Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Re-reading the part of Malcom Gladwell's book, Tipping Point, on connectors.  Connectors are those people that (1) know tons of people and (2) know people in different 'worlds'.  He tells about the experiment where 160 people in Omaha were given a package and told to send it to some guy in Boston - they didn't know the man.  Most all the packages got to him, but the interesting this was that half the packages went through three people with no connection to the original senders.
Remember the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?  This is where the idea comes from.  In this case it's where every actor in Hollywood is 'related' to Bacon by 6 movies.  Turns out that it's actually 2.6!
People that are connectors are powerful in the flow of ideas and communications.


While there's a natural talent that connectors have, the ability to create relationships with people, the interesting thing is that I think anyone can be a connector to some degree.  The keys seem to be:

• It takes some effort to systematically meet and reach out to people.  While this comes naturally to some folks, it's not to others, but they can still do it.  Maybe we think that it's easy for that person over there, but not us, then don't make the effort.
• We need to connect to people in different 'worlds' or contexts.  Just connecting with people in our work environment, while important, isn't enough - we need variety.  Twitter seems to be good for this, where as Facebook seems to emphasize people we already know.
• The connections with others don't need to be deep.  Obviously the more deep relationships we have, the more we're overloaded.  Sometimes we think we need to have these deeper relationships to be meaningful.  Granted if you don't have many of these things, that's not healthy - but that's usually not the problem.  We don't need to be able to go out to dinner with everyone we know, just need to know enough to be intelligent about the other person.

If we do this 10% better, we'll have a healthier set of relationships that we can use to more effectively help other people with and increase our ability to communicate.

Meetings: You Should Say No More Often

You get invited to a meeting – in fact you probably get asked to attend meetings many times a day. If you’re in a virtual environment where you get electronic requests to dial in, there’s usually a simple ‘Accept’, ‘Reject’, and ‘Tentative’ button to acknowledge the request. It’s so easy to hit that ‘Accept’ request button if it says you have time on your calendar. Guess what?

YOU CAN SAY NO!

In fact, you should probably say ‘no’! You should probably say no ½ the time! I’m serious! Just say no! Yeah you have to think about it: are you a key decision maker, who’s doing the ask, and do you have some key deliverable to present, but most of the time you should say no. Manager Tools business consultants, Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne in their podcast, Calendar Control – Say No, advocate this very practice – say no. Bias towards no. Say no frequently.

Listen: you won’t be evaluated at the end of the year on how many meetings you went to or how ‘busy’ you were with meetings. You’ll be assessed on what you got done. Saying no frees up time to get work done.

DO: Open your calendar right now and decline a meeting – RIGHT NOW

DO: Say NO to a meeting today.

DO: Say no to a meeting everyday this week!

Meetings: Is Your Meeting Necessary?

Is there really a need to have a meeting? I mean, REALLY need one? Can the meeting objectives (if there are any) be accomplished through a memo, email, or a phone call to someone? When you schedule a meeting, it’s like you’re going to the organization and asking them to fund a project. Your asking people to set aside time and they only have so much to give. In the book Meeting Excellence, the first chapter is titled, “Is This Meeting Necessary?”. That IS the question! In Read Before Our Next Meeting, Pittampalli says that people can read, so send them a memo! People should do work BEFORE the meeting and make decisions AT the meeting.

Making a withdrawal from the ‘time bank’ of the company is a big deal. Have too many meetings and you might get someone laid off. 30minutes doesn’t seem like much. Multiply that times hundreds of employees who think the same and go ahead and schedule that meeting and that’s some serious time/money. Your bias should be to not have the meeting. In today’s meeting culture the bias is to have the meeting. And today’s meeting culture is killing us.

DO: Pick up the phone and call someone instead of having the meeting!

DO: Can you leverage some social media in the company to have the dialog, list a discussion forum, company twitter like tool?

Meetings: End on Time

Not that this has ever happened to you...

