When Incivility Darkens the Workplace

When incivility occurs in the workplace a steep price can be paid if it’s not dealt with. Incivility takes many forms in the modern workplace: rudeness, obnoxious behavior directed at another, undermining, being disrespectful, ignoring people’s opinion, etc. If not addressed this type of behavior can take a personal toll.

Recently I interviewed a senior director who was the brunt of another’s rude, inappropriate behavior. His failure to address the problem eventually led down a long tunnel of disengagement and his eventual removal from the position. Although happy to move on the “victim” spoke of how ruminating on the incident, prevented him from putting it behind and lead to a greater feeling of insecurity, lower self-esteem, and a heightened sense of helplessness. Job performance suffered. So, when told by the CEO that he was being let go he was only too happy to be out the door.

I’ve found, and others agree that the best results are when you tackle bad behavior head on and not necessarily bringing it to the attention of the HR department, where the usual response often falls short…that’s not to say you wouldn’t report a bullying workmate but the best results dealing with a rude or obnoxious co-worker often come from being responsible, proactive and taking the lead.

Before confronting a rude co-worker, ask yourself these three qualifying questions:

1. Do you feel safe confronting this person?
2. Was the behavior intentional?
3. Was this the only instance of such behavior from him or her?

If you’re able to answer ‘yes’ to all three, then you should address the issue directly. Use this checklist to ensure that you

1. Prepare for the discussion.  Think about a good time and a safe environment in which you’ll both be comfortable. Consider whether you need others present or even a moderator. 
2. Rehearse your ideas with someone whose feedback is trusted. Ask that person to role play the perpetrator, complete with temperament. 
3. Be aware of nonverbal communication.  This includes posture, facial expressions, gestures, tempo, and especially tone of voice. People practiced what they will stay far more than how they will say it. However, word typically convey far less than does the way they are delivered.
4. Proceed with the goal of mutual gain.  During the talk focus on the behavior not the individual and how the specific behavior harms performance and working relationship.
5. Prepare for an emotional response.  If the perpetrator starts to vent, it’s best to listen, try to tolerate it. It may lead to a more productive place. Use words like, “ I understand” and “I get that.” Admitting blame where appropriate may also be helpful. 
6. Be an active listener.  Paraphrase what you hear and repeat it back. Ask for clarification; be humble to gain likeability and credibility. 
7. Focus on establishing courteous norms for the future.  Agree on how you’ll interact going forward so that there is no degraded performance. Follow up with a summary of agreement via email.

Incivility exacts a steep price. As in my example, although somewhat extreme it lead to job change. Using the above 7-point list will help you deal with incivility issues head on.

Five R’s to Retain Employees Forever

Clearly, for employees to safely make a long-term commitment to an organization, the employer will need to give them good reason to stay. Employers need to advocate proactive efforts by to establish a culture that builds strong relationships with their employees — the kind that speak to a lengthy commitment, and perhaps even a commitment for life. 

What can an employer do? Here are the "5 R's" of employee relationships:

1. Responsibility. Show your employees you trust them by giving them responsibilities that allow them to grow. Encourage them to gain new skills. Provide ample continuing education opportunities. Hire from within wherever possible, and give generous promotions at appropriate times.

2. Respect. Employees want to know they are respected and appreciated. As the saying goes, people may readily forget the things that you said, but they will always remember the way you made them feel. Many workplace legends are built around the horrific things weary and stressed-out managers said or did. But if managers make it a priority to show outward respect for employees on a regular basis, it will lead to a strong and enduring workplace culture as well as positive experiences and memories that they will never forget.

3. Revenue-sharing. Tie a part of your employees' wages to the company's performance. This will align their interests with the company's revenue and profit goals and will serve as an inherent incentive to stay with the company as it grows. By making the fixed cost of payroll inherently more variable under differing business conditions, you can make your company more resilient and agile, while also treating your employees exceptionally well.

4. Reward. The rewards you give your employees should speak to their emotional needs and should go beyond their monetary compensation. Recognition in front of the company, company and department parties, service projects, lunches with the boss, logo clothing, handwritten notes, etc., can all contribute to the positive culture of the company and can be good morale builders as well. 

5. Relaxation Time. Be generous with time off. Despite the hard economy, provide sufficient time for sick days, family vacations, new babies, etc. Pacing workflow can be highly beneficial to enduring employee relationships. You should expect and even demand high-quality performance, but it is unreasonable to expect a continual level of pressure at 100 percent. Allow employees the chance to catch their breath from one assignment to the next with the help of team-building activities or mini break periods over the course of the day. 

It is important to remember that a long-term commitment requires effort in both directions. While it's fully understandable that most organizations look askance at perpetual "hoppers," remember that if you expect and hope that employees will make and keep long-term commitment to your company, it will be equally vital that you give them good reasons to stay.

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Unleashing Excellence: How to Be an Outstanding Call Center Leader

Are effective leaders born or are they developed? That question has been debated in thousands of books, articles, speeches and forums. While there are some characteristics effective leaders may have acquired early in life (I don’t believe they were born with them); I also believe that leadership skills can be developed later in life. And these skills aren’t based on personality or charisma, nor are they dictated by a person’s Myers-Briggs profile. No matter their style, effective leaders do three things very well.

