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Ways to Use a Calendar

In a prior post, I talked about how the most powerful time management system is one that a user designs for themselves. When users know the principles behind a good system they are much better equipped to design a unique approach that works for them.

One area that is often misunderstood is the use of a calendar in an overall time management system.

I have observed that people use calendars in ways that are unproductive, because they are stuck in an old paradigm of The Appointment Calendar.

The Appointment Calendar probably originated with the kind of calendar used in a Doctor’s office. It was a tool the receptionist used to ensure that different patients were not being scheduled at the same time. The doctor would glance at it from time to time, but he/she did not actually use it themselves. Instead, they would advise the receptionist when they would be in surgery, when they needed extra time with a patient and they were taking an afternoon off to play golf.

With the invention of different paper-based time management tools, and an increasing onslaught of time demands, professionals gradually began to use calendars themselves. First, there were filofaxes and DayRunners, then along came Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, followed by PDA’s and even phones that can carry schedules.

Many professionals, however, and most those here in the Caribbean still use their calendar as an appointment book — a tool to schedule meetings.

This is the most basic of uses, and the advent of electronic tools (and the best paper tools) means that their calendars are probably being under-utilized.

How so?

The technology of calendaring is changing — making it easier for us to imagine a time when the rule will be that most of the time in a day is scheduled, rather than than less.

Starting with the idea of a Paper Appointment-book this is rather hard to imagine. Many of them only allow weekday scheduling, with one line each from 9-5pm. Even a nice pencil with a good rubber (OK, eraser for Americans) would not do the job.

However, a good time management system takes advantage of the power that is resident in the new technologies, and even the paper-based professionals could learn a thing or two here.

If the calendar could feasibly hold other things, what could it include?

In a prior post that really should have come after this one (as it uses these ideas) I wrote about the power of using the calendar as a tool to schedule three different kinds of actions: recurring tasks, actions needed to move projects forward and also an adequate amount of “goof-off” time.

The underlying principle here is simple: the mind is a terrible thing to waste, and one way we waste it is to try to get it to remember too much. Over the past five years, courtesy of hard practice, I have tired to get to the point where my time management system does all the remembering for me.

Caveat — I am an extreme case — most designers of their own time management systems will not necessarily want to start at the place I have ended after years of refining.

They may, however, want to start by using an electronic time management system to schedule the following weekly, monthly and annual repetitive activities, for example:

  • exercise
  • pay bills
  • buying Christmas presents and cards
  • remembering birthdays a week ahead of time
  • starting to plan for vacations
  • paying taxes and completing returns

This is just a sample, and probably way more than someone who is just starting would schedule. I have discovered that an amazing amount of the actions I take are repetitive, and that I help myself if I use my calendar to remember them rather than my memory.

In this way, a calendar is much more than something used to plan appointments and meetings. Instead, it becomes a powerful memory assistant — a place where commitments are translated into actual, planned hours and minutes.

The logic here is obvious — by actually using real, planned time, the user is less likely to make unrealistic commitments, because each new activity that one says “Yes” to, must co-exist with every other commitment that is already in place.

This is a long, long way from just having a schedule of appointments.

However, today’s tools are simply imperfect “memory assistants,” given that they were designed to replace appointment-books. They are not easy to use, and many professionals in the region are just getting used to the idea of “doing email” themselves.

Given the tricky nature of the electronic tools, it is important that a user customize the way in which they use their calendars. There are several dimensions that they need to consider when deciding what combination of paper and electronic tools they include in the design of their time management system, and what kind of calendar choices they have.

  • what tools are available to them? Which ones are they comfortable using right now?
  • does their job involve travel? Being away from their desk?
  • are they knowledge workers?
  • do they need to be on call at all times (e.g. most receptionist positions)
  • does their daily schedule change a great deal from moment to moment?

With respect to how they actually use their calendar, there are different approaches that a user can elect to follow. Of course, they all follow the basic rule of not scheduling mutually-exclusive tasks at the same time.

