Archive for November, 2009

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

ActiveGarage: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: Not everyone who should blog actually blogs

The secret recipe for blogging success

If you’ve taken steps to become a blogger, perhaps you want to achieve some mix of fame, fortune, and influence. If you ask each of the top 100 bloggers how they became successful, they’ll provide their own perspective.

Take a look at my hero Seth Godin’s blog and search on any topic related to marketing. You will get a bunch of highly valuable and relevant articles. Insights that you can use today.

Or take a look at Lifehacker, a website dedicated to helping people make the most out of everyday technology. If you use computers and you visit this blog once, you will be addicted to it.

In both of these examples, the authors recurrently provide relevant and remarkable content

I call it the Blogger’s Principle of 3Rs.

Recurrently provide Relevant and Remarkable content.

Winning in the long-term will never rely on one single idea or strategy. What works today may not be sufficient to win tomorrow. Since breathtaking change is the only constant, I can almost guarantee that today’s strategies will become out-of-date in a year.

Your key is to find out the right combination of ingredients (strategies, tactics, ideas etc.) that will give you the results you will need for success today. With some trial and error (and some good advice), you will be able to find a solution that works for you. However, this winning combination will change as the marketplace changes. No single strategy blogging will stand the test of time.

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Blogging Tip: Relevancy changes with time. So get comfortable with change.

As an individual, you have limited influence on how the marketplace behaves. However, if you are very comfortable with change, you can adapt and deliver whatever the marketplace considers valuable today.

When you become comfortable with speed and change, you will have an unfair advantage over others. Most people resist change or wait for the right moment to take action.

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This book and other blogging books may give you the tips and techniques you need to take your blog to the next level. However, you should always be careful when accepting advice. We will talk about how to make the most out of the help available out there.

Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: blogging success, BLOGTASTIC!, Rajesh Setty

We all agree that social media is really effective in discovering people who have similar passions. Still, being in sites like Linkedin and Facebook, where people are connecting randomly it is hard to understand the value of these relationships you are building. It is possible, there isn’t any… But we will never be able to build deep relationships without one on one interaction or meetings in person… So, here are some steps to take virtual social interactions into real world:

1) Be present in community networks

Meet people in community forums that share your common interests. This way you can build relationships with people who live close to you and so you have access to them… In case of social media, these relationships can be in different parts of the world and not be as meaningful for your work or personal interests…

2) Take your business cards to these events

Don’t underestimate the value of business cards…it is great to have blogs, twitter accounts – but there is just a simple problem – to find you in cyberspace, one needs to know your full name….what if they got the wrong spellings or wrong name. With a business card, one can always Google your name…

3) Build Relationships

Yes, you can ReTweet posts and help other elevate their profiles…Still, there is value in sharing other gifts than RTs. Try calling some people you haven’t spoken in a while…you will be surprised how much more pleasure it is to talk to people than to DM or Email.

4) Understand social

Historically, social has been associated with people meeting, talking, exchanging ideas in person. These conversations have led to many innovations, wars and even consensus…the MasterMind thoery dictates that it requires people to exchange ideas that create possibilities they could not see for themselves… Humans will always be Social Animals…Long way before we become Cyber Beasts. So, engage in brainstorming ideas in a conversation….

5) Pleasant Personality

There is a advantage if people see you as having a pleasant personality…that is never visible on social media channels. Some people put pictures that are not true to their real selves…Don’t miss out on being generous to other with your pleasant personality….This will help you surround yourself with people who might potentially become friends, business associates or life partners… So, build connections with social media but power your relationships with personal interactions…

Contributed by Deepika Bajaj, President and Founder, Invincibelle, LLC. Invincibelle helps women who live and work in a multicultural world to accelerate their professional growth. Deepika is also the author of the book DiversityTweet: Embracing the growing diversity in our world. You can follow Deepika on Twitter at invincibelle

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Communication, deepika bajaj, http://activegarage.com, marketing, possibilities, Sales and Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

The Power of Noticing

by Himanshu Jhamb, Nov 23, 2009

As human beings, certain behaviors are hard wired in our biology (for example hiccups, burps, etc) and we cannot do anything about them unless we step aside and take notice. Similarly, noticing is a prerequisite to acting powerfully and effectively in all domains. How do you notice and get better at it? The answer is in your ability to draw Distinctions. For example, when playing soccer, if you are able to notice the distinction “Off-Side” you can play an effective game. more…

