Solution Sets 

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Schedule & budget are also determining factors in a solution set and in providing problem solving and deliverables to clients. It’s not “provide solutions at any cost and for as much time as they take.” Also speed of response, speed of performance, and prompt project delivery almost always win, and are typically the top or near the top priority for clients.

It’s hard as technical professionals sometimes to consider budget and schedule as equal variables or boundary conditions with other more direct technical issues.

We’ve got to ask ourselves “how can I get this done in the allotted time frame and budget” and use that as part of the boundary conditions around the solution and deliverable.

When we do this on every project and task within the project, it mitigates loss, makes the potentially marginal job profitable, and makes the good one really great.

Every person, on every team, at every level should have this reality in mind. They should be accountable, and also empowered, to call timeout and to take action with the project leaders and principals.

And it means not being a slave to the defined technical and software processes when there’s an issue slowing us down. Remember, procedure and technical tools are supposed to serve us, not the opposite. These days that often gets reversed, spending more time on the process and software functionality than we spend on the problem or creative aspect of the solution.

Provide serviceable solutions while staying in business.

The Token

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They reminded me after my doctor appointment that I needed a token (coin) to get out of the parking lot. “Thanks for reminding me,” I said.

In my car, I shifted to reverse to back up and head for the exit. But there was a car behind me, then another and another. I looked around and saw that two lines had formed for one exit. 

One exit had a maintenance truck in it working on the machine for lift the gate that allows the cars to get out of the parking lot. The other lane had a car sitting there, taking some time to deal with the one operable machine. The lines quickly formed and got longer and longer. I wasn’t going to get out any time soon. There was clearly a problem with the car trying to exit. It appeared that the gentleman in the vehicle was struggling to figure out how to use the machine. Everyone was just sitting, waiting, not moving. I thought to myself, if someone doesn’t do something we may be here all day. Perhaps that someone needed to be me. 

So I unbuckled, got out of my car , went to the maintenance guy and asked him if he knew what was happening with the car in the exit line. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said grufly (like don’t bother me dude.) So while everyone sat in their cars and watched, I approached the guy at the exit. I saw he had a credit card in his hand. I asked him, “What’s the problem? Can I help you with something?” 

“I’m trying to get out,” he says.

“You need a token,” I replied 

“I don’t know where mine went, I can’t find it, and I can’t back up,” he said.

Gazing around at the growing line, I said, “Here use mine. I’ll go get another one. You’ve got to get out and it’ll take some time for the line to get smaller anyway.”

“Thank you,” he said

“My pleasure.”

A few smiles and nods greeted me on the way back to my car to lock up and head back into the building. 

As I started my walk back to the building I heard a voice. “Sir! Do you need a token?” It was the maintenance guy. “I found a token on the ground here. No need to walk all the way back.” 

That gruff maintenance guy that seemed to be ignoring everything was actually watching. He somehow had found the coin the guy had dropped. I trotted over, thanked him and hustled straight back to my car. A smile came over my face. Problem solved. Cars moving. Done deal.

As I sat and reflected, it struck me how God sees even the little things. That He who sees a sparrow fall, can see a token as well, and works through others to bless acts of kindness beyond our expectation. When we pay it forward it always produces positive results whether we see it or not. 

Some other applications from this little encounter:

Someone has to initiate. All it took was me, one person, providing a solution to break the jam. What can we do today to provide a solution to someone or something?

“God finds” I call them. Little things and big things so easy to overlook. Positive focus. Unexpected blessings.

How can we pay it forward today? Break the log jam? Help someone? Find the value proposition and act on it?

Sometimes all it takes is one small token.

Hats

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When we started our company in 1994 my partner and I were the employees, technicians, marketers, officers, and owners. We both wore all of the sales, marketing, administration, and operational “hats.” At one time I was a project engineer, engineer of record, marketing VP, building envelope engineering VP, and President. If we liken roles and job description to hats, I wore five different hats depending on the day or hour of the week.  I actually did this for quite some time. It’s necessary for most of us in business start-up, boot-strap, entrepreneurial mode. I can be exciting and fun for a short time, but the problem is that it’s unsustainable for the long-term. It works well only if we want to kill ourselves and go to an early grave, or as a minimum, become disenchanted with owning a business and not make it. The goal for all of us as business owners should be to wear only one hat, the one that fits the best according to our most unique ability, to shed the extra hats, and hire others to wear them.

