Strategy in Principle

Top 10 Wonderfully Bad Reasons to Not Hire a Superb Executive Assistant

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 04:15:00 -0400

Don’t have a great executive assistant? Why not?

Here are my favorite excuses, causes, and solutions.

Pepper Potts / Paramount/Marvel Studios

“We can’t afford it.”
“The company won’t pay for it.”

That’s terrible economics. Re-think how you spend your (company’s) money. Consider:

Everything you do now isn’t equally profitable. The company pays $50,000 to $500,000/yr for your wage+benefits. Do they really want you working at 60% efficiency? Without an admin, poor efficiency is guaranteed. Hiring someone 10 hours per week to do “the trivial many” will let you focus on the “crucial few,” which will more than pay for itself. (Exception: If you have very little to do or your work is unimportant, stop reading now and go look busy. Your job is probably in jeopardy.)
A great admin gets you the highest ROI for your time. Their #1 job is to make sure you stay focused on your Most Profitable Activities. When that happens, your bottom line grows and stress drops.
Do you manage a budget? Does the company give you any discretion over where it is spent? (If not, you don’t really manage your budget, they do. Be assertive and ask for flexibility.) You probably have more latitude than you think: instead of recruiting that new middle-manager they budgeted, hire a great admin, boost your own productivity and career, and start developing existing staff in-house to become the managers and leaders. That kind of staff development is easy when you’re not mired in the mud.

“I have nothing for the admin to do.”
“I don’t have time to train them.”

Oh, yes you do, and you can. This fear really comes from one or more other issues:

You’re so mired in minor things that you’ve already stopped thinking strategically. Think for a moment: what % of your time is spent on strategic things? If that % ideal? Is it acceptable? What are you going to do about it?
You’re imagining the wrong kind of admin. I’m not talking about someone you need to motivate. I can show you how to find great ones with tons of smarts and initiative, with very little effort. Think of Pepper Potts in “Iron Man” or Alfred in “Batman.” THAT’S what you need, and that’s what you can have.
You need a better delegation method. Almost ANYTHING can be delegated, at least partially, using “fuzzy delegation.” It’s fun and it develops your staff as you assign to them.
You don’t realize that your taskslist will change the instant you have someone to assign to. Right now you skip (lesser) opportunities and threats because you don’t have the time. The admin can handle those in a cost-effective way.

“There’s no space for their desk or computer.”

You don’t need one. Instead:

Hire a virtual admin. The world is connected now, and its easy to work over the Internet when you set it up right. There is no need to stand over someone and watch them work.

“I don’t have the time to do the hiring.”
“I don’t know how to spot a good admin.”

Don’t use old, time-consuming hiring methods. Instead:

Use “agile hiring.” This means the job application is the initial interview. Put a list of thought-provoking questions in the job description, and throw out any application that doesn’t follow directions or shine.
Agile hiring requires 1) Knowing the attitudes and skills you need, 2) making the prospect prove their skills instead of you guessing, via questions in the job application plus 3) taking them for a short “test drive” (3-5 hours of work or less), and 4) letting them go quickly if it isn’t working. You can do this without violating any labor laws by hiring them as a true contractor (piecework assignment, their tools, their schedule) via oDesk or similar, letting them work their own hours with their own tools.

“I don’t know where to find one.”

Nowdays, you just look in new places, using new methods. Here’s where to start:

Twitter can point you to great options. Look at the @priacta/virtual-admins list for a start. Search for Virtual Assistant. There are many, many out there. (Admins: tweet @priacta to be considered for that list.)
oDesk is awesome for finding great ones if you’re using an agile hiring process (above).
Monster.com, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, and Craigslist work well for agile hiring. One of the best hires I ever found came from Craigslist, and that was for a specialized position. We used agile hiring—we weren’t flooded with applicants, and we knew we had a winner the instant he applied.
Online/regional job boards work too with an agile hiring approach.

“I can’t use one full-time.”

You don’t need to. Options and benefits include:

Hire part-time, hourly. Works especially well for virtual admins.
Share the admin with other workers or companies. Again, virtual admins do this all the time.
Contract labor is a variable cost. If demand slows, they work fewer hours. As you start to generate more demand, they work more hours. And it’s often cheaper.

“An admin could generate more sales and opportunities than I can handle.”

Say what? This is by far my personal favorite, and the solution is easy:

Only the wrong kind of admin would do that to you. A great one will be a trusted business advisor, helping you figure out ways to improve your model to expand your ability to deliver. They’ll help bring in the deals AND find ways to deliver the goods. Again, you want a “Pepper” or “Alfred.” When you have an admin like that, anything is possible.

What It Feels Like

Alfred Pennyworth / Warner Bros

I advise a client who runs the #1 regional franchise group for a respected international company. He has tremendous flexibility in how much, or if, he works. He’s free to focus on the big-picture strategic initiatives and help make great things happen in the company. Nice.

How did that happen?

Decades ago, he found a “Pepper” and put her in charge. He helped (and let her) develop her natural abilities until she was able to run the whole shootin’ match. And she does, brilliantly.

That’s a great job for both of them, and for everyone else on the team. That’s what you want, and you can have it.

- Kevin

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Kevin Crenshaw is an executive coach and contract executive. He writes about principle-based management, leadership, and extreme productivity. Kevin is also CEO of Priacta and creator of the Total, Relaxed Organization time management system, which gives executives 1.6 extra hours daily and 60% less stress on average. Follow @kcren on Twittter.

(Less) Time Tracking for (More) Productivity

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:09:00 -0400

Image © Madartists | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Client Question: For best productivity, shouldn’t we measure all the time actually spent and compare to the time we planned to spend?

Answer: No. It works against you. Try this instead…

As a productivity coach with years of hands-on experience, here’s what I’ve learned about time monitoring and tracking:

Do NOT track and reconcile every minute of work—not with your team, not with yourself.

True, time and money are similar:

Both get spent by people
Both need some form of budgeting

But what happens to a company when every dollar is tracked down to the penny, all the time?

What if every expenditure must be approved or justified to a manager? Does productivity improve? No—it almost always gets worse, because morale declines. [Exception: when cash is the key factor for short-term survival, you have to monitor it closely during turnaround.]

The same is true for individuals. The best personal budgets have both fixed and flexible components, for two reasons:

People have feelings. Good psychology is an essential part of great productivity. Too much constraint kills morale.
Agility and versatility are essential. You need room to respond intelligently, intuitively, to new opportuntities and threats as they arise.

But you don’t want either of those to get out of control. So how to balance them?

For Yourself…

Be as organized as necessary—no more, no less.

DO budget time appropriately and get excellent feedback on its use.

BUT a “natural feedback loop” is best. It should:

Automatically give you feedback with no effort
Take no extra time
Require little or no logical analysis
Change behavior naturally, subconsciously

That kind of feedback loop is already built into the Total, Relaxed Organization time management system:

The feedback happens automatically, intuitively during your Reviewing step (5 min./day regardless).
For longer tasks/steps, you also get that feedback constantly during the DOing step.

Easy Personal Time Tracking Tool

For smaller items, if time is draining inexplicably, use a simple spreadsheet printout, one column per day, 1/2 hour time grid, and a pencil.

Record the ONE major type of activity you did during each 1/2 hour block.
Set an onscreen timer if needed. I like this one: http://timer.onlineclock.net
That’s as much granularity as you need to see what’s going on.

For Teams and Direct Reports…

Do NOT use Time Doctor or any other tool that tracks actions and records screen shots every minute. They will:

Create stress, resentment, and looking-over-my-shoulder feelings of mistrust
Kill initiative and creativity
Force your best innovators to go somewhere else

See this excellent YouTube video about some of the psychology factors with teams and direct reports: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc?wmode=transparent]

The optimal approach:

Hold people accountable for broad visions, objectives, assignments, goals
Have regular 1-1 meetings to discuss objectives and progress
Let them find the best ways to accomplish those things
When intervention is needed, use the easy personal time tracking tool above

Total, Relaxed Organization also makes this easy. Automatic 1-1 follow-up and zero-preparation group agendas are built into the system.

