not handover deadlines to my teams, I suggest them and ask for their commitment to them. If they find them unrealistic, we examine them closer, together, and come to an agreement. Thus my tasks become contracts between two agreeing parties. This process allows me to better assess if the person I am offering the task to has the skills and resources to handle it. But when they take a task on, heaven help them, if they then let me and the other teams down for no good reason.

So how do you run your projects? Are you really in control of them? Do you plan and share your plans, or are you more a freestyler, letting your projects take you to where they want to go?

Project Management In One Hour

I need to prepare for a lecture on project management. I have been allocated one hour on the subject. I am giving it to two groups of MBA students that will receive, in total, one and a half days of education on the subject. This might seem rather limited at first, but when you think about it, of all the things you need to learn about in business, perhaps project management is not so important? After all there are so many companies that do not adopt a project management methodology per se and they still seem to survive.

So what should I tell my sudents? I have been advised to bring in as much practical experience as possible. (Anyone one who has attended one my presentations will know that, a lecture from me can only be based on real life and that I am not one for too many theories) ;-)

My first thoughts are to tackle the following questions:

1. Why do we need project management at all?
2. Why do projects so often fail?
3. What is the difference between successful and unsuccessful projects?
4. Why is it that so many projects, even if they do deliver their goals and objectives, still do not deliver real benefit to the company that commissioned them?

The answers to the above questions, to me, seem obvious. But I know from experience that too many managers, even the ones who commission projects regularly, do not dare to tackle the hidden truth that they convey. After all, if you make your living managing whole rafts of projects, it is probably not in your short term career interests to set about cutting out all the useless projects to begin with?

To me projects are a bit like roses: you need to prune them back at least once a year, cutting them right back to the stem. And when you see new projects shooting up from unexpected places, you need to be rigorous and cut them back too. A well defined project that has its roots in good business sense, and that has only one objective to deliver: ‘real value to the client’, is the only project worth making space for. Cut back all the rest that pose the risk of getting in the way or interfering and give the good one all the attention and nourishment you can.

When it comes down to it, only the projects that were rigorously challenged before they were started, and where everyone gave 100% commitment to ensure their success, and were lead by a steering group that were resolute to sticking to the original objectives – are the only projects that turn out to be successful in the long term.

Now if you want to know the detailed answers to my questions above, you have three alternatives: 1. read my book, 2. attend my lecture or 3, wait for two weeks when I may decide to give a resume of the speech in my blog, assuming I have the answers by then!

Have a safe week,

Harley

Being Polite

I think very few people would disagree that to be an effective manager one should always be polite? This does not rule out the need to express a full range of emotions when required. However, I feel the subject of politeness needs more careful attention than might be expected.

Last week my secretary pointed out to me that a candidate applying for a position with The Bayard Partnership had been very abrupt with her, to the point of being rude, treating her with a serious lack of respect. When I mentioned this sorry state of affairs to one of the Bayard Partners, he said ‘one should always be polite. However, in moments of extreme emotion, if one’s base instincts take over and one becomes rude, then this is only excusable if you were rude to your superiors or peers’. Thus being rude to anyone that you might consider to be a subordinate is never excusable.

So what should we consider as being polite or impolite? For me personally it is quite simple:

1. You should always show people the level of courtesy that you enjoy receiving yourself (note that I do not use the word ‘expect’ here, expect is far from adequate).
2. You should always make the effort to express your genuine respect for those around you in the form of polite greetings and ‘thank yous’ for services rendered.

Examples of impoliteness (for me) include:

1. Not saying thank you
2. Not greeting someone at the start of the day, when you have clearly made eye contact.
3. Not listening to someone when they are talking to you
4. Not getting back to people when you say you will (even if you have no further news to tell them)
5. Keeping people waiting without an explanation
6. Not letting people know your intentions by not using your indicators when driving a vehicle on the public highway
The list continues……

At the time of writing I have just come back from a business trip in Lisbon, where from our arrival to departure, my colleagues and I witnessed the most courteous and friendly interaction with everyone from Taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, waiters and shop assistants. Politeness seems to be the norm in Lisbon, let’s hope we can export it to Brussels and any other city where customer service is so often seriously lacking?

Who are your most important suppliers?

The difference between a carpenter and an interim or project manager

I have been giving advice to a self employed carpenter who specializes in fitted wardrobes. Judging from observation, it appears that much of his day is lost, spent running around collecting last minute orders for brackets and hinges, extra wood, glue, screws, parts for his machines – whatever. He is always blaming his late deliveries on his suppliers, who appear to be constantly letting him down. Obviously my advice to him was to learn to better manage his suppliers and to invest more time in project preparation.

However, it got me thinking about my role as an interim manager – who exactly are my essential suppliers and how dependant am I on them?

Here’s a list, in a rough order of importance:

1. My mobile phone network supplier (no mobile, no business)
2. My bank (receiving funds and paying suppliers)
3. My ICT supplier (access to e-mails, MS Office + Project)
4. Car garage
5. Fuel stations
6. My accountant (legal compliance & tax optimization)
7. My insurance company (legal compliance + you never know)!
8. Lawyer

After item 8 the list begins to switch from essential to ‘nice to have’. However, it goes without saying that really, the most important supplier to an interim manager is themselves i.e. their health. Without it, we are quite simply finished – nothing, no income, no pension.

