By Giles Hopkinshttps://www.gileshopkins.com/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2019/12/twelve-days-of-budget-cuts-and-a-crow-in-a-dead-elm-tree-partridges-and-pears-were-too-expensive/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2019/12/twelve-days-of-budget-cuts-and-a-crow-in-a-dead-elm-tree-partridges-and-pears-were-too-expensive/Keeping with the spirit of the season (by which we mean the end of the fiscal year, not the holidays), here is a list of twelve phrases you will want to watch out for as your organization starts talking about the budget for 2020. Any of these may mean someone is about to cut your…Thu, 19 Dec 2019 11:28:37 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2019/10/three-secrets-to-thriving-in-an-organizational-matrix/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2019/10/three-secrets-to-thriving-in-an-organizational-matrix/First, recognize that almost all medium to large organizations are actually matrix organizations. Most of these organizations have a direct “vertical” reporting line based on one organizational dimension and at least one “horizontal” based on another dimension. Sometimes the formal vertical is a function like development, production, marketing, sales, etc. Sometimes it’s geographical or line…Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:00:12 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2018/01/disruptive-technologies-create-new-growth-opportunities-for-your-professional-services-business/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2018/01/disruptive-technologies-create-new-growth-opportunities-for-your-professional-services-business/New technologies can help professional services businesses to grow their business beyond billing hours of one-to-one client services. The one-to-one service model has dominated the professional service industry for years and the value proposition has been built around a richly personalized one-to-one real-time interaction. Like everything these days, technology has disrupted this model and created…Mon, 15 Jan 2018 18:10:54 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/12/finding-the-balance-between-modern-convenience-self-reliance-and-community/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/12/finding-the-balance-between-modern-convenience-self-reliance-and-community/Surviving and thriving at work requires some balance between your work life and the rest of your life beyond the job. But even your life beyond work may need some balancing of modern convenience, self-reliance, and community. I’ve been reading several good novels set in rural America of the early 20th century and I am…Sat, 09 Dec 2017 16:34:36 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/04/prepare-for-perpetual-technology-upgrade-mode-lifetime-learning-with-an-attitude/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/04/prepare-for-perpetual-technology-upgrade-mode-lifetime-learning-with-an-attitude/Do you find yourself spending more and more time trying to keep up with the constant stream of technology upgrades and the fallout they create? I do. Here’s a small sampling from last week. I finally upgraded my Mac operating system because it is supposed to be “more secure.” In the process, the OS upgrade “broke”…Mon, 10 Apr 2017 18:03:58 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/01/the-sportification-of-politics-and-the-possibility-of-governing/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2017/01/the-sportification-of-politics-and-the-possibility-of-governing/Things have changed in the political arena. That’s the unavoidable conclusion we have to draw from the last year. No matter who or what you voted for, one thing we might be able to agree on is that things have changed. There are, to be sure, a number of troubling trends. The role of a…Tue, 03 Jan 2017 23:04:15 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/09/four-secrets-to-successful-business-marketing-strategy/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/09/four-secrets-to-successful-business-marketing-strategy/1. Test the market early and often. Before you invest too much in a product or service, you need to find out if people actually want it. Seems obvious, but it’s amazing how often businesses skip this step. I was waiting at a traffic light the other day and I saw this yellow sign about a foot…Tue, 06 Sep 2016 14:39:29 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/02/its-time-for-you-to-think-about-hiring-four-dimensional-people/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/02/its-time-for-you-to-think-about-hiring-four-dimensional-people/One of my posts from a few years ago keeps re-surfacing and in discussing it with someone a few days ago, I decided I should update it. In the original post, I made the case that you should hire three-dimensional people who have depth, breadth, and length. I am not a fan of the prevailing…Thu, 18 Feb 2016 03:29:28 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/01/evil-geniuses-win-6-6-million-playing-video-games-esports-may-be-good-for-you/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2016/01/evil-geniuses-win-6-6-million-playing-video-games-esports-may-be-good-for-you/The prevailing parental narrative about video games is that they are likely to be an anti-social addictive waste of time or, at best, mind-numbing entertainment. It might be time to reconsider that narrative. Imagine an arena with tens of thousands of fans and millions watching online cheering for their favorite team in a team-based video…Sun, 17 Jan 2016 18:37:09 