What’s your experience?

Kevin Crenshaw is an executive coach and contract interim executive. He writes about principle-based management, leadership, and extreme productivity. Kevin is also CEO of Priacta and creator of the Total, Relaxed Organization time management system, which gives executives 1.6 extra hours daily and 60% less stress on average. Follow @kcren on Twittter.

For the Incoming CEO: Your First Action Is ...

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 11:48:00 -0400

Image: © Smilla | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Question (from ExecuNet LinkedIn discussion group):

What advice would you give an incoming CEO?

Answer (Kevin Crenshaw):

Empower and strengthen the executive team immediately. Nothing else comes close in your first days.

The executive team members should cover all facets of the business. They already have the institutional knowledge, they know the staff and the issues, Give them clear rules of engagement, encourage transparency and real engagement on any topics, and establish a clear decision-making pattern (with you as the CEO still in charge, but listen, listen, listen).

Doing this will instantly boost morale and motivation across the company—an instant win. This also starts a pattern of developing a culture of leadership at all levels, which will translate hugely into the bottom line. Also, a great executive team with the CEO at the head is always smarter and more agile than any lone CEO making the call. That’s especially true when you’re getting started. You’ll also get vigorous, interesting discussions and real buy-in, and you’ll train train everyone to think more strategically and collaboratively, which starts to break down silos.

Been there, done that. Loved it. :-)

Practical first step: Gather the existing team, introduce yourself briefly, but focus on them, not you. Lay the framework for how the team will discuss and decide together, get their buy-in on the process, and get right to work. You’ll quickly see the team’s strengths and areas needing development.

Kevin Crenshaw is an executive coach and contract interim executive. He writes about principle-based management, leadership, and extreme productivity for executives and business owners. Kevin is also CEO of Priacta and creator of the Total, Relaxed Organization time management system, which gives executives 1.6 extra hours daily and 60% less stress on average. Follow @kcren on Twittter.

Your Decision-Making Style Is Holding You Back

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:49:00 -0400

Aspiring manager or leader? Trying to advance?

Change your decision-making style.

Scientific Study

The Seasoned Executive’s Decision-Making Style (click to view the PDF) is a brilliant MUST-READ. It shows that a manager’s approach to decisions can make or break their career. Astonishingly, different roles require different types of thinking, and if you want to advance, your decision-making style needs to evolve at each career level. One approach doesn’t work for all positions!

Example 1: CEO vs. Volunteer Team Leader
While President & CEO in two different firms, I also held a volunteer positions leading teams of two or three. Those team meetings were incredibly frustrating and ineffective UNTIL I read this article. Bingo! I was trying to use the a CEO’s integrative style in a front-line supervisor role. By consciously shifting gears and making faster, more directive decisions, things improved overnight.

Example 2: Entrepreneurs in Startups
Q: What decision-making style is best for a start-up entrepreneur?
A: Ask yourself: “What roles am I functioning in?” In most new startups you are CEO, Director, Manager, and front-line supervisor, switching rapidly from one to the other throughout the day. This is one reason why running a startup is so tough: you need to switch decision-making methods throughout the day. Notice which role you are in at that time, and make decisions using the best approach for that role. For example, deciding on signage doesn’t require an integrative (high-level, strategic) approach. Just make the call quickly and move on to more important things.

Example 3: Already at the Top
Beware: Because you’re a senior partner at a law firm does NOT mean you have the most effective decision-making style. You may have been appointed for different reasons, by partners who didn’t understand this principle. (It’s likely, in fact.) If you started with a “front-line supervisior, give-orders-and-follow-up” decision-making style to the position and haven’t evolved, it’s hurting the firm. Guaranteed.
Solution: Get an executive coach who can help you make the transition quickly. Change is possible, and it’s even fun.

Leadership Style vs. Decision-Making Style

“Leadership style” (collaborative, authoritative, etc.) is something different than decision-making style, but they fit hand-in hand. Combine the right decision-making style for your upper management position with a team-oriented, collaborative approach and watch great things happen.

Image courtesy of Sigurd Decroos

Kevin Crenshaw is an executive coach and interim executive (contract executive). As the primary author of the “Strategy in Principle” blog he shares management, leadership, and productivity insights for executives and business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that gives executives an extra 1.6 hours daily and 60% less stress on average. Follow @kcren on Twittter for daily helps and tips.

3 Things You Forgot When You Interviewed That Last New Hire

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 18:12:00 -0400

These three skills are essential to success in work and life. Why don’t hiring managers assess them when interviewing? Do you?

“Those Who Succeeded and Those Who Failed”

A friend I reconnected with just shared this amazing insight:

Several years ago … I returned to my hometown after an absence of many years. Seeing old friends, people I had associated with I was able to see: in a very objective, rational way: those who had succeed and those who had failed [I wrote the results in my journal]. Without exception those who had succeed had always chosen [I emphasize the word chosen] good relationships. They were also self-reliant, and good self-managers. The failures were the complete opposite: they always chose bad relationships and were dependent: in fact the two seemed to go hand-in-hand. It was an incredible experience because I was able to see true sowing and reaping in a very objective, long-term way.

Who are You Really Hiring?

You never hire just the person, especially in today’s social, interconnected world.

Indirectly, you’re also hiring the assets and liabilities of their relationships, connections, and associates; you’re hiring their modes of interaction, inter-reliance, and collaboration.

These are especially important when hiring a potential executive team member, manager, or other leader.

Problems (and Assets) To Watch For

1. Bad Relationships

PROBLEMS: Bad (current) relationships drain time, mental energy, and creativity. They can sap our resilience and flexibility in the workplace and leave us more vulnerable and less effective.

Example: Years ago, I managed an otherwise productive programmer who started showing up late and was increasingly distracted. Years later, I learned the cause:a horrific relationship was draining them dry, pulling them in two directions at once.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS: Prior bad relationships, if successfully overcome, can give a person amazing insights and skills in workplace dynamics. These people have usually seen effective counsellors and acquired strong interpersonal and team skills. They may be able to see minefields from afar, defuse situtations, influence change, and help others step around trouble spots deftly. Having faced a bad situation isn’t enough—they must know what the issues were that they faced, they must have overcome them, and they must be able to articulate exactly how and why their methods were effective.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

Without sharing too-personal details, have you ever faced a difficult non-work relationship?
[Who hasn’t?! If they never have, they may be oblivious—a warning sign; or they may cater to everyone, which could impact work in different ways; clarify why t hey seem tom get along with everyone.]
Without sharing too-personal details, what were the general issues you faced, and how did you handle them?
[You’re looking for 1) ability to identify the principles behind the issues they faced, 2) ability to bring outside expertise into the equation to develop skills to cope and overcome, and 3) ability to “choose” or create healthy relationships even when it’s tough.]
What was the outcome?
[Are they still stranded? Did they take action to resolve it? get a handle on whether this will affect their work.]

Fuzzy Delegation and Multipurposing: New Survival Skills for Managers

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:13:00 -0400

Small and midsize business leaders have so much to do! How can you do it all, competing against the big guns, when there’s so much demand on your time and resources?

FAIL: Multitasking

“Multitasking” is not the answer.

Multitasking is a lie—you’re really “switch-tasking,” and switching costs you big time (see Dave Crenshaw, The Myth of Multitasking).
Cure and Proof: The Total, Relaxed Organization time management system naturally minimizes switching, which is one of the main reasons it reclaims an average of 600 hours per year and reduces stress by 60%. See live stats here.)