1. Effective leaders Operationalize the Call Center's Mission. 

The organization’s mission is at the core of the effective leader’s actions. Whether the mission is to Create Happiness (Walt Disney World); to be Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen (Ritz Carlton); or to Refresh the World  (Coca Cola), effective leaders keep the mission in front of their employees throughout the hiring process and new hire and ongoing training, and they see every communication opportunity as one more tool to keep the mission on the radar.

2. Effective call center leaders involve the call center employees in the forward movement of the organization.

There may have been a time when the leader had the answers to every business issue that would arise. The leader had formal authority and was usually an expert in all phases of the operation. Due to changing customer expectations and competition, those days are over. Today's call center leaders must rely on the skills of a facilitator and call center idea champion. The effective call center leader sees call center representatives as partners in coming up with new ways to delight customers.

3. Effective call center leaders make excellence non-negotiable. 

Lack of accountability in the call center is the number one reason many (or most) organizational improvement initiatives fail to achieve their desired results. When call center leaders look the other way when a call center representative performs in an unacceptable manner, even the best improvement plans begin to collapse. One of my favorite leadership quotes is:

Intolerable performance exists when intolerable performance is tolerated.

An important behavior of effective call center leaders is that they never let the coaching moment go. If there’s a call center performance issue, they handle it without delay. A related behavior of effective call center leaders is that they never let the recognition moment go. They let strong performers know that their call center performance is truly appreciated.

While there are certainly other qualities effective call center leaders demonstrate, I believe these three provide the foundation for excellent leadership performance. Call center leaders who excel in these areas lead high performing teams that deliver superior results.

Make an honest appraisal of your own call center leadership performance. Ask yourself:

·         Do my call center representatives see me living our organization’s mission and values every day?

·         Do I refuse to compromise on our call center’s commitment to excellence? Is call center excellence “non-negotiable?”

Most of us must admit that we have room for improvement in each of these areas of call center leadership performance. Admitting it is the first step. The next step is to make a commitment to raise the bar of your own leadership performance in the call center and take action. Leaders who truly unleash the excellence of their organizations are those who see every day as an opportunity to become a better call center leader.

Performance Tune Up for Your Service Team Engaged, high-performing service agents are the dream of every manager. Yet there's always a wide range of performance from high, to average, to low. If agents perform essentially the same job, why does their performance vary so much? When agents are measured against the same metrics, why do some agents excel while others lag behind? Obviously, the answer is that each agent is a different person—and each person brings his or her unique experiences and expectations to the job. If we recognize and accept these differences, and focus agent onboarding and development around these differences, then we will achieve performance gains faster and more successfully. A personalized performance “tune up” for each agent can raise the bar and optimize results. Without a doubt, what can drive top performance is a tune up based on what is relevant to the specific needs of each individual. A NASCAR race team would never consider performing the exact tune up for every car. Instead, the right adjustments and corrections are unique to each vehicle. Some cars need more, some less—and some don't need a tune up at all. And it's the same for agents. To be effective, service agent tune ups must be relevant to each person's specific performance levels and needs.    To help your team reach peak performance, tune up your agents with these 5 easy steps. 1)  Dust off the job description. We all have job descriptions, right? Unfortunately, job descriptions usually sit on a shelf or in a file never to surface again from a new employee packet. The job description sets the foundation for performance. It establishes common expectations for every agent. While the job description cannot guarantee performance outcomes, it is the best starting point for tuning up your team. So, don't let the job description sit on the shelf. Dust it off, and start putting it to good use! 2)  Calibrate expectations. For an effective tune up, make sure agents are all “on the same page” when it comes to performance expectations. The job description is a great place to start. Still, the job description may mean different things to different people. If this happens, each team member's response will be different—and so will their performance. A key element of an effective team is how they communicate and how they understand what is communicated. Agents need a common and consistent way to discuss and evaluate performance.  When discussing performance with your team, does each agent understand what is expected? Ask questions and check to ensure that every agent understands performance and job expectations in the same way. 3)  Diagnose current performance. While there is no substitute for day-to-day coaching and performance management, there is also a need for diagnostic tools to benchmark current performance and competency levels. In other words, before starting the actual “tune up” you need to know what to tune up. So, what is the best way to diagnose and benchmark your agents? There are a lot of available options including peer surveys, self-report, customer ratings, performance metrics, skill assessments, etc. Use tools that are calibrated to the specific competencies identified in the job description. Even more critical is to choose tools that provide an objective and independent measures of performance. Why is this important? Because subjective measures (such as surveys) are dependent on the perspective of the rater, so that personal biases and personalities influence the ratings.  Objective performance measures (i.e., performance metrics and skill assessments) are more consistent, accurate and reliable. The more precise you are in diagnosing agents' performance, the more effective their tune up will be. 4)  Create a plan of action. With an accurate diagnosis of each agent's strengths and improvement opportunities, you are now ready to create a tune up plan for your team. The goal is to create a plan of action for each agent—not generalized across the team—but specific and relevant for each person.  The key is to make it practical. You can include on-the-job activities, online learning, company training, etc. Whatever you choose, be sure the activities, priorities, timing and expectations all tie directly to the objective diagnostic evaluation. 5)  Implement the plan. Equipped with a personalized plan for every agent, the tune up can begin.  Each agent has a personal plan. Not only do they have a clear understanding of expectations, but more important, they now buy into the plan because it is designed specifically for them.  The plan becomes a great discussion document between agents and supervisors.  This goes a long way toward removing wasted training and development time and expense.  Agents are getting exactly what they need, and as a result, they are more receptive to learning.  What better way to achieve employee engagement and peak performance than to give each agent a personalized plan for success? By now you may be thinking, “This sounds great, but who has the time to put it into practice?” Or, “Seriously, is it even practical to customize tune ups for each agent?”  Absolutely.  The good news is that the costs associated with personalized tune ups are very low, while the return value—in employee engagement and improved performance—is very high. Here’s to getting your team firing on all cylinders! Contact me directly for a copy of my Performance Appraisal tool.