  • an Activity-Based Calendar allows completely free movement of individual activities
  • a Responsibility-Based Calendar only allows activities to be scheduled that match with the hats that one wears e.g. 6-8am Father, 8-830am Individual, 830-11130am Project Leader, 113o-1230 Individual, 1230-430 Counselor to staff, 4:30-10pm Father. Each slot would be designed to accomplish only a limited range of activities.
  • a Location-Based Calendar would recognize that between different times, the physical location would determine what would, or would not, be scheduled e.g. for someone who drives an ambulance: 6-9am Home 9-12 In the Ambulance 12-1 At Lunch 1-4 At Office Desk 4-8 At Home
  • a Project-Based Calendar would split the work day into different projects, allowing the user to focus on a single project at any given time
  • an Energy-Based Calendar would guide a user in designing the day around something like a biorhythm, perhaps using research that shows that there are two spurts of energy the average person experiences — early morning and early evening. More routine time demands would be scheduled during the other available time
  • an Interruption-Based Calendar would scheduled the most important work at the times when interruptions are less likely. Many professionals get their best work done very early in the morning, late at night and on weekends, when most people are away from their work and unlikely to interrupt them
  • an Appointment-Only calendar limits the calendar to meetings that are scheduled with other people that are difficult to change once they are agreed upon.

There is no right or wrong way to use a calendar, but the user must be educated as to the rules they must follow to make the system work. There is a delicate balance that is being created that they must monitor over time as their habits change, their responsibilities expand, and the amount of time demands increase.

The general rule is that, over time, the user should be using less and less of their memory to manage their time demands. As far as I can see, that means using more technology, not less.

This may seem daunting to some.

However, it is a fact of life — professionals that can use more computer and internet based tools are more effective than those who are not willing or able to learn.

At the moment, my observation is that time management is so poorly taught, and so rarely formalized that few professionals stand out in terms of their productivity, and if they do stand out their success is not ascribed to a system they are using. More often than not, they and others, use life and daily circumstances to explain the difference.

I believe that this will change: much in the way that athletic success has changed. Today, professional athletes use the best tools, inputs and assists that are available and leave little to chance. Not too many years ago, athletes are whatever they wanted whenever they were hungry. Today, nutrition is seen as a critical factor in performance.

The rise of the Australian Test team and the demise of the West Indian cricket team is perhaps a good example of systematic success.

In the future , the most productive professionals will be the ones who learned very early on how to take their time management system seriously, with a commitment to continuously improving it. After all, it is one of the few tools that EVERY professional shares, bar none.

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Time Management and Using Lists

In a prior blog, I made the point that one of the inescapable elements of time management was a step that comes after Emptying, called Listing.

Listing: placing a time demand on a list for later use.

There are many ways in which lists can be used to temporarily store information related to time demands. All of the ones that I can think of are valid, yet all cannot be used by a user that wants to retain some semblance of sanity.

To quickly review, a time demand is born when it is “captured” in memory, on paper, in an inbox or some or other location. It is “emptied” at some moment in time when it is either stored, discarded, put into a calendar, acted on immediately or put into a list.

The purpose of Listing is to place the time demand in some location from which it can be reliably retrieved at a time that satisfies the user.

There are many ways to organize lists, and there are only a few that are required because they serve a particular and unique functions:

  • Next Activity List: a list of all items that are ready to be executed immediately, and are on the list waiting for an appropriate time-slot
  • Someday List: a list of all items for which there is an interest in executing someday, but not immediately
  • Waiting For List: a list of all items that are awaiting some critical input before being executed
  • Thinking About List: a list of all items that are being worked on in the background from time to time

The user must develop a strategy for reviewing these items — some more frequently than others. Each person’s approach to these lists will be different, but their importance lies in the fact that they each play a different but important role in managing time demands.

Other kinds of lists that are variations of the Next Activity List can also be arranged according to different criteria:

  • a Meeting List — items to be discussed in various meetings
  • a Conversation List — items to be brought up in the next conversation with an individual
  • a Location List — items to be looked at when in the Office, At Home, At Church etc.
  • a Daily List — items to be scheduled on particular dates in the future
  • a Browse List — items to be browsed on the internet
  • a Shopping List — items to be purchased
  • a Call List — people to call
  • a Vacation List — stuff to do on vacation
  • a Project List — a list of activities to be done on a project

The list of Lists is an endless one.

The danger of lists is that they can easily grow to be unmanageable, and when they get to that point, they are impossible to work with. At this point, the user can start feeling guilty, overwhelmed or tired from the contents on the list.

Each list is best managed with a limit — a number of items beyond which it should not grow. The only exception to this rule is the Someday List, which some users are comfortable growing as large as their imagination will permit.

These lists must be used on conjunction with the Calendar in a careful balance. When the lists get so large that they are not being used, there is a problem, and where they are not being used at all, that creates a different problem also.


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The Inescapable Elements of Time Management

In our development of a new, Caribbean-based approach to Time Management, I have stumbled across what I think is an irreducible framework lying behind all efforts to improve productivity. It may well provide the basis for a flexible kind of system that anyone can create for themselves.

