I’ve gotten a little bit of a late start on making comments on our Q2 book but I am going to try and highlight points from every chapter. Any additional comments or feedback is greatly appreciated, so everyone join in! And note: this is a work in progress so I will enhance as I go along.

Introduction
So right off the bat the book makes a good point. Passion. The book states “…the team had made effective use of many tools, including management, people skills, collaboration and execution. But those tools alone hadn’t gotten the job done…” That is where we need to demonstrate passion. With that success can be achieved to a much greater extent. Getting that quality behind peoples’ ambition, vision and leadership makes moving forward easier and, I feel, reaching goals easier.

Chapter 1: Simplicity
The Foundation of Leadership: The book believes “…simplicity is the fundamental foundation for management…” In my personal experience, and the book reinforces this, that is often so hard to do. When faced with a complex issue, scenario, or something so unfamiliar how can you break it down? Sure I believe simple is more beneficial, it is “powerful because it keeps us focused and on track: it’s easy to communicate and it’s easy to measure.” Here at Fi-Med we have used this approach from time to time. We have had certain projects within our Physician Division, with staff’s input, to make their goals, mission, etc put into ways that are easily understood and success can be measured. But to keep it in the forefront of our minds, on everything we do, takes practice.

Chapter 2: Management Savvy
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Really the title alone just makes sense. Even before this book was voted on an internal staff member was preaching that same message during a department meeting. Everyone does work so hard, tries so hard to achieve great results, but not all the time are they achieved. Why? We just seem overwhelmed with daunting tasks but we need to be looking at better ways. Better ways in the terms or more efficient ways, not just working even harder. the chapter starts with a quote from Peter F. Drucker “Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” We need to focus just as hard on doing the right things as we are on doing things right.

As managers, leaders, mentors or rising stars we are always looking to better ourselves. We have staff that look to us for answers and watch our every move, not as a bad thing, but ways to make them better. I am surely no expert, I am hoping to get a lot better myself but one area, in this chapter, I liked was “…Managing is the art and science of getting other people to do the things that need to be done…” I think that line should be thought at certain points throughout the book. So how do you do that? Certainly your staff needs to believe in you, trust you, and know that you trust them. But also, what this chapter mentions is incrementalism, “taking problems or issues and setting a goal of making them better a little bit at a time.”

Yes, people look to you for answers but is it always necessary to have the end (final) answer/result (and wait and wait until you have it)? I believe no. Make incremental goals, tell those eyes that are on you we want to achieve great results over here but we aren’t just going to get their overnight, so let’s just get to this point first.

Another aspect of being an effective leader is content. The book states “…Simply put, you should always communicate about content, not process….” By discussing content and not process we are receiving information and news we can use to do our jobs more effectively and efficiently. When you get an update from a co-worker, we are working collections. What does that mean? How do I use that to judge how well things are going? By getting an answer like, we are working down the present $30k A/R, researching these insurances to find holes. That is a bit more measurable and useful to one receiving that communication. And then state when this project will be complete and what you hope to achieve from working collections.

Chapter 3: Ambition
Be Ambitious for Your People and the Cause: Most people are ambitious by nature, we all want to achieve some sort of fame or power in our lives. That trait motivates us to try and do great things but we have to know how to use it. The book states there is good and bad ambition and I am a believer in that. Are we looking to make our company, Fi-Med, better, or are we looking to make ‘I’ better. “The key to harnessing your ambition is to concentrate on making a difference that leaves a project or a person better than before.”We should all look at a project and not see it from how can I get noticed, it should be how will my team get stronger from what we can learn.”

A leader is only as good as the work the team produces…” Sure I can solve a problem and tell someone that I found this new solution but when expressed to a team, how does that make them better? Short-term, it resolves a problem, long-term you are just recreating a different issue. This chapter is a great chapter in making ourselves great team players and great coaches.

Chapter 4: People Skills
Making People the Top Priority: Fi-Med understands that people are the most vital resource we could have. No amount of automation will ever completely change that. So again, as people look to us, we need to make them a priority. We need to look to make them better which in turn makes everyone else, including ourselves better. I take much greater satisfaction out of coaching a person and watching them accomplish great things (being there to help and steer them as they see needed) then diving into a project and just doing it, only to make me better and cross that out on the to-do list.

This chapter makes mention of the “Will-Skill Matrix,” the degrees of having the will along with skill required to do a job.  Having people with great will and great skill is a delight to be around but that is not always (and probably rarely) the case. So leaders need to be able to bring up low skill and low will members of their team. Find out how people learn, what motivates them, patience to see them learn and use their high attribute to bring up the side. If they are highly motivated but lack a little skill in something use their motivation to assist them in learning the new task and don’t just leave them out there to learn on their own.

Chapter 5: Leadership
Leave a Place Better than You Found It: A message that really is mentioned throughout the book, and I may touched on above, but “…leadership goes far beyond telling subordinates [people] what to do. A great leader inspires the people who work for her to give their best effort, to stretch beyond the ordinary and to collaborate with each other.” You do not have to always be the one talking, or with the final say. Listening and working with the team are the things that will make them successful and be able to achieve great results. I do not believe by just giving answers we can achieve our goals. We need to encourage problem-solving minds with ambitious attitudes towards team developed goals. “Leadership is a team discipline…with tickets to play…Motivation…Competency…Trust and Respect…Willingness to Take Risks.”

The book states these are elements a leader must possess and cannot sacrifice on. Just looking at those elements it seems true, thinking about great leaders I have been around or studied about, they possessed those and made the people that looked to them possess them as well.