What to do When a Customer Turns Abusive

A recent incident with one of my support experts reminded me that we do little to arm our agents with the tools to handle abusive clients. Some customers go beyond angry and become abusive. They might start the call in abusive mode, or might escalate to being abusive from mere anger. Sometimes if you don't tell them what they want to hear, they become abusive. Being abusive is defined as verbally threatening, using foul language, and emotionally out of control. When you've used your best skills at defusing the angry customer and the customer is still out of control, or if the customer begins the conversation in an abusive manner, it’s time to utilize some specific steps for managing the customer's behavior. It's also time to protect yourself. It's more likely the customer will become abusive with call center help desk agents, as the contact is more anonymous.

Here are specific steps call center professionals can use to control poor behavior by the customer:

1. Personalize the conversation. The less personal the interaction, the more likely it can escalate out of control. As soon as you perceive the customer's anger might escalate out of control, and you've tried your well practiced defusing skills and nothing works, it’s time to use the 'personalize the conversation' strategy. Call the customer by name, and refer to their company by name. Restate your name, and remind them that (your company name) wants them to be satisfied. “Marge, at XYZ we’re here to help you. Please call me Ted. I’m on your team ready to assist!”

2. Declare your intent and boundaries. Remind the customer you want to solve the problem. Let them know you can solve the problem only when the language is appropriate, and demands are reasonable. You should never allow the customer to continue if they're using inappropriate language, or if they're totally out of control. Nothing will be accomplished, and they'll sabotage your efforts to stay composed. They'll lose respect for you, your help desk, and the company for allowing the situation to continue. If they cannot maintain enough control to conduct a reasonable conversation, it's time to switch strategies.

3. Transfer the call. Whether you transfer the call to a supervisor or to another help desk agent, the customer has the opportunity to regroup. When you transfer the call, tell the customer you've done all you can, and its time for them to speak with another agent who will now handle the problem. This serves notice to the customer that they cannot continue to abuse you, and that behavior will be interrupted. When the second help desk agent handles the customer, typically the customer will try to appear reasonable and soft spoken.

4. Discontinue the call. If there's nobody to transfer the call to, or you've been the recipient of the transferred call and the customer is still out of control, it's time to end the cycle. Remind the customer you're there to help, and also willing to discuss a solution in a reasonable manner. Let them know your company wants them to be a satisfied customer, but also does not allow help desk professionals to continue in abusive conversations. Ask them to please contact the help desk at another time, and tell them "I am now terminating this call."

Remember the customer behavior has nothing to do with you, so don't take it personally.

So You Want to Be An IT Star

Success is not easy or simple. Even in the best of times, workplaces are fraught with changing conditions, political jockeying and limited room for advancement. And these are not the best times. Yet some IT staff manage to get noticed—and in all the right ways. What are the secrets of their success? How do some IT leaders manage to shine? Beyond the basics—energy, enthusiasm, passion for the work—four important behaviors can help catapult you to success.

Be good to your end users. First things first: If you want to get ahead, don't make people feel stupid. This advice can be especially important for IT folks, whose technical expertise can create a danger of doing just that.

People outside of IT won't necessarily understand tech speak, so you need to present information in a manner so they understand technology and what it provides to the company. You need to be able to translate technical information to them in the manner they can understand and assimilate and in a way that shows the benefits to the big picture.

Understanding how technology fits into users' lives is key to creating innovative IT solutions. Thinking hard about how to help someone else understand what you're saying may seem obvious for important presentations; doing it day in and day out may prove more challenging. But don't dismiss those small, cumulative interactions. In those daily interactions lie many opportunities for you to distinguish yourself by your energy, enthusiasm, and likability. This way, when a more senior job opens up, the support to put you in the position is there—not just from your boss, but also from other senior leaders. To make sure your likability quotient is high, focus on being open-minded. Make it a point to really listen to what someone is saying and process what you're hearing. Doing so conveys respect, and you also are likely to develop solutions you wouldn't have otherwise. End-user problems—large and small—are opportunities to build relationships that can advance your career. It's all in how you handle those situations that makes the difference. Don't make an end user feel dumb for not understanding; make them feel good about coming to you and asking what the problem is.