WIN: Multipurposing (The New Multitasking 2.0)

Sure, an extra 600 hours/yr helps, but to really “get everything done” in the 21st century I believe business leaders need to master a new skill: “multipurposing.” It’s also known as “killing two birds with one stone,” solving more than one problem with a single action, or “integrative thinking.”

Blocking the Big Guys in 9th Grade P.E.

I learned this principle the hard way—in 9th grade P.E. I was a year younger, a scrawny kid forced to play football with the jocks. When they chose offense assignments, my job was always the same: “go up front and block.” Yeah, right. With everyone else doing the “important” jobs, I had to face two mammoths at once. By myself. FAIL.

But then something wonderful happened. I discovered that one skinny kid could block two big guys … by pushing or tripping one into the other. The blocks weren’t bone-crushing, but they lasted long enough to run the plays. Their frustrated looks were a bonus. WIN.

That’s the essence of multipurposing. To multipurpose, you must:

Clearly see what’s most important to you and your company. This includes opportunities and threats, even if they seem to conflict.
See how those things are actually connected. (“Creativity is just connecting things.” - Steve Jobs)
Address several of those issues at once (problems and opportunities) with a single solution.
Repeat.

Don’t Forget “Agility”

When multipurposing, you also need to be “agile.” I tell clients and staff that “agile” means:

It must NOT be perfect at first, and
Improve it rapidly, over and over (iterating) as you get solid feedback.

In other words, get it done fast, get it out there fast, then improve it fast, over and over. Apple is great at this. Do you remember the FIRST iPhone? They kept improving it—obsessively—until they dominated.

Example: A Common SmallBiz Situation

Consider these (seemingly conflicting) needs:

New staff needs to be trained and developed.
Many big projects need to be dealt with.
You are overwhelmed with smaller but important things.

The Solution: “Fuzzy Delegation”

You can handle all these needs at once (and more) by “fuzzy delegating” one large project to each new staff member:

Hand off the project by telling them what you know about it already and describing this fuzzy delegation process to them.
They start working on it and see what solutions and information they can come up with,
They report back regularly to propose solutions, get feedback and course corrections, and refine the results.

The Results: How Many Needs Are Met at Once?

Staff develops initiative and feels ownership of their projects.
Happy staff. See this amazing video: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc?wmode=transparent].
Subject matter experts (SMEs) develop around the projects assigned to them. People will go to them for answers, not you.
Staff gets trained by you in just a few minutes per week (in your 1-1s).
Projects get handled!
Multiple minds handle the projects, which means more creative solutions.
You are now delegating even tough projects to new people, so you begin to feel less overwhelmed.
You build excellent accountability in your regular 1-1 meetings, so staff and teams will flourish.

The Principles: Why Does it Work?

Looking back, it’s easy to see why this works:

You’re handling multiple issues at once (multipurposing).
You’re doing it in an iterative, agile way (“fuzzy delegation” means you keep revisiting it, getting it better each time).
You’re relying on other proven management and leadership principles in your solution (delegation, accountability, communication, collaboration, leadership, employee engagement, employee development).

What’s Your Experience?

Have you done something like this and found success? What was it? Don’t forget to point us to your web site or other success story while you’re at it. I did ;), and we’d all like to see your results. - KC

Images courtesy of: http://www.stockfreeimages.com/

Wow or Die

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:18:00 -0400

Recently I hunkered down to think deeply about company direction. (My own company is “pivoting,” preparing to leverage what we already have to accomplish something new and amazing for business owners and managers.)

Here’s the bottom line for your company.

The Now of Wow

One thing is utterly clear: to succeed any more you can’t just be good. A strategy or direction change can’t just be another type of business as usual. It has to radically push limits, “shock and awe,” make great things happen. You have to be “Wow” in anything you do.

To accomplish that, you need to define and refine your strategy in a big way. You have to ask (and answer) a lot of questions.

New ventures or directions especially need to “Get to Wow” from the start. If it isn’t wow, it isn’t worth doing.

Example: Twylah. I signed up for an invite to a new visual Twitter service. The next day I was told that my new Twylah page was ready. Here’s what I saw: http://twylah.com/kcren

That was AUTOMATIC with no help from me. It just worked, brilliantly, visually, from my Twitter feed. (Visual is king now.) A couple of clicks later and I saw I had control over the web site (I can own the site name and the traffic), I can pin major topics, etc. So I started to pin some topics and stopped myself. Twylah worked so well out of the box that I didn’t want to interfere with it. I wanted it to keep working its magic, to see what it would come up with next instead of me doing it all. Talk about a timesaver.

“If it isn’t wow,
it isn’t worth doing.”

Not Perfect, Just Wow

But “wow” doesn’t mean perfect. (Perfect is the enemy of fast, and you need to be fast.)

Example: LastPass. LastPass is kinda annoying to use sometimes; sometimes it’s hard to figure out (and I’m a techie at heart!) But after one year of using it in the enterprise, I panicked when renewal was debated. There was simply NO WAY I would dream of operating without it. The pain it relieves is just too great.

“Wow.”

There are many possible “wow” factors. You don’t have to do them all, at least not at first. But you’ve got to have at least one big “WOW” or it won’t fly.

Getting to Wow

So where’s the “wow” in your company, new strategy, or project?

Here’s how to wow:

Involve the whole team in the process.
Brainstorm.
Ask the hard questions.
Creatively tear down anything that isn’t wow.
Distill it to its absolute simplest form.
Require a minimum 10:1 benefit over the current way of doing thngs, AND minimize or eliminate the change required for new users. (See this HBR article.)
Clear time to make room to do it right. (Tip: Use this time management system [mine].)

It’s lurking there somewhere, just around the corner. You can probably feel it. You just need to precisely define it in a few words—whatever your wow factor is—so the investors and clients see it like a hammer hitting them over the head.

When you finally have a 10:1 or 20:1 advantage over the current way of doing things, only then have you found “wow.”

Only then can you or I be a huge success.

Twylah Rocks!

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:55:00 -0400

via twylah.com

Twylah summarizes and brings your Twitter feed to life in a single page. A must-use tool for anyone serious about their information feed.

Here’s mine: http://twylah.com/kcren

The High ROI ($$$) of Engaging Your Employees

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:16:00 -0400

You can’t afford to not let your employees help solve the issues.

Research …shows for every employee that crosses over from being disengaged (meaning they do only what they are told to do) to engaged (meaning they make decisions and implement improvements without being asked), you can expect to add an incremental $13,000 to the bottom line each and every year. That’s $13,000 per year per employee. Just do the math.

—massingenuity.com

So what holds you back?

Image courtesy of miamiamia

The Crash of Flight 447: Leadership Failure

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:22:00 -0500

Simple leadership and management principles can save—or kill—an entire aircraft or company.

For more than two years, the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic in the early hours of June 1, 2009, remained one of aviation’s great mysteries. How could a technologically state-of-the art airliner simply vanish? - Jeff Wise, Popular Mechanics

Nova’s excellent documentary (The Crash of Flight 447) tried to unravel the mystery of Flight 447 using the latest technology. I highly recommend watching.

However, Nova got it wrong.

The seeds of the disaster were already in place before it took off, in the training, behaviors, and leadership processes of the crew. The real question wasn’t “what happened to the plane?” but “how did the crew respond, and why?”

The Flight Transcript Recovered

In April 2011, the flight recorder was recovered from 2 miles beneath the ocean. Leaked to the press via Popular Mechanics magazine, the full, translated transcript reveals a chilling truth:

If you don’t have one person clearly in charge, leading and managing according to sound principles, you’re in danger.

