Doug Kreitzberg

Falling off a bike

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My daughter is riding her bike in the driveway right now.  Last year, I took her to a school parking lot and in an hour, got her to pedal on her own.  Yesterday, she started getting the hang of starting on her own.

If any of you have children, you’ve probably gone through what I’ve gone through.  The child first has an expectation that riding a bike is like, well, riding a bike: it’s easy and anyone should be able to master it first time out.  After a few scrapes and near misses, the child goes through the frustration/tears portion of the experience and begins blaming the bike, the driveway and, inevitably, the parent.  It’s at that point, that the child either storms away to rant at the world, melts into a pool of tears or gets up and tries to ride again.

As a parent, you realize fairly quickly how out of control you really are.  You can try to shower praise, “great fall, honey!”, or promise rewards, “if you are able to ride, you get a cookie!”, or threats, “no dinner until you learn to ride”.  But you know that there is not much else you can say, other than perhaps the truth: “Yes, honey, it’s hard, and it will take some time before you’ll feel comfortable.  You might have to try a hundred times before you get it the way you want.”  It really, though, is up to the child; will she try again or will she not?

Yesterday, my daughter did go through the tears/frustration/blame portion — she even managed to blame her older brother (who was nowhere in sight) for a training-wheels incident that happened a few years ago! — and I gave her every out.  But, for some reason, she kept at it and this morning she was riding and braking and chatting (not necessarily in that order) like she had done it all her life.

Funny thing about motivation.  No one can give it to you.  It’s gotta come from yourself. You either want to do something, or you don’t, and the reasons usually have very little to do with external rewards; they usually have to do with some inner itch that only you can scratch.

What others can do for you is help show you how to get something done, make sure you have what you need to get it done and give you permission to fail.  In my mind, the last is the most important.  People who have the right motivation can deal with little in the areas of training or resources (they just become McGyver-like in terms of coming up with tape-glue-and-string inventions to get them where they want to go), but they have to feel that if they don’t get it right, they can pivot to try something else.

Jim Estill, who created a 2 billion dollar company by selling computers out of the trunk of his car, says that one rule of success is that you fail often, fail fast and fail cheap.  In times like these, with budgets stretched thin and with stress at an all time high, it may sound silly to think of failing, but that is what you have to do, if you are going to persevere to find what will not fail, what will put you in a position to win.  Can you fail big?  No.  Can you devote a lot of time and resources to throw good money after bad? No. But should you try a different things, spend little on them at first, be quick to kill them if they don’t produce but are willing to support and invest in them if they do?  Yep.

Some might say, that the fear of failure, like motivation, is more internally than externally driven.  They might be right. But I know I can’t motivate someone; what I might be able to do is to tell them it’s OK if they scrape their knee and hope they get up and try it again.

Making Beds

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This week, has been a week I’ve been thinking hard about teams. Specifically, how do people get beyond their own individual motives to work with each other. Ironically, I ran across a June 2006 Fortune Magazine article on teams about a Wharton Business School student, Jim Vesterman, who signed up for the Marines.

Here’s a brief excerpt which describes one of his first duties in boot camp:

“It’s called ‘two sheets and a blanket.’ When the drill instructor begins counting, you’ve got three minutes to make the bed – hospital corners and the proverbial quarter bounce. When you’re done, you’re told to get back in a line. The goal is to have every bed in the platoon made. So I made my bed, then I stood on the line. I was pretty proud, because when three minutes were up, there weren’t more than ten men who had finished.

“‘Ahead of the pack,’ I thought. But the drill instructors weren’t congratulating us. Everyone’s bed had to be made. So rip off the sheets and do it again.

“I ripped off the sheets, made the bed, and stood on the line. ‘We’ve got all day to get this right,’ the drill instructors were saying, looking at all the unfinished beds. ‘Two sheets and a blanket!’

“I ripped off the sheets again, and again, and again. Finally one of the drill instructors looked me in the eye. ‘Your bunkmate isn’t done. What are you doing?’ I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ Standing on line, thinking I’d accomplished something, while my bunkmate struggled.

“Together my bunkmate and I made our beds about twice as fast as we did alone. Still, not everyone was finishing. Finally we realized, ‘Okay, when we’re done, we’ve got to go help the bed next to us, and the bed down from that,’ and so on.

