Advisory No 12 - The Traditional Office is an Endangered Species

You’ll notice a common theme if you stroll the central business districts of many of the world’s larger cities.  There are increasing numbers of premium office spaces being turned into luxury apartments.  

Of course there are practical considerations here, both technological change and the cultural change that favours renovated warehouses as workplaces can mean that many of our eighties-style office blocks are now redundant and are preferred for housing over business.

This change may however be the development of a major shift in business culture to us working remotely or "teleworking".  Indeed it’s entirely possible that the office of the future is not an office at all and is likely, for many of us, to be a place where we meet, exchange ideas and tasks, and then complete our working day at home.  

The end of the traditional office could well occur during the course of our careers and we have to be ready to adapt our operational systems and processes accordingly.

In the USA in 2012, 2.6% (3.3 Million people) considered "home" their primary place of work. (Source: Global Analytics.com).  This figure had grown by 80% from 2005 and continued growing even when the workforce declined in 2011-2012.

In 2013 the Australian Bureau of Statistics concluded that 24% of Australian workers spent at least part of their time working from home.

In that same year the Australian Public Service Commission Employee Survey found that 80% said working from home ‘increased work and life balance’ with 69% saying they were ‘more productive’.  

Interestingly, these Australian teleworkers had higher employee engagement, worked longer hours and had fewer sick leaves.  This is not at all surprising considering they get to give up the daily commute and put some extra quality hours back into their working day.  The Australian Government now has a target to double the formal teleworking workforce by 2020. (telework.gov.au)

So, teleworking should be embraced because what any manager wants is a fully engaged productive workforce who are happy and committed in their roles.

Technology has enabled this flexible work practice and the widespread availability of mobile and cloud technologies now has most of us connected to our workplace 24/7.  It's practical then that only way to make the 24/7 work culture sustainable for us personally and professionally is to have the tools to take some time back for ourselves while still operating in the reality of modern business.  Teleworking is part of the solution for this.

Teleworking is both empowering for the individual and productive for our businesses.  

As managers and business owners we have to be ready for this inevitable change in our operations and ensure that we have adapted our processes accordingly.  

We need a management structure that recognises our increasingly fluid teams and, at the same time, we need to ensure that there is increased formality and accountability around roles and responsibilities.  We need to keep our project management tight and our meetings formal, structured and action orientated. 

By recognising this change and working with it,  we win all of the benefits of an engaged motivated team and less of the risk around lack of accountability with a mobile workforce. 

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with operational strategy, delivering outputs that are scaleable to meet the challenges of technological change and International growth.

Post by James Douglas
www.theadvisorypartnership.com

Advisory No 11 - Over Promise... Under Deliver

The Advisory Partnership reports on the dangers of over-promising our operational commitments when we're caught in the middle of a sales pitch 'high'.

We’ve all been there. It’s a good meeting. The rapport is strong. The client has the problem and we have the solution. We’re already mentally registering the sale and toasting our success.

Then comes the question:

Is it possible for you to include an additional feature, product or service?

And we say, "Sure! No problem".

It’s all too easy to be drunk on a sales pitch high and say yes to things we’ll regret the next day. 

We do this for two reasons; one is our eagerness to please our new client and the other, darker reason is the fear that we’ll lose the sale or the client’s respect if we don’t agree to everything immediately.

But all too often when we answer ‘no problem’ we’re really just taking an indirect route to a disappointed client and we simply reveal our own failure to adequately convert an opportunity into a profitable sale that is easily implemented.

Keep in mind that it is often a closing negotiation tactic of the client to get more of our product and service for either the same price or a faster turnaround. It is not at all accidental that the question comes towards the end of the negotiation when we may have begun to let down our guard.

Everyone wants a project that is well managed, cost effective and operationally efficient. So, here's how we deal with the situation.

We need to see the client's last minute question as a new brief and to be confident that, in the end, we’ll be respected for taking the time to consider the answer and to revise our offer if necessary.

This is where we must stop and think. We may have arrived at our meeting with a beautifully balanced business case for the project that we are about to sell but in one single word, we can turn that profit into pain.

The end result of making unrealistic promises is a place nobody wants to be.