With full respect for the brave and well-intentioned crew, here are pertinent excerpts from the transcript. Read below and think of leadership and management principles in any organization. Consider the impact of having no clear leader, or two equal leaders, or a leader who is not leading, or inexperienced leaders not leading according to well-established principles…

At approximately 2 am, the other co-pilot, David Robert, returns to the cockpit after a rest break. At 37, Robert is both older and more experienced than Bonin, with more than double his colleague’s total flight hours. The head pilot gets up and gives him the left-hand seat. Despite the gap in seniority and experience, the captain leaves Bonin in charge of the controls.

At 2:02 am, the captain leaves the flight deck to take a nap. Within 15 minutes, everyone aboard the plane will be dead.]

…

02:08:07 (Robert) Tu peux éventuellement prendre un peu à gauche. On est d’accord qu’on est en manuel, hein?
You can possibly pull it a little to the left. We’re agreed that we’re in manual, yeah? … Just then an alarm sounds for 2.2 seconds, indicating that the autopilot is disconnecting. The cause is the fact that the plane’s pitot tubes, externally mounted sensors that determine air speed, have iced over, so the human pilots will now have to fly the plane by hand.

Note, however, that the plane has suffered no mechanical malfunction. Aside from the loss of airspeed indication, everything is working fine. Otelli reports that many airline pilots (and, indeed, he himself) subsequently flew a simulation of the flight from this point and were able to do so without any trouble. But neither Bonin nor Roberts has ever received training in how to deal with an unreliable airspeed indicator at cruise altitude, or in flying the airplane by hand under such conditions. 02:10:06 (Bonin) J’ai les commandes.
I have the controls.

02:10:07 (Robert) D’accord.
Okay. Perhaps spooked by everything that has unfolded over the past few minutes—the turbulence, the strange electrical phenomena, his colleague’s failure to route around the potentially dangerous storm—Bonin reacts irrationally. He pulls back on the side stick to put the airplane into a steep climb, despite having recently discussed the fact that the plane could not safely ascend due to the unusually high external temperature. Bonin’s behavior is difficult for professional aviators to understand. “If he’s going straight and level and he’s got no airspeed, I don’t know why he’d pull back,” says Chris Nutter, an airline pilot and flight instructor. “The logical thing to do would be to cross-check”—that is, compare the pilot’s airspeed indicator with the co-pilot’s and with other instrument readings, such as groundspeed, altitude, engine settings, and rate of climb. In such a situation, “we go through an iterative assessment and evaluation process,” Nutter explains, before engaging in any manipulation of the controls. “Apparently that didn’t happen.” Almost as soon as Bonin pulls up into a climb, the plane’s computer reacts. A warning chime alerts the cockpit to the fact that they are leaving their programmed altitude. Then the stall warning sounds. This is a synthesized human voice that repeatedly calls out, “Stall!” in English, followed by a loud and intentionally annoying sound called a “cricket.” A stall is a potentially dangerous situation that can result from flying too slowly. At a critical speed, a wing suddenly becomes much less effective at generating lift, and a plane can plunge precipitously. All pilots are trained to push the controls forward when they’re at risk of a stall so the plane will dive and gain speed.
The Airbus’s stall alarm is designed to be impossible to ignore. Yet for the duration of the flight, none of the pilots will mention it, or acknowledge the possibility that the plane has indeed stalled—even though the word “Stall!” will blare through the cockpit 75 times. Throughout, Bonin will keep pulling back on the stick, the exact opposite of what he must do to recover from the stall.

…

02:10:41(Bonin) On est en… ouais, on est en “climb.”
We’re… yeah, we’re in a climb. Yet, still, Bonin does not lower the nose. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, Robert pushes a button to summon the captain.

…

02:10:49 (Robert) Putain, il est où… euh?
Damn it, where is he [the captain]?

The plane has climbed to 2512 feet above its initial altitude, and though it is still ascending at a dangerously high rate, it is flying within its acceptable envelope. But for reasons unknown, Bonin once again increases his back pressure on the stick, raising the nose of the plane and bleeding off speed. Again, the stall alarm begins to sound.

Still, the pilots continue to ignore it, and the reason may be that they believe it is impossible for them to stall the airplane. It’s not an entirely unreasonable idea: The Airbus is a fly-by-wire plane; the control inputs are not fed directly to the control surfaces, but to a computer, which then in turn commands actuators that move the ailerons, rudder, elevator, and flaps. The vast majority of the time, the computer operates within what’s known as normal law, which means that the computer will not enact any control movements that would cause the plane to leave its flight envelope. The flight control computer under normal law will not allow an aircraft to stall, aviation experts say. But once the computer lost its airspeed data, it disconnected the autopilot and switched from normal law to “alternate law,” a regime with far fewer restrictions on what a pilot can do. In alternate law, pilots can stall an airplane.

It’s quite possible that Bonin had never flown an airplane in alternate law, or understood its lack of restrictions. Therefore, Bonin may have assumed that the stall warning was spurious because he didn’t realize that the plane could remove its own restrictions against stalling and, indeed, had done so.

…

While Bonin’s behavior is irrational, it is not inexplicable. Intense psychological stress tends to shut down the part of the brain responsible for innovative, creative thought. Instead, we tend to revert to the familiar and the well-rehearsed. Though pilots are required to practice hand-flying their aircraft during all phases of flight as part of recurrent training, in their daily routine they do most of their hand-flying at low altitude—while taking off, landing, and maneuvering. It’s not surprising, then, that amid the frightening disorientation of the thunderstorm, Bonin reverted to flying the plane as if it had been close to the ground, even though this response was totally ill-suited to the situation.

02:11:06 (Robert) Putain, il vient ou il vient pas?
Damn it, is he [the captain] coming or not? The plane now reaches its maximum altitude. With engines at full power, the nose pitched upward at an angle of 18 degrees, it moves horizontally for an instant and then begins to sink back toward the ocean. 02:11:21 (Robert) On a pourtant les moteurs! Qu’est-ce qui se passe bordel? Je ne comprends pas ce que se passe.
We still have the engines! What the hell is happening? I don’t understand what’s happening.
Unlike the control yokes of a Boeing jetliner, the side sticks on an Airbus are “asynchronous”—that is, they move independently. “If the person in the right seat is pulling back on the joystick, the person in the left seat doesn’t feel it,” says Dr. David Esser, a professor of aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “Their stick doesn’t move just because the other one does, unlike the old-fashioned mechanical systems like you find in small planes, where if you turn one, the [other] one turns the same way.” Robert has no idea that, despite their conversation about descending, Bonin has continued to pull back on the side stick. The men are utterly failing to engage in an important process known as crew resource management, or CRM. They are failing, essentially, to cooperate. It is not clear to either one of them who is responsible for what, and who is doing what. This is a natural result of having two co-pilots flying the plane. “When you have a captain and a first officer in the cockpit, it’s clear who’s in charge,” Nutter explains. “The captain has command authority. He’s legally responsible for the safety of the flight. When you put two first officers up front, it changes things. You don’t have the sort of traditional discipline imposed on the flight deck when you have a captain.” The vertical speed toward the ocean accelerates. If Bonin were to let go of the controls, the nose would fall and the plane would regain forward speed. But because he is holding the stick all the way back, the nose remains high and the plane has barely enough forward speed for the controls to be effective. As turbulence continues to buffet the plane, it is nearly impossible to keep the wings level. 02:11:32 (Bonin) Putain, j’ai plus le contrôle de l’avion, là! J’ai plus le contrôle de l’avion!
Damn it, I don’t have control of the plane, I don’t have control of the plane at all!
02:11:37 (Robert) Commandes à gauche!
Left seat taking control! At last, the more senior of the pilots (and the one who seems to have a somewhat better grasp of the situation) now takes control of the airplane. Unfortunately, he, too, seems unaware of the fact that the plane is now stalled, and pulls back on the stick as well. Although the plane’s nose is pitched up, it is descending at a 40-degree angle. The stall warning continues to sound. At any rate, Bonin soon after takes back the controls. A minute and a half after the crisis began, the captain returns to the cockpit. The stall warning continues to blare.

