Endless Knots

Ah, Verizon. Thy name is customer service

I've had a thing or two to say about Verizon in the past so I've paved the way for the latest.

Verizon changed its website. Nothing offensive there only it's now impossible to log in. Neither my login or my password works anymore and the resetting process also appears to be broken.

Well, perhaps it's all operator error on my side but when I called Verizon for help, I received quite a few sighs from those trying to assist me. Of course, they were all in the wrong department. Eventually someone gleefully transferred me to the "right" department only it was apparently the Verizon Wireless department, which seems to be all of Verizon, since all the choices were referencing that as in, Please type or say your Verizon Wireless Number, which I don't have. Shame on me, old-fashioned person, I was calling about a land line. Imagine!

After I didn't have my wireless number or trouble with my wireless number or have questions about my wireless bill, I eventually reached the website assistance department and it was...

Closed.

So I wrote to them (another 10 minutes of investigation to find a way to do that) and received this response: Please call xyz #, which was the same number, etc and so on.

I wrote again. This time I got this response from Vicki (not to be confused with Victoria, whom you will see, was not in today):

Dear J. Lipnack,

Thank you for your prompt response. My name is Vicki, and I am responding for my associate Victoria who is out of the office today. I apologize for the delay and the difficulty you are having. While you can contact us directly at (8866) 326-7937, because that line is minimally staffed, you will experience a lengthy hold time.

Instead, I will be happy to confirm your user ID via email. If this is agreeable with you, please confirm your answer to "What is the name of your first school?".

Once I receive your response, I will proceed accordingly. In the meantime, if you have additional questions, please let me know. I look forward to serving you.

Thank you for using Verizon. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Vicki

Verizon eCenter

Really? They appreciate my business? Vicki/Victoria. Wasn't that a movie?

More on corporate strategy - #NACD

I mentioned the “Board’s Role in Corporate Strategy” session below at the NACD Corporate Governance Conference. Here are a few more tidbits from the absolutely packed session, so popular that three rounds of additional chairs had to be brought in and people still were left standing in the back. 

Norm Augustine: Committees are very good at critiquing and dissecting but poor at putting things together. It befalls the management team to put together the strategic plan. The CEO sits down with management and comes up with the plan, then sits down with the board. I believe in the chair and CEO being held by the same person but, for this purpose, it may not be a good thing. 

Beverly Behan: In my work, I’ve made a number of international site visits. Could you talk about that when you were at P&G?  

Norm: I was on their board for 18 yrs. P&G does some unusual things: I spent a half-day sitting with an earphone in the Complaint Department listening to complaints. It was revealed to the customers that a board member was listening in. This gives you a real perspective from the person who counts: the customer. Sometimes we went to the annual offsite a day early. Then we paired up and visited someone’s home and asked if they were willing to talk about household matters. We wouldn’t tell them what company we were from. I’ve sat in fancy homes and homes with dirt floors. You get real insight into consumers. After about 20 minutes, people became very candid. I learned more during those visits than from all the management briefings. Here’s an example. We were in a very poor country. If you buy Tide in a big box, you save money. But if you have to walk a mile to get groceries, then it’s too heavy to carry and people buy it in little packages, which costs more. 

Peter Boneparth: At Jones [where he served as CEO], from a supply channel standpoint, it’s hard to understand what goes on in the far east but until you’ve seen it. It gives you a different perspective on corporate responsibility. At Kohl’s [where he’s a board member], the board is required to make five site visits per year. At Jet Blue [also a board member there], there is a maverick culture, which goes all the way to the board level. One benefit is free travel but we have to file trip reports and are expected to engage with people all up and down the chain on morale and talk to customers on flights. This is very important to developing corporate strategy. Industry expertise is at a premium in the boardroom.   Norm: I used to walk through stores on my own. I saw a woman taking non-Tide detergent off the shelf and asked her why she was not buying Tide. She said it was too expensive. It was $1 more per box. I bet her $2 that she wouldn’t buy it so she bought it. 

Beverly: I just talked to someone going onto new GM board. At the first meeting  with the new board, they all went to the Design Center where they walked them through the whole car making process from a blank piece of paper through to production. That afternoon they went to the performance track to see the Volt and other new vehicles drove them on city streets members of the production team. 

Question from audience: Could you tell us what information is essential for board to have in regard to strategy.

