by Adam L Stanley | Jun 20, 2017 | Technology
This blog was coauthored with Leif Maiorini, a tremendous leader within my team at Cushman & Wakefield. These are our views and not necessarily those of the company.
Your “citizens” do not need another arms race
You’re probably familiar with terms like “arms race” and “mutually assured destruction.” This refers to the Cold War period (1947 – 1991) between the U.S. and then-Soviet Union, who stockpiled nuclear arsenals to keep each other at bay. Now, it is true that none were ever deployed. Thus, we have two countries with lots of dead/decaying warheads, which is a costly mess to unwind economically and ecologically.
The net result is a great deal of value destruction (trillions of dollars). Driven by differences in social, economic and political points of view, their mutual desire to suppress the expansion of the other’s ideology is likely one of the greatest wastes of economic, political and social capital ever enacted.
The result was driven by fear, fear that the other would have a strategic advantage or a capability that would be used to tip the scale, changing the balance of power and resulting in global expansion of their opponent’s interests. The panic that one party would have an advantage over the other led to a considerable amount of irrational investment that would only be apparent in hindsight, long after the capital was spent, the leaders gone, and the stakeholder value destroyed.
You’ll hear the same term — “arms race” — applied to corporate America a lot right now. Nuclear war is far more serious than a concept like acqui-hiring, yes. But the arms race in corporate America, mostly seen through M&A, has the same root: irrational fear that the competition is getting ahead and need to take bold action to ensure that they have a defensive position. Far too often, ego-driven, growth-seeking leaders allow their personality get in the way of strong decision-making and experience (which presumably got them to that perch).
Many corporations are in their own version of a “cold war.” Afraid that their competitors might have an advantage, they rush into risky investments that usually result in a destruction of value for their stakeholders. Few companies get the synergy promised in their business case when they acquire another entity. More often than not, the acquiring company overpays and the culture clash results in a type of organ rejection that jettisons the best minds from the combined entity leaving the shareholders with a fraction of the anticipated value.
When you make decisions from a place of fear, power and ego, it can cloud your decision-making massively. The decisions that result are sub-optimal at best and essentially destroy companies at worst.
A good example here would be Hewlett Packard. They bought a company called Autonomy for $11.7 billion in 2011; because of accounting issues around that deal, they had to take a $8.8 billion write-down, which knocked out all their profits for an entire quarter. Some people have called HP and Compaq the worst merger in tech history. Meg Whitman has engineered an incredible turnaround there, but the company today is a much smaller version of what it was at peak.
Arms races rarely serve the best interests of “citizens”, in the case of corporations, our clients and customers. Thus, we believe we must seek first to understand unmet client demand and then invest in technologies and solutions that address those needs. We will not make technology investments from a position of fear, ego, or irrational impulse.
- We continue to find partnering the most advantageous strategy for this rapidly changing space. With hundreds of start-ups entering the commercial real estate ecosystem each year, the ability to pivot and exploit the best solution is greater if you are able to partner. Few solutions offer true, differentiated capabilities and our clients dictate that we leverage and support a wide variety of solutions, often solutions that are seen as competing. This is difficult to do without an open, partnership approach.
- We are a global real estate services company that leverages technology to increase the value we deliver to our citizenry. Acquiring a technology company does not make us a technology company, nor does it justify trading at multiples of revenue rather than EBITDA; thus it is possible that value is destroyed by most technology acquisitions. We look to strategic partnerships with aggregators like DMGI and Accruent as ways to support continued growth and investment in CRETech.
- We continue to partner with innovative accelerators like MetaPropNYC, 1871 in Chicago, and Moderne Ventures to identify new players that could help us meet the needs of our clients as we work toward a POC as a Service model across our markets.
- Our focus is on making our service lines more productive, creating a level of interconnectedness between them and our client, and providing the analytics that enable more effective decision making. Given that for most companies, real estate is their top (or second) largest expense, helping our customers get the greatest value from this investment is our top priority. .
So here’s the soapbox – Stop the arms race. The arms race described above — the Cold War version — certainly didn’t benefit any citizens. Companies have “citizens” too, those being clients and customers. So before you go out and make an irrational decision, ask a few questions:
- What are the unmet client demands?