…

02:11:47 (Robert) On a totalement perdu le contrôle de l’avion… On comprend rien… On a tout tenté…
We’ve totally lost control of the plane. We don’t understand at all… We’ve tried everything. By now the plane has returned to its initial altitude but is falling fast. With its nose pitched 15 degrees up, and a forward speed of 100 knots, it is descending at a rate of 10,000 feet per minute, at an angle of 41.5 degrees. It will maintain this attitude with little variation all the way to the sea. Though the pitot tubes are now fully functional, the forward airspeed is so low—below 60 knots—that the angle-of-attack inputs are no longer accepted as valid, and the stall-warning horn temporarily stops. This may give the pilots the impression that their situation is improving, when in fact it signals just the reverse.

Another of the revelations of Otelli’s transcript is that

the captain of the flight makes no attempt to physically take control of the airplane. Had Dubois done so, he almost certainly would have understood, as a pilot with many hours flying light airplanes, the insanity of pulling back on the controls while stalled. But instead, he takes a seat behind the other two pilots. This, experts say, is not so hard to understand. “They were probably experiencing some pretty wild gyrations,” Esser says. “In a condition like that, he might not necessarily want to make the situation worse by having one of the crew members actually disengage and stand up. He was probably in a better position to observe and give his commands from the seat behind.” But from his seat, Dubois is unable to infer from the instrument displays in front of him why the plane is behaving as it is. The critical missing piece of information: the fact that someone has been holding the controls all the way back for virtually the entire time. No one has told Dubois, and he hasn’t thought to ask.
02:12:14 (Robert) Qu’est-ce que tu en penses? Qu’est-ce que tu en penses? Qu’est-ce qu’il faut faire?
What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?
02:12:15 (Captain) Alors, là, je ne sais pas!
Well, I don’t know! As the stall warning continues to blare, the three pilots discuss the situation with no hint of understanding the nature of their problem. No one mentions the word “stall.” As the plane is buffeted by turbulence, the captain urges Bonin to level the wings—advice that does nothing to address their main problem. The men briefly discuss, incredibly, whether they are in fact climbing or descending, before agreeing that they are indeed descending. As the plane approaches 10,000 feet, Robert tries to take back the controls, and pushes forward on the stick, but the plane is in “dual input” mode, and so the system averages his inputs with those of Bonin, who continues to pull back. The nose remains high. 02:13:40 (Robert) Remonte… remonte… remonte… remonte…
Climb… climb… climb… climb…
02:13:40 (Bonin) Mais je suis à fond à cabrer depuis tout à l’heure!
But I’ve had the stick back the whole time! At last, Bonin tells the others the crucial fact whose import he has so grievously failed to understand himself. 02:13:42 (Captain) Non, non, non… Ne remonte pas… non, non.
No, no, no… Don’t climb… no, no.
02:13:43 (Robert) Alors descends… Alors, donne-moi les commandes… À moi les commandes!
Descend, then… Give me the controls… Give me the controls!
Bonin yields the controls, and Robert finally puts the nose down. The plane begins to regain speed. But it is still descending at a precipitous angle. As they near 2000 feet, the aircraft’s sensors detect the fast-approaching surface and trigger a new alarm. There is no time left to build up speed by pushing the plane’s nose forward into a dive. At any rate, without warning his colleagues, Bonin once again takes back the controls and pulls his side stick all the way back. 02:14:23 (Robert) Putain, on va taper… C’est pas vrai!
Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening! 02:14:25 (Bonin) Mais qu’est-ce que se passe?
But what’s happening?
02:14:27 (Captain) 10 degrès d’assiette…
Ten degrees of pitch… Exactly 1.4 seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder stops.

Share Your Insights and Experiences

What are your thoughts and feelings?

The Great Twitter Identity Theft Caper

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:34:00 -0500

A case study in excellent (and not-so-excellent) customer service processes.

I’m starting to hate Twitter and love Facebook. Here’s why, and here’s what we can learn from Twitter about customer service.

“I Email, Therefore I Am.”

You may not know it, but you are your email account. At least that’s what Twitter thinks.

I learned that the hard way on November 7, 2011 when I couldn’t log in to my @kcren twitter account. Sometime before that, @kcren, @priacta, @totalrelaxed were all hacked and imaginitively renamed to @Shamus851, @Shamus852, and @Shamus853.*

Thousands of great tweets (in my history) were lost, sort of a professional mini-journal. Thousands of followers lost. Hundreds of Twitter listings lost. Online reputation lost. Hundreds and hundreds of hours, lost.

Was it my fault? Partly, for sure. See the Epliogue for hints about my/our mistakes. But that’s not the lesson at hand. Fiirst, let’s try to reclaim that hacked account…

Support to the Rescue? (Facebook: Yes! Twitter: Think Again…)

Facebook’s account recovery rocks. You get multiple email addresses per account, and Facebook will prompt you to remember which ones you were using. They’ll challenge you if you log in from an unknown computer, and then they give you creative ways to prove your identity if you lose access to (or forget) your email address, like identifying people in photos on friend’s walls. Impressive and fun at the same time! Very cool.

Not Twitter. Twitter only gives you one email address per Twitter account, and it must be unique. Forget or lose access to that email account, and you’re toast. If you forget which email address you used, tough. You need to guess and guess and guess. (Exception: If you associated a phone number with your account, you can use that. Unfortunately, I didn’t out of privacy concerns. Does anyone know if a phone number has to be unique for each account? Do I need separate phone lines for multiple Twitter accounts?)

After waiting three weeks for any human reply from Twitter support, a battle started over proof of ownership (based solely on my ability to communicate with them via the “associated email address” on the hacked Twitter account), the Twitter support rep** finally said:

Unfortunately, if you don’t have access to this account’s associated email address or mobile device, we are unable to continue troubleshooting. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, but we insist on going through this ownership verification process in order to prevent malevolent users from accessing Twitter accounts that aren’t theirs.

(**The rep was always named “dino” in at least 10 separate tickets over two months. Is only one human being helping people recover their hacked Twitter accounts?)

Customer Service Lesson 1: Never let attorneys create your customer service processes. The only safe answer a lawyer can give is “no.”

The Common Sense Test

Twitter’s processes just wouldn’t help me. Never mind that:

The old picture on the account was my face (Facebook knew that!).
The pictures on ALL THREE hacked accounts were changed at once (to the same picture!)
The names on the accounts were SEQUENTIALLY numbered.
My account used to point to my web site, to which I could prove owership.
ALL THREE hacked accounts pointed to bizarre, questionable web addresses.
I still had access to my accounts via 3rd party apps [like Posterous - K] and could tweet to them as proof of a connection.
Many of the links on the Tweets pointed to my (or my company’s) sites.
Twtrland even knows it’s me (as of the date of this post).

Anyone with an ounce of common sense could tell that those accounts were hacked, and that I was the rightful owner of (what used to be called) @kcren.

(Quiz: There are several differences between these two photos. Can you spot them? First photo: @kcren profile photo (before). Second photo: same account profile photo (after renaming to @Shamus851). Photo 1 is also my current photo on Facebook, Assembla, my new @kcren Twitter, and other places image searches turn up. Gee, I wonder if somebody seized control of that account?)

Customer Service Lesson 2: Great customer service is impossible if employees aren’t empowered to exercise common sense. No script can cover everything. To handle risks, set reasonable boundaries, then let your people act as much as possble within those boundaries. Empower them to be merciful. Your customers will love you for it, and your workers will love their jobs more.

