It is easy to tell who is running the project

As a project moves towards a deadline, two things become obvious. Was the project started based on a end date rather than level of effort to deliver. And, if the project is being run by a manager or a Senior Executive.

Senior Executive projects generally start their life as a PowerPoint. Where a vision is expressed and promises are made. There may be some effort quote but the project is still very young so effort numbers are from a call or a napkin. The most important item to note is that a PowerPoint for the project has started the project so there is a “high level deck” that everyone wants to see green.

As the project moves along it hits a few snags but no one wants anything red or they will allow as long as there is a plan to bring the date back in. At the 3/4 point, things will start to look like all of the pages of the deck’s promises are not tracking for the right delivery date. It is at this point that the project will take one of two directions.

if the project has a strong Sr Executive directly leading and reporting greens and yellows in they report out decks, there will be a sudden de-scoping effort of “just what is needed” to service the needs of the business or clients. Hall way conversations start at this point to get people on the side of the “on time” delivery of an altered version of the project. it is important to have friends back up the new PowerPoints that say everyone is happy with what they will get. Of course, they aren’t really and the project will be frowned on in the future.

Another project being guided by a manager level employee is less concerned about the color of the boxes and more concerned about letting people down. It is hard for senior level business people to understand but teams will work very hard on their own out of sheer pride of their delivery.

If given the chance to be creative in the project and being allowed to own the success, the front line project working team members will do what it take. On their own! No money or fame promises are needed. Just the knowledge that they are in control and are being instructed to do the right thing.

There are teams that will start to slice out parts of a project but generally this is frowned on by other team members so it can be short lived. Teams are not instructed to work long hours or over weekends, they just do it. Give them the chance to shine and be ready to call out their successes in the PowerPoints rather than only having red dots and smaller delivered lists.

Of course, this works the first time if the PowerPoint deadlines where anywhere close to being doable. Even a stretch will be accepted. But the next time or if very unrealistic deadlines are set then people start to feel they are being taken advantage of. Do your best to keep it doable and give the team the power to be creative in their solution or methods.

I started thinking about this post a while back. Just recently a friend pointed out the below video on what motivates employees. You may want to take a look.

Posted here with an iPad… just for fun!

A greeting with acknowledgment and respect

You may quote me, “A handshake is a greeting with acknowledgement and respect”.

When I was VERY young, I was introduced to my Grandfather’s brothers and sisters that had come over from Italy for a visit. As they sat on the couch and chairs in his house, my said who they where and I politely said ‘Hi’.

The very next day, Grandpa showed up at my parents house, riding the bus from the other side of town which required three transfers. He calmly let me know that I had not been respectful to the people I was being introduced to by not shaking their hand. He spent the afternoon going over and over what was a proper handshake.

How did he have this knowledge? When he came to the states, he started a produce delivery company. He felt the reason he was successful was because he was honest and respectable. He purchased produce from suppliers and farms and delivered to companies all over town. Usually on a handshake agreement. From the handshake, he knew pretty quickly who wasn’t planning on paying him and who respected his services.

This bit of my past came up recently when I was reading Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment. The book is a walk through being trustworthy and respectable, both for yourself and your brand. Some good lessons in the book worth getting the highlighter out so you can remember them later. One item of note was his mention of what makes George Clooney’s smile stand out. In short, it is real, not an act, as you can see the smile throughout his whole face not just a upturn of his lip corners.

Back to the handshake:

It is a ‘handshake’, not a finger shake. Both sexes can shake hands, there is no need to ever give someone your fingers as a handshake.

When being introduced to someone, step to them, reach out and take their hand firmly. Firmly does not equal squeeze, there are no extra points to breaking their hand. Tighten your forearm just a bit but don’t lock it or your elbow. Initially, start slowly up so both parties move together, we don’t want to twist their wrist. Two up/down is casual, three is a bit more formal.

Tuning the stepping forward a bit, do not enter their circle of comfort. The circle is real, don’t abuse their space. Depending on the nationality, you may wish to bow your upper body just a bit as you start the hand connection. Understand some people have a phobia about touching, be respectful, but you will know this before you reach out your hand from seeing if they back off from people. Germ concern is not a phobia, it’s a real concern for most people. That is not a reason to not shake hands though. I completely understand that hand t0 hand touching can pass germs. I have several good friends that are professional speakers where if they caught a cold they may not be able to perform their expected duties. They mention this fact and use a bit of hand sanitizer after shaking hands… but they still shake hands.