- How should this demand be addressed? What are the solutions that create the greatest value?
- Has this problem been solved? Is there something in the market (or a derivative market) that could help solve them?
- What is the option that results in the greatest benefit to all parties and the greatest value for our customers?
- What is the value of an acquisition, investment, or partnership? Who benefits? Are there competing solutions and will our strategy result in a transient, strategic, or little/no advantage for our stakeholders?
- Would we be positioned to buy this market player? Is that the right decision?
- What would that look like financially and culturally?
- Are we buying this tech just to buy it, or is this serving a need and researched?
We believe that answering these questions, playing out the scenarios, and looking at the outcome with a high level of scrutiny will result in less acquisition activity, greater partnerships, and higher overall value for all involved.
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com
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by Adam L Stanley | Feb 3, 2013 | Technology, Vendors and Partners
I have now had my BlackBerry Z10 device for a few days and am beginning to get a sense of the device functionality and the overall experience. I am not a professional reviewer but like to share. I’m reserving my final judgement and not ready to decide for sure that I will be moving away from iPhone to this however I will say it is a pretty good device with some serious limitations I will cover.
The Hub
A big highlight in the advertising for the new device is the Hub, basically one spot where all of your email, social networking, and text messaging updates can be found. It is fairly easy to use, and quite convenient in allowing a simple view of all of the information you need to ignore (LOL) for the day. Is it absolutely amazing, best thing since sliced bread? Not really. But it is an improvement over iPhone where you would have to seperately open LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email, and messaging to get the same content. And even viewing the actual apps is easier on Blackbery Z10 because you can have up to 8 applications open at the same time.
Setup for Facebook and LinkedIn are incredibly easy, by the way. And, when I set up LinkedIn, the phone asked me if I also wanted to add the email address I used for linked in to my device email accounts. I clicked ok and setup took seconds! Only question is why it did not do the same for FaceBook.
The Hub
Email and Typing
Confident now to say that text recognition is better than iPhone. It is intuitive and suggests words not just on the letters I type but on the context of the sentence. If you start typing the quick brown fox, it knows you are about to write jumps over the lazy … pretty cool. And with some keyboard under the keyboard functionality, it learns how your fingers work and begins to correct the keyboard. So if your fat fingers always type Q when you mean to type W, it begins to shift the keyboard over to the right a little. Its coll and it just works. Plus it is SO easy to delete words and whole sentences with a slide of the finger. Finally, email addressing feature rocks. It remembers some of the last people who wrote you or you wrote and suggests they may be the ones you want to draft a new note to.
Cons:
1) Annoying that I can’t just refresh to mark things like Facebook and LinkedIn updates as “read”. Drawback of the Hub is that email and social media feeds are treated the same.
2) The work/personal thing comes back to be annoying here as well as you cannot even see the work address list without unlocking Work. (See notes on Balance functionality below). This is good for those who want to let their children play with the device but since I do not do that, it just annoys me.
Balance Feature
So, on to Balance …. Balance allows you to partition your device between work and personal. This is EXACTLY what I have been looking for over the years. I carry a personal device and a work device because I just like to keep things seperate. With a swipe down from the top of the screen and a quick click of either the WOrk or Personal tab, you can go from your always open personally controlled apps and social networking things to a container that is locked down and segmented for Work. When in personal, you cannot access certain things in the Work side. And you can’t cut and paste between the two sides. But switching is very easy and only Work requires a password beyond the device password. You can choose whether to make it the same password for both getting into the device and getting into Work (though most Corporate security functions will not allow this … they shouldn’t!).
From a security perspective this function and its restrictions are great. Basically, things you do and emails you receive in your work world stay in your work world. This is very different from the iPhone experience without a container app like Good but similar to what you would experience with Good or Mobile Iron. If you have had a limited lockdown experience as many corporate iPhone users have, this Balance Feature may take some getting used to.