In the same way that ALL bicycles are designed in a particular way in keeping with certain physical laws,
all time management systems must account for certain basic facts of how time is used and experienced by humans. For example, not being able to be in 2 different places at the same time is a simple law that many of us try to break, but are not able to, despite our crazy efforts. Also, it is impossible to leave Diego Martin to get to Arima, or from Barbican to get to Spanish Town for a 3:00pm appointment by leaving at 3:00pm.

While the system may be customized and enhanced and tailored and even automated, it still must make a certain kind of basic sense to each and every user, regardless of profession.

(For the purposes of this discussion, all the stuff that flies at us each day in the form of requests, appointments, email, voicemail, new ideas that pop into our heads, bills, etc. are called “time demands.”)

A functional Time Management system needs to be reliable in:

  1. Capturing: temporarily storing information related to new time demands in a reliable place or places. Possible candidates for “reliable” places include our memory, email inbox or Post-It notes. For example, our daughter tells us to call her cell at 890-6543 at 3pm on March 16 (2 weeks from today) to give her directions. We could use any of the three places listed above to temporarily store the critical information.

  2. Emptying: moving information on new time demands from the place of capture, to another place where it can more reliably help us to act at the right time. The act of emptying is a decision point — when do we empty the “reliable place of capture” and what do we do with the information?

    To continue the example above, do we trust ourselves to remember to call at the right time, and just memorize the information and create a mental reminder? Or do we sit down at our computers and convert the email into a reminder with an alarm on the morning of the call? Or do we take the Post-It Note with the information and stick in on the fridge or on the screen of our computer? These are just a few of the choices that we have.

    The following steps all come after the decisions based on Emptying.

    2a) Tossing: throwing away information we don’t need. In our example, it could mean taking the Post-It note off the fridge after the appointment, and tossing it in the garbage.

    2b) Storing: putting away useful data for later use, in a safe place that we can later find. Some bad examples include putting a Post-It note in a drawer with 100 other bits of random paper, leaving an email in an inbox of 4000 other un-read emails or just hoping that we can remember the numbers she told us. A much better example would be to place her cell number under her name in Outlook Contacts. A good storage place allows us to find the right information at the right time.

    2c) Scheduling: allotting time in our calendar to make the call. This is a way to help ourselves to plan our time properly. This personal appointment could help us to to plan the afternoon of that day. For example, our boss might come to us after lunch on the 14th to set up a 2:45pm meeting. To prevent a problem, we would check our calendar before committing to a meeting longer than 15 minutes. Having a calendar is one way to deal with it — another is to hope that we remember.

    2d) Acting Now: taking immediate action. We might decide to take an immediate action so that we can forget about the issue altogether. In the example above one option would be to spend 5 minutes sending her an email with the directions. Another option would be to call her brother and ask him to go with her instead. another would be to call her voicemail on her cell, and leave her detailed directions that she can use on the 16th. In any of these cases, we could forget about this particular time demand.

    2e) Listing: placing a time demand on a list for later use. We could add the information to a list of items. we might add it to a list of things to do that day, a list with her name on it or a list of phone calls to make that week. Of course, we could just try to remember it, and hope that our memory kicks in at the right moment in time, with the right information.

    Not only would a functional time Management System need to do all these things, it would also need to be able to monitor itself to ensure that it doesn’t break. The way to do that is ensure that it can do the following functions, and also be reliable in:

  3. Reviewing: setting up appointments to look over the system to make sure that it is working well. An example would be to look over the week’s appointments to ensure that there is sufficient time to travel from one to another.

  4. Switching: moving from one appointment to another, ensuring that the prior activity is complete, and wisely choosing the next activity subject to factors such as interest level, available energy, time of day, etc. One practice that some users have is to schedule meetings at least 15 minutes apart to allow themselves to mentally and physically regroup.

  5. Warning: sending a signal to the user that a piece of the system is near the breaking point. At any time, the system could break from a variety of causes — sometimes just due to user oversight. For example, the system could be set up to warn the user when the list of items to be done on a particular day exceeds 50. if the warning came early enough, the user could decide to re-schedule the items on the list for that day.

  6. Interrupting: creating an audible or physical interruption that cannot be ignored, advising the user that they must stop what they are doing or else they might create a problem with their appointments. The simplest alarm that many people use is one to interrupt their sleep in the morning. Other examples include alarms built into the Outlook Calendar, an egg-timer with a loud ring or even a scheduled cell-phone reminder.

