Digging for gold...

Data, Data, Data!!!! Does it ever end. A running joke in the BlackBelt world, when asked "what did the data tell you?" is to respond with "what do you want the data to say?" Data can be minipulated to tell your story. Creating fancy charts and graphs that woo the people around the conference table is as age old as using two pieces of flint rock to start a fire.

Many times I have seen people build a deck (this is a common term for a powerpoint presentation that is designed to provide much more commentary than the time for your meeting allows - you put the easy stuff in the front, and leave the harder stuff in the back - and if the presentation gods are shining down on you, you never get to the latter part during your meeting and through a sweat drenched smile you end with "wow, we covered alot. I will have to set up another meeting to go over the rest"... situation avoided for now)that is designed to tell their story and get them out from under the spotlight as quickly as possible. The more big words and intricate pictures you use, and the faster you skim through information on the slide, the faster you numbify your audience and get them to do the synchronized swimming nod of agreement. Stupify your audience into not asking questions and you win. That's the game, right?

Wrong. Even though we have all set through these types of presentations we know that is about as effective as trying to blow up a car tire with a bike pump. So, when presented with the fact you need to present information, and data is required, how should it be approached?

Here is the first thing to remember. Data is an output. Outputs have inputs. Inputs are the foundation for identifying root cause. I have never seen root cause in an output, it is only the fossil in the rock that tells me there was life here at one time. Inputs are the real deal.

Let me explain. In any given contact center around the world, on any given day, quality is measured. Quality of conversation, of information given to customers, of sales, of blah blah blah. How many times have you seen a manager (this is where I call out the difference between a manager and a leader - managers are easy to spot by the way they scuttle around like little squirrels finding things to keep them busy and saying things like "you need to improve your game", or "you need to get better at delivering quality", or some other phrase that allows for no more growth than you have seen from the rocks in your driveway) talk about numbers? Numbers are nothing more than indicators, outputs, results... results from what? Inputs, of course.

Inputs in the service/sales world are usually behaviors. The act of doing something that results in a quantifiable indicator. I worked with a Sales Manager at one time that came to me and wanted to let one of his worst sales people go. "She's just not doing as well as I thought she would - her numbers are low and she is not closing the deal". Well, 'nuff said. Bring out the proverbial data noose and let's have a hangin', right? I decided to take a different route.

I believe in the idea "it is 90% your process and only 10% people" (another blog in iteself). I agreed to spend time listening to her with him, so we dialed into her calls, unannounced and without detection (I love that part), and we sat. What was heard was a young lady stumbling all over herself like Otis on Andy Griffith (google it...). He turned to me and said "see, she just can't have a good conversation"... After several calls I picked up on what I thought might be a root cause to this broken legged balarina's dance with the customer, and asked him to go sit with her, turn her away from the computer and have her do nothing but talk to the customer. He needed to drive the system, enter the data, input the sale, etc. A little dismayed that I didn't call her in and ax her on the spot he did so.

Long story short she sold 3 of the next 5 customers she talked to. So, what did I hear that made me take that route. It was simple. Throughout each call I heard over and over "...um, let me find that screen... hold on, my screen is coming up... I am looking for that... wow, my system is slow". Over and over she was trying to do what she had learned in training. Intertwine your conversation with a customer along with navigating a rather complex system that allows you to "build the sale" as you move along. It was a disaster. By removing the hinderance of the system, and allowing her to do what she was great at, which was having conversation, she became a top sales person. Yes, it meant in the short term she would talk, sell, and then navigate the system and that takes a little more time, but we used that as a catalyst for changing our systems and tools to be easier to use "in the moment of truth" with the customer.

If I would have only focused on the output "low sales" I would have lost a great talent in my organization. Taking the output into consideration, defining the root cause to the output, allowed me to alter the input, or in this case a behavior, that created the desired output.

