Want that promotion?  Then, practice your job.

As the new year approaches – and with it the inevitable wave of self-improvement plans–we’ve identified 10 strategies for advancing your career in 2013. (Read them all here.)
From recovering from an office blunder to learning why it doesn’t pay to be Mr. (or Ms.) Nice Guy, this ten-point plan offers daily tips on what to do and how to do it.

Mike J. is a venture capitalist who works on Silicon Valley’s famed Sand Hill Road. He’s good at his job–rising from intern to principal in only two years. His secret? An Excel spreadsheet he uses to track how he spends every hour of his workday.

To understand the importance of this spreadsheet, you should first understand the difference between working hard and actually getting better at your job.

Most knowledge workers—a group that, I suspect, includes just about anybody reading these words—don’t differentiate among their activities; any time spent at the office counts as “work.” Mike, by contrast, embraces a conclusion that’s well supported in the field of performance psychology, the discipline that studies how people become great at what they do: Not all work is equal.

Simply put, there’s a difference between doing things you already know how to do and doing things that force you to stretch and improve your skills. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson, a leader in this field, explains that a person in a new job usually spends some time training or shadowing someone else to get up to speed, but after that, his or her abilities tend to plateau. Beyond this point, they don’t get much better at their job, though they grow more experienced.

To get better—and win the promotions and opportunities most of us dream about—we must set out to intentionally improve our performance. In studying why some people develop remarkable careers, this is a key unheralded distinction between the average knowledge worker and the stars at most companies: the former work hard while the latter systematically train hard skills. Ericsson called this type of structured activity deliberate practice, and in his decades of research on the topic he’s found it to be the key for expert performance in every field he has studied—from elite scientists to elite jugglers.

This brings us back to Mike. His spreadsheet tracking forces him to spend a certain number of hours each week not just working but instead deliberately improving his skills. In the spreadsheet he shared with me, he spent around 60% of his time pushing himself, performing difficult, and ultimately crucial training tasks such as calling potential investors or polishing due diligence reports.

Here’s how to integrate this strategy into your workday:

Deliberate practice requires clarity. Set a clear goal slightly beyond your current abilities, but not too far beyond, and list specific actions that advance you toward your goal. In Mike’s example, a specific goal might include increasing the rate at which potential investor calls prompt follow-up conversations. The specific actions might include making a certain number of these calls each week (regardless of whether he feels like it) and giving his full focus in each call toward deploying his best pitch.

Deliberate practice requires feedback. Assuming you don’t reach your goal on the first try, you need a source of objective feedback so that you can improve on your next iteration. Without frank, even harsh, feedback, your progress will likely stall. Returning to Mike’s example of investor calls, he could keep careful notes on what differentiated the successful and non-successful interactions, or he could ask a partner at the firm to listen in and then offer thoughts.

Deliberate practice is unpleasant. You have to stretch yourself beyond where you’re currently comfortable—not a pleasant feeling. Most knowledge workers inadvertently end up avoiding deliberate practice-style activities because they retreat to checking email the moment a task gets too difficult. To make deliberate practice work, you must not only tolerate unpleasantness (and stick with the task, regardless of your urge for relieving distraction), but learn to seek it, like a bodybuilder seeks muscle burn. Mike recognized that, if left unchecked, his instinct would be to reply to e-mails all day, so he used his time-tracking spreadsheet to force himself to engage in unpleasant, though ultimately rewarding work. If you don’t have a similar strategy in your schedule, it’s unlikely to happen.

Success in knowledge work requires more than simply showing up early, staying late, and responding quickly to every email. True standouts systematically develop rare and valuable skills. Building these skills requires practice, and it is not something that you gravitate toward naturally. Like Mike, you must take a rigorous approach to improve your workday.

Cal Newport is an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

Is culture your company's most important asset?

