Be Sure the Solutions You Implement Solve the Right Problem

In these times of economic uncertainty, we are faced with tightening our belts and coming up with innovative solutions to new problems. And yet, we sometimes find ourselves with a sense of "spinning our wheels". We get that feeling that no matter what we do, things just seem to stay the same. We know we are implementing new solutions, but somehow the same old problems seem to be around. What is going on?

In my experience both as a manager in a large corporation and as a management consultant, I often found that our employees would use a great deal of creative zeal to solve a problem. The solutions were indeed "out of the box" and they were elegant in their intent and effort. But, more often than not, people jump to solutions too quickly. They have plenty of solutions to bring forward, often never knowing just what the problem is that needs to be solved. I will never forget a training program I did early on in my consulting life. It was a terrific program and the participants liked it just fine. Trouble was, I solved the wrong problem! What a lesson I learned from that experience!

Often times, our employees do the same thing because they don't necessarily know how to define the true problem at hand. Below is a model that I have used over the years with my own staff and with my clients. It is quick and eliminates what I call the "situational noise" that so many of our current problems hide behind. To help identify the real problem, consider these steps:

1. Describe the situation. What is happening? What are the facts? Who is involved? When and how did something occur? In this step, do not try to analyze or solve, just focus on what you know or what you can investigate further in order to know.
2. Determine what should be happening. What is the desired outcome or output? What would the "perfect world" look like? How would you know you were successful? In this step, you can push the envelope a bit and go for the "Cadillac". Later, you will apply the realistic test to it.
3. Identify the consequences. What would happen if problem went unsolved for a period of time? What would happen if you do nothing? Who would be impacted? How would the business suffer, or would it? Will a time frame be important here?
4. State the problem, in terms of "How". Only at this step are you ready to define the problem. And you must be able to state it in terms of a question beginning with "How", such as "how can we eliminate overhead in the back office support operation?" If you are unable to do this, you are not yet at the problem definition stage and need to go back to the situation, outcome, and consequence steps.
5. Create your solution set. Now, that you have stated the problem clearly and succinctly, without the he said/she said "noise", you are ready to come up with your solutions. Get as creative and energetic here as you like. You have earned it! An odd (but wonderful) thing happens at this step. With the problem clearly defined, the solutions are almost easy to imagine. And, the decision on which solution to pick seems to also pop out quickly. In very complex problems, additional research may be needed to choose between one or more possible solutions, but more often than not, this easily identified and completed as well.
6. Finalize your decision and set your implementation plan. At this last step, you are ready to move from planning to action. You may also find that moving into full project management is easier now too.

You can use a Problem Solving Model like this one in a variety of situations, from work processes to employee development.

Productivity and Personal Behavioral Style

Become More Powerful, Profitable and Productive. Who you are makes a difference in how you work! The search for productivity continues as we see how we can get more done with the same or less people in an environment in which businesses shrink with declining sales. An example is the post office laying off staff and reducing daily service. The impact of the web has dramatically cut their patronage, plus the postal service legacy of poor customer service that has driven customers away to UPS and other carriers. Productivity challenges come whether we cause them or not. Our task is to keep on keeping on. By now, most of the working world is aware that we each work at different paces based on our preferred behavioral styles. Some of us rush through our work, while others ponder what's on their desks before they start work on it. Others want to collaborate with teams while others work by the rules. So how do we know our preferences? If you agree with the old adage "the people make the place," then you'll understand why the use of personality assessments in business and industry continues to grow in popularity. Behavior assessments tap into each individual's unique "operating system," yielding key insights into people's individual drives, temperaments and motivations (e.g., why you might enjoy poring over P&L statements for hours on end, while I'd prefer to be out building relationships with customers). There is an explicit connection between how well a person fits his or her job, his or her productivity and, ultimately, a company's bottom line. I believe these behavioral differences make a huge difference in how we work as both individuals and as a team. This is NOT about the quality of our work. It is about the nature of the process. Let us take a closer look at these behavioral differences and think how they might influence both our productivity and our approach to our work. Since I work with the DiSC program constantly, I believe it provides a good basis for understanding our differences. There are four Classic DiSC styles: DiSC is a model of human behavior that helps to understand "why people do what they do." The dimensions of Dominance, influencing, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness make up the model and interact with other factors to describe human behavior. Dominance Influence Effective Traits: Direct, Self Assured, Gets Results Ineffective Traits: Dictatorial, Demanding, Sarcastic Productivity Traits: Fast Acting & Immediate Results but QC may suffer a bit Effective Traits: People Oriented, Persuasive Ineffective Traits: Talks too much, Lacks Focus Productivity Traits: People come first and work may come next Conscientiousness Steadiness Effective Traits: Accurate, Detail Oriented Ineffective Traits: Perfectionistic, Accurate, Critical Productivity Traits: High standards and details may slow down the output Effective Traits: Listener, Loyal, Consistent Ineffective Traits: Indecisive, resists change Productivity Traits: Focus on tasks where job completion may come before quality DiSC is the universal language for describing the intersection of observable behavior and emotions. As someone said, knowing this language of behavior helps us manage the "how" in our lives – how we deal with problems, how we communicate with others, how we handle change, how we follow rules. We have found that with DiSC knowledge of who you are, you learn to be more productive and work effectively with others while helping your organizations develop productive teams because they know how to communicate. It is just as helpful as knowing French would be in going to France. Each of us has developed a distinct way of thinking, feeling and acting, which becomes our behavioral style. Our unique patterns distinguish us from one another, and express our individual identities just like our thumbprint. Each DiSC style has great strengths, and potential limitations if overused. Remember that any strength taken too far becomes a weakness. Consider yourself in these four styles. Which one is most like you? Many of us have one dominant style and a secondary style close behind. For example, I have a high influence style but my Dominance style is right behind. So each day, I have a little happy dance as to which style rules my day. Usually I choose Influence, because of the people orientation, but when I need to get things DONE, I move into the Dominance style. In terms of productivity, I have developed tools that keep me on track with the tasks in front of me. They include the High Value Activity chart I use every day and other tools that project and track my work. Knowing who we are is NOT a label. It is the most insightful tool I can have in my work.