So, for now, don't allow data to be your down-fall. Allow yourself the time to define what is important in your business, measure it, and with those outputs ask the question "why"... and dig until you strike oil. You might just find that driving change through identifying triggers, digging to root cause, and adjusting the inputs will have a meaningful impact on your organizations performance.

See you on the left....

Can't pull the trigger if you can't find it...

The thought prevailing most in my head today is execution (before you send in my writing to the blog police, I am not not referring to the electric chair - I am talking about the "art" of getting things done). I have heard this phrase over and over in my career - "execution is the art of getting things done". The last time I checked art had little to do with getting things done in the work place. As a matter of fact, most inefective leaders I have seen over the years execute about as well as a ballerina in a mosh pit (did I just age myself with that statement?). I am not just talking about going to work and getting your work done, checking off your personal list, and then going home with the thought "whew! I got my work done - I live yet another day"... I am referring to executing plans that change organizations, teams, and individuals. Being able to amoebically challenge and move your business into the future in a way that is going to be profitable, focus on "customer-back" improvements to service delivery, and drive a feeling of satisfaction to those folks that keep the ship afloat day in and day out.


Where the mark is missed most time is in effective planning. During my career life I have seen several, okay - hundreds, of best laid plans that were poorly executed and resulted in less than desireable outcomes. I have to admit, that I have done this also. Intentions are only good if they fuel the action required to execute. So, how does this work. How do you engage people to jump on board and row in the same way to get you across the sea of change?


It is comprised of well thought out plans, learning before you teach, sharing vision that allows people to understand why change is needed, awakening them to the fact change is coming, allowing them to engage in envisioning what change will look like, and then re-architecting, or executing, the change. So many times large ideas are put in place by those in the decision making realms (I always say it is better to be the person making the decisions, rather than being the person living by decisions made - but I just like to be in charge), and then the shotgun approach to execution causes an organization, and individuals, to try to keep up to the changes taking place, without understand what triggered the thinking, why we are changing, and everyone asks the same question, "why didn't they ask me about this - I could have told them what we needed to do". Remember that critics are cheap and plentiful, and chances are, if you don't include them in the take-off they won't want to be included in the crash...


There is so much to cover when it comes to visioning and execution. The first piece I will tackle here is the "art" of identifying triggers. Triggers for change are usually outputs noticed by someone in the organization that causes them to say "hey, that's not the way it should be...", thus, with that one simple phrase a trigger is born. It could be lower than budgeted margins, lower than desired customer satisfaction scores, external competition is driving increased demand for better engineering/design/marketing/etc., less ball-bearings coming from the line than what the supplier needs, employee morale seems down, and there are a million other outputs that become triggers.

Remember, outputs are what you get from your processes - the act of selling yeilds $$s and movement of product, customer touch points yield satisfaction results, and the list goes on. Outputs are usually the trigger for change, but hold on - it's not time to act because you found a trigger. Just like a good game of Clue, you have to ask questions to see if Colonel Mustard really did kill Ms. Peacock with the candlestick in the billiard room... In business you have to ask "what process caused this to happen" and "what are the inputs to that process"?


Being able to articulate a "trigger" is the first step to successful execution. Sometimes that means digging to root cause (whole other topic in itself) to see what is really going on. Pulling out the "why" shovel and digging into data is the quickest way to diagnose a trigger to see if there is need for change. So, go on a trigger hunt in your company. Find a reason for change, and then put it on paper. One very strong leader I worked with always told me, "if it is not on paper it doesn't exist".

Enough for now - I am sure that was alot to absorb. So, when you are bored and need a good "night cap" to put you at rest, read through this again... ;o) See you on the left...

What happened to my ice cream?

Okay, tell me you haven't noticed the change in the size of boxes of food in the stores, while prices remain the same or go up. I used to expect the few miniscule pieces of candy in the super large box at the movie theater (not sure why I accepted it, but since I don't carry a purse I couldn't get candy in another way...) but I have come to realize that "pick me up a half gallon of ice cream while you are at the store" is as out-dated as the cassette player in my daughter's Taurus... My guess is that cows aren't producing as well as they used to, and ice cream manufacturers had to shrink their containers so they could continue to stock the shelves at your local store. Either that, or selling the shrunken ice cream box to the same amount of consumers at the same, or higher price, is allowing them to stay in business during tough times.

