Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance IT organizations and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Work
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Work
With a family “expansion” on the way, and an aging auto in the garage I have been shopping for a new car during the past several weeks. While many people, my wife included, dislike the process of pouring over websites and glossy manufacturer brochures, then trekking around town to various dealerships, I have always found it to be an exciting and interesting process. One of my favorite aspects of this process is observing the various salespeople you invariably meet as you look for a new car.
This not only provides for some interesting dinner table banter, but is often instructive since all of us are involved in sales to some extent. I have often quipped that I thought I was getting into the consulting business when I started my company, but ended up in sales and marketing, and whether you work in retail or are CEO of a major company, we all must sell on a daily basis. While the term “sales” may be considered gauche by some, any time you must persuade, cajole, debate or speak you are selling to some extent. Whether you have “salesperson” on your business card, or peddle ideas to coworkers or customers, sales is probably one of the most important skills that one can possess.
Watching people attempt to sell me a new automobile has been instructive, especially since cars are complex products, and like many ideas that are pitched in corporate boardrooms are a blend of hard factual data like performance figures, and more emotive facets ranging from the feel of the seats to selling a “lifestyle” that could range from race car driver to rugged outdoorsman.
One of the most glaring things I noticed was the differences in a salesperson’s ability to establish trust. For me, sales “magic” starts when the seller is passionate about the product they were offering, answering questions with relative ease, and confidently presenting the product, conveying a sense that it was truly without peer its market. This was the exception, in stark contrast to several salespeople who would exchange banalities or demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the product. In several cases, I clearly indicated I was not yet ready to buy, yet as the conversation drew to a close they would throw out the classic line: “what can I do to get you to buy today,” an instant turn off whether I liked the vehicle or not.
Whether you are slinging cars, social policy or ideas in the boardroom or classroom, spending the appropriate time building trust on a human level and in the product you are pitching will be paid off in spades. Rather than forcing a sale, trust takes the conversation from whether you can work together, to how you can best work together.
Life
In an effort to get my financial life a bit more organized, nearly a decade ago I started using the Microsoft Money financial software, a competitor to the widely-known Quicken software. I diligently entered transactions each month, reconciled accounts and was dazzled by the charts and graphs generated by the software, and its ability to sync with my bank and pay bills. In what was a personally upsetting but presumably rational business decision, Microsoft pulled the plug on the software last month, and kicking and screaming, I was forced to look for alternatives.
I was fairly impressed to find free online alternatives that allowed me to sync my accounts without prompting, which could be easily accessed from my Blackberry or another computer, something I always lamented with the Money software. I also discovered my bank offered Blackberry software that allowed me to pay bills from anywhere, which has been extremely helpful while traveling in China. I even abandoned the concept of reconciling my accounts with my bank statement, since all the data are coming directly from my bank and into the web-based software. After quite a bit of initial complaining, the new system is actually easier and more effective than the old freeing me of installing updates and patches, and untying my financial information from my home desktop computer.
After all was said and done, I found myself lamenting the fact that it had taken a decade to discover the easier path. I do not believe that human beings fear change, rather that most species, humans included, favor a path of least resistance. It is far easier to continue on a given path than break routine and find a new one, even if it might be more efficient. Despite advising companies on exactly these types of issues, I find myself falling victim to the perils of a personal “comfort zone,” with the long care and feeding of this software as a fine example. It pays to occasionally venture outside routine, and investigate new tools or processes for doing things, and even questioning whether something should even be done at all. Luckily for me, Microsoft saved me from another decade of doing things the hard way!
Heard in the Hallways
This afternoon at a client site I witnessed to fantastically inane debate. A staffer asked her team if everyone had placed their travel itineraries on an internal website, in compliance with that often ill-defined but always menacing beast of “corporate policy.” With the sentence still hanging in the air, another staffer quickly perked up and noted that he had not placed his travel itinerary on the website, since he had been told “policy” was to absolutely avoid doing so, for security and IT infrastructure reasons. A debate followed that lasted nearly five minutes, and rivaled the old “Who’s on first” Abbot and Costello routine.
While presumably corporate policy is often well-intentioned, like too much of a mediocre thing, creating a culture that focuses on rules and policies often engenders wasted time in the best case, and ingrained inflexibility and rigidity of thought and action in the worst case. If you find yourself asking why your team or business unit sticks to the safest path and looks spooked when asked for a new or creative thought, consider how many layers of “policy” have been heaped on top of them and you may soon find your answer.
Travels with Patrick
Several months ago I read Sergio Esposito’s , the author’s story of emigrating from Italy and eventually opening a specialty store for Italian wines in New York City. The book was marvelous, filled with mouthwatering accounts of wines and meals the author enjoyed on his buying trips to Italy. One thing that struck me about these accounts was that in many restaurants, the author would put himself in the hands of the chef, shunning the menu and list of specials of the day, and instead offering a certain amount of money and letting the chef cook whatever he or she wished.
While this technique probably would not be successful at the local pub or chain restaurant, I have started using it and have been pleasantly surprised. Not only do you get unusual dishes, generally with the freshest ingredients the chef has on hand that day, but it serves as a bit of a challenge to many chefs. You are proverbially putting your stomach in their hands, and most will rise to the occasion and go above and beyond to impress once you show that level of trust in their abilities.
I have also used this trick when dining at a regional restaurant with someone from that region. Passing the menu to an Indian friend at an Indian restaurant, or sitting back while Chinese colleagues work through a five course meal in rapid-fire Mandarin has allowed me to experience new foods, and usually pays a great deal of respect your dining partner, such that they put a great deal of effort in trying to ensure you sample the quintessential tastes of their homeland.