How to Spend the First 10 Minutes of Your Day

If you’re working in the kitchen of Anthony Bourdain, legendary chef of Brasserie Les Halles, best-selling author, and famed television personality, you don’t dare so much as boil hot water without attending to a ritual that’s essential for any self-respecting chef: mise-en-place.

The “Meez,” as professionals call it, translates into “everything in its place.” In practice, it involves studying a recipe, thinking through the tools and equipment you will need, and assembling the ingredients in the right proportion before you begin. It is the planning phase of every meal—the moment when chefs evaluate the totality of what they are trying to achieve and create an action plan for the meal ahead.

For the experienced chef, mise-en-place represents more than a quaint practice or a time-saving technique. It’s a state of mind.

“Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks,” Bourdain wrote in his runaway bestseller Kitchen Confidential. “As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system… The universe is in order when your station is set…”

Chefs like Anthony Bourdain have long appreciated that when it comes to exceptional cooking, the single most important ingredient of any dish is planning. It’s the “Meez” that forces Bourdain to think ahead, that saves him from having to distractedly search for items midway through, and that allows him to channel his full attention to the dish before him.

Most of us do not work in kitchens. We do not interact with ingredients that need to be collected, prepped, or measured. And yet the value of applying a similar approach and deliberately taking time out to plan before we begin is arguably greater.

What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at your desk? For many of us, checking email or listening to voice mail is practically automatic. In many ways, these are among the worst ways to start a day. Both activities hijack our focus and put us in a reactive mode, where other people’s priorities take center stage. They are the equivalent of entering a kitchen and looking for a spill to clean or a pot to scrub.

A better approach is to begin your day with a brief planning session. An intellectual mise-en-place. Bourdain envisions the perfect execution before starting his dish. Here’s the corollary for the enterprising business professional. Ask yourself this question the moment you sit at your desk: The day is over and I am leaving the office with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. What have I achieved?

This exercise is usually effective at helping people distinguish between tasks that simply feel urgent from those that are truly important. Use it to determine the activities you want to focus your energy on.

Then—and this is important—create a plan of attack by breaking down complex tasks into specific actions.

Productivity guru David Allen recommends starting each item on your list with a verb, which is useful because it makes your intentions concrete. For example, instead of listing “Monday’s presentation,” identify every action item that creating Monday’s presentation will involve. You may end up with: collect sales figures, draft slides, and incorporate images into deck.

Studies show that when it comes to goals, the more specific you are about what you’re trying to achieve, the better your chances of success. Having each step mapped out in advance will also minimize complex thinking later in the day and make procrastination less likely.

Finally, prioritize your list. When possible, start your day with tasks that require the most mental energy. Research indicates that we have less willpower as the day progresses, which is why it’s best to tackle challenging items – particularly those requiring focus and mental agility – early on.

The entire exercise can take you less than 10 minutes. Yet it’s a practice that yields significant dividends throughout your day.

By starting each morning with a mini-planning session, you frontload important decisions to a time when your mind is fresh. You’ll also notice that having a list of concrete action items (rather than a broad list of goals) is especially valuable later in the day, when fatigue sets in and complex thinking is harder to achieve.

Now, no longer do you have to pause and think through each step. Instead, like a master chef, you can devote your full attention to the execution.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.

Knowing When to Fire Someone

George is the most talented, productive executive Roy ever had to fire.

George had pulled off a string of celebrated victories and won a reputation as a strong performer. Having been hired to lead his hospital’s compliance program as regulations grew increasingly complex, he had put the policies and procedures into order, achieving a goal that had eluded the organization for years.

Roy was grateful that this burden had been lifted off his shoulders. In fact, he was so smitten that he didn’t notice what else was going on — that George (and for the record, this is a composite case) had alienated colleagues and failed to create the sense of urgency needed to persuade employees to complete the required training. George’s excellent work was of little value if it wasn’t fully implemented throughout the organization.

As other team members started to complain, Roy made repeated attempts to coach George to improve his interpersonal and communication skills, but George rebuffed him.

It took Roy a while to see the corrosive impact of George’s more subtle deficiencies and to make up his mind about what to do. Roy was well aware of the cost and disruption of a termination. He spent so long weighing the issues that he nearly caused irreparable damage to his team’s collegiality, reputation, and performance.

