Hot Management Info for 2012 

May 2012 - The Jagged Resume

The Jagged Resume is a concept taken from a new book by George Anders, The Rare Find. This set off bells from my own experience through the years in hiring hundreds of planners and working with a few dozen recruiting firms.

With so many unemployed people, today’s hiring process is worse than ever and continues to rely on the traditional way of screening applicants. Applications are put into two piles, those that appear to have the right amount of training and experience, and those that don’t (rejects). However, in my experience as well as that of the author, the more interesting candidates are often those in between that he calls the “Jagged Resumes.”

I have been involved with numerous interview processes where applications have been screened by an HR department or a recruiting firm. Whenever I felt the list was week, I asked to look at the rejected applications. Sure enough, these were often some of the best, and in many cases, people I personally knew were the best. Two recent examples come to my mind.

1. I had an outstanding employee who worked with me on a national basis to analyze and reorganize planning departments. Eventually he left to take a major job with a large developer. Then when the economy went bust, he was laid off and had a hard time finding a job. Even though he had worked for government in the past and had the experience working with me, he was viewed negatively as coming from the private sector. Even more so, the fact that he was unemployed was viewed as a negative. Some national companies have admitted that they will only look at applicants that are currently employed.
   
   This same person finally found a job managing a small planning department, a position that I thought he was over qualified for. After a few years he began to apply to larger departments, more in line with his skill and abilities. Now he was rejected because he had not worked for the right size department.
   
   In both cases, communities failed to look at his Jagged Resume and lost out on a great employee.
    
2. I am working with a community that has a new Director of Planning and Urban Design with a staff of 40. I think they have an excellent Director that came from a very small community with less than a handful of staff. I asked him how he got the job. He came in a day or two in advance of the interview, toured the city, and  then told the interview panel what he saw wrong with the city. They managed to see his Jagged Resume.
    
3. I was looking for a new graphic artist. A young lady didn’t meet any of my list of qualifications as a graphic artist. In the interview I discovered she had spent her entire life at the desk of her nationally known artist father and was self taught, a great find - another Jagged Resume.
    
4. I had a fantastic office manager, administrative assistant. She did it all, receivables, payroll, purchasing, computer repair and problem solving, graphic arts and layout, fast data entry, and on and on. Because she had so many skills she became over booked and we brought in her friend and neighbor part time to help out. When she left I sat down with the two of them to discuss how we could possibly write a job ad covering so many bases and would we need to hire two part-time people. After kicking this around a bit, the part timer said, I think I can do that. She did and even better – another Jagged Resume.

Anders gave a few other interesting examples including:

• A music label let Taylor Swift go because they decide she was not worth more than $15,000 a year.
• At least four book publishers passed on the first Harry Potter novel rather than pay J.K. Rowling a $5,000 advance.
• Of 1,800 human resource  directors  interviewed, only 18 percent thought they were winning the war for talent. 

He suggests.

• Look for hidden virtues.
• Find your unlikely stars by noticing what others don’t see.
• Find those who have demonstrated determination and persistence when confronted with obstacles in the past.
• Compromise on experience; don’t compromise on character.
• Find inspirations that are hidden in plain sight.

Keep looking – you too can fine the Jagged Resume.

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April 2012 - Don't Bother Wowing Your Customers

I took this title from the Harvard Business Review. It suggested that trying to wow or delight your customers may be a waste of time. “In fact, most customers just want a simple, quick solution to their problem. “  Try these:

1. Answer the d;;;;;; phone. No more than two rings, live body on the other end.
   
   
2. Voice Mail. If you do get a message or voice mail, answer it the same day, not in 24 hours. Don’t go home at night until you have done it. Better yet, how about within two hours.
   
   
3. Email. Same as two above.
   
   
4. Counter Wait Time: The smaller the organization the shorter the time. Try 10 minutes maximum. Recognize the person the minute they walk through the door.
   
   
5. Who Are You?  Don’t let any customer leave the office without your business card. Add to it with a big sign on your desk that says who you are.
   
   
6. Today: Our planner you want to see isn’t in, how about coming back tomorrow?  No, no, no. At least see if you can get them on their cell phone.
   
   
7. Web Site: How about an org chart, your picture, direct phone line, cell phone, and email address.
   
   
8. Another List: I know I told you what we needed in your last visit or my last letter but, here is another list. No, no, no. You get one slice of the baloney.
   
   
9. Disgruntled Customer: See if you can solve some of their pain points.
   
   
10. Go Out of the Way: It’s not my job but let me walk you down the hall and see if I can help you get the information you need. 

Oh well, maybe you will wow them anyway.

The Management Doctor

Reader Responses

Great list of how to wow the public that we serve!  These are very helpful.  Here is one more:

If the customer has an issue that would take more than 10 minutes to solve, find a conference room to sit down and work to SOLVE the issues.

Let the Planning Director do his or her job and if someone comes to the counter really make sure someone "Senior" is around to deal with the underlying issues.  This is a lesson that was hardest for my staff to grasp when I served as Planning Commissioner for the Town of Brookhaven, they did not want to disturb me!  