You’ve Cut as Much as You Can…Now What?

We’ve seen the staggering layoff statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on February 25, 2009 that there have been 25,712 mass layoffs from December 2007 to January 2009 for a total of 2,632,336 people impacted. This large number is hard to get your mind around. It seems lately that we all know someone who has either been impacted by a layoff or knows someone who has been.

How have the layoffs impacted organizations? In some companies, the layoffs were needed due to an overstaffing situation, in others, they may have lost business which resulted in a reduced workload. However, some companies might have already been operating with a lean staff so layoffs have created a situation where there is still a tremendous amount of work that a smaller team is trying to accomplish. The folks that are normally left after a layoff are your top performers but even your best people will eventually burn out if their workload continuously stays excessive.

After you have cut your headcount to the lowest you possibly can, now what? I believe the answer is innovation. It is time to think and do things differently. This is not just the job of senior leaders but of everyone in the organization. If everyone has the “we are all in the same boat” philosophy, you can capture the imagination and ideas of every member in the company. Involvement in the health of the company also increases employee engagement because people feel empowered to take action to improve their situation. Here are a few ideas:

• Encourage and Reward Ideas: Let every member of the organization know that your company welcomes creative ideas on improving productivity, quality, cost savings, profitability and/or customer service. Create formal processes to capture and reward ideas but be careful of how much bureaucracy you put in your process so it doesn’t discourage people from submitting ideas.
• Provide Process Analysis Tools: A flowchart is an excellent example of a process tool. By listing the steps in a process you may find that steps have been added that are no longer necessary or people are being involved that don’t need to be. Cutting steps or automating a piece of the process may reduce inefficiencies saving time and money. GE’s Work-Out program was intended to identify and eliminate unneeded processes and tasks that were left over from previous years and it is worth examining GE’s process to see how it could be used in your organization.
• Capitalize on Teamwork: An organization is made up of a diverse group of people with various strengths. If everyone uses their strengths to the fullest, companies receive a better outcome. There are those employees who always come up with creative ideas but have difficulty executing them. There are others who are terrific at taking a new idea and refining it until it works. Others will follow a plan and execute flawlessly. Capitalizing on teamwork encourages everyone to contribute to the innovation process by valuing their strengths and finding collaborative venues to work with others of opposite strengths.

In Control or Being Controlled?

"You're just like you were ten years ago. You never change!" Have you ever heard that comment directed at you? Do you believe it? This statement could be either very positive or very negative. It all depends on the context of the conversation and the specific tone of voice used. Your primary question today is, am I in control or being controlled by the changes in my environment?

How do you use your time as compared to 5, 10 or 15 years ago? What are you doing today with all the changes in technology, communication not to mention the radical changes happening in our economy that were not part of the horizon 10-15 years ago? Things have changed. Guess what, the way you live your life has changed, whether you like it, hate it, realize it or not.

You are in a process of change that's called life. Sometimes you like the changes, sometimes not. Sometimes you can understand and deal with the changes; sometimes it’s much more difficult. What do you need to remember? You are changing because you are alive. And believe it or not, you can control many of the changes you incur if you understand the change process and stop fighting every step of the way. The human side of change should not be like having okra and boiled squash for dinner. Yuk! It really can be enjoyable.

People become what they think about. They change and direct their lives just as the navigator changes and directs the course of any great ship. People change themselves first on the inside by changing their minds. No one can change your mind for you. Likewise, no one can control your mind unless you relinquish that control to them. The last of the great human freedoms has to be the choice of our response to the stimulus pressed upon us.

You may not always be able to control the changing circumstances around you but you can always control how you think and react to those circumstances. James Allen aptly paraphrased the scripture when he said, "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."

