“You think you’re being a leader, but you’re probably being a manager.”
Management and Leadership
What’s Better Than Productivity in the Office?
I always hire for unity first.
Because there is something much more vital than productivity to the success of a work environment: unity. Will this person fit in, get along, and bring the unity of the team up a notch? It’s not until that question is answered that I then look for teachability and, lastly, talent. (But that’s a different blog post.)
Our culture is borderline obsessed with the focus on productivity and getting things done. And while I am certainly an advocate for those, at my office, and on my team, unity is far more valuable than productivity. Where there’s unity there’s people who love their job. And a lover will always out-work a worker.
Unity encourages discovery, too. Unity means I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine. When you feel safe around your team then you’ll go ahead and try out that crazy, out-of-the-box idea of yours. If you were afraid of your peers criticizing you, then you’d probably stick to what is safe and boring. Unity and trust amongst your team means you’re safe to fail. Which means there’s a far greater chance of something truly amazing happening.
Guts →
Seth Godin:
The real victories come when you have the guts to launch the untestable.
Brilliant At The Basics of Business (PDF) →
One hundred great, great one-liners of advice and food for thought from Nicholas Bate. Numbers 15, 52, 59, 65, 67, 89, 91, 95, 96, and 99 all really struck a chord with me.
But especially numbers 13,
Stop wishing. Start selling. Stop imagining. Pick up the phones. Stop playing with pipeline percentages. Ring every account and ask for business.
34,
A High Performance Business Team is not about having gone white water rafting together. Nor a list of ‘core values’. Nor a fancy mission statement on the wall. Although any of these might help. It is about absolute and total loyalty to each other. Never talk negatively about a team colleague who is not present; talk to him or her.
and 97:
You may well eventually be able to spend three days out of five on the golf course, but don’t make that your goal. Most entrepreneurs work hard, think, develop relationships, sell, chase money, innovate, have fun, pitch, drink coffee. And sometimes play golf.
Randy Murray’s Simple Productivity Task Of The Day: Create A To-Do List For Others →
Today Randy delegated a to-do item to me: promote his article on delegation. But in all seriousness, this is a great article.
My guess is that most of you are the sort of worker who knows that if you do the job yourself it will be done right the first time. And so you always default to just doing it yourself. But delegation is crucial to managing your time and living your life with focus. And that’s especially true if you’re a boss or a manager.
Some tasks you just shouldn’t be doing yourself, even if you could do it better and faster yourself. By avoiding delegation you are piling up work for yourself that may not be the best use of your time. As a boss you’re the only person who can do Task A. Yet you’re spending your time on Tasks B, C, and D because you’ve decided you can do them quicker than someone else. And so Task A (the one that only you can do) never gets done. You should delegate Tasks B, C, and D so you can be free to do Task A.
Also, did you know that by avoiding delegation you are robbing others of their chance to learn new skills?
Attention To Detail is Not a To-Do Item →
Marco Arment regarding the lack of polish in certain areas of Android OS:
Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.
In the 4-hour drive back to Denver from Vail yesterday my cousin and I were talking about this. Not related to Android OS specifically, but to design and development work in general.
My cousin is a programmer for an IT consulting company. He does web development for clients that hire his company. He calls consulting work The Art of the 85 Percent. Meaning, many companies which hire a 3rd-party to build their website or web app only care about getting it 85% completed. They want it good enough to ship in the least amount of time possible for the least amount of money possible.
Which means, most web apps and sites ship at only 85% finished and never see improvements again.
Once an app or a site is 85% completed then it’s usually good enough to be launched. Even though it still has bugs, typos, misalignments, and inconsistencies, it’s good enough.
For a lot of people and companies good enough is good enough.
Taking a project from being good enough to being polished will take more than twice the time, twice the energy, and twice the money. And that second half is the harder half because, compared to the first stage, progress seems slower and less noticeable yet the time and energy spent is the same.
Many companies see that as a waste. Why spend more time and energy to fine-tune a product that’s already good enough? If attention to detail is not a part of your company’s culture, then good enough will always be good enough.
Why vs. How →
Frank Chimero:
How is coulda, why is shoulda. How is specifics. Why is motivation.
Though it’s two months old already, this piece by Frank is fantastic and clear and lands on my ears in very good timing. I’m finding that as a leader it’s very hard to always communicate the “why” behind your requests. But when you’re working with clever and talented folks, just bossing them around without any regard for motivating them will lead to friction.
Moreover, I’m finding that when I am personally asked to do something, I need to know the why. Even if I don’t agree with the reasoning, knowing the why helps me support those I’m serving. As a boss, I try hard to communicate the ‘why’ to my team, and when my boss doesn’t communicate it to me I’m learning to simply ask: “Why?”
So: build a team that can define how, give them a leader who can define why, and you, my friend, are dressed for success.