Thus I believe it is vital we invest in our health and general wellbeing over and above anything else. Luckily there are many doctors who agree that a glass (or two) of wine a day + a visit to the sauna or massage therapist, once in a while, does you good. Good restaurants and relaxing holidays in the Mediterranean are apparently also very beneficial.

So when I go over my profit margin figures for 2007, I can see clearly that my expenses have been very well balanced and entirely appropriate for a person with my profession...

Who are your essential suppliers?

New Year Resolutions – no one takes them seriously anymore!

When I was a child great emphasis was placed on making New Year resolutions. Resolution taking was something actively encouraged by my parents and became the central topic of conversation almost immediately after Christmas day was over.

Coming from a Roman Catholic family, it was a bit like the open discussions just before Lent, when we had to let both the Priest and our parents know what we were going to give up for the 30 days leading up to the feast of Easter.

But giving something you like up for 30 days is not really the same as committing to a new behavior pattern for a whole year. Lent was all about satisfying the Priest and your Parents (choosing something that would impress them but would not cause too much personal discomfort, like chocolate – you could still eat sweets but just none with chocolate on, although you obviously didn’t mention the sweets bit!)

New Year Resolutions are different from penance, as they are all about self improvement, attempts to try to change an aspect of oneself that one is not happy with (weight, personality, career etc.).

During the Christmas period I have been looking at 2007, at what could have gone better, where I could have performed to a higher standard and even how I could have been happier. The conclusion I have come to for my new year resolution 2008 is to try and reject all the negative thoughts that enter my head like mischievous demons and turn me into a ‘grumpy old man’ (I refer my readers to the BBC TV series of ‘Grumpy old men’).

The negative demons I mention are in fact quite a problem. I see something or interact with something (mostly builders public company’s and/or government institutions) and all I see is negative. For example; poor excuses for trains being late, lazy postal workers, incompetent logistics systems that deliver your 500 Nespresso coffee capsules to an address in Walonia, rather than to your office in Brussels. Narrow minded customer service employees who simply do not listen to what you are saying because their bosses only give them 10 seconds to categorize you into the correct enquiry channel – ‘new orders’, ‘complaints’, ‘refunds’, ‘accounts’ etc. I could go no forever, for example: irritating adverts for products that no one needs, or are so generic that they simply do not need advertising (such as electricity or soap).

So this year Harley is going to be far more positive, he is going to reject all negative thoughts that enter his head, he is not going to waste his precious waking hours by sweating over the unimportant, irritating stuff that he has little or no control over. He is no longer going to be a grumpy old man, but a rejuvenated male adult with even more positive energy than he had last year. Harley is going to be happier and his, colleagues, family and friends are going to notice the difference. Not only for the first month of 2008 but for the whole year!

Now in the blog I wrote on the 11th. of November of last year 'Who is your Guru?’ I mentioned I was reading ‘The Monk who sold his Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. Well during the Christmas period I finally read the book and found it very enlightening. It is not a book I would recommend to everyone, it is not on my ‘must read’ list because it has several flaws and the style of writing, especially the dialogue’, is poorly written and incredible. However from the second chapter onwards there are pearls of wisdom on every page, in fact so many that it becomes tedious and predictable. But like all management and self improvement type books, you should read them through quickly, pick out the stuff that makes sense to you and park the rest until you find yourself needing it.

Some of the book’s personal growth wisdom you can also find in my book, 'Making a Difference' but my stlye is very different. However if you are open to a certain level of Asian mysticism and even to a little spirituality, you can gain a lot from this book. It has inspired me to rekindle my 10 minute a day mediation exercises that I dropped when I needed to squeeze more working time into my day by switching from taking a morning bath to having a shower to gain an extra 10 minutes!

So there it is my New Year’s resolution, cut out all negative thoughts, is out in the open – now it will be impossible for me to drop it, because everyone knows it and I will be seen as a failure if I do!

Happy New Year!

PS my wife has just read this article and insists I print it out so that she can put it on the wall in the kitchen – suddenly my 2008 new year resolution is looking like a tough challenge! ;-)

Entering the twilight zone

If you are like me, during the last two months Christmas was just an inconvenient, somewhere in the distant future event. And this year it seemed to creep up on me like it does most years; firstly I spend my time worrying about how I will fit all my work into a shortened timeframe and then all at once I come home to find that Christmas cards from friends and relatives are out numbering invoices and flyers in our letter box. It is then I realize how wonderful it is going to be, to have a few days where, apart from the essential services, everything will stop, forcing me to stop too.

Thus Christmas is my time for re-filling my emotional, physical and even spiritual batteries. So this year, like always, I too will be getting up later, staying in to watch films on TV, calling on friends and family and generally doing nothing of any importance. And yet because everyone else is doing the same, I can do all this without any feeling of guilt. I can relinquish my business responsibilities for personal ones. What joy!

So I suggest we take Kurt’s advice (from his comment on last week’s article ‘Just how important do you think you are’?) and hand over our internet connection keys to our partners and spend a few days doing what it is we should be doing a lot more of during the rest of the year.

So all I need to do now is to wish all my blog readers and commentators “a very happy, peaceful and joyous Christmas”.
I won’t bother wishing anyone any good wishes for 2008 yet, because for now we are in that twilight zone between the two years, in the void where commercial matters are vulgar and totally irrelevant. Wonderful!

Happy Christmas!

PS There will be no blog next week, so the next one will not be until the 6th. – see you in 2008, I am stepping into the twilight zone for a while…