Maxim #24
Bring solutions, not problems
This maxim is applicable both internally and externally. Everybody comes up against obstacles, but we consider it a sign of mental laziness to try to "drop" the problem onto someone else. You do this when you tell someone you have a problem but you don't suggest any possible solutions for the person to consider. What you have effectively done is given the responsibility for the problem to the other person. We have found that it is much more productive when you own your own problems, and you don't dump them on others. This doesn't mean you can't ask questions or get help, those are important elements of problem solving.
In some ways, this maxim is the essence of problem solving. At least to the degree that you do not start problem solving until you decide you own the problem. If you do not own the problem, you have little incentive to actively try to solve it, which takes time and effort.
In our world, information obstacles are common on a project. The information we need is rarely in the form that we need it and is often difficult to access. Put yourself in the shoes of a Project manager who has asked for some specific information and the staff returns and says one of these lines:
- I can't get the information because the system is down
- They don't track the information we are looking for
- The information I was given seems to be wrong
All three responses may be valid but they simply turn the problem over to the manager. Now the manager has the responsibility to figure out how to overcome the problem. If the manager does this, the person does not learn how to solve problems, and in fact the act of dumping problems on others is inadvertently reinforced. A smart manager will reply to any of the three statements above, "So, what do you suggest we do about it?"
Maxim #23
Always MECE
Business problem solving requires clear structured thinking. This is the basis of this Maxim. Being clear and logical requires the consistent application of MECE. MECE stands for mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. We aren't entirely sure where the term originated but generally we credit McKinsey & Company, a large strategy consultancy.
Few people naturally think or write within this framework. For most it is a skill you must learn. MECE starts with the top level answer and then deconstructs the solution into its constituent parts. This is the way your thinking should work when you are trying to solve a problem. For example, let's say the problem is that you have to help a company improve its profit. If you think of this at its highest level, you can improve operating profits by increasing revenue or reducing cost. Cost and revenue are distinct and separate components. As such they are considered mutually exclusive. Now when we consider the problem of profitability, do all other issues that affect profitability come under either revenue or cost? They do, therefore the list is also collectively exhaustive. From this starting point we could now break down revenue and cost into its subcomponents.
So, say we said that the key drivers that affect costs are material, labor, overhead, and paid hours. While they are all technically drivers of cost, material, labor and overhead are all mutually exclusive but paid hours is a subset of labor. This is a common error, as many people overlap different levels of thinking. The list is no longer mutually exclusive. What this does to the listener or the reader (or the problem solver) is confuse them.
Whenever you present or write anything, you do so to persuade someone that your hypothesis (whatever it might be) is correct. As such you make your solution statement upfront, support it with evidence, and then re-confirm the logic of your argument. It is the evidence you present in the middle that must be clear and logical. Every time you argue any point you in effect present people with a list of reasons why you are right. This list must be MECE, for the argument to be coherent and conclusive.
Every presentation, letter, memo or even e-mail should try to be MECE. Being clear and logical requires starting with the top level of your solution, making a list of the drivers that cause that solution, and then being sure that you don't confuse the drivers with their subsets.
Maxim #22
Don't filter information
This maxim refers to the natural tendency of people to try to decide whether something is important enough to let their manager know about it. People "filter" information based on their best judgment, and based on the faulty assumption that it is their job to take care of such matters and not to bother their manager.
This is particularly true when people are new to a company and are trying to establish themselves. The problem is that at this early stage most people lack the experience to make good judgment calls about what is serious or not. Sometimes seemingly insignificant comments or actions can be very damaging.
That is why you should never filter information. Let your manager decide if an unusual situation is serious or not. This does not mean that people should not think through the issues and develop a potential response or solution to discuss with their manager, but any unusual situation should always be brought to your manager's attention swiftly.
Maxim #21
When you don't know, ask
Many intelligent and well-educated people mistakenly believe that asking questions makes them somehow look less intelligent. Ironically the tendency to avoid asking questions actually reduces your ability to learn. Wisdom eventually teaches you that you learn by observing and by asking questions. The first trick however seems to be that you need to learn that you don't know as much as you think you do.
Carpedia is a case in point. When people
join Carpedia, the idea of being a management consultant seems fairly impressive to them. They want to come across as intelligent and capable to clients so there is a strong inclination to not ask questions. When they become a Manager at Carpedia, there is an even stronger inclination to not ask questions. By the time they make it to Partner, they realize how much more they could have learned if only they had asked more questions, but now ironically they wait for others to ask them questions.