Go beyond the walls of IT and learn the business. IT leaders who want to move up must become business-savvy. Not just so you can talk the talk. Without understanding business users' work lives, it's impossible to deliver optimum technology solutions. I credit much of my own success with understanding how IT fits into my end users' work processes. It is a basic business truth that IT staff who want to climb the ladder must also become intricately involved in other areas of the business. It’s critical to educate your end-users on technology. My philosophy on the subject to my staff is clear: get involved with business users; go door to door and meet with them and their teams. I want my team to "give the customer some tool they may not even have thought of, that they can look at it and say, Wow, I'm glad we came to you." That's only possible if you understand how other groups are run and the challenges they face. Developing such a rapport also helps discourage the tendency of business users to create a shadow IT department. Key point: if you don't solve their problems with good solutions, they will go around you!

Understand the organization's structure and goals. If you want to move up the ladder of success, you need to create strategic IT. To do that, you need to know what top management values. Every company has a culture and those cultures reward different things. Key to moving ahead is knowing what to prioritize. This means, for example, knowing which projects to volunteer for and how to promote them to those above you. Knowing what the business defines as valuable is increasingly important the higher up you go so you've got to understand goals, and how IT can be used to achieve those goals I recommend not just looking for ways IT can create value but also being responsive when opportunities present themselves. One place where this comes into play is the IT budget. Managing IT like a P&L is key to moving up in the organization. IT should be adding value and helping differentiate the business. However, that's not possible if an IT leader's goal is simply saving money. Build into that budget what you need to do to create value.

Build Trust with your boss Trust is the glue that binds relationships together inside and outside of work. Without it, moving up is virtually impossible. And honest communication is a huge part of building trust with your manager. Share the good news—and the bad. Avoid the temptation to sweep bad news about a project or assignment under the rug. You may think you're sparing your boss but my experience has been that it's better to overshare than to undershare. The trick lies in knowing when and where to share information. Sit down and talk to your manager about how to communicate when problems come up. Most leaders don't like when information feels filtered, like something is being hidden but want to know what's going on. The last thing anybody wants is to be broadsided. Information sharing, when it comes right down to it, translates to respect. I think that it's very important to use chain of command in place and not circumvent your manager. It's his or her job to make you look better to the organization. And if you don't have that kind of trust you should look for someone you could have that with.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Setting Up a HelpDesk

1. Don’t: Configure the help desk application in a vacuum

You can imagine how difficult it is for a dedicated help desk manager to be gung ho about their new product and processes, spending hard-to-find time with great intentions designing something they think will accomplish the needs and goals for their service center, only to find out they’ve missed the mark completely. Reality is that a lot of people interact with the help desk and their needs for data from the application can vary wildly. Not taking those perspectives into account and having a myopic view on configuration is a sure-fire killer to the success of your new plans.

Do: Design and configure in a team environment and build it together. Be aware that your application is probably powerful enough to be used by other departments. Check with members of HR, procurement, facilities, etc. to gather their input at the beginning and see how seamlessly processes are adopted and utilized when everyone gets buy-in upfront.

2. Don’t: Implement too much of the application too fast

Solution feature sets today cover wide ranges of functionality such as incident, problem, change, asset, knowledge, service levels, customer self-support, reporting, and more. Implementing everything at once may make your support team feel like you’re trying to wash their faces with a fire hose. You end up with staff trying to use a new tool they are not familiar with, getting requests from users on how to do things, and becoming frustrated. You inadvertently create a culture of confusion.

Do: Implement gradually! Pay particular attention to how technically savvy your staff and users are. Start by getting your techs up to speed on basic incident and knowledge management features and then go from there. As a good rule of thumb, allow 30-60 days between enabling additional functionality. Also, don’t overuse the notifications. If a technician is flooded with an email every time an action is taken on an incident, the importance of those notifications is lost in the massive amount of mail received.

3. Don’t: Under estimate the power of knowledge management functionality

You have as much investment in your staff as you do in your ticketing system. Why incur the loss of that investment when the eventuality of employee turnover occurs? Not using the knowledge management capabilities of today’s solutions only exacerbates the problem and makes techs continually reinvent the wheel. Oftentimes the problem is simply a lack of communication about whose responsibility it is to capture the knowledge.

Do: Begin by realizing there’s a greater long-term cost to continually re-engineering the technical know-how of your support staff than there is a short-term cost of establishing an efficient and automated process for capturing and categorizing knowledge. Designate a weekly knowledge approver and give that person a specific day and time to maintain the knowledge base. This harvesting of knowledge will save you time and money in the long run.

4. Don’t: Categorize at too granular a level

Your new help desk software probably has the ability to categorize tickets to varying degrees. Many service teams get far too granular in their level of categorization. When this occurs it creates an inefficient use of the data you are collecting as well as excess clicks. It also often confuses techs who have to scroll through endless tree structures looking for the proper category to assign to a ticket.

Do: Think of what is most important for you to report on. Hardware failures? Printer failures? Training? If your application has decent searching capabilities, you don’t need to categorize to the nth degree. Start out with the minimum requirement of your reporting structure and add on later as the need arises. To assist in building a solid category structure, leave out actual problems, like “can’t print” as a level – that information goes in the Description field. If you find that for every category you are being redundant in your lowest level, you might be using a category field for data that needs to be captured elsewhere – such as a ticket level custom field. You might even consider inverting your category list!

5. Don’t: Fail to create an end user or customer self-support portal

There are definitely organizations where self-support does not fit. If your company is already capturing valuable knowledge content and your users are fairly tech savvy, though, you are costing your service desk time and money by not making that information available to your users. Why encourage calls if the users are able to help themselves?