Roy eventually realized that keeping difficult people around can undermine what should be a leader’s number one objective: maintaining a positive and productive work environment. If Roy had used a tool such as a simple worksheetto help him evaluate the costs and benefits of keeping George on board, he might have determined that George’s impact on the team’s productivity and esprit de corps outweighed the value of his contribution much sooner, to everyone’s benefit.

In The No Asshole Rule, Robert Sutton makes a case for banning jerks from the workplace because of the devastation they can inflict on coworkers’ emotional well-being and work quality. But skillful individuals don’t have to be full-blown tyrants to wear out their welcome.

Working with people who refuse to accept criticism is one of the thorniest management issues a leader can encounter. What may start out as a modest deficiency — one that could be easily addressed with performance coaching — can shift to an insurmountable management challenge when the employee resists feedback. The original performance issue soon becomes compounded by dysfunction in the manager-employee relationship, making the situation much more difficult to assess.

Because terminating someone is such an important and complicated strategic decision, it helps to have an objective way to measure the impact of a difficult employee, including a dispassionate evaluation of the disruption caused by turnover. Using the worksheet to quantify the factors in a termination decision can help you evaluate the costs and benefits of individuals’ performance, their impact on team dynamics, and bottom-line results. You can list such factors as the employee’s likelihood of improvement, the drain on your energy, and the cost of replacement. The tipping point comes when the cost of keeping an employee is greater than the disruption of letting him or her go. Such a tool could have helped Roy make the decision about George a lot sooner.

Or consider Jeff, a human-resources executive in a large global company (another real, but disguised, case): One of his managers, Karen, had a very strong skill set and brought passion and deeply relevant experience to her role. She performed well initially, but as the demands of her job grew, she lost focus and had increasing difficulty completing complex projects.

Unable to manage her time well, Karen became a demotivating influence on her team members, failing to keep them informed. For close to a year, Jeff tried to help Karen get back on track. Despite being an HR expert and well acquainted with best practices in delivering feedback, he was unable to overcome her defenses and motivate her to work on her deficits. Worse, these conversations generally left her moody and unpleasant to be around.

Karen wasn’t a jerk at all. She was well-liked, but she was so defensive when getting feedback that she couldn’t work on addressing the problems. Over time, Jeff found himself doing more and more of Karen’s job himself. He continued to compensate for her gaps for way too long because the cost and disruption of making a change were so great.

However, Karen’s teammates grew resentful as her deficiencies began to affect the group’s ability to deliver. Jeff knew it was his obligation to minimize obstacles in the way of the team’s performance, particularly as the team was expected to produce more results with fewer resources. Equally important, Jeff felt drained by confronting Karen’s crankiness, especially when his effort had little chance of producing positive results.

Clearly, doing his subordinates’ work was not the best use of Jeff’s time, and facing Karen’s moods was not the best use of his energy.

So in spite of her skills, experience, and institutional knowledge, and notwithstanding the disruption that a vacancy would cause, Jeff fired Karen. Eventually, Jeff’s decision was fully validated by the significant positive impact of Karen’s successor. Jeff’s only regret was that he had squandered so much time avoiding making the decision.

Leaders are responsible for managing the resources under their control. In most cases, the single greatest resource they manage is people, with compensation and benefits consuming as much as 80% of operating budgets. To sustain energy and engagement, and to retain the best talent, leaders must endeavor to make work life as manageable and as palatable as possible for themselves and their teams. Coming to grips with the need to fire a colleague, particularly when you’ve invested so much of your own effort to remediate his or her weaknesses, is one of the toughest management decisions you’ll ever have to make.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.

5 Tips for Off-the-Cuff Speaking

If it’s true that many people fear public speaking more than death, it’s equally true that businesspeople are condemned to a thousand small deaths in client pitches, in boardrooms, and on stage. And that death can turn slow and torturous when you are asked to speak unexpectedly with little or no time to prepare. One of the key demands of business is the ability to speak extemporaneously. Whether giving an unexpected “elevator pitch” to a potential investor or being asked at the last minute to offer remarks to a sales team over dinner, the demands for a business person to speak with limited preparation are diverse, endless, and — to many — terrifying.