Educated and trained as an engineer, in the early days, I was a classic micro-manager and control freak. This works well when everything is dependent on  me alone. However, I recognized quickly that we needed to write job descriptions, build and organizational chart, and structure the company so that others could wear the additional hats we had to take on and off daily. I remember writing job descriptions (defining hats) on planes, at my kid’s piano lessons, and during the work day between urgent project work. Slowly, each role and realm began to take shape.

As the business has grown to five offices, two divisions, and many times the initial number of employees, I’ve worked myself slowly out of wearing all but one or two hats, mostly. I wear one primary hat as the leader and President of the organization, and then put on specific operational, developmental or sales hats depending on a project need, a unique ability I can apply in a specific realm or issue, or to support my colleagues. I say emphatically that if you are a business owner and are growing a business, it a disservice to yourself and your colleagues to not work yourself out of multiple roles and to find other hat wearers as quickly as possible. Our role is to be the owner, leader, facilitator, supporter. People are counting on us. You and I have a primary unique ability or two that we do really well. So do others working for us. They wear many hats better than we do. Our businesses will benefit the most by applying our unique ability, while also letting others do what they do best around us. If we do anything less, we are eroding the future stability and sustainability of our organization. We’ve got to build strategically all the time while working on the urgent matters of the day and still moving forward. Otherwise things stay status quo and can remain that way for a long time. This is not of any value in building and growing a business.

Often times what we experience in a business and life is due to our own lack of awareness of these issues. The more I’ve learned and the more I’ve grown and gotten inputs, the more the business has improved. While it may be a big challenge as a small business owner to have a 100% sustainable business without our presence 100% of the time other than for financing, leading, and providing strategic direction, that should be the goal. The people who work for us, our staff, our colleagues, all the clients, constituents and collaborators that are attached to and support the business, will all benefit.

Do yourself a favor and build in this manner. Give colleagues, and all those in your charge, the confidence that we are charting a course to allow for long-term growth with as little necessary input as possible from us as an owners. The less an owner has to be involved in day-to-day decisions, the more valuable the business. The more and owner can stay out while having their staff executing the sales and operations of the business, the more valuable the business to the staff, the world, and future acquirers. It may look good on the outside that we are involved all the time and working mega-hours, but in the end it’s counter-productive. Visualize yourself not in the business and reverse-engineer it. Figure out how to put others in the right positions and build something of value. Build the business. Build up the people. Share hats. Give away hats. See how good others look in them. The picture will look much better and the future will be much brighter.

Unbeatable

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The Tirpitz was a WWII German warship that could not be sunk.

The Titanic was iceberg-proof

The 1980 Russian Olympic Hockey team was going to win the gold metal, no question.

Sears is too big to ever be taken down by an online retailer.

Wal-Mart will never pass K-mart

Be careful of these statements and perceived realities. There’s always something or someone to defy the odds, and to beat the unbeatable. Whether we’re David or Goliath, watch, look, and listen. The impossible may be closer to reality than we think.

Drawing the line 

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One of the constituents on a project I’m working on recently established an extreme position in regards to a proposed solution; very extreme. Their position and proposed consequence has impact on a large, broad body of people, user groups, and businesses. The goal from the  owner was collaboration and shared solution. What they got from this particular group was the opposite.

The problem with an extreme position is that when we make a statement and proposed consequence, we’ve got to be willing and able  to back it up. “If you don’t do this, I’m going to do _________ (fill in the blank.)” 

Are you REALLY going to do that?

Sometimes a clear line needs to be drawn. Think and be mindful about where you draw it. You’ll have to back it up when someone challenges you on it.