The Final, Outrageous Dead End

After dozens of failures to guess the right email address, it hit me…

The first thing a hacker will do when stealing an account is change the email address!

So was I wasting my time? Were they asking me to prove access to the new (hacked) email address? Do they even have a record of prior email addresses? I asked for reassurance on ANY of these questions, but they wouldn’t give a straight answer. When I pressed as hard as I could, they finally said:

For security reasons, I can not reveal the specific aspects of our internal work-flows about which you are asking.

No hope. As far as Twitter is concerned, you have no identity if you lose access to your email account, or maybe even if the hacker changes the email address on your Twitter account after hacking it, and if you previously chose to withhold your phone number for privacy reasons.

So now there was nowhere else to turn, not even “advanced support,” (I would have glady paid $300 per incident if I had hope of resolution.) It was just me and the immovable, unempowered “dino.” He/she seemed nice enough—as nice as his/her script would allow.

And then he/she cancelled my support tickets without recourse. Try again, dude, and wait another three weeks. (No wonder they have a huge backlog.)

Customer Service Lesson 3: Provide a final escalation path, even if you charge for it. In tough cases, let them esclate processes that aren’t serving the customer. Create someone to review desperate cases, your own “Supreme Court” to inject humanity, common sense, and self-improvement into the process.

Good Support = Empowered, Humanoid Workers, Not Lawyers or Scripts

At least you and I benefit from Twitter’s failures here:

Lawyers aren’t service reps. Lawyers don’t create assets—they only protect them. The only safe answer an attorney can tell you is “no,” and “no” doesn’t win they hearts of customers.
Empowered support workers = common sense support.Strict scripts are the kiss of death.
Give me somewhere to turn. Besides my blog. Remember United Breaks Guitars.

Epilogue

@kcren exists again, but only because the hacker renamed my stolen account, which left the @kcren name open. I grabbed it ASAP and started rebuilding from zero followers. @priacta too. Ouch.

Lessons in corporate and personal security come from all this. Maybe I can help you not lose your accounts like we did:

Use highly secure email passwords. Passwords you can’t even remember, 12 characters long, with digits and special characters.
Use LastPass to generate your passwords, share them securely (if you must), and keep them all straight.
Never use the same password on multiple accounts, no matter how secure the passwords are.
You ARE your email address. It’s your proof of personhood online. If you use it to log in, keep access to that email account at all times!
If you are a company, only use corporate emails for access to company accounts and services. Never let employees to use personal accounts or webmail accounts. What if they quit?

*UPDATE: LOL. This post auto-tweeted to the hacked @Shamus851 account—Posterous still had an old connection to it. If you are following the hacked account, I recommend UNfollowing @Shamus851 and FOLLOWING @kcren again. My old content was recently deleted there; future content cannot be guaranteed.

Why Your Organization Needs ONE Clear Leader (A Wordless Essay)

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:55:00 -0400

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Eight Laws of Excellent Corporate Communication

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:00:00 -0400

A Simple Blueprint for Any Organization

The most essential element of leadership and management is… communication. To be effective, you have to understand the impact of what, why, and how you communicate—personally and as an organization. Fortunately, great communication comes down to a few simple principles. Master them and you get amazing organizational focus and vigor.

Here are the most crucial laws of communication for any organization—from a family to a Fortune 500 firm. I’ve identified these from decades of experience with start-ups to multinational Fortune 500 corporations to nonprofits to families. Regardless of the size or setting, these principles apply.

Do you know of more laws? Do you disagree with the order? Let us know below.

Law #1: Communicate the strategic vision to everyone, often.

Where are you headed? Decide, then focus everyone on it, over and over and over. Constantly tie short-term actions to that long-term vision. You can’t get organizational clarity any other way. As Yogi Berra said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.”

Law #2: Keep it clear and simple.

Less is more. If they won’t read it or can’t understand it, you didn’t communicate.

Law #3: Distinguish leadership from management, and communicate accordingly.

Managing = Delegating and following up. [Ed: Use Donedesk for this. Period.]
Leading = Encouraging, lobbying, focusing each other on the common vision.

Everyone leads. Only direct supervisors manage. Violate this rule and you will confuse the troops, stifle initiative, and micromanage a lot.

Law #4: Ensure excellent, constructive engagement on all the issues.

Internal contention destroys organizations. So does its opposite, groupthink, as the Lehman Brothers collapse attests. Therefore, keep communication abundant and effective by emphasizing the need for feedback with mutual respect and mutual purpose.

The Crucial Conversations model gives excellent results.

Law #5: Create accountability, but don’t kill initiative.

What you measure, improves, and in the best organizations, everyone is accountable to each other regardless of level or seniority. HOWEVER, excessive follow-up stifles initiative, and if you measure the wrong things, the wrong things improve.

So, be careful what you ask about, and when. But do ask.

Law #6: Add permanent value.

Convert discussions and decisions into long-lasting, easy-to-use stores of knowledge. Let all participants do this together, especially new team members, since that reinforces learning and formalizes decisions. Do it during meetings in a shared document that everyone can see (a Google doc displayed overhead, for example).

Law #7: Involve others freely, but beware TMI.

By involving more people, you get great benefits:

Communicate whole-organization issues directly to the whole organization for precision and efficiency.
Include others when it can create collaboration and shared responsibility. This breaks down information silos and creates essential systems thinking.

However, you need to avoid TMI (“too much information”), which can paralyze people. Therefore, limit communication to what really matters, when it matters, and only to the parties who will benefit.

Law #8 The Golden Law of Great Communication: “Never reach a negative conclusion without carefully clarifying.”

This one should really be first. Violating this rule destroys teamwork by damaging mutual trust and mutual respect. Visibly honor this law and insist on it in others. It will establish trust, which is the foundation of great teamwork and world-class communication.

Now, stop a moment and look over the items above. Seriously—do it right now.

Imagine your organization communicating this way, all the time. How would it feel? What would you accomplish together?

It is surprisingly easy to do with the right tools.

“We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.” – Ghandi

Twain on Time Management ...

Thu, 06 May 2010 09:14:00 -0400

Without a foundation of relaxed productivity, you can’t lead or execute your strategy well. And here’s some futuristic advice on productivity from Mark Twain:

”The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” - Mark Twain

Great advice. David Allen (GTD) popularized this idea as the “single next action.” However, he never claimed to be its inventor. Dean Acheson introduced the concept to Allen (GTD, p. 237), and Mark Twain beat Dean to it by a century….

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog “Strategy in Principle,” he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

On Going First (The Real Cost of Pioneering)

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:19:00 -0400

Prepare to be surprised. This poem isn’t about what it seems…

“1st”

Intrepid leader, pioneer,

the first to start the race.

Who charts a course to lead the way,

a route to second place.

Though guides are callow, maps unknown,

who treks the virgin land,

by each new failure, marks the path,

to reach the final strand.

The first will vanquish demons that

no other man will face,

and then to hold the place in line,

march on at double pace.

Who oft as not will never see

themself the end reward.

The trail built but someone else

will bridge the final ford.

Regret and failure, dreams destroyed

the conquered hero stands,

to see the next, in half the time,

will navigate these lands.

What will they see, the third and fourth,

while passing by the first?

A counterfeit? A vagabond?

A swine? A fool, accursed?

Or will they see the harbinger

of all they soon will reach?

Who cut the trail, but time expired

short of the final beach.

And will the vanguard be content

to never see the end?

Instead, to be the stepping stone,

instead, to help a friend.

~ John Crenshaw

”Dedicated to every oldest sibling.”

My son John wrote this the day his fourth brother received his Eagle Scout award. All his brothers beneath him got theirs or are in line for it.

He never received his.