Quality #11: Driving Change Through Leadership

by Tanmay Vora, Nov 23, 2009

The first 10 posts in this series were about the distinctions in the quality process. Process Improvement is a “change” game and this post talks the critical role leadership plays in implementing this change in an organization. Forcing change will have limited impact, if any. Effective and positive change happens when the stakeholders’ intent changes. Unless all the participants get involved passionately, success is questionable. So, how do you do this? In this post, Tanmay gives some pointers on how “Change Leadership” can drive the process improvement initiative. more…

Strategic Plan Critical to Successful Implementation of Key Decisions

by Steve Popell, Nov 24, 2009

In a previous post, Steve discussed how to build your company into an attractive strategic candidate. In this post he delves into the details of the strategic planning process. To start with you need to assemble a good team, select a facilitator and go through the project initiation phase. The charter of this team will be to create a strategic plan involving the following key elements: vision, mission, long-range goals, short-term goals, task assignments, action item and monitor plan vs actual performance. more…

Quality #12: Middle Management and Quality Culture

by Tanmay Vora, Nov 24, 2009

In the last of the 12 part series, Tanmay brings forth the importance of middle management to achieve an organization’s quality objectives. It is crucial for middle managers to reinforce the quality commitment with positive communication and motivation. Their behavior and attitude ultimately shapes the overall organization’s culture. With the middle management focused, the rest of the culture building becomes much easier. more…

Interview for Business Knowledge

by Guy Ralfe, Nov 25, 2009

In our professional lives, we frequently have to interview candidates for positions in our organization. Guy had to do this recently, which is the inspiration for this post. These interviews take time out of our busy schedule and it is costly. But instead, if we treat this as a learning exercise, the cost gets lowered. In addition to finding out about the candidate’s abilities and how they will fit in our organization, we can use these opportunities to learn about the candidate’s organization’s practices and processes in sales, project management, product delivery, etc. You never know what you will learn and how valuable it will turn out to be. more…

BLOGTASTIC: Why you (still) can’t ignore blogs today?

by Rajesh Setty, Nov 25, 2009

BLOGSTATIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging is a book by Rajesh Setty, mentor of Active Garage. You can find the Table of Contents and advance praise here. We are going to release the entire book on this site over the next few days.

In the first post in this series, Rajesh explains why blogging is still relevant even with the onslaught of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. “Change is the only constant” is the old adage. “Change at breathtaking speed is the only constant” is more appropriate for the times we live in. To keep up with the change, we need to learn at the same speed and blogs provide the medium for that. It is the same with experts sharing their knowledge. Writing and publishing books have a long gestation period. With blogs, these experts share their knowledge instantaneously. But at the same time, there is a blogging crisis slowly brewing. more…

Remaining Competitive over the long Road

by Guy Ralfe, Nov 26, 2009

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the end of the year. This is accompanied by the usual flurry of activity to meet the yearend goals. Nothing in life happens overnight and we should plan for the future every step of the way. It is common to see projects under pressure when the deadline nears, but sufficient progress has not been made. It could happen in careers too. We need to meet our short term goals, but they have to be viewed in conjunction with the long term strategic plan. more…

BLOGSTATIC: A visit to the blogging graveyard

by Rajesh Setty, Nov 26, 2009

If you are not having fun with blogging, you may want to revisit your decision and see if blogging is really for you. Otherwise, your blog will end up in the blogging graveyard, sooner than later. There may be other ways to achieve your career and personal objectives without the blogging effort. But if you do decide to blog, make sure you treat your blog with respect and value your readers time. Do not add noise to the web – there is already plenty of it. more…

So you think you are educated…

by Himanshu Jhamb, Nov 27, 2009

Education is not about going through the motions of schooling or memorizing facts or getting degrees from colleges. Those may be the mechanisms to gain knowledge, but that does not equate to education. Education is not just about knowing… it is, in fact, more about doing. For example, though Henry Ford had little schooling, he was one of the most educated man in this times. The fact that he is legend, is proof enough for that. If you are stagnating in your career and want to address your knowledge gap, do so in the context of doing, rather than knowing. more…

BLOGSTATIC: Not everyone who should blog actually blogs

by Rajesh Setty, Nov 27, 2009

Just like everything else in life, blogging is not for everybody. Some blog with the notion that just because they do so, they are somehow special. By the same token, there are others who do not blog, because they feel it is not consequential. The bottom line is, it does not matter whether yo have a blog or not. You should strive to make an impact on the world. If someone can make a bigger difference without blogging, then they have found a different vehicle to make the impact. more…

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

ActiveGarage: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: A visit to the blogging graveyard

Not everyone who should blog actually blogs

Just like anything else in life, blogging is not for everyone.