Dissent

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Allow dissenting voice in meetings, especially around strategic discussions and direction. If  dissent doesn’t define this idea clearly, call it “allowing opposing viewpoints.” Some will say “I’m playing the devil’s advocate for a moment.” Phrasing aside, I find it good to appoint someone to state the “cons”, to point out the roadblocks, to take the opposite view, to articulate the worst case scenario. I’m not always excited about the opposing view. In fact for many years I didn’t think it necessary to hear, nor did I advocate for it. It made me uncomfortable. It still does at times. This is good. It allows freedom for all to vent their perspective and be heard. Collaboration in decision making wins. I’ve made many mistakes alone or in isolated decisions. Again, collaboration wins. Dissent and opposing viewpoints are one key part of that process. All stakeholders must voice input. In the end, the leader makes the decision, but  it’s harder to make the wrong one when all the facts are on the table and we are fully informed.

Margin and Creativity

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For me,

Margin (space, reflection, free time, lack of pressure) is necessary for facilitating creativity.

This is not the same as getting things done. Pressure and deadlines get things done.

But creativity needs time to flourish. It needs margin – the “space” found in a run, a hike on the trail, time away from work, a change of pace, dinner with friends, Saturdays, playing music, backpacking, long flights, collaboration with the team, an offsite for the day. (You can fill in more venues…)

Great ideas need “room.”

In our world “space” or “margin” doesn’t just happen. We have to make it happen. We have to shut off the noise. Don’t your best ideas typically come after you’ve had some time to simply dwell or think and not just “do”?

Maybe space truly is the final frontier, just not the one we typically think about.

Decisions 

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At work I’m trying to stay committed to “extreme decision making.” Meaning, I’m working intentionally at cutting down on the time required to make decisions, reducing the number of decisions I make through delegation, and by working at “extreme clarity.” My standard with day-to-day decisions is to decide immediately, on the spot, Yes or No, or to empower the person asking me, to decide. 

It’s  not always been that way. I can procrastinate with the best of them. I’m always getting things done, but it’s easy to delay key decisions, key planning, scheduling decisions and others. It’s easy to tell people “let me think about that” and not really mean it. 

I just made a decision yesterday about a legal and corporate level matter that sat on my desk for a year. Yes a year! I made the decision in 15 minutes. It was an important business decision in a specific geography. But the decision was much simpler than I’d made it to be for the year prior. I just had to get on with it.

I’ve just decided that I’m done with dragging my feet; period. Life is too short. Barriers must be removed. The weight of delayed decisions creates too much stress.

“YES,” NO,” & “YOU DECIDE” are the standard answers. There’s also the choice to ignore certain domains and decision areas, choosing what NOT to be involved in. This is key. Simply eliminate the responsibility for certain decisions that others can and should make themselves. We can only work so hard and so smart. Delegate and Empower people to make decisions based on established criteria. Make qualified choices to allow certain scenarios and decisions to be resolved without getting involved. When something is really wrong or really bad, and we recognize over time that it’s not being resolved, then pop in and deal with it. Create clarity, define, and move on. The goal should be to never have to go back to resolve that issue again. There’ll be a position and process to handle it.

Delaying decisions can be habitual. I am trying to remind myself to decide quickly and move on, every hour, of every day, of every week. It creates clarity. It reduces stress. It improves productivity. It sets a better tone. Indecision is a killer. Eliminate Indecision.

Shared Reality

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Track with me on this…

My business or domain, my reality

Your business or domain, your reality

Our mutual (together) business (work), our “shared” reality

Businesses working together (B2B) need to work in a SHARED REALITY space

If everything is done on one or the others terms, then there’s a one-sided reality. That can create tension, or worse, set up an opportunity for failure.

This has a strong impact on the working relationship

That’s why CONTRACTS MATTER.

We want to drive toward as mutual of a space as we possibly can, and it should be represented in the contract terms and conditions

As much as possible, we should seek agreements that set up for a win-win scenario.

I am to provide the client value in accordance with certain defined terms and deliverables or products. The client provides me with reasonable terms and conditions for value received

And if there’s a relationship, this should be easy. If there’s value expressed, it should be easy.

The shared reality space, the space in the overlapping circles, the closing of the gap, the intersection of the lines, that’s the space to seek. In that space lies the best opportunity for success. There’s potential for the stuff of greatness in that space.