So, before saying yes to what is an extended brief, we have to take the time to think through the effects on our team’s existing commitments. If we take on work than can’t be delivered effectively, then it's directly connected to our operational efficiency and therefore our business' bottom line.  It's impossible to do a profitability analysis on the spot so it's smart to leave the matter and respond promptly after the meeting.

Failure to do this, inevitably leads to project failure which can impact our reputation in the market and undermine the revenue growth we thought we had already achieved when we said ‘yes’ in the first place!

So in this situation, if you truly know the answer then of course you say it but if you’re at all unsure, agree to respond later.  When you respond with a new, carefully crafted proposal, you will ensure not only your profitability but also your own ability to deliver effectively.  Hopefully you'll also be building a long and trusted relationship with your client in the process.

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with effectiveness reviews that remove barriers to growth and international business development.

www.theadvisorypartnership.com
Post by James Douglas

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Advisory No 10 - Business Development - Partner Smarter Grow Faster

A growing international business needs new staff and lots of them.  

It needs to have tried-and-tested suppliers to provide the products and services that it can’t deliver itself and it needs them fast.  

And it needs strategic partners to help extend its geographic reach and to build a network of customers that will deliver on the business plan.

What these three categories have in common is that every growing business is reliant on people and partners to deliver its growth plans.  

For start-ups and developing businesses, having the right team around us is critical to our growth success and it’s definitely not the time to cut corners.

As managers it is likely that we are busier than our peers of 10 or 20 years ago and the speed at which we are required to make important business decisions is accelerating. When we are working in start-ups, this pressure can be ten-fold.

However busy we are, it is essential is that we appoint any new relationships with care whether they are our staff, suppliers or strategic partners.  This is because our own success is ultimately reliant on the partners that we choose to represent us. 

Our partners success is our success and their failure is ours to own.

It’s tempting, but we should never make our decisions based solely on the candidate that we know well or is closest to hand.  In the rush to start-up and grow our businesses we often quickly grab our former colleagues and partners as a short cut to establishing a new team. 

Remember that we don't achieve something different for our business simply by replicating an old model so it’s important that our new partnership appointments are still given due-diligence and tested against alternatives in the market.

No decision is a valid decision until it can be compared against alternatives. A choice of one is not a choice at all.

It's always wise to properly review alternatives as the sanity test to your preferred partnership choice and it's is time worth investing as it provides clarity, validates your final decision and supports your position for any future conflict.  Most importantly, you develop a balanced approach as you are forced to consider the negatives as well as the positives of your preferred partnership choice.

The pressures of establishing and growing your business are tremendous but be careful not to blindly choose old partners for your new business development.

Be open minded to change. 

When we take the time to fully review and make informed decisions on our business partners there’s every chance that growth will come stronger and faster than if we select solely from our inner circle.

The Advisory Partnership supports broadcast media and advertising businesses with their strategic and operational expansion into new markets. 

Post by James Douglas

www.theadvisorypartnership.com

Advisory No 9 - Overcoming The Bottomless Inbox - Overcoming Information Overload Pt 2

The workload leading up to and immediately following a holiday season is notoriously stressful, part two of The Advisory Partnership’s guide to operational efficiency provides some tips on how to stay focused and effective when you’re up against excessive communication.

In Part 1, we looked at some of the challenges faced by international project managers trying to steer their way to success through an environment of unrelenting communication.  Here we're focused on the communication challenges that face every manager at every level.  What we all have in common is the requirement to be efficient, effective and to contribute the the growth and stability of our businesses.

So what do we do to win the battle against the bottomless inbox?  Here’s how I managed to stay sane and effective as a General Manager in the 24/7 connectivity cycle.

Step back in time – Pretend it’s the 1980’s! We no longer have the luxury of starting work at 9am and switching off at 5pm but we don’t need to be glued to our devices just because someone somewhere in the world may choose to send us a message. 

The ability to communicate with us is unrelenting and there may be an expectation that we respond immediately but most of the communication that we receive can wait.  Schedule your day as if mobile technology didn’t exist and separate your online time from your thinking time so you can stay productive and undistracted. 

It’s better to have a considered response than an immediate response so take your time to respond properly in a time that suits you.