For instance, I emailed a photo from iPhone to the blackberry, saved it, but it is saved in work side. I kept saving it and thinking I had done something wrong because every time I tried to use it for my BBM profile photo, I couldn’t find it. It took me a while to figure out how to save a photo in personal side other than those I take with the camera.
Perhaps more frustrating is that I can’t even see my work calendar or contacts when in personal mode. To view details for an item I have to enter the work password. Again, from a security perspective, this is nice, but it can be a pain at first. Also limits the convenience of the Hub when BlackBerry Messenger is only in the personal side and the corporate version is still in beta. I assume the enterprise messenger would also be in the Hub however.
BlackBerry Messenger
BBM is pretty darn cool if you have other friends that use it. Like Whatsapp and now Facebook Messenger, it allows you to chat with contacts and share photos, voice notes, appointments, and other files less than a 6 MB. Given the ease with which you can take a video of yourself, you could send a video message as well. Strange that they did not add that explicitly as an option in BBM. The only way it seems you can send a video is to create one in Story Maker or Camera and then attach it as a file. It is easy to invite multiple colleagues to a chat and can even have a video or voice conversation.
WAY COOL application HOWEVER it only works with others that have a BlackBerry. So, it does not replace Whatsapp and/or Facebook Messenger given, frankly, not that many people have BlackBerry devices these days.
Navigation and Speed
Navigating will be hard for those uses to iPhones and likely easier if you’re coming from android or windows phone. But after a few days of using it, the peek and flow navigtion actually grows on you. And if you had an Android, I’m guessing it woudl be even easier to adapt to the BB10 gestures. Without the iOs style home button, the screen does get more space and navigation is done via any of the frame area on the device, which is pretty cool.
Cons:
1) Speed going between screens in an app is a bit slow and I can’t tell if it is a network or software issue.
2) Every once and a while the screen will not rotate. Not sure what it is but it just gets locked up and no matter how I move the phone it stays in portrait mode. In some apps, like Story Maker, this is intentional albeit still annoying. But others, it just seems like a flaw.
3) The App Store is PAINFULLY slow. And then you find out why … Almost like they were embarrassed to show you the limited selection so made it open very slowly …
BlackBerry World
The good news is that many major applications are there. The ones everyone would expect: Fcebook (though not as robust as in iphone), twitter, LinkedIn, foursquare, YouTube, Adobe Reader, and of course Angry Birds. And native apps for photos, videos, and messaging are strong. Docs To Go blows most of the iphone editing apps out of the water.
The bad news is that it is still a very tiny (I mean minuscule) store compared to iphone and Android. And unless I am missing something, Whatsapp and Kindle are still not there. They announced at the launch event these apps would be supported on BB10 but not they are certainly not in the store yet. Disappointing. If the plan is they will come soon, I think it would have been better for Blackberry to wait to launch. This will hurt their ability to drive excitement.
Highlights of Missing Applications
Banking and Finance: Citibank, PayPal, Capital One, Fidelity were missing. To confirm it wasn’t just my American biased apps missing on my UK device, I also checked (and did not find) apps for any of the major UK banks. Emirates Bank was there …
Shopping: no eBay or Amazon (really????) but they did have Ocado, a winner for Uk grocery delivery. The other shopping apps were so random and obscure it literally looked as if Blackberry went door to door in several third world countries and asked for volunteers.
News: CNN, BBC News, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg were noticeably absent. The BBC iplayer was available though I must admit I’m not a big fan of that poor navigation system from BBC. Many of the dailies were there, including the London Evening Standard.
Communications: I did not find Skype, Whatsapp, or Viber. No yammer. No ooVoo.
Travel: No TripIt, TripAvisor, hotels.com, American Airlines or seat guru apps. Lots of off small apps but none of the big ones available on iPhone and Android. and, sadly, my ESSENTIAL Hailo app for booking London taxis is not there yet. That is a must before I give up the iPhone.
Most disappointing to me was THERE IS NO KINDLE APP. But, overall, I am highly disappointed in the apps available. This may be a known limitation for long term blackberry users but having been with iPhone for the past 4 years or so, sorry this is a nonstarter.