There is such a low barrier to entry to blogging (or for that matter any social media initiative) that you rarely become special just because you are blogging.

I have met bloggers who think they are special people because they are blogging. Some of them are in love with themselves. Some of them treat their most mundane experiences and worn-out insights with reverence. For some, blogging gives a sense of self-fulfillment. I can honestly say that these bloggers live in a fantasy world.

Blogging is not for everyone. In fact, I’m sure that you and I can list dozens of incredibly smart and insightful people who have never written a single blog post. Some of these people are respected thought-leaders in their field, and yet they’d still never consider writing their own blog. It’s not their style.

We could spend years encouraging these individuals to start a blog, and they’d still not adopt the technology and enter the blogosphere. Some bloggers then say “well, non-bloggers aren’t important or cutting edge. They don’t get it.”

Einstein and Gandhi never posted daily blogs, but they still managed to get their messages out to the world. You might say that blogs didn’t exist in their times. We can also list equally smart and equally powerful people today who don’t have a blog and who don’t need to have a blog to get their message across.

When you join a community, it’s tempting to look down upon people who aren’t part of the group. This pattern manifests itself offline as well as in the blogosphere.

Let’s say you have invested time earning your MBA. You’re in a meeting with an entrepreneur who has earned only an undergraduate degree, and you discount their ideas. You might assume that you know more than the entrepreneur and miss an opportunity. If you get suckered into this mindset, you’ll overrate yourself and lose your grounded perspective.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether you have a blog or not. You should strive to make an impact on the world. If someone can make a bigger difference without blogging, then they’ve found a different vehicle to make that impact.

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Blogging Tip: Check your fantasies at the gate

You are not cool just because you blog. Someone is not less cool because they choose not to blog.

It is easy to self-validate your actions, and it’s also easy to assume that others who are not taking those actions as clueless or behind the curve.

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Now, assuming you are someone who has determined that blogging is right for you, how do you ensure that you succeed in blogging? We will look at the secret recipe for blogging success.

Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: Albert Einstein, BLOGTASTIC!, fantasy, Gandhi

While I was growing up, I was told that the meaning of education is going through the motions of schooling followed by a professional collegial degree. For about 80% of my life, I held onto that as the truth. It took a lot of stagnation in my career and also the mundane routine of doing the same thing day-in and day-out to shake me out of my tranquility. There is a saying about teachers – “Teacher shows up when the Student is ready”. I was ready… and my teachers showed up. Over the next 3-4 years I surrounded myself with teachers and learned what it really means to be educated.

Here is what I learnt:

1. Education is not only about gaining the knowledge of something as in memorizing facts or formula, it is also about knowing when to apply what to produce situations that you want for your future.
2. Education is about learning new distinctions that give you the power of noticing what has gone unnoticed so far… and is perhaps even (without your knowledge) running you or your life.
3. Going through the motions of school and college is a part of education as it makes you minimally viable in the marketplace – but that’s not where it should stop. Learning, like living life, is a continuous process.
4. Education is not just about knowing … it is, in fact, more about doing.

The last point is beautifully depicted in a story about Henry Ford, in the book The magic ladder to Success by Napolean Hill. The story goes something like this:

During World War II, Henry Ford brought a suit against one of the national newspapers for calling him Ignorant. The lawyers of the newspaper asked Ford a number of questions for quite some time in front of the jury at the trial trying to prove that Ford was, indeed, ignorant. One of the questions asked was “How many soldiers were sent by the British in the war of 1776?” Ford’s response was “I don’t know how many were sent but I have heard that it was a lot more than ever went back”. Ford continued to play with them zestfully, often responding with such witty answers to more of these testy questions… until a point when he grew really frustrated with a rather insulting question. He said “If I should really wish to answer the foolish question you have just asked or have been asking let me remind you that I have a row of buttons hanging over my desk. By pressing the right button, I could call in any number of people who would give me the correct answer to all the questions you have asked and to many that you have not the intelligence to either ask or answer. Now, will you kindly tell me why I should bother about filling my mind with useless information in order to answer all foolish questions you have to ask, when I have able people around me whom I can call on, if I really need the answers to these questions?”

Henry Ford had little elementary schooling, but, clearly he was one of the most educated men in his times. He probably did not have a lot of knowledge but he more than compensated for the lack of it, in his application and doing… The fact that he is a legend, now, is proof enough for that.