Somehow over time, with a mixture of confidence and maturity you grow to understand that you learn the most by asking questions. Here are two common day-to-day practical examples to consider:
- Your manager explained the analysis she wants to see by the end of the day and you think you have a good idea how to do it. You probably don't, better to ask for clarity or you'll end up redoing it.
- Your manager asks you to review the area's backlog controls. You're not quite sure what that means but figure it is just like it sounds. It probably isn't, better to ask for clarity.
If you do not know something, ask for more information, help or guidance. There is no shame in admitting that you do not know something. Admitting a deficiency or a lack of understanding reflects a willingness to learn and grow.
Maxim #20
Judge by merit
The reality show called "The Voice" is competing against "American Idol", "The X-Factor", "America's Got Talent" and several other talent based shows. The show has an intriguing central concept: the four main judges listen to singers but can not see them. The design implies that removing visual clues will lead to a more accurate selection of the best voice.
This illustrates the inherent difficulty in this maxim, judge by merit. It's often hard to do. Appearance, environment, history, politics, and what's going on in someone's personal life all shape how we judge others. So the real challenge for managers is to be fair in determining what exactly "merit" refers to when a he or she recognizes, rewards or meters out consequence.
The most successful organizations we know try to develop and foster a meritocracy as part of their culture. To do this they develop measurement systems and tools and management behaviors that reinforce accountability throughout the organization. Meritocracy, by definition, only exists when stronger performers are rewarded and weaker performers are challenged to improve. At a department level, in order to effectively judge by merit you must develop key performance indicators that measure what your department is trying to achieve. The more concrete and objective these indicators are the better chance you have of creating a fair and consistent environment where strong performers can flourish.
Organizations that shy away from differentiating performance usually steer towards average and declining performance. The better performers are not inspired to lead and the weaker performers are not challenged to improve so average performance inevitably deteriorates. So as difficult as it is to be consistent and fair, it is very important that managers, and organizations, try to judge by merit.
Maxim #19
Don't be a victim
"Victimization"
The antithesis of empowerment is victimization. Within the context presented here, victims are people faced with negative situations who believe they have no alternatives available to them. In actuality, most victims do have options, but they can't define the troublesome situation in a way to succeed, they won't make a tough decision about what to do, or they refuse to act because they view the options before them as too expensive. Anyone can fall prey to this trap. Victims convince themselves they have no choice, but, in fact, choices are available. They are simply difficult to define, hard to select, and expensive to execute. For example, an individual could confront another person he or she is having problems with, but may then face anger or punishment. People could risk offending or irritating someone at work, or take the chance of losing a key position or possibly even their job. They may not like these alternatives; nonetheless, they exist. Victims, however, take the easy way out. ... Victimized employees and managers spend a great deal of their time and energy complaining about who or what outside themselves dominates their life. Empowered people spend their time and energy deciding what they want to achieve and what price they will pay for that success.
Excerpt from "Leading at the Edge of Chaos" by Daryl R. Conner.
People take on a victim position when they refuse to accept the accountability for the job they are assigned. Victims give up on tasks or try to pass the accountability onto someone else.
Here are some examples of classic "victims" in business:
- Manager blames other departments
- Manager blames the staff
- Staff blame the manager
- Management blames the union
- Sales reps blame the economy
"Don't be a victim" simply means don't let the environment or circumstances you find yourself in ever be an excuse for not accomplishing what you commit to. Once you say you are going to do something, you accept the responsibility of that project or task. No matter what effort is required, you need to find a way. If you adopt this attitude you will be more successful in everything you do and you will also quickly learn not to over-promise or over-commit.
Maxim #17
Errors kill credibility
Nothing damages someone's professional credibility as quickly as an error, even a minor one. While a simple calculation error or typo can seem trivial in the scheme of things, it implants doubt into your customer's mind. The customer now thinks if this person can make these simple errors, they can also make larger errors.
Errors occur for many reasons (e.g. ignorance, lack of time, poor planning). The most common errors we see are in spreadsheets and written communications. Spreadsheets can be deceiving because they print out or display very professionally and can hide simple calculation errors. Careless manipulation of formulas can cause errors that are difficult to visually detect. In written communications you need to be careful about grammar, spelling errors that miss detection by spell checker programs due to multiple meanings and basic sentence structure.