What People Like Joshua Blankenship are Looking For in Designer/Developer Portfolios →
Joshua Blankenship:
I want to throw some ideas out there that I think might help you if you’re a design/developer on the job hunt.
Project Managers are not Robots →
Brett Harned, project manager for Happy Cog, busts out of the gates with his new, looks-to-be-most-awesome weblog about his personal experience as a project manager:
My goal for this blog is to break down the PM role and bring a more personal slant to a discipline that is typically perceived as mundane. I hope other project managers share stories and experiences, so that we can learn from one another and build a network within the industry. It’s about time that we get up from behind our laptops and talk to one another about what we do and why we do it. BRING IT!
Driven to Distraction →
Jason Fried, in his first column for Inc. magazine:
I can attribute a healthy chunk of my success to the positive returns of laziness.
Purposeful Mentorship
Intentional or not, in your life are four different areas of mentorship.
- Those you learn from (input)
- And those who you teach (output)
- Those you get along with (feedback)
- And those who you don’t (challenge)
It’s not uncommon to complain that we have nobody to teach us, be lethargic about teaching others, run from relationships that are challenging, and to simply surround ourselves with those who will pat us on the back.
But a healthy “mentorship circle” needs to be populated in each area. Like so:
- Mentors (input): Maybe this is an older, wiser fellow who takes time to show you new things. Or perhaps it’s a book or a podcast. The point is to continually look to outside sources for wisdom. Despite your narcissistic perception that you do in fact know everything, the truth is you don’t.
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Mentorees (output): Having an outlet to share your own wisdom with others is needed both for your sake and theirs. You’re not too young to mentor others, regardless of the medium.
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Peers (feedback): Having friends and peers whom you see eye-to-eye with will help you overcome tough times and roadblocks in life. They are there to bounce ideas off of, give input, and help. Also, you are there for them — a good friend and a good peer is someone that will encourage you when you’re doing well and tell you when you’re doing wrong.
A dear friend of mine once said: “You’re not truly my friend until you’ve corrected me.”
- Peers (challenges): Learn how to get the most possible growth in the midst of your difficult relationships and situations. It’s boring to alway have someone patting us on the back and telling us how awesome we are. We need adversaries, hurdles, and challenges to keep us moving and growing.
Your Opinion →
Seth Godin:
When I ask you for your opinion I’m not asking you for the right answer.
Jason Fried’s Video Interview on Big Think →
For class today your instructor, Mr. Fried, will be teaching on office culture, the pitfalls of well-funded startups, and why making something that is very simple yet highly effective is the best thing you can do for your company.
Your homework is to read this post from 2008 on how office culture is formed (or rather, how it isn’t).
(And for extra credit, check out the behind-the-scenes info on how this video interview was produced.)
A Job Should Also Be an Education
This spring will mark the two-year anniversary of my tenure as the director of marketing for the International House of Prayer. And this post is my way of affirming that I think it’s okay to write about things in which I am not a thought leader.
It has been two years since I worked as a full-time designer. Which means I’ve had two years of board meetings instead of creative meetings; two years of creating reports instead of mock-ups; and two years of hiring, budgeting, and business planning.
And it has been a great two years. And, it has been a horrible two years.
I adore my job. It gives me plenty of opportunity to work hard with lots of fantastic, clever, and fun people. Every day presents a new challenge which I’m usually up for. I love my responsibilities because I think I’m good at them. And I even love the hurdles and frustrations I face regularly because, thanks to them, I seem to be learning something new all the time.
This morning, I woke up thinking that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing poorly. Which at first seems to be completely opposite of what we always hear: “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” But I think both are true and should actually be considered together. That anything you do you should do the best you can, but even if you don’t have it perfected before you start, for goodness sake, man, still start.
My uncertainties, struggles, and discoveries as the director of a marketing and creative team are something I’d very much like to talk about more here on shawnblanc.net, but I honestly don’t know where to begin.
I started to briefly in “Marketing Shoes” and in my responses to Cameron Moll’s questions on leading an in-house design team. And posting my 1:1 form was another attempt at it.
But talking about management, leadership, marketing strategy, and creative solutions from a corporate-feeling, non-profit organization’s standpoint is something I don’t feel very smart in. (And I generally prefer to only talk about things which I feel very smart in.)
The truth is I am learning every single day — as if I’m living on the cusp of where my education meets my responsibilities, and each day I just barely learn what I need for that day’s work. And I’m not learning as much about typography, layout design, or Photoshop as much as I am about how to give a short and sweet PowerPoint presentation, or how to keep my staff in the creative zone, or how to get board-level approval on a new homepage design.
And so there are times when I hope to write about more than just design or software or other nerdy things. Such as marketing, leading, managing, and creative solutions that don’t involve Adobe Creative Suite. I hope it not only helps me learn more, but that it also gives you permission to write about the things you’re not an expert in, either.