CareerBliss.com recently released its list of the 50 Happiest Companies in America for 2013. CareerBliss receives thousands of independent employee-provided reviews each year. These are analyzed for key factors which affect work happiness, including work-life balance, boss relationships, co-worker relationships, company culture, compensation, and control over the work they do each day.

The happiest company in America for the coming year is Pfizer, which moved up from 11th place in last year’s list. Every company on the top 50 list should be proud of that accomplishment. They are working hard to create a happy, rewarding work culture for their primary internal customers: Their employees!

To what extent does your company intentionally create a happy, rewarding work culture for staff? You can go to CareerBliss to see if your company is rated. An even better place to start: Ask your employees. Most senior leaders put greater thought into their products and services than they do into their culture — yet culture drives everything that happens in an organization, for better or worse. Because of this fact, corporate culture may be your company’s most important asset.

If you leave your corporate culture to chance, you may experience a culture that hurts or hinders employee performance and work passion.
Employees don’t miss a thing. They know what works and what doesn’t work in their organization’s culture. Their perspective is the most important data you can tap regarding the quality and health of your organization’s culture.

Consider new research from management consultancy Orion Partners. Its survey of over 2,000 employees found that 24% of employees thought their bosses were overstressed, poor communicators, and lacked empathy. Only 5% of employees felt that their managers were empathetic, explained why organizational change was good for employees, or rewarded employees for their efforts.

Almost half (47%) of employees said that their managers made them feel threatened. 85% said that their managers cared more about what they did than what they were feeling. Every one of these issues is fixable. Most managers can easily reframe key messages in ways that demonstrate care, that encourage employees, and that make employees feel heard and valued. The trick is to invite employee opinion, then refine behaviors to better serve their needs — and, in the process, create a safe, inspiring work culture.

What are proven ways to gather reliable, valid employee perceptions about your work environment? Employee surveys are a very effective “formal” means to gather this data. Informal ways include regular one-on-one meetings, “breakfast with the CEO,” town hall meetings, exit interviews, or discussions that organically happen when leaders “manage by wandering around.” It’s amazing what leaders can learn if they are available and present for these conversations.

The path is clear: Ask employees what they think of your company and culture. Then share the results, no matter how depressing the data. Then act — repair lousy systems, coach lousy bosses and employees, etc., to improve your company work culture day by day. The worst thing you can do after asking employees what they think? Do nothing with the information.

Why Year-End Reviews Are A Big Fat Waste Of Time

By Denis Wilson

December 20, 2012

The standard-model performance review is an unhelpful barrage of built-up criticism. Instead, give feedback consistently so that your employees hear the good with the bad and make improvement a matter of routine.

Let's cut to the chase: If the only feedback your employees get from you is in the form of a 6- or 12-month performance review, it’s time to change your approach to feedback. Dropping bombs on employees once or twice a year only serves to build up pressure and make feedback sessions feel like indictments. And most importantly, it does little to alter behavior and improve performance and productivity, which should be your goal.
For feedback to be effective, it can’t be a special occasion, says Bruce Tulgan, author of It's Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need. “My view is that feedback is much too often given when things are going wrong. I call that ‘bad-news management’ because every time they hear from you, it means something’s gone wrong. You should always give feedback when things are going wrong, but you should also give feedback when things are going right, when things are going average.”

So instead of waiting for the obligatory performance reviews to come around, you should have a built-in feedback loop with your reports. “The best approach is to be giving people feedback on an ongoing basis about how their performance is lining up with expectations, and giving them guidance, support, and helping them make adjustments,” says Tulgan.
With this kind of ongoing dialogue, and by encouraging transparency and candid truth-telling company-wide, everyone stands to benefit through improved performance and enhanced working relationships.

Up Your Frequency
There are a litany of reasons managers give for why they don’t provide feedback more frequently, says Tulgan. They don’t have the time. They think that empowering people means letting them figure everything out for themselves, including what they’re doing right and wrong. Some feel they aren’t any good at coaching, while others are conflict avoidant or afraid of spoiling the collegial work culture. “All of these things contribute to managers being either unwilling or unable to engage in sufficiently detailed and consistent dialogue with their people,” says Tulgan.