As new parents, we were still learning the ropes, and he was cutting a trail for this brothers and sisters. I’m the oldest in my family, and I never earned my Eagle either.

However, I’m totally “content,” as his poem uses that word, and I think he is too. Blazing the path for others and seeing them succeed is where I get much of my satisfaction in life. Perhaps that’s why I love being a coach so much …

Consensus in Crisis

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:32:00 -0500

What happens when a true leader, facing a crisis, honestly collaborates with all parties to find a group solution?

Read the following article. I don’t think this is “spin” or positioning. It’s the real deal. There were no dissenting comments posted on the Richmond Time-Dispatch news article as of this writing.

I recommend this pattern for any leader in any organization:

Use your influence as a leader to be a catalyst for responsible consensus.
What common ground can you find?
What ideas does the “other side” have?
Avoid finger pointing. Focus on issues, not people. (I think this article only scores a C+ for that.)

Bring all parties to the table, agree on the need, then figure it out together. Not only do you get a solution, but you get a solution people can believe in and implement with enthusiasm. And that makes all the difference.

“Tough, Responsible Choices Set Stage for Recovery”

Richmond Times Dispatch, March 7, 2010

By Guest Columnist Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

Virginians need more good jobs. In this uniquely difficult economy, a top priority of government must be strengthening the free enterprise system and helping the private sector create jobs to get our economy back on track. This has been the focus of much of our efforts since taking office.

We have seen in Congress what happens when our leaders do not focus on economic growth, competitiveness, and job creation. They get pulled into partisan fights over other issues. Some of their actions have a negative impact on the capital markets, captains of industry, small business entrepreneurs, and consumers upon whom job creation depends.

I’m grateful to our state legislature that most of my economic development and reform proposals have passed one or both houses, most with large bipartisan majorities. The new tools we will have to promote small business, tourism, film production, wineries, and the energy industry will help to create the jobs and prosperity of tomorrow.

For the past seven weeks I have been working in a collaborative fashion with leading budget-writers in both parties and have made our budget priorities clear: First, new tools for job creation and economic development to foster future growth. Second, no job-killing tax increases. Third, generating a balanced budget on time that preserves our Triple-A bond rating and attractiveness to new private investment. Finally, protecting public safety and focusing reductions on those areas that had not received large cuts before.

Our work on the budget began in January — facing a budget shortfall of $4.2 billion. Gov. Tim Kaine’s introduced budget proposed to cover half of the shortfall with the largest tax increase in Virginia history — a minimum 17 percent income tax increase for Virginians. Both houses of the General Assembly dismissed this plan on a bipartisan basis.

The inclusion of a tax hike proposal with no realistic prospect for passage left us with an unbalanced budget. It meant closing the remaining $2.2 billion shortfall in just a few weeks. It presented an unprecedented situation. Prior to this year, the most revisions an incoming governor ever made to his predecessor’s introduced budget were $400 million (by Gov. Mark Warner in 2002). Our task has been more than five times greater.

Choosing a process of collaboration with my former legislative colleagues, I have been meeting regularly with leaders from both houses to help forge a balanced budget. On Feb. 17, I sent the General Assembly $2.3 billion in budget recommendations. Developing this package of recommendations was one of the most difficult undertakings in my 19 years in public office. Many cuts carry with them a human face, a personal story, and a real impact on fellow Virginians. But Virginians rightly expect their elected leaders to make the hard choices necessary to run government efficiently during tough times, just as they do in their family and business budgets. That means reducing spending to meet available revenues, conservatively projecting future revenues, and not balancing the state’s budget with higher taxes.

According to Virginia’s watchdog agency JLARC, the total state operating budget has grown by 73.4 percent from 2000 to 2009. After adjusting for population and inflation, it still grew by 28 percent. When times were good we adopted a high level of spending, not sustainable in today’s economy.

Before I took office, Gov. Kaine and the General Assembly had already cut $7 billion from the budget over the past two years. Higher education, public safety, and transportation were all hit with deep cuts, while K-12 education and health care generally were not. Thus, our new spending reductions focused on those areas.

Reducing education funding is a tough choice. My sister is a teacher and all of my children graduated, or will graduate this year, from public high schools in the state. Over the past decade, direct aid to K-12 education has grown by 55 percent, faster than other areas of the general fund. In fact, education spending accounts for 39 percent of all general fund budget growth over the past decade. This has occurred while student enrollment has gone up only 7.6 percent.

Our budget proposal will still leave total K-12 spending in 2012 50 percent higher than it was in the year 2000. Our reductions are targeted primarily at expenditures outside the classroom. And the proposed reductions to K-12 can be offset in large part by the use of more than $500 million in additional revenue generated for localities through budget savings from the Virginia Retirement System payments, and through the utilization of nearly $280 million in additional revenues recently identified by our office.

The budgets of both houses have significant savings in the area of social services and health care. However, even if all of these cuts are made, Virginia will still be spending more on health care than ever before.

I have been heartened by the common ground we have found in crafting the final budget. Both the Republican House and the Democratic Senate rejected tax increases, preserved car tax relief, included funding for job creation and economic development efforts, and closed the shortfall through reductions in spending in areas not cut significantly before.

The collaboration with the General Assembly has fostered an atmosphere of candid dialogue. I have much faith in the senior leaders in the legislature to resolve their differences promptly and civilly. We stand ready to pass a balanced budget, in a bipartisan fashion, on time, and without a tax increase. These extraordinary fiscal times will bring about innovation and entrepreneurial management by both public and private sector leaders. The spirit of the people of Virginia to endure and recover from difficult times is outstanding, and I look forward to helping lead our state to brighter days ahead.

Some TRO/GTD Humor: Dilbert & Time Management

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:15:00 -0500

The Secret to (Actually) Getting Fanatical Support from Rackspace

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:32:00 -0500

I’d like to start off by asking you: Are you one of the people who are sick of seeing this message?

After my case study analysis of Rackspace Fanatical Support, we received a number of disillusioned, irate, and even hopeless reader comments (read them below the article here). Now it’s time to report back, share our experience since then, and give you a likely solution. This article outlines our roadmap for getting true, Fanatical Support, as advertised by Rackspace.

Yes, I’m pretty confident you can get it, and it’s not too hard. You just have to know the “secret,” which really isn’t supposed to be a secret at all.

Priacta’s Recent Experience

Many of our site’s reliability problems continue. They have improved somewhat, but from time to time they revert back to their old ways, like the Mr. Hyde side of Dr. Jekyll.

However … something huge changed along the way.

Here’s the big difference: Priacta was assigned a Rackspace Cloud account manager who 1) owns our issue and our account, and who 2) definitely acts accountable to us. (If you want this level of support yourself, read on …)

RESULT: We feel like we are getting true fanatical support, in spite of the continuing issues.

SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS IN SUPPORT: Now someone is validating and responding to our concerns. We are getting regular updates from Rackspace on the status of the issues, setbacks, and progress made. We have some contact with front-line techs and engineers in the email chains. We are able to provide data and work with them to help resolve the issue. And there is progress… definite patterns are being discovered in when and why the issues surface, and likely causes identified and pursued.

ANALYSIS: It’s interesting that even though the problems are not yet solved, we are much more willing to live with the pain when we see that Rackspace is definitely listening, letting us help resolve it, and trying as hard or harder than we would. It creates hope. There is no pain like the pain of uncertainty and hopelessness. Remember this principle for your own business: if your people are distressed at the size of the waves, give them an oar and ask them to paddle. When we feel like we are at least doing something about our problems, we don’t feel as afraid of them.

CONCLUSIONS: 1) Adding accountability (to the customer) and 2) Rackspace taking ownership of the issue does, indeed, restore a “fanatical” level of support in the client’s mind.

What About the Rest of You?