Do: Create specific portals/desktops for your various sets of users. Allow them to view knowledge/FAQs and submit their own tickets. Be prepared to have to evangelize this new means of self-support to foster us¬age.

6. Don’t: Overlook importance of multiple escalations and notifications (SLAs)

Escalations, notifications, and service level agreements (SLAs) are fundamental parts of providing excellent support. Many of today’s help desk applications allow you to set up very complex, fully-automated SLAs, but oftentimes support desk personnel don’t take the time to set them up accurately or thoroughly. Tickets should not escalate and notifications should not be sent unnecessarily. They are also not one size fits all; an order request shouldn’t escalate the same as a “something’s broken” ticket.

Do: Use care in building your escalations and SLAs, and set up notifications according to the actions required. Identify the special cases where time is a factor, such as a critical hardware failure. Use caution when applying a time-sensitive SLA; for example, if a mail server fails, how will notifications be effective if they can’t be delivered? A page notification could be used instead.

7. Don’t: Let your product choice drive your process

If a help desk software application is so complex that you have to change all your processes and service culture, there will be too many costs involved and not enough buy-in from users. This often leads to the out¬right failure of the implementation.

Do: Don’t be too consumed with standards or immense feature sets. While you may feel like it’s a safe play to buy something that’s “standard certified” or has the most bells and whistles in the industry, if it doesn’t fit with your processes or culture and prove to be easy to use and manageable over time, it’s ultimately your job on the line if it fails.

8. Don’t: Under utilize templates and auto-population

Let’s face it, your service center directive will always be to do more with less. So make sure your staff are not manually entering data that can be pulled in automatically, or typing the same information again and again on common tickets.

Do: Create the most efficient and automated use of your staff’s time by setting up templates to record frequently occurring issues. A good templating tool that uses dependencies can be even better, especially if you can tie approvals to templates.

9. Don’t: Overuse queues

Many service desks will use queues to assign tickets to a group, which often results in everyone thinking the other person is working on the ticket. This common occurrence often causes confusion and misuse of time. This lack of accountability and confusion is easily avoidable.

Do: Designate someone to monitor the queue, reassigning incidents as appropriate. If your help desk software allows, use a distribution method that automatically assigns incoming incidents to remove the chance of incidents being overlooked.

10. Don’t: Be process rigid or bad practice addicted

Not to be confused with #7 above, don’t be afraid to evolve your service processes either at the implementation of your new help desk application or over time as your use of it changes and grows. Too often, when a software package is rolled out, it feels easier to simply get it going yet continue with the status quo service processes. This can create an inefficient use of the new package’s feature set.

Do: Change is often inevitable, so try to keep a fluid mentality towards the processes you rely on in your service center. Re-evaluate your procedures on a set basis (i.e. yearly or every two years) and determine if they still apply. Try not to carry forward processes or procedures just because ‘that’s how it’s been done in the past.’ Any good help desk software vendor will continually work to increase the power and efficiency of their solution, so don’t be so rigid in your ongoing processes that you aren’t willing to consider evolving them over time. Also, leverage content delivered from thought leaders in the industry to see how others are evolving their processes. Read whitepapers, search industry portals, attend industry events, view industry blogs, etc. to gain valuable insight.

11. Don’t: Sacrifice training your staff

Nothing undermines your service efforts faster than under-educated help desk staff. For example, if a technician isn’t aware that ticket information is automatically emailed to the customer, the wrong information can be released, causing irreparable damages. If they are un¬aware of what the SLA time values are for each priority, tickets can be misprioritized and agreements can be missed. If techs are unaware of the category structure, they may not know how to categorize a call without having to do a lot of searching for the correct selection. The possibilities for inefficiency and waste are too numerous to consider.

Do: Seek out training opportunities for staff in need, and be sure they are educated on the specific options available to them in your help desk software and the effect of those options. Remember that it’s easier to train/educate your people than it is to apologize for bad information sent to a customer. Also, put an emphasis on increasing the accuracy of your ticket information – for example, don’t include work history information in a ticket resolution because the resolution can be used on a knowledge entry. It’s not useful to read things like “called and left voice mail” when searching for a solution.

12. Don’t: Cut the communication ties to your help desk software vendor

If your service desk is not utilizing the full functionality of the help desk application you’ve purchased, you are not experiencing the maximum ROI available to you. If you have a feature request that could make usability more favorable, your vendor should be requesting that information from you on an on-going basis. If your staff are not proficient in the use of your help desk application, greater gains may be available with minor investments in training.

Do: Call your help desk software vendor and communicate your needs. When you have only partially implemented your tool, put an emphasis on seeking help to get it 100% optimized. If you have a vendor that doesn’t respond in a favorable or timely manner, con-sider that the next time your software is up for renewal. These soft costs are just as much a part of the value of your solution as the purchase price.

