Gettin’ closer

Just scheduled an update meeting with my editor. I am closing in on the apex of a 4+ year journey on my project. I have pretty much decided to self-publish the book(s) and am really looking forward to the next phase.

I have absolutely no idea at this point just how much work will be involved in fixin’ what my editor has decided that needs to be fixed—for that matter, I don’t even know how she liked the read, if at all.

I have patiently waited on her email saying she is nearing the end for three weeks. That three weeks is not a long time when compared to the years I have spent in the work-up, but it has been a nail biter.

Let me take this opportunity to again thank all those that have helped, assisted, listened to and read my stuff during the last four years or so. I appreciate your every effort and you have been an immense help to the overall project.

I still have a great deal of work to do right here on the blog. I fully intend to publish a backstory here to each chapter I have in the book. The backstories will be a short synopsis of what is included in each story and additionally provide just a little explanation to fill in details that the casual observer might not understand.

Every industry, as I have painstakingly found has their own lingo that is not intuitively obvious to the run of the mill outsider. I hope the backstories provided here will assist in smoothing over the rough points that it just doesn’t make sense to detail in the stories themselves.

Keep watching. It’ll be over soon—I sincerely hope.

Just because your business card says manager doesn’t mean you are a Leader

Just because your business card says manager doesn’t mean you are a Leader!

Two distinctively different abilities by definition.

Manager – a grouping of abilities that provides one knowledge to react and plan for eventual outcomes

Leader – a talent that defines one’s reactionary capabilities and the providing of guidance for others to overcome.

Which grouping do you fit into? They don’t have to be exclusive of one another but most of the time, this is exactly the case. Leaders can be found at all levels of organizations—not exclusively at the top.

I spent time throughout my career working with and for individuals of both varieties. I also have worked with and for individuals that fit neither definition.

For my money, given the opportunity to choose, hands down I would pick the Leader. The challenges, the eventual rewards and the inevitable failures will provide much, much more in long term satisfaction than settling for a Manager.

Count on it!

How do you defeat the "Not my job, Man!" mindset?

Employee mindsets can be an organization and company culture problem. Oh, you say: “there’s always some bad apples!” Well, maybe that’s true. If you practice the concept of management by walking around (MBWA); you might find that the problem is bigger than a few bad apples.

The solution to the problem starts at the top and drives itself all the way to the lowest rung on the management and supervision totem pole (organizational chart). If top management does not outwardly hold to the principle of it’s everybody’s job, nobody will. The practice has to be an integral part of the fiber that holds the organization together. If the practice is not everybody’s job; it just maybe nobody’s job!

Everybody has to be responsible to everyone else in the organization and open communications should be part of your answer. This is not to say that the CEO’s door has to be constantly swinging. It has to start there; but real results are experienced through empowerment and action at the lowest level of supervision—the guy on the shop floor that is tightly involved with the real problems. He//she is the best source and consistently the best answer. Spend time training, reviewing evaluating and empowering—you will not be disappointed.

Leadership gurus on the web

Recently I commented on a well followed lady’s leadership blog primarily because she had said something that I wholeheartedly agreed with. I don’t often agree with the guys//gals expounding leadership theory on these sites, but this time I did. Most, in my humble opinion, have no idea about what they speak and more often they don’t really say anything close to the edge—maybe it’s a fear of being challenged if they do say something definite or more likely, they don’t really have the background, experience or knowledge to be discussing the topic they have just regurgitated mumble-jumble throughout the internet.

In any event, after checking back a day or so later, I found that the self-professed leadership expert (her website’s claim—not mine) had misunderstood my point completely. Of course, there’s the outside chance that I didn’t make myself clear. She had even gone so far as to re-speak my point for me (incorrectly, mind you) and then tell me where she differed with me in this area. If she had understood my point, it would be one thing, but to not have understood and then correct me, that’s another thing entirely.

I have a huge problem with these wanta-be-leadership-gurus. Most, I find, have never worked a day in real leadership positions, but have taught numerous seminars here and there, maybe took a class and some even received a degree that allows them to squawk on leadership—but generally, they know not. The particular guru I communicated with claims to have “personally coached over 100 senior leaders” and has a background that allows “her to provide valuable insights about individuals and organizational systems.”

I consider these people to be dangerous, especially if their followers believe strongly in them. The followship is primarily provided with only the very basic understanding of the subject as the gurus are never really clear and never answer any specific questions that would lead to better understanding of the role of a leader. My fear is that some will try to put these half-baked truths into practice and pay the penalty for the shallowness of their guru. A real misfortune in any event. Nobody is gonna learn LEADERSHIP over the internet—NOBODY!

Be careful who you follow, subscribe to, and put your faith in. There’s a lot of shallowness involved in the guru level of expounders on leadership.