There was an attempt a few years ago to replace the handshake with a knuckle bump. No matter the press around it, that action is still the equivalent of giving a high five slap and does not represent a moment of acknowledgment or respect.

Personally, I had a hard time remembering a room of people’s names when moving quickly through a crowd. So, I use the handshake moment to use their name in my greeting.

A few additions to the handshake. To be more sincere with your greeting, you may reach out with your left hand and lightly grip their forearm or just above their elbow with your left hand. Politicians are abusing this as a way to pull a person closer so you may want to be aware of your crowd and analyze if it will be taken as honest or as being over the top.

Holding their shaking hand with your left hand to cup their hand between your two hands. This is more of a emotional connection type of handshake. While being completely acceptable in my ministry days, it generally causes people to pay more attention to the handshake than the greeting.

A handshake, like Clooney’s smile, is more than a connection of hands. Smile, look the person in the eye and show them the respect you would like others to give you. Take the time to acknowledge the person, you will be remembered for making the effort.

 

Today’s Measure of ‘Being Somebody’

How do we measure for what makes somebody a “somebody”? Years ago, being somebody meant you had your name in the phone book, which meant you had a phone in your name. Today, we have lost a common measure of what it takes to be a “somebody”.

The standards are now based on the individual, their surrounding, their social circle, short and long term goals and for some, pay.

Being in the phone book was followed on with owning a cell phone or owning a dot-com then onto having a Web site about you. Along the way though, the path forked and now the many options means people have to set their own personal standards which could include being unique and able to stand out.

A year ago, we saw how being Somebody involved getting huge number of friends on Twitter. What does someone do with all of those followers? Are they just quantity or quality? Is the list made up of people who just follow who is popular but never actually have the time to ready through the hundreds of people they ‘follow’?

On one of the new social photo systems, I noticed one person that we getting more and more followers, largely due to their photos always showing up in the ‘Popular’ area. Their pictures where across such a variety that they had something for everyone. I started to think that the images where not actually being taken by the person. It started looking a lot like the sites that feed Twitter automatically just to get hits.

Then came a image of a note stating that the person had to stop posting pictures for a while because their iPhone was broken. Someone commented that the images uploaded by this individual were too important to not have any more so why doesn’t everyone chip in to buy them a new iPhone… it went from there. Genius… I wont get into if it was all a plan or not. But, it does show how creative people are getting by being a ‘somebody’.

Being somebody in the social world, if your popular in the quality crowd, you can get creative with how to turn that into of value to a business.

On the other side of being a ‘somebody’ is the person who isn’t after the masses. They are a somebody because they always deliver… working as a team member for the success of everyone. They never assign their name to the success of a project. They promote it as a team effort since they don’t see the need to be ‘somebody’. Their internal pride makes them a ‘somebody’ to themselves. They don’t need to feed off of being fingered by the masses. Generally, I have found this is driven early in their lives by parents telling kids they were proud in them. This is carried forward in life where the kids as adults know that their performance is recognized without the need to brag.

 

The other way the future is changed forever

There has been several stories, books and movies, where the US is turned upside down by a plane flying into a major political gathering. Ending that complete level of government at least for the while of getting new representation in from other states. Even though the spots can be billed though, the mind set and flow is broken till the new group comes up to speed. Most likely, taking the future in a different direction.

A friend pointed me to a article on TechCrunch talking about a get together that the President did. Inviting many of the top minds in high tech to chat and have lunch. From their post: “the star studded invitee list included Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, Cisco’s CEO John Chambers, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Genentech Chairman Art Levinson; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; former state controller and venture capitalist Steve Westly Doerr, and Stanford University President John Hennessy. The event was held at Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr’s home.”

What if a plane hit that room? Politicians are representatives of a state or country. They have been elected to help get done what is best for us and do the arguing and reasoning for us. The tech group in the lunch do not do that. They are where they are now because the think outside of the box. And then, they convince others to see the vision, encouraging people to go beyond their limits to create the future. They are driven by their idea, building their business and creating something great. Most importantly though, they are gifted at taking their vision and getting others to join in.

