“I don’t get paid enough to do this.” I have heard it, thought it and even lived it.  What happens when someone wakes up one morning and comes to the conclusion that they are not happy with their job?  Why does a person finally decide they have had enough of their job?  In almost all instances, it is because the employee is no longer engaged.

Engaged…  ??  Leadership is about fostering engagement.  The Conference Board defines engagement as “a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work”.

Patricia Soldati summarizes some great points on engagement.  Her findings from the Conference Board study summarize 8 key drivers of employee engagement:

• Trust and integrity – how well managers communicate and ‘walk the talk’.
• Nature of the job –Is it mentally stimulating day-to-day?
• Line of sight between employee performance and company performance – Does the employee understand how their work contributes to the company’s performance?
• Career Growth opportunities –Are there future opportunities for growth?
• Pride about the company – How much self-esteem does the employee feel by being associated with their company?
• Coworkers/team members – significantly influence one’s level of engagement
• Employee development – Is the company making an effort to develop the employee’s skills?
• Relationship with one’s manager – Does the employee value his or her relationship with his or her manager?

Each of the drivers listed above should be studied in depth by managers and leaders.

I Got Your "Working Late" Right Here!

Why do your employees hate you and their job? Most likely you are not setting goals and giving your team an opportunity to achieve in areas where they excel. I will be looking at all of these drivers over the next few weeks beginning with line of sight between employee goals and company goals.

Do you have a culture of engagement in your company?  How does a positive culture provide engagement?  Do you have examples of positive motivators in your firm?

Pssst….  Here is a secret (I am not sure why it is still a secret)… Businesses must bow at the feet of the consumer- EVERY  stinkin’ one of us. Consumers are now kings and business must focus on direct interaction with their customers (YOU) or they will die like dinosaurs.

There are two truths that cannot be argued as the foundation for our consumer conversation:

• We ALL have a voice and people listen.
• People listen more effectively when our message is in writing.

How many people are friends with you on Facebook?   I have over 175.  Of those I interact with maybe… 50 on a regular basis.  Of those there are subsets specific to each area of my life-  local friends,  business people, industry people, friends abroad, etc…  Without having to pick up the phone and call a single person or talk to anyone face to face;  In about 30 seconds, I could let all those people know (at the same time) about an experience I had and they would listen to me and possibly tell others.  It is that simple.  You can reach at least the 50 – 250 people you have on your Facebook page today and start a conversation.

If you also have a My Space page and a Linked In account you could then tie them together using Twitter.  When you tweet something- it goes to all your message boards. The message is written for all to see and easily understand.  What does that mean???  Simple mass communication at a MICRO level.  Twitter- aka- micro-blogging site.

We need to understand why having a written message is important.  Ever see how a call from an attorney can get someone worked up-  but if they get a LETTER from the attorney …. see what happens.  Written words carry a finality that the spoken word has a hard time  challenging.  My Facebook message is difficult to misconstrue because it was IN WRITING. Putting my message into written words keeps the focus on the message I wanted and prevents the intent from being diluted as it trickles through communication channels.

Bow Down to Me! I Am the King! I Have a Voice!

I understand that there is something strange about how this works... Mass communication… and Micro-blogging…  does not compute….  how can something be large and small?…. err….

Breakdown in 3 parts:

1. simple, written  messages (Micro)
2. built for interaction (Community)
3. on a easy to distribute, global level  (Macro)

Whut?!?!

What this really means is that you now have a voice.  Companies and people have always known reputation and word of mouth are important, but now consumers have a platform in which to discuss their relationships with business and people in an open forum that allows others to spread their message- virally.  Not to mention- immediately.

If I love the local pizza place (AND I DO-  It’s called EJ’s. ) I blog about what a great time I had there with my wife and kids on Twitter.  My ‘micro-blog’ posts to Facebook where  three other people I have accepted as  ”friends” see what I say and happen to live near by.  Boom-  they want to check out EJs.  Because they trust me.  I have a micro-community.

Understand that companies ‘get’ what I just did.  They are trying to understand how to get their messages out at this level.  An insightful IndiaTimes.com article discusses the evolution of Social Networks and Micro-Blogging through research that was recently published. “Gartner also predicts that by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications.” This means that businesses must adapt to how they communicate with one another and with consumers.  Companies are going to have to interact at a micro-level and do so in written text.

