answer the CALL...

CONFERENCE CALLS…

If you are in corporate America today, you KNOW what I am talking about…

I find conference calls very frustrating and VERY, VERY TELLING about how our minds work and how aware we are of the concepts of HARMONY.

I am not sure if you have seen the video that has been going around, but it is a riot and a must see….

The truth, I believe, is that conference calls are not a poor communication vehicle.  In fact, they are an amazing means of communication.  And, they bring to the surface behaviors and values that speak about us… and sometimes get in the way.

Remember, Harmony requires us to understand and embrace the absolute truth and move the moment toward what we want it to be.

So… what should we read into

when someone whispers in the room and they are on a conference call?

when someone is typing like a woodpecker onto their computer, next to their speaker phone?

when someone’s dog is barking or baby is screaming in the background?

when they are late to the call?

when we start talking over ourselves in the room, so that no one on the line can hear anything that is going on?

The “Conference Call” provides a veil that allows us to be more “ourselves”… and we need to be careful and mindful of that…

When we are in a meeting face to face, we are less likely to be distracted by our email, our texts out of respect to the people we are meeting with… when there is a conference line between us… we allow ourselves the room to be distracted and disrespectful.

When we are in a meeting face to face, we can see signs if the person in front of us cannot hear us.  When we are on a conference call, specially people in the room, will whisper something to the group.  In my opinion, this is for one of two reasons, neither of which is OK.

1.     We forgot someone is on the line and we just aren’t thinking about them, we are only thinking about our thought, not about sharing that thought so that others can hear it.

2.     We are saying something that we don’t want the other person to hear.

When your are on a conference call, as with any meeting, be mindful that the people there are there to exchange ideas, and they need to HEAR your ideas for the process to work.

When we are in a meeting face to face, we work to keep our distractions away from the meeting.  When we are home, why wouldn’t we close the door to the room we are in?  Why wouldn’t we get to a space that is quiet?  I understand that is not always possible, but certainly many of the barks and screams are avoidable.

When we don’t have to look at each other face to face, we allow ourselves liberties that we don’t otherwise allow ourselves… WHY?

Is it because we hold ourselves less accountable when we are not looking into people’s eyes?

Is it because we are more easily distracted and less able to maintain focus?

Is it because we can blame it on other things?

We hold ourselves to a lower bar and a lower standard on conference calls.  I understand that some of that is human nature.  I think it is almost impossible to maintain the same level of attentiveness and engagement over the phone in a group discussion than in a face to face meeting…

But, that is specifically why as leaders of  organizations and of the calls, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard.  We need to help everyone else be mindful of the investment that everyone is making, of the opportunity that the exchange represents.  

We need to slowly create a culture, not of tolerance of disrespect and lower standards on conference calls, but exactly the opposite. 

To achieve harmony and success on conference calls, we need to go OUT OF OUR WAY to make everyone aware that we are indeed on a conference call.

PLEASE BE MINDFUL THAT WE HAVE PEOPLE ON THE PHONE, so please speak up and lets not talk over ourselves.

PLEASE BE MINDFUL for those of you on the line that we can hear what is going on, so please mute your phones, if you have background noise until you need to speak up.

Give the people on the line the “right of way” in the conversation.  It is harder for them to “step into” the conversations as they cannot see the physical cues.

CHECK in with the people on the line – to make sure they can hear clearly.

CHECK in when you are on the line – that you are being heard clearly.

DON’T GO ON LONG MONOLOGES  (this is good no matter what the meeting method is)…

INVEST a few bucks in decent technology… You are saving time and money by not having to be there in person (all of us)… so invest in a decent phone.  Try different things to see what works best.  If you are at home – headphones with a mic are much more effective than speaker phones.

SET A TIGHTER AGENDA than usual for conference calls.  Make sure everyone knows what to expect when, as there are some folks flying blind on the other side of the phone.

LEAD IT… with less tolerance for talking over each other, and random conversation as it is harder to follow remotely.

ADD VIDEO wherever possible.  Seeing faces changes the level of engagement, the investment in the conversation and the overall effectiveness.

Conference calls don’t need to be marginal and limited exchanges if we don’t want them to be.  They can be extremely effective and efficient means of communication.

But, DON’T allow yourself to LOWER the bar for conference call exchanges…

To achieve HARMONY… RAISE the BAR on those conversations and exchanges… DEMAND more mindfulness and awareness in the conversation…  for you and for everyone involved.

There is real upside and opportunity in every conversation.  ON of OFF line...

Remember… every moment counts… don’t let yourself or others, in any moment, “off the hook”. 

