“Bird’s Eye” vs “Boots on Ground”
As leaders, we’re told that we need to keep a “bird’s eye” view of what’s going on in our business so that we can make changes in direction or strategy as we need to. I’ve seen a number of leaders who do this very well, but sometimes fail to understand that from time to time, a “boots on the ground” view may be needed to really understand a situation to decide on the right course of action.
In the military and political sphere, a great deal of emphasis is placed on gathering “Elint” (Electronic Intelligence) by satellite reconnaissance or through picking up voice calls or emails. As many infantry may often tell you, “eyes in the sky” still can’t replace the trusty “Mk I eyeball” when it comes to understanding what’s really happening in terms of what’s there, how people are feeling or when something may happen. A high-level satellite picture may show tanks massed in a particular area, prompting a pre-emptive strike, but an operative on the ground may be able to tell that they are only wooden mock-ups (these were used with great success during WWII).
As leaders, spending too much time on an “eye in the sky” will reap rewards but, at times, the need to go into detail is paramount to really understand a situation. How many times have we heard complaints about “remote Head Office” attitudes because of this?
Depending on the time available, the only way we may be able to get the detail we need is to trust those who work for us and with us. Adding their “intel” to the “bird’s eye” view that we have may result in some surprising revelations.
The best way to get the details? Talk to staff, customers, anyone on the “front line”. They’re the ones with intimate knowledge of the processes, whether they work, how they could be improved.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
Depending on Data
The power of the computer now means that we have literally limitless data and information at our fingertips. Most of us nowadays are used to “googling” something on our smartphones (forget desktops) to find out about it. Our business servers can store huge amounts of information to be accessed whenever (and wherever) we want. There are companies whose reason for existing is to support others in their acquisition, manipulation and presentation of information.
I recently saw an interesting question: what happens when we can’t access our data?
So much is “online” these days, or on company servers, but things can (and do) happen that may prevent access. I remember one experience as I started my career in banking in the mid-80s where our mainframe was so overloaded that we couldn’t access customer balances due to the fact that the “offline run” was taking place during the working day. We literally had to work with printouts of closing balances as at the end of the previous day and manually update them.
Some of us will have been caught at airport check-in counters when the systems were “down”.
The end of the old millennium and the start of the new one saw a huge rise in the number of specialists offering services to ensure that businesses were “Y2K-compliant”. At the time, I was based in Moscow and, when I asked my banking colleagues in other banks if they had any concerns, their reply was that they were probably compliant as they had computerised relatively late compared to western banks, and that anyway, there were enough staff who remembered the manual procedures!
At a basic level, our office premises may not be accessible for some reason or (as in the case above) the computers may not be working. When we lose our access to our data, we need to answer a number of questions:
- How long can we afford to have systems “down” before things start to escalate?
- Does business have to stop (with the attendant inconvenience to customers and potential loss of business)?
- Or can we carry on, somehow (albeit, with a higher risk that something may not be recorded properly)?
- Can our business accept a degree of loss through “manual errors” in order to keep things going and customers happy?
- Which systems (if any) are more “important” to get up and running first?
- Can we duplicate systems so that we can cut over to another if things go wrong?
- Is any confidential information likely to be compromised?
We all need to ask how dependent our business (and people) really are on data and, having identified this, decide what we can do to mitigate any “access issues”.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Risk, Strategy
"Pre-crastination"
One of the sessions I run during my Time Management workshops is on “How to Become a Time Lord”. Readers familiar with this long-running British Sci-Fi adventure will know that a Time Lord has the ability to travel through time and space to right wrongs and prevent catastrophes happening.
Being a real-life Time Lord is easier and involves doing the opposite of procrastinating (“pre-crastinating”) …
Procrastination is putting off to tomorrow (or later) what you can or should do today. It usually involves tasks that we consider difficult or unpleasant. Some “experts” say that procrastination is merely a way of putting something off until it becomes so urgent that you have to do it (and risk doing it badly through having less time). Others say that procrastination can be good because putting off a decision may, for example, allow for more information to come to light to support better decision-making.
My suggestion for “pre-crastinating” goes like this. Assuming that many of us have a “ToDo” list (and, for some, it may even be “prioritised”), we may often come to a point during the day when we can’t progress any of today’s tasks because we’re waiting for a final piece of information, equipment or delivery to come through. At this point, I look ahead to the next day (or days) to see what needs doing and whether there’s anything that I could do relatively quickly whilst I wait for people to come back to me on today’s items.
Ideally, this item shouldn’t be something that demands prolonged and concentrated thought, because there’s always a risk that we’ll be interrupted by that vital “last something” for the task that’s underway finally coming through. Anything like an email, phone call, that can be done within minutes generally falls into the “can-do” category. Writing up that sales report may not.
The effect of this is to free up time in the future time for other important (or sudden “urgent”) tasks which may need more effort. Ultimately, it reduces potential stress, plus it makes us look like we’re in complete control.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Productivity, Strategy
When Did You Last Check Safety?
Most (if not all) businesses are required to have insurance to cover costs if any employee is injured on the premises. Depending on the type of business, number of employees and other factors, this can end up being a substantial cost.
The aviation industry eats, sleeps and breathes safety, so one would imagine that airline offices on the ground should also be safe. I know of at least one oil major which is rigorous on safety, to the extent of requiring that its contractors maintain its standards at their own cost (usually factored back into what they charge said major) or lose the business.
Part of the issue, though, is whether employers actually make an effort to make sure premises are safe. We’re often guilty of viewing our place of business as “somewhere else” as it’s not our home. How often have we walked around our desk/office, department or building (let alone its surrounds) to see “what’s out there that could go wrong”?
Recently, I looked outside the back entrance of one of my clients’ second-floor offices. These are located in a block shared by other businesses, so there’s one adjoining my client. On the small landing and stairway (which might have to act as a fire escape) was a washing machine complete with trailing cord to a wall socket along with what looked like a discarded fish tank.
Suffice it to say, if people had needed to evacuate in poor visibility, there could have been some nasty accidents and (worse) even fatalities.
Some countries have very high standards, others not so. The question is, what are we prepared to tolerate where human lives are at stake? Using “Oh, well it’s not compulsory by law” as an argument in the event of a major calamity at a place of work. Equally, we may find that insurers won’t pay out because we lacked, say, smoke detectors.
All this could not only stop our business, but even cause it to go under because of the loss of reputation incurred or the financial burden of defending ourselves against legal action.
A look at our premises as though they were our own home could save more in legal or regulatory penalties than it incurs in insurance and training costs.
Often, we need occupancy permits for business premises which will include fire and health inspections. However, these will often only look at the “bare minimum” required. We can make it better and reassure our people that we’re looking out for them.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Regulation, Risk, Strategy
