leadership
Never Panic!
Panic is never a good problem-solving tool, regardless of your position or role. It is especially bad when you are in charge of people or brought in for your expertise. Fear is a distraction, and panic leads to a myopic view of the problem. That hinders creativity and fosters dread, and those are not the ingredients for a solution.
The point in my career when this became readily apparent was when I was working for a small software company. We had a new product (Warehouse Management System) and were launching our third deployment. This one was more complicated than the rest because it was for a pharmaceutical company. In addition to requirements like refrigeration and lot control, there was a mix of FDA-controlled items requiring various forms of auditing and security, and storage areas significantly smaller than previous installations (think small packages of medicine versus pallets of one product). It was a challenge, to be sure.
A critical component, “Location Search,” failed during this implementation. About 10-12 people were in the “war room” when my boss, the VP of Development, began to panic. He was extremely talented and normally did an excellent job, but his reaction negatively affected the others in the room. The mood quickly worsened.
I jumped in and took over because I didn’t want to be stuck there all weekend, and because I wanted this implementation to succeed. I asked my boss to go out and get a bunch of pizzas. Next, I organized a short meeting to review what we knew and what differed from our prior tests, and I asked for speculation about the root cause. The team came up with two potential causes and one potential workaround. Everyone was organized into three teams, and we began attacking each item independently and in parallel.
We identified the root cause, which led to an ideal fix a few days later and a workaround that allowed us to finish the user acceptance testing and go live the following day. A change in mindset fostered the collaboration and problem-solving needed to move forward.
But this isn’t just limited to groups. I was a consultant at a large insurance company on a team redesigning their Risk Management system. We were using new software and wanted to ensure the proper environment variables were set during the Unix login process for this new system. I volunteered to create an external function executed as part of the login process. To keep the code clean, I added an “exit” at the end of the function. It worked well during testing, but once it was placed into production, the function immediately logged people out as they attempted to log into the system.
As you can imagine, I had a sinking feeling in my gut. How could I have missed this? This was a newer system deployed just for this risk management application, so no other privileged users were logged in at the time. Then, I remembered reading about a Unix “worm” that used FTP to infiltrate systems. The article stated that FTP bypassed the standard login process. This realization allowed me to FTP into the system and then delete the offending function. In less than 5 minutes, everything was back to normal.
A related lesson learned was to make key people aware of what happened, noting that the problem was resolved and there was no lasting damage. Hiding mistakes kills careers. Then, we created a “Lessons Learned” log, with this as the first entry, to foster the idea of sharing mistakes to avoid them in the future. Understanding that mistakes can happen to anyone is a good way to get people to plan better and keep them from panicking when problems occur.
Staying calm and focused on resolving the problem is a much better approach than worrying about blame and the implications of those actions. And most people appreciate the honesty.
As the novelist James Lane Allen stated, “Adversity does not build character; it reveals it.” Maintaining your composure and sense of calm (“equanimity”) makes chaos more manageable and helps develop resilience within the team. That is key to surviving in any high-pressure environment.
Innovations “Iron Triangle”
The concept of an Iron Triangle is that each side of the triangle represents an item constrained by the other two sides. In Project Management, this is often referred to as a triple constraint. This identifies the fundamental relationships (such as Time, Cost, and Scope in Project Management) without addressing related aspects such as Risk and Quality. It provides a simple understanding of both requirements and tradeoffs.
Yesterday I spoke with Dave Mosby, an impressive person with an equally impressive background. He related Innovation to Fire, noting that in order to create fire, you need fuel, oxygen, and heat. He added that they must be in the right combination to achieve the desired flame. What a brilliant analogy.
Dave stated that for Corporate Innovation to succeed, you need the proper balance of Innovation, Capital, and Entrepreneurship. I found this enlightening because his description substituted “entrepreneurship” for “culture” in my mental model. While the difference is subtle, I found it to be important.
As noted above, simplified frameworks do not provide a complete understanding. But they help understand and plan around the foundational items required for success. Mapping this to past experiences, I gained a better understanding of things that did not move forward as desired and what I could have done differently to be more effective.
One idea was to create a fault-tolerant database using Red Hat’s JBoss middleware. We had a Services partner willing to create a working prototype, tune it for performance, document the system requirements and configuration, and package it for easy deployment. They wanted $10K to cover their costs.
I didn’t have a budget at the time, so I created a purchase request supported by a logical justification. It modeled potential revenue increases for database subscriptions based on the need for a failover installation and growth from potential expanded use cases. This was a slam dunk!
In my mind, this was simple as it was “only $10K,” and I had funded many similar efforts when I had my own company. But that’s the rub. I viewed these efforts as investments in understanding, lessons learned, and growth. Not every investment had a direct payoff, but nearly each had an indirect payoff for my company. It was an entrepreneurial mindset that accepted risk as something required for rewards and success. I now see, many years later, how reframing my proposal as a way to foster innovation and entrepreneurship within the company could have been far more effective, since training is usually a budgeted item that is much easier to justify.
It is never too late to gain new insights and lessons learned. A slightly different perspective on an important topic provided the understanding that should help position projects for future success. This came from a discussion with an interesting person who has “been there, done that” many times.
Using Themes for Enhanced Problem Solving
Thematic Analysis is a powerful qualitative approach used by many consultants. It involves identifying patterns and themes to better understand how and why something happened, providing context for other quantitative analyses. It can also be used when developing strategies and tactics because of its “cause and effect” nature.
Typical analysis tends to be event-based. Something happened that was unexpected. Some type of triggering or compelling event is sought to either stop something from happening or to make something happen. With enough of the right data, you may be able to identify patterns that help predict what will happen next based on past events. This data-based understanding may be simplistic or incomplete, but often it is sufficient.
