Once you take on managerial responsibility it is necessary for someone else to be given the detailed elements and for you to move on to other responsibilities. Yet that in itself can be quite a challenge. In a recently published article (Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation) I stated “The art of delegation is largely about breaking each and every job into workable components and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete the work”

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any boss to do. We often try to do everything because we think that we are the only person to understand the full scope of the problem. This largely is about having a team that is motivated and goal driven. Sure every team has its arguments and petty jealous challenges and the new manager is less likely to spot them than the seasoned one.

In “Delegation: The Problem Solver Becoming The Manager” – I observed that the problem solver has a serious challenge as a manager “because their normal mode of work is to identify solutions, then shift gear and fix the problems”. as a manager they have to trust others to solve the problem that they have identified, eventhough they can possibly solve the problem much faster by themselves than delegating the problem. Yet delving in rarely makes this individual an effective manager.

Actually this can be an opportunity to put into place the right frameworks to resolve problems, something that you wished were in place before becoming a manager. This is about putting in place effective procedures that lets everyone know what is happening at the same time. This framework is a part of the challenge of moving the whole business forwards. The effective manager should think about empowering their staff in order to harness their strengths so that they can become the new problem solvers.

From a management perspective in order to become a better manager this usually means increasing your skills as a leader, coach, teacher and most importantly, a motivator. Few problem solvers think about these aspects when they are solving problems, yet they are powerful tools in the hand of the problem solving manager. Ultimately the manager must takes on this responsibility on behalf of their team in order to improve their effectiveness. In addition they must know what their limits are, know when to say NO!

one of the key elements here is that we all have to learn how to communicate better. This is an ongoing challenge that we must regularly focus on. It is perhaps one of the reasons that drove me to join Toatmasters; the perennial challenge of improving how to communicate. I never considered myself a bad communicator yet I knew there were areas that I needed to improve in. In reality communications will be one of the biggest challenges of our lives.

In reality we have to let go of one set of detailed problems in order to understand a new set of problems. The details and the challenge do change – we enhance our own capabilities and we grow.

For me 2010 has been a real foundation year, a year that by itself will not look that great, yet a year that is the bedrock for future achievement. Did I become rich during this year? No, but I survived and have built a number of things which will be shaping the future for me and my family.  Just a few highlights that must be included are:

☺ Assisted my son in finalising and publishing his first novel

☺ Collected my on-line articles and compiled my own book

☺ Co-Founded a Social Media consultancy

☺Completed my Competent Communicator award at Toastmasters (started in 2009)

☺ Purchased a new home

I had hoped to add to that list other significant advances, yet they will have to wait for a future time (and I am passionate about many of these so I know they will ultimately succeed).

Currently I am passionate about leveraging my skills in global corporate consulting in order to assist small and mid-sized corporations succeed whether with their Social Media or marketing or through deployment of Business Intelligence solutions, or in the area of corporate risk. Whist at first these do seem to be diverse areas in which to be creating a consulting practice, yet they are linked.

Social Media is on the surface a marketing tool, yet in reality it is an holistic tool that has so many diverse uses. Customer services is an important aspect here, none the least because social media is a great tool for building trust. Whilst many aspects of Social Media cannot be measured in the true Business Intelligence style there is a specialist form of intelligence called social media intelligence and this is an area where I am able to assist my customers in building a listening post that acts as a foundation for their social presence.

Much of what we achieve is about helping others succeed. This is one of the reasons why I have spent much time with my son in assisting with publication of his first novel; eventually getting it self published. We have had many successes, but are still looking for a partner who can help us open further markets in the books world. An in respect of helping others succeed and seeking someone to act as a mentor for in order to assist them is achieving their own greatness.

We are always looking for new customers, so if you feel that we can assist you then please call on 289 296 4089 (new number) and we shall be pleased to assist, or send me an email.

We have a few more days till Christmas and the New Year will therefore be very soon after, but I would like to wish you all seasons greetings:

But I would like to leave you with a question – What does the future hold for you and in what way has 2010 been a superb foundation year for you? Please add your own comment here or answer the associated LinkedIn Question.