These elements are the basic capabilities of any Time Management system. Any system that does not account for one or more of these distinct elements, fails to meet one of the requirements of the busy professional.

Most people’s systems (developed during their late teens and early twenties)are well beyond the breaking point, as the number of items that they need to capture and put into their system has overwhelmed their habits. To put it simply, their “systems” were not designed to deal with the level of complexity their lives have attained. The result is an increase in stress.

A good system must be flexible enough to deal with not only increases in volume, but also changes in technology. As new tools are created and introduced, they can help professionals to be more efficient if applied wisely. For many people, however, their email inboxes have just become another burden.

Once the basic requirements have been understood, a user can design a system using as much technology as they want to meet their needs.

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Riot on the Job

At the Spanish-owned Fiesta hotel construction site in Hanover yesterday, an employee was shot, the workers rioted and burned a building and several vehicles, and the management team had to be airlifted out by helicopter.

The reason?

The reports listed in the press gave conflicting causes: it was either workers arriving late and being locked out, or a lack of ID badges, depending on the newspaper one happened to read.

Needless to say, the company’s culture is probably in a mess and the managers are probably meeting somewhere right now trying to figure out what went wrong.

I imagine that the issues had been building for some time, and only came to a head yesterday morning, resulting in nothing short of a riot, and bloodshed.

Unfortunately, the outcome is not all that strange for our region — all it takes is a management team made up of foreigners that do not understand the environment in which they are operating.

Whereas in Barbados and Trinidad, the result might be a sudden loss of productivity, in Jamaica the result is often physical protest, to the surprise of managers who are not versed in Jamaican work culture, or ignorant of how volatile local workplaces can be.

Here in Jamaica, workers have something of an all or nothing approach to management — either overly revered and trusted at one extreme, or hated and reviled at the other.

Successful managers know the techniques for staying at the prefered end, and the very best managers know how to go beyond it — but the job is not an easy one.

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Taking Networking from Talk to Action

It is quite awkward when a fellow consultant tells me that I should be working with them, without really giving me a concrete reason why.

I find that it happens often here in the region with other consultants, who appear to think that the fact that I know their name is enough to be “networking.” This issue afflicts foreign and local consultants alike, but the impact on local professionals is higher because the business conditions are much more difficult.

Now and again I get the desperate call or email from someone asking me “if I know about any work or project opportunities.” I know them, and I might like them, but I actually don’t know them in a professional capacity — to their detriment. In other words, I cannot qualify them because they have done none of the legwork with me to give me a first hand experience of their thinking, their abilities, their skills or how well they can work together with me.

The problem is that they then drop off the radar altogether… never to re-appear until they need some more leads a few months later.

Recently, I put together a project that required 10 consultants to perform a specialized, public training. The stakes were rather high and it just could not fail.

I found myself reaching back to professionals in the U.S., partly due to the fact that my network of consultants in the U.S. is a rich one, and the fact that I could qualify their abilities to execute to some degree. They were used to delivering at a high standard, and this was a program that required nothing short of flawless execution.

There was no-one I could think of who was based in the region who I trusted to have the skills to deliver the project.

Part of the problem is that while I know people here, I don’t know their skills — so that disqualified many. But as I thought about it some more, I realized that none of them were taking the steps to build the kind of bridges of trust that are needed to be staffed on larger, more difficult projects.

I think that the primary obstacle is the kind of peculiar “professional fear” that our region’s professionals have of being “taken” — that someone will steal their ideas, their relationships, their projects, their livelihood, etc. In a prior blog, I spoke about the willingness to have the ideas in this blog stolen and used wherever possible.

I think there are some simple ways in which other consultants in the region could network more effectively with me, a fellow consultant. I would advise another consultant in the HR field to:

  1. Participate
    I write 2 blogs, my firm sponsors CaribHRForum, and I regularly ask for sources of new ideas. A fellow consultant could easily join in online discussions, ask questions, give ideas for future content and make public comments, just using the channels I have set up for myself. I other words, they should become a pest to me and others who are either delivering or paying for consulting engagements in the different fora that already exist.

  2. Volunteer
    Very few people ask: “How can I help?” If asked, they infrequently respond affirmatively to opportunities to work with me in a volunteer capacity. The truth is, that I work with people I trust, and that trust can be developed easily by stepping up to help when our livelihoods are not at stake.

  3. Ask for Project Advice
    I think that reaching out for help when projects get difficult is a great way to build bridges. I spent an hour with a consultant doing just that a few months ago, and even if he didn’t use any of what I suggested, I thought that it showed a willingness on his part to learn and to think out of the box. (N.B. Just remember to close the loop after the project is over.)