But people are creatures of habit. If you can identify and understand those habits and place them within the context of a specific environment that includes interactions with others, you may be able to identify patterns within the patterns. Those themes can be much better indicators of what may or may not happen than the data itself. They become better predictors of things to come and can help identify more effective strategies and tactics to achieve your goals.
This approach requires that a person view an event (desired or historical) from various perspectives to help understand:
- Things that are accidental but predictable because of human nature.
- Things that are predictable based on other events and interactions.
- Things that are the logical consequence of a series of events and outcomes.
Aside from the practical implications of this approach, I find it fascinating relative to AI and Predictive Analysis.
For example, you can proactively monitor data, activities, and patterns by understanding recurring themes and triggers. That provides actionable intelligence that can be automated and incorporated into a larger system. Machine Learning and Deep Learning can analyze tremendous volumes of data from various sources in real-time.
Combine that with Semantic Analysis (and products like AllegroGraph) to harness the power of language through taxonomies and ontologies. The monitoring system would better understand what is happening (not just be aware of it), possibly determine how and why it happened, and result in even more focused and accurate predictions. Finally, include spatial and temporal data such as IoT, metadata from photographs, etc., and you should be able to view something as though you were very high up – providing the ability to “see” what is on the path ahead. It is obviously not that simple, but it is exciting.
This approach provides a multi-dimensional view of events and their causality, giving you the means to identify and prevent complex problems before they negatively affect a business.
Keeping these thoughts in mind will help you see details others have missed. Better tools can make for better analysis, better strategies, and better outcomes. Who wouldn’t want that?
New Perspectives on Changing Business Ecosystems
One of the many changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has been a sea change in thoughts and goals around Supply Chain Management (SCM). Existing SCM systems were upended in mere months as procuring raw materials and components became challenging, manufacturing shifted to meet new, unanticipated needs, and logistics challenges arose from health-related staffing issues, safe working distances, and limited shipping options and availability. In short, things are a mess!
Foundational business changes will require modern approaches to Change Management. Change is not easy – especially at scale – so having ongoing support from the top down and providing incentives to motivate the right behaviors, actions, and outcomes will be especially critical to the success of those initiatives. And remember, “What gets measured gets managed,” so focusing on the aspects of business and change that matter will become more important.
Business Intelligence systems will be especially important for Descriptive Analysis. Machine Learning will likely play a larger role as organizations seek a more comprehensive understanding of patterns and work toward accurate Predictive Analysis. And, of course, Artificial Intelligence / Deep Learning / Neural Networks capabilities will accelerate, filling several gaps, including the need for enhanced Prescriptive Analysis. Technology will provide many of the insights business leaders need to make the best decisions in the shortest time, while accounting for the complexity of cost/benefits/risk/competing efforts.
This is also the right time to consider upgrading to a collaborative, agile business ecosystem that can expand and adapt quickly and cost-effectively to whatever comes next. Click on this link to see more of the benefits of this type of model.
Whether you like it or not, change is coming. So, why not take a proactive posture to help ensure this change has a positive impact and meets your company’s or organization’s objectives?
Changes like this are all-encompassing, so it helps to start with the mindset, “Win together, lose together.” In general, having all areas of an organization moving in lockstep toward a common goal is ideal. Critical junctures like these are what require change and drive success.
What are you doing to improve CX today?
In challenging times, minor frustrations can lead to harmful, long-term negative sentiment. Your approach to Customer Experience (CX) matters more than ever during this pandemic crisis. Your business needs to protect relationship capital and see this as an opportunity to appeal to your next generation of loyal customers.
Recently, I sold a few gold coins on an auction website. The transactions were great and concluded quickly. However, the payment arm of this organization appears to have a bug in its tracking system for USPS Registered Mail. The transaction status displayed “shipped,” but when you clicked the “Tracking” button, it was clear the package had been delivered a few weeks earlier. Still, they were holding a significant amount of money without a clear release date.
While that was a little frustrating, what happened next changed my feelings about this company. I sent several emails to Support and received canned responses. I used their chat option and spoke to a couple of “people” who were either chatbots or should be replaced by chatbots, because no matter what information I provided, the response was always the same and not helpful.
Now, think about tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers or prospects having problems getting information about your products and services, getting assistance with questions or support for problems, and working with your company in general. In times of increased stress, uncertainty, or competition, the customer experience for each anticipated archetype must be as ideal as possible to increase engagement and loyalty.
Consistently positive interactions, from interactions with branding and marketing, to the customer journey, to onboarding new customers, to successful implementations and support, increase lifetime customer value, repeat business, and overall business growth. Every touchpoint should increase your emotional connection with that customer.
I’ve always told my teams that “People buy easy,” so, as a group or organization, we aim to make it as efficient and frictionless as possible to conduct business with us. By doing that, being fair, and acting with integrity, we earn loyal customers who support our business’s growth.
Relationships develop over time, and each interaction helps determine the eventual outcome. Understanding what differentiates your company and products in your customers’ and prospects’ eyes can help you create more meaningful, consistent, and valuable interactions. People appreciate a positive customer experience, so those efforts may ultimately lead to developing Customers for Life.
Now is the time to evaluate your end-to-end processes, procedures, guidelines, and interfaces. Be extremely critical as you ask yourself, “Is this how I would like to be treated as a customer?” By making CX a strategic priority, your business or organization will eliminate friction and ensure customers are treated well and feel valued. Moreover, as you increase install base loyalty and engagement, you will be rewarded with renewals, expansion, references, referrals, and suggestions to improve your products. Everyone wins.
Investments in CX today can deliver an immediate payback and increase long-term growth.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 