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/11/the-power-of-persistently-pointless-processes-have-you-balanced-your-checkbook-lately/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/11/the-power-of-persistently-pointless-processes-have-you-balanced-your-checkbook-lately/Technology historians routinely point to examples of legacy hardware design driving new products in odd ways. This “path dependence” is often cited as a barrier to innovation and the cause of long-term inefficiency. The layout of the letters on your keyboard is a common example. This so-called QWERTY keyboard layout originally designed for typewriters is…Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:16:48 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/09/super-school-project-challenge-seven-steps-to-re-inventing-high-school/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/09/super-school-project-challenge-seven-steps-to-re-inventing-high-school/The Huffington Post reported recently that Laurene Powell Jobs has pledged $50 million to crowdsource designs for the next American high school. The campaign website, XQ: The Super School Project, makes the case that public high schools have been “frozen in time for the last hundred years while America has gone from the Model T to…Wed, 30 Sep 2015 20:49:18 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/08/four-reasons-why-annual-performance-reviews-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/08/four-reasons-why-annual-performance-reviews-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it/Teague Hopkins on my advisory board flagged this Washington Post story about Accenture throwing out most of its current process for doing annual performance reviews (APRs) and rankings for employees. With 330,000 employees, Accenture figured that since the process wasn’t actually improving performance and it was costing huge amounts of time and money, it was time…Wed, 26 Aug 2015 20:11:09 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/06/what-one-horse-and-an-open-sleigh-taught-me-about-change-management/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/06/what-one-horse-and-an-open-sleigh-taught-me-about-change-management/Too many managers seem to think that people ought to let them drive the corporate strategy based on what really amounts to blind trust. “I know what I’m doing. I have a vision. Just focus on the future and where we are heading. Trust me.” I learned the painful consequences of this approach early in life from…Wed, 17 Jun 2015 16:19:11 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/05/transparency-is-a-great-way-to-start-growing-a-company-culture-but-its-only-a-start/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/05/transparency-is-a-great-way-to-start-growing-a-company-culture-but-its-only-a-start/What does transparency mean in the context of growing a company culture? A high degree of transparency means that how the company operates is visible to all employees and in some cases to customers and stakeholders. Transparency means that not only can people see our results, but how they were achieved. They can “see through” the surface…Wed, 20 May 2015 21:56:18 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/04/five-secrets-to-briefing-stakeholders-senior-management-or-the-board-effectively/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/04/five-secrets-to-briefing-stakeholders-senior-management-or-the-board-effectively/Does your job require you to brief senior management, the board, or other stakeholder groups? People who have a stake in your business, organization, or program want to know what’s going on so they can give you good guidance. If the group you are briefing has a governance role, they want to be well-informed so…Tue, 28 Apr 2015 19:50:10 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/04/what-do-you-do-if-your-boss-manages-straight-up/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/04/what-do-you-do-if-your-boss-manages-straight-up/An effective manager has to manage tasks and relationships in all directions. Even if the organizational structure is relatively flat, good managers manage up, down, and across the organization. They develop good working relationships with their own staff, their boss(es), and their peers. Most managers have difficulty finding the right balance. So sooner or later…Wed, 08 Apr 2015 17:45:56 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/03/dont-accept-the-defaults-what-are-you-doing-to-customize-your-life/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/03/dont-accept-the-defaults-what-are-you-doing-to-customize-your-life/Most technology is designed to be “feature rich.” This means that there are multiple menus and multiple ways to do everything. In short, it means you won’t use 80% of the capabilities and it would take forever to figure them out anyway. The way most designers deal with the “feature rich” problem is that they…Wed, 04 Mar 2015 22:34:10 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/02/do-me-a-favor-see-whether-the-ben-franklin-effect-makes-sense-to-you/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/02/do-me-a-favor-see-whether-the-ben-franklin-effect-makes-sense-to-you/If you have worked in a large complex organization, you have probably discovered that getting things done depends on figuring out who can actually do something you need to have done even if they aren’t the persons who are technically responsible. Sometimes these folks are long serving people in junior positions who have seen it…Wed, 18 Feb 2015 21:53:19 