Warning sign

Don't take the stairs - I think it's a trap!

Whose is this?

In the new team I'm leading, I'm really beginning to appreciate the value of clarity.

Historically, I've been very comfortable with ambiguity - in fact, I've really enjoyed taking advantage of ambiguity as a means to have more freedom. After all, when nobody is sure what is supposed to be done, how can they challenge what you're doing?

In my new role, however, I am becoming very disciplined about documenting commitments, and ensuring that there is one, clear owner for each item. This is a rusty skill for me, and I've learned a lot over the past few weeks.

One throat to choke

They say, "When multiple people own a problem, nobody owns the problem." I think that's true, based on some fire drills caused when multiple people thought someone else was handling an issue. Quite often, everybody things someone else has the ball, so nothing happens.

I'm being very deliberate about driving to one name as the owner of each issue. This has two effects - both good. One, I always know exactly who to ask when I want to know what's going on. Two, I can "let go" of the task because I have it cleanly docked with someone else - this has greatly shortened my task list.

On a side note - I am tracking all the commitments and owners in a spreadsheet, and mark each one red, yellow, or green to indicate whether they are on track or not. Any task without an owner is automatically "red" until an owner is identified.

Let's be clear

For this to work well, clarity is essential.

1. Be very clear about ownership - I like it when the owner clearly says "I own this." Seems like a small thing, perhaps, but there is power in saying the words.
2. Be very clear about expected outcomes - for most of the things I assign, I have no clue what the solution is. However, I usually know what criteria will be met when the task is "done," or I can articulate what questions I need to be able to answer when things are complete, and when it needs to be done. This avoids the "bring me a rock" frustrations that we've all been part of at one point or another.
3. Be clear about guidelines and protocols - This is the part where you provide guidelines on when the owner needs to check in with you. Some examples:
   • "Your budget is $1000 for this project. Check in with me before you exceed the budget."
   • "I want to know if you hit any roadblocks you can't overcome, or anything that would cause the date to slip."
   • "If you have to do anything that pisses off one of the Sales guys, I want to know as soon as possible."

Respect the boundaries

Another thing I've learned is that people do awesome work if you get out of their way. This is why it's so important to be clear about the expectations and boundaries, but not tell people how to solve the problem. After all, if you stay involved, you get no benefit from delegation. It is also very liberating. Of the 43 open items currently on my tracking spreadsheet, I am the owner of exactly one of them - which means I can spend my time helping people clear roadblocks, working with customers, and monitoring the health of the business. And the people in my team actually like not having me in the details. Other people in my company would benefit from this kind of approach. Which brings me to my last topic...

Don't undermine the trust

The surest way to "unempower" people is to start questioning how they are doing things you delegated. Bad mojo. Especially if you "skip levels" and start digging into the tasks that are owned by the people who work for people you manage (i.e. you've just gone around your direct reports). This erodes trust at all levels in your team. You only get the power of this approach if you honor the boundaries, let people own their commitments, and get out of their way.

If thigns aren't working, I suspect you have an issue with one of the elements of clarity I talked about in the "Let's be clear" section.

Sanity check

OK - how does this match your experience? Am I smoking hope? Any other elements you've learned from your own experience?

Bring it on - let's learn from each other.

leadership, management, micromanagement, Delegation

Phones, PDA's, and Bad Habits

I landed in London today and am happy the volcano seems to be calm for the moment. On my flight over, I read Michael Linenberger's new book and about half-way through writing the review. Meanwhile, I wanted to share an interesting article by Francis Wade on Stepcase Lifehack. The article, "Fight Bad Cellphone Habits for Better Time Management," touches on some interesting points - and some interesting observations.

Francis starts off talking about how a percentage of students in the time management classes he teaches just won't turn off their cell phones, PDA's, etc. for the duration of the class.

None of the people sitting in my classes are emergency room surgeons, firemen or policemen. I am not delivering these programs in a war zone, during a hurricane or in the middle of a tornado.

Yet, they find it absolutely essential to be checking their email every few minutes.

Sounds like an addiction, to me! I know - I've been there - that's why I got the Foursquare monkey off my back a month or so ago (I just noticed I did that on April 1, but it was no joke):

(By the way - haven't touched Foursquare since then and I'm still the mayor of 17 place as of today. Yes, I was hooked.)

Can't get enough...

But it's not just fun stuff like Foursquare, Facebook, and those sorts of things that create compulsive behaviors. Work does just the same thing, and some managers make it worse:

For aspiring micro-managers, it’s easy: simply give the employee the gift of a Blackberry. Then, send them “important” emails at odd hours (5pm is a good choice.) When you don’t get a response within minutes, make a critical comment, and mention their need to improve their time management skills. Praise them for their responsiveness as they inevitably knuckle under in time, and thank them for becoming a good “team player.

