Posts in Life

Never Forget

In Your Face Friday Life Meandering Genius Stuff

I didn’t post anything anything yesterday in remembrance if 911…and I’m ashamed. 🙁

One of my connections, Jake Bjorseth, had a profound post this morning about growing up in a world where terrorism is a norm. He was 17 months old when 911 occured.

See, as a 21-year veteran, I was deeply involved. I’ve seen the impact and lost friends to 911, the bombing of the USS Cole and Khobar Towers. Even more in Desert Storm I and II and the many wars fought since then.

I was stationed in Germany on 911. A Public Affairs officer from down the hall ran into our office and told us to get down to their office immediately. We walked in as the second plane hit the towers.

Once we realized it was real, the base–all bases across the world were mobilized. The United States was under attack on U.S. soil!

I was to fly to DC the next day, but all flights were grounded and I didnt fly out until the 21st.

I remember the patriotism felt across the nation and the support from the world.

Being someone deeply impacted and who painfully remembers the impact of 911, it is my responsibility to make sure you understand and never forget.

I’m sorry I let you down. Lest We Forget!

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

It’s time to smile

Leadership Life Meandering Genius Speaking Stuff Thoughtful Thursday Tips

What’s in a smile? 🙁❓🙂

I never smiled!

In 1988, I entered the Air Force and spent the first 10 years of my 21 as a cop. 👮‍♂️

For about five years, I was unapproachable. There I would be, at an event, crossed arms, dark eyebrows, and a “Don’t you dare talk to me,” look on my face. I never smiled.

In fact, I had taken the Myers-Briggs Type Assessment several times and always came out as a strong Introvert.

I noticed that no one ever talked to me, but could see others that were always approached by others — the life of the party, so to speak.

I made a bold move…I started to smile.

The effect was almost immediate. Not only was I approachable, but now I test as a strong Extrovert.

Do you smile? Are you approachable? Try it…

www.crossctr.com

Are people wasting your time?

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What do you do if a speaker goes over their allotted time? ⏲

How valuable is your time? What do you think about people that abuse it? What if they’re a speaker/presenter?

In my mind, one sign of a professional speaker is that they stick to their time window, even if that window changes at the last minute.

Those that can’t, in my mind, are unprofessional.

Last night, I attended a monthly meeting with a professional association. Every meeting has a keynote speaker and this one was no different. Normally, the speakers keep to their time — last night was different.

The meeting ends at 8 pm, which means the speaker should finish by 7:45 or so for questions and close out.

At 7:58, the speaker looked at his watch (was about halfway through his presentation), and said, “I’ll hurry up and finish up, since I’m out of time.” He finished and asked for questions at 8:30 pm!

For me, I lost interest in his subject at about 7:50 pm and I stopped listening altogether when he realized he was taking too long and refused to care. The way I look at it, he felt his material was more important than the time of the 60 or so people in the audience.

What are your thoughts?

Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

Distracted Much?

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🤦‍♂️ Do you get easily distracted from work? 🐶🐱

Our new kitten likes someone to be in the room when it eats. Otherwise, it wants to be wherever you are playing. It’ll get back to the food, eventually, but by that time, the Cleaning Service (aka dogs) will have taken care of the issue.

So, I locked our kitten in the bathroom with me as I got ready for the day. However, distractions loom around every corner for this little kitten. Not sure if the dog wants to play with the cat, be with me, or clean up the leftovers, but both of us became distracted!

Are you easily distracted from the task at hand?

What distracts you? Phone calls? Text messages? Emails? The kitten walking on your keyboard? 🐈

www.crossctr.com

Silo Poster Child!

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What does moving a manufactured home have to do with silos? In our case everything!

This story has become the poster child for my book, Overcoming Organizational Myopia!

My wife and I purchased a manufactured home for our horse property. There are actually quite a few moving parts to buying a double wide. One would expect these people to be experts at this.

The problem — silos creating organizational myopia.

It’s so bad, I, as a customer, can see every issue with these companies as plain as day.

First, let’s examine the major silos at work here:

1. Dealership. They are made up of three silos: 1) Sales – the people who sell the product; 2) Finance – the person who completes the formal paperwork; and 3) Project Manager – the person who is supposed to manage the delivery and setup of the home.

2. Factory. The Dealership and Factory are the same company. I see three silos: 1) Constuction – builds the home; 2) Maintenance – responsible for setup and warranty work; and 3) Trim Out – contracted company that finishes out the inside of the home onsite.