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/02/nine-things-you-dont-want-to-hear-from-customer-service/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/02/nine-things-you-dont-want-to-hear-from-customer-service/Our guest blogger this week is Teresa Tidwell * The trending definition of “Customer Service” is “figure it out yourself” or “customer self-service.” You may get your problem solved if you are lucky and persistent enough to gather the information you need from the maze of reps. Then, maybe you can piece together the solution…Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:07:41 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/01/how-students-taught-me-the-best-strategy-for-changing-the-game/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/01/how-students-taught-me-the-best-strategy-for-changing-the-game/It was 1973 and I was sitting in the faculty lounge at a New England boarding school listening to the veteran teachers bemoan the state of “students today.” The consensus seemed to be that students were unmotivated, unengaged, poorly prepared, and lazy. “They never speak up in class and just sit there like bumps on…Wed, 21 Jan 2015 21:54:01 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/01/the-art-of-yak-shaving-and-making-those-new-years-resolutions/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2015/01/the-art-of-yak-shaving-and-making-those-new-years-resolutions/A while ago, my son Teague introduced me to the concept of “yak shaving.” If you do a web search you get a few definitions which are variations on a theme. They boil down to something like “activities you find yourself doing which appear unrelated to the objective you started out with but which, in fact, are…Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:31:36 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/12/five-steps-to-meaningful-giving-maybe-its-time-to-channel-your-inner-scrooge/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/12/five-steps-to-meaningful-giving-maybe-its-time-to-channel-your-inner-scrooge/The character, Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the epitome of the cranky miser, but as my father liked to point out, there are really two Scrooges, the lonely unhappy man at the beginning of the story and the happy generous one at the end. There is a little Scrooge in all of us,…Tue, 16 Dec 2014 23:18:49 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/12/two-strategies-for-enjoying-the-world-beyond-broadcast-television/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/12/two-strategies-for-enjoying-the-world-beyond-broadcast-television/We bought a TiVo with a lifetime subscription the day they went on the market 15 years ago. When friends asked how we liked it, I said, “we are spending a lot less time watching a lot more good television.” There were no more missed episodes of family favorites. We became experts at fast forwarding…Wed, 03 Dec 2014 22:12:44 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/11/the-power-of-experiencing-what-your-customers-are-experiencing/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/11/the-power-of-experiencing-what-your-customers-are-experiencing/Do you know what your customers are experiencing when they use your product or service? If you had the same experience they were having, you could be knowledgeable, empathetic, and encouraging – you could be really helpful! Our kitchen faucet was about seven years old and the bracket under the counter had rusted out so the…Wed, 19 Nov 2014 21:23:35 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/11/four-of-the-most-common-mistakes-in-team-management-and-how-to-fix-them/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/11/four-of-the-most-common-mistakes-in-team-management-and-how-to-fix-them/A high-performing team whose members trust each other is a beautiful thing to watch. The story goes that a tourist in Amish country stopped to watch a barn-raising. He observed for a long time trying to figure out who was in charge. When he was finally sure, he went up to the man while the…Thu, 06 Nov 2014 03:31:12 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/10/being-smart-about-being-smart-invite-others-into-a-shared-thought-process/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/10/being-smart-about-being-smart-invite-others-into-a-shared-thought-process/Arne Lewis, was my Art History professor and advisor. He combined a soft-spoken style with an intense curiosity about how people learn. I still remember his critique of my draft of my first chapter of what would be a hundred-page senior thesis. “There are a lot of provocative ideas here,” he said, “but I am…Thu, 23 Oct 2014 02:21:21 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/10/three-secrets-to-making-an-impact-pipelines-timing-and-exploring-the-adjacent-possible/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/10/three-secrets-to-making-an-impact-pipelines-timing-and-exploring-the-adjacent-possible/1. Prepare your pipeline of possible projects. I had a colleague once who explained to me that every year her boss told her that the organization’s priorities for funding had changed and that they would be looking for projects in other parts of the business to develop and promote. She should scale back her program. She smiled…Wed, 08 Oct 2014 14:12:34 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/a-secret-to-special-relationships-cultivating-ordinary-time/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/a-secret-to-special-relationships-cultivating-ordinary-time/A grandpa and his grand-daughter are walking to school. He is here for