Simple management

Words: 425
Reading Time: 1 min. 25 sec.s

What actions yield the best financial results when dealing with an economic downturn?

That’s something we would all like to know – always assuming that an economic downturn calls for actions different to those at any other time.

Bruce Tulgan of RainmakerThinking, Inc.® reports finding that cost cutting, innovation and increased supervision were the three strategies that yielded the strongest financial results in 2009.

Well, that’s wonderful! If that’s all we have to do to get great financial results then all our problems are solved. Or are they?

Bruce’s results are drawn from a survey of more than 1,000 managers selected from participants in RainmakerThinking, Inc.’s ® intensive two-day management seminars.

Managers that implemented these actions were found to be the most likely to report that their bottom line financial results (at the level closest to the manager’s control) in 2009 were “good,” “very good,” “better than expected,” or “much better than expected.”

There seems to be a number of weaknesses here:
1) The survey was only of managers, not of workers or financial analysts;
2) All those managers had been trained by RainmakerThinking, Inc.®;
3) Other actions taken by managers who were not participants in RainmakerThinking were not examined;
4) The assessments of financial results were entirely subjective; none were quantified;
5) Corporate benefits or detriments other than financial ones were not looked at;
6) The organization conducting the survey had a direct interest in its outcome.

Besides which, cost cutting and innovation should be high priorities in any company, irrespective of the state of the economy. Had these managers helped create the crisis in their companies by their lack of effectiveness when times were better?

And managers reported that it was their supervision that made a difference – not actions and dedication by a neglected workforce concerned about continued employment that would have happened anyway, without the managers.

No surprises there then. It’s the usual error – we always think we have had a disproportionate effect (hubris) when it’s everybody else that has made the major difference. The higher the individual is in the organization or social grouping, the more marked is this effect as a general rule.

Business suggestions:
1) Start from a position of scepticism;
2) Beware of too much simplification;
3) Ask, “Who says?”;
4) How much interest has the researcher in the outcome of the research;
5) Check for what’s missing;
6) What else could have caused this?
7) Look for a control group comparison;
8) Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler (Einstein);
9) Nobody has all the answers;

10) Bosses need the workers; the reverse is not always true.

How Many Pages to Go?

Words: 379 Reading time: 1 minute 16 seconds

There is a well-known anecdote that tells of Mark Twain travelling across America and receiving a telegram from his editor. The telegram says “Need 2 page story in 2 days”. Mark Twain is alleged to have responded “2 page story need 30 days. 2 days can do 30 page story”.

Those of you with some experience of writing will recognize the reason for the apparent paradox immediately.

Thirty pages gives room for rambling paragraphs, non sequiturs and unrelated blind alleys.

To distil a tale into just two pages requires review, reconsideration, revision, redrafting and endless editing if the final result is to retain the essence and carry the narrative.

I see the same pattern with my clients, whether the issues are business or purely personal.

When I first ask them to describe their situation as they see, inevitably I elicit the thirty page story.

That story is confused, with overlapping issues, unfocused worries, inconsequential asides and unsupported assertions. People often describe themselves as being in a gigantic morass, about to be sucked under and drowned by all the circumstances sapping their usual ability to cope.

This is not surprising. Few people feel they have a partner who will just sit and listen – without passing comment, or judgement, or suggesting instant solutions.

And those that do have such a partner rarely take the time necessary to articulate what is going on in their lives. They are too busy struggling to “fix” it without necessarily being fully aware of what it is that needs fixing.

In some ways my role begins by encouraging the client to edit down those thirty pages to something tighter, more focused and much less confused.

Among the more useful questions that direct the client towards the process of paring away the lianas entangling them are:

“So, what is it exactly that you are working on?”

“What would have to happen for you get the outcome you want?”

“What one change would make the biggest difference to you right now?”

“And what one thing could you do to bring that one change into effect?”

The questions are simple, even stark. The answers usually throw up a lot more anguish and take a lot more work to bring into effect.

Hence Twain’s thirty days for a two page story.