I became more comfortable with these situations through one of my primary activities in college, competitive public speaking called “forensics” (from the Latin “forensis,” which means “in an open court, public”). In forensics, one of my favorite categories was “limited preparation” in which we were given between 1 and 30 minutes to prepare a 5–7 minute speech. The lessons learned in those limited preparation events have paid huge dividends to my work in business. They carried me through my first consulting case interviews right out of college. They’ve helped me address complex questions from bosses and board members. And they’ve helped me when I’ve been put on the spot to address college classes and new analyst training sessions.

No matter your position, they can also be useful to you. Here are a few of the tips I picked up along the way:

1. Define a structure: The pressure of extemporaneous remarks comes from their ambiguity. What do I say? What do I not say? The worst and most stressful business speeches are those that ramble without purpose. In forensics we’d tackle this issue by quickly drafting a structure on a notecard to support our main point — often an introduction, two or three supporting points, and a conclusion. With these on paper, it was easy to fill in the details with stories, examples, and statistics. Now, when I’m asked to offer unexpected remarks over dinner or at a board meeting, I grab a napkin, notebook, or the back of a PowerPoint deck and jot down my main argument and some key supporting points. Then I fill out the examples and data I need to make those points — usually in 20 words or less. Any ambiguity or tendency to ramble evaporates.

1. Put the punchline first: When I worked in consulting, one of the cardinal rules of communication was “punchline first.” Any presentation should have a clear thesis stated up front so that listeners can easily follow and interpret the comments that follow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen business presenters ramble through a speech with the audience wondering to the very end about the point of the comments. Giving a good business speech is not like telling a good joke. Don’t save the punchline for the end.

1. Remember your audience: All it takes is a few lines to make an audience feel acknowledged and a speech feel fresh. Tie the city in which you are speaking into your introduction. Draw parallels between the organization you’re addressing and one of the stories you tell. Mention someone by name, connecting them to the comments you’re offering. These are small gestures, but they make your remarks more tailored and relevant.

1. Memorize what to say, not how to say it: How many times have you practiced exactly how to say something in your head then frozen up or completely forgotten in the moment? In forensics speeches, we’d often have 5–10 citations to remember, 3–4 examples with names and places, and 3–4 supporting statistics. That’s a lot to research and remember in 30 minutes or less. The trick was this: We’d focus on memorizing key stories and statistics, rather than practicing our delivery. If you spend your time on how to say something perfectly, you’ll stumble through those phrasings, and you’ll forget all the details that can make them come alive. Or worse, you’ll slavishly read from a PowerPoint or document rather than hitting the high points fluidly with your audience. If you know your topic, the words will come.

1. Keep it short: Blaise Pascal once famously commented, “I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.” While it seems like the challenge of speaking with limited preparation would be finding enough to say, the opposite is often true. When at a loss for words, many of us underestimate the time we need — cramming in so many stories and points that we run well over our time and dilute our message. No one will appreciate your economy of words more than your listeners, so when in doubt, say less.

There’s no substitute for practice in offering impromptu remarks, and there are many things to consider when preparing for a great talk. But mastering a few basics, like those above, can make these public comments less stressful to prepare and easier for audiences to hear.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.

Your Agile Project Needs a Budget, Not an Estimate

Nearly every software development project starts with one question: How much is this going to cost? Perhaps it’s a stakeholder who asks the question: a CEO, Board member, VC, or boss.  Maybe it’s been asked another way — How long will this take? How many stories can we get into this next sprint? How many people do we need to hire to get this done? How much money do I we need to raise?

These are all variations on the same question — how much effort is this going to cost in terms of time and/or money?

There are two common replies to this question:

1. We don’t know;
2. Let us estimate and get back to you.

Stakeholders and decision-makers don’t like the first reply because they desperately need an answer to their question and they don’t have the knowledge to answer it themselves. Technical teams don’t like the second answer, because estimating takes a ton of time and it’s often abused — stakeholders sometimes turn the “estimates” into maximums and get upset if the team exceeds them.

Yet the truth is: It’s the responsibility of the technical team to answer the question “How much is this going to cost?” because technical teams are the ones that have the most relevant knowledge to answer it. If I ask you, “How much does it cost to build a ballpark?” only those of you who have first-hand experience building a ballpark can truly answer. The rest of us are taking a stab in the dark.