Smart company marketing departments know we can fast forward through commercials thanks to DVR.  We can subscribe to Internet based or satellite radio without commercials.  We can choose to use sites on the web that do not use ads or have pop-ups.  Companies cannot interrupt our lives as easily with their messages.   The rules have changed.  Messages have to have a meaning and be personal.  Marketing is at a micro-level.  It is time for consumers to use these new rules to our advantage.

If you enjoyed this article, I have discussed Twitter/Social Media before.  In my previous posts on Twitter- The first post discussed my initial interest in Web 2.0.   I dove deeper into social interaction and being engaged as the core to building an online community in my next post.

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Don't Let Your Passion Destroy Your Dream

At seeing the Whale-  Ahab lost his last sense of reason.  ”All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” Melville

What does all that crazy talk mean?

Let’s start with Hubris- Excessive pride, presumption or arrogance… the flaw that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero.

Basically the story goes that Ahab had a run in with the Whale many years before.  The quest to find the Whale and make it pay for the pain it had inflicted in him, consumed Ahab.  It consumed him to the point that he was willing to destroy his boat, his crew and himself in order to accomplish his goal.  Hubris personified.

Ever work for someone like that?  Ever felt like that?  Look at the quote.

Ahab became crazy; visibly personified his demons and had he been given the opportunity he would have used his heart- his very core of life- to inflict damage upon the Whale to meet his goals.  Paints a very bold picture of a tragic hero. A person who is not leading with the best intentions for his team, company or family.

It is important for leaders to understand that they are not always right.  They should rely on the counsel of others and take a step back when they are beginning to become consumed with their quest.  Leadership is about far more than having people follow you.  Leadership is about empowering the people you work with and looking out for the best interests of the team.

Think about your end goals.  Jim Collins Says, “The most productive relationships are partnerships rooted in a freedom of choice vested in both parties to participate only in that which is mutually beneficial and uplifting.”

Before it becomes about you as the leader-  write down the end goals and discuss how those can be achieved WITH YOUR TEAM.   The idea is not to talk them into your position.

Leading is not about the leader-  but about the goals.  Just to leave you all with a note about a study done on Civil War leadership.  The study showed- and I quote “…lack of information sharing and consensus building resulted in serious disadvantages (in battlefield losses). In the cases examined, the pressure for prompt decision making was not sufficient to justify the loss of information that resulted from the determination to act alone.”

I have decided to begin a post each week of the top 5 best links I have come across.  I hope that the information will focus on leadership.  Some of this will focus on SEO and Social Networking.  Here is the best of what’s around:

1. Email Etiquette 101 –  Great Article by Michael Hyatt on how you should deal with email.
2. Why Your 4,243,564 Twitter Followers Don’t Mean Jack – Perfect examples of how people push one way on web 2.0
3. Why Google Employees Quit – Shocking info on what everyone thinks is a great place to work!
4. 21 Dumbest Moves in Business 2009 – Interesting slideshow on 2009 business gaffs
5. Make 2010 the Year of Execution – Open Forums talk about how 2010 should be about doing not talking

There I am standing in the lobby of our church.  The place is massive.  There are three services with at least a thousand people at each one.  I have been jittery all during the service.  My mind was racing.  I had heard what the pastor had said for only about the first 10 minutes and then realized the possibilities of what could be.  I was nervous..  visibly excited.  My wife was visibly frustrated with me.  I was waiting for our pastor to come out.  We were late getting to her sister’s house and did need to go-  but I HAD to talk.  I had to see if there was any interest in my idea….

I had no way of being able to tell my wife about what Web 2.0 was up to this point.  She is technical to a point. She works in development.  She has a passion for Facebook and reading news sites.  She emails and chats-  pretty normal stuff.  I tired to explain to her what Twitter was and how Facebook was important on a different level and what a blog could do if you knew how to use it.  I was not able to help tie it all together for her.  I was not even sure I could explain it to myself, but I did know it was important to business technology moving forward.  Sitting at my church was the first time I understood the impact that Web 2.0 could have outside of my world.

Engage...

Our church has always been a little progressive.  There is a good use of music and video media and web technology to help with the lessons and provide some interaction.  The church did not have an official Facebook page, Twitter feed, blog or other such interactive web tools for their community.