  4. Request Project Collaboration
    Sometimes it is useful to bring other people in on projects just because the alliance would make you both stronger, and possibly lead to further opportunities. It costs real dollars to do so, and it takes some risks, but the value created from sharing the work can surpass the short term cost.

  5. Say Yes!, Even When You Must Say No
    Another recommendation would be to demonstrate enthusiasm to the idea of being asked to work on projects when I happen to call. It may be that the project is not a good fit, and may not work, but the enthusiasm goes a long way.

  6. Don’t Drop Off the Face of the Earth
    I recently staffed a project with a consultant that I had completely forgotten about. He only came to mind when the client mentioned him as a possible candidate. What they could have done to stay in my awareness was to find some way to stay in touch. I had to hunt them down through other people, because the contact information I used was already old. Plaxo.com, a contact updating system, is a powerful and free tool for getting this done.

In addition, I send out some 500 Christmas cards each year — at great expense and effort — to contacts from all over, in an ongoing attempt to remain “top of mind.”

Unfortunately, a consultant who is not prepared to do the activities I have listed above is only making it harder on themselves.

P.S.
One of the activities I am undertaking this year is to deliberately deepen my own network of HR consultants. We plan to offer a training in the Lights!Camera!Action! techniques later this year — probably free of cost — in a hope to do just that. More information on these techniques is available as a free download by sending email to fwc-lcaintro@aweber.com

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FirstCuts ezine 8.0

FirstCuts Framework Consulting logo

A Framework Consulting Online eZine

High-Stake Interventions — New Ideas Issue 8 February 15, 2007

Delegating in Caribbean Companies
by Francis Wade

Editorial

This week’s issue is one that I had to break up into at least two parts, due to its length. This is the first time that I have had to do this, and I think that wherever it makes sense I will try to break up lengthy issues.

I am aware of the studies that show that it is easier to read from paper than it is onscreen, and that the writing and spacing needs to be quite different. At the same time, I have a hunch that my average reader is more used to the British than American style of
writing — more heft and pomp, but also less of a quick read over breakfast at your desk.

Next month at this time the Cricket World Cup will be underway across the region. It will be the single largest undertaking for our region, and the most important collaborative effort by our relatively small countries. I am hoping that it benefits all our people, as intended.

Time to start to Rally Roun’ the West Indies… now and forever!

Until next month,

Francis

Delegating in Caribbean Companies

In Caribbean companies, and especially in growing start-ups, executives often complain that they cannot find good people to work for them. In our work at Framework, we have found that executives, in particular, have an acutely difficult time filling positions that they themselves once held.

They look for professionals with the best credentials, thinking that the new hire’s education should help them to do a job that others before them had to learn on their own. They bring them on board, give them all that they need, including a substantial salary. Success seems to be a “sure thing.”

That is, until the new hire shows a lack of “basic common sense.”

That is exactly how executives put it to me when they complain that they cannot fill key positions reporting to them in the corporate hierarchy.

The star they hired appears not to be a star at all.

According to the executive, in a series of critical moments, the new appointee demonstrates an appalling lack of judgement that leaves the executive distressed, and forces them to swoop in to
save the day. When it occurs it is stressful, tiring and disheartening.

It leaves them wondering why exactly they are paying such a tremendous salary, and how it is that they, themselves, could have learned the job armed with less training, help and pay.

Unfortunately, the end-result is often disastrous. The new hire fails, and fails again, until they are fired. In some companies, the cycle continues, as a number of people are hired into the same position, only to fail within a matter of months. No-one seems able to succeed.

At one Caribbean company, the key position of VP-HR remains unfilled for over ten years. The company has been through a series of incumbents, none of whom stayed for more than a few months. Interestingly, the President actually performed the job capably at one time, and continues to hold the position in his portfolio while the search for a new executive continues.

What exactly is lacking? Is the educational background of the new hires inadequate? Or are the expectations too high? Are executives somehow being unfair when they hire replacements in our
region’s companies?

Our work in the Caribbean has taught us a few lessons in this area: executives do not properly “systematize” their work, they don’t delegate it systematically and they do not establish
appropriate feedback loops to be successful.

“Systematizing” Work

The chaos of day-to-day Caribbean business life often seems to be enough to force a manager to operate in perpetual crisis mode. While moving from one problem to another, each and every day brings with it unique challenges that require significant energy and ingenuity just to stay above water.