a few weeks and it’s a morning ritual. She runs ahead to pick up a crimson sweet gum leaf and comes back to deposit it in his hand. He is the explorer’s bank, the archive. He appreciates with interest. She is walking…Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:11:43 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/time-you-made-the-move-to-a-mac-what-i-learned-in-the-first-two-weeks/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/time-you-made-the-move-to-a-mac-what-i-learned-in-the-first-two-weeks/I finally have made the move from my PC desktop to a MacBook Air. I have been primarily using MSDOS and Windows PCs since the beginning (and CPM machines before that), so let’s just say “a long time.” I have even enjoyed customizing and repairing them on occasion. I have a sizeable knowledge investment in PCs,…Wed, 17 Sep 2014 18:25:06 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/three-secrets-to-becoming-your-own-tech-support-your-children-will-thank-you/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/09/three-secrets-to-becoming-your-own-tech-support-your-children-will-thank-you/According to family legend, my great-uncle Edwin said before he got into his first car, “Anyone who can drive a horse and buggy can certainly drive a car.” At which point, he got behind the wheel, put the car in gear and drove across the front lawn through the neighbor’s picket fence and finally came…Thu, 04 Sep 2014 05:11:03 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/08/what-your-old-computer-can-teach-you-about-the-importance-of-taking-a-vacation/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/08/what-your-old-computer-can-teach-you-about-the-importance-of-taking-a-vacation/It’s August here in Washington, which means it’s prime vacation time. I am guessing you have earned some time away from work. So take it! If you think you don’t deserve it, here’s a benchmark. The US Congress has done nothing to deserve a vacation at all and they are taking five weeks right now.…Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:24:47 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/three-keys-to-managing-people-and-risk-that-i-learned-from-teaching-au-pairs-to-drive/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/three-keys-to-managing-people-and-risk-that-i-learned-from-teaching-au-pairs-to-drive/There is no perfect solution to childcare. There are all kinds of childcare options with various trade-offs in convenience, stress, and guilt. Anyone who has peeled a clinging child off of their legs at the door of the daycare center while other parents looked on with a mix of empathy and fear knows what I mean.…Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:54:40 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/three-keys-to-the-successful-launch-of-a-new-employee-that-i-learned-baling-hay/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/three-keys-to-the-successful-launch-of-a-new-employee-that-i-learned-baling-hay/Mr. Lemmel was my first manager. I was a suburban kid working as a farm hand for the summer. On my first day, he needed me to help bale hay. He drove a tractor over to his gas pump to fill up the tank for the day. Then he told me to sit in the…Wed, 23 Jul 2014 14:27:12 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/five-reasons-your-company-is-addicted-to-reorganization-and-how-to-survive-the-next-one/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/five-reasons-your-company-is-addicted-to-reorganization-and-how-to-survive-the-next-one/Some companies seem to be in a constant state of reorganization. It’s almost an addiction. If you want to survive reorganizations, you need to be a bridge not a box. More on this in a minute, but first, it helps to understand why companies reorganize so often? 1. Modern enterprises tend to describe themselves in…Wed, 16 Jul 2014 21:09:22 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/confronting-the-near-enemy-is-one-emotion-masquerading-as-another/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/confronting-the-near-enemy-is-one-emotion-masquerading-as-another/One of the reasons I like reading fiction is that every now and then, an author will sneak a wonderful bit of wisdom into a story that grabs me in a way that is much more memorable than if I had read it in a textbook or journal article. Usually when I discover such a passage,…Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:50:11 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/is-your-market-going-to-be-uberfied-or-airbnbd-disruptive-innovations-coming-your-way/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/07/is-your-market-going-to-be-uberfied-or-airbnbd-disruptive-innovations-coming-your-way/Uber is a “private car for hire” service which uses a mobile app to handle the whole engagement and payment transaction including rating both drivers and riders. It has the taxi industry trying to set up roadblocks. AirBnB matches up people who want to rent out their apartments (trailers, rooms, etc.) with people looking for…Wed, 02 Jul 2014 20:38:57 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/what-am-i-missing-here-five-ways-to-make-the-invisible-visible/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/what-am-i-missing-here-five-ways-to-make-the-invisible-visible/Have you ever been in a meeting where, based on what you see and hear, you expect the meeting to be playing out in one way but instead it is going in another direction entirely? You suspect something is going on beneath the surface and that you are missing something important that would