The church was going to do a GetFITT series.  Good stuff.  The pastor told everyone that for the next 12 weeks, the church was doing a series on getting fit in spirit, finances and physical health.  He mentioned that the church would be using video to show the struggles of a few of the staff as they worked out and dieted.  Suddenly it clicked.  If the church could use social media to blog about their experiences and others could make comments and follow one another as they struggled and fought to get fit-  there may be a good chance of more success stories.

The pastor came out of the doors and I shook his hand.  I told him about Twitter and Facebook.  I quickly tried to get my point out-  I was finding it hard.  He just smiled and said-  ”You’re the guy to help.  Let’s do it.”  I met with their team and was able to express how important the idea of social networking online could be for their program.  I tried to explain my thoughts in relation to a marketing or brand campaign and realized that my vision was not about branding.

It was then that I realized that Web 2.0 could be many things.  The marketing system I had known it to be was just a small part.  I now understood that it is entirely about the concept of what you want your community to do online rather than shouting out a unified message across multiple platforms.  Web 2.0 was also about community. Interaction.  Discussion. Sharing. I learned about the “social” part of social networking.  I wanted the church to engage their people and allow their people to engage one another.

Econsultancy.com discusses the topic of engagement.  ”By becoming closer to your people (your market) you can engender trust and support, leading to – hopefully – brand evangelism….  forget about thinking of the web as a one-way direct response channel, when it is so much more than that. It may be the biggest shopping mall in the world, but it is also the biggest watercooler / playground / bar / debating forum.

On a side note- the church has over 400 Facebook fans and over 200 Twitter followers now.  The accounts have been online a week.  More to come on tying all of it together….

I opened a Twitter account about a year ago.  I looked for a few of my friends.  I “followed” them.  I “tweeted” that I was working hard.  I waited and nothing happened.  No one followed me.  I tweeted that I was heading to a meeting.  No one followed me back, replied to me.. nothing.  I had concluded that Twitter was junk and that no one would want to know a person was sitting on their back porch eating a snack.  I did not log into my account for another 8 months.

Web 2.0 and Counting....

During the same time period I had opened a Facebook account due to total pressure from my wife.  I got involved quickly as I connected with people I had not seen in decades.  I posted pictures and thought of witty things to talk about.  People posted back.  There was reciprocation.  I was excited by the volume of friends I had.

After a few months of connecting with the people I cared about and having the newness wear off, I began to see that there was far too much clutter on my account.  People would post about how their kid had a very personal internal illness or a picture of drunken idiocy that no person would be publicly proud of.  I then got nailed with pokes and Mafia Wars and Farm Town…  I began to lose my connections due to all the noise.

I began to take a different look at Social Networking as part of an effort to solidify my personal brand.  I had decided that if there was going to be a wealth of information about me on the web, why not streamline it and control the message and image.  I then began to look at Twitter again.

Web 2.0 had taken over.  Oreilly talks about Web 2.0 as a platform for development.  Without getting into mind numbing nerd talk-  the idea is now that the “web is interactive”.  Before- people would email and wait for a response. Sites were designed for one way communication.  Either people put information online for others to see or a person emailed a site for information regarding something.  Suddenly, sites had real-time collaboration and interaction.  Not only with the site but with others using the sites.  The world was changing….

As wireless connectivity became a staple for companies and was made affordable, Cell Phones took the Web 2.0 leap a step further.  In 2005 25% of companies used wireless broadband.  In 2016 that number is expected to be 83% according to Information Week.  Interactive websites and applications were mobile.  Couple this with the ability to take, store and upload photos and videos-  the interactive age of technology was upon us.

This all leads us to where we are today.  Web 2.0 is here and it is everywhere.  Twitter was the linchpin.  Twitter was what tied it all together.  What I had failed to realize was that Twitter was built around a zero reciprocation model.  Twitter was able to be so simple that it suddenly was the foundation of how all Web 2.0 tied together.  Twitter was texting, but it was online and could be integrated into ANYTHING.

You could post to Twitter which posts to Facebook and Linked In.  You could write a blog and have the RSS feed post to Twitter which posts to everything else.  The ability to reach hundreds or thousands of people with your thoughts was now in place.  Now… was anybody listening or did they even care??