The problem is that when conversations providing feedback happen infrequently, they have a tendency to cause more harm than good. Tulgan makes an analogy to working out: If you go out and try to do a five-mile run without working out regularly, that’s when injuries occur. “Part of why the ongoing dialogue works so well is it lowers the stakes in each of the conversations. Think about what happens in the 6- and 12-month reviews. You’re talking to people about stuff they did 6 or 12 months ago, for one thing. And they’re like, ‘Wow, I wish you would have told me that at the time.’

Not that performance reviews should be tossed out altogether. But instead of bringing new feedback to the table, they should summarize the ongoing dialogue and how the employee can take his performance to the next level. Big picture stuff. Meanwhile, the ongoing discussions should provide clear goals, concrete expectations, a timeline, and requirements within which to meet agreed upon goals.

Get Your Motives & Your Facts Straight
Much of the work that goes into providing effective feedback should actually take place well before you sit down with an employee. Having clear intentions for the conversation will help set an appropriate tone, says Joseph Grenny, co-author of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. If you come from a place of anger or revenge, it will hamper progress. “We know that coming at people with that kind of motivation is going to shut them down,” says Grenny. “They’re going to get defensive, they’re not going to be interested."

Before offering feedback, Grenny suggests asking yourself three questions: What do I want for me? What do I want for the other person? What do I want for the relationship? “The people that are really good at creating a non-defensive, open conversation with people tend to talk to people from a perspective of, ‘I care about you and I want you to be able to achieve the results that are important to you, and I want to be able to get my results.’ When you are coming from that place, people sense it and it colors the entire conversation.”

The other homework you need to do before a feedback session is gather facts so you can provide substantive evidence of the points you want to make. “You need to write down what conclusions you want to share with this person about their performance and what supporting facts you have to dredge up to help illustrate the points you’re trying to make,” says Grenny. “You have to do that work. If you don’t, what you’re going to be having is an abusive conversation where you insult somebody without informing them.”

Stay On Track
It’s important to make sure the feedback sessions stay on track, both in terms of the topic at hand, as well as the emotional balance. “You need to be clear on the points you’re trying to make and if people are moving off topic, you’ve got to be good at bringing it back to the central point,” says Grenny.
The emotional aspect of a conversation can be a bit more difficult to negotiate. “Oftentimes, if someone is getting loud or argumentative or defensive we think “Oh boy, they can’t handle this,” so we start being apologetic and watering down our message, and sugar coating it.”

This is the wrong approach. The way to handle defensiveness is not to minimize your message, but to make the person feel safe, says Grenny. So when you sense someone starting to bristle, set aside the feedback for a moment, and show them that you have their best interest at heart. “The first thing you have to say is, ‘Look, I want you to know that I want you to win here. I’m not giving you this feedback because I’m trying to tear you down. In fact, I need to talk with you about this because I think you got potential here and I want to make sure you achieve your potential."

Create a Candid Culture
Many organizations suffer from a dearth of candor, says Grenny. He suggests creating a culture where most performance issues aren’t handled by you as the boss, but by the person’s peers. “Let’s be honest, in today’s world we don’t interact with our bosses the way we used to when they were standing there with a clipboard on the factory floor observing us.”
Grenny says it’s key to empower peers to provide each other with feedback and teach them the skills to do so effectively so performance problems are handled on the spot and between the people with which they occur. “You need to be actively teaching skills they ought to use for delivering feedback and sharing things because people don’t come into your organization with these types of soft skills. If leaders aren’t fostering the kinds of competencies needed to a create a positive cultural operating system, then what you’re getting is the path of least resistance, and that’s obfuscating, that’s politicking, it’s gunnysacking, it’s withholding, it’s all of that negative stuff that creates cancer.”