No matter the root cause, errors suggest a lack of caring or attention. Conversely, people notice attention to detail. Even in areas that are seemingly less significant, such as how products are packaged. Apple is well known for believing that packaging is part of the customer experience and reflects on the product itself. It pays great care and attention to the design and finish of its product packaging (and in fact the retail environment in which it places its products). The same "customer experience" holds true for presentations and report slides. Slides that are inconsistent in terms of colors or fonts, or are visually confusing, reflect poorly on the content of the message itself. Typos and graphic confusion can best be thought of as "visual errors". People sometimes dismiss paying too much attention to the "look" of a presentation by claiming that it's the substance that is important. This ignores the connections people make between content and visual quality.
To help avoid casual errors, always double-check your work before publishing or sending. For spreadsheets always do some random "sanity checks" on your work by making sure columns and rows actually add up like they are intended to. For presentations, if something looks somehow awkward or inconsistent, change it - it's not "good enough".
Carpedia Capital is pleased to announce its first investment transaction, following an extensive search and diligence process which culminated on November 1 with making a significant equity investment in the business of G.W. Anglin Manufacturing (“GWA”).
GWA is a leading upfitter in Canada for large scale, high performance commercial fleets – particularly for the complex vehicles primarily utilized by large natural gas utility, electric utility and telecommunication customers. As one of Canada’s few vertically integrated commercial vehicle upfitters, GWA designs, manufactures and installs a majority of the product it integrates into vehicles – providing customers with turnkey work vehicle solutions. GWA is also a Tier 1 supplier of low volume, light metal fabrications incorporated into heavy equipment vehicles and a Tier 2 supplier of low volume automotive parts.
In the words of Greg Tremblay, “GWA is an entrepreneurial success story in the Canadian manufacturing sector, one which has its best days yet ahead. We believe that the Company is poised to expand significantly as a result of its competitive advantages in quality, delivery, cost and innovation – each of which we expect to further strengthen through application of the Carpedia approach to building great businesses.”
From Carpedia Capital’s perspective, GWA is a great example of the type of business we set out to find. It is a testament to the quality of the company that it was the one business with which we chose to partner out of 125 opportunities reviewed, as well as representative of how many different factors, from pricing expectations and transaction size to suitable competitive positions, nature of operations, the availability of bank financing and personal chemistry, which must all coincide in order to make a good deal.
While we are proud of having made our first investment and completing the transaction, it is important to note that we are only at the very beginning, not the end, of our investment process. Now we must begin to move quickly in strengthening GWA’s competitive advantage, improving its productivity and emphasizing outbound sales effectiveness in order to deliver the business case we premised the investment upon.
For more information please see Carpedia Capital’s blog and the Globe & Mail.
Maxim #16
Understand the question first
Many people have a knee-jerk reaction to questions, 
and answer too quickly, assuming the question is challenging them in some way. The key point of this maxim is to make sure you properly understand what the "real" question is before trying to respond.
For example, in our business, a client may have a question about one of our observations or findings. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that the client does not believe in the findings and so you start to explain and justify why they are valid. In fact the client question may not be judgmental at all, he or she simply wants to better understand the issues. There may be no underlying need to be defensive. If you slow down your immediate response and probe for more information (such as, "can you expand on what you mean?") you often get a very different picture than what you originally assume.
This maxim challenges us to do several key communication activities simultaneously. First and foremost listen carefully to the question. Try to understand both the content of the question (what is being asked) as well as the intent of the question (why it is being asked). Don't jump to conclusions; ask for clarity or additional facts and explore the true intent of the question. It may be helpful to apply active listening techniques and reframe the question to make sure your understanding is correct. Only once you properly understand what the question is asking should you attempt to provide an answer.
And as always, if you don't know the answer, don't bluff. Acknowledge you don't know and promise to find out and get back to the person.
Maxim #18
Work hard, play hard
This maxim is a fairly common one, but sometimes easy to forget. It is intended to remind us that a "life balance" is important to everyone. Note that we try not to call this a "work-life" balance as is more common. "Work-life balance" almost by definition tends to define work in a derogatory fashion, which we think (and hope) doesn't have to be the case.
Working hard is a good idea, but so is playing hard. We find our most successful individuals and project teams pursue out-of-work interests just as vigorously as they do project work. Some industries are very demanding physically, intellectually, or emotionally. Management consulting can sometimes be all of these. It is not uncommon for a project team to become totally immersed in the deliverables of the engagement and lose sight of the importance of having enjoyment both during and after the workday. How this need for enjoyment outside work is accomplished depends on the makeup of the members of the project team. Some projects do group activities, others divert to more individual interests.
Many companies we work with do a good job of making sure their employees both work hard and play hard and other companies like Virgin and
Southwest Airlines for example, quite cleverly manage to build this maxim into the actual job environment itself.
Tell us how your company promotes a healthy life balance and what you do to work hard and play hard.