If you are at a point where you feel stuck or stagnated in your career, perhaps a place to look would be your “knowledge gap” and be careful with how you read what I just wrote – I use the word knowledge in the context of doing, now knowing.

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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.

Tagged as: active garage, application, career, college, education, future, henry ford, himanshu jhamb, notice, school, stagnation, stuck, student, teacher, work

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

ActiveGarage: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: Why you can’t afford to ignore blogs today?

A visit to the blogging graveyard

If you started blogging because it seemed cool, you may be struggling or suffering to continue the effort.

• If you are constantly suffering with what to write next, you may not be blogging on the topic that you are passionate about
• If you are not getting enough traffic to your blog, you may not be spending enough time building relationships with your audience.
• If you have ideas but struggling to write, then you are not investing enough in yourself to acquire the skills required to blog
• If you have ideas and are passionate about a topic and are inclined to write but don’t have the time, you have not worked to integrate blogging in your life yet.

In summary, if you are not having fun with blogging, you might want to revisit your decision and see if blogging is really for you. Otherwise, your blog will end up in the blogging graveyard, sooner than later.

There may be other ways you can achieve your career and personal objectives without the blogging effort. It’s better to quit blogging gracefully than waste your readers’ time. Know when to walk away from your blog.

Each day, people add plenty of new noise to the web. Some of the ways people introduce more noise are:

• Maintaining blogs that are well-below average in quality
• Participating in discussions without adding value (users have to sort through what you wrote to get to the meat of those discussions);
• Writing because they have to write something and not because they have something of value to say
• Not having a clear focus and using the blog as a diary or a scratch pad.
• Engage in controversial topics or “topics of the day” just to get traffic

No one has the spare time to sort through the noise. As people grow and become more powerful, they have less time and tolerance for noise. In the long-run, nobody forgives you for lowering the signal-to-noise ratio on or off the web.

Treat your blog with respect. It may take you only ten minutes to post something. You can probably even rationalize a sub-standard post to yourself, but don’t get lured into that trap. Remember that every reader of your blog will probably spend five minutes reading what you wrote. It better be worth their time.

Look at your blogging stats. Multiply the number of readers by the time that it will take them to read it. One poor post can waste hours, days, or months of your total readerships’ time. That’s not the reputation you want to have!

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Blogging Tip: On or off the blog, if you are not at your best, revisit your priorities

If you are blogging, why not strive to be the best at it? If you are not the best, you are an also-ran. The best get a premium for what they bring to the table and “also-ran”s typically are just part of statistics.

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Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: BLOGTASTIC!, premature death, priorities

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the 5 weeks of holiday season in the USA. For many it will be a time when people’s focus is on the near term line in the sand, marking the end of the year – this will have people working to make/protect their targets, others resigned and looking forward to seeing the back end of this tough year and hoping for a better start next year and many public companies working every angle to close the quarter with the best results they can.

Whatever the case people are suddenly driven by the appearance of a tangible situation that they can  now envision. What we need to be mindful of is that what we do now in a tactical manner is still part of fulfilling our longer term strategic plan.

I’m a subscriber of Rajesh Setty’s newsletter (you can subscribe here) where he just  shared a beautiful story about “The Daffodil Principle” read it here. What this story exposed for me was the power of a long term vision and also that we need to achieve and produce over our entire careers and not just focus on the here and now. We would all like the quick win – like winning the lottery, but statistically that is as close to impossible as you can get – don’t get me wrong people do win the lottery but there is nothing other than buying a ticket that you can control the outcome of that situation.

Ultimately most of us are going to need to produce for our full careers to meet our ambitions. We must not forget that we are also playing for a longer term game, our careers, as we approach the year end. Think carefully about the consequences of the actions you may choose today, to meet your short term objectives, that you don’t have to live with the consequences after the horizon has passed.

I see similar action taking place on projects in the same way as careers. Projects have a lifecycle that we can equate to a career, but when we get close to delivery dates, slack is gone from the system, pressure is everywhere and people make rash illogical decisions to keep a delivery date. This action is the same as what happens in the marketplace approaching the year end deadline. As in projects, the consequences of shortsighted action always surface later and the consequential cost to resolve quickly becomes far more than the cost to have acted correctly in the first instance. An example I hear at this time of year  is how sales are completed in the closing weeks of the current year, which have a significant impact on the start of the next year when the fulfillment comes into play.