Get it ;-)

Yours answering to the call of HARMONY!

Nestor

project dis-management

The fundamental issue with project management is disharmony.  It’s true!  I call it dis-management.

What is project management?

It’s anytime that you have an objective tied to people and time, and you are managing, driving, leading it to completion.

It applies to countless situations at work (and also, very much, at home). 

It could be building a multi 100 million dollar facility in Asia.

It could be delivering a massive multi-million dollar proposal.

It could be executing on a few thousand dollar building assessment.

It could be remodeling a bathroom at home.

It could be executing a science project at home.                              

It could be anything…

What is the disharmony in project management?  It’s simple, a fundamental imbalance between the resources (people and time) required to do the task and the actual amount of resources (people and time) available to do the task.

An on-going and unaddressed inbalance in required vs available resources leads to disharmony.  Stated or not, it’s an impossible “WISH” list, and “Wishing” is disharmony.

Harmony = embrace the absolute truth and then in each moment move toward the desired (wanted) objective / reality.

So, a fundamental step… THE fundamental step in project management is FIGURE OUT HOW MANY HOURS, PEOPLE, DOLLARS you need to get the job done.

VIRTUALLY EVERYONE MISSES THIS STEP!

Well intentioned professionals get in a room, lay out 40 “must do’s” and commit to them.

The deadline is set (usually before the meeting even started).

You walk into a meeting with a pre-set deadline, an unknown scope (activities), virtually no resources (everyone has day jobs)  and you come out with a to do list and a deadline.

How often do you say, “How long will it take to get each of those activities done?” 

Let’s say its 10 hours.

Then do you ask yourself, “Where am I going to get those 10 hours?  It’s not like I left early every day last week because I have SO much extra time, that I will just fill it with this new set of to dos.”

How often do deadlines get missed?

How often do budgets get missed?

How often do projects go wrong?

ALL THE TIME!

Its because we pretend the absolute truth is irrelevant.  We pretend that we can make time appear from nowhere.

Project management is a great professional application of harmony… but you have to deliberately apply it.

Much like in LIFE, in business and in projects, success & harmony require DECISIONS, deliberate decisions about what FITS into the schedule and what doesn’t.

CAN YOU GET MORE PEOPLE|?

CAN YOU SHIFT PRIORITIES?

CAN YOU REDUCE THE SCOPE ?(often versus the one you just MADE UP anyway ;-)

CAN YOU GET MORE MONEY?

CAN YOU GET MORE TIME?

Ultimately, project success and life success is very similar…

IF REQUIRED RESOURCES – ACTUAL RESOURCES > ZERO, THEN SUCCESS

IF REQUIRED RESOURCES – ACTUAL RESOURCES < ZERO, THEN FAILURE

But, how often do you take at least a cursory stab at the above… HONESTLY?

And, by honestly, I mean…

1.     How often do you take a stab AT ALL?  

Versus, how often do you just  write down to dos (often nicely in a really cool excel sheet with DUE DATES) without looking at HOW MANY HOURS WILL THIS ACTUALLY TAKE and who has that time?

OR

2.     How often do you make an HONEST assessment of what you and the team can handle IN ADDITION to their already full plates?

Versus, how often do you just tell people “you need to get this done by Friday, ok?” without confirming they really can do it (move priorities, etc).

As leaders we are in a fantastic place to achieve harmony and success in projects, because we can manipulate (in a positive way) the budget and the priorities. 

But HOW OFTEN do we really do that?

Versus, I just added another project to the pile, and added no time, money or resources… and I KNOW WE WILL GET IT DONE…

Success USUALLY comes either from random prioritization where people decide what else they wont do to get this done (and creates disharmony in other areas / projects)….

OR

People just burn the candle at both ends.  And, that works for awhile (but you better be a grateful organization, or it dies out quickly).  And, that is not sustainable, and your best people leave over time because they are exhausted and tired.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS, like so many aspects of business requires HARMONY.

I am sitting in the middle of issues ALL THE TIME…  projects that are understaffed, underfunded, or overcommitted.

To me, the answer is always right there in the absolute truth… in the imbalance between what is needed and what is available.

Many people don’t see it… so they can’t address it.

Some people see it… but they DON’T WANT to make the compromises needed in other priorities, budget or time in order to make the balance work.  Fact is – absolute truth always wins. 

Leaders and professionals that DO NOT adjust their scope (expectations) with resources available end up LATE, OVERBUDGET, LOSING CREDIBILITY, and EXHAUSTING their teams (or some combination of these things).

And, let me tell you… THERE IS AN EPIDEMIC of this issue in business.