Lessons from the Road: 10 Must Have Business iPhone Apps

Ok, I took my own challenge to travel ultra-lite on my last 4-day business trip…sans a laptop. Could I pull off two presentations, travel to three cities and still stay well connected with tasks and responsibilities back at the office? Here’s the 10 apps that stood out and allowed me to: edit two proposals, update my presentation on my office PC and then download it locally, print out the slides, organize and manage the travel, update my business contacts list, and much more. I might not leave my laptop home on my next trip but now I know if it’s left behind work doesn’t need to stop or slow. As a side note: being a road warrior for +20 years taught me that bringing the little things with just makes for a better experience, that’s why I loaded SlingMedia for the iPhone before I left so I could watch my favorite TV shows without having to learn how to use a new remote!

Quickoffice Mobile Suite

The next time someone e-mails you a Word, Excel or Powerpoint document, Quickoffice will open it and allow you to make quick edits from your iPhone. (Otherwise, you can open, but not edit, Microsoft Office files.) You can also create documents with the app, but it is far less useful for that purpose. Rather, Quickoffice offers a way to complete small work tasks easily while you are on the move.
Print n Share

Print & Share allows you to print documents, emails, contacts, web pages and photos wirelessly, right from your device. It really does add a much needed feature to the iPhone and the experience is seamless. The app's main screen displays six main choices for selection. You may choose to print a file, email, web page, contact or image. You may also use the iPhone's camera to take a photo and print it immediately. From this main screen you may also access the help menu and change the settings. Print & Share is truly an amazing application. It's convenience alone makes it worth the price. With this app, you're basically cutting out the computer as the middle man. Now, you can print a variety of files right from you device. It works on 3G or wifi and the whole experience is smooth and fast. The user interface is beautifully done, with seamless animations between pages and the incorporation of landscape mode. This is an app that will stay on my iPhone indefinitely. I strongly recommend checking this app out.
Dropbox

Got a Dropbox account? Then you absolutely positively need Dropbox for iPhone. It brings the cloud down to device level, providing fast and easy access to everything you've ever shared: documents, photos, videos, presentations, and so on. (In fact, it's a great way to stream videos you don't have room to store on your device.) It works both ways, too: You can upload snapshots and videos from your iPhone to your Dropbox account. The app is free, and works with both free and pro-level accounts.

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is a terrific free service that provides remote access to other PCs. TeamViewer for iPhone is the companion app that extends that accessibility to the device riding around in your pocket. This isn’t just screen sharing: TeamViewer gives you total control over the remote PC. Think of it: You can grab a PowerPoint presentation from a thousand miles away; shut down the PC you left running at the office; or just perform a computing task that can’t normally be done on a phone.
Evernote

The company advertises this as a personal digital assistant, and it’s an apt description. Evernote is a traveling notepad that synchronizes with desktop and browser software (also free). Use your iPhone to copy an image, take a photo, record a voice memo or jot down a note, and it appears on your computer (and vice versa). It also recognizes your written text, within limits. The free version stores a fair amount of information, but for $45 a year, you needn’t sweat the data limits.
Tripit

TripIt is a killer travel-management service that organizes your itineraries, reservations, and the like. It began life on the Web, but now -- well, you know the Apple catchphrase -- there's an app for that. With TripIt for iPhone, you can manage and share all your travel plans. The app itself is free, as is the TripIt service. All you do is forward all travel-related confirmation e-mails (from airlines, hotels, car-rental outfits, etc.) to plans@tripit.com. The service culls all the pertinent details from those e-mails and builds detailed itineraries.
MapQuest 4 Mobile

The stock Google Maps app is pretty good at giving you directions from point A to point B, but MapQuest 4 Mobile goes one step further with voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions -- much like you'd get from a bona fide GPS. It also offers automatic re-rerouting (in case you take a wrong turn), local-business search, and even live traffic updates. Before you spend $50 or more on a GPS app, take this freebie for a test-drive.
Genius Scan+

Want to save a whiteboard diagram for future reference? Keep your receipts for the accounting department? Photocopy a document when there's no copier around? You can do all that and more with Genius Scan+, which can save and send documents in PDF and JPEG formats, upload "scans" to sites like Google Docs and Evernote, and deliver everything to your PC via Wi-Fi, no syncing required. This ridiculously handy app sells for $2.99.
Linkedin

Contact management, networking. For many people, LinkedIn is a useful (but sometimes annoying) Web service. The LinkedIn iPhone app really lets the power of LinkedIn shine. For starters, the app lets you get rid of business cards and vanquish printed resumes. Who hasn't arrived back at the office with a pile of disorganized and creased business cards? Having access to the ultimate social network for professionals straight from your iPhone means you no longer have to swap business cards with people--you can just add each other on LinkedIn, on the spot. You’ll never lose another business card--and therefore lose a valuable contact--again. LinkedIn for iPhone also lets you view your entire network, and you can send and receive LinkedIn updates so that others know what you are working on and where you are.
MyPoint PowerPoint Remote

This cool app allows you to control your Powerpoint presentation from your iPhone. It does require some finagling to get it set up right but then it works pretty well. You will have to download a small app to your PC or Mac to make it work. Works with Powerpoint for Windows 2003, 2007, and 2010; as well as Powerpoint for Mac 2004, 2008 and 2011. Just adds a touch of “tech-iness” to what hopefully wouldn’t be just another boring PP slideshow.