“I went from thinking, ‘I’ll hand my bunkmate a pillow, but I’m not going to make the bed for him’ to making beds for anyone who needed help. That first lesson was an epiphany for me: You can’t survive in the Marine Corps without helping the guy next to you.” (Fortune Magazine, June 1, 2006, “From Wharton to War”)

We are most successful when we work within organizations which are founded on the belief that individual success can best be achieved when the group as a whole is successful. But it’s hard. Working on a team requires many things, first among them is trust, which is only built by acceding a bit of control to others. Second is empathy, which permits you to see beyond your own sphere into the hearts, desires and struggles of those around you. Third is persistence, in which you don’t crawl into yourself when the team is failing, but continue to work at bringing the team together towards the goal at hand.

True success is not about you coming in first. It’s about us all coming in first together.

Phillipsburg

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The Autumn before my Father died, we visited Phillipsburg, Montana. That previous Summer, before the surgery that left him unable to speak, my Dad had mentioned that his father had taken him to Phillipsburg and he wanted to see if he could recognize the place.  So, on a bright Fall morning, my Mom, my Dad and I left our lakefront home north of Missoula and made the two hour trip to Phillipsburg.

My Dad never spoke about his father. He died when my father was 11 and was a salesman for Pacific Fruit, so I imagine that he was on the road more than at home and most of my father’s memories of him were therefore vague, blurred and distant.  In fact, it was somewhat surprising that Dad mentioned him.  He said that when he was young, he remembered his Dad taking him on a sales call to Phillipsburg.  They stopped at the grocery store there and his Dad bought him some penny candy and an ice cream.

Phillipsburg, like many Montana towns, is an old mining town that has long seen its day. The mines are closed, and many of the stores that once provided its residents with clothing and furniture have now become museums, curio shops and expresso bars to cater to the occasional tourist.  We drove slowly down Main Street and my Dad peered out of the window, trying to recreate the Phillipsburg of the early 40s. He pointed to one of the stores, a burger joint, and we pulled over and went in.

The restaurant had a counter with three stools and four or five booths.  We choose a booth and sat down. As we ordered, I told the waitress that my Dad had come here as a child and we were wondering if this wasn’t at one point a grocery store.  The waitress was in high school and certainly not in a position to know.  She asked the owner, who was in her mid-thirties and she wasn’t sure either.  My Dad didn’t seem to mind.  He sat there with a smile in his eyes.  We ordered hamburgers and finished them off with a bowl of ice cream, toasting Dad and Grandpa.

I thought about this trip a while back, as I was driving from Bozeman to Missoula and passed the Phillipsburg exit off Interstate 90. I thought about my Dad and his father, about the short time they had together.  I also thought about my Dad’s memory of his visit to Phillipsburg, of how such a small, seemingly inconsequential act could last so long.  Perhaps it was the only time that my Dad could remember being with his Father one-on-one, without his mother or brothers.  Phillipsburg is not Disneyland; there’s no rides or attractions, but it did have a Father who took time to be with his son.

When I first became president of my company, one of the first things I did was to travel around meeting our key clients.  I had seen many of  them in the past and they knew who I was, but I wanted to be face to face on an individual basis, to understand what they were focused on and to give them some perspective on what we did.  Those meetings have paid large dividends over the years and certainly were worth the time and travel.

Every day, we all are interacting with indviduals, whether on the phone or face to face. Each moment, each act, each comment may create a lasting impression, either in a positive way or a negative way. Be conscious of the power of those moments. You may not have penny candy to offer, but you do have your time and your attention.  Some times, that’s all that matters.

10 Ways to Say “No” to Your Boss and Live to Tell about It

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Tell me if this has ever happened.  You come into the office with a list of things that absolutely has to get done and you get a phone call, e-mail, “head poking in the cubicle” from your boss with some urgent task guaranteed to take you off your game and (if you’re a manager yourself) disrupt your staff.  It doesn’t matter if the task makes sense or not, the fact is, it all of a sudden becomes more important than what you had to do.  You set your teeth and look around for a pen, ostensibly to write your boss’ request down but perhaps — just fleetingly — you imagine hurling the pen at your boss, along with your coffee mug, keyboard and “Land of the Ozarks” paperweight your aunt Millie gave you.  Your list of tasks has to wait, you now have to deal with this nice “gift” your boss dropped on your lap.  Unless….