I believe that this is not just special treatment for us. Instead, there seems to be a gaping chasm between Level 1 and Level 2 Rackspace on a few critical, high-profile issues that you have to cross on your own. Why? There is no automatic escalation path. (Level 1 support was decent for a very long time. It only became bad for a couple of specific, company-threatening issues that they did not know how to handle.)

RECOMMENDATION TO RACKSPACE: Create a tech who owns this particular problem and is accountable to anyone reporting it. This tech’s mantra should be: “I’m the ‘No Suitable Nodes’ Engineer. My mission is to find enough nodes, all the time, for everyone, no matter what. I want to hear your experience and give you Fanatical Support on this issue.” Then tell your Level 1 techs to refer people to the “No Suitable Nodes” Engineer. Give her/him a face and name, a blog or web page, then let people post comments there and let him/her respond to them all at once with a running discussion. Channel all the complaints to one place where you can do excellent damage control and give people the same relief we’re feeling now!

Escalating It Yourself

Rackspace reps have said that this kind of support is their plan, they have a policy of complete transparency, and they have an open door. But the real problem, in my opinion, is that this just isn’t true right now for Level 1 support. Instead, you have to escalate it to the next level yourself by contacting management. Fortunately, their management contact information is public. Here is what Angela Bartels said:

We do keep our contact information public, including our leadership. Our GM, Emil Sayegh, publicly responds to customers and posts his contact information freely, and frequently. You can reach him at emil.sayegh@rackspace.com or via Twitter @esayegh. All of our contact information is here as well: http://bit.ly/8utwKW.

Her complete post and contact information is posted in the Comments here.

Try The Experiment and Report Your Results Here

If you’re having troubles, let us know here. Then contact Rackspace using the contact info above to escalate your issue. Report back here in the comment section on how well they responded. After trying this approach, I’m betting you will get the Fanatical Support they promise.

Family Businesses, Entrepreneurship, and "It's Not a Real Job" Syndrome

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:46:00 -0500

USA Today recently featured an article about the entrepreneurial spirit that family businesses inspire in the children of the parents who run it. Consider this:

Nearly half of business founders had a parent who started a small business first, according to a Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation report released last summer. Slightly more than 15% had siblings who launched a business before they did.

“If you had a family member who started a business, you are more likely to become an entrepreneur than someone who didn’t,” says Vivek Wadhwa, founder of two technology companies, as well as a senior research associate at the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and a co-author of the Kauffman study. “They provide inspiration, financing and they teach you the ropes.”

This hit close to home for me. As a serial entrepreneur and father of 10 children, I’m seeing strong entrepreneurial tendencies in nearly all of my kids. Even my youngest son, at 5, routinely set up a “store” in our living room selling things he found around the house. When he turned 6, we explained that he needed to buy the stuff from us and resell it. Words like “profit,” “inventory,” and “margin” became a natural part of his vocabulary.

Owning a business absolutely helps you teach and train entrepreneurship in a more thorough, profound way. In fact, that’s been one of our business objectives all along: involve the children, and teach them marketable skills in the process. We received some surprising benefits, as well. For example, some unexpected sibling communication issues did not get resolved until we hired certain children and put them into the same office. The emphasis on teaching and training also helped create a company culture of continuous learning.

The Rub: “It’s Not a Real Job” Syndrome

However, even with all the benefits, you need to be careful. One issue we’ve run into is what I call “It’s not a Real Job” Syndrome. Children tend to take a family-managed business more lightly than a “normal” job, so you have to take measures to prevent that attitude. Here’s a few quick tips from our play book:

Where possible, let non-parents supervise children. Make it clear to the supervisor and the child that this is not a guaranteed job, and that they should be treated like all other employees at work.
At work, wear a different hat. I’m “Kevin” at work to my children, and “Dad” at home. When they speak using one title or the other, it makes the context clear. “Business is business, family is family.” They don’t overlap.
Don’t rescue them. Let managers and the children work things out. Letting a child fail at something is often the best way for them to learn. Be ready afterwards with some encouragement and mentoring. Let them know that you still have great confidence in them, and everybody falls short once in awhile.
Establish clear, fair performance standards and review progress. “What we measure, improves.” This helps ensure that the same standards apply to everyone.
Rely on principle-based management. Principle-based leadership and management bases its decisions on proven, externally-verifiable principles. Circumstances change, but principles always apply. This management mindset is strong insurance against favoritism, and it encourages and reinforces the clear standards, metrics, and processes you need in an organization (above).
Assure others of non-favoritism. It may not seem like it, but this is different from not actually playing favorites. Managers and others will be afraid that you will treat children differently, so you must reassure them, over and over, that you will not. Ask them to hold you accountable to that standard.

With a few safeguards like this in place, family entrepreneurship can be a blessing to you, your children, your business—and it can be a lot of fun!

See the WSJ article on entrepreneurial families here.

Why Is Twitter Declining? Two Answers, Plus Three New Social MediaNetworks with Ideas

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:11:00 -0500

Twitter’s numbers are flatlining or declining lately. Not as many people are joining up as they used to, and fewer people seem to be visiting. That spells trouble for Twitter. It also makes the business consultant in me wonder “Why?” and “What’s next?”

What’s the Problem?

I believe Twitter is waning for two simple, subtle reasons: 1) It’s not creating persistent value, and 2) it’s an unreliable communication channel.

1) No Persistent Value

What do I mean by “no persistent value?” Old tweets do not show up in searches anywhere. (See “Older tweets are temporarily unavailable.”) The information in these tweets effectively drops off the end of the earth, lost to anyone unless they want to sequentially sift through someone’s history. Imagine writing for a blog, knowing that in two weeks your article won’t show up in any Google searches? How useful would Google be if it only indexed things posted to the Web in the last week?

This limitation threatens to relegate Twitter to the realm of mindless chatter instead of the world of real, personal resources. Example: My twitter stream is designed to be a persistent resource of micro-ideas, thoughts, and tips that would actually help people. But its value drops if you have to read the entire thing start to finish to find what you want.

A temporary workaround is to use archiving services such as TweetBackup or grabbing the RSS feed for a twitstream and adding it to our preferred RSS reader, but these won’t help you or other users retro-actively search Twitter for old tweets.

2) Unreliable Communication Channel

Without third-party tools, Twitter is a leaky, inconsistent means of communication. Yes, I know that’s part of its beauty, since you can turn off the background noise and see only some of it some of the time. I like that. Yet I’ve also had colleagues tweet me @replies that didn’t get seen for a week or more, and they were miffed. They were expecting something that Twitter isn’t really designed for, but that’s the point! They expected it. Twitter didn’t deliver it. Currently, Twitter can only send you email notices of Direct Messages, not your @replies. In contrast, Facebook lets you get notices of any messages people leave for you. That’s important if you want to reply promptly and really contribute to a community.

Twitter should add an option, pronto, to send you immediate or daily digests of @messages (any tweet that mentions you). Without it, it’s an unreliable communication channel, and it’s value diminishes. It becomes “optional” communication, most useful once again for mindless chatter.

The workarounds for this are far from obvious to the average Twitterer. Take a look at notify.me and this article for solutions.

What’s Next?

1) Hopefully, Twitter will fix their search and notification limits ASAP, and hopefully they will remain relevant.

2) If not, look for some other micro-blogging platform to emerge. It may include features from a three other new ideas coming our now.

The first network is Foursquare, a location-based social network that allows you to “announce” and keep track of places you’ve been. The second social service is Plancast, which allows you to “broadcast” your plans to friends and colleagues. And the last network is Tungle, which allows you to schedule meetings by proposing multiple possible meeting times, publishing your schedule’s free and busy times, and inviting others to book meetings.

Check out this great video explaining how these three programs can keep you productive and connected. They may be the services to dethrone Twitter, if these problems persist.