Get a Room - Passive thinking is a great way to solve problems and to plan innovative solutions to grow your business but you can only do that when you have some distance both physically and mentally from your daily operational commitments.  

Find a place to formalise this thinking time and book it in to your diary. Take an office if you can or find your own space, free from disruption.  Alternatively, if you can, work from home for the first two hours of the day and avoid distracting 'water-cooler' chat.

Adopt a closed door policy - If you have an office, the ‘open door policy’ is over-rated and can be destructive to your effectiveness.  Avoid walk-ins and unscheduled meetings whenever you can. These casual interactions are often reactive and emotional without a clear outcome.  If you schedule your meetings, it will force attendees to prepare and should have some clarity on an expected outcome.  

Your time is valuable, try not to undermine it by agreeing to spontaneous meetings which may add unnecessary weight to your workload.

Sleep on it - The best way to ‘switch off’ is to do just that.  You can’t sleep and work at the same time so turn your phone off late in the evening or before bed to ensure you're not disturbed.

There are few issues in business that have a ‘life or death’ outcome so they can wait until you’re fresh and can respond appropriately. Many decisions are best made when we’ve had time to process all the implications so try to do as little as possible towards the end of the day so that you can be as productive as possible during business hours.

Communication is viral - The more that you respond to your inboxes the more messages you receive.  Fact!  Make every outbound message count and don’t reply for the sake of replying.  Take your time to respond with clear actions for others that will produce results rather than generating additional questions.  

If possible, consolidate groups of messages and respond with a clear summary of actions or tasks for your team.  This approach will substantially reduce the number of incoming messages you receive with the benefit of generating progress on your projects and growth for your business!

Restrict social networking time - Don’t spend your day on social networks (tempting though it may be). Social networks are essential to modern business but they can be addictive and can hijack your day.  Keep a content calendar and schedule your posts.  Try to restrict your social media responses to specific times of day.  Most importantly, remove push notifications in mobile apps so that you are not distracted from the main projects that need your focus.

Don’t be a control-freak - Delegation helps you work less and lead more so allow your team to manage their own projects and guide them to filter and escalate problems to you for straightforward decision making.

Your team will learn and benefit from the added responsibility and you’ll have more time to focus on more important issues.

Ok.  There’s no such thing as a perfect, time-managed operation.  Disruptions and interruptions are a natural part of working life.   

How you manage these interruptions is the difference between effective, innovative decision making and a creeping ineffectiveness that leaves you overwhelmed and unable to deliver the business-changing initiatives that you need to grow your business.

Contact The Advisory Partnership to discover how we assist our international clients with operational effectiveness reviews that remove the barriers to business growth.

www.theadvisorypartnership.com
Post by James Douglas

Linked Post http://bit.ly/1xkCrSD

Advisory No 8 – International Operations - Overcoming Information Overload (Pt 1)

The Advisory Partnership looks at some of the challenges faced by international project managers as they try to steer their way to success through an environment of unrelenting communication. http://bit.ly/1xkCrSD.

Like me you’ve probably become one of those people who can’t put down your phone or tablet? Do you find yourself checking work emails at night and on weekends when you only planned to surf the web to relax? Thought so.

Despite all the technology we have to make us more efficient, we find ourselves working longer every year.

It’s easy to understand why many of us feel overwhelmed by over-communication from our teams, our clients and our business partners, particularly when our international colleagues are working during our down-time.   Emails, SMS, Instant Messaging, Application alerts, often happening all at once, sometimes make us feel as if it’s just impossible to get on top of it all! 

The risk for us is that within this ‘communication soup’ we will struggle to focus on the most important decisions of the day and stay focused on the international development of our businesses.

Here’s how I learned to stay sane and effective as an International Project Manager in the 24/7 connectivity cycle.

You're the boss... You have to take control of your own availability and not let it be dictated by others. Most of us now have international colleagues and work across diverse timezones. The boundary between work and personal time is becoming increasingly difficult to enforce. 

Our international colleagues can forget that their morning meeting is our family time so it's our job to establish some boundaries. It will surprise you how many meetings disappear when you’re firm about your availability and how many move to suit you if your attendance is essential.