I will talk more about the ramifications and how it all ties together in my next post…

I have been doing a great deal of self evaluation over the last few months.  I have a mid-life crises about every 2 years or so.  I have realized that my latest crisis is pretty big.  I am having a professional crises. I had a personal Armageddon right after I began dating my wife.  I had to come to terms about who I was as a man- personally.  I fought a war for months, internally.  I finally came to the conclusion I wanted to settle down and get started with building a family.   I shortly there after came to terms with who I was as a professional.

Are you propping up your firm?

The idea at the time was that I was a technical person who wanted to run an IT department one day.  I came from a father who built his own businesses.  It was all I ever knew.  I tried my hand at running my own business at age 22.  This was more of the E-Myth problem.  I was working IN my business and not ON it.  I liked setting my own schedule and coming up with my own ideas.  The problem was that my visions were too big.  I did not have enough capital or resources to execute what I wanted.  I had no idea how to think small and build from nothing.  Had I been given enough operating capital to set my cash flow and build a foundation for my vision-  I may never have been anything but a business owner.   I digress….

The point is that there are thousands of people like me in the world of business.  People who are creative and have ideas and have always known the road of building a company as a business owner.  Yet- these people  have chosen to remain within a company.  This process is known as Intrepreneurship.  Intrepeneurs are focused on building a company from the inside just like they would create their own business.  Scott Allen says Intrepreneurs “will buck the corporate malaise, risk his or her career to get things done and, is willing to “do the right thing to serve the customer”.  The scary thing as that many people with a drive to be an Intrepreneur may never speak up out of fear of corporate culture or may get beat down as a crazy person within a firm.  I have been lucky in that this has not happened to me.

If I am going to go as afar as to say I am an Intrepreneur- I wonder if I am a stereotypical one??  In a recent personality test, I scored abnormally off the charts in regard to creativity and artistic expression.  I have an above average intelligence and a strong desire for personal growth and success.  My ethical position is very core to how I work and I am focused on protecting my work above myself.  So-  If this is a typical Intrepreneur-  is there one in your firm?  Are you an Intrepreneur?

I would recommend that if you believe you know an Intrepreneur or are one yourself-  that you try the following:

• Ask for or provide opportunity for that person to do something creative
• Criticize the work of that person fairly and do not drive towards the person themselves with criticism
• Follow up, but do not take control of the project at the end. Be involved, but only to provide focus
• Set very lofty goals-  Intrepeneurs think BIG
• Help keep them grounded in reality-  Budgets and timelines keep focus on the goal
• Allow them to lead others-  they are best when getting buy in from others
• Praise is critical- give them lots of it

I am still not sure why I am not an entrepreneur, today.  I used to think being the President would be awesome, but I am beginning to think that Chief of Staff would be more fun.  There is always a need for a strong person running the show in the background.  Maybe you are that person or know someone who could be.  Remember to help them grow by following some of the steps outlined above.

After taking a great webinar from www.threebeacons.com and a good talk from Nathan Eror www.neror.com; I have a better understanding of Agile and how QA works in that team.  Using this information and the process of actually scoping an Agile project with my team-  I believe we have a general concept of how Agile works.

The first things we needed to understand were the words-  the jargon….  I have also learned that there are like 8,000 different ways to do Agile and every team takes what works from the best versions…
Release-  the actual final piece of software.

Iteration-  Time frame used to break up each development cycle within the entire release cycle.  Usually 1 to 2 weeks in length.  You want at least 4 iterations per release in order to take advantage of Agile methodology.

Epic-  It’s like a phase-  more like a block of functional pieces that are logically grouped together. Ex:  Login Page for Online Application

Story-  mini, functional pieces of the release within each epic.  Ex:  I am a Acme customer and I need to login to the Acme site with my email address.  Stories should be phrased as a functional need-  not CODE or DEV work.  Clients do not care about Tables and embedded graphics.  They want to see what works.

Unit Testing-  The heart of Agile.  Test everything as you build it.  Automate the testing if possible.

I will go into a whole different blog about testing-  I am sure I am about to learn a lot as I am being helped by a developer on setting up our testing, repository and bug tracking systems next week.