Acculturation and Creating a Great Place to Work

How many people working for you would describe your workplace as ‘great?” If you hesitate when answering that question, it may be time to give it some thought. Having a high turnover rate means that there are problems with the company culture. The last thing you want to do is spend your time recruiting, hiring, and training, only to see those people walk right out the door.

Why They Leave

So why is it, exactly, that an employee leaves a company? Some of the top reasons that employees report for leaving a company are:

1. They don’t have any friends at their office. This is a big one, because nobody wants to spend 40-plus hours per week at a place where they are surrounded by people that don’t think like them or that they don’t like. Talk about having anxiety on the way to work!

2. They don’t like the boss for whom they work. Sorry, I know that may bruise some egos, but it is the truth.

3. And if you want to know what the distant third reason is, it is because the pay just isn’t good enough. This is an issue that may or may not be something you can address, but it can impact the company culture if people feel woefully underpaid or find out the pay of those around them (and feel it is unfair).

Creating Comfort

It goes without saying that if you want to have a great place to work, you need to build a common culture in your company. What this means is that people need to share similar values, energy, and attitude. By doing so, this will automatically engender friendships. Plus, you need to be a great boss – someone who is loyal, trusting and fair to all employees.

But there is more that you can do to create a comfortable company culture that makes people want to stay, rather than clock out for good. Find what works best for your company, but consider the following things you can do to help:


* Help people feel proud and valued, and that their opinions and suggestions matter.


* Provide proper training, as needed.


* Welcome those things that are different about people, and embrace diversity.


* Reward the team when things go right, rather than just one person.


* Respect everyone, regardless of their title.


* Skip the corny team-building sessions and ask employees what they would like to do together, on occasion.


* Try to promote from within, whenever possible. This will give employees hope that someday it could be them that moves up.


* Give your employees credit for the company success. After all, you really can’t be successful without them.


* Pitch in and help whenever possible, showing that nothing is beneath you.


Positive Place

Creating a positive work environment is an effective way to retain your employees. But if you are thinking that an old foosball table will change the work environment, it won’t. In fact, if it is not genuine, it will be seen as a gimmick. The key is to allow the culture to develop naturally, with some guidance along the way. And if it is a foosball table that comes about, well, then it will be an even bigger hit.

Six Ways to Get Smart Handling the Help Desk

Your help desk is staffed by productive workers. You expect your call volume to increase because of a new system update that affects a good chunk of your user base. But your budget doesn’t allow for additional headcount. What do you do? While the conundrum is hardly an enviable one, it isn’t the end of the world. In fact, there are some basic steps to take to get out of the bind.

1 User, help thyself. Put together a sample group of affected users, help desk technicians and project team members to brainstorm a sizable list of FAQs, and post the results on the help desk website as part of the launch communication. And strongly encourage the use of online knowledge bases and self-service ticket management capabilities.

2 Keep it simple. Make sure your online knowledge base is simple and easy to use by focusing on the 10 percent of problems that account for 40 percent of the calls. A too complex online knowledge base just brings users back to the telephone hotline.

3 Work those metrics. Make sure you’ve got very clear metrics around average handle time and average speed-to-answer, and train your team to use these metrics effectively. You’ll get more calls handled by the same number of people even those you already assumed were productive.

4 Go into triage mode. Ensure ahead of time that your help desk reps can recognize the difference between a low-priority and high-priority issue, and deal with the former quickly by opening a ticket and getting off the phone. Too many times, help desk techs do not discriminate the way they should during spikes, and the truly needy wind up waiting in queue excessively.

5 Bring on the superusers. Enlist some great business users early on in the project, and train them alongside the help desk. They can help with the surge of calls for weeks after implementations at their respective sites. Not only will this help you deal with the call surge, but it can also build a team environment between IS and the business at another level in the organization.

6 Show your support. Good morale boosts help-desk productivity. Most people leave a little in the tank each day, but help desk crunch time is when the staff needs to go home on empty. Showing how much you value your team will go a long way.

What To Do When Your Team Falls back on Old Ways

Repositioning your company can be an invigorating move — it's exciting to take a fresh approach and go after new opportunities. But change is also risky and over time, the momentum behind it can wane. When that happens, it's not uncommon for individuals, units, or entire organizations to default to the old strategy. If your team relapses, how can you get things back on track and people re-focused on the new direction?

Start out right

The best way to prevent your team from reverting is to avoid the tendency to get your most senior people in a room to dictate what the rest of the company will do. Instead, include as many people as possible in deciding on the strategy, especially those who will be affected by the change.. Unfortunately, many organizations don't take this approach, and launch the new strategy to the organization when it's a done deal. Managers in these situations are often straddled with the responsibility of keeping a team focused on and motivated to implement a strategy that they know — or care — little about. To stop your team from rejecting the new strategy in favor of the old, try the following approaches.

Build the urgency

A frequent reason that teams revert back to an old strategy is they don't feel the urgency to change. Everyone in the organization needs to see the opportunity, not be told that there is one. If your team is stalled, engage them. Ask the employees what they would do to improve/modify/enhance the strategic direction so as to make it something in which they would have confidence — confidence enough to do something different than they have always done, Tradition is an unbelievably powerful force. They need to not only see the urgency of the need for a new strategy but also feel accountable for it. It all starts with enough people believing that there is a new opportunity and that they have a responsibility to pursue it.

