One of the most often identified roles of a leader is that of barrier buster. Leaders get into trouble when they fall into a pattern of doing the jobs of the people who report to them rather than creating an environment that allows the right people to do the right things. Successful leaders are eager [...]

For years we have all joked and/or raged about the "it’s not my job" attitudes we’ve encountered in organizations, big and small. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself if there is a customer somewhere who thought that way about your organization? Or have you honestly wondered if you’ve got employees that are looking for [...]

The nature of my work requires that I spend a great deal of time away from home. Time alone in hotel rooms provides fertile ground for unusual questions to surface. One evening I got to wondering how a hotel concierge learns about the places they recommend. So I asked. I was amazed to discover that, [...]

The best time to ask this question is when you’re talking to a customer. The next best time to ask this question is when you’re talking to someone on your team who regularly interacts with your customers. This is a question designed to generate ideas–lots of ideas from many sources. So your job with this [...]

Every successful organization I’ve encountered, as a consultant or as a consumer, is passionate about their customers. When people in an organization hear their leaders at all levels talking about their customers at all times, it’s easy for them to get the message that customers are important. But talking about customers isn’t enough. Ever notice [...]

I don’t believe I’ve ever been asked this question. The closest I ever got was on a performance review form that had Where do you see yourself in five years? as the last question on the bottom of the last page. Silly me, I took it seriously. I thought about the work I was doing, [...]

Back to the money stuff. Well, one could argue that most of business is about the money stuff, but asking about the money often gets you to something more valuable. This question does that. Leaders ask this question to investigate, challenge, and assign responsibility. They use it to investigate the forgotten areas within their control [...]

Years ago I was a salesperson for a large insurance company. Sitting in a client’s office (an unhappy client’s office) I asked to use the phone to call the home office to get the answer to his very pointed question. As I dialed our toll-free number, engaging in silent prayer as I pushed each button, [...]

A simple question. "We sell things." "We make things and sell them." "We publish books." If you work in a retail or manufacturing environment, those answers should be pretty obvious. What if you provide a service? "We help people solve problems." "We fix things that break." "We show movies." Surface answers all. Printing books, selling [...]

This may be hard for male readers to understand, but when a woman moves, finding a skilled hairdresser is a critical, top-of-theto-do-list task. When I moved to northern Wisconsin, I asked for recommendations, made appointments with several of those people, and chose one to be my official haircutter. Over the years that she cut and [...]

This question is designed to take the conversation to the level of specific action. This is the What would make us better? question, with teeth. You’re asking your customer to express the thoughts and ideas they had while waiting on hold, fighting to get an invoice corrected, or shaking their head over one of your [...]

I remember one of my earliest business conversations involved the kitchen table, my father, and a company called International Business Machines. I was about eleven. Dad was telling us that his company had gotten a contract to make a part for IBM, but his team didn’t know anything about the product the parts were going [...]

Not many organizations choose to have conferences and hold meetings where I live in northern Wisconsin. (Maybe our annual snowfall has something to do with that decision.) That means that, to do my work, I need to travel. When you stay in hotels often, you sign your name frequently. Check-in. Check-out. Room service bills. Bar [...]

This is the flip side of the last question. By asking this question, you’re seeking information that will allow you to compare and contrast your customer’s opinion of you and your competition. I don’t know any business or organization that doesn’t have competition. I don’t know any business or organization that doesn’t need to know [...]

Remember the song from Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye asks his wife of many years, "Do you love me?" It’s a wonderful moment, and you can tell couples who have been together for a long time by their behavior during that scene. They poke each other, grin, hold hands, or mouth, "Well, do you?" [...]

As with any new endeavor, starting is the hardest part. Reasons to postpone action exist in abundance. "I’ll start after I finish reading the book." "Mondays are better for beginnings than Thursdays." Even traumatic events that would appear to cry out for changed behavior (the heart attack victim who smokes, the parent whose child gets [...]

Fear is a powerful emotion. It can paralyze you in times of crisis, cause you to cower in the face of an adversary, or lash out in an inappropriate direction. Fear will keep you silent when you should speak. Fear will open your mouth when it’s better left shut. And, worst of all for a [...]

Let me admit it right up front–this is a bias. I believe that fundamentally unhappy people make poor leaders. This statement might cause you to pause. If we were having a conversation, I’d be able to see your reaction in your eyes, and I’d repeat myself for emphasis. So let me repeat. I believe that [...]

When my daughter, Miriam, went to college in Milwaukee, she worked at a bakery. Vann’s Pastry Shop was legendary for its specialty cakes, Danish pastries, and bread. When Mr. Vann died, his obituary in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel started with the following: "Calling Bob Vann a baker would be like calling Frank Lloyd Wright an [...]

When you got the message that you were being promoted into a leadership position, I’d guess you were excited. Promotions usually mean more prestige, more opportunities, and more money. People congratulate you, offer to buy you lunch, and your picture appears in the company newsletter. Good news all the way around. Then there’s the reality. [...]

Believe it or not, there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question. Leadership takes on different meanings depending on the person who leads and the people being led. On any given day, leadership can mean teaching, coaching, assigning, cheerleading, counseling, guiding, correcting, protecting, explaining, and observing. Leadership asks you to fill out forms, [...]

As we’ve talked for some time about various communication schemes, ways for improving communications, communication barriers, and personality types, we can summarize the major aspects of what a good project manager has to know in order to be efficient communicating with the team. First of all, it is important to remember that communication skills are [...]

The knowledge of the personality types of the members of a group of people who are communicating plays an important role in providing efficient communications. Determining personality type is a widely used technique, and there are a number of classifications used. Needless to say, this technique becomes extremely important in an environment where many people [...]

When certain information is being transmitted to the receiver, it has to pass through a process of decoding and filtering. Only then can it be received and interpreted by the receiver. Unfortunately, there are a number of factors that create problems in the decoding and filtering process. These are known collectively as communication barriers. A [...]

It is a well-known fact that 80 percent of a manager’s time is spent communicating. It is a somewhat less-known fact that the normal efficiency of communicating is pretty low: right after the information is heard by a person, he can remember only 50 percent of it, and after a month the retention falls to [...]

Communications between persons are carried out verbally and nonverbally. Verbal communications are in the form of oral and written messages. Oral communications can be carried out through dialogues, meetings, negotiations, presentations, or telephone conversations where the main part of the information is transmitted through vocal signals. Written communications can be realized through documents in the [...]

Communications is the art of transmitting an idea from the mind of one person to the mind of another, with understanding. Understanding is the key word. A classical communications model, shown in CLASSICAL COMMUNICATION MODEL, consists of a sender who is developing, coding, and transferring information through certain message channels to a receiver. When the [...]

Percent spent is another simple calculation. It is the amount of the budget that has been spent. It is calculated by dividing the actual cost of work performed by the budget at completion. %spent = ACWP / BAC

Percent complete is a simple calculation. It is simply the amount of work that has been completed divided by the budget at completion. %complete = BCWP / BAC Notice that the percent complete can never be greater than 100. This is because the BAC is the sum of the budget in the project. The individual [...]

The estimate to completion or the ETC is an estimate of the additional money that will be necessary to complete the project. It is calculated from the estimate at completion that we discussed previously. ETC = EAC – ACWP Can you get into trouble with estimates at completion? You bet you can. As we have [...]