Had a couple of interesting exchanges last week with vendors who work with my clients. Â In both cases the individuals providing service truly believe they were doing one thing, when in reality, they were doing another. Â I’ll explain. Company 1 provides back end software for one of my clients. Â They sold him on data conversion and training because at the end of the day, the software options available to him are very similar. Â While the intention is good to do the data conversion, how that is defined is different for the company vs. my client and me. Â When the conversion specialist looked at the data, she knew it was going to be a problem because my client hadn’t used the database as it was intended. Â We didn’t know that – we thought we were doing things mostly correct. Â Turns out, not so much. Â But instead […] Continue reading
Inspect What You Expect
Many years ago I worked with a lovely lady named Connie who always told me to, “inspect what you expect”. Â That lesson came home recently because my blog, that should post every Tuesday, stopped working. Â Now no one was sitting around waiting for my next blog post, but at the same time, because I didn’t check in on it to make sure the automated process was working, when it stopped, I didn’t know. The same can happen with tasks you assign other people. You can have all the confidence in the world in someone but things happen and if you don’t double check, they might not happen. The other great thing about her advice was to follow up on those things you expect to be done. Â The corollary is what you inspect is what others will assume is expected. Â So if you constantly ask about […] Continue reading
Giving Constructive Feedback
The joke around here is our slogan is, “we put our clients where they belong” and that goes both to be on the pedestal, and to be wherever else you need. It is honest feedback that many of my clients are looking for and appreciate. But there is a key element of putting someone somewhere other than on a pedestal that everyone should understand. Â There is a difference between the person and their behavior. Â Behavior should be on purpose. Â If a person does something without thinking, that can be changed. Â But the fundamental person really should not be messed with as they are who they are and if they want to change, that has to come from within. I mention this because recently I had someone want to give a friend some constructive criticism. Â In his effort to couch the “bad news” appropriately, he all […] Continue reading
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 8
- Next Page »