Oh, and No Google Maps but thus far the native map application seems at least to be better than the awful one embedded in iOs 6. And it has voice instructions. Only issue is that it is very very very slow to get started. Not sure if that is a network or device issue.
Music and Movies
Noticably weaker than the missing apps is the limited entertainment options in the store. That said, whilst the music and video stores are embarassingly limited, this does not matter as much to me as the missing apps. I thought perhaps I had put on a filter of some sort as the television shows available were the common ones that seem to be available EVERYWHERE. There is literally not an online service (or airline) in the world that doesn’t offer Modern Family, American Dad, and How I Met Your Mother…. and I’m just not interested in either! This must drastically improve before there is an easy move from iTunes. Especially given thus far, I can’t transfer my iTunes content to the new device. That’s Apple’s fault, of course, with their proprietary format. #Annoyed. I bought it and should be able to use it wherever I want to …
Social Networking
Integration of social networking into the device is great, with four easy icons automatically added on the home screen and easy setup. The tiles allow uyou to have multiple social networking sites open on the phone at once, which is great. And Hub gives you all of your updates in one place.
Cons:
1) Facebook – Inability to hold down on an image in Facebook and save to the phone is frustrating. Inability to add photos to an album from within the app. Also, if I did not tag a photo when uploadng it (via another device or my PC), I cannot tag it using the Blackberry Facebook app. Nor can I edit tags in the app.
2) Twitter – Cannot edit my profile to change text or photo, nor can I add another Twitter account so that I can easily change between, for instance, a work group and personal twitter handle. Both of these things I can do on my iPhone.
3) LinkedIn – just not as good as the one on iphone. Navigation and content limited.
Summary of the Good
1) StoryMaker is really really cool. So easy to take photos, add music and quickly create movies for sharing via text, email, Facebook, YouTube, etc. My family and friends will likely get quickly tired of my photo montages.
2) Navigation is fairly easy once you get used to it and it is great to be able to easily switch between applications that remain open (up to 8)
3) Calendar is great, with nice view of individuals in the meeting and any connections you have with that person (email, LinkedIn, etc). It also has lists of any emails relating to the meeting, and shows adjacent events in an easy view.
4) The Hub is convenient and allows for easy view of all of the information overload with which we must deal.
5) Screen size is fantastic and the images are fairly crisp. I want to try it out for watching a movie or TV show but of course the options are crap so I will wait on that!
6) Nice browser experience with easy to use navigation and settings.
7) FLASH!!! Yes, I know people have moved on but it sure is nice to be back to a device that supports Flash.
8) Ability to make calls and conference calls very easily from the address book, home screen, within calendar entries, etc. Also I forgot how much I had missed the ease with which Blackberry integrates into corporate conference call systems with the ability to program the number and password in a calendar or contact book entry.
9) The size, weight and look of the device. Cooler than any BlackBerry ever and just as cool as the other phones out there today. Smaller than a Nokia 920 and just slightly bigger than the iPhone 5.
10) Proprietary without being annoying like Apple. I can use a standard micro-USB charger!
Summary of the Bad
1) App Store is pitiful, with many critical apps missing. I mean truly truly truly pitiful.
2) App Store
3) App Store
4) Music store is limited.
5) Movie and television show options are limited in a really sad, almost pathetic, way. BUt I could deal with this if more content services were available on the device. Most of what I watch on my iPhone is via CNN and BBC news apps, neither of which are available on this device.
6) BlackBerry Link, the tool with which you sync your device with your PC, is not intuitive, has relatively poor navigation and just doesn’t have the functionality and convenience out of the box that iTunes has. ***Update 5Feb12: Finding this is more of a user education issue. Having been 5 years since I had a blackberry, the Link functionality is different. Getting used to it now. This is not longer viewed as a weakness as much as a reminder of the annoying proprietary nature of iTunes and the iOS ecosystem.
7) While the camera is nice, and the new functionality pretty cool, the quality of the photos thus far did not seem as good as the iPhone 5, or even the iPhone 4G.
