Staff Meetings that Inspire

Staff Meetings that Inspire

Is your staff dreading the weekly staff meeting?  Perhaps the meetings have become predictable and non-motivating. Unless you have a “no phone” rule, the point at which the meeting has lost its audience is signified by an overwhelming amount of email checking and website surfing that happens just below the level of the conference tabletop.   Having experienced both roles as meeting leader and attendee, I have been guilty on both fronts [although I do believe that when the meeting leader checks his phone that everything is out the window].  Seems like there would be a learning moment to fix this situation then, wouldn’t there?   Enter Steward Sandstrom, current CEO of Springfield, IL Chamber of Commerce.  Having presented and endured my share of Youtube videos as part of meetings I have found them to be a mixed bag in quality and content.  Steward refreshingly makes a point of using TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Talks videos during his meetings.  [This is not intended to be a commercial for TED.com].   TED videos are consistently produced and edited in a high quality manner.  Further the index of “talks” is sortable not only by content, but also by level of seriousness, awesomeness and “inspirability”.  Steward mixes those up and is able to challenge the staff to view situations from different perspectives and motivates to think “how would our clients respond if…”.  Sometimes 3 minutes and sometimes 18 minutes, whatever attention was lost is quickly recovered when the TED video plays.  For the uninitiated, TED talk videos are frequently: “look at this magical technology we developed” , “look at this common situation in a new perspective” or “Oh the humanity! We need to address this situation now”.

While a meeting can be re-focused around a TED video, the magic actually happens after the meeting has concluded.  Outside of the meeting space comments, discussions and debates are triggered amongst office mates and in my case at the dinner table.  While meetings are held to achieve end results to inform and to decide, there is no reason that a few minutes cannot be invested to also inspire.  I recommend that you give this a try and see how your staff responds to the change in the agenda.

How to Start a Movement video from TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

Will the New Sales Tax on Medical Devices Negatively Effect Innovation?

Will Sales Tax on Medical Devices Negatively Effect Innovation?

Pharma wins big with upholding of Obamacare

Pharma wins big with Obamacare approval

Sink or Swim? Your Company’s Titanic Opportunity

Sink or Swim? Your Company’s Titanic Opportunity

Recently, a medium-sized company hit the proverbial ice berg. The chief executive abruptly announced that he was taking a position with another company. At his staff meeting he outlined what the processes should be for finding his replacement. He outlined that the Board of Directors should appoint an interim CEO, and they should form a search committee, it should take a few months to identify suitable candidates and a new CEO should be in place in about 5 months. He assured the staff that their positions should be safe and they probably have nothing to worry about. The only definite was that the incumbent would be leaving the scene in a couple of weeks. At the very next staff meeting while the incumbent was house-hunting, the staff openly discussed who could be a potential replacement. What’s wrong with this picture? Answer 1: Most everything . Answer 2: No succession planning.

Succession plans are essential for an organization to thrive in BOTH times of success and times of turmoil. Succession plans are often viewed with a jaundiced eye by some who regard them as threats to their jobs. That could indeed be true. If someone has been in training to fill in for you, then indeed you are no longer irreplaceable. Conversely (and far more likely), having a back-up person can free you up to take a more senior position, added responsibilities, and handle more projects. It simply works both ways.

In situations where the soon- to-be-empty position is not straightforward, having a procedure in place will do a great deal for having all stakeholders informed of the navigational route.

It only takes one iceberg to sink a potential business organization. In the instance above, the continued smooth operation of the organization relies upon stable leadership. They are not going to sink, but the crew is going to flounder around for a bit and climb into their life boats until a new captain is at the helm.

Is your training program keeping up with organizational growth?

My recent article on evolving training programs in Lab Manager Magazine:  http://www.labmanager.com/?articles.view/articleNo/7769/article/Evolving%20Training%20Programs

Darth Vader: Micromanager

Having a bold personality does not guarantee management success.  History is littered with examples of great leaders who possessed a Type A personality:  Napoleon, Churchill, and Qin Shi Huang [first emperor of China] to name just a few.  Forceful, direct and unswerving in the drive to achieve their goals, even through adversity.  But those are leaders from the past.  What about the leaders of the future? How will their management styles stack up? Example: Darth Vader. [Spoiler Alert: do not read further if you have not seen Star Wars.]