The meeting you’re attending over runs by 10-15 minutes, which impacts your next meeting, which means you miss stuff in the next meeting so you don’t get what’s going on so you re-ask about ground already covered, that impacts, so the meeting drags out longer than intended, which… and on it goes. Think dominos. One domino crashes into the effectiveness of the next.

It’s a respect thing. Over run a meeting and you’re impact other people and it’s not just me impacting you. It’s me impacting the 5 people in my meeting that impacts the five meetings their attending, which impacts the 25 people in all those meetings, etc.

Why do we over run meetings? TONS of reasons. Lots to talk about. Knotty problem. The guy that has an opinion on everything. Okay, so there’s more stuff to do – what else is new?? Manage it, don’t let it manage you.

Ending on time is about RESPECT.

Ending on time is about forcing DECISIONS.

You can always have another meeting or discuss via email those items you don’t get to.

Things you can do:

• Give a five minute warning before the end of the meeting, say, “Let’s do a time check, we have five minutes left. Let’s summarize the action items.”
• Give a 1 minute warning
• Have a parking lot for the stuff you can’t cover. More on the parking lot later.

Meetings: Start on Time

How often has this happened to you?

You’re on time for a meeting and the organizer is running 3-5 minutes late. When they finally do show up, they say, “we’ll give everyone else a few minutes to show up.” When the meeting finally does get started, it’s running 8-10 minutes late.

Those in the meeting made the effort to be there on time and they’re waiting. There’s a respect issue here: those on time made the effort to be there and their told to wait. Given the number of meetings that we have, this is also a productivity issue. Late means less time to get the work of the meeting done.

If you start late then people will think it’s okay to come in late. A 9:00am meeting can shift to 9:15. Then a 9:15 meeting gets rescheduled to 9:30 to accommodate folks. The organizer thinks that they need to change the time because people are coming late (because the organizer starts late).

DO: Be clear about the start time. Taken care of by electronic appointment systems, but if you’re emailing a group of people to meet at Panera’s resturant, it’ll be less clear.

DO: Start on time! You can start the meeting by saying, “The clock says it’s time to start, so I’d like to welcome you to the ….”.

DO: Start talking at the start time, even if people are still coming in or milling around.

DO: No one in the meeting? Start talking anyway.

DO: Are you a preacher? Start that service on time. Hundreds of reasons why: new people, kids, professionals – all kinds of implications. Just do it.

Toxic People Curve

Here's a problem - when you're dealing with a toxic person, especially when managing a toxic person, there is the illusion that some coaching will change things and we can get on with life. Unless the toxic person is off the charts, most of these people have some very good skills that we'd kind of like to keep. So we'll send them to a conflict resolution class and move on. The problem is that these people may require way, way more energy that we think.

Seth Godin nails this: the gap between the toxic person and other people is huge, a vertical cliff. The angry person isn't just like you but angry, their in a class by themselves. See Seth's blog posting on this. We can't just send them to a class. If you have one who works for you, then giving them immediate feedback is important and be prepared for late stage coaching (i.e. get ready to fire them). If you work for one, realize that hope is not right around the corner. Start looking for another job.

Like Seth says, there are too many people who are way easier to work with. Go work with them.

Toxic Team Lead

There's nothing worse than a toxic boss, team lead, or project manager. Their presence on the team impacts home life, team productivity, people's health, etc. Here are some tips for dealing with one:

Tell you spouse: let your spouse know what's going on. The toxic lead is going to have an impact for a long time, so be prepared by starting at home.

Leave it at the office: this is super hard, but you need to protect your family. Don't sit and spin on the situation or a conversation. The temptation is to sit and replay situations and conversations - don't. If you need to write your thoughts down, great, but get it out of your head. Don't wake up with the situation in your head. What you go to bed with is what you'll wake up with. Focus on your wife, your faith - anything else, but not them. Make a pact with yourself - they will not hold you hostage.

Self assessment: there are times when we contribute to the toxic relationship to varying degrees. This can be due to communication style, confusion over roles, or maybe you're just not doing your job. It's time to be honest. Make sure you're not toxic and this lead is trying to protect themselves.