Here’s the thing: “How much is this ballpark going to cost?” is a fair question. Do I need to buy a shovel so I can build a sandlot?  Or do I need to raise $100 million dollars to build Yankee Stadium? Stakeholders have decisions to make and deserve to have an idea of what their investment is going to cost and if it’s worth pursing.

A recent Harvard Business Review article revealed that one in six IT projects has a cost overrun of 200%.  That’s a pretty high rate of failure for estimation. To minimize the risk of having your next technical project go awry, stop estimating and start budgeting.

For most strategic decisions, estimating is too precise. Estimating breaks down a software project into granular, 1-to-3 day chunks. For a $100,000 project, that’s a  lot of work. For a $1 million project or bigger, that’s inordinate. If you attempt to break an entire project into estimates at the beginning of the project, you are truly wasting weeks of your time. Why? Because there is no way that you are going to get estimation at a granular level correct at the beginning of a project.

Instead, here’s a four-step, tactical approach to budgeting. It takes 20% less time than estimating, and it’s easily updated throughout the life of your project.

Step 1: Identify Decisions

Before you even begin to think about budgeting, or estimating for that matter, it is critical to know what decisions you are trying to make. What will you do once you have the data? What are you trying to learn?

Some examples of decisions you might be trying to make are:

• Should we start this project or kill it?
• Hire more people or outsource?
• Start marketing this feature?
• Build this project next or deprioritize it?
• Launch a startup?
• Allocate budget this quarter?
• Code this set of stories next?

Do not proceed to steps 2, 3 and 4 without truly knowing what decision you are trying to make. If you can’t identify which decision you are making, estimatingand budgeting are both a waste of time.

Step 2: Match Precision to Decision

Once you identify the decision you are trying to make, your next task is to match the tool to the job. For example:

• If you are making a detailed decision (i.e. How much will we get done this iteration?), then estimating is a good tool for the job because its precision matches the granular decision you are making.
• Otherwise, for more strategic decisions like many of the ones listed above, budgeting is a more appropriate tool.

Step 3: Budget

When the decision you are making is strategic, budget using a top-down approach, and get only as granular as you need to in order to have enough information to make your decision.

To illustrate, let’s say we are building an online bookstore. What high-level functionality might we need? Maybe something like these:

Shopping Cart

Browse Books

Search Books

Manage Inventory

Preview Inside of Book

Do we have enough information to answer “How Much Is this Going to Cost?” Probably not.

Getting more granular is warranted. Let’s break down “Search Books” into more detail.

Maybe we want to search books by

Title

Author

Within the Book

Let’s assume someone on our team has built a search component before, so we can say that search by “Title” will take 1-2 week, by “Author” 1-2 weeks, and “Within the Book” 4-16 weeks.

Do we now have enough information to answer “How Much Is this Going to Cost?” Probably not, so breaking it down further is warranted. If we take a ballpark guess as to the range of time each of the 5 topics will take, and associate that with a cost, we might wind up with:

To sum up, our data so far is:

• The decision we aim to make is: Should we build this Online Book Store?
• We expect the project to cost 775k – 4.3M

Do we have enough info to answer “How Much Is this Going to Cost?” Maybe.

• If our budget is $500k, then we do have enough information. The answer is no, we can’t afford it.
• If our budget is $5M, then we do have enough information. The answer is yes, we can afford it.
• If our budget is $2.5M, then we do not have enough information.

Step 4: Ranges and Confidence Levels

If our budget is $2.5M then more information is needed. We must now assign confidence levels to each topic. To do this, we:

1. Prioritize the topics
2. Identify which topics are “Required” vs “Nice to Haves”

In our online bookstore example, we come up with:

At this point, we’ve spent maybe 2-4 hours. If we had attempted to estimate this accurately, it would have taken 2-3 days.

A note here on Minimum Viable Products (MVP):  If you are using a Lean Startup approach to building your software and are building an MVP, have two options. First, you can create one budget for the entire project and list the topics to include in the MVP as “Required” and everything else as not required. Or alternatively, you can create a budget solely for the MVP and leave the rest of the product intentionally vague. The beauty of a top-down approach to budgeting is that it’s so much quicker than estimating that you can easily run a budget multiple times throughout the project as you learn more.