Chapter 6: Collaboration
Think “One Big Team”: I love the quote that starts this chapter by George Bernard Shaw, “If you have an apple and i have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

This chapter, built on earlier principles, states how important collaboration is to success. Fi-Med did have a major project where collaboration was the key to accomplish a great sized feat.  With that project, and mentioned in the book, and still facing all organizations is how do you get everyone to collaborate? They need to buy into and accept the concept, not always an easy thing to show. It will come if there is mutual respect, enthusiasm and inclusiveness. People are not just going to speak out without showing them the reasons or benefits and the importance. No one wants to be the one that made a negative reaction occur because of a previous mentioned idea or improvement. Make it safe for them. As leaders we need to be able to manage collaboration across all teams of an organization (and in life).

Chapter 7: Vision
Imagine the Possibilities: I think if anyone knows anything about Fi-Med then only thought comes to mind about this chapter — Adrian. Our President is always looking the future and creating opportunities, or at least making everyone think about the ‘What ifs’. With his possibilities and explorations that creates a lot of excitement and forward thinking. We may get stuck in the day to day lists that need our attention but we can forget about the future. With Adrian, “a vision of the future is a vision of how things can be different.”

One note this chapter makes, that made me think was “…It’s imperative that the structure of the… department changes so that people don’t necessarily know all the information, but they do know where to get it and how to put it together.” So we aren’t out there to get all the answers and to prove I can do but we are out there trusting our staff and accessing knowledge from others. If we empower our staff to be able to make problem solving decisions, we avoid future issues that will never develop.

Chapter 8: Time Management
Align Your Time with the Right Goals: “…time is probably the single most valuable asset that any company has and — like any asset — its value can decrease when not used efficiently.” For everyone that has gone to college, remember being that freshman after about a month in and just feeling like wow I probably should not have partied all the time and maybe should have started studying. Managing or appropriately using time is a constant improvement process for me. It’s a lot of work daily determining levels of urgency and putting importance on issues. Knowing what to do when? You don’t want to spend too much time on trivial or nonessential tasks, or things that do not have the overall organization/department’s mission in mind.

As leaders we have to know the art of delegation. We could drown ourselves in things that come to our inbox or empower and trust our staff with issues where we have taught them skills to accomplish on our teams behalf. Have the team put ownership and value on their own work. Just because it comes to us does not mean we always have to chime in if our staff has the skills. It goes a long way further when they address issues and respond to concerns in their learning then having leaders be the one’s making the final decisions and getting involved too early.

Chapter 9 Focus: User a Laser, Not a Floodlight 
This chapter, as the title might lead you to believe, covered focus. Focus in your decision making, communication, interaction, and really just about everything you do. Everyone needs to focus on what matters, but really how do you know what actually matters? We are introduced to the 80/20 rule. This is mentioned all the time in business. What is it? It states that “80% of the solution lies in only 20% of the variables.” So by addressing the larges 20% you should be able to achieve 80% of the results. This chapter later goes into focusing on results. But “focusing on results means not jumping into action to give the customer–whether internal or external-exactly what they ask for. Instead, focus on what they really need.” Although pertaining to customers, really can be put to internal discussions or issues as well. When we are presented at a problem are we looking solely at the issue being presented to us? Or are you trying to find the why is this occuring? It may just be a by-product of an overall greater concern.

One great section of this chapter, which keeps coming up in this book, is how we address staff, co-workers, or our peers. The book mentions that at Fed-Ex “we train dogs. We educate people. Think about that…that should be the way we interact with each other when we are trying to solve a problem or working towards the solution. “Teaching a man to fish and he’ll never go hungry, way of thinking.”  We leaders interact with staff and are working with them to solve a problem we cannot just put a fix into place. The overall concept of educating everyone is not being addressed, we are merely telling them okay don’t worry about that anymore it’s done. They will only be able to work until something else occurs, something out of the ordinary because they were not involved in the resolution process and made to understand what is going wrong. We all need to communicate effectively and always remember in these solutions ‘keeping it simple stupid (KISS)’ may be the best path to take and certainly should at least look down that path first.

Chapter 10 Execution: Do It! Don’t Sacrifice Good for Better
How do we get things from the drawing board to production? What drives execution? One must be determined. “Determination is the underlying passion that keeps you and your team executing when things get tough.” When a project team comes together and all parts are determined, excited, and share the common goals you are already set up for success without any data or evaluation on that data being done.  Creating that culture might be the hard part though. Some want to gather data, make perfect decisions to make a perfect final product before getting started. That approach only paralyzes a project and the good that would have come out of the project. Risks need to be taken, a shared vision and common goals will give you ”directionally correct” out of the gate. While the solution may not be perfect, it’s in the ballpark, and it gets the ball rolling a lot faster and with greater success because it’s real, it’s out there and can be seen and refined from that point.

It is probably good timing on reading this chapter for me being involved in the SequelMed project. Although this chapter was brief and did not go into depth of project management it did put the main points of that topic in the spotlight. Tools, timelines, staying on course, deadlines, goals, and benchmarks are all key in execution.  One point made that was key was “SMART goals.” Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Tangible. Smart goals are specific, makes a clear statement, that is measurable and can be seen. Making goals as these with any project will, especially progress goals, with make it easy to see without analysis, how things are going and how successful you are being or if things need to be refined before progressing too far. 

If you’re interested in picking up a copy for yourself, you can find it here on Amazon.

12:41 pm, June 7th, 2009 |