If you only knew how to say “No” and get away with it.  Now, in the mahogany library of The Boss’ Club, where bosses sit around in leather wingback chairs smoking cigars and drinking single malt scotch while sharing Boss secrets and joking about the rest of humankind (e.g. you), there exists a book called simply, “The Book”, which is a list of boss secrets that are never permitted to leave the club.  For if these secrets were revealed, it would be like kryptonite to Superman and bosses everywhere would be crippled.  However, the last time I was at The Club, drinking two fingers of 25 yr old Dunwiddie, smoking a churchill Colibra and yucking it up with Brewster and Colyn (with a “y”), I managed to sneak into the library and tear a page out the book which explains how you can, indeed, say “No” to your boss and literally live to tell about it.

The following is taken from that page.  Please do not tell other bosses I gave this to you, because I would then have my ascot removed from my neck forever, along with my subscription to Inner Yachtsman.

10.   Say “Yes”

Face it.  Sometimes you have to pick your battles and this time, you need to suck it up and do what is asked.  Now, if you do it without complaint, it gets filed away in the “wow, this person actually followed through on what I asked without whining” part of The Boss’ brain.  Say ‘yes’ five times and you get one ‘no’ without questions (if asked politely and preceded by a “I’d love to but…”).  I don’t know why the math works that way, but it does.

Now, there are corollaries to this:

a)  Specify what is being asked to the finite detail and Say “Yes” to that.

The Boss comes in and says, “I’d like to see the forecast for Hopkins’ unit by the end of the day.”  You say, “Sure thing, Boss.  Do you need the 50 page complete itemized report or the summary data?”  “Er, summary.”  “Do you want the revenue and expenses or just the operating income.”  “Well, all I really need is operating…”  “$54,757, Boss.  Anything else?”  “Ah, no, I guess not….thanks.”

b) Say “Yes” but on your terms.

The accounting department is famous for this.  The Boss asks for a report by the end of the week.  Accounting says, “Can we have the weekend to really do the job right?  A weekend can be a lifetime.”  And the boss, says, “Sure,” smug in the thought of her team slaving tirelessly through the weekend while she’s on the back nine taking Snuggs Wilkerson for twelve bucks and an eventual sidecar at the nineteenth hole.  Meanwhile, Accounting is doubling down on a pair of eights at the Boredada Casino fully prepared to finish the report Monday morning to have it to the boss by noon.  Everyone’s a winner.

9.    The Client makes me do it!

If there’s one thing any self-respecting Boss is fearful of, it’s The Client.  The Client is like the Ace of Spades in the company deck; it trumps anything, including The Boss.  So, if you are working on a project for The Client that needs to get done right away, your boss needs to take 2nd place.  But, be careful, you better really be working on a project for The Client, because The Boss will find out.  There are spies.  Everywhere.

8.    Corporate makes me do it!

Functional department leaders (Finance, Systems, etc) have turned this into an art form.  “Corporate” can have a trumping effect, but usually it just gives the Boss a headache.  “I’d love to, but, ol’ Poltzwine in Taxation is pushing my eyes out to get the Wilkesham-Bennett audit done, which is the fifth audit we’ve had to do this quarter and which makes SOX seem like a stroll through the park, what with the fact that we have to reconcile our fixed assets, our a/r books, our a/p books, and our face books……blah, blah, blah.”  Eyes to the back of the head, please.

7.    Say “Yes” if you can get to say “No” to something else

The old chestnut.  This is where you give The Boss a choice.  “Yes, Boss, I can update the powerpoint for you right now, or I can continue to finish this proposal for Xena who’s going to pitch the Mega account this afternoon.  Which one should I do?”  You tell your Boss, subtly, that you only have 100% of your time available and that something needs to fall off if her task is to be done.  Just be careful it’s not overused, otherwise The Boss will think you have no ability to prioritize on your own and your future career aspirations could be in jeopardy.

6.    Under Advisement

This can work when the task that The Boss is asking you to do requires time and resources.  Tell The Boss, “It’s a great idea!  I’ll get the propeller heads in R&D to draw up a prototype and model out some ROIs for us to look at.”  This gives you the gift of time and helps everyone with prioritization because even The Boss would like to see if something makes sense before spending a lot of money on it. It also gives you the opportunity to have The Boss kill the request sooner than later.  Simply go to the propeller heads and say, “Look, I’m not looking for a detailed analysis, but, back of the napkin, what do you think of the The Boss’ gizmo gadget.  Does it have legs or will it not get off the ground?”  (Note: mixing metaphors for some reason often confuses people to think you know what you’re talking about.)  If the propeller heads don’t think it’s worth it, put their thoughts in a nice cohesive summary with a statement at the end saying that, “Even though the p-heads feel this is a total waste of time, I’m going to try one thing further.”  Wait a week and send a note to The Boss saying, “I’m sorry I looked into the one thing and couldn’t find something to validate doing this project.  Any other suggestions?”  Typically, if The Boss sees you didn’t stop at the first “No” you ran into, you’re OK.  However, if the p-heads do find it’s a good project, you then are in a solid position to engage item 7 above.

