Everything is better on a team

We are not alone until we think of ourselves as such.

Selling as an individual sucks.  Marketing yourself sucks.  Being the main person who is delivering the thing sucks.  Teams are way better than individuals most times and this is true in almost all contexts.

When it comes to sales and selling the same holds true.  I like to sell by myself but I do not love it.  What I love is the idea that I can sell as part of a team and system, rather than as an individual. 

We need to find ways to take ourselves as individuals out of the picture and figure out how we can grow teams around ourselves who love and support us in our efforts and interests. 

We need to get excellent at having others help us.  The more we can define a process and system for growing, selling, and success, the better off we all will be.

Find God, you might as well

Find balance and control. 
Have obsessions but don't let them
rule your life.  Find God: you might as well.

We probably all have obsessions and favorite topics but we need to make sure that we're monitor and controlling these things and keeping them in check.  We never need or want our obsession(s)--or anything for that matter--to rule our lives.

If we do choose to have obsessions (or are forced to by whatever means or compulsions), however, we should make sure that they are positive ones.  My obsessions, for example, of communicating, thinking, writing and speaking are what they are but I have to learn how to control and monitor them.

I can't see too big of a problem with the obsessions I have but I know I have to keep them in check. 

It's probably far better to have passions than obsessions but for those of us who do have obsessions (whatever they might be), we need to be very careful and make sure that we're monitoring them and ensuring that they do not turn into compulsions or become overly consuming thought processes in our lives that prevent us from succeeding in achieving other outside influences or forces.

Finding balance in our lives is hard and we need to ease up on our own minds and thought processes sometimes.  Find God, you might as well.

Withholding is competing

Silence is competing.

The teacher and the student

A big part of being humble is being able to listen and learn.  Yet a big part of being a big person is to be able to teach and coach and lead.  Finding a balance between these modes and finding more situations where we can teach and coach and listen and learn all of the time is hard.  Find more opportunities to do all of these things at once.

Make sure it's sustainable but don't be boring

Doing things that are fun and cool and creative and off the wall are interesting but they're not everything and sometimes they're not sustainable at all.  We shouldn't expect that all of our practices are sustainable but we need to makes sure that the bulk of the core ones are.  In this way we have to have great values and focus.

We have to make sure that the core and essential set of our practices are sustainable but we don't want to get caught up in only doing the mundane.  Finding this balance is hard.

It's great to be different: decide to be different

Painting outside of the lines is way more fun.
But there are lines.  Damn reality sucks!!!!!

Be different every chance you get.  Do not comply, do not follow the rules but recognize that they are all around us and sometimes we have to follow them. 

We can't be 100% creative all of the time but we sure can and should wish this.  We can make creativity and non-compliance everything if we want. 

A huge part of our lives is to comply with and follow the rules.  This sucks but we know that in large part we have to fit into the systems we're given or we'll find ourselves dead, injured, or in jail. 

But it's way more fun, cool, and interesting for us to paint outside of the lines and say that we just don't give a shit.

Getting to creativity through structure

In order to be truly creative we have to be on solid ground.

We have to have our lives very well organized if we want to be as creative as we possibly can be for an extended period. 

I want to be creative forever but I know that for me to be able to get there I have to buckle down now and get serious.  I have to create structures and foundations in my life that help provide me the time, place, and space to be creative.

Creativity cannot fully flourish without the appropriate structure and foundation. 

We don't want to be overly regimented in our ways but without structure and a solid foot-hold on life and reality, we won't be able to be our truest, most creative selves.

Obsessed with sales and selling

We're not always good at what we want to be good at.

I really want to sell.  All of the time.  I can't not sell.  I want to do it every moment.  But I think I suck at it.

The hero and the goat

Being humble is everything.  If we are humble
we will not fall as far.

Sometimes we're put into situations where we have to be the hero.  We may not want to be the hero but maybe we have to be for the situation at hand to succeed. 

I've been thrust into situations before where I had to be the hero in consulting roles and it typically turns out very poorly and sucks. 

One time on a Microsoft project I had to do the work and lead the project, so I was wearing too many hats and it wasn't fun at all.  I might have delivered an okay product in the end but the process sucked and I wasn't happy at all: I didn't set expectations wisely and suffered greatly for it. 

The goal in work and life should be to have fun and be successful but in a balanced we: we don't want to ebb and flow so greatly.  There will be times when we actually get to be the hero for a while but that can soon be replaced by the goat if we're not careful.  We can rapidly and agressively fall from the top of the mountain if we're not careful or humble about our place. 

We should always feel like we're on top of the mountain even when we're not and be humble about our place regardless of what it is.

Consulting is business development: grow two teams

As the main producer,
surround yourself with sales people and delivery people./
Grow two teams.

As a consultant and project manager I realize more and more that one of the primary and fundamental roles is in performing as a sales person.  But I can't do this alone, I need to create and grow a professional and highly capable sales and marketing team.