The right kind of change begins on the inside, in the mind. When you learn how to operate the control panel (your mind), you begin to take greater control of your life. There are simple methods and a proven program where you can learn how to control your mind and program it in such a way that you stay in control even when times are tumultuous and turbulent.

Your mind holds onto every piece of information that is repeatedly programmed into it. That’s why it’s extremely important that you control and direct the input and purposefully decide what you want to feed it. With the right information fed into it on a consistent daily basis, your mind will believe and act on whatever direction it is given. With disciplined practice your mind can become your greatest ally and friend. Your mind can be the master or the monster of change. It's your decision.

Evaluating meeting tools that are free on the internet

When I’m talking to groups on moving their meetings from boring to productive, I often get asked about tools I might recommend during the question and answer period. I also sometimes get tools recommended to me by people in attendance at my training courses. After I had shared one fairly new tool with a group of HR professionals, someone suggested that since I also am a writer perhaps I should do written reviews on some of these internet tools. I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I started testing tools and asking for permission to write articles on my findings.

Below are the results of three tools I have found so far. If you would like to suggest other tools for me to review, please send me a comment with the tool name and the website address where it can be found.

Meeting Miser – Meeting Timer and Cost Estimator Tool
Following is the link to my full article explaining the purpose of this free tool from a U.S. company and some cautions you may need to be aware of when using it for your meetings.
· Purpose and Cautions: Measuring Meeting Costs with Meeting Miser

My personal test results of the Meeting Miser tool, which tracks meeting costs, include the following. It must be noted that this tool is not an exact cost of meetings because it uses a range of rates based on monthly salary or an hourly base rather than exact pay of the meeting attendees. The tool also lacks accuracy in time for all attendees. In the thirty-plus minutes of the meeting test for six attendees, the last attendee was marked out at the beginning and then added into the meeting after 15 minutes had passed. However, the tool appeared to count this attendee as attending the full meeting time. Therefore, this tool only gives the approximate cost and the actual time of a meeting based on timely clicking of the buttons. It should not be used as an accounting tool, instead consider it an indicator for estimated measurement only.

The website where you go to use the tool does not have a help feature for the tool, nor does it have a tour, slide show, or tutorial. Maybe it is because the tool is a free resource or because it is relatively easy to use after some trial and error. For those of you who like step-by-step instructions rather than just jumping in, I put together two guides on eHow.com for you to print and use. These guides have links near the bottom that go directly to the tool as well as to more tips.
· Required Steps: How to Use the Meeting Miser Tool to Track Meeting Costs
· Optional Steps: How to Use the Meeting Miser Tool to Report Meeting Costs

MeetingWizard – Meeting Planning and Invitation Tool
Below is the link to my full article explaining the purpose of the free tool from a Canadian company and the basic process to follow in using it for meetings.
· Planning Meetings with the Meeting Wizard On-line Tool

The website where you go to use the tool does have a help tour that explains how the product should work. However, since I have a history in instructional design and I thought you would most likely not refer back to the tour once you start a meeting - I also put together some easy-to-follow instructions for this tool. Those steps may also be found on eHow where you may print and use them if you are the meeting leader, facilitator, or coordinator.
· How to the MeetingWizard Tool to Plan a Meeting Date
· How to Use the MeetingWizard Tool to Cancel or Confirm a Meeting
· How to Create and Update Individuals in the Meeting Wizard Address Book
· How to Create and Update Groups in the Meeting Wizard Address Book

There are also instructions for the meeting invitees as well. You can send the hyperlink in your invite email so that attendees can go read the instructions, if they have problems understanding what they need to do.
· How to Use the MeetingWizard Tool to Respond to a Meeting Invitation
· How to Respond to a Meeting Wizard Address Book Update Request

I also tested the address book options in this tool but have not written a how to article on that yet. If you would like to see an article on these options, let me know. Just so you know, I only tested the importing option with “Microsoft Outlook (email addresses only)” and “Yahoo!” using the MeetingWizard on-line instructions. This step saves you time if in typing addresses if you plan to use the tool a lot. However, you don’t have to import addresses unless you really want to as I noticed that when addresses were used for meeting invitees; they were automatically added to my address book in the tool.

Meet-O-Matic – Meeting Scheduler Tool
This is a somewhat free tool that helps with meeting planning like the above using nice large clickable calendars with AM/PM feature. But it does not go to confirm or cancel meeting steps as above tool, nor do I remember seeing an address book feature in it but that may be a pay feature. This is from a UK company. I chose not to write a full review on it. It has a good Quick Start guide and Tour on the site. Their advanced version offers some well-designed narrated Quick Start videos for training users. If you want to check this version out, click on “New Meeting” at the top of their web page or search for tool name and “beta”.

Tune into this blog and use the “meetings” label to see if any new tool reviews are added. Remember, if you would like to suggest other tools for me to review, please add a comment with the tool name and the website address where it can be found. Thanks.