Feedback as Transparency
To that point, encouraging feedback has its operational benefits, but it also contributes to an overall healthy, open culture. Rand Fishkin, founder of SEO software firm SEOmoz, has a notorious proclivity for transparency. He’s blogged about the company’s ups and downs: the trials and tribulations of venture funding, his own performance, and an insider’s view of mistakes the company has made. “It’s expected when you say that your company believes in transparency, that what you really mean is ‘We will write about things we do well and we’ll share when we’ve been successful.’ And it’s actually far more interesting and far more challenging, but also much more authentic when you write about failure.”

Transparency and authenticity have already been written into SEOmoz’s core values--which Fishkin takes very seriously--but his outward transparency has also been a good model for internal culture, says Fishkin. “That’s definitely something that over the years, I’ve become conscious of. And it’s very refreshing. I think it takes a little while for someone who’s new to the company to get into that mode of thinking.”
Fishkin continues, “In much of the corporate world, what I hear is that a lot of people have this fear around sharing their insecurities or sharing things that have gone badly. At SEOmoz, we’re working very hard to make it the opposite.”

 

The Critical Difference between Leadership and Motivation

Here’s something that might surprise you: The best leaders do not attempt to motivate their employees, athletes, students or children.

In fact, those people in leadership positions who try to light fires for others tend to not keep their jobs for long. However, those who know the difference between leadership and motivation create a different legacy; their impact on others endures.
The difference between leadership and motivation, to me, is summed up like this:

• Leadership: A consistent example of rising above any and all circumstances. Leadership is external.
• Motivation: The inner knowledge or insight that makes rising above circumstances possible. Motivation comes from within.

So, in my opinion, leadership is not about encouraging, pushing or cheering on; it’s about pointing others inward so they recognize that the ability to be motivated rests with them. If you are a parent, for instance, you know that it is virtually impossible to motivate your children to work hard at their studies. But you can lead.

You can show your children, by example, that no matter how sick you might get or how difficult your circumstances might appear, you can passionately apply yourself to your own job or projects. Thereby pointing your children inward to their innate ability to rise above any circumstance (and excuse) and crack the books with pride and vigor.
My message about leadership is simple: Great leaders serve to bring out the inner wisdom and free will of those they serve. Instead of inducing people to view life situations a certain way (or their way), great leaders demonstrate that there are an infinite number of ways to view any life situation.

To illustrate, one of my mentors, Sydney Banks, must have given hundreds of seminars and lectures during his lifetime. Like clockwork before each talk, the audience would file in with notebooks in hand. While Syd was incredibly generous with his wisdom, he would always instruct those in attendance not to take one single note. His words were his alone — his interpretation of “truth,” he would say. He wanted the audience to develop their own feelings and ideas, and draw their own conclusions, not follow in his footsteps.

I believe, then, that great leaders are those individuals who, like Sydney Banks, set great examples. Why can’t we simply leave leadership right there? Who came up with the belief that leaders must be motivators of others anyway? We must recognize the difference between leadership and motivation, because if we don’t, our companies, teams, schools and even families will be overrun by followers incapable of lending an imaginative hand, let alone coming through when the chips are down.



Motivation is personal; leadership brings out personal potential for the benefit of the greater good. Take note of the difference. The business, sports and political worlds — actually the world, in general — can use more of both.
 

 

Five Supply Chain Resolutions for the New Year

by Dan Radunz

 

December 6th, 2012

 

New Year’s resolutions are easier to make when you know they will save you time and money. To that end, here are five areas of your supply chain you should take a fresh look at in 2013:

Warehouse Management System: Is it time for an upgrade or replacement? Consider whether your current system is strengthening or hindering your ability to execute business strategies. Your WMS should free up your IT department to focus on customer-facing applications, allow for maximum configuration to your unique business practices, and adapt to changing market demands and regulatory requirements. You may also want to examine how well your WMS integrates with other software: It should serve as the hub of your warehouse and seamlessly exchange data with other systems, like your ERP.