Get feedback: if you can get feedback from other stakeholders - find out if they think you're doing your job. Sometimes people have a skills center manager and may have an opportunity to get a quarterly or mid year assessment. This is a good way to gauge if you're contributing to the problem.

It's not you: you can walk away from a conversation (or battle) with your team lead and feel like crap, feel like you're a looser, have failed, and on it goes. You are a valuable contributor to your organization - you have skills and ability. You are important. Don't let them define who you are.

Don't gossip with co-workers: the temptation is to get your buddies together and say 'man, you should see what she did today...' - it'll feel good, but it's unprofessional.

Be clear about roles: part of the problem with a toxic lead is that they may think they can give you direction on things that their not responsible for. Matrix organizations can really add to the problem here. Be sure you know who is supposed to give you direction. Know who is in the food chain - you may have to go to the person who is giving you direction and their team lead and get their help in resolving the confusion.

Short answers: the more you give to a toxic lead, the worse things can get. Yes, no, and clarifying statements about tasks are best.

Prep, prep, prep: I had one toxic lead who loved to dig and pick. When I spent the time to get the work product in order, had it peer reviewed and had really thought through it, things went much better. You'd like to think you can work questions out or details with the team lead, but not when their toxic.

Communication style: remember that your lead may have a communication style that their not even aware of and may be the opposite of yours. Your lead may be very commanding and you may be very conversational. Learn to communicate in their style.

Your words: be polite and don't let anger in. You may be flustered in the conversation and afterwards wish you had said this or that. Don't dwell on it. There are usually (or always) better things to say, but there are no magic words that will shut the lead down or make them into a nice person. Ain't going to happen. Drive on.

The system is staked against you: Remember the conversations are going to be stacked against you. They have the role power and they probably got to their position because their a good talker. Unless you're really good at this kind of dueling, you'll probably walk away from the conversations thinking you lost and didn't say the right stuff. Be okay with that. Focus forward.

Stay focused on task: know what your tasks are, when their due, and what the closure criteria. If you can't get these, establish your own and work to that. If you have to establish your own, be aggressive. At the end of the day the only thing that will matter is: did you get your task done and did you do it well.

Your probably being setup: when they talk to you, they maybe taking notes on what you've been assigned and did you do it. They'll ask loaded questions - don't get sucked in. The temptation is to push back and do 'passive aggressive'. He or she is waiting for that and will nail you on it.

Take notes: if they tell you to do something, accuse you, etc. keep a log. You may be asked at some point to provide input - chances are if you're having problems, other people are having problems and HR may be a phone call away from getting involved.

Get help: is there someone who can counsel you through this and provide some air cover? Be careful not to gossip with them or dump on them. Their not there to carry your load, but they can help.

Lead emoting: you're team lead may emotionally dump (or vomit) on you. You'll probably come away from the conversation thinking, "what the heck did they want me to say?!?". These kind of conversations are very hard - they create a story where things are very bad, they can't do anything, and look at all the things you did wrong. Then they expect to have a dialog. Don't dialog. Say, "thanks for the feedback, let me think about what you've said." You may even ask if there's something specific they want you to do.

Exit strategy: Get your resume up to date: it may be time to move on. Sometimes these situations can be waited out - the lead is a climber and will be on to the next assignment, maybe the project has a deadline coming up and people will move on, etc. Be realistic and start the process for finding something else.

Don't play the game: you may try and get clever about word games and situations - don't. And don't be looking for vengeance. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord"

Get exercise: I'm going to sound like your mother here, but get exercise to burn off the tension, and loosen up. Eat right (stay away from alcohol, sugar, etc), take extra multi-vitamins and get enough sleep. Your health will take a hit at this time, so take care of yourself. This is an emotional endurance race and endurance athletes know they need to take in extra nutrition or they'll bonk. You don't want to emotionally bonk.