Make everyone a choice-maker

Under the old models where "strategy" and "implementation" are separate, organizations are divided into two categories. There are the "choosers" — those that make the decisions — and "choiceless doers" — those that are left to implement. When you treat people as "doers," instead of as the actors that they are, they feel their work is devalued and aren't motivated to do anything differently. When your team members relapse to the old strategy, ask yourself whether they understand their active role in the new approach. Don't try to get buy-in — that implies you have an idea and you want them to agree. Instead, involve them in generating ideas for how to get unstuck. As much as possible, push decision-making down. Create a "cascade of choices" whereby you let your people know that the new strategy implies that everyone has decisions to make.

Create a "guiding coalition"

All change efforts include a "guiding coalition" — a diverse, cross-functional, multi-level group with different skills and strengths. This coalition is "not some dorky task force" but people who are excited about the change and ready and able to roll up their sleeves to drive it. If your team defaults back to the old strategy, consider bringing together a group of individuals who can take responsibility for pushing the change through. Choose the people who are most enthusiastic about the new direction and give them real work to do, focused on pushing the team forward.

Remove barriers and share successes

Many regressions happen because people perceive a conflict between what they've been asked to do and the best interests of the company. Take a look at the barriers that may be standing in your people's way. For significant changes, you will likely need to alter IT systems, compensation models, and performance management metrics. An ineffective team or a non-collaborative culture can often be the biggest obstacle. Ask yourself if team dynamics or even your behavior could be seen as barriers. Regularly ask employees what's stopping them from doing work in the new way and ask how they think they should be removed.
Change also stalls when people believe the new strategy is ineffective. Even good company people don't want to do what's not working. It's critical to share success as it happens. Find unambiguous and visible accomplishments that serve as evidence that you're making real strides.

Stick with it

Old habits are certainly hard to break. But to be successful with a new strategy, altering your routines is critical. Take this new way of acting, hold it in place until it becomes habit. When urgent business issues come up, it is all too easy to take your eye off the prize. Teams and individuals find comfort in an old strategy when crises come up. The best way to avoid this is to commit to staying focused. If you see the urgency beginning to slide, you need to go back and work on it relentless. Taking your attention away to tend to issues that feel more pressing can be a fatal mistake. If your new strategy can't serve you in all business situations, then it may be the wrong strategy.

Principles to Remember

You should:
• Push decision-making down so that everyone in the organization is making choices about how to act differently
• Ask your employees how to remove barriers to change
• Share successes as evidence that the new strategy works


You shouldn't:
• Think of creating and executing strategy as distinct tasks to be done by separate groups of people
• Assume that current systems and processes will support the new strategy
• Allow urgent business issues to distract you from your new pursuit

Your People Need to be Passionate About Their Work and It’s Your Job to Make It So

Generating enthusiasm, or passion, for what you do is essential. It is doubly so in perilous times. When everything around us seems to be coming apart, a leader who has a passion for what he does is essential. Such a spirit fuels the engine of enthusiasm needed to spark the enterprise. More importantly, such passion is vital to convincing others that the work matters. It is easy to get discouraged by today's business news and so it is vital that someone, be it the CEO or another senior leader, serves as the organization's designated cheerleader.

Ultimately instilling passion for the work is not an exercise in rah-rah; it is a search for meaning and significance. So how can you cultivate passion for work in others and do it in ways that have significance? Here are some suggestions.

Focus on the positive. Passion in leaders can be palpable; you know in an instant that the executive cares about the company. In my experience, those senior leaders who stroll through the halls with a nod or good word to say to all are those executives who get things done. And it is because they are out and about, not cloistered in their offices on mahogany row. Rather, they are meeting with employees and customers, vendors and investors, getting to know issues and concerns. They also use these times to talk up the good things.

Address the negatives. Passionate leaders aren’t blinded by an unconscious positive bias of sorts; they know the score, precisely because they spend so much time out of their offices. They see firsthand what is working and what is not, and because they have a relationship with people at all levels of the company, they can more readily mobilize employees to solve problems. Remembering that bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.

Set high expectations. Those who care about the work and set a high standard challenge others to do the same, but they should remember to balance their approach — knowing to sometimes ease up on workloads but never on expectations.
As much as generating passion for the work matters, it is no guarantee of success, or even survival. Radiating passion is no excuse for ignoring attention to the fundamentals.

Yet successful organizations are more than the sum of fiscal prudence. Good ones are the collective values and aspirations of dedicated people who have made a choice to work there. Such organizations, be they in healthcare or manufacturing, consumer goods or hospitality, ultimately depend upon the commitment of individuals pulling together to make things work. That's why you need leaders who have a passion for what they do and are able to spread that passion to others so that people feel better about what they do, and ultimately, what they can do better.

Being a Good Boss

I have worked for some pretty good bosses over the years, several of whom saw enough potential in me to invest close-in coaching on behaviors and beliefs needed to be a good leader. The people working for me today benefit from their insight as I’ve created my own leadership job-aid that influences my decisions and their work life more than they might imagine. I remind myself everyday that great leaders serve the people who work for them and affirm that:

1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me. I ask those who know for feedback.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day. I'm inclusive and seek wins for everyone.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough. I need to work on this one; I err on the side of being too easy.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well. We are a well-oiled machine.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.