8) I REALLY miss the screen capture functionality of the iPhone. This is key for sharing some things and even for this blog, I had to go online to get photos of screens on the device that on an iPhone I could have gotten via screen capture. ***Update 5Feb12: User education issue, pointed out by Paul in comments below. I can do this, just had to know how. Nice!
9) Going between apps and sometimes opening them in the first place can be somewhat slow.
10) Nothing further found to dislike thus far…..
Overall, I think this is a great looking device with some cool functionality and special features. It is slick, relatively easy to use, and has fantastic blend of the good things from iOs and Windows phone with a bit of Android thrown in. Call quality and camera are strong and integration with social media is superb. But the app store will make or break this device. Without apps, Blackberry will remain “great for email”. And for those that truly just need a device for email, the Z10 is still not the best for them (though the pending Q10 may be).
So I would say the jury is still out. I love the device and really want to consider it for permanent iPhone replacement. If Kindle, Whatsapp, skype, TripAdvisor, Amazon, Hailo, and a few more critical missing apps are added to the store, I will definitely consider it and be happy to revisit this review. For now, I’m in “Neutral” on the BlackBerry Z10. ***Update 5Feb12: Neutral trending up.
If you have tried it out, I would love to hear what you think! Post your comments below.
Be Well. Lead On.
Adam
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by Adam L Stanley | Jul 6, 2012 | Leadership, Relationships, Teamwork
Top Traits: Defining the perfect employees
Let’s face it, for most people work is a means to an end. You work so that you can eat, keep your brain active, connect with other people, learn, or reach some apex in your ambitious plan to take over the world…. Whatever the reason, for very few people work is about finding intense joy and personal satisfaction every hour of every day. That is simply not reality. But, like any other required part of our lives, we can choose how we want to handle work. We can come in every day, do what is required, talk to nobody, and leave. Or we can bring a smile into the office, do our jobs and encourage others to do theirs, and try to bring fun into what can be otherwise mundane or stressful.
I worked with someone for years that was by far the very best at a particular function. This individual was 1)Both talented and hard working, and 2)showed a true pride in the products he created…..good so far, right? If you’ve read my two preceding “Top Traits” blogs, you’d say he is a perfect employee. But wait! This person was so depressing, so negative, and so, well, just not fun! There were days where despite the value I could get out of a conversation, I could simply not do it. It would drag me down into a depression instead of inspiring me to be better. Like the Dementor guards of the Azkaban prison in the Harry Potter movies, this kind of person can simply suck the soul out of a team, an office, or a company. Which brings me to my third top trait ….
Trait # 3: Fun to Work With
If you’ve done interviews, you’ve perhaps been asked to assess “fit” with the culture of your particular company. When I started my career, I thought those interviews were inappropriate. Fit translated into Golf Club network, family connections, and politics. But as I advanced, I realised more and more that fit can make or break a leader. A leader whose style is perfect at one place will bomb elsewhere. So, to be clear, being fun isn’t always going to make you successful. You still must deliver. This is my personal opinion and what I personally look for. I want employees that are fun to work with. Period.
What I like
There are some people that simply bring joy to the office. They bring smiles, jokes, the occasional cupcake or brownie …. They bring personality and just enough of themselves to break down barriers and create a culture of openness that makes work more rewarding.
I’m not talking about class clown, chronic joking, or distraction. I’m talking about balancing the “what” with the “how”. Say you have a complex team challenge that must get done in 24 hours. You have to work pretty hard to get it done and, especially as a leader, you can be a humourless tyrant and slave driver. Or you can be an inspirational and personable motivator. I’m choosing to be the latter.
I recently spent time with some of our colleagues managing technology in Europe. During the evening, we had a team dinner and drinks and I had the opportunity to get to know the Poland, Spain and Italy leaders. We laughed, joked, and had a really great time but occasionally someone would bring up a problem facing our firm and I would ask for a recommended solution. What amazed me is how smart the team was at coming up with ideas but at the same time they were having fun and enjoying being together. That’s the kind of team I want!
In short:
Don’t be a dud.
What I need to do as a manager to enable
Smile.