In any case, it seems the idea of selling the customer less at the same/higher price to reduce cost to improve margins has crept into every part of consumerism, and as a consumer it bugs me to death (but I still buy ice cream)... Don't get me wrong, I am all for capatilism and those that "do" get to "have" more, but when I am on the purchasing end of that equation it is a little iritating... Okay, enough of my griping on not getting as much ice cream as I would like (taking a look in the mirror tells me that the ice cream companies may actually be doing me a favor - I get less, I eat less; now there is a diet for you...)

The start of something beautiful...

I remember my history class in high school so well... every night as a 15 year old I would sit on my bed, open my book to the right chapter, plug in my headphones to the huge turntable/dual cassette/turn dial radio/oversized music maker next to my bed and drown my thoughts in rock and roll while convincing myself by looking at the page I was going to learn something. After a couple of lousy grades I came to realize maybe reading the material was a good idea after all. From that point on the hardest part for me was sitting in the silence and "getting started". Like trying to put a 3 year old to bed (20 times a night) I came up with every excuse to find something else to do besides getting started.

Fast forward through 3 kids, a wife of 21 years, countless business meetings, six sigma projects, business papers, powerpoint decks, training sessions, and emails that come in larger groupings than the population of some third world countries, and one thing I have learned is that getting started is still hard for me. So, when I decided to start a blog I spent hours, and several iterations of writing stuff, to determine what I was going to post first. Then I had an idea - start with the beginning in mind... hmmmmmm, seems logical, yet so profound. So, I have turned off my music, stopped getting up to get drinks and eat, quit thinking about the emails and tasks coming up in my work week, and decided to start by talking about starting.

Most of what I have to say is about business, leadership, office politics, relationships, learning, teaching, and all of those things that help people become better at what they do, so they can be smarter, learn faster, apply what they know, and grow in their career. However, what I have noticed over my years of drudging on about "what is important" and watching some people gloss over (a clear sign they have run face-first into a tree in the forest of your discussion) there are two types of people. Those that love to listen, assess what they have heard, apply it with their own distinct prowess, and expand their expertise through the application process (for a lack of a better term I will borrow Nike's idea - it is known as "just do[ing] it"). The other person is the one that likes to learn the terms that are bigger than the terms their audience uses or knows. These folks are as easy to spot as a two headed Shetland pony on the farm. You can identify them by the words coming out of their mouths that require a secret business term decoder ring, and the fact their audience is nodding at a pace that will cause their head to soon pop off, or at least dislocate their neck, yet all of the oxygen is being stolen by the speaker, and has left them feeling smaller than when the conversation started, and a little light headed.

These two types of people are usually different because of, not just what they say, but what they do to execute against "what is important". I have been around hundreds of leaders over the years and the one thing I have learned is that there are "sayers" and "doers". The sayers usually have good ideas, know what to do, have read some books that they rely heavily on for their materials for discussion, and talk a great game. The only thing missing is the execution. It is like buying a Bently and failing to put gas in the tank. It sure looks good in the driveway, people wil be in awe at your buying power (and assume you must be smart to get the money to buy on of those) but it won't get you very far.

The other type of person is the one that understands the art of execution. The person who understands that knowledge is power, but has the ability to plan, simplify what they know so it can be digested and acted on, and amoebically motivate and move an organization to fulfill the vision is the one that is worthy of the term Leader.

As I take off on my journey of thinking outloud for the world (or the few friends and collegues I have) to read I will tackle the idea of execution. Why is it so important, how is it done, what can be expected, and all the other "rocket science" ideas I have in my noggin'.

Okay, wow, I actually "started"... that felt good...