Step 4 is difficult to do manually. To get accurate confidence levels, you need mathematical simulations. The best tool I’ve seen for this for software projects isBallpark. (Disclosure: it’s an application developed by my coworkers. It’s free, and we don’t make money off of it.) It’s a budgeting tool that takes the input from a few hours of budgeting (as done above) and simulates thousands of possible outcomes using complex mathematical calculations, and in a matter of seconds spits out confidence levels that you can use to have a powerful conversation with your stakeholder to answer the “How much is this going to cost?” question.

In this case, Ballpark tells us:

• If we have a $2.5M budget, we have 100% confidence that we’ll finish our top 2 priorities within our budget.
• 86.5% likelihood of finishing “Manage Inventory”
• 59% likelihood of finishing “Search Books”
• And 23% likelihood of finishing “Preview Inside Books”

Note that we input that “Within Books” isn’t mandatory. We can then rerun the simulation without “Within Book” and learn that if we only look at our mandatory topics, we get –

• 81% likelihood of finishing “Search Books” within our budget
• 45% likelihood of finishing “Preview Inside of Book”

Ballpark also calculates percentiles of the likelihood of each budget range. In the Online Bookstore example, we see  there’s a 50% chance we’ll get the entire project done for $2.75M:

Ultimately, it is the tech team’s responsibility to give the stakeholder the answer to the cost question. Estimating is often a time-sink and not worth the effort this early on, with such a high-level question. So next time, try budgeting instead.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.

Could Plug-And-Play Be The Future Of Healthcare Diagnostics?

As healthcare is moving toward greater consumerization, devices used for diagnostics are keeping pace and becoming leaner, meaner and even cheaper. Radiology, the “darkroom” of the healthcare world, is now coming into the light and directly into patients’ hands… so as to speak.

New-age diagnostic devices are changing the way we have conventionally diagnosed and understood diseases, and are no longer restrained to “just diagnosis.” Traditional radiology diagnosis involving CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc., included bulky, room-size equipment costing millions of dollars. However, in the past decade or so, new technology has unleashed a wave of creativity and innovation for both software and hardware, and is reshaping these products significantly.

Traditional radiology diagnosis involving CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc., included bulky, room-size equipment. Source: Frost & Sullivan

The latest innovations at this year’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting in Chicago were primarily focused on smarter and safer diagnosis using smaller equipment. For example, the ultrasound that used to be as bulky and heavy as a refrigerator is now the size of a handheld “phablet” (Philips’s VISIQ), and yet it does the same job it did before, if not more. How simple is that? As simple as plugging an iPod into a speaker.

The future of the ultrasound will be plug-and-play devices that capture exceptional quality images. In fact, ultrasound technology is becoming smarter with software enhancement tools (e.g., Toshiba’s premium ultrasound calledPlatinum).With such tools, an ultrasound scan can be used as an initial diagnostic tool for identifying cancer and other diseases, which was not the case before. As ultrasound doesn’t require surgery to obtain the cancer tissue (biopsy) or using radioactive contrast media in CT/MR (which is hazardous and unsafe), it will significantly reduce the pain and cost of treatment for cancer patients.

Philips’s VISIQ, source Frost & Sullivan

Clinicians, and in some cases patients, can now seamlessly upload any patient-related data, such as medical imaging files or picture, video and audio files, from any device (tablet, phone and personal computer) to digital patient records and view them on any device (tablet, phone and desktops/laptops). Such innovation will also reduce diagnosis errors and speed up the communication process between various departments in the hospital and outside. This is one more step toward digital health. These latest radiology innovations help improve efficiency, accuracy and workflow, thereby enhancing the lives of millions of patients.

From Forbes. Click here for the link to the article

How to Handle 3 Types of Difficult Conversations

Many of us find ourselves in professional situations where we believe someone has wronged us, treated us badly, or just plain made us mad. The expert advice often is to have the courage to have an honest conversation, air the grievance. No one can help you solve a problem if she doesn’t know you have it. But that’s easier said than done, right?