A big (and probably the biggest) part of consulting is making sure that you get the job done and make the customer happy.  As a consulting sales person this should be easy because you can always blame the delivery folks that the thing went wrong.  But when you're also on the hook for the thing that actually comes out the other end you'd better be really careful.

As a delivery and sales person you have to make sure that you're winning and influencing all of the time: both on the sales and customer side and an the internal delivery side.  It's hard a lot of the time to wear both of these hats but what it means is that you need to build up two teams as the lead consultant: the sales and account management people who support you as well as the delivery people who support you. 

In consulting you are in the middle in a major way.  You have to build up teams above and below you that support you and create cushion and padding so you can comfortably deliver the end product and deflect attacks from difficult customers and the market with very high expectations.

Build systems for yourself and others and win

Do things that work for yourself and for others.
Two birds, one stone.  Lead.

A big skill is in building systems that work for ourselves and for others.  It's fine and dandy to do things that work for us but it's far more critical and interesting to build systems that work for us and others!

When we can build things that work for us and others we're winning, we're selling, we're growing and building teams.  Do this every day.

Selling up and selling down

Convincing others to do things for us is a great talent, skill, and art.
Make sure you're doing this to subordinates and superiors.

Forever I have wanted to make cool and creative things.  I have wanted to engineer creative solutions to problems and get rich doing so based on how creative I have been and how hard I have worked.  But I have discovered that the real skill in life and business is to be that social person who can and does get things done through other people through creative means.  I'm not saying that you can't create and be creative, but you have to create through others by way of inspiration and leadership: you have to grow big teams.

My dad gave me the idea when I was young that I am creative and smart.  I probably am.  But I have learned through the years that I have to be very humble as well and recognize that there are powerful people above and around me. 

As someone who does not have so much money that I can pay others to do everything for me, then I have to inspire them to want to do it themselves.  If I can lead in this way, then I am being successful with those below me.

But this is also true for those above me: the rich and famous and successful of the world.  I do not consider myself to be one of them but I have to do so: I have to rub elbows and act as if I'm one of them...but I have to be humble, too.

Sales works up and sales works down.  Make sure that you're selling up and selling down but learn to sell up because this is where the really big opportunities lie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Achieving breakthroughs all the time

Sometimes we have breakthroughs and
it changes everything but what we want is
to have breakthroughs all the time and
for it to only confirm what we expected.

Every once in a while we get lucky and have a breakthrough: something significantly changes in our life and it's major.  This could mean that we win the lottery, we start a new relationship, we get to a new place in a relationship, or we develop a new mental model that gives us peace of mind.  We want breakthroughs all of the time and more often but how do we get them? 

We get breakthroughs by setting our expectations extremely low.  If we have exceedingly low or no expectations about having breakthroughs, then we will achieve them far more often: it's all relative.  If we have really high expectations and are frequently wanting and hoping for and expecting breakthroughs then we will probably never get them: we don't deserve them.

So set your expectations really low and do not expect breakthroughs.  If you do this, yet are prepared for breakthroughs when they do come then perhaps you can get, have, and enjoy them all the time!

Be the chief framer

Continue framing and flexing the thing.
Don't get burdened and bogged down
with too many details.  Keep changing.

I want to be the chief framer of things.  This means that I want to be holding the thought process that it is the thought process of record, the one followed by the team.  In this way, I want to lead and be the guy.

I want to be able to suggest what is needed and continue to shape and frame the solution as it changes over time.  I want to guide and shape things so that the optimal solution can come out the other end.  I want to be agile and flexible, responsive.

Things change in projects all of the time but with proper framing and an ability to reflect and change, we can continue to be good and create win-win solutions with our collaborators.

Changing agendas

Sometimes our agenda and their agendas
are not aligned.  Make sure you detect
at the start of the meeting that this is the case
and redirect the meeting accordingly.

It's nice to have an agenda and bring it to a meeting but it's quite possible and sometimes likely that the meeting agenda and objective will change.  There's a good practice called 'resetting' when you state what you had planned for the meeting agenda and ask the attendees if anything has changed to make sure that everyone's still on the same page before starting.  If things have changed, then the facilitator can decide to focus on those new issues, cancel the meeting, postpone it or hold it as it was originally specified.

Main point here is that we have to be able to change when people have changed and adjust accordingly.  Although we may have agendas in or meetings and need and want to get things done, we still have to be very flexible and dynamic in dealing with people and their constantly-changing needs, moods, and desires.

How much power we actually have as project managers

Being on top of the mountain feels good, but
there's still sky and heavens above and plenty
of places to fall and hurt yourself below.
Don't forget your true, humble place.

Being the boss is fun.  But its rare.  Sometimes we might think we're the boss but very frequently we are not.  Being a customer is probably the closest we can come to being a boss: "the customer is always right".  I would really like to achieve this level of control on my projects where the buck stops at my desk and what I say goes. But this rarely works.