These are hard times and you'll need a cool head. There are probably a lot of reasons someone in leadership is toxic, but it's probably because they have tied role power to who they are. That's a dangerous tie and a no win situation.

I once heard a biologist talk about the ebola virus - fearsome, terrible, deadly. The problem is that it kills the host that it needs and eventually dies out. There is not much ebola around because it kills the things it needs to efficiently and quickly. You may think your toxic lead is better at the game than you and you're probably right. Their destroying the organizations and teams they work with, and sadder still is that they may be destroying their families. Think of what their kids have to live with. Very sad. You're toxic lead will burn out and fail - no question.

You know what? Their ship will sink and they will be part of the dark legacy that every organization has. I mean really, who wants that?!? It may be a rough spot on your career path that causes you pain and even to uproot and move, but time will wash them away and there will be too many good people to work for and with in the future.

Hang in there, I know what you're going through - you'll make it

I want every email, every meeting

Let's say there's some miscommunication on your project - you thought she'd do it and she thought you'd do it. You have emails, she has notes to prove it. There's some urgency with this one because it'll impact schedule.

One reaction I see a lot is that the project lead or program manager now wants to be included on all meetings and emails. There are several problems with this:

This approach doesn't scale well on programs. A person can only process so much information and getting in the full stream of the project will just create more problems. For example, the lead will think they have to respond to more emails, or will have more information to not remember correctly.

If there's a break down in communication, the lead needs to look at the team and figure out who was responsible for the communication and work with that person to plug the hole.

Sometimes there are big battles or a lot of negative energy around the issue. Pick your battles - does this one really matter? Hey, stuff happens - see it as an opportunity to strengthen the team.

I want to be careful with this comment: if you find yourself in a tug of war over who said what and by-god-I-have-emails-to-prove-it, take a step back and assess yourself. Are you reacting because there's a serious project impact or because someone challenged your authority? Almost anything can be whipped up in to a project impact. Anyone's sense of power can also impact a project.

Standup Meetings

Coordination on a project team is really important - seems obvious right? One tool to getting there is to have a daily stand up meeting where each person gets 2 minutes or less to share the following:

• What have they accomplished


• What are the working on today


• What road blocks are they running into

First just knowing what each other are doing today is very helpful. I had frequent situations where someone will say, "you're working that? You may want to talk with Tom - he knows about that." Team members will raise questions that others can answer or there are situations that one team member doesn't even know what question to ask, but will get input. Team members also appreciate short meetings!

The key to the meeting is to keep it short and very crisp. How long depends on the size of the team meeting. I shoot for five to ten minutes. Everyone should have a minute or less. I've found that folks are usually around 15 seconds. There's always someone who goes over, but as the team has more of these, people settle into a rhythm.

Recommendations:

• Send out a recurring meeting notice. If the team all sit near each other, schedule a conference room. Meeting should run through the life of the project.


• Meeting is best held first thing in the morning. I have people in different time zones, so I schedule as early as possible for everyone. I give people a 1/2 hr to get into the office, get their coffee, check email, etc. Don't let time be the hang up. If people can't make it until 11:30am ET, then do that.


• Meeting notice example: "The purpose of this meeting is to keep other members of the team informed as to what you're doing and if you need help. Each person gets 1 minutes or less to cover the following: (1) what have you accomplished since the last meeting, (2) What are you working on today, (3) Are there any impediments preventing you from meeting your commitments, and (4) is there any time today or the rest of the week when you won't be available."


• If people are meeting in a conference room - everyone stands up


• I go first so I can model how the meeting should run. I find myself sometimes just asking for today's tasks and not contributing myself. Not good. I'm a part of the team as much as anyone else and have my share to carry.


• I take notes - not of everything everyone says, but key issues.


• Don't be afraid to use the phrase, "let's take that off line". I find that being specific helps, "Tom, can you and Al take that off line and let me know before next stand up?"


• It's easy to forget the meeting once it happens, but my work isn't done. I review the list of notes and follow up with people.