Few would deny that Darth Vader is a goal-oriented, driven individual.  He sits atop a vast organization [aka Galactic Empire] and answers only to the CEO [Emperor Palpatine].  Clearly Vader is in a very envious position.  Capital improvement projects (Death Star) are underway, his organization is outfitted with the latest technology upgrades, and last but not least, he is surrounded by a highly trained team of commanders and lieutenants monitoring the progress of the entire organization [empire].  Seemingly Vader has it all under control. Not so fast. The first evidence of his failed management skills appears when he must travel across the Galactic Empire to check on the progress of the Death Star.  Curiously, he could have handled this in a Go To Meeting®.  Displeased with the actions of his subordinates he immediately terminates their employment.  Vader has developed a pattern of knee jerk reactions.  Never does he provide a PIP to the errant staff and thus they are not given the chance to correct their behavior.  Eventually it is evident that if Darth Vader wants something done right, he must do it himself.  eg. torture Princess Leia.  Impatient and with an inability to delegate even the simplest of tasks, Darth Vader would not be a suitable leader in most successful organizations.

Despite my son having warned me not to mix franchises: Vader is a management failure compared to Star Trek’s Captain Picard [also a Type A personality]. Picard empowers his staff to make the decisions in their respective departments. Picard has clearly outlined his expectations to his management team of Riker, Data, Worf, LaForge, and Crusher.  These staff are clearly aligned with the corporate mission statement: “Go boldly”, and they manage their individual staffs to those ends, fully understanding the extent of their decision boundaries and thus not burdening Picard to make trivial decisions.  Further, Picard understands that familiarity breeds contempt and thus does not mix with his direct reports by not inviting himself to their poker games.   

Management success by Type A personalities depends on their ability to listen, empower¸ and teach. Proof: Trek franchise= 12 movies; Star Wars franchise = 6 movies.

Comfort Zone or Rut?

The employee who does not try to reach outside of their comfort zone, endangers the success of the organization and stifles their career development.  Recognizing this form of complacency is step one.  Taking action on it is step two.  Getting buy-in is step three.  

Science-nerd TV show, The Big Bang Theory has a great snippet of dialog when Penny says”: … let’s try and get you out of your comfort zone.” Sheldon answers, ”Why would we want to do that? It’s called the comfort zone for a reason.”  In fact, why would we want our employees to operate outside of their comfort zone?  We spend lots of time training them to learn new things which are built upon the foundations that they have built over the years.  But I’ve seen your lab, and you have that one indispensable employee.  You know who I am talking about. When they are absent for vacation it is difficult for the lab to run smoothly, not Earth-shattering stuff, but none-the-less work does not flow right and sometimes it takes their back-up a little longer to find the file, run the blood processor,  or sometimes to even make the coffee turn out right.  I used to be in that situation too.  Then I changed it.

In my large operations services group, I had two directors, Albert and Forest.  Each was responsible for approximately half of the organization with over two dozen supervisors and a few hundred technical staff each.  When one was off fishing, their competent direct-reports knew which decisions to make and which to kick up the ladder.  They infrequently “cross-pollinated” with the other group.  These were not silos, but had divergent job functions.  I had an epiphany on my way to work one day when I was considering their value to the organization.  The company would be really screwed if one of these two got an offer they couldn’t refuse from some outside company.  I devised my plan and called a meeting when I arrived at work:

It went something like this: “Forest, It’s July 1 and on January 1 you are going to take over Albert’s job.  Albert, In 6 months you are going to take over Forest’s job.”  They replied: “But, but, but…” and offered a number of concerns about this out-of-the-blue idea and how they liked the staff that they had reporting to them now and did not want to give their right hand people up to the other person and so on.  My reasoning was that while they were experts in their areas right now, they would be more valuable to the organization if they were skilled in the other one’s job.  The company would end up with not an expert over each area, but rather have two experts for each area. Not only would they add value to the organization, but they also would vastly increase their own value.  I offered that they could return to their former positions in a year.

The instructions given had significant implications:  The move on January 1 had to occur without incident and be transparent to both the external clients and the internal study directors (P.I.’s) .  They had 6 months to prepare for the exchange and were challenged to not drop the baton.  While Albert and Forest were in reluctant agreement to go along, their soon-to-be- former right-handers were not happy about this.  The study directors were also concerned.  They too were in a comfort zone.  I was surely nuts to do this.

January 1 came around and Albert and Forest had spent the last 6 months getting familiar with the staff, the processes, the clients and the new subset of study directors.  As the deadline got closer the decisions made within their groups were done in consultation with each other.   While the event of the job exchange occurred without a hiccup or stumble, there was a more profound change that was brought to light:  Because Albert and Forest were operating in new territory, there were no assumptions made on the skills of their newly inherited staffers.  Some of the skills were observed with a new set of eyes and employees who might have been marginalized or not taken seriously were listened to with a new set of ears. 

I was only looking at the top level to have the greatest impact, but indeed this change positively affected the organization to a far deeper degree.  Even before a year had elapsed, neither party was interested in taking their former position back.  Everyone had been pushed out of their rut and were hitting top speed.