5.    Stroll down the Rabbit Hole

When done correctly, this is a beauty to behold.  This is where, you take The Boss’ idea to it’s maximum, exposing it’s inanity.  “Outsourcing our bolts operation to China?  What a great idea!  Boy, that’s why you get paid the big bucks, fella!   We can save 200 basis points, at least, by doing that.  Wow!  Of course, the manufacturing clients we have won’t be able to work with us any more because the unions have agreements with them preventing the use of offshore parts, but, it’s only 30% of our business.  I’m sure we’d make that up in no time.  Three to five years max!”  You only need to go until The Boss’ throat turns red, his breathing becomes shallow and he starts blinking rapidly.  Leave your thought hanging and he’ll pick up on it and say something like, “Ah, you know, Jenkins, I think there’s a few bugs to work out first.  Let me think a little more on this and I’ll get back to you.”

4.    Penetrate the inner circle

Every Boss has one or two people that has the permission to say almost anything.  Sometimes it’s one of his lieutenants or his assistant or someone in customer service who knew him when he was a snot-nosed brat in the mailroom.  Take the time to find out who those people are.  Be nice to them.  Very nice.  Then, one, day, you might find yourself next to one of those people at the elevator, saying “Boy, I don’t understand why The Boss is making me do this by the end of the day.  I’ll be here all night and miss my son’s solo at the fifth grade choir.”  If you’re lucky, the Inner Circle, will say something like, “That’s funny, I don’t think The Boss really needs that until next week.  Hold on, let me see what I can do.”  Give it twenty minutes and you could be golden.

3.    Hug your boss

Ok, not literally (perish the thought).  But take some time to talk to your boss about what interests her (outside of work) or about work theories or about anything that enables you to engage The Boss at a different level at different times than when you are presenting something or she is asking for something.  Every once in a while, try to find something The Boss did that you liked and say that to her. (I know, it’s tough, but with time, luck and imagination, I’m sure you’ll find something.) That extra relationship may not guarantee you the ability to say “No”, but it certainly helps.

2.    Ride the Bronco

If your boss can sometimes run over the emotional deep end, you may have a great opportunity to guilt him into withdrawing his request before you even have a chance to say “yes” or “no”.  Simply push a few buttons to get him into one of his rants and, as it ends, say nothing, absolutely nothing, place your pen on your paper very deliberately and lean back in your chair, nodding your head slowly in agreement.  Let The Boss wallow in his rant and, as the silence deepens and you don’t respond, The Boss will feel guilty and begin to negotiate with himself.  “Look, McKinley, you know how this gets to me.  I just don’t understand why we can’t hit our numbers.” Silence. “Now, I know you have a lot on your plate and what I’m asking is probably more than I should.” Uncomfortable Silence. “Ok, Ok, why don’t I see if Smotts can handle this and you just keep up the good work you’re doing, OK?”  Ah, the wild beast becomes the meek hare.

1.    Jujutsu

If you are able to do this, you have earned a black belt in the art of managing up the ladder.  This is where The Boss comes in with something for you to do and you turn it around so The Boss actually ends up doing all the work.  Here’s an example (listen and learn, grasshopper):

The Boss comes in and says, “Wheezle, I need you to get three referrals by the end of the day!”  Wheezle says, “Sure thing, Boss!  Say, didn’t I over hear you say you finally beat Mr. Wilkerson on the Olde Pinenut course last weekend?”  “Yeah, ha, ha, drained a forty-four footer!”  “Wow!  You must have been on fire!  Who was in your foursome?”  “Well, Wilkerson, Brewster and Colyn…..With a ‘y’.”  “That’s a crew.  I bet the jokes were flying all day.” “You betcha!  I wish I could remember em all.” “Yeah, wow….you know?  I’ve been trying to see Wilkerson, Brewster and Colyn for the past couple years and I just haven’t been able to get an appointment.”  “You don’t say.”  “Yeah…..” Silence. “You know what, Wheezle?  I can get you in.  Let me work on it.”  “Oh, that would be great, Boss.  Here’s a few dates I’m available, at least right now.  Do you think you could get those appointments together by the end of the day?  You know how fast calendars fill up around here.”  “Don’t I know it, Wheezle.  Hey, let me get right on this.  It’s a great excuse to brush up on those jokes again.  I’ll be right back.”