Peter: Competitive information is critical but don’t inundate the board with information. Understanding the customer base is critical. And you need good information on people in the organization.

Norm: I’m an engineer [as per below] which means I’m one of those guys who created the button that says “start” to turn off your computer. 

Peter: I’m now sitting on two bds. What I see now is the need for appropriate deference to management’s capability. You have to know enough about the industry to feel confident in asking the right questions. As CEO, I wasn’t comfortable that board at reservoir of knowledge. 

Norm: That’s the greatest dilemma I faced as a director. Your basic source of knowledge comes from the CEO and top management. If they’re not candid with you, there can be real problems. Alternatively, I’ve been on boards where two of the directors had buddies in management a few levels down feeding them information. Having been in the Pentagon, I believe in the chain of command and that’s just wrong. That company got into trouble and those directors with buddies knew about  problems before the rest of the board. It can undermine the CEO if you have board members dipping into the system without the CEO knowing.

And then this little reminder, which feeds into an upcoming post: 

Norm: American companies are being bought at an alarming rate.

How long does it take? - #NACD

One topic that came up a number of times at the National Association of Corporate Directors Corporate Governance Conference was this: How long does it take to change a culture? “Culture” is on the minds of directors and executives, not to mention the press (excuse me, the media, as “press” doesn’t quite capture its production any longer). But back to our subject, changing a culture. Given the meltdown. Given the excesses on a certain street with a bronze bull in the middle of it. Given, given, given…much talk about this at the conference, as per:

On the first night, when Bill George gave his talk, he mentioned having asked IBM’s Sam Palmisano how long it was going to take to transform that company’s culture: Five to seven years, Palmisano reportedly said, which he thought at that time would be the length of his tenure (he's been there seven).

The next morning, CA's (formerly Computer Associates) board chair, Bill McCracken, and its EVP and Chief Administrative Officer, Jim Bryant, presented the complicated story of CA’s return from an accounting scandal so serious that it sent its former CEO to jail. As luck would have it, I happened to sit down next to Patrick Gnazzo, the company’s Chief Compliance Officer, who pointed me toward Martin Biegelman's Building a World-Class Compliance Program, which contains a detailed account of what had happened there.

One intervention that CA used to rebuild confidence and trust, while relatively obvious, proved extraordinarily helpful: executive coaching.  “It really helped us,” said McCracken. “We had to create the culture of the company in the boardroom. The executive coach sat down with each of us and asked what each of us wanted to do personally to change. One of my changes, after 45 yrs in the business, was that for 38 of those years, I was at the top of a hierarchical organization. Now no one reports to me and I‘ve had to learn new skills.”

While some on the board initially thought coaching was a bad idea, ultimately everyone came around as they realized how much their own internal growth would affect the organizational change required to come back from scandal. (McCracken quipped that when another board member discussed his own coaching plan with his wife, she said, “I could have told you that.”)

Northwestern Professor and author Bill White, who chaired this panel, then addressed the observation that sits as the title of this post: how long does it take to transform a culture? For CA, the process is taking quite a long time. “One of the things that comes out when you read the litigation report,” White said, “is how deep these issues went, how embedded the problems were in so many levels of the organization. Do you see how long it takes to go down all the levels?”

CA has roundtables at all levels every year , where the “#1 subject is cross-boundary, cross-functional teamwork,” Bryant said.

“We’re taking it down through the whole organization,” said McCracken. “And, we’re all saying the same thing.”

Bill George's "Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis" - #NACD

The kick-off speaker at the National Association of Corporate Directors Corporate Governance Conference, Bill George, had some very practical advice for board members. A former CEO and board chair of Medtronic, George now teaches at Harvard Business School, serves on several high profile boards, and writes books. Four in the past five years, to be exact, all published by Jossey-Bass, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, publishers of four of Jeff Stamps' and my books. Jossey-Bass has a reputation for publishing good leadership books, in particular, as well as some real classics in organizational theory.

Given the crisis in business, kicked off by the meltdown precipitated by Enron and the two hundred firms that fell with it, and sent into molten lava by the financial debacle of 2008, George's advice is timely:

His points, from his new book, Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis:

1. Face reality: There's been a loss of trust among shareholders and the public AND it needs to be addressed candidly.

2. Don't be Atlas; get the world off your shoulders: CEOs can't do "this" (resolve crises) by themselves. They need to build coalitions and recruit help from boards and their organizations.