make sense of…Wed, 25 Jun 2014 20:03:31 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/great-teams-are-worth-watching-learn-their-secret-and-pass-it-on/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/great-teams-are-worth-watching-learn-their-secret-and-pass-it-on/I am a big fan of the perfect pass. If you follow professional basketball in the US, you were treated to some perfect passing last week. In a pivotal game in the championship series, the Spurs passed the ball 113 times more than the Heat. Especially at the professional level, the teams tend to rely…Fri, 20 Jun 2014 04:43:20 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/first-three-steps-on-the-road-to-becoming-an-expert-manager-of-experts/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/first-three-steps-on-the-road-to-becoming-an-expert-manager-of-experts/Since most of us are experts in only a few areas, it would seem that one of those areas ought to be managing other experts. Here are three steps to get you started. Step 1. Learn to respect expertise. We expect others to respect our own expertise, but frequently we don’t seem to respect the expertise…Wed, 11 Jun 2014 19:14:32 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/two-secrets-to-discovering-the-benefits-of-the-long-view-from-deadlines-to-lifelines/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/06/two-secrets-to-discovering-the-benefits-of-the-long-view-from-deadlines-to-lifelines/One of the most damaging corporate pathologies is the obsession with short term performance at the expense of longer term sustainability. A pervasive symptom of this pathology is the daily game of “Name That Deadline.” Your manager asks, when can I have your report or when will that project be done? You give a date with…Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:26:21 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/put-on-your-3d-interview-glasses-and-hire-three-dimensional-people/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/put-on-your-3d-interview-glasses-and-hire-three-dimensional-people/You should hire three-dimensional people who have depth, breadth, and length. I am not a fan of the prevailing belief system among hiring managers that you have to make a trade-off between technical depth and breadth of interpersonal competence for example. I cringe when I hear a hiring manager say something like “the guy can’t…Wed, 28 May 2014 20:04:01 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/give-your-idea-to-someone-else-to-run-with-sometimes-a-horse-needs-a-different-rider-to-win/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/give-your-idea-to-someone-else-to-run-with-sometimes-a-horse-needs-a-different-rider-to-win/First, here’s a little exercise for your mind. An aging monarch decides it is time to name an heir to the throne. The monarch’s two children are identical twins and no one is now sure which one was born first. Both twins are excellent riders and each owns a very fast horse. So the monarch…Wed, 21 May 2014 19:50:30 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/a-learning-opportunity-in-flexibility-and-determination-for-you-and-your-team/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/a-learning-opportunity-in-flexibility-and-determination-for-you-and-your-team/Angela Duckworth’s presentations and research have spawned a lot of discussion over the last year on the dominant importance of sustained hard work in becoming successful. Her central conclusion is that perseverance (what she calls “grit”) is a better indicator of who will be successful than talent. Others have seized on her research as proof that the problem with…Wed, 14 May 2014 21:20:32 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/when-your-service-breaks-take-the-opportunity-to-enhance-your-customers-satisfaction/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/05/when-your-service-breaks-take-the-opportunity-to-enhance-your-customers-satisfaction/One of the odd things about customer satisfaction is that customers actually become more satisfied with a service when they have a positive interaction with the service provider when the service breaks. Maybe we just expect everything to break eventually and it gives us more confidence if we know we can get it fixed. I have…Wed, 07 May 2014 20:39:43 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/but-the-problem-actually-is-complicated-seven-reasons-to-build-a-model-to-solve-it/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/but-the-problem-actually-is-complicated-seven-reasons-to-build-a-model-to-solve-it/Have you ever had a conversation with a colleague that sounded something like this? You: This is a complicated problem. There are a lot of variables to consider and many of them are interdependent. Colleague: I get that, but you need to simplify it somehow or no one is going to understand it. You: The problem…Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:54:53 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/alternatives-to-jargon-expanding-your-tool-box-of-analogies-and-adages/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/alternatives-to-jargon-expanding-your-tool-box-of-analogies-and-adages/All of us find it increasingly difficult to communicate without relying on the ever-expanding jargon of the work place. A friend recently posted this graphic from The Atlantic listing popular office jargon. It’s a good summary of the usual suspects. One alternative to jargon is to dust off some of your favorite analogies and adages. Here…Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:38:25 