Basically what we learned is that Agile works if you sell it to the client as collaborative.  Your team MUST buy off on how iterations work and that everything- including testing and build deployment go into each iteration so that at the end of the iteration, you have a functional product for testing and sign off.   The product does not have to have all functionality, just what the client needs to provide a more defined scope as each iteration is completed.

We had to define optimal programmer hours available for each iteration.  We determined for our first project that we would sell 50 “points” for each iteration.  Those points were  based on programming hours and difficulty of each story.

That brings me to my next revelation-  you have to basically scope the project down to the story level before you can quote it-  so planning and pre-project fact finding is critical.  The idea is to pre-qualify the lead and plan the hell out of the project before you walk in with a presentation.  Then the client can shoot it apart through the Agile process by redefining needs.

I will post more as I get deeper.  What we have found makes Agile great for us-  although  a bit cumbersome for smaller projects.  We are finding our middle ground.

It should not matter if your company has five people or fifty people, you should always be looking to train your successor.  With a limited number of people replacing baby boomers in the workforce over the next 10 years, it is critical to grow up your internal talent.  I would like to discuss a few key points:

• Keeping your best people challenged- There are many reasons to challenge your team, but not all of them are obvious.  I believe that in order to keep a person on their toes, they should always be training their replacement.  I believe this lines up with a philosophy of not focusing on the immediate needs, but on a long term goal for your company or division.  Michael Gerber focuses on this core philosophy in his E-Myth series.  “Work on your business, not in your business.”  Without taking this high level approach, there is no upward push from behind and there is no desire for a manager to push themselves past the status quo.
• The talent pool is thin- between the retirement of baby boomers and the recession forcing companies to keep their very best talent, there is a smaller pool of available and qualified talent.  It is critical that companies look into their own ranks for upward promotion.
• Create an actual program- It may be a very loose structure, but there needs to be a defined line of succession.  Some companies may simply call their replacement an assistant.  Assistant manager, vice president, etc…  If a company or division has the resources a group could be assembled for mentorship and acceleration of talent.

As long as a the company leadership is developing its internal talent, the firm will always be pushing the bounds of their peoples’ ability.  Both managers and mentors will feel a sense of possibility in training their replacement; key positions will be deeper and junior employees will find upward learning and opportunity without looking for outside positions.  Keep in mind replacement costs and training without any plan for those key positions.

Looking at ramping up for the 2010 recession breakout? What should be the most important area of your business to focus on for the coming year? I would suggest looking at the most important commodity you have, your people. Understanding that a managed services company is in the business of providing SERVICE! Service comes from people and employee management is critical to a 2010 rebound. Many companies can automate areas of service delivery, but the bottom line is that clients are looking to develop a trusted relationship with their IT service providers.

Understand that many employees have been hanging tough through the recession. With little pay increases, bonuses or employee perks over the last 18 months, many employees have cabin fever. After the snow begins to clear, many employees will begin to see that the market bears more for their services than you have compensated them over the last year.

Understanding that turnover is a financial killer, many MSPs should see a cost savings by implementing some much needed employee programs. If this philosophy is coupled with a clear understanding of who MSPs hire, then the programs can become very clear.

How much does turnover cost? According to an article in Inc.com (http://bit.ly/8OYD95), turnover for a service employee can cost over 3 times their annual salary. There are many online calculators online to help understand real cost for turnover.

Who are MSPs hiring and building a company for? Information Technology is a business for younger employees by nature. The people in the field will typically be between 22 and 35 years old. Born from 1977 to 2002, Gen Y employees are looking for a great job, not for work to be their life. They are looking for a blended life, where work and home are more intertwined. USA Today has a great article on Gen Y (http://bit.ly/4wm3rT).

If we put the pieces together, we have a recession that looks like it is thawing, which means more companies are going to be looking to attract good talent. We can also see that MSPs are hiring Gen Y employees for support and service positions and that turnover costs can kill profit for any business.

2010 should be the year of happy employees! Over the next few weeks, I will look at specific areas where turnover can be mitigated. But to give some ideas, MSPs should be considering 9/80 schedules, work from home opportunities, company volunteer programs for community involvement and special programs. Special programs can be anniversary recognition, catered lunches, happy hours and dinner or weekend gift cards.

Applying focus on employee retention will create happy employees, lower turnover costs and will increase customer service and client referrals. All of this will increase profitability!