David Woods

I don’t disagree with your suggestions.  But given the fact that many city budgets must meet declining revenue lines, there is a considerable reduction of levels of service.  Let me give you an example.  When you reviewed the City of Troy Planning Department there was a Planning Director, Principal Planner, Planners (2) and a Secretary.  Today there is a Planning Director and Secretary.  The Planning Department added responsibility for signage, code enforcement and zoning appeals.  So this added a Zoning and Code Compliance Specialist and four code inspectors.  Yes the Specialist can help with the counter, but he still has to handle signs and management of code enforcement.   The department does have a contractor two half days a week.  Given the small size of the department there will be gaps in service.  Plus development pressure is starting up.  The phones don’t get answered at times.  Sometimes there is no one is physically in the department.  How do you get around this reality?

With that being said the Planning Department is customer friendly and helps us create an environment for investment, by providing fast, fair and predictable development related decisions.

Mark F. Miller

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March 2012 - One Piece of Paper

This new book, One Piece of Paper,  by Mike Figliuolo is described as the simple approach to powerful, personal leadership. When you go through his exercises, he suggests you can summarize it all on one piece of paper. He suggests you examine yourself in four areas:

• Leading yourself: What motivates you and what are your rules of personal conduct? What do you want “future you” to look like and stand for?
   
• Leading the thinking: Where are you taking the organization and how will you innovate to drive change? What are your standards of performance for how you will safely get to your destination?
   
• Leading your people: How can you lead your people as individuals rather than treating them like faceless cogs in the machine?
   
• Leading a balanced life: If you are burned out, you are worthless. How do you define and achieve balance?

In my emails, I often tend to give you suggestions for how you manage and lead other people. I can’t cover all of the four points in a short email so have decided to share his ideas on leading yourself. Figliuolo suggests you ask yourself  a series of questions. The answer  to each question should evoke an emotion or remind you of a story. They need to be as personal as you can possibly make them.

• Why do you get out of bed every day? (align your work with what you love to do)
• How will you shape your future?
• What guidelines do you live by?
• When you fall down, how do you pick yourself back up? “It is what it is. What are you going to do about it?”
• How do you hold yourself accountable?

Focus on yourself and the person you want to become regardless of what happens in the world around you.

• What do I want my epitaph to say? (it opened my eyes (the Management Doctor) when I did a draft of my obituary)
• What do I want the summation of my career, or life to be?
• What are you willing to sacrifice to reach your goals? (what are nonnegotiables?)

Holding yourself accountable with these questions: (the Management Doctor particularly liked these questions)

• Have you ever taken charge of something not directly assigned to you, after which your involvement helped drive a successful outcome?
• Have you ever seen a problem, not taken responsibility for it and regretted it later?
• How do you keep yourself from playing the blame game?

Have some fun with these, they may change your life, or at least move you to buy the book.

Good questioning,

The Management Doctor

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February 2012 - Enchantment

Enchantment is something you should strive for and is the title of a new book by Guy Kawasaki. You may recognize Kawasaki from his tenure as a marketing guru for Apple. I enjoyed his 1991 book, Selling The Dream. His new book has some great tips for us planners. He says:

“Enchantment is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes skeptics and cynics into believers and the undecided into the loyal. It is the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea.”

“In business and personal interactions, your goal is not merely to get what you want, but to bring about a voluntary, enduring and delightful change in other people. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds and actions.

WOW! If it can do even part of this, I’m in.

Step 1, Achieving Likability (half the battle)

• Smile
• Dress, don’t overdress or underdress, Equal dressing says, "We’re peers.”
• Handshake, this first impression in important so:
1. Make eye contact throughout
2. Utter an appropriate verbal greeting
3. Make a Duchenne (real) smile
4. Grip the person’s hand and give it a firm squeeze
5. Stand a moderate distance from the other person: not so close as to make him or her uncomfortable or so far away as to make him or her feel detached
6. Make sure your hand is cool, dry and smooth
7. Use a medium level of vigor
8. Hold the handshake for no longer than two to three seconds
• Use the Right Words
  1. Use simple words
  2. Use the active voice
  3. Keep it short
  4. Use common, unambiguous analogies

Step 2, Achieving Trustworthiness (the other half)

• Be a mensch. Mensch is a German word for human being, but its Yiddish connotation far exceeds this definition. I you are a mensch, you are honest, fair, kind and transparent, no matter whom you’re dealing with and who will ever know what you did.
• Disclose your interests. Immediate and complete disclosure of your interests is a key component of trust worthiness. People will always wonder what your motivation is, so you should get this out of the way.
• Give for intrinsic reasons. One form of reciprocity occurs when you do something for intrinsic reasons, such as helping others. This is the purest form of reciprocity, because recipients often cannot repay you. This form of reciprocity increased your trustworthiness the most and causes the most enchantment.
• Gain knowledge and competence. Competence means that you have progressed beyond knowing what to do to doing what you know.
• Show up. You can embody the qualities of menschdom, knowledge and competence, but they won’t matter if you don’t show up – that is, interact with people.
• Bake a bigger pie. There are two kinds of people and organizations in the world: eaters and bakers. Eaters want a bigger slice of an existing pie; bakers want to make a bigger pie. Eaters think that if they win, you lose and if you win, they lose. Bakers think that everyone can win with a bigger pie.

This may all sound a bit too simple. In the rest of the book he provides more details on how to do it. The two steps above may not get you all the way to Enchantment, but it can be a good start. What do you have to lose?

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January 2012 - Steve Jobs and You