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/growing-a-company-culture-what-kind-of-trellis-are-you-building/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/growing-a-company-culture-what-kind-of-trellis-are-you-building/I have been talking with my advisory board a lot about company culture lately. I recommend Teague’s recent post in which he explains why he thinks you can’t “build” company culture, you have to “grow” it. I like his analogy of training a bonsai tree or cultivating a vine on a trellis. It takes patience and…Wed, 16 Apr 2014 17:38:44 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/the-proliferation-of-undoable-jobs-and-how-to-recognize-them/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/the-proliferation-of-undoable-jobs-and-how-to-recognize-them/A friend was recently describing jobs that a head hunter was sending her way. The totally unrealistic scope, scale, and complexity of the jobs reminded me of a trend I observed a number of years ago which I started referring to as the “proliferation of undoable jobs.” What makes a job undoable? 1. Job titles…Wed, 09 Apr 2014 20:10:49 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/searching-for-alternatives-to-death-by-powerpoint-the-single-slide-strategy/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/04/searching-for-alternatives-to-death-by-powerpoint-the-single-slide-strategy/A friend sent me this link to an NPR story about the mind-numbing effects of powerpoint presentations. NPR interviewed various groups including physicists working on the Large Hadron Collider, CEOs at fortune 500 companies, and generals at the pentagon. Some of those interviewed have put an outright ban on powerpoint presentations at their meetings because they…Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:48:56 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/you-should-add-ego-risk-to-the-risks-you-are-managing/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/you-should-add-ego-risk-to-the-risks-you-are-managing/Most companies have begun to see risk management as a separate and important discipline worthy of dedicated resources and specialized skills. We now recognize a much broader array of risk areas and look beyond financial risk to market risk, technical risk, and key person risk. There has recently also been increased focus on information security…Wed, 26 Mar 2014 16:09:38 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/dont-argue-with-your-team-argue-for-your-viewpoint/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/dont-argue-with-your-team-argue-for-your-viewpoint/The best teams argue within a framework of collaboration. They understand the value of bringing different points of view to solving a problem and the importance of arguing in a way that builds trust rather than undermines it. Here are ten steps to building a collaborative environment for productive arguments. Don’t argue WITH each other,…Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:39:44 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/how-much-work-is-enough-are-you-working-smart-hard-or-long/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/how-much-work-is-enough-are-you-working-smart-hard-or-long/On this topic, I have many more questions than answers. There are new kinds of vacation policies popping up, especially at new companies trying to establish a different kind of company culture. They have been experimenting with policies with no set formula for determining how much vacation you can take. It is up to the…Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:24:04 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/dealing-with-the-dangers-of-hub-and-spoke-management-all-roads-lead-to/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/03/dealing-with-the-dangers-of-hub-and-spoke-management-all-roads-lead-to/Some managers use a method that I call “hub and spoke management.” I am not a fan and here’s why. In this approach, the manager is the hub of all communication and the manager communicates with each direct report (and sometimes other employees) in separate private channels. In hub and spoke management “team” meetings, most…Wed, 05 Mar 2014 20:05:31 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/what-the-muppets-have-to-say-about-your-business-and-your-audience/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/what-the-muppets-have-to-say-about-your-business-and-your-audience/I have been reading the new biography of Muppets creator Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones. Part of Henson’s genius was that he recognized things about the medium of television that seem obvious in retrospect. In particular, he understood the importance of literally seeing things from the audience perspective. Most early television shows that included…Wed, 26 Feb 2014 19:12:10 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/five-steps-to-create-customer-support-to-match-your-hyper-convenient-service/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/five-steps-to-create-customer-support-to-match-your-hyper-convenient-service/We have all come to rely on many new services which we find hyper-convenient. For example, we rely on: Video and audio recording and streaming services like TiVo, Roku, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and Spotify. We find them hyper-convenient to watch and listen to what we want, when and where we want. Paying for parking with a…Thu, 20 Feb 2014 04:42:35 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/five-lessons-you-can-learn-from-cvss-recent-announcement/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/five-lessons-you-can-learn-from-cvss-recent-announcement/CVS