In one company we worked with, there is a policy that managers must answer the phone when it rings, and to reinforce the policy there is no provision for voicemail. The result? Highly trained managers with no control over their personal schedule, as the culture of the company is one in which everything stops when the phone rings.

In another company that prided itself on being customer-centric, even the CEO would drop everything when a customer had a problem. It had to be solved immediately at all costs, disrupting meetings and any other activity that happened to be underway.

Unfortunately, managers who work in these environments learn not to make plans, and instead surrender themselves to whatever might be happening in the moment. Many compensate by coming to work early, leaving late or working on weekends and holidays — when everyone else in the office is hopefully away.

Michael Gerber’s book, The eMyth Revisited, offers a brilliant prescription in the form of an insight: the very best managers not only work IN their jobs, they work ON them. In other words, they
set time aside to examine the way in which they do their work. They purposefully spend time thinking about their job, how they are executing it, how they are measuring their own success, and what techniques they should use to take it to another level.

Better managers take the next step and “systematize” their job function. They have determined that it is not enough for them to be effective, but they also have decided to assure the success of
their successor by documenting HOW the job is done when it is being done well. They look deeply into the heart of what they are doing, in an effort to develop processes that help them to automate key aspects of the job using the best methods possible. For example, when they find a piece of software that makes their job easier, they document it for future use.

For example, before my first visit to DisneyWorld as an adult several years ago, I happened to buy a book with the title: “How to Enjoy DisneyWorld without Kids.” The book gave a unique
perspective on how to enjoy the different theme parks while avoiding lines, escaping the heat and skipping attractions that would have no interest for adults. I had a wonderful time, thanks
to the work that someone else had done to document insider tips, practices and information that
were unique to my needs.

Gerber advocates writing a very similar document for each job, and argues that this is exactly what the very best managers do. They document their short-cuts, process descriptions and tips in a way
that allows almost anyone with common-sense to do the job effectively.

According to him, it is the single most powerful technique that Ray Kroc, the founder of the McDonald’s chain, used to create the world’s first mega-franchise. After buying a single hamburger
restaurant from the McDonald brothers in California, he discovered and documented what made it successful, and built a chain on the contents of the unique manuals he was able to assemble.

The result? Today, identical-tasting hamburger and fries are sold from thousands of restaurants worldwide to 54 million people daily.

Systematization is a powerful method that is very rarely used in our region’s companies.

When it is not done, incoming managers are forced to learn job from scratch, based on little or no basic information, let alone the kind of detailed and nuanced insights that the executive needs to
pass on to a new hire. It may seem that the new hire is failing to demonstrate common sense, but the real failure occurs when managers are not trained to systematize their work and to produce the
turnover documents the new hire needs.

Turnover Documents

Turnover documents include all the information that new hires need to be successful. At the very least, they start with a generic kind of job description. At the very best, they are the end-result of a
long, hard process that a manager has undertaken to work ON their job. They describe the innovations and improvements that a manager has implemented, and if a new hire is lucky it can span several years and managers.

There is no set format to the documents that I have seen and written. They are informal, and meant for immediate application. They are filled with inside knowledge of how things _really_ work — as opposed to how they are supposed to work.

In Jamaica this informal knowledge that is critical to success is known as “the runnings”. Here in the Caribbean, it often means the difference between profit and loss.

For example, the turnover document written for a VP-HR position could describe how to obtain a work permit for an expatriate professional. It would detail who to contact within the Ministry
of Justice and Immigration and who to avoid, which forms are really needed, what the true cost is and how the number of trips to various government offices could be reduced.

A well-written document would save the new VP-HR many hours of time and effort. Yet, in the example cited above, it could only be written by the President of the company — the last person to
successfully perform the job.

However, when the turnover document is missing a new hire could flounder, and make the kind of mistakes that the President might call “a lack of common-sense.”

Make no bones about it — developing a turnover document takes tedious, quiet work with no immediate payoff. Most managers prefer to focus on the job at hand, and the results they have to produce in the next few days. Any improvements are incorporated into new practices on the fly, as the learning shifts to other competencies.

As new competencies are mastered, over time the original, primary learning recedes into the subconscious.

In most Caribbean companies that we have worked with, the idea of turnover documents is quite foreign. While it is possible to reverse-engineer them from a manager’s experience and memory, the
process is a difficult one.

The best method we have used with our clients involves intense interviews that are essential for getting at the aspects of the job that are done without conscious effort. Sometimes, using this
approach is the only alternative a company has, but the very best approach is to develop a culture in which turnover documents are the norm, rather than the exception.