When I’m having a funk of a day, I either stay home or avoid meetings. Smiles are contagious, I truly believe that. So if I can’t bring a genuine smile to the office, I try desperately to avoid contact with people! We can’t expect everyone to be happy all the time, but as a manager I need to both set an example and reward those that also bring fun to the office.
Last week, I woke to yet another rainy London day and, frankly, I was disgusted. I was so sick of rainy weather that I knew I would be in a bad mood. I went back into my kitchen, made a huge breakfast with a large strong cup of java and read a low intelligence required novel. Then, I went to the office. I was later than intended but by the time I got to the office I was refreshed and able to deal with another grey day.
Solicit feedback from team.
Talk to your teams on a regular basis to determine what makes them happy. What motivates them and when they smile, ask them why they are happy. Find something that brings them joy and do that.
Support and understand that some people just have bad days.
Recognise that some people will have bad days. Support them. Make sure they feel comfortable detaching if necessary. Make them leave if you must. If they need help, try to get it for them. And reward those that bring joy to the office and perform with a positive attitude.
In short:
Don’t be a dud.
Let me know what you think. What do you view as top employee traits? How do you build the best teams around different types of team members? Are you working hard on something worth doing?
Be sure to view all of the Top Traits:
Trait 1: Hard working AND talented
Trait 2: Pride in work product
Trait 3: Fun to work with
Be Well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam Stanley
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com
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by Adam L Stanley | Jun 8, 2012 | Leadership, Teamwork
Top Traits: Defining the perfect employees
I had a whole home audio system installed in my Chicago home a few years ago. I spent more than I have ever spent on audio equipment and hired a team of twenty somethings to install it for me. I remember when they came for the install and opened all the boxes. You honestly would have thought they were installing for themselves. They were so excited about the install, and kept telling me how I really got the coolest equipment out there. Their excitement was contagious. I truly felt like I was “the man” and could not wait until my first party. When done with the install, they beamed with pride and showed me the system, how to use it and some of the fun stuff. They also discussed potential upgrades coming down the road and ways I might consider expanding.
Trait # 2: Pride in Work Product
How often do employees show this kind of pride in the work they do? When you shop at a mall, or work with your local telephone company, do you get the sense that the people working with you are actually proud of the services they are providing? I’m doubting it! Definitely not the case with BT given my recent experiences with them, but I digress …. Shouldn’t you be proud of what you do? Pleased with your work and the value you bring? Nurses comfort people. Teachers change lives and prepare our futures. Your particular job may not be as obviously impactful but you’re driving value by helping clients either directly or indirectly. And if you have chosen to work at a particular place, you should have pride in what you do. My maternal grandfather was a garbage truck operator for almost 30 years. My paternal grandfather worked at the US Post Office for 25 years after serving his first five adult years in the army. Neither of them ever made very much money. But each had a pride in their work that was inspirational.
What I like
I want employees to show a sense of pride in what they do. In what they create. The best recent example of a leader that exuded pride in the products he offered was Steve Jobs. You just knew he thought that every product he allowed out the door was AWESOME! In my current role, I have a principle that I call “pretty red bow” that is based on pride of product and service. In short, I demand that my teams think about the entire package when building a new service. Not just the technology, which may be cool as ever, but the service, the support, the way it is sold and the training provided for users. You can build the very best mousetrap but if everyone thinks it is an appetiser with crackers and cheese …. Well, you get the picture. I want them to build a service, package it well and tie it up with a pretty red bow. Get it?
My favorite employees are the ones that call or email me to tell me when a client is really pleased, or even better, when no client has said anything but they know the service they have built will excite clients. The emails that show progress on solving a complex problem, the random drop by to my office to show me a prototype of a new collaboration tool, or the demo of a new “awesome” iOS application, this is what excites me.
If you do not feel pride in the work you do, why would your boss, your team, or your client?! If you don’t feel you can be proud of your work, perhaps you aren’t in the right field. Or perhaps you are simply not working hard enough to deliver something with which you can be proud.
What I need to do as a manager to enable
Provide. Praise. Promote.