Don't mix business with...business...  If you have both an international and local role, they will require different processing skills. It’s easier to be informal and to quickly drive actions with your local colleagues.  International work however, moves more slowly and requires planned actions, increased formality and the need for clear communication to overcome language and cultural barriers. 

There’s really no such thing as an effective 'global' approach so you need to adjust your behaviour for different types of interaction with different locations.

It’s stressful to change pace many times during the day so try to separate your local and international responsibilities to different parts of the week. Alternatively, enlist the help of international project managers for your projects so that the bulk of the planning and implementation is done for you.

Be ruthless... Our international colleagues are not with us on a day to day basis so it’s possible they will swamp us with questions, ideas and problems that they believe require urgent solutions. Their priority might not be your business priority so be disciplined over where you commit your time. 

Take the advice of Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits; if it’s your area of control - act.  If it’s in your area of influence then act or delegate and if you neither control nor influence the issue, delay, ignore or delete.

Take some time back... When you work on international projects, you may be required to attend online meetings at 7am and again at 8pm.  It can be exhausting.

The trick to making sure that you don’t have to work a 13 hour day and a 6 day week is to take some time back for yourself and recharge. 

If you have a series of evening meetings take 2-3 hours off in the  middle of the day.  It’s easier said than done but if you can be disciplined, you’ll be surprised how much more energised and effective you’ll be for those late evening calls. At the very least, try to ensure that you keep late meetings to once or twice a week.

Stick to the Plan... Make sure you have an operational plan for the year that outlines the projects designed to meet and exceed your budget for growth.  This way you are clear of your priorities on a month to month basis.   If the issue in front of you is not in your plan then you have to seriously question if it’s worth your time. 

Don't be sidetracked on ‘pet projects’, however interesting, the clarity you gain from sticking to your plan is the difference between mental focus and mental clutter.

OK. When our colleagues are scattered around the world, it’s just not possible to have a tightly scheduled working life where everything falls neatly into place and we are able do one thing at a time every day.

Disruptions and interruptions are a natural part of working life  but it’s how you manage these interruptions that is the difference between the effective decision making that helps your business grow or a creeping ineffectiveness that leaves you overwhelmed and unable to action and implement business-changing initiatives.

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with operational effectiveness reviews that removes barriers to growth and international business development.

Part Two of this article focuses on the local challenge and is available at www.advisorypartnership.blogspot.com

Post by James Douglas
www.theadvisorypartnership.com

Advisory No 7 – CAPEX - What would you do if it was your money?

Around 15 years ago at the peak of the change period where Australian TV postproduction and distribution transitioned from analogue to digital, I held a position as a department manager.

Within the management team I was probably the most junior and the least experienced but I did have disproportionate access to the Chairman. 

He gave me dedicated time each month because he understood that my department was a significant source of revenue and, unlike the rest of the business, had very low overheads.  I was representing a department that had been a dependable source of steady income for a number of years.

The pace of technological change had quickened and the department that I’d been hired to manage had been under-resourced for quite some time.  When I started, business was on a downward path.

As a new manager, I felt the only choice was to forward a proposal to spend in excess of $1M to re-launch the business. The alternative was to exit the sector and wind the department down before the inevitable losses started to accrue.

The Chairman’s response was one that I’ve used in every expenditure choice since that day.

He said, ‘What would you do if it was your money?’

The answer was immediately clear to me.  I said, “If it was my money, I’d invest in the future.  We have an established brand and we have customer loyalty, but we no longer have the services our customers need’

So we invested most of that budget.  We lost a number of clients that were too late to save but we replaced all our lost revenue and grew in real terms over three years.

As managers, we’re continually presented with expenditure dilemmas.  All of them represent some kind of risk.  

With technology and equipment in particular it’s hard to know when to buy and how quickly it will date.  But try this out.  Ask yourself, what would you do if it was your money?’  You’ll find the answer is almost always clear.

As my career has developed, I have consistently used this approach that I call ‘commercial empathy’ and I have never struggled over a purchase decision since that day.

The Advisory Partnership works closely with our clients to develop a thorough and intimate understanding of their operations.  This enables us to deliver strong commerical insights.

www.theadvisorypartnership.com