3. Dig deep for root causes. "Short-termism," George's "term," goes to the heart of this. Long-term thinking, including comprehensive succession planning, obviates some of the problems caused by only looking at the nearest hill. In thinking about succession, he favors internal candidates over external ones, who may not even know the industry of the company that they're being brought in to rescue.

4. Get ready for the long haul. No matter how bad things are, George says, they could get a lot worse so...we need to put structures in place that will survive even more adverse times, including executive compensation. George favors a common-sense approach: long-term rewards for long-term performance rather than unnecessary perks and short-term rewards that engender mistrust.

5. Never waste a good crisis. I really like this one. Bad times open up the possibility of great transformations.

6. You're in the spotlight so follow your "true north." Those last two words are the title of one of his books and a phrase in another. In short, stay true to your principles. Simple. Direct. Makes sense. And, he says, boards have to push transparency even if it makes the executive team uncomfortable.

7. Go on offense; focus on winning now. Here he cited one of my favorite corporate experiments in turning around a culture: IBM CEO Sam Palmisano's Values Jam, where more than 300,000 IBM employees were invited to participate in a several-day-long online conversation about IBM's values. When people are looking for great examples of corporate communication, they should look at what IBM has done with this "technology," very soft tech to be sure, very low tech in fact, mainly a facilitation technique for "massively parallel conversations," as IBM's Mike Wing has called them. I was delighted to hear George call this one out - as if it were commonly known. It should be.

Business Week: Managing the virtual workforce

Business Week has done a good job over the years of following trends in the virtual workplace. When one of our early books came out (maybe The TeamNet Factor) we got an audience with then (a bit more than cub) reporter John Byrne, now waaaay more than cub, i.e. he's editor of the mag.

Now Businessweek.com has a whole section on "Managing the Virtual Workforce," with these topics, one of which has quotes from none other than your favorite blogger, being me (see this one, a very good piece by Rebecca Reisner, who profiles Smart Balance, a company that seems to have not only conquered the fight against body fat but the same against corporate fat:

• Is There a Virtual Worker Personality?

  It turns out it's the gregarious types who thrive in virtual work set-ups, since they connect nonetheless. It's the shy types who feel isolated

• Managing Virtually: First, Get Dressed

  An Ernst & Young executive who has been managing teams virtually for a decade shares her tips and caveats

• A Smart Balance of Staff and Contractors

  How the fast-growing food company integrates its small permanent staff with a sizable contractor workforce

• How to Create E-Mails That Generate Action

  When face-to-face communication isn't an option, it's critical that your e-mails get read and are the impetus for getting things done

• Video: Managing in a Wired World

  Technology has made it possible for teams across the globe to collaborate, but it's still critical to make communication as human and authentic as possible, advises Lorenca Rosal

• Slide Show: Top 10 Tips for Sending E-Mail

  How to write e-mails that grab attention and motivate people to respond and take action

---

GeekDoctor: Leading by clicking around

I'm doing a webcast on virtual leadership in a couple of weeks for eighty people, all situated virtually and all around the world. The link between the executive sponsoring the event and me  will be via Cisco's Telepresence -- though for everyone else, thank heavens, I won't be in high def.

In preparing for the webcast, I asked a few questions of one of my virtual leadership role models (scroll down for some great pics taken the same day this one was), John Halamka, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose answers I thought others would enjoy seeing:

Q: You're on the move constantly. How do you maintain strong relationships with your direct reports?

*I live by Blackberry, laptop and conferencing technologies (Webex, iChat, Telepresence)

Q: What do you find most difficult as a "virtual" leader?

*Managing communications while constantly traveling is challenging.   My goal is to reduce the hours spent in airports through more virtual work

Q. What do you find to be easier when you're virtual?

*I eliminate many hassles - Parking, traffic, airport security lines, delayed flights, and lack of places to recharge my devices

Q. In terms of your reporting to your boss, how has your non-face-to-face presence affected your relationship?

*Paul [Levy, BIDMC's CEO] is just as virtual to me - we live in the world of social networking and web connectivity

Q. What advice on maintaining virtual connections with customers do you have for others who are very tech-savvy but whose customers may be less so?

*It's a journey. Start by eliminating as many face to face meetings as you can and set a goal of less travel/less in person meetings each year.