Performance management: You’re collecting data left and right, but do you know what to do with it? A performance management system will turn those numbers into graphical, actionable information to help you drill down for root cause analysis and ultimately make better operational decisions. The right system should produce real-time, comparative dashboards based on best-practice metrics like inbound, outbound and capacity, while also allowing you to customize it for your own company-specific performance indicators.

Moving to the cloud: Cloud technology allows you to access the most up-to-date system through a secure web portal, while the vendor hosts the actual software and hardware infrastructure off-site. This arrangement can save you time, expense and labor by off-loading the software and hardware maintenance associated with maintaining on-premise software. Specifically, your IT department can spend less time maintaining a system or learning every new technology stack and application needed to run the company, and more time with the customer-facing services that differentiate your business and add to the bottom line. And as we saw most recently with Hurricane Sandy, companies that have off-site, cloud-based systems may avoid catastrophic data loss if they are hit by flooding or a hurricane.

Voice technology: This can be a key component for increasing efficiency and productivity in the warehouse by improving picking speed and accuracy. Voice solutions can include distribution voice-enabled workflow for areas such as picking, receiving and replenishment, as well as for manufacturing processes such as kitting, assembly and inspection. If your company is searching for ways to increase efficiency even more, voice technology may be the next step.

Hardware: Ensure you are taking full advantage of the latest hardware technology. It’s easy to get comfortable with older models and devices, but examining the ruggedness, scanning tolerance, speed and ability to integrate with other tools (like voice) may lead to changes that improve accuracy and productivity. Many WMS providers can recommend the best solutions for your business and current system compatibility, and even locate, price and order the hardware for you.
As we continue to emerge from the recession and start to move more boldly, resolve to ensure your supply chain is well positioned to drive your company to bigger growth and a better bottom line.

Dan Radunz is vice president of product strategy and development and oversees HighJump Software’s worldwide product development group and technology operations, supporting the company’s entire source-to-consumption software portfolio.

Guide your teams to attain goals: 3 ways

 

by Executive Leadership on December 2, 2012 6:00pm
in Leaders & Managers,Team Building

 

Savvy leaders induce compliance rather than demand it. They guide people to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions. To lead others in the right direction, articulate a clear goal and set a time­table for attaining it. Let the conversation unfold in three phases:

1. Discuss a deadline. After establishing the goal, say, “Let’s explore when you need to achieve it.” Solicit the employee’s thoughts on the time frame and, if necessary, cite your own preferences.
For example, a supervisor may tell you he thinks training staff on new purchasing software will take one month. You might reply, “Sounds good. But if everyone was up to speed in two weeks, we’d reap more savings sooner and that would increase your team’s year-end bonus.”

2. Define the stakes. Explore why your employee thinks the goal matters. That’s better than giving a lecture. Ask, “Why do you think this is important?”
When employees say, “This is a big project for us and here’s why,” you lead by letting others see the meaning and organizational impact of their effort. This breeds commitment and a shared spirit of success.

3. Postulate “what ifs.” Make sure employees understand the positive consequences of goal attainment—and the negative consequences if they fail. Pose hypothetical queries such as, “What if you miss the deadline?”, “What if you get derailed by unexpectedly high costs?”, “What if worst-case outcomes get in the way?”
By walking people through “what if” scenarios, you help them anticipate un­­knowns and prepare contingency plans. And you underscore the seriousness of the goal and implicitly signal how much it means to you that the employee plow ahead despite any obstacles that arise.

— Adapted from Selling Results!, Bill Stinnett, McGraw-Hill

 

Modern Transportation Management Systems Make LTL Neutral Rate Bases Obsolete

by Geoff Comrie

 

November20th,2012

 

Long ago, a LTL (less-than truckload) neutral rate base (NRB) was promoted as way for shippers to more easily compare shipping costs between carriers because carrier contracts and the actual rating process were both complex. A NRB was seen as a compromise based on simplicity, but neither the business interests of the shipper or carrier were optimized.