- PROVIDE. If you hire an employee and ask them to build a Bentley, then only give them a thousand bucks, a Bentley you will not get. Set guidelines that are achievable and provide your teams with the resources needed to be successful. The greatest morale killer in most technology shops today is the constant badgering on costs. We must provide opportunities for employees to shine. A great example of this within Aviva is our mobile apps competition. We’re encouraging people around the world to create prototypes of great new app concepts in friendly competition. We encourage all of the contributors and it is FANTASTIC seeing the pride of ownership among the teams that is evident in their submissions.
- PRAISE. Give credit. Give credit. Give credit. Employees, especially those in service industries, operations functions, and technology, get PLENTY of complaints and abuse. When someone creates something amazing, you MUST acknowledge it. I have seen so many managers take credit for their team members work without adequately praising them. It is shameful. As I said with respect to all hard working and talented employees (prior blog), ensure those who show pride in their work and deliver excellence get the recognition they deserve.
- PROMOTE. This should be easy for those of you with children as well as for those who remember when you were a child. Think about how proud a kid is when their artwork is displayed on the refrigerator or on the school bulletin board. Create THAT environment. Showcase the amazing products and services your teams have created. If they have pride, and it is deserved, their leaders should also be proud. And showcasing their products will encourage others to create great things as well. Be a “proud mama” or “proud papa”. You will encourage more people to take pride in their work. And when you take pride in your work, you do better work. Simple, right?
I’m proud of the folks working with me now and proud of the things we accomplished while I was in my prior roles. I will continue to seek out, provide for, praise and promote those around me who take pride in what they do. It takes all kinds to make a great team but the perfect employees demonstrate pride in work product. And I want the perfect employees along on the journey with me.
Let me know what you think. What do you view as top employee traits? How do you build the best teams around different types of team members? Are you working hard on something worth doing?
Be sure to view all of the Top Traits:
Trait 1: Hard working AND talented
Trait 2: Pride in work product
Trait 3: Fun to work with
Be Well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam Stanley
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com
Follow me on Twitter | Connect with me on Linked In
by Adam L Stanley | May 18, 2012 | Leadership, Teamwork
Top Traits: Defining the perfect employees
Yikes – It has been a while since I blogged and I have an excuse. We are working on some amazing things at Aviva and as part of that I have spent the past few weeks in meetings. Yes, being in meetings can sometimes be a royal P.I.T.A., especially if they are pointless. HOWEVER, I have been in FANTASTIC meetings. About dreaming, creatively thinking of new ways of engaging with clients, driving change, building new systems and tools, and SHARING. So, its been tiring but GOOD. Enough with the CAPITALIZ(S)ATION, right? Smile.
So, while I’ve been “away” from the blogosphere, I’ve been observing teams, learning about my new teams here and observing vendors, consultants, baristas at my favorite coffee spots, bartenders and servers at nice restaurants, my dry cleaner, the folks that work for London Transport, and the owner of the flat I lease. And, as I observe, I’ve noted things I like about these various employees and team members. As importantly, I’m refocusing on what I as a leader can do to enable the behaviours I like and discourage other behaviors. In my next series of blog posts, I will share my OPINIONS. I am NOT speaking for any company, nor am I speaking for Cafe Nero, Fino, etc. Just me.
… Trait # 1 – Hard working AND talented
Maybe you’ve had this guy on your team: The fact is he is simply brilliant. He knows so much about every relevant topic and can think beyond any analyst you have ever hired. Give him any problem to solve and, with focus, he can solve the most complex of them within minutes. Yet, when you compare his output and the value created from his efforts to the rest of your team, he falls short. Why? Because he is LAZY. In some ways, there is nothing worse than a LAZY smart person. Like a perfectly grilled prime rib being placed in front of a vegan, a USELESS waste. Offensive even!