As I peck this into my computer, another thought came to mind concerning these short answer//short idea//short advice websites: They just may be dumbing down their information and advice for the generation they see as their audience—the short attention spanners of today’s world.

Let’s hope the situation improves over time.

Short Introduction to my project—Adventures in Leadership

Over the last few years I have been recalling and documenting my professional career, including the strife, trouble and opportunities that presented themselves to me and just how I handled each of these. I will not say just how many years it has taken me so far as in reality, it has taken much longer than I ever imagined it would take. All things considered, I have thoroughly enjoyed this task. It has brought back some great memories as I recalled the exacts of what actually took place during each of these moments.

Some of the events were not that hard to recall as I had found opportunities to use the stories over and over all during both my military and civilian career. These stories were tagged about one third of the way through my tenure in manufacturing as Moose Stories by a young man who worked for me in multiple capacities at several different organizations. I had discovered Warren Sanford as he jumped up and down and hollered at me from behind a packaging line during my time at Tandy in their Personal Computer Division in Ft Worth, TX. Warren was just the guy I needed for a come-in-late and stay-later printer and PC specialist during a software implementation project converting Tandy from a homegrown system to a standard MRP system. Warren also worked for me as my Network Administrator during the time we spent at Sun Engine, a remanufacturer of automobile engines in Dallas, TX.

During the twenty-eight years I spent working in numerous manufacturing assignments, I found even more opportunities to use what I had learned from the people and situations I had previously been associated with. Many of the teaching//learning points were associated with my experiences during my time in the Army. While they were military in nature, the situations were still all about people. These adventures with people resulted in a much more basic understanding of those people and their thought processes. As most of those I was associated with in the manufacturing arena had little if any military experience they seemed to relate to the characters and the predicaments in the stories—everybody plays army at some point in their life and the attraction never goes away.

The people lessons that I took away from these stories helped in making both me and those around me understand better what we could do to improve our lot in life. After all, people, their actions and the results of their actions are the major time consumers that take up the majority of most manager’s and supervisor’s time— both good and bad people are the real players in the continuing story of our daily endeavors.

When a particular situation presented itself that I thought the relating of a previous experience with a core theme aligned with the current situation might be appropriate I would gather those on my staff and do just that. I told them a story. Then we discussed the predicament that I had just related to them and through our discussion I pulled from them the desired outcomes. They worked out their trouble and routinely were better off as a result. As it seemed to work each time I tried it, I continued to use this tactic more and more as time went on.

Usually after working with an organization for some time and recognizing the need to relate one of these adventures, I might start in and then be interrupted by one of those that had been there for some time asking: “Is this gonna be another moose story Howard?”

I should digress a bit here and give the reader some background.

During the earliest years of my career, I was serving in the United States Army and stationed at Fort Richardson (Fort Rich), just outside of Anchorage, Alaska. Initially I was assigned to B Company (Maintenance & Supply) in the 172^nd Support Battalion of the 172^nd Infantry Brigade (Separate & Light). In an attempt to improve operations the platoon I was assigned to was detached from B Co. and attached to the 54^th Transportation Company just three weeks after my arrival. This action formed a Supply & Transportation unit and provided my initial stint in a provisional//test unit—this remained a central theme throughout my entire military career. I started as the Section Leader of an element in the Supply Platoon. Having the dubious luck to follow two First Lieutenants who were relieved as platoon leader and petroleum officer—I being the only Lieutenant remaining who had not yet wandered into tragedy and trouble, found myself as the Supply Platoon Leader with the additional responsibility of being designated the Accountable Officer for all supplies coming into and going out of the Brigade.

 

172nd Infantry Brigade (Separate & Light)

 

172nd Support Battalion

The platoon’s mission was to provide supply and service support in the areas of rations (food), petroleum (POL), ammunition, clothing, general supplies (tents and the like), construction and barrier material (building material, concertina wire and other like material), and major item re-supply (weapons, vehicles, helicopters, etc). The only classes of supply not provided by my platoon were repair parts and medical items; these came from two sister units within the Support Battalion. After almost three years of testing the organization the unit was eventually designated as Delta Company (Supply and Transportation) and assigned to the Support Battalion. Change didn’t always come in a timely manner in the Army of the early ‘70s—that far eastern conflict was taking away a lot of the attention.

Support operations conducted while in Alaska

Oh yes, the Moose connection. During the four years I spent in Alaska, I experienced more than several sightings, encounters, confrontations, happenings, run-ins, arguments, disagreements, quarrels, rows, conflicts, clashes, and skirmishes with moose—many more with moose than any other animal in Alaska.