In the cases in which a manager leaves the company altogether, turnover documents are impossible to create, requiring an injection of new costs and time in order to bring a new manager up to speed.

A Turnover Culture

There is no single approach to developing a culture in which systematization is the norm, but the best companies start by engaging their managers in building a long-term future for the
firm.

These companies clearly describe the rationale behind systematization, and the need for turnover documents. They ask managers to start writing them once they change jobs, and create
the expectation that their ability to turn the function over to another person is a requirement of the job.

Managers also learn that they will not be deemed ready for promotion until their turnover documents are in order, and fully updated.

There is a natural resistance to writing these documents that we have found in Caribbean companies, however, and it must be dealt with it at some point.

The first source of resistance comes from a bureaucratic unwillingness to make self-replacement easy. Managers often try to protect their positions by keeping key information close to their
chests, and thereby ensure some job security. Developing a turnover document can look to them like career suicide.

The second source of resistance comes from the fact that the time spent to develop a turnover document has little immediate and practical benefit to the incumbent. The benefit to having them
comes in the long term in most companies, in the form of the firm’s success. Many managers are just unwilling to wait that long.

Companies that are able to create cultures whose values surpass this resistance are able to tap into something very powerful: a technique that builds the company from the inside, with all the
employees working ON their jobs as well as IN them.

Summary

Presidents and CEO’s, systematization assures the success of the company in the future, and helps to build a true Learning Organization along the way.

Gone is the expectation of instant success, as it becomes apparent to the executive that mastering the job is largely a function of how well it was systematized when it was the incumbent’s
responsibility. When the executive turns over a position they once held to a new hire, they have a much better appreciation for what the job entails.

From the turnover documents, common sense appears to be not so common after all, and executives can clearly see how their subordinate’s success is up to them, and their ability to systematize their jobs.

In next month’s Issue: Learn why accountabilities in turnover documents must be gradually delegated to prevent failure, and also why solo entrepreneurs also need to systematize their work.

The FirstCuts Bottom Line: Begin to systematize your work now.

*

What are some of the things you are doing to systematize your work? Let us know at the Framework blog by following this link and leaving us a comment: http://tinyurl.com/26m3u9

Useful Stuff

Tips, Ads and Links
I referred to Michael Gerber’s book in this Issue. His website is also filled with information: http://www.e-myth.com, most of it geared towards entrepreneurs. The ideas that I have extracted for this issue are at the heart of his approach.

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Nigger-itis

In Jamaica, we have a name for the post-meal laziness that supposedly afflicts Black people: “niggeritis.” The truth is, it has nothing to do with race because as far as I can tell, it afflicts everyone.

It looks like researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health agree, and they think that we should pay attention to it because we ignore the mid-day urge to take a nap at our own peril.

The report starts with the following:

Like to kick back for an afternoon siesta? Good news: a new study shows that regular napping may cut your risk of dying from a heart attack or other heart problems.

In the largest study to date on the effects of midday snoozing, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Athens Medical School in Greece, tracked 23,681 apparently healthy men and women, ages 20 to 86, for more than six years.

I like the part that says Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially in the United States, where employers are not exactly known to encourage workers to nap.

Now that’s what I call a good reason to move back to work in the Caribbean.

If I ever work for someone else again, I plan to tell them right up front that I have a congenital heart condition that requires occasional naps to prevent it from one day killing me.

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Improvements in Presentations

Awhile ago I gave a presentation that seemed to be a good one. The crowd’s reaction was strong to the half-hour presentation, and a few people came up to find out more about our company and what it was doing in the region.

However, one woman went a bit further, and made a complaint. She said that the slides could be improved, and offered her help to make them better.

I was a bit taken aback. Although my PowerPoint presentation had been put together on the plane on the morning of the presentation, I thought that I had done a creditable job in putting some words together that would help people see what I was saying more clearly.

After all, most of the other people who spoke did not even have slides that were tailored to the conference material, so I considered myself a step above.

A year later, the presentation I gave is almost embarrassing to me, and I can never do such a presentation again.

Her comment moved me to be open to some new approaches, and when I can across a book by Jerry Weisman called ______________ and a blog called PresentationZen, I knew that it was time for a radical upgrade in the way I presented my materials.

Here is one of the slides from the presentation entitled “Using the Service Inventory to Create the Customer Experience” delivered in October of 2005.

Contrast that with a slide I presented at a recent speech I gave at a client’s internal meeting in November of 2006:



While I don’t intend to go into the different reasons for using a slide like this one in this blog entry, I can say that I have found that a slide like the one above touches an audience in very different ways, and at many levels.