3. Delivery and Setup. Although used as a local contractor by all the dealers, they are a subcontractor that does site prep, delivery, setup, hook-up, and special stuff, like decks and skirting. As far as I can see, as a customer, they have at least seven silos, but they actually have silos within silos. The first silo is the Project Manager – this one guy is terrible, so bad in fact, I didn’t even know he was out PM for this effort. The first person we dealt with, forms a second silo. I’m not sure what to call him, but he’s kind of like Sales, but he was the first person who surveyed the site, determined requirements, and put together the bid. Of course, they have a Finance silo – one single person to take your money (everyone has one of these). Then, you have the Site Prep silo, Delivery silo, Setup silo, and Utilities silo. The Setup silo uses subcontractors and each of them (we dealt with three, that do the same job) are their own silo. I suspect there is at least one moresolo, made up of subcontractors, that handle the siding and decks, but haven’t dealt with them yet.

If you have read my book, I’m sure you can already see where the myopia might form. Let me tell you, it’s been pretty obvious working with this effort.

Myopia Issue #1. Dealership makes promises, yet financial paperwork is different. Here’s how you know you’re dealing with myopia. We signed an agreement with the salesperson. When we go to signing the 1,000 pages of documents, what we agreed to is not reflected in the paperwork. Comment, “Oh, I didn’t know that. I’ll have to check with the salesperson.” Impact: wasting company’s and customer’s valuable time at signing, getting with salesperson, validating what was written down and agreed to, and redoing paperwork to sign.

Myopia Issue #2. Dealership Project Manager only cares about getting the house built and delivered. While it’s being built and delivered, its costing them money. After it’s delivered, it’s someone else’s problem. Even though, they should ensure the customer’s end-to-end experience is flawless. Impact: Customer has to deal with several people across the three major silos to actually move into their new home.

Myopia Issue #3 — Everything After the Sale. Since the Dealership PM only cares about getting the product off their books, they dump the effort at that point. Now, I, as the customer, am forced to deal with all the silos related to the Factory and the Delivery and Setup subcontractor. This is where it really gets UGLY!

With the Delivery and Setup silo, two major myopia issues impact this company and resulted in a big fat 0 for customer satisfaction! First was a PM that is totally clueless. This guy didn’t just drop the ball; he lost it under the bleachers. The PM was so bad, that we didn’t even know he was our PM. Impact: Customer (that’s me) acts as PM and spends hours working with every silo in the company! The second major myopia issue is Communication (or, the Lack There Of). Since, I’m the PM on this effort, I worked with every single silo. In every interation the silos complain about and/or demonstrate a complete lack of communication across the company. Impacts: Project delays, constant defects, and unhappy customer.

Since the Dealership PM drops the effort after delivery, the other major silo we are forced to work with is the Factory. So far, it’s been the finishing effort on property. Their major issue is a lack of end-to-end process ownership. How this manifested itself is as follows. The finishing crew comes out to basically Make Ready the home for move in. They have to close up the two halves of the house, fix all the damage from moving, and repair stuff the Construction silo screws up. This was a constant game of Passing the Blame. These guys passed so many bucks that they’re horribly in debt! They blamed everything on the Delivery and Setup and Factory silos, so essentially they could get out of doing tons of work. Impacts: Work left no lt completed, more delays, and tons of rework by “warranty.”

Now, just think…they haven’t even finished the setup of this home and we have yet to move in. Consider this timeline so far. Its May 14th. On April 1st, we closed on the sale of our other home. On April 4th, we agreed on the purchase of this home. On April 8th, we closed on the purchase (paid cash). On April 15th, the house was ready (it was already being built when purchased). It wasn’t delivered until April 29th! It’s now May 14th and yesterday they “finished” the finish work after passing off unfinished work. Also, no utilities have been hooked up and we don’t even know when that might happen.

Leaders…Take a look at your operation. Is this what you see? You have silos in your company…they are inevitable and you actually want them … no, you need them to operate! However, it’s the myopic behavior, as demonstrated here, that forms out of silos gone wrong.

Need help identifying the silos and the myopia? I’m an expert at it. Every business you deal with throughout the day has these issues.

I hope this helps you better “see” how silos exist, organizational myopia occurs, and what its impact is like.

What Was Your First Job?