My message here is very similar to the ancient story of the tortoise and the hare, just that today’s market also requires some traits of the hare mixed in with the tortoise. Whatever we do we have to act with regard for the future consequence but at the same time remaining better than our competitors.

Remaining ahead of the competition is beautifully demonstrated by this slideshow shared with our organization today in preparation for the coming year. Enjoy and wishing a happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers.

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: Action, active garage, ambition, Business Management, career, execution, goals, Guy Ralfe, long term, sales, short term, Startegy, Tactical

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

ActiveGarage: BLOGTASTIC project

Introduction: Why you (still) can’t ignore blogs today?

Twitter, Facebook and other social networks seem like they have taken the world by storm. Take any social network and you will find some form of “status update” option. You can keep sharing and listening to what others are sharing.

It seems like the age for the real-time web has come.

In this world, are blogs still relevant?

You bet, they are.

You still need a home base to establish your thought leadership. Unless you are a social media consultant (even most of them have a blog), you cannot escape from having a home base. A blog provides that home base.

One thing that has NOT changed is the velocity of change within this world . We always knew that change itself was the only constant. This was before the world of computers. With computers and globalization, the statement concerning change needs to be changed.

May be the statement has to be something like:

“Change at a breathtaking speed is the only constant.”

We must adapt to this new world order. The questions, therefore, are:

1. How do we learn the new rules of the game?
2. How can we adapt to these new rules?

We could become eternal students and constantly upgrade our knowledge. Yet, traditional education formats have a significant disadvantage. Most course curricula will lag behind at least by months, if not years!

It is the same case with experts sharing their knowledge. When they share it only via books, they get dated very soon.

This is where blogs come in to play. Blogs have a distinct advantage. When we follow thought-leaders in the blogosphere, we tap into the daily insights of the world’s best minds. For most fields, you can stay current by following a hundred or so people—people specific to your professional fields as well as thought leaders such as Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Doc Searls.

These thought leaders discuss ideas that are very relevant to the current times. Over a period of time, following these blogs can:

(a) Bring you closer to the realities of the new world;
(b) Prepare you for the massive changes that are happening;
(c) Help you adapt to the new rules;
(d) Make you smarter (almost on a daily basis); and
(e) Offer huge leverage.

Many of these thought leaders will charge a fortune if you want them to consult for you. Through their blogs, you will receive almost the same insights. You get all the above advantages for free!

People rely on blogs to get information, to make decisions, and to keep up-to-date with what is happening. Blogs increasingly create a powerful impact on our lives.

In the short-term, starting a blog seems like a good strategy. Many people already seem to know that. Just look at the number of new blogs that are created every single minute.

But, if you look deeper, there is a blogging crisis slowly brewing. Sadly, what never gets talked about is the number of blogs that die prematurely. Young blogs, ones that are not even a year old, enter the blogging graveyard almost everyday. My friend Alan who advises CEOs on Strategy and Implementation started a blog and was at it for more than six months. Of course, then he got busy with his projects and between projects and family the blog took a back seat. I hear stories like this all the time. There is nothing write or wrong it is just the way it is.

How do you ensure that your blog is not a victim of premature death?

Tomorrow, we will look  at the most frequent reason why blogs enter the blogging graveyard

Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: doc searls, guy kawasaki, seth godin, tom peters

Recently I was asked to step in and conduct an interview for a consulting position. My initial reaction was “not another one!”  For me interviewing seems to have such a high cost to it and also a relatively high failure rate just because people can raise their game momentarily (up to 2 hrs for an interview) but maintaining that performance over a number of months on the job is where proof of the interview and selection becomes apparent.

At the start of the interview I found my mood in the wrong place, the flow of the interview felt strained and awkward for me and I suspect as much for the candidate. I thought to myself ‘how would I like it if I was the candidate?’ If it was me taking the time out of my day to be at the interview, I would want it to be as beneficial to me as possible. I would want a fair chance to present my experiences and competencies to demonstrate the potential value for the hiring organization and I need to make an assessment if this position and company is where I want to take my career.

So then what is the purpose of the interview for the hiring organization? I needed to present the company as a possibility to the candidate, give guidance about the position in order that we can make an informed decision on whether to proceed with the candidate. I was surprised how similar both sides of the process were and really that this was just as important for our organization as it was for the candidate, we don’t want a good candidate turning us down! My mood was quickly adjusted and the interview picked up and became a far more engaging and effective interaction.

Now as the interaction developed I suddenly became aware of another possibility I had been overlooking during my previous interviews – interviews are a learning opportunity!