An animal that takes up as much room as your run-of-the-mill Bull Moose and weighs in at as much as twelve to fourteen hundred pounds demands attention and most of the time, the right-of-way. In the far, far woods, as my son would come to call the area adjacent to our quarters, I would frequently find myself during the deepest part of the winter playing tag with a bull or cow moose in and around Ship Creek which passed just one hundred yards or so behind the home the US Army was so grateful to allow us to utilize during our stay.. These encounters would routinely make my wife furious at me—as you might imagine—but not not the moose. Tapping a moose on the nose and dodging behind a tree was akin to the same game we would play with a bull or mean white-eyed momma cow back in Texas during my teen years.

 

Moose out our back door

These encounters might also involve a run-in with a moose in the morning formation just outside the Battalion’s barracks area. Or maybe the incident might take the moose through the glass doors into the building itself. Once observing a confrontation between a moose and a VW Bug on the highway into Anchorage gave me a real healthy appreciation for these antlered obstructions. We even experienced a hungry bull that crawled on his knees under our back porch in order to get to the only grass available that winter—the grass outside the dryer vent coming from the basement of our quarters was always green.

Well, not everything revolves around a moose experience, it’s the people who work with and for you that step into, instigate, or cause a problem that makes up a manager’s day. During the forty years I spent in the management, supervision and consultation of operations, both in manufacturing and the military; I continually found myself in the study of these people who caused the situations to happen to and around me. While a good deal of the stories are somewhat military in nature, largely due to the fact that I spent time at more than sixty posts, camps and stations; they are primarily just stories of people, the situations they find themselves in, what got them there and how we//they sometimes resolved the dilemma(s) that we found ourselves in.

 

 

Ft Greely Alaska, Feb 1974 -98°F

Ft Greely Buffalo herd in area later the same day Feb 1974

Eventually I realized that often I really had to watch out for that guy, Warren, knowing that I enjoyed telling the stories maybe even more than they enjoyed listening and learning from them. During routine meetings he might say something like: “Tell us another moose story Howard.” This was sure to lengthen the meeting’s duration and kept managers and supervisors away from their intended responsibilities.

2LT Brown & Sgt Garcia standing on top of 10,000 of Jet Fuel

The adventures I have documented are all true. I know that for a fact. I was there when they took place and often was the one that they took place to. Usually they all had reasonable endings—some more reasonable than others. The situations I intend to relate in my book (should it ever become such) taught me more than I could have ever learned in a management or supervision class tucked away somewhere on a college campus or a one-two-or-three day seminar taught by the very successful presenters of that type material. Just like many of you out there; the lessons of life are much more real than the case studies that professors will ever cause you to study. Most likely you have been involved in just as many situations as I have and through this volume of work I will endeavor to spur just the slightest amount of memory and realization that you may know more about what leadership, management and supervision is all about than you previously thought you did.

I had this same jeep the entire 4 years in the command

I hope you find the stories and information to be enlightening, helpful, sometime even humorous, and at least interesting—the original cast and their actions were just that. Some of the names will have to be changed, but please remain assured that the stories are true and the dubious names may be factious only to save embarrassment; a point readers will subsequently understand. This understanding of people and their reasoning is what I took away from some very interesting, sometimes stressful or physical demanding but always memorable people experiences.

Meeting Attractions & Attentions

Do you ever find it a problem to get the correct attendees to show up for scheduled meetings on time?

Lack of proper attendance and attention from the very start of meetings can drastically reduce the importance, quality and impact of meetings held for the intended purpose of instilling that very intention.

So what’s the answer?

Here’s a couple of methods I have used over the years:

The first method I would recommend you utilize to garner attention was humor. Humor is easy to find; it’s laying around everywhere you look.

You have to be careful with humor and insure it fits the situation and the group. Having crossed that hurdle, get with it.

I had been brought in to facilitate the installation of a manufacturing software package—migrating from a home-grown (with so many patches, you never knew from one day to the next that everything was working as intended) to an off-the-shelf system with all the bells and whistles available at the time. There were various levels of support for the upgrade at every level of management in the organization; making the task even harder. This fact alone permeated the organization and made scheduling and conducting the planning and training meetings a real chore.

I had to find a way around the lack of attendance, attraction and attention. I chose humor.

Each morning after arrival at the plant, I would scour the paper for the best cartoon or funny paper tri-toon and alter the captions to fit a situation of plant interest—always humorous and never harmful. It didn’t take long for the word to get around and soon attendance began to pick up. Initially, I added the toon at the rear of the meeting subject matter being discussed and initially the attendees waited to the appropriate point in time to flip over to that last page to obtain their comic relief. I later found that the members of management were sharing the toon with their department and section personnel—the following began to grow. The Fareside was my favorite toon to modify at the time but Hagar the Horrible, Dilbert, Peanuts and Beetle Bailey work very well also. For copy write infringement reasons I will avoid putting one up here.