A great resource is the book, Death By Meeting by Patrick Lencioni. Very easy to read - it's a parable. It describes this approach along with some other meeting styles.

Silence is Golden

Was on a call with a group of directors reviewing a presentation for some set of functionality to be delivered and the discussion was heated and lively. At one point I IM'ed the technical lead and asked what she thought - she'd been pretty quiet. She sent back: with so many geniuses on the phone, I don't think I'd have anything of value to add ;-)

You know, the temptation is very high to jump in and share your mind. but sometimes it's just better to be quiet.

Team Content Gardener

I had someone suggest the other day that our team should have a content gardner - someone to organize team content, develop play books, educate on the use of blogs, setup standards, etc. Here's why I don't think this is a good idea:

This is counter web 2.0. One of the driving forces behind web 2.0 is user initiated content organization and sharing. Tagging, blogging and wikipedia applications are a perfect example of this. Tagging came about because we all got sick of that other guy who thought he knew how to organize everyone else's taxonomies.

If there are issues concerning how the team is using it's social networking tools, it's up to the team to communicate and this needs to start with the leadership of the team, but also needs a team that initiates dialog.

The team needs to know that reminders are okay. We're all super busy and can drift into old patterns of doing things. Reminders given in the right spirit build trust and help the performance of the team.

Consultants are good. If the team can bring in someone with an outside perspective on how to leverage social networking tools, that's a huge plus. It's up to the team to internalize these suggestions and practices. The consultant needs to realize this and go away when the consulting is over.

Those doing the work will have greater insight into how content should be organized.

There are exceptions to this rule. For very large programs, a content gardner may be just the thing. Pick you gardner carefully. Some people get hooked on the power they get by taking control over other people's content - you don't want that person. Also, mistakes are okay. There are not a lot of people that really know how to do content gardening - give them a chance to try new ideas out.



The bottom line is that teams need to internalize best practices. The team that realizes that it needs to take time to dialog about how their using the tools, will be the more productive team. Team leads need to make time to talk about how to organize content and make sure that their folks will be assessed on how proactive they are in this area.

Stupid Requests

I got a stupid request today - someone wanted an architectural diagram so that they could figure out something concerning disaster recovery. For this person, it was kind of like saying, "I need to find a coffee shop in NY City, can you give me a detailed map of the water system, I mean, you need water for coffee right?" I said something witty and scornful and moved on.

Here's the problem with the word stupid, it's a loose-loose word. The person it's direct towards now feels pissed off, shamed, etc And I've just feed my big fat ego. It can get even worse - the person doing the asking may be stuck in the middle and now has to satisfy someone who doesn't know what their talking about with someone who's being to knuckle head. Both accomplish nothing.

But here's the crazy thing: these are great opportunities - their easy! All I have to do is send a diagram and tell them if they need help, let me know. That's it! Sure you and I can see the problem a mile off, but who cares? We've engaged in a dialog (good thing), offered to help (good thing), and they get something to start thinking about (good thing).

So, loose the attitude and use the opportunity to foster a dialog.

Making Sure They Connect

As a project lead, probably my most important job is simply to make sure people are talking to each other. I've found that it's best to treat this as normal business: no hysterics, no beating people up, just simple, 'have you talked with so-n-so?'. Since project leads have the big picture of a project, they tend to have a good idea of who to talk to.

Here are some reasons people get stuck:

• They don't know who to talk to.
• They believe their part is done. We get stuck in our own little world and forget systems have pieces that need to come together.
• They sent an email and didn't hear anything back. We rely on this one too often.
• They have bad information. Someone told them why it doesn't work and their waiting for a fix, when in fact it's not the reason they were given.
• They don't have the power to speed things up. This is where the project lead comes in. Sometimes a word from the lead or escalation, and things get moving
• They get lost in the weeds - too many things going on, and they drop the ball. Just need a reminder or some quick help.

So to help, the lead needs to start with a status question. If it isn't moving, then ask, who have you talked to, or who are you waiting on. Simple follow the lines of communication.