We should shrink our organizations.  We should centralize more decision-making authority and shrink our work cycles.  But this doesn't often work because sometimes we really do require input and authorization on projects from a very large collection of stakeholders.

So it might be true that "my requirements are what I say they are" but at the aggregate and at the project manager's level, they are rolling up and what the project manager says or thinks really doesn't fly.  The project manager really is just a facilitator and adviser to a larger, far more political, process.

So be careful project managers, although you may feel like you may have god-like powers and feel in control, you're still reporting to your board and you're still accountable to your customers, stakeholders, and stockholders.  Tread lightly and don't abuse the power.

Create workflows to create documents

Documents suck.  People don't want them
but they are a typical and critical part
of business oftentimes.  Let's change this.

The goal is not producing documents, its managing workflow.  One consequence of a process may be that it creates documents but in an efficient system, the goal is to manage knowledge and creating small, reusable components of things that you can use again, thus reducing cost and improving quality.

Documents are concrete artifacts that are typically a composition of several other smaller things.  For example, a document could include some background, a schedule, and some tables of data.  Web based content management systems do a good job of separating content from presentation but today's document-based systems very infrequently do this.  For this reason there is a lot of waste in project work.  Documents get started, get re-purposed, and the knowledge base expands but not in an organized or analyzable way.  Things get really messy in project.

But it is possible for us to know our document types and figure out what kinds of things we have to produce for our customers.  Once we do this we can figure out the elemental parts of these documents and have those parts created through efficient workflows.  Just like the web publishes pages our consulting companies should be publishing documents that are compiled automatically through our data, systems, and knowledge.  Writing net-new things is required to extend the existing database but this is a good thing.

So knowledge workers of the world, please think of how you can shorten the overall workflow of your document-creation streams and look to partner with an organization like mine who can take your project data and present it to your customers in a low-cost and very-high-impact way.

Teams can grow without increasing in count

Grow, baby, grow.
(Just don't necessarily multiply, please.)

Growth is a funny thing.  It can happen in your mind or in the physical world.  Growth can be seen as in increase in a population: it can be seen as an increase or improvement in anything.

I made the point to a colleague yesterday that our team can grow even if we don't add people to it.  It sounded profound to me and he agreed.

What I meant by this was that the thing that matters more than anything that our team (regardless of its size or members) grows and learns and improves.  It would be nice if it grew in terms of count and influence but that is not my current need or expectation.  I am trying to do just the basic things and make sure we have a plan and are tracking.

Team-building is difficult but can be extremely fun and rewarding.  Growing in any way positive is a great goal but we have to remember that we have to control growth as well.

Control is a challenging part of growth.  You don't want to grow too fast because it is painful.  You don't want to grow uncontrollably because it is scary.  You want to grow 'just enough' so that you are meeting your objectives and doing the right things.  You want to fit and be the right size within your environment.  You don't want to get too big and consume too many resources: this is not sustainable.

So next time you consider growing a team, or anything for that matter, consider that you might already have enough and that it is internal reflection, collaboration, and communication between the existing organism that needs to grow.

Listening and advising as the key skills of consulting

Things will go in your ear that you don't want to hear sometimes.
But you will hear them.  You don't have to listen to them,
you just have to figure out how to react to what you hear: be calm.

There are three main skills in consulting: listening, giving and taking advice.

Listening is hard sometimes when there's so many things going on in your head.  Combine that with stupid or annoying speakers and it's hard to keep your mouth shut sometimes!

Try to quiet yourself and let yourself listen to what is being said: drink it all in and relax; breathe, contemplate responses but do not engage.  Let others finish their thoughts and points before you offer anything more, if you offer anything more; sometimes silence is far more powerful than words.

Accepting advice also requires that you listen and it also requires a great deal of patience and trust.  It is impossible to take advice if you can't listen.

Giving advice is easy.  Anyone can give advice.  But not everyone can give good advice.  There are a lot of people out there seeking advice.  Some of us are even paying great sums for advice and help from others.

Being a leader requires that we listen, give and take advice.  Balance these skills and be excellent.

Two views of Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint can be viewed in two main ways: as a host of things and as a data collection mechanism.  I prefer to view it as the latter because I find that it is far more interesting and compelling that way.

Back in 2001 when SharePoint first came out, I was building web apps for Siemens and they wanted to use SharePoint.  I soon found out that SharePoint was great and offered value beyond the tools I could build.  I would still write custom apps and tools without SharePoint but SharePoint really took off within Siemens as a great data collection mechanism.  The Team Sites feature and all of the lists and modules and such really is the core of SharePoint.

SharePoint has come a very long ways since its early beginnings and added Records Management, Web Parts, Dashboards, and a lot of Business Intelligence features.

Yet some people see SharePoint today as a surface and host for things regardless of its complexity and value.  They see it as a container that doesn't do much.  I don't see it as this at all and am confused by people who think of it in this way.

So get a clue people, it's a database and a holding tank of data and other things; it's a framework.