Also please note that I am looking to mentor 1 person during the course of 2011. Please email me any suitable candidates. My only stipulations are that they are in the same time zone (EST) and that they speak English as a first language. I wish this to be a Social Media focused mentoring effort, so I do anticipate communicating through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another medium.

• Help someone each day, in some small way.
• Listen to what is happening in the community.
• When someone posts something of value tell others about it.
• Inject an element of fun into the contribution you make.
• Make relationships, don’t sell.
• Become a resource for others.
• Give, give, and give again.
• Make time for social media activity.
• Become a real member of the community.
• Let your personality shine through.
• Listen to the community.
• Add a little controversy, even if simply to get people thinking.
• Produce some content that other will appreciate.
• Share other people’s content.
• Link to other people’s content.
• Avoid automation, remember you are communicating to people.
• Be someone who another person will make a positive remark about.
• Help your friends and followers, then do it again.
• Never, ever, ever, be rude.
• Build a fresh and exciting bio.
• Contribute in a fresh and exciting way.
• Monitor what is being said about you.
• Thank people EVERY time they assist you.
• Ask questions.
• Answer questions.
• Don’t be another “me too”.
• Help others unconditionally.
• Know the conventions of the community.
• Have a unique and professional profile.
• Share your unique personality.
• Have a picture/avatar that appeals to your target audience.

There are probably 700 more tips that could be given but these seem to be the basic set that will lead to success.

Yet when writing about a trending topic waiting for more than a day for publication is simply put: waiting a day too long. Remember this is a fast-paced world with many of us looking for instant gratification, before we move on to the next topic. On the Internet, today’s topic of interest is no longer relevant tomorrow. People have in that time moved in their perspectives, thoughts and desires on to something else that now interests them.

When writing for commercial pay-per-read sites then all articles are submitted to rigorous checks to ensure that the content is original. Whilst all sites do have a declaration check-box for the author to indicate the content is original, similar to that used by Triond. Of-course the content publishers must perform these checks, otherwise they may find themselves on the wrong side of a law suit. Yet this need has to be weighed against the need to publish quickly. This is all the difference having a human publisher at a newspaper can make, they weigh the overriding public interest and the  importance of the story against the possible income to be gained from publication. They know there is a possibility that the paper can be sued for a range of reasons, and some papers actually sought out stories that were on the edge because the law suit itself brought extra revenue (and most cases were dropped before trial).

Of course the dominance of newspapers and professional journalism is being challenged these days by these new ways of being published and some web based writers do make money through these journals. The fact is that the only way to publish about a trending topic is to publish on your own blog, for no direct pay (of course you can receive advertising revenues if these options are switched on and your site ranks well). Article checking software on pay sites will always take time to publish because of the interrogation carried out on your article.

For the writer it is much better to be ahead of the trend, but that is easier said than done. Yet it is crucial when writing for a pay-per-read site you want large volumes of readers because it brings in the revenue. It is also better when writing on a topic of general interest than a technical topic (which always has a much smaller audience whatever the subject).

Checking for originality is a fact of life for anything being published on-line these days, as is brevity – the shortest article I have seen was less than 10 words. Most publishers are looking for 500 words maximum, although they will always publish longer pieces, albeit cut up over several pages.

But of course the opposite of liking something is not represented in any way. Should we be able to dislike a post? Yet of course there is a little element of social responsibility that needs to happen here. Surely whether you like of dislike something said you should justify your stance or tell the person what you do not like. There is often value in criticising what a person has said – it assists them in learning and growing.

Perhaps the real point here is not disliking something but disagreeing with something said, after all this is merely one person’s opinion that is represented. This is always valid for a debate on any professional subject. The fact that two people can disagree on a specific point is not bad; it merely means there is no general acceptance of the issue at hand. Debate can be good and social media is a powerful place for discussions on any subject. This is one aspect that makes LinkedIn Answers such a powerful part of that network, because it is possible to ask a question in such a way that allows for debate to occur on the issue.

Toastmasters is a respected organisation that assist people through the challenge of public speaking. Part of that process is evaluation and when any person’s speech is being critiqued then both positive and negative points are viewed as a part of the learning process. Thus the speaker learns both what they have done well and what they have done poorly; this helps them through their next project.

Debates are better aired than allowed to fester.