Most candidates that apply for a position generally get to the interview because they have some tangible experience in a domain that you are seeking to fill. Sometimes they might even come from a competitor, and because of the interview situation candidates are willing to talk more freely than they might otherwise about their experiences and previous organizations.

Now I found myself listening to the candidate, not only for his or her relevant experiences, but also the information that was being provided to describe and substantiate situations. I was suddenly aware of a whole load of information being provided in relation to how a competitor is running their operations.

Some examples of the kinds of information that can be shared are:

• Sales cycle and licensing structures
• Potential clients
• Project structures and execution
• Project and organizational staffing
• Project methodologies
• Charges and rates
• Salaries and performance plan structures
• Lessons learned in product delivery
• Networking and references
• Product strategy
• etc

Often people join and attend forums to gather insight into these topics. By looking at an interview as an engagement opportunity, more than just screening candidates, you will be surprised at how much information and learning you can get – remember “knowledge is power in the knowledge age”

Interviews are still costly, but if you look at them as a tool to hire candidates and a source of knowledge to evaluate and build your business with – the cost just got a whole lot less.

As a foot note for job seekers: remember you are always being interviewed, during every interaction people draw assessments of you. Many people tell stories about how they were lucky to be in the right place at the right time, the truth is that they produced the right assessment at the right time.

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: ActiveGarage, Business Management, competitors, Guy Ralfe, Interviews, listening, secrets, www.activegarage.com

Welcome to the final post in this 12-part series on QUALITY, titled #QUALITYtweet – 12 Ideas to Build a Quality Culture.

Here are the first eleven posts, in case you would like to go back and take a look:

1. Quality #1: Quality is a long term differentiator
2. Quality #2: Cure Precedes Prevention
3. Quality #3: Great People + Good Processes = Great Quality
4. Quality #4: Simplifying Processes
5. Quality #5: Customers are your “Quality Partners”
6. Quality #6: Knowing what needs improvement
7. Quality #7: Productivity and Quality
8. Quality #8: Best Practices are Contextual
9. Quality #9: Quality of Relationship and Communication
10. Quality #10: Inspection can be a waste if…
11. Quality #11: Driving Change Through Leadership

#QUALITYtweet Middle management is the glue

joins long-term organizational goals with short-term

improvement actions.

Strategies for growth and improvement that take a shape in corporate boardrooms are implemented on the floor by people at all levels. Middle managers translate these larger goals and vision into actionable tasks that teams execute. Middle management of your organization plays a pivotal role in mobilizing people to execute tasks in line with larger goals and values.

Most “Quality Improvement” literature focuses on “commitment from the top”. That is the first step. I would also like to emphasize on “commitment from the middle management” because they are a very important link between the top and the bottom.

The primary focus of the top management should be on nurturing the middle layer of management, for they can make a huge difference in organization’s growth. They form the culture and set the tone and behavior for people who execute. A strong middle management means strong organization.

Typically, the role of middle managers in quality management is:

• To ensure that all actions, tasks and behaviors are aligned to the broader vision and goals.
• To build a strong customer oriented culture by setting right examples.
• Not just to manage people, but truly lead them.
• To have a strong business acumen to facilitate right decision-making
• To be oriented to and driven by customer needs, hence building a customer-oriented culture.
• To take accountability of culture-building and not always look at the top for directions.
• To mobilize people to drive quality.
• To involve people at all level in team in process improvement
• To ensure right flow of information at all levels
• To manage employee behaviors and focus on team effort to deliver quality

Top management should formally delegate responsibility of process improvement to a group or an individual. If quality improvement isn’t anybody’s job, it is not surprising that it doesn’t get done.

People look at their leaders as role models who are expected to be setting right examples. Middle management behavior and attitude ultimately ends up shaping the overall organization culture. If you want to get a pulse of an organization, just observe how middle managers communicate and the content of communication. With positive communication and motivation, employees can be truly engaged to the mission of the project and hence the organization. Quality of communication and leadership with internal customers (people) is as important as that with external customers.

Managers tell stories that people believe in and adopt. Challenge for people at the top is to ensure that middle managers tell right stories, which ultimately builds the right culture.

Keep your middle management focused, and rest of the culture building activity becomes much easier.

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Tanmay is a Software Quality Management professional based out of India. He hosts QAspire Blog and tweets as @tnvora. He is also an author of the book #QUALITYtweet – 140 Bite-Sized Ideas to Deliver Quality in Every Project

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