Be more than you're paid for

From indexed

I'm a big fan of multi-disciplinary-ism, my first job out of college was working for a very small technology start-up and they went out of their way to hire people with potential and allow them to diversify their skills. In the nearly three years I was there I worked in 3 different departments and had at least 4 different job titles. I went in as a monkey level coder and ended up involved in product management, usability, QA, marketing, public relations and advertising.

If you encourage people to take an interest in other people's departments you end up with a team that can cover for each other's holidays and illnesses, help each other in busy times and potentially saves you hiring additional staff or temps to cover. Meanwhile your staff feel that they're actually progressing and learning new skills.

BOOK: Let My People Go Surfing

Let My People Go Surfing
by Yvon Chouinard
The Penguin Press HC
ISBN 978-1594200724

The subtitle of this book is "The education of a reluctant business man" and Yvon Chouinard definitely falls into this category. He practices MBA, or Management by Absence which has meant that everyone in his company has to have a strong idea of what they are trying to achieve. It's difficult to ask your boss for guidance when he's halfway up a peak in the Himalaya.

The first half of the book deals with the history of Patagonia, from its start in the back of his truck through to being a multinational equipment and clothing manufacturer.

It should be a tale of how not to do it, with itinerant climbers promoted to senior managers and a staff that has permission to disappear when the surf gets big. However the tale reads as an adventure yarn, with a real feeling of teamwork, tolerance and 'out-of-the-box' thinking. Instead of despairing at the ineptitude of the participants, you realise that this may be an alternative way of doing business.

In the late 80s, Patagonia started struggling and Chouinard realised that they had overreached themselves. When he had to lay of 250 of his workers, he decided that he needed to clarify in his own mind why he was running a business. The book goes on to explain the "philosophies" that were created to guide the company onwards.

The philosophies are like a 50 page mission statement, split into categories like "Product Design" and "Environment" and are there to guide any member of the company in making the best decision for the company. While his goals won't be applicable to anybody else's company, the process of setting those goals will be. If you want to see how important the environment is to Patagonia, look at their philosophies. If you want to know how they expect their suppliers to be treated, looking at the philosophies.

Every business person who aspires to create, run or work in a business that isn't a nine-to-five, cubicle farm, sweatshop should read this book.

Links to buy Patagonia amazon.co.uk

Let's get rid of management!

Why do we need management in the first place? The following message was published in the Wall Street Journal by United Technologies Corporation, Connecticut. As someone who leads in the outdoors and then "manages" in the office, I couldn't agree more.

Let's get rid of management!
People don't want to be managed.
They want to be led.
Whoever heard of a world manager?
World leader, yes.
Educational leader, yes.
Political leader, yes.
Business leader, yes.
They lead. They don't manage.
The carrot always wins over the stick.
Ask your horse.
You can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink.
If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself.
Do that well and you'll be ready to stop managing. And, start leading.

Tea, Coffee......or leave

From the formation of the British East India Company in 1600 until 1947, the British were control of the Indian subcontinent. They achieved this fueled by and in search of one beverage, tea. Over four hundred million people lubricated the hard work of powering an empire with an infusion of Camellia sinensis.

Tea still plays an enormous part in everyday British life, and nowhere more so than at work. Nowadays, other beverages are catching up fast. Coffee is the frequently offered alternative but the range of hot drinks available stretches from the sublime to the ridiculous. It doesn't matter what you, the boss, or that odd lady who does the payroll drinks, as long as you drink something.

Leaving aside the health benefits of drinking tea (green, herbal, camomile or otherwise), or even of just drinking fluids, a cup of tea is an important psychological tool.

Chinese philosopher T'ien Yiheng said "Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world" and he makes a good point. Stuck trying to solve an intractable puzzle? Give yourself space, go and make a cup of tea. You won't stop thinking about the problem, but you will break out of the knot you've formed in your head. Stuck doing a boring, repetitive task? Reward yourself with cups of tea at appropriate intervals, motivate yourself by thinking "After another 200 rows of customer records analysed, I'll have a chai latte".

Tea is also a fine relationship builder. Need to speak to someone about a sensitive issue? Invite them to make a cup of tea and join you somewhere private. Upset someone a few desks away? Make them a "Ginger and Gunpowder Zinger" and take one over as a peace offering. Use it to establish rapport and break the ice at meetings, everyone feels better chatting over a cup of tea.

Establish a community within your company using tea. Offer to 'make the tea' occasionally and use it as an excuse to chat to others at their desk. Include everyone nearby in your rounds, leaving someone out of a tea run is akin to being stood up on prom night. Encourage everyone, including the boss, to do a tea run. It takes ten minutes and leaves everyone in the office a little happier.

A tea bag costs about a penny, less in bulk. Even adding in milk, sugar (to taste) and the cost of heating the water, a cup of tea costs less than 3p. In a company of average tea drinkers (3 cups a day), that's 45p per employee per week.

Is 45p a week worth it for a more relaxed, more motivated, more tactful, friendlier employee?