—-

Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready? For the Social Media Revolution” is now available on Amazon.

In this case moving the weekly status meeting from 4pm on Tuesday to 10am on Thursday allowed Alex to leave on-time every week and not miss large sections of his class. It also allowed others in the team to take part in the  the regular friendly football games that evening, boosting their fitness and energy levels.

Leadership is complex and naturally enough it is primarily focused on achieving corporate or business goals, yet often paying attention to the little things can make the important things run smoothly. These days most people are working extra hours and handling more tasks than ever before, but is this a reason for forgetting that people have personal lives and that time off recharges personal batteries.

Staff in the accounting and administration department for one company were forced to work compulsory overtime every weekend for one whole day in order to sort out the accounting mess that had arisen due to a business acquisition and procedural changes. This compulsory overtime lasted for a period of five months. By the end of the period every member of staff was complaining how drained they felt, some even stated that  working the extra day achieved nothing as their productivity was at an all-time low. Such actions may be necessary to solve a specific problem, the accounting consolidation, but there is no reason why the following year there also has to be a repeat performance, just to close the accounts at the year end.

In this case the right procedures needed to be in place to ensure that all the right steps were taken at the appropriate time. We know that there are more complex compliance and regulatory issues that must be managed for any business, but they need to be managed as a part of the normal everyday activities, whether that is by staff or through automated processes is an operation decision to be made. Key here is that doing the right thing at the right time often alleviates the need to clean up a mess later. Again a matter of training for those involved at the coal-face, but it is a question of leadership for the management team.

The key to achieving goals and visions is in managing them through small, yet achievable steps and celebrating each success along the way, as well as learning whatever lessons we can from both our failures and successes. Individual and personal goals, being achieved will help everyone move forward and that is important for the success of a team.

All goals are achievable provided everyone is motivated. Remembering back to our earlier school days obtaining a gold star was a matter of personal pride, particularly when it was on an achievement chart for everyone to see. We are all aware of the challenges facing our organisation. For those in a leading role it is important to both listen and take action when necessary. It is a series of small steps that can often make the difference, and as Neil Armstrong once said “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What steps are you taking?

This article is the third in the series on Financing the BI Solution and follows from “BI Project Decisions: Ready Made Database Options” and “Financing the Business Intelligence Project“.

The decisions we make about the solutions we buy, which must all be made at the start of any new implementation do require analysis of a wide range of factors. In the case of the BI solution these must consider the existing infrastructure and any proposed imminent changes to it. This does complicate the decision making, but it is an essential part of BI project success.

Within any Business Intelligence implementation it is necessary to understand the impact of the corporate IT architecture. The complexity of the architecture can be a key factor in identifying any plausible ready-made solution. Many organisations have a veritable spiders-web of systems and inter-relationships some of which will defy logic, yet exist they do. Whilst it is primarily the operational applications that will be providing data to the Data Warehouse that must be considered to support the solution must take a more holistic view. Any system may hold key pieces of information and is thus capable of providing data to the Warehouse.

If we examine any two companies we will become immediately aware of architectural differences between them (and these are based on real solutions provided in the past).

In one organisation there may be an evolutionary mix of systems of varying ages and types; with few systems integrated together; there are many overnight batch jobs that transfer data between systems, but no integrated approach. How the organisation was formed may have an impact on the solution needed: here acquisition has meant there are separate systems in each of 17 different countries, some are packaged solutions, but most are bespoke. For the global corporate headquarters to gather worldwide information it has to contend with a complex mix of old and new systems using different data storage standards; all potentially making this a complex solution.

Conversely a second corporations is more integrated: all applications use pre-built solutions, based on relational databases; bringing an integrated architecture, that is well documented, and has been at the foundation of its IT platforms. It should be clear to the reader that this company’s architecture is unlikely to be very complex.

It is essential as a part of the financial decision making process to grade both the business and technical complexity of the solution.

Integration of existing systems is always an essential step especially assessing the corporate legacy application architecture. Integration of systems is almost always ranked as one of the most important architectural factor when deciding whether a pre-built Data Warehouse can be implemented. Highly integrated systems can be an enabler for a ready-made database. They are not the sole reason to implement a pre-built solution.