It helps to have guiding principles to call on when you need to work through something difficult with a colleague. But the context of your discussion also matters. Do you need to take a stand on something? Deliver bad news? Do you have time to prepare, or are you caught off guard? Here are some specific tips for navigating the most common scenarios, including the wrong way to approach the issue and a better way.

If you’re mad about a decision that affects you . . .

We’ve all had white-hot reactions to news that affects our jobs. But nothing good comes from launching from your chair to give your boss or colleague a piece of your mind: You’ll lose the argument before you open your mouth. But waiting until you’re calm, and framing how the decision is bad for the company — and not just you — will put you on a more productive path, says Jeanne Brett, director of Kellogg School of Management’s Dispute Resolution Research Center.

The wrong way: “I just found out that Peter got double the raise I got. Are you kidding me? I work three times as hard as he does! WTF?”

A better way: Take a broader view of the issue. If you’re unhappy about a decision, might others be, too? If so, why? What’s the larger issue for your team or organization? Brett advises framing the conversation as, “I’ve observed something that’s not good for the company, and I’d like to help address it” rather than “I’m really mad this decision has been made about me.”

Further Reading

After discovering that her peer received a much larger raise, a young partner in a law firm successfully employed Brett’s approach of framing the problem as an organization-wide challenge. Although the young partner was upset, she recognized that it wouldn’t be wise to complain about her colleague’s raise or ruminate about the injustice. The firm hadn’t deliberately set out to slight her; another partner had just made a more convincing case for raising her colleague’s pay. So the aggrieved lawyer approached the senior partner, making clear that she didn’t begrudge her colleague’s raise, but framed the issue as a lack of transparency: “We don’t have a clear, fair system for raises in this firm.” She volunteered to do some research on how other firms handled the same challenge so that her organization could create a better process. Eventually that research led to a new, fair, transparent system, one the partner was happy with. Although she didn’t get a salary correction immediately, she improved her situation for the future — and created a better process for everyone.

If you need to make critical comments in a public forum . . .

Speaking up is challenging enough. But speaking out in front of everyone in your company? It’s fodder for nightmares.

Still, it doesn’t have to be. Preparing thoroughly, framing the issue with a company focus, and positioning yourself as a problem solver will help make the daunting task of raising concerns at a large meeting, such as a board meeting or all-staff meeting, more palatable and productive.

The wrong way: It’s unwise to make a statement like this in front of everyone: “I think this is a stupid idea for the company. If we keep proceeding down this path, prepare for a death spiral!”

A better way: Before you stand up, prepare to take some heat. Making a critical comment in a public forum is likely to generate anger in people who don’t agree with you. So say explicitly that you’re trying to do what you think is best for the company. But also recognize, Brett says, that you’re probably not alone: “In every case, you’re not likely to be the only person who has these concerns.” If possible, find a like-minded colleague before the meeting who might be prepared to back you up.

To start the conversation, say something like, “I know everyone thinks we can manage the potential conflict of interest between these clients, but I feel very strongly that if we start down this path, we’ll find ourselves managing all kinds of conflicts that will be destructive to our customers down the line.” But don’t stop there. Identify potential solutions to the problem you’re raising. “I know this will delay our work for the client, but I’m happy to spend the next few days discussing some alternative paths forward with other folks.” Hopefully one or two of your colleagues will join you in voicing the importance of alternative paths and volunteer to study the issue with you.

If a colleague goes postal on you . . .

Do not respond to raw anger. Let your colleague’s words wash over you. See whether the scene will wind down. Here’s where managing your thoughts and emotions will help you navigate this challenge successfully. “Most people reciprocate other people’s behavior,” Brett says. “It takes discipline not to get angry in response. But it’s effective.”

The wrong way: “What are you talking about?! You have no idea what work went into this project! Next time I’m not going to bother to ask your opinion!”

A better way: You don’t need to go to the other extreme and cower, or apologize for something you didn’t do, but simply choose not to engage in the battle. If your colleague is so emotional that you can’t get a word in edgewise, sometimes merely labeling the situation helps deescalate the tension: “Listen, we can trade threats and insults here, but that’s not going to solve our problem. We’re not getting anywhere this way.” You’re much better off removing yourself from a situation than trying to fight back. Suggest you meet later to discuss the problem. Do whatever you need to do to stay calm and avoid having an emotional conversation.