I realized that trouble was afoot when everybody, just as soon as the meeting agenda and subject matter was passed out, began flipping to the back page to get their jolly just as soon as they received their paper. I had to shift the toon somehow.

The guys in my department that assisted with the assembling of the training material helped my interleaf the toon into different places within the different handouts. This worked for awhile—I had asked up front in the meeting that they not search for the toon, but wait and come upon it as it eventually showed up. This worked for short period of time.

After maybe three days, just as soon as the handouts were sent down each side of the conference table, there began the loudest shuffling of paper one can imagine—everybody searching for the toon. I should have known this was the next evolution of where we were headed. I had actually picked the exact wrong subject to humorize for the last several days—the proposition that the entire factory would soon be required to wear smocks both on the work floor and in the office areas—although an idea promulgated by the Group VP; it was not well received at any level of the organization. The sole supporter was the laundry service that supplied smocks to those uniform renters that had previously selected to wear them.

The humor idea had run it’s course and I found another method quickly. The smock idea, by-the-way, was never implemented.

The second method I have used successfully is to employ tactics that encourages early arrival. Those arriving early are rewarded in some small way with a reward befitting the situation. The reward can range from candy to the latest company T-shirt. Keep in mind here that those arriving too early should be eliminated from the competition—too early may indicate another problem that management needs to address; why else would they be there?

One method to insure that everybody is on time that I have always liked is some sort of trivia contest. I really like the gathering of short—often obscure—quotations and having the early arrivers venture guesses who the author is. The more thought provoking and the older the quotation the better in my opinion—especially when the author is mostly know for logic 180º in the opposite direction.

Here’s an example of two I used before a meeting about six years back:

(1) “What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows—it must grow; nothing can prevent it. It must grow downward or upward; it must grow smaller or larger, better or worse—it cannot stand still. In other words, we change—and must change, constantly, and keep on changing as long as we live. Who is the really constant man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.”

(2) “Technological progress is not merely an accomplishment of capitalism, but a vital ingredient. Business must innovate, invent, and experiment if it is to survive; the business that rests content on its past achievements is not long for this enterprising world.”

The prime idea to keep in mind is to move into the meeting agenda as soon as it is appropriate to do so. Remember my rules on meetings: (1) never longer than one hour and (2) always provide an agenda in advance.

The additional attractors and attention-getters are for one reason and one reason only: Getting attentive players to the meeting on time. Never let the extras lag on into the meeting time.

Oh yah. Just who were the two authors involved in the quotes (opinions) stated above? Both opinions were first seen by the public way over 100 years ago just as applicable today as they were when first uttered. Most of the guesses I would receive from those early-attendees were never in the correct century and all early-attendees were routinely amazed at the windage adjustment required to even hit close.

(1) Mark Twain, “Consistency”, a paper read at the Hartford Monday Evening Club, following the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, 1884, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Da Capo Press, 1963, p. 577

(2) Taken from Karl Marx’s Das Kapital published first in 1865 excerpted from Robert L. Heilbroner, “The Worldly Philosophers – The Lives, Times & Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers”, Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1953, p 138.

Give either of these two approaches a try if you experience an attendance or attention problem. Remember to stay between the lines and appropriate!

Leadership Maturity

How do you, as a leader, recognize when your leadership has matured?

Are you making better decisions? Can you react quicker and better than you did yesterday, a month ago, a year ago? How do you know?

An self-evaluation of your record is called for and most of the time it is only you that can provide the appropriate answers to the questions. Oh, you might be lucky enough to have a mentor that keeps you posted on your development; but most do not. They have to rely on the old routine yearly evaluation by a supervisor or manager who hasn’t kept track nor has just too many evals to do at the same time to put the appropriate effort into each one.

Here, let me point out, that I am fully behind hire-date evals or anything approaching a schedule that does not call for all evaluations to take place at the same time of year. If management is going use evals for a purpose, then they should make them worthwhile and well worth the effort.

But back to you: Take time to routinely evaluate your own actions. I have mentioned before the use of logs or self supporting records maintained for historical purposes. This is an especially good area where a log comes in handy. Routinely jot down some notes of the who-shot-John variety and be especially critical of yourself when doing so. Often, the notes will come in handy later on when there is a need to fill in some details of the goings-on. You just never know. If you don’t have the notes, you just may be SOL. I have always found logs to be beneficial.

Logs may also be handy to use as weekly//monthly activity report feeders. Recording actions and the who did best//worse can often document subordinate evals also.

I believe it was Mark Twain that once said something like: “Experience is what allows me to recognize a mistake when I make it again!” This is often credited to Twain and a few others; but it really doesn’t matter who said it first—it still bears consideration. Evaluate your leadership routinely and see where you stand.