Who’s the master and who’s the pupil?

Now, you might be asking yourself why would I risk getting my ascot in a sling and losing a subscription to my favorite mag by telling you this?  Because I am concerned that, at times like these when the economy is under stress and we all are under stress, we stop being honest with ourselves and we start telling each other what we think the other really wants to hear.

From my own perspective, there’s two problems with this.  One, the only thing I really want to hear is, “Wow!  You look great! Are you losing weight?” (And no one in their right mind has said that to me in a while.)

The second problem is that when people are not up front with each other, everyone loses. If there are issues that need to be resolved, hiding them under the covers won’t make them go away; it will most like only make them worse.  If you are being asked to do things that don’t make sense or keeps you from doing what you really need to be doing, then have a good candid dialogue with the right people. Getting real results requires being real with each other. If an organization is to succeed, if you and everyone around you is in a position to say “Yes” to success, then perhaps sometimes it needs to start by saying “No”.  In the end, the task you’ve asked to do may need to get done–or the organization may take a course you are not crazy about–but not without the clear understanding and alignment of everyone.

Including The Boss.

Anchovies and Ashwater

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A year back, I  took a trip to Spain with my family.  It was our first time there and we spent our time in the Andalucia portion of Spain — Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, Ronda — which is an area marked with the history of the Moors and the beginnings of a united Spanish kingdom. I have a number of stories I can share, but two stand out more than the others.

Our first visit was to Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain that ultimately surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 (the same king and queen who sent Columbus off that year). The second night we were there, we decided to go to a highly recommended restaurant.  Despite the fact that every one told us that we could get by in Spain without speaking Spanish, we discovered quickly that no one told the waiter at the restaurant about this.  We fumbled our way through the menu and I asked the waiter to select my dinner for me, which he did.  Shortly, we received a bowl of bread and a porcelain dish covered with a lid that had a hole in the center and containing some sort of liquid.  I asked my wife what she thought the liquid was and she said that it was olive oil.  Eager to try the Spanish olive oil, I poured some on my dish, dipped my bread in it and took a bite.  It was watery and didn’t taste at all like any olive oil I knew.  I told her it must be some type of water and she shrugged her shoulders.  Then the waiter brought out my first course, which was a plate of about ten anchovies.  I am not a big anchovy fan; in fact I would rather eat the sole of my shoe than an anchovy.  However, I had asked for the waiter’s recommendation and I was not going to disappoint him and I resolutely ate every one of those anchovies, much to my childrens’ delight.

I later looked around at another table where a couple sat smoking and I saw that the dish that held what my wife had thought was olive oil was actually an ashtray and I turned an olive shade of green as I pointed this out to my family, who immediately fell over howling at the fact that I had dipped my bread into ashwater.

I learned a couple of facts: 1)  I exist only for the entertainment of my family; 2)  not being able to communicate effectively can cause embarrassment if not physical or psychic harm.  I’m tempted to add a third fact — Believing your wife can lead to physical harm — if not for the fact that actually stating that can cause one’s wife to reach for the proverbial rolling pin and therefore cause physical harm in and of itself.

When I begin merging acquired businesses a few years ago, someone told me that each of the operations would be like different countries, with their own languages, and just because I said something would not been it would be understood the same way and that when I was told something, I may not understand exactly what was being said.  That has proven to be true and the organization has fumbled at times trying to understand each other over the past few years.  I believe things have improved a lot since then, but it is critical to recognize the importance of communication — of listening and being understood — if an organization, or any relationship, is to truly succeed.

The second story of my trip has to do with the tour of the Alhambra — or the palace of the Moors (and later the Christians) — in Granada.  As we were walking through, I noticed that on certain ceilings was the inscription, “Plus Oultre”.  The tour guide mentioned that it was the Spanish motto, meaning “Always further”.   It seems to me an appropriate motto  in this challenging year.  Perhaps now, more than ever, we have to push beyond the boundaries of  our fears and our own sense of limitations to reach out to each other, find common language, share our words and, most importantly, listen.  It is then that we realize that the countries that separate each of us are only of our own making.