Consultant's Corner » consulting

What Dale Carnegie Taught Me….Part I.

Joel Stanesa — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:00:46 +0000

: Cover of How to Win Friends and Influence People

One of my all time favorite books (and one that I’ve probably read and/or listened to more than50 times) is Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People“.

I first picked up this book in college to work on overcoming a terrible shyness and fear of meeting people.

Over the years it has served as a near constant companion in my car during commutes and driving to visit customers (In 1997 I put 45,000 miles on the car and Dale was with me nearly every mile). While I never personally attended a Dale Carnegie Course, early in my career I had the pleasure to work with an electrical engineer who was very quiet and often mumbled and was difficult to understand. Our mutual manager suggested that he attend a Dale Carnegie Course and he accepted. You would not believe the transition in this person over the next few months. I was literally like night and day with him. Since then, I’ve been sold on the application of the principals.

Anyone who wants to improve their business, their career or personal success and doesn’t live in a cave or deserted island, that this book is absolutely required reading. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it is required reading to stay employed in today’s global economy.

If you have read it already, pick it up again this summer and give it a refresher. If you haven’t yet read this, you need to pick it up tomorrow and get started.

Part One – Fundamental Techniques to Handle People – Three principles

1. Don’t Criticize, Condem, or Complain….

With people we aren’t normally dealing with creatures of logic and rationality and so to criticize creates a defensive posture. Use your language to find ways to provide more praise then condemnation. (Of course in some situations you want direct and honest feedback or you need to provide it but only when your recipient is open to that approach otherwise you won’t get far).

On the issue of complaining, simply put: avoid complaining. One of the best tips I continue to use is to: Listen to yourself for the next 24 hours and notice, how many complaints come out of your mouth. I bet you never realize how prevalent it is in our culture… Become aware, and stamp out the complaining in your life. Be grateful what you have, find excuses to be happy and shut up about the weather…You’ll be glad you did

2. Give Honest and Sincere Appreciation

There is only one way to get anybody to do anything: You have to make that person want to do it. People want to feel important, bottom line. My favorite quote from this section: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Important: This principle is not about flattery. That is why it says “Honest and Sincere” appreciation.

3. Arouse in the Other Person an Eager Want

I love the example of the letter to the college boys who wouldn’t take the time to correspond with their mother, how happened to be Andrew Carnegie’s sister. Mr. Carnegie wagers that he can get the boys to respond immediately. He writes the letter to the boys indicating he is including some money but doesn’t include the actual $5 bill. The boys immediately write back reminding him that he failed to include the money in the original letter.. If you can create thoughts of what that person wants or frankly wants to avoid, you will be able to move them very easily. Like the laws of motion (an object at rest tends to remain at rest) if they don’t have a desire to move then they simply won’t move. You need to provide the external stimulus to get that object moving. You need to either mine, or create that eager want.

More Tomorrow of the other parts of the book….

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The “Anti-Pattern” for a good consultant (or employee) – Part III.

Joel Stanesa — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:58:11 +0000

Part III of excerpts from the Field Manual of Sabotage….. (How not to be a good employee or consultant)

Part 12 – General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion

(a) Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned (or one of my favorites, don’t answer the question that was asked, answer something else…my kids do that all the time).

(b) Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police (or in today’s language, make up rumors or invent political problems or concerns that don’t exist. Be paranoid or conspiracy minded, see the How to be Miserable video in an earlier post).

(d) Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble (see the How to be miserable video in an earlier post).

(e) Misunderstand all sorts of regulations (i.e. processes, policies and procedures) concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations (or worse, don’t pay attention when the process is rolled out and then complain when your expenses are denied or delayed because YOU didn’t want to follow all the steps required).

(f) Complain against ersatz (replacement) materials.

(g) In public treat axis nationals or quislings coldly (treat your manager, the traitor, as if she or he is “not one of us anymore”).

(h) Stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a cafe (when the boss enters the room stop talking immediately. Leave the impression you are plotting something).

(i) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks (“corporate” Accounting or HR).

(j) Boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities (my manager has “sold out” so I’m not going to cooperate).

(k) Do not cooperate in salvage schemes (or project-gone-bad rescues, etc.).

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The “Anti-Pattern” for a good consultant (or employee) – Part II.

Joel Stanesa — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:42:10 +0000

More from the Simple Sabotage Field Manual… (Or how not to be a good consultant)

Part 11 – General Interference with Organisations and Production (Continued w/emphasis added)

(a) Office Workers

1) Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders (or basically any other business process or work task) . Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.