announced last week that it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in its stores as of October. It will be a while before all the implications play out, but on the face of it, this looks like a great case study for some of the principles we have been talking about in…Wed, 12 Feb 2014 20:58:57 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/who-are-your-customers/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/02/who-are-your-customers/Last week we looked at the two questions that successful businesses ask and answer relentlessly. What business are you in? Who are your customers? In last week’s post, we focused primarily on the first question. Here are some tips on how to get useful answers to the second question. 1. Talk to your best customers…Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:44:57 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/successful-businesses-ask-and-answer-two-questions-relentlessly/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/successful-businesses-ask-and-answer-two-questions-relentlessly/What business are we in? Who are our customers? These two questions surface your most important business challenges and opportunities. Even if you are an internal service provider in a bigger organization, these are still the right questions. Here is a simple case I am dealing with right now that focuses primarily on the first question.…Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:12:57 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/three-secrets-to-managing-interruptions-with-less-stress-for-everyone/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/three-secrets-to-managing-interruptions-with-less-stress-for-everyone/1. Define your “interrupt hierarchy” and discuss it with your colleagues. If you are meeting with a colleague and your smartphone buzzes, your desk phone rings, and someone knocks at the door, what do you do? Do you answer the call on your smartphone while letting your desk phone go to voicemail, then answer the questions…Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:54:09 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/creating-the-best-solution-requires-both-seekers-and-finders-which-are-you/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/creating-the-best-solution-requires-both-seekers-and-finders-which-are-you/Finders don’t hunt for something, they try to figure out where it is and go there to find it. They narrow down the possibilities through careful analysis. Not surprisingly, they are good at finding things that are lost. They like mysteries and puzzles as long as they have answers. They employ the deductive reasoning of…Thu, 16 Jan 2014 03:42:58 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/five-secrets-to-getting-the-credit-you-deserve-and-the-appreciation-want/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2014/01/five-secrets-to-getting-the-credit-you-deserve-and-the-appreciation-want/1. Become an expert appreciator yourself. Give others the credit they deserve. Catch them doing even small things that help the team. If your appreciation is genuine and timely, it will increase the frequency of the “appreciated behaviors” and at the same time demonstrate “appreciating people” as an important skill in itself. Appreciating useful contributions…Thu, 09 Jan 2014 12:40:20 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/top-ten-tip-offs-that-someone-is-about-to-cut-your-budget/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/top-ten-tip-offs-that-someone-is-about-to-cut-your-budget/Keeping with the spirit of the season (by which we mean the end of the fiscal year, not the holidays), here is a list of phrases you will want to watch out for as your organization starts talking about the budget for 2014. Any of these may mean someone is about to cut your budget.…Wed, 18 Dec 2013 22:33:43 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/what-power-and-authority-do-you-have-and-how-do-you-use-it/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/what-power-and-authority-do-you-have-and-how-do-you-use-it/As we celebrate the inspirational life of Nelson Mandela this week, I am struck by how he developed a masterful understanding of power and authority. This may be a good opportunity for each of us to reflect on our own power and authority and how we are using it. There are many different definitions of…Thu, 12 Dec 2013 03:37:31 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/four-steps-to-make-your-team-meeting-worth-everyones-time/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/12/four-steps-to-make-your-team-meeting-worth-everyones-time/We have all participated in team meetings where very smart people deliver their competing brilliant insights about the “real problem” and what would solve it. “We just need to change the website to put the products front and center.” “We just need to segment our market.” “We just need to offer discounts.” “We just need…Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:24:55 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/experiment-this-week-with-the-power-of-an-observant-thank-you/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/experiment-this-week-with-the-power-of-an-observant-thank-you/Here in the US, it’s Thanksgiving this week as well at the beginning of Hanukkah. Many folks will take time off from work to be with family. So instead of my usual Thursday post on Strategies (th)at Work, I’m doing a special short post early