It is necessary to add a word of warning before diving headlong into such an implementation. When companies introduce new ERP, or CRM systems there is immense pressure to introduce analytics at the same time. This can also be true for SaaS, or Cloud Computing solutions. Often this is the integrated ‘Business Warehouse’. When the new ERP or CRM is introduced it is unproven (from the business viewpoint) and there is an assumption that results taken from the out-of-the-can Analytical Application are valid and correct. This is not always the case. An assessment of data quality is as essential to the ready-made solution as it is to the custom built Warehouse. Generally a new system cannot have its data quality assessed until it is in production and has had the wrinkles ironed out of it.

Next article in this series “What Makes Our Business Unique?”

In my experience goals must be:

○ Attainable
○ Relevant
○ Specific
○ Measurable, and
○ Time bound

I have always set goals, even when I have been employer free. I have not always written them down – That is a change I have made in recent years because if we write them down we tend to focus on them more in our everyday lives.

All of our milestones need to be tangible – but often in a business environment they need to be focused around business cycles. e.g. if you are selling sun-tan lotion then reaching and perhaps exceeding targets is easier in July than December.

Every goal needs to to be challenging, yet inspire a person to reach them, e.g. getting up at 6 am to complete your exercises  before going to work at least twice per week may be an important personal goal. A person needs to remain committed to achieving them, it helps where it is tied to a personal desire – less so when it is a boring work task e.g. delivering the weekly status report by 10 am every Monday morning. Yet as a goal the boring task is as important to business success as the exciting one.

The goals need to be flexible. Personally I have 30, 60 and 90 day goals for me personally and for my business. I write these down and then check progress against them as time goes on. Flexibility is important, especially where a goal involves other people – they may not have the same desires as you or fee that the target is as important as you feel it to be. I had a December 31st goal that could not be achieved because of the inaction of others, yet it was more than achieved on January 5th, the second working day of the new year.

My 30, 60, and 90 day goals allows me to have attainable deliverables. The problem with annual targets is that we tend not to think about them in the first half of the year then panic about them in the last quarter. Breaking the target down into 30 day segments makes the focus more achievable, nail the first 30 days (or better still do better than expected) then you are well on you way to the annual goal. I have always found it curious that when when you reach one target other things start falling into place to enable you to reach others, like wasting for a bus then six arriving at the same time.

I tend to re-write my goals every day – this helps me focus on the contents. It is about getting things done. Then I reward myself when I reach milestones. At a recent Toastmasters meeting someone talked about writing down your goals, diary-ing them, and sharing them with others. It has always been the later that has been my greatest personal challenge.

In a business context a leader accomplishes more in a few minutes speaking with people that then will through a whole day of writing emails. When we write we know the basic rule – there must be a beginning, the body of the piece and the conclusion. The same is also true when delivering a speech.

I guess that for many speech is unstructured, it certainly seems that way when we are speaking with our friends. The conversation tends to meander through the thoughts, hopes and prayers of the minds of those involved. One conversation can split into two or three, develop further, then re-merge into a single whole. This is not the case with delivering a speech, this has to be more structured, in the same way that your email to the CEO will be firmly structured and remain focused and to the point.

Speeches have an opening, the main body, and a conclusion, in the same way as writing. This is a constant whether we are making a presentation to the board, or to a symposium of 500 people. There is an argument by some that learning to speak properly even empowers a job seeker in an interview – it can certainly make them feel more confident eventhough this.

In “Speaking Out – and Learning how to be Heard!” I talked about how we “forget… to say important things, then find… that our message has not been heard effectively. Well it turns out that even the greatest speaker on the planet forgets things (even important subjects)”. That is one of the reasons why speeches should be structured (even impromptu ones) and have a good opening that draws to audience to the topic at hand. You will have an outline, which may be a mental one, of the three or four things that need to be said. It is important that the subject is properly introduced and that there is a good transition between the topics.

As an additional note it it best to focus on three, or perhaps four things, that are the most important elements to be conveyed during your speech. This ensure the message is heard and focused on.