2) Prolong correspondence with government bureaus (spend tons of time in email about non essential elements of the project).

3) Misfile essential documents.

4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.

5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.

6) Hold up mail until the next collection.

7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

(b) Employees

1) Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on.

2) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. If you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them.

3) Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue. Translating to what we do: Don’t bother to take the time to learn the other person’s “language” at all, for example the marketing speak, or the terms and language used in the Engineering or Logistics group

4) Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.

5) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right. (and its not your fault)

6) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker (A common tactic played by many under the guise of “job security” which is an oxymoron in today’s world)

7) Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.

If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.

9) Misroute materials (intentionally or through ignorance?).

10) Mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts.

Part III tomorrow…

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The “Anti-Pattern” for a good consultant (or employee) – Part I.

Joel Stanesa — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:56:28 +0000

This arrived in my email box this morning from Jason Follas, and I had to post it here because it seems so relevant to the mission of this blog… Thanks Jason.

The following is an excerpt from an recently declassified military manual for saboteurs (Simple Sabotage Field Manual)…. I just pulled the sections relevant to working (which starts on page 32 in the manual). The full text is available via Project Gutenberg (here) if you are so inclined to read the whole thing.

It is basically what not to do (or in Jason’s words the “anit-pattern”) for being a good consultant or valuable member of any team.

From the manual (emphasis added):

General Interference with Organizations and Production

(a) Organizations and Conferences

1). Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

2). Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.

3). When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.

4). Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

5). Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

6). Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

7). Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

8). Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

(b) Managers and Supervisors

1). Demand written orders.

2). “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

3). Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready.

4). Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

5). Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.

6). In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.

7). Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

8). Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.

9). When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

10). To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

11). Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

12). Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.

13). Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

14). Apply all regulations to the last letter.

… More tomorrow

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Scared away by too much knowledge?

Joel Stanesa — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:18:54 +0000

: Image by juhansonin via Flickr

Complexity of decisions…

I was sitting through an online demo of a software tool this morning when I was struck by some powerful emotions. You see I was looking to purchase the software as a means to better run a start up business I’ve been dreaming about for some time. The software was quite impressive and did a lot of things that a small business owner could really take advantage of. Half way through the demo however I was struck however by this wave of emotion. It was a combination of excitment, dread, and fear, all at the same time. I’ll explain…

The excitement was obviously because I could see the potential in what this tool could do. Leveraging technology to get a ton more done? That’s what I’ve helped clients do for almost 2 decades now. As the customer now, I get it. Great concept! With this new gadget, tool, gizmo, etc. my mind was racing with all the possibilities.

That’s when reality comes creeping back in….. The realization and self doubt, that holds many of us back from trying new things and new opportunties, etc. The “doubter” in me started to come up with all the reasons why this purchase would be “bad”. Here’s a few, I bet you could come up with more:

1. You don’t the time or resources to figure all this out…

2. I don’t really have the business plan solidified enough to know what I need so how do I know what features are really importan (this is really about knowing what you need vs. what you want).

3. Most days I can’t even get a decent sales letter written, how would I take advantage of such a complex tool and process?

4. Its a waste of money right now because I’m not ready to implement.

AND SO ON….

I had to take a step back and say WOAH! What’s happening here? It clicked for me on two levels.

First, and maybe most obvious, I have some more planning and thinking to do on the business side about what I really want to do with this endeavor. (That’s probably pretty common).

But more relevant to this blog was the 2nd revelation. “I wonder how many times I do this to my clients?“…..

How many times have I or the team been in front of a client and working with them on a solution or consulting engagement that, from the outside point of view, was blatantly clear they needed (and of course I had the abilty to really help)? How many times have I say demoed software features, or talked about all the great things they could do and how exciting it was and I potentially failed to realize the fear I might be creating in my customers?

How many sales or engagements have we lost because of that? Because of my over excitement and optimism in helping customers, how many times did I miss the signals?

So I share this same thought with you and ask you the consultant, the same question….

Are you aware of what conversation is going on in your clients heads?

Are you ‘overselling’ your position because you think they are interested in steps 9, 10, and 11, when really they are focused and stuck on step 2 or 3? As a consultant, we are hired in as “experts” who have worked with many customers across many industries and “have seen this before” experience. How many times however, does that knowledge and experience get in the way because the same client that hires us for that experience, gets easily overwhelmed by that volume of knowledge?

I look forward to your comments and experience on this topic… Hope you have a great and productive day.

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