Due to their thinking, we no longer have the need to have an agent in a bar in Cuba, getting people excited. Now, a individual on the street can spread the word of an injustice they just saw to millions with only a couple taps. Never once actually speaking to anyone, their message is gathered by others and spread around the world. Of course, like whispering in someone’s ear, the message can get twisted to an individual’s own purpose. Beyond the few unexpected paths, the real message is received, people gather, and a government changes. Or, a business will win or loose.

Whether we are talking about the device the person used or the system that others joined in together to make a difference, they are both creations of someone in that room’s idea being ‘sold’ to others to build on. If any of those, or worse, all of those in the meeting stopped coming to the office tomorrow, the world will change it’s direction forward. There are people that are good at giving speeches and those that are good at coming up with ideas. The group in the room are particularly good at coming up with ideas with others and pushing them to become our reality mind set going forward.

Buy and Sell, Today and Tomorrow

How many times do you change your mind about buying something around how  you can pay for it? How easy is it to buy things in a store compared to online? Do you feel safe handing over your credit card information? Does paying options tie into your gift buying decisions?

I’m going to skip the stories and the ‘how I got here’ discussion today. This post is straight to how things have to change.

Amazon is doing record numbers of Kindle and Kindle book sales. Many of my friends jumped onto the Kindle wagon and those that have not can view Kindle books on their iPads and desktop computers. With eBooks becoming so popular, it means that Amazon now makes money on every reader of that book. Gone are the days of reading a book and then handing it onto others to enjoy. The writing is on the wall that the price of Kindle eBooks will be slowly rising up to the level of print books. If that is the case, can I get a discount on a book I want to ‘share’/buy for someone else? At least down to the eBook pricing of today. Of course, that would mean that I could buy a eBook for someone else and ‘send’ it to them. I hadn’t noticed till I tried to buy a book for my sister in-law that there was no way to give her info so the purchased book appeared on her Kindle. I guess I wont be giving books as gifts anymore since my friends use Kindles and wouldn’t want a print book but I have no way of buying a book for them outside of a dollar amount gift certificate.

Since I’m in the mood for buying. You may remember my earlier post about the yesteryear days of PayPal on the Palm. I could beam money to a store cash register via IR rather than handing over cash. The problem, the store had to buy IR ports, just a couple bucks, but they never did it.

Now, the iPhone PayPal app includes ‘Bump’ technology. Will I soon be able to Bump my iPhone to a cash register at the store to pay? While a cash register doesn’t move much, they aren’t connected up to the Internet… generally. So, there is no geo location associated to know the payment send and receive are next to each other. Again, the best solution will be an add on item, much like the card swipe. To make me feel better that the transaction is for the one time and is only for what I wanted to pay for, the store’s device should give me a number that I put into my PayPal ‘Bump’ app. An extra step from just bumping the two, and many folks buying beer at the Gas Station wont care. For those making a 50 dollar purchase at the local grocery store or a couple hundred at the local clothier, they will take the extra effort for peace of mind. No more paper receipts floating around the store, no more credit card magnetic strip getting copied.

When I think of rolling out a system like this around the world it seems like a huge task. But then, think back when someone said we could have a personal transportation device, all we needed was fuel distribution facilities on every corner.

Real or spy movie stuff?

This could just be something we will see in a future spy movie or novel, but why not in the real world? Agencies could use FedEx or other delivery systems to get surveillance gear into a house or haul your insurgence team right up to the front door. We have long seen where professional killers will knock on the door disguised as a mailman, and only a few times a flower delivery gent. The mail delivery person as a lone individual and the flower truck is usually a small van.

In the case of a major delivery service, those are usually pretty good size trucks and no one questions one of them pulling up, right into the driveway.

There may be some concerns about future FedEx delivery people being shot at when the word gets out they could be working for a private or government agency so I’m sure that company wouldn’t be happy to have their name used. How about “FedRex”?

Getting surveillance equipment into a house could be done as a package delivered to the door instead of a midnight black ops team having to get inside and plant hidden devices. Just deliver that clock that the residence just ‘won’. Some effort to hide the mic or camera between layers of the casing will need to be done in case the receiving party wings it against a wall and it cracks open. Generally though, the box or device will end up somewhere in the house even if the ‘gift’ wasn’t expected. Play the explanation right and it could end up on the main room’s shelf for a bird’s eye view.

Do with the idea as you please, I know I for one will be putting all unexpected packages on the back porch so other ideas I don’t write about aren’t overhead through a random magazine special anniversary clock that was just delivered to my front door.