If you want your projects to be successful and on time… apply harmony!

Understand the truth.  Ask questions.  Use numbers.  Add and subtract.

Remember the formula.

Required resources needs to be LESS THAN actual resources for success, otherwise failure.

HARMONY 1

DISHARMONY 0

Keep score! 

How many of your projects are on time? Versus how many are not?

How many of your to do’s get done?  Versus how many do not?

Stick to the important stuff… because you are ALREADY overcommitted.

And, if you are a leader… LEAD by setting up the right equation from the beginning.

That’s the TRUTH and I am sticking with it!

In the past year EMG has delivered over 10,000 projects.  More than 99.9% of them have been completed successfully and on time.

It works.

Yours on time and in harmony!

Nestor Benavides

cUlTuRe

A dear friend asked me today while we were working out, “do you work on culture in your company”?

My initial thought was, “with every breath”!

I work on it with every thought, with every conversation, with every decision. 

Like "harmony", to me the concept of culture is real not only at the office, but with our families as well...

To be honest, I almost never call a meeting on “Culture”. 

I did have an agenda item to address and discuss our core values during our Executive and Leadership meetings earlier this year.

And, a few years ago, during an Executive meeting, we dealt with the question, “Why does our company exist?”

EVERYTHING I do has to do with culture, because culture is CREATED by everything we do.

That is the part that so many leaders don’t understand…. Culture is so amorphous.

Many people either;

{C}a)     feel silly talking about touchy feeling things in the work place, or

{C}b)    don’t know where to start the conversation or how to have it, or

{C}c)     underestimate the power, opportunity, and value that a healthy culture brings to the company and the people in it!

I think culture is critically important and one of the MOST important aspects of business and companies and organizations and teams…

But, I don’t talk about it in theory… because theory is theoretical by nature ;-)

I like to talk about culture in its application… because application is applicable by nature ;-)

I want our values, our beliefs, our priorities, our strategy to be lived so that it can be understood, so that it can be embraced, so that it can be valued.

I don’t want to talk about the theory of culture because it leads to arguments and discussions about hypothetical situations and virtual problems…

Business is FULL of real situations and DIFFICULT problems… so my feeling is… lets use THOSE!!!

In every conversation… when we set strategy, when we set policy, when we allow exceptions, when we say hello, when we set priorities, when we drop the ball, when we disagree, when we argue, when we resolve, when we accept, when we reject, when we question, when we answer… and ultimately even when we THINK… we are shaping our culture.

Culture is the intangible and unreachable collective of all of our actions.

Culture is our company’s “sense of life”, the aggregate of all of our decisions that shows up in every moment.

Culture is the result of all that we do…

I believe that every company deserves to have a deliberate culture, despite the fact that almost always we create a culture by default.

Much like a great marketing message… culture is accomplished through consistency, through repeatability, through clarity.

It takes every breath.

It is crazy hard to destroy culture in a single breath, but you can damage it, you can damage it seriously…

Is a great culture my goal?  Is a great culture what I am trying to build at EMG and NVT?

Yes and No…

I want to help build a company that adds great value.

I want to help build a company that has great integrity.

I want to help build a company that deeply values its employees and clients.

I want to help build a company that is transparent and trusted.

I want to help build a company that makes people happy to wake up in the morning.

I want to help build a company that learns every day and strives to be better every tomorrow.

I want to help build a company that is profitable, because nothing is possible without it.

I want to build a company that helps everyone who is a part of it lead more meaningful and happier lives.

And, in doing that… in building that company… it will have onto itself a culture, a personality, a sense of being that is unique…

Whether or not I choose to work on culture…

With every breath and every action that every member of our company takes and makes… our culture is defined…

And, I believe that being aware of it, embracing it, & being deliberate with it allows us the possibility of influencing it, shaping it, and watching it invisibly and magically assist us, steer us and drive us in the direction of our strategy and our dreams…

Yours in harmony,

Nestor

u r NOT the boss of me

I may have shared the quote, “You cannot teach anyone anything.  You can only expose people to ideas, and only they can decide what to embrace and adopt.” (Author Unknown)

As we prepare for our end of quarter meetings, I was talking to one of our Directors about the upcoming meetings and the conversation went like this…

“We have talked about these topics over and over with the teams… They have heard all of this before… Yet they still want to talk about it.”

I, for one, don’t know anyone that likes to have conversations over and over again, unless of course, they fundamentally disagree with the direction or conclusion, or if there was no direction or conclusion reached.