I believe, however, that neutral rate bases have outlived their purpose.
Today, modern transportation management systems (TMS), with robust contract and pricing management capabilities, have negated the need for a NRB and allow for both shippers and carriers to reap the rewards of a well-negotiated, collaborative contract.
How is this done?

There are many LTL carriers in the U.S. and not one of them services every part of North America equally. For many reasons — too many to get into here — some regions and lanes make stronger business sense than others. And when the needs of the shipper are aligned with the strengths of the carrier, both the shipper and the carrier enjoy a profitable and healthy relationship.

It is well known that almost no two carrier contracts are identical, even year-to-year by the same carrier. What appears to be a conspiracy between carriers to make their contracts difficult to compare is more a reflection of how well carriers know their costs to the penny. This results in complex and different rate structures — what kinds of costs are associated with certain kinds of freight, how much to charge for specific accessorials, how much it costs to service various lanes and facilities, and so on.

Modern Contract and Rating
This is where highly-detailed contract management systems are invaluable in quickly determining the complete and actual costs of a shipping transaction. These systems account for every detail and nuance, providing shippers with reliable, least-cost choices within seconds.

There are many contract management (CM) systems around. Strategic and functional value boils down to detail and process, not the pretty colors of a user Interface. It can certainly be intimidating when you first look at a very granular CM system because it just “looks complicated” due to all of the carrier contract information that needs to be entered. But the work is absolutely necessary and can mean the difference between getting back a simple estimate versus the actual cost, or even if the freight can be delivered to a certain address.

Hard Work + Detailed Input = Reliable Output
I cannot overstress this point.
Here’s a real-life example of what can happen if a contract management system isn’t robust enough to consider important details:

You have a 2,000 lb. shipment moving from Atlanta to New York City, with a freight class of 55, requiring an inside delivery by the carrier.

ABC, an “undetailed” contract management system, returns a hundred-weight (CWT) rate of $93.99, yielding a gross freight charge of $1,879.80. After your well-negotiated discount, the net freight charge would be $375.96.

 

You ultimately choose to use this carrier because, according to the transportation management system’s utilization of ABC contract management, this was the least cost carrier.

 

Unfortunately, this shipment is going to cost you much more than $375.96.

ABC does not take into account the additional accessorial cost for Inside Delivery even though it’s clearly stated in the carrier contract. ABC simply has no capability to have this detail recognized in the contract management system. Inside Delivery has a cost of $14.50 per CWT, yielding a total charge of $290 for this accessorial.

Further, ABC doesn’t recognize there is an automatic additional delivery charge of $60 for delivery into the borough of Manhattan.

 

So the total cost is actually $725.96, not the $375.96 returned by ABC.

Ouch!

 

In summary, to lower your transportation costs, use your own negotiated carrier contract in tandem with a modern transportation management system. This delivers lower shipping costs and better accuracy, which is important in delivering fundamentally good customer service and if you are looking to build a certain margin into your shipping services.

But, if you are still going to use a neutral rate base, then do a bit of homework. With carrier acceptance being neutral, pick a neutral rate base that is not really governed by the carriers, is cost-effective and offers the highest value, because your financial benefit, as shown above, can be compromised by up to 20 percent. In addition, look for a NRB that uses modern technology that any current and future software can use, offers the most rating options, and offers friendly licensing terms.

You can view transportation management as simply moving freight from one point to another. Or you can view it more strategically, as a way to save money, increase customer retention, and as a profit center. It is this strategic perspective that is driving shippers and 3PLs to adopt sophisticated transportation management systems. But as you evaluate TMS solutions, it’s important to remember that it all starts with well-negotiated carrier agreements, and the utilization of a robust contract management system.