These issues are amplified on virtual work teams and project leads needs to be more diligent on this issue. It would be nice if everyone would follow through, but often times reality is something else.

So, make sure they connect!

Virtual Calendars

Teams that don't work in the same location rely on tools like MS Outlook to setup meetings. The problem with tools like this is that it creates the illusion that I'm available whenever there isn't a meeting schedule, and beyond. People will schedule back to back meetings all day long, all week long and that's not good on productivity. In fact what starts to happen is that since there's no time to really get things done, people will schedule meetings to get things done. Don't have time to get that document done? They'll schedule a meeting with you and three other people to work on it. No wonder people hate meetings.

So here are some things I've found helpful:

You need time to get away from your desk - if you do this during lunch, create a recurring meeting for lunch. While there will be times when you'll need to schedule meetings during this time and you can negotiate as needed.

Some meetings require that you debrief - you need time after the meeting to review action items, summarize results, etc. If someone sends you an appointment for a meeting like this, schedule 15minutes after that so you'll have that time.

Sometimes a meeting needs prep time - 15 to 30 minutes to get ready. Schedule an appointment on your calendar to do this prep work.

You need time to do email. Email is another whole other set of blogs, so for the purposes of this discussion, let's just say that unless you're in customer service, you can't let it interrupt you all day long. Create yourself a recurring appointment to review email. I schedule 3, 1/2hr appointments each day to review email.

One of my team members has a tough commute in the morning which means that he gets in around 9:00 and he blocks that commute time out. The lesson here: be realistic - block it out if you aren't going to be there.

Block out family time. I've had people who scheduled meetings way after normal working hours. Your family comes first and you need to protect that time. In most situations I find that people respect non-core work hours and that this has only been a problem on occasion. All this ties into another discussion about how to communicate work practices - another couple blogs on this one!

I block out time on Friday to clean out my email box, review tasks for the week, and plan for the start of next week.

Really the burden is on me to manage my schedule (and you for yours). I've got to have time to do my work. We can't let the disorganization of other people create a crazy week for us.

Personal Networking

Great collaboration systems are deployed by great teams that have great people. It's that simple. And to put together a great team you have to have a great personal network. The goal of personal networking is to get a list of people (anyone and everyone you can), that you stay in touch with (every three months), and that you constantly scan for opportunities to give to (vs. being a blood sucker and looking for how you can use them). The best resource on setting up a personal network is the podcast from Manager Tools - 5/8/2006, Building a Network. Listen to the podcast, then do the following:

• Everyone you meet, not matter their position, add to your contacts list in Outlook. You'll need people in your company and outside. Do everyone!
• Create a category called @Network in Outlook
• Create a task with that persons name and email address, make it a recurring task every three months and put it in the @Network category.
• When the reminder pops up send that person an email: "Hey, just wanted to say hi! Hope all's well with the family!" Tack on some question about their job, family, project, etc - show some interest!
• When they respond back, take their response and put it in the notes section of the contact entry in Outlook so you'll remember what's up with them.

Here's the thing: when you're working with people you think (or don't think as the case may be) that these people will always be around. They won't, so get them in your network today, so when they move on, you'll stay in touch.

I wish I had started this in college or when I started work. If I had, I would have 26 years worth of people in my list. When I started three years ago doing this, it was actually fun. I started to think through all the people I've worked with and started to get back in touch with them - very cool. In some cases it was funny, I had one person who thought I was after something! They calmed down and we've been in touch ever since.

So here's why this is important:

• First, showing regular care to other human beings is important. Really don't need any other reason. The list could stop here. They feel valued, you keep up, and it's fun. It forces me to think outside of my immediate circle.
• Second, they may need help and you can either offer that help, or hook them up with someone else. Just had a guy call me in a layoff situation. If I hadn't been doing this networking thing, he wouldn't have that opportunity. Not someone I normally would have networked with.
• Third, I may need help someday. I may get laidoff, or need help. And I may need some people to deliver a great collaboration system.