But because you can’t always dictate the timing — and trying to do so can make some people even angrier — it helps to respond in the most neutral way possible without conceding or escalating. Neutral in this case sounds like this: “I don’t know what to say. This is unexpected. What shall we do next?” suggests Holly Weeks, author of Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them. You haven’t placated the person, you haven’t conceded; instead, you have calmly acknowledged that your colleague is angry. The conversation may not be pleasant after that, but you haven’t made anything worse for either of you. You’re now thinking together, rather than just reacting.

On the other hand, if you are in the wrong, and you know it, apologize immediately, says Weeks. “I’m sorry. I meant that to be funny.” That’s it, you’re done. Don’t keep piling on the explanation. Just own it.

It’s not (often) possible to magically make a difficult conversation fun and happy and easy. That’s why they’re challenging. But you can make them more productive by preparing yourself to get through them better. The only way you’re going to get better at navigating difficult conversations, says Weeks, is to have them. “You’re not going to get more skillful if what you do is step aside from the issue,” she says. And worse, the issue that you think you’re sidestepping isn’t likely to go away, setting up you or your colleague for a disproportionate blowup. But you can get better at handling difficult conversations by preparing, staying neutral, and focusing on a solution that’s not only better for you but also better for the company.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.

Your Elevator Pitch Needs an Elevator Pitch

Ah, the elevator pitch. A favorite tool of the networking masses. A rite of passage of sorts. You’ve heard the scenario: you step into an elevator and go up one floor. The elevator doors open and in walks the client of your dreams. They start some small talk and ask, “What do you do?” and you’ve got the rest of the elevator ride to respond. How do you answer that in 20 seconds in such a way that gets them interested? The answer is simple. You need an elevator pitch for your elevator pitch.

Today, you’re getting both my word-for-word elevator pitch, my elevator pitch’s elevator pitch, and the secrets behind what makes it all so effective. It all starts when someone asks me…

“What do you do?”

“You mean, in addition to being an international bodybuilding champion?” (I’m 5’10” and a buck thirty-five, soaking wet. When I step on ants, they live. It’s painfully obvious that I’m not an international bodybuilding champion.)

Usually, they laugh. Usually, I laugh too. Then I continue…

“Well, you know how email and texting and social media have pretty much taken over how we communicate?”

“Yes.”

“We’re more connected than ever, but yet…more disconnected than ever. So I teach managers the secrets of true connection in a way that gets immediate results.”

“How do you do that?” (or “What do you mean?” or “What kind of results?”)

“Well, here’s an example. A company hired me because their management staff wasn’t connecting with their employees. It wasn’t their fault, they’ve just never been taught the right way to do it, right? So I went to their management retreat, taught everyone my 4-part formula, and now morale is up and productivity is up 38%. That’s why I’m constantly on the lookout for managers who don’t know the formula. They’re easy enough to spot. They don’t feel like managers, they feel like babysitters. They say things like, ‘This job would be so easy if it weren’t for the people.’ And they don’t have enough time to deal with all that people stuffand get their own job done so they can make the kind of money they deserve and have the kind of time and lifestyle that they don’t even realize they’ve been missing out on. So when you ask me what I do, I give managers their lives back. Life is too short for two out of every three Americans to hate their jobs. I get the feeling you know people like that though, right?”

Now obviously, this elevator pitch is a lot longer than 20 seconds. But here’s why I don’t buy the “20 second” rule.

When people ask “What do you do?” they’re just making polite conversation. With rare exceptions, they don’t really care. If you can’t make them care, then 20 seconds of their attention is generous. But if you do pique their interest, they’ll hold the elevator door and listen to you all day long. So don’t try to cram everything into 20 seconds. Instead, the best use of that first grace period is to make a bid for an attention extension. Now that you’ve seen how I do it, here’s how it works:

Start with a verbal slap. First things first. You’ve got to break their expectations. Most people answer the “What do you do” question with a single, predictable sentence: “I am an architect.” But the human brain only pays attention to interesting things. If you want to be interesting, you need to stand out. Giving them a verbal slap in the face helps break the patterned thought process that made them ask the question in the first place. Patterns, by their very nature, don’t contain anything that stands out. Pattern thinking is why there is almost a zero chance they will remember you.