this week about saying thank you. First, I want to…Mon, 25 Nov 2013 04:47:38 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/four-keys-to-building-your-credibility-as-you-start-a-new-job/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/four-keys-to-building-your-credibility-as-you-start-a-new-job/When you start a new job, you want to hit the ground running and build your credibility without stepping on those political landmines that can derail your plans. Here are four keys to building your credibility. First, avoid the ingratiating informers. Informers want to increase their power and influence in exchange for telling you who…Thu, 21 Nov 2013 03:33:36 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/how-to-help-a-boss-or-a-client-who-is-determined-and-wrong/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/how-to-help-a-boss-or-a-client-who-is-determined-and-wrong/We are standing in the elevator and I ask my colleague, “how’s the donkey?” She replies, “dead.” We both sigh and the other people in the elevator look at us uncomfortably. A week before, my colleague’s boss made a decision that he wanted her to implement immediately. She was sure he was going to regret…Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:27:17 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/three-keys-to-measuring-and-managing-customer-satisfaction/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/11/three-keys-to-measuring-and-managing-customer-satisfaction/All of us think we can whip up a customer satisfaction survey with a rating scale, send it out, and tabulate the results. What’s so hard about that? What could possibly go wrong? Here are three keys to getting it right. First, customers form their views based on the end-to-end customer service, not just on…Thu, 07 Nov 2013 04:39:43 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/four-best-questions-to-hire-someone-who-will-hit-the-ground-running/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/four-best-questions-to-hire-someone-who-will-hit-the-ground-running/Do you need to hire someone who can hit the ground running? Forget trying to find someone who will know how to do the whole job before they arrive because even if the job is similar to one they have already done, the operating environment is always different, often in subtle and important ways. What you…Thu, 31 Oct 2013 03:45:50 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/the-secret-to-keeping-your-balance-when-your-job-becomes-a-high-wire-act/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/the-secret-to-keeping-your-balance-when-your-job-becomes-a-high-wire-act/Do you feel like you are walking a tightrope at work? Maybe you have been promoted recently to a position of leadership and you are finding the politics even more complicated than you imagined. Or maybe you are finding it impossible to balance work and the rest of your life. Or maybe you are managing…Thu, 24 Oct 2013 02:58:36 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/no-teamwork-or-is-there-is-no-work-for-teams/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/no-teamwork-or-is-there-is-no-work-for-teams/A common refrain in the business world is that “we need more teamwork.” I am not so sure. Sports analogies are probably the most common source of metaphors in the business language. Think about it: he struck out, do we have our bases covered, it’s a whole new ball game, that came out of left field, you’re…Thu, 17 Oct 2013 04:14:02 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/strategy-is-about-making-choices-not-just-decisions/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/strategy-is-about-making-choices-not-just-decisions/Strategy is about making choices among realistic options to use your resources to achieve a business goal. A good way to test whether you have a strategy is whether you can point to the options you have chosen between or among and explain why you made the choice you did. For example, “We are choosing…Thu, 10 Oct 2013 03:09:59 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/ten-thousand-hours-and-ten-minute-youtube-videos/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/10/ten-thousand-hours-and-ten-minute-youtube-videos/If you invested 10,000 hours learning how to learn, you might be better than average at a lot of things. In his bestseller, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell sets out his interpretation of data which seem to show that the success of top performers in many fields is better explained by fortunate opportunities to get more practice…Tue, 01 Oct 2013 14:38:47 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/09/make-your-not-going-to-do-it-anymore-list/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/09/make-your-not-going-to-do-it-anymore-list/There is some combination of sun angle, crisp blue sky, football games on TV, and other signals of fall that triggers in me an epigenetic response that it is time to start learning again. School is now in session. No matter how long it has been since you sat in the classroom, there is that…Mon, 30 Sep 2013 14:51:48 GMThttps://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/09/touch-the-rope/https://www.gileshopkins.com/2013/09/touch-the-rope/An occupational hazard of being a management and business coach used to be that I was asked to provide or participate in team building exercises with teams I was coaching. For a while, the fad was team building in the wilderness on a “ropes course” where the team would be confronted by various challenges. You’ve…Sun, 29 Sep 2013 01:48:48 GMT