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What was your first job? Leave a comment below.

My first paying job was a paperboy. When I look back on this now, I can see the lessons I learned and didn’t realize it.

Capacity Management. No matter how many papers I would have liked to deliver (and make money from), only so many would fit in the bags on my bike. This is why paper routes were taken over by people in vehicles.

Accounts Payable. If I didn’t collect the money from the customers, I didn’t get paid. This taught me concepts, like: “fee for service,” and “deadbeat.”

Customer Experience. I got lazy and I dumped my papers in the bushes one time. Tons of people called and complained. I don’t mind being lazy, but that just caused more work in the long run. People don’t like lazy employees.

I didn’t think I was a Business Owner when I owned a Paper Route. Maybe if I had, I would have run it different? In life, we often do see us as “owning” anything when we work for a company…we turn over our rights to someone else. Maybe we need to rethink ownership, regardless of our role?

Where did you start and what didn’t you learn from it?

Great Find from Disney!

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Have you ever seen this from Disney?

I know this was the first time I saw it!

On the Gallup Q12, Question #8 asks, “Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?”

I’ve studied the Gallup results and looked at many top performing and low performing companies. There are four things that drive engagement in an organization and mission / purpose is the number one.

If Question #8 is a disagree or strongly disagree, the rest of the survey will follow suit.

However, having a strong mission/purpose is only part of the story. Some organizations have done a phenomenal job identifying a very purposeful mission. Then, they fail to effectively communicate it and their leaders fail to live it.

How is your organization’s engagement around its mission and purpose?

Get the book today:
Overcoming Organizational Myopia:
Breaking Through Siloed Organizations https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945151005/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_p7UXCbNQ4RTBH

Thinking About the …verts

Business Coaching Life Meandering Genius Stuff Thoughtful Thursday

On Thursdays, I always like to expand my mind by exploring interesting thoughts. Most people know what an Introvert and Extrovert are. Most people think, if you’re an Introvert, you’re shy, and, if you’re an Extrovert, your outgoing.

Studies have shown that is not necessarily true. See, what you’re seeing are behavior traits that someone on the extreme spectrums might exhibit, but not necessarily true of either type. In fact, what has been learned is that what these terms really mean, is where you derive your energy from.

Introverts draw energy from within and being around others and interacting can drain their energy. They often need to go home and relax with a good book, music, or a hobby to recharge.

Extroverts are kind of like energy vampires. Although they don’t bite anyone, they draw their energy from crowds and interaction. Thus, they always seem to be the life of the party.

For years, I would score as an Introvert. I took the personality tests many times over the years and until about 1995 or so, I was an Introvert. Even as a kid I was considered shy.

Can we change?

I started to realize how I acted in group situations. I was the person in the corner of the room that had his arms crossed and a “don’t come near me” look on my face. I probably kept people at bay with my posture and look because I subconsciously knew the interaction drained me. The thing is, I was beginning to not like that in me. I wanted to be more engaged and didn’t really understand why people wouldn’t talk to me like they interacted with others.

I learned one thing…smile!

I know it seems silly, but I stopped being that standoffish guy in the corner with a “don’t you dare” look on his face, and I started smiling. Smiling made all the difference in the world! People approached me! People talked to me!

Today, I test as an Extrovert all the time. And a strong ‘E’ too. However, I’ll tell people I’m just a Closet Introvert. I’m slow to respond in discussion situations (until you get me going). Introverts tend to think about what they’re going to say before they say it, whereas an Extrovert verbalizes their thoughts as they work through them. I can be very Introverted in that manner. Also, I tend to enjoy group interaction, although it can take me a little to build up steam to interact. However, I find it can be relatively draining afterward. This is especially true of teaching and speaking situations. Odd, because I love doing both nowadays!

Lately, the terms Ambivert and Omnivert have started to appear. An Ambivert is someone that exhibits both traits of Introvert and Extrovert — perhaps this might be me? An Omnivert is someone that normally acts one way — introverted or extroverted — but will act in the total opposite manner when in stressful or special situations. That friend that always hangs out and parties as an Extrovert, but then totally disappear as an Introvert when they start dating — they might be an Omnivert.

All of these observations are very interesting.

Do you know what you have tested out as?

Do you agree with your personality result?

Do you exhibit any of the Ambivert or Omnivert traits?

Things that make you go, “hmmm,” on a Thoughtful Thursday!