To “wake them up” you probably won’t be able to use my self-deprecating, bodybuilding joke. That’s the point. You’ve got to say something DIFFERENT – something authentic. Something so totally “you” that they are forced to realize that you are a unique human and not just another “normal” interaction that their robot brain can coast them through. I’d write this for you if I could, but I can’t. Nobody can.

Then ask a problem question. Once you’ve verbally shaken them awake, your next goal is to pose a problem that you suspect they will identify with. This mustbe spoken as a question. Questions have always been, and always will be, far more engaging than statements. The problem question from my elevator pitch is, “Do you know how email, texting, and social media have kind of taken over how we communicate?”

Some respond with a simple “yes” and some launch into a diatribe about how awful modern technology is. That’s okay, I let them talk. Either way, I’m aligning myself with them against a common enemy. This is one of the most powerful rapport-building strategies there is, besides maybe shared laughter. However, if there is any doubt that I’ve just made a new BFF, I throw in one last rapport builder…

Go to the noddable. A noddable is an inspirational or wise quote that is so catchy and agreeable, it gets just about everyone nodding. People will agree with these so strongly that they may even let an audible, “Mmm!” or an “Amen!” escape their lips. If you want to know if your statement is a noddable, post it as a text image or “meme” on Facebook and see if it produces a response on the like and share buttons, or if the comments below it end with “#truth”.

My noddable is: “We’re more connected than ever, but yet…more disconnected than ever.” (I know…deep.) For additional rapport points, try this advanced technique: pause after the word “yet.” This allows your listener’s own brain to fill in the punchline even before you say it. When they do that, they have ownership of the quote and a small part of them is convinced that they thought of it themselves. Then when you say aloud what they’re thinking, it creates a moment of “great minds think alike” bonding.

So at this point, I’ve already broken their expectations and built some strong rapport very quickly – and I still haven’t even answered their question. That’s coming next. Kind of.

Finish with the curiosity statement. This is where you pretend to answer the “what do you do?” question. However, your answer will only want to make them ask another question. Here’s the simple formula for a good curiosity statement:

“I help/teach ________ (ideal client) to ________ (feature) so they can _________ (benefit).”

Mine was, “I teach managers the secrets of true connection in a way that gets immediate results.” This is so much more powerful than “I’m a speaker and author.” Also, the intriguing vagueness of “secrets” and “results” almost forces them to ask some kind of follow-up question. The hard work is done. Now that rapport and curiosity have been built up, you can deliver your true elevator pitch and make it almost as long as you want.

What about that actual elevator pitch? Even though the heart of this article is really about the elevator pitch before the elevator pitch, below is included a brief overview of the thinking behind my actual pitch too. It’s not perfect, but it has served me very well.

The first thing you’ll notice is that mine is long. It’s at least twice as long as the 20 second so-called “limit.” It starts with a true, results-based story of an individual or company I was able to help in a measurable way. It’s peppered with persuasive language and what I call “hidden salesmanship.” Then it mentions exactly who I’m “on the lookout” for. “They’re usually easy enough to spot because…” then I insert three pain points that my target market will identify with. All the while I’m building my level of enthusiasm and using rhythm, tone, and body language to do the exact opposite of a “verbal slap” – I’m putting them back into patterned behavior. Only this time, it’s a pattern of agreement and not a pattern of resistance.

By the time it’s their turn to talk again, I’ve taught them exactly the type of referrals I’m looking for. In addition, if they’re in need of my services, they’ll be feeling just the right amount of pain that will likely motivate them to begin describing their situation. When they do, I’ll get a meeting by saying, “Hmm, that sounds important enough for us to maybe sit down and talk about.” Surprise, surprise. They agree.

But the last thing you want to do is to make them feel like they’re being pitched to. If you get the sense that it’s turning into a commercial instead of a conversation, then you’re doing it wrong. Stop pitching and ask another question. You should only be doing between 15-20% of the talking.

A final caveat: the number one rule with any communication is to be authentic. Feel free to model my pitch, but unless you make it fit your personality, it will come across as phony and manipulative. And nothing ruins a pitch faster.

From HBR. Click here for the link to the article.