I know - I've been on the non-manager end of that, including a written policy from one of my past managers:

It is not my expectation that each person work 100 hours a week, although some weeks may seem like it. I do expect that each of you invest enough hours to get your work done, and done well. I also expect you to ‘check-in’ on e-mail during the weekend, busy periods and when we have critical international activities underway that you may be involved in. We are in a ‘Sun never sets’ mode.

Needless to say, people were obsessively attached to their company-provided Blackberries. And "check in" meant more than that - it meant we were expected to answer within a couple of hours, any time - day or night. Woohoo.

Inspect what you expect

So this article was a good reminder to me to think about:

• What message am I sending when I get caught up in obsessive email management?
• What expectations am I sending to my team with my actions?

We shouldn't have to freak out when we aren't on email for a day - do you?

Personal Productivity

AT&T Data Plans, Your iPhone, & International Travel

[Updated April 12, 2010]

If, like me, you’re a smart phone user and you travel outside the country, you’ll need to figure out how to deal with your AT&T data plan lest you find yourself with a ridiculously high mobile phone bill.

My best-known methods

Here are my current best practices (told through the lens of an iPhone user – if you use a different smart phone, you can make these changes by accessing your account through the AT&T Wireless web site):

• Install the free AT&T myWireless iPhone app on your phone. This will let you change your account settings on demand, right from your phone.
• The day you leave (preferrably, while still in the US), use the app to add an international data plan to your phone (see screen shot). You’ll notice I also turn on the “World Traveler” feature, which gets me discounted rates for calls while I’m traveling abroad. These changes will go into effect the day you make the change, and will be pro-rated on your bill based on the start and end dates for each feature.
• [Update April 12, 2010: AT&T is unpredictable about how quickly you get the benefit of your data plan, as I found out when I got an unexpectedly high bill after a recent trip. They can fix it up afterward if you rant enough, but it is easier to call them right after you add the feature and let them know you need the all of the extra data *right now* and not over time. They can do that - don't take no for an answer.]
• Be careful while traveling abroad, as wireless data usage can mount quickly. Some data hogs:
• • Synchronizing your email, especially if you receive a lot of email
  • Uploading pictures (whether to Twitter, sending via email, or otherwise sending them to anyone else)
  • Using your phone for Skype calls over the 3G data network (using it over Wi-Fi is fine)
  • Downloading large apps or songs over the 3G data network (again, not a problem on Wi-Fi)
  • Using Google Maps a lot (it is very “chatty” and downloads lots of map data, etc.)
  • Listening or watching streaming media (YouTube, internet radio, etc.)
• Use Wi-Fi (especially free hotspots) where you can, as this will allow you to handle large amounts of data in an unmetered way.
• When you return to the US, wait a day (just to be safe) then use the AT&T myWireless app to turn off the international data plan. Again, you’ll pay a pro-rated fee based on the start & end dates for which the plan was in effect.

What if you forget?

AT&T has gotten better at helping users understand this, it seems. I landed in Amsterdam this week and, upon turning on my phone and joining the mobile network, I received the following text message:

I was tired, so I ignored this message. After a nap, I wandered around Amsterdam, looking up things on Google maps and Bing (yes, there’s an app for Bing), etc. That evening I got second text message from AT&T:

Act Now!

When you get the “data usage is very high” message, it means you’ve gone over 20Mb of cellular data which, if you do the math, will cost you nearly $400! If you see this message, call the number immediately and ask them to add the International Data Plan to your phone right away! If it’s before midnight in the US, the data plan will apply to all your usage earlier in the day, back to the previous midnight – this can help drastically reduce your charges (I happened to have only about $5 of data that wasn’t covered when I called them).

I’m documenting this here in the hopes I can make someone else’s international travel a bit less stressful. Happy landings!

Gadgets

A new season

Well, I didn't set out to give up blogging for Lent, but it looks like that's how things ended up. A few interesting things have happened to cause this - or at least they've been interesting to me.

I've received great notes of encouragement from many of you, and wanted to a) let you know I appreciate your support and prodding for me to start blogging again; and b) let you know some of the things I've been up to:

• I took on a new role at work - now being general manager of a product we just launched. This is a new line of business in what was previously a single-product company. As a result, I've got a new team and we are blazing new trails in the company. There is a lot to learn in a process like that, and I'll be sharing some of that learning in upcoming posts.
  
  
• I switched to a Macbook Pro as my primary computer. I still use Windows (and so does everyone else in my family) so you could say I'm bilingual in that respect.
• I've begun to travel heavily again. This means I'll have more time to read & blog on flights and that I'll start collecting more travel & packing tips again.
• I'm still experimenting with video, and am eager to integrate some of that into the blog in the future, as well.

There's more, of course (I took a nice vacation with the family and enjoyed Springtime in Louisiana), but suffice it to say it was a nice (although very active) break.

Stay tuned for the "regularly scheduled programming" here on the blog including quite a bit on GTD - I've found that the busier I get, the more I need to be organized.

If you have any requests for topic areas (or if you want me to stay away from any that have bored you in the past), do let me know - either in the comments here, or by email (you can find my email link on the About page).

Blogging