It is perhaps the opening and the conclusion which are the most important parts. In opening the speaker needs to catch the audience’s attention as well as informing the audience what you are speaking to them about. Many people ask a question or make a challenging statement in their opening, others use a quotation or illustration. It is important to avoid weak openings – the unrelated joke or the apologetic statement. These tend to make the audience very defensive which can destroy the whole tone of the speech even if what you have to say is of vital importance.

In the conclusion we can repeat elements of the speech (and even add-in those items we missed earlier). The opening and closing elements of the speech play a similar role, to focus (or refocus) the mind on the subject at hand and ensure our audience listens and is with us.

In creating a good opening it is important not to be negative (even if addressing a problem). Also remember we are not delivering the whole speech in the opening we are simply peaking the interest of our target audience. We are giving them a reason to listen, that is all.

Reference Material:

Electrify Your Audience with a Shocking Speech Opening by Andrew Dlugan

Opening Your Speech By George Torok

You can imagine what my Sunday morning had in store for me. Yes, you have guess correctly it was the day to poke around what Wave had to offer. It also occurred to me that some of my loyal readers may wish to have me un-peel some of the features for them.

One of the first things to understand is the nature of Google Wave, just what is this beast that is currently competing with Windows 7 as the most exciting new product of 2009. Wave is a collaboration tool IS NOT a social media tool. As a collaboration tool it is therefore useful important to have people to collaborate with. I did find two people on my contacts list, both called Tom, and both CEO’s of their respective firms that I had been communicating with over the last six months or so, but not really candidates for a test message. Fortunately I did have another professional networking connection, Sheryl, who had a Wave account already and had given me her wave address previously.

By way of a quick note: If you use FireFox then you do need to be using version 3.5 and you will need to download the Google Wave Add-in to ensure that the features work correctly.

The first thing you will notice about Wave is the fact that it does look very similar to familiar email type interface. It even has in ‘Inbox’ which is strange because your ‘outbound’ waves are also located in you inbox. My preferred name would be ‘Activity Centre’ instead of Inbox, but I did not name it.

When you sign-up for any system you get the obligatory welcome message, the same with Wave, one of these is about the ‘Extensions Gallery’. These are a series of useful add-ons that can add to the functions.

Have a look at the extensions available, you are likely to find something of interest. Here is the multi-user Sudoku information. Personally I am not sure I want to add this extension and compete with others on this game, but each to their own. I did however download the Ribbit conference call extension and Google’s maps tool. Eventually there will be hundreds of gadgets and probably the majority will need to be consigned to the waste bin, but some good ones will be provided as well.

They key aspect of any of these gadgets is that they can be added into a Wave as can be seen with the map that has been embedded into my wave below. Now I hear you ask surely this is no different than adding a map into an email. True. You can add a map to an email, and many people do, but I have normally found it best to do it via cut and paste. Within the Wave this is a live map and the others in the wave can zoom in or out. Wave allows videos to be embedded right into the message and played in situ. Other extensions will be added in time and these extensions can add powerful facilities that will have serious business use in the future. So here is my “Hello World” test message with embedded maps.

So as I said earlier the key aspect of Wave is its capability as a collaboration tool, and this is where Google must be hurting themselves right now. How can you have a collaboration tool, yet not have people to collaborate with? Most frustrated users that I have heard from seem to have this question on their mind. I think they have a valid point. My first invitations will be sent out to those that I intend to be collaborating with on live projects (right now) or those that I feel I will be working closely with in the near future.

I said earlier that when I started with a fresh Wave account I had two contacts already. I wondered where these came from so explored the ‘Manage Contacts’ hyperlink. This takes you to Google Contacts, which I have found to be very flaky and please excuse me if I do not show you any pictures from it as it is more likely to crash every instance of Firefox running (including this one). Being a pre-existing Gmail user I had several hundred contacts on Google Contacts already (this list must have been built from my recent email traffic) because I use Outlook as my contacts master and do not store contact on Gmail. I imported my outlook contacts list into Google Contacts (1700+ people) and found another half a dozen Wave users in my contacts list.

This is the one aspect that Google needs to work on. I also wonder how you communicate with an email only person, because despite the best intentions of Google many will not move over into the new world in an instant, so a Wave will need to be communicated to both Wave and Email users at the same time. I know that I shall be writing more as I explore more of Wave, and right now I am off to send out some invitations to my close collaborators.