The tendency of most speakers is to read from slides that are dense with information, and the content acts as a crutch for those who are insecure about getting lost in the presentation.

When the slide is used to make both an emotional point and a logical point, the impact is quite different, and the speaker interacts with the slide as an aide to the larger point that he/she is attempting to make, and to the intended result of the presentation.

Here is another example:



The point here is that slides are playing a different role in my presentations, and one that I think would be more interesting and emotionally compelling to the audience.

What a distance to come.

One caveat is that it no takes several hours of preparation to get the right combination of images and words to produce the intended result of the presentation. Finding the right image is no easy task, and it takes hours of looking at hundreds of pictures that do not fit the bill to find a handful that do. Sometimes, the search is fruitless and I have to resort to words. Often, the images are not Caribbean enough, as there are very few pictures reflecting the primarily African-Indo blend that we have in the English-speaking region.

Given that presentations are an important tool in the work I perform, making this shift has been gratifying, and hopefully my audiences have benefited from the change. Kudos to the unnamed and unknown woman who gave me a wake-up call a year ago.

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DB&G — not becoming db&g

I have been watching the takeover of DB&G by ScotiaBank and wondering what I would do if I were involved at any level.

If I were an employee, I would be concerned.

Although the previous and new owners have promised that there would be only a few changes, human behaviour would predict otherwise. The truth is that in acquisitions, everything changes, and very few things remain the same.

In fact, they MUST change, because that is the very purpose of the activity.

Scotiabank is not taking over DB&G for the fun of owning another institution. Instead, it wants to achieve particular business objectives and sees DB&G as the vehicle to accomplish them.

This is just about THE most fundamental change that can happen in business, as it is only a matter of time before Scotia’s business goals percolate down, affecting every single employee and every single customer. In the case of ScotiaBank and DB&G, Scotia cannot help but affect DB&G’s culture, morale and values. Their relative sizes guarantee an inordinate impact.

I imagine that the employees of DB&G have probably already developed the us vs. them language that I have seen in every M&A I have studied or witnessed.

Experience tells me that the best way to reduce DB&G, the brand to just “db&g,” a small part of a much larger bank, is to deny the reality that massive changes are coming, and to insist that everything is going to be the same. Unfortunately, the message that “things are going to be the same” is quickly followed by its evil twin: “things are fine.”

Most managers of M&A’s stick to these two scripts, even when their employees are telling them over and over again that they are wrong.

The effect of this inauthenticity is a separation between management and employees, and a loss of trust. Managers either lose touch with reality, or their people, and the predictable result is a drop in morale. Like George Bush and Dick Cheney on the Iraq War, they continue to assert that “there have been tremendous successes” and “failure is not an option” in the face of mountains of contrary, public evidence.

Managers find themselves in what they think is a catch-22: they try to “stay focused on the positive,” thinking that they cannot tell themselves and others the truth of what they think and feel, because it would destroy what little morale and trust they have left.

What they don’t appreciate is that employees want the very opposite. If the situation is dire, and bad things are likely to happen, then it is much better for everyone to acknowledge them together, rather than try to deny that they will ever happen. While some sad, fearful and even angry feelings may come out at first, it is more likely to help morale, productivity and the long-term future of the company if the truth were openly acknowledged at each step of the way.

The old DB&G has passed away. To prevent a broken, busted “db&g” from crawling out from the remains, the management of the new entity will need courage to talk about the changes that are likely, and predictable, and even those that are unwanted, and unpredictable.

This kind of courage actually gives employees faith that the leadership is fully in touch with reality.

What becomes possible is that an entirely new company could be created from the old. By freely allowing the old company to pass away (while mourning its death) the space might open up for a new DB&G — Subsidiary of ScotiaBank — to be created.

It is a natural progression of events that only managers can thwart by continuing to insist that what is dead is still, somehow, alive.

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More on the Skills Certificate and Trinidad

The following excerpt appeared in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner:

But there are still some wrinkles to seamless movement, for example, Barbados must still set up a free movement committee, said Steven MacAndrew, regional specialist for the free movement of skills and labour.

Other member states were also lagging but, like Barbados, he added, free movement is still being facilitated, even though from time some problems arise.

The main hiccup, appears to be in Port of Spain.

“The main issue with free movement at this point in time is that Trinidad and Tobago must still implement the decision of the Conference of Governments taken in July 2005 in St. Lucia that Caricom nationals who are entering with skills certificate can work immediately,” said MacAndrew.

The full article can be accessed by clicking here.