1 in 4 text while driving!

This is horrifying. Vlingo survey of 5000 people.

You

know

how

I

feel

about this.

"Social sites are building the database for the planet"

Thanks to Melinda Meyer Moses, I was able to attend the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium yesterday. Although I wasn't able to sit in for the whole day, I was able to catch a few excellent sessions, including the one on virtual organizations (you'll have to scroll to find it on the agenda) where Simon Crosby, Citrix's CTO for Virtualization and Management, dropped quite a few gems.

Honestly, it's hard for anyone on a panel about virtual organizations to say anything new. Most people are operating from the limited base of their own experience - their company, for example, which was the case with most panelists. I should say "is" the case with most panelists. I've been on a slew of such panels.

And, as is typical, regardless of the question, especially at a tech conference, which is where, say, 99.99% of these panels take place, the answer is almost always about technology, i.e. we use x, y, and z. Further, the only technologies referenced (again, typically) are the real-time things - teleconferencing, screen sharing, video - all useful, necessary, yadda yadda, but, in my experience, not what makes for profound breakthroughs in how we can work differently in a no-travel, post-meltdown, carbon-emission-intensive, whatever-the-name-of-the-next-flu-is world.

Yesterday's panel, with its earnest participants, was no exception, which is why Simon's remarks stood out. Good work, Simon. Reposting here the tweets (#mitcio -- get ready, there are tons), including my own, unmarked below. 

• Simon Crosby: "social sites building database for the planet" #mitcio
• Citrix CIO reports that distributed developers with rigorous process work beautifully w/out f2f or even flaming
• "Born-digital workforce doesn't live in locked down world" - Simon Crosby-CIO, Citrix @#MITCIO
• abbielundberg Virtualization threatens IT's existence - Simon Crosby, Citrix #mitcio
• aagee #mitcio how do we deal with expectations of born-digital workforce? Virtualization gives user own world free from legacy apps
• BillIves #mitcio Simon Crosby companies need to throw stuff off the cliff periodically (test recovery? or clear deck?)
• BillIves listening to panel on virtualization at #MITCIO event employees are ahead of most CIOs on this

• And from the convener of the panel, Irving Wladawsky-Berger via ESLundquist #MITCIO: The organizational skills to create virtual orgs lag the tech tools

Cutting budgets? Telecommuters offer help

According to a survey by Citrix Online, which makes software for telecommuters, "[t]wenty-one percent of workers would take a 5 percent cut in pay if they could work from home, even if it were for only 1 to 2 days per week:

When asked what they like most about telecommuting, employees cited having more control over schedules, even more than saving time and money on transportation. Female entrepreneurs were 50 percent more likely than their male counterparts to allow working from home.

Jill Nemiro on creativity in virtual teams...and a lot more

Jill Nemiro, PhD, book author, former actor, and film and video editor, is an expert in virtual teams. It must be close to ten years since I first heard from Jill as she was working on her PhD in an original field: Creativity in Virtual Teams. Her dissertation was so good that it was published - and she's gone on to do several more books.

When Jill got started, she was among a small number of people doing research on virtual work and, among those, she struck me as unusually collaborative and generous. We've stayed in touch ever since and, when she teamed up with Michael Beyerlein, Lori Bradley, and Susan Beyerlein to pull together The Handbook of High Performance Virtual Teams, she asked Jeff and me to participate, which we gladly agreed to. We got a cherished spot in such collections -- the very last piece about the future of virtual teams ("The Virtual, Networked Organization").

Just received notice that Jill's been interviewed by Vern Burkhardt in the Idea Connection ("Virtual Teams"), where she talks about her background, what interests her about virtual teams, and how creativity plays into their success. Thanks for the mentions, Jill, and here's her excellent list of eleven competencies for effective virtual teamwork (and, Endless Knotters, don't miss the interview):

• Developing an awareness of yourself and how you interact with others;
• Developing and practicing supportive communication skills;
• Building the ability to communicate effectively across cultures;
• Resolving conflict effectively;
• Problem solving and decision making skills;
• Managing stress because virtual work schedules are often 24/7;
• Time management and personal productivity skills;
• Developing and motivating others – coaching and empowering;
• Utilizing positive political skills to push ideas forward;
• Knowledge management, data gathering, and information access skills; and
• Developing ways to advance one's career in the virtual workplace.