If anyone that works for me wants to have a conversation…  I am ALL EARS!  My job as a leader is to engage people in the direction of our company.  If someone wants to talk to me, I am going to assume that its because they are struggling with what we are doing in some way, or they have a better way to approach it.  In both cases, I want to know what it is.

I am convinced that if you want to be an effective leader you have to be constantly creating an environment open to people’s views and then you have to be curious and engaged when they take you up on it.

If people are concerned about the direction that I am setting and they have enough energy to want to discuss it…. I want them to discuss it with ME, not with everyone else.  I am in the best position to resolve things.

If I am not interested in the conversation, I am not interested in their opinion.

If I am not interested in the conversation, I am not interested in the obstacles that are in my way.

If I am not interested in the conversation, I am not leading.

The conversation is everything.

The most important part of my role as a leader

is not to set the direction…

is not to craft the plan to succeed…

is not to have the final say…

The most important part of my role as a leader

Is to ENGAGE my team to move toward our goal….

Is to INSPIRE my team to move toward our goal…

Is to ENERGIZE my team to move toward our goal…

And, so, HOW do I do that?

Correct… HARMONY!

I can’t force my team to be engaged, inspired or energized.

People know that they are their only boss… they ultimately do only that which they choose to do…

SO, how do I get them to move toward our goal?

I need anchor them in the absolute truth of our direction…

I need to engage them in a conversation about all that we have going for us as a company…

I need to make them aware of all of the value that they have to contribute to our team…

I need to help them see that we are inherently capable and valuable, that they are inherently capable and valuable,  and I need to help them see the reasons why we will succeed as well as the challenges that we will face…  I have to convince them, or better yet, I have to give them the perspective so that they can conclude for themselves that we can win, and that it wont come easy.

This is the absolute truth.

It has to start there.

Once we are anchored in truth…

Then, I have to help them FIND WITHIN THEMSELVES the reasons why they WANT TO SUCCEED.

I can’t give them the reasons.  I can share some examples… but I must engage them in the conversation of why does expanding our truth into a bigger truth make sense for them?

And remember, this happens over and over again. 

In every moment they think about our goals, they have to reengage themselves.

In every moment they discuss our goals with their colleagues or direct reports… they have to inspire, engage and energize their teams…

I am not talking about cheer leading.  I am talking about rational discussion.

As human beings we want to add value.

As human beings we want to grow.

As human beings we are full of dreams.

My role as a leader is to tap into those three fundamental believes and help you associate those with the journey that we are undertaking… so that you will fight of your own free spirit and will…  so that you will want to champion our team to victory for your own benefit, and mine…

That is leadership.

As human beings, we exchange energy through our ideas and we consume energy through our fears… both of which are shared in conversation…

Do you want your son to do his homework?

Do you want your spouse to pay more attention to you?

Do you want your direct report to fight for your cause?

Do you want the people working for you to work with passion and conviction?

you have to shift your approach…

you are NOT the boss of them!

THEY ARE THEMSELVES THEIR OWN BOSS…

As human beings we exchange energy through conversation…

So, as your leader, as your friend, as your partner, as your champion, as your supporter…

I say my role is easy:

My role is to make sure that every conversation that needs to happen, can happen and does happen.  PERIOD.

In the conversations, I am not your boss… I am your friend, I am your colleague, I am your mentor, I am your advisor, I am your confidant, I am your student… I am NOT your BOSS!  

You don’t want a boss, and you wouldn’t listen to him anyway!

Sure its easier to just tell people what to do…

But its infinitely less effective.

Leverage harmony to inspire…

But the challenge is that you can’t fake harmony…

You can’t show people gratitude if you don’t really feel it.

You can’t show people empathy if you don’t really feel it.

You cant convey confidence if you don’t have it.

Harmony requires integrity.

Harmony requires sincerity.

Harmony requires RELENQUISHING what you may want to believe so that you may believe what you need to believe.

Steven Covey tells a story in his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” that when he was cheering for his son in baseball it was empty and ineffective, until he decided to actually believe that his son was a good player… and then everything changed.

Leading ain’t about cheer-leading.

Leading is about BELIEVING… letting people KNOW that you believe…

AND THEN ENABLING THEM TO BELIEVE THEMSELVES!

And, the magic all happens in the conversation…

In every conversation…

Leadership... like harmony... doesn't happen over time, or in the past or in the future... 

Leadership happens in the moment... in every moment

When you are a leader, you are always leading, you are always inspiring, you are always engaging….

Leaders that don't get that... aren't leaders...

Moments beget moments

Harmony begets harmony, and

Leadership begets Leadership…

I am NOT the BOSS of 'ye...

I am the BOSS of ME!

Yours in harmony,

Nestor