Or perhaps you’ve seen more of this guy: Every night as you leave the office you say goodnight to this guy. He is in every meeting, takes copious notes, has severe frown lines from constantly working, thinking and pushing himself. He rarely takes vacations and always goes that extra mile. And yet, again, output is severely lacking. Deadlines are missed and errors are made. This person, while in my humble opinion much more acceptable than the lazy genius, still falls short. These guys are great to have on the team and can be highly valuable. They have the passion but not all of the skills… Which brings me to my first trait of the perfect employee…
Hard Working AND Talented
What I like
People who work hard and think hard are the foundation of a good team. And it is these people with whom I most like working. I don’t need geniuses actually, though the occasional rocket scientist does bring a uniquely different perspective to the team. I need people who are clear about what they know, comfortable researching or asking elsewhere about things of which they know little, and passionate about continuing to improve their knowledge base. But I also need them to want to work hard, push themselves, and execute. Brilliant strategy without effective delivery is … well, what many consultants produce. (And before I get the hate mail, I can say that because I am a former consultant. And of course not all consultants produce paperweights….)
I’m looking for people who have a strong base of talent on which to build, and the industriousness to see their base as a foundation and not a ceiling. Vision to dream about going further, learning more, and gaining even more knowledge as they execute and deliver. I had an architect at a prior company (confession: I hired/poached him from a consulting firm) that was not only the most knowledgeable person about Notes to Exchange migrations, he was also truly hard working. And he was humble; which I will discuss in a future blog. I could get more out of this one person than five others more polished, more educated, and higher paid. But he had a passion for solving problems and thinking harder about ways of working. And he never stopped learning.
I need people who think and push. Who work hard and study hard. Who bring a unique skillset to the table, share it with others, and in so doing make the entire team better.
What I need to do as a manager to enable
EMPLOY. ENGAGE. EMPOWER.
- EMPLOY. I need to find these people and bring them in to my teams. Typical HR processes seem to focus on assessing skills or fit. I need to assess ability to work hard, continue to learn and dream big. My goal will always be to find people smarter than I am, that work as hard or harder than I do, and give them the opportunity to shine.
- ENGAGE. I must actively seek to connect with these high performing high value generating team members, making clear how much they are valued. Too often, the smartest guy that does little work but knows when to speak up is rewarded first. As a leader, I must continuously look to find the hard working and talented and ensure they get the recognition they deserve.
- EMPOWER. The worst thing a manager can do with any top talent is to relegate them to worker bee status when they should be empowered to make decisions. These are your leaders and should be allowed to lead. These folks should be encouraged to ask forgiveness rather than permission.
For those interested, I found another blogger that commented on this topic and grouped people into four blocks instead of three. Where I cover smart and lazy, smart and hard working, and not so smart but hard working, this person also addresses stupid and lazy. I of course ignored that group because I would not even consider keeping someone in that bucket on my team. As Donald Trump says, “you’re fired!” Here is the other blog.
I also found a humorous take on choosing one or the other when you only have smart/lazy or dumb/hard working as your options.
From a “real world” perspective, it is FAR better to be smart and lazy than dumb and hardworking. You see, if a dumb person does a lot of work, chances are they’re going to do a lot of it wrong since they don’t know what they’re doing. Then the smart people are the ones who have to fix everything; and they spend all their time cleaning things up instead of being productive with their smartness.
I guess that is certainly one way of looking at things. As for me, I will continue to seek out the perfect ones, while also recognizing it takes all kinds to make a great team. Most importantly, I will continue to strive to find balance in life and work toward doing the right thing. I like what Teddy says on this topic.
Let me know what you think. What do you view as top employee traits? How do you build the best teams around different types of team members? Are you working hard on something worth doing?
Be sure to view all of the Top Traits:
Trait 1: Hard working AND talented
Trait 2: Pride in work product
Trait 3: Fun to work with
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com
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I want employees to show a sense of pride in what they do. In what they create. The best recent example of a leader that exuded pride in the products he offered was Steve Jobs. You just knew he thought that every product he allowed out the door was AWESOME! In my current role, I have a principle that I call “pretty red bow” that is based on pride of product and service. In short, I demand that my teams think about the entire package when building a new service. Not just the technology, which may be cool as ever, but the service, the support, the way it is sold and the training provided for users. You can build the very best mousetrap but if everyone thinks it is an appetiser with crackers and cheese …. Well, you get the picture. I want them to build a service, package it well and tie it up with a pretty red bow. Get it?
