Saturday, May 24, 2014

Technology change timeline

This week we got rid of our last tube TV's. Of all the electronics I have had over the years these TV's were the oldest and most sentimental (OK not really that sad)

The 27" TV was the oldest. I bought it when I went to college. It was breakthrough because it had "Stereo" sound. It served me well over the years.

The second TV was my first purchase with my first college grad, real world paycheck. I spent around $800 for it and it was a BUNCH of money.

When we built our house 9 years ago we purchased one of the first flat panels. So it took a decade to get rid of the old technology.

Guess I now know.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Getting the Question Right

I have seen some leaders recently not like the answers they are getting. They think they are getting the wrong answer. The problem is they are not asking the right question.

The more I deal with leaders the more important I feel it is to make sure those leaders are asking the right question?

What does this look like? Well, if I was furnishing a living room the wrong question is what type of couch should I get when the right question is "I am looking for seating in my living room, what would you suggest? The difference is the first question limits my answers to a very specific response type. The second question allows those who are experts in furnishing to provide a complete answer to the problem not limiting them to what you thought you needed.

Maybe you should "Thrash" the question first to make sure the question is right to begin with.

Monday, March 17, 2014

The Birthday Present!

So Carsen turned 8 over the weekend and got a TV for his room. He has been learning how to use it to work with the XBOX and with TV. He was having problems tonight and came out and told me it wouldn't work. I told him he had it on the wrong input which he said "I have it on the Hi Dem I side input" Jenifer was definitely confused. I had to interpret.

"Hi Dem I" HDMI

Cracking me up!

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Went to Middle School orientation with Caden and things have changed.

I realized that many of the electives that he has to select from didn't exist when I went to school.

Web Development
Photoshop
Computers
Media (Video Editing)

and so many more.

Beyond that they spoke of how the kids need to be able to type 40 words per minute. I am not sure if I can do that now?

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Doing it and loving it

I am pretty lucky. I have a couple of loves in my life

Sales
People
Technology
Coaching (On the above)

And I get to do them all day and they pay me to do it. I get to be myself (Who I really am) all day every day. I work with many people who are smarter than I am (I have them fooled) and connect businesses, people and technology all day.

Living the dream

Monday, March 3, 2014

Do you trust

Trust is hard to come by sometimes?

One important aspect that I have been studying recently is the work, trust relationship. Do you trust your employees to do to their job? Do your employees trust you to lead them?

A highly functioning team has trust both ways. A low performing team is covering their own rear and finding the bus for others.

It is impossible for a medium sized company to have just a few people that can do it all. From accounting to sales there are so many aspects to a company that you need specialists to cover each area.

A big mistake is for management to try and become an expert in most things then they really are average at best. Making the entire company average and what it really does is force those experts to find a company that trusts them.

If you don't trust your experts then do them a favor and let them go. If they don't trust you...

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Great leaders

"Aren't heads down, they are looking around the corner"

What are you doing to anticipate change?

Roselinde Torres


Three things she states it takes to be a modern leader?

Paraphrasing;

Anticipating change
Have a diverse network
Be courageous enough to abandon the past

I would have to say the last is the weakest area for me.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Owning customer service (Is gone?)

Recently it seems that I have had several extremely bad customer service experiences. And to be honest I don't believe those who where helping me even thought it was their job to deliver customer service.

The theme that I have identified is denial. "Our company wouldn't do that", "I wouldn't do that", "We wouldn't do that" or "You must have misunderstood!"

However in every case I had proof that it had happened. A couple of times I provided that proof, a couple of times I moved on.

The issue isn't that it happened hey, stuff happens. The issue is just acknowledge it and work the problem. It doesn't matter if I can PROVE it, rather it is my perspective it happened and you are not going to suggest otherwise.

Great example today. I watched an accident happen at a resturaunt. A glass of water was spilled all over a customer. Now to be honest I don't know if it was the customers fault or the waiter. The waiter then went into diagnosing what happened to divert blame off him. Lets face it, he would have been better off just taking the blame (Hey, customer is always right eh?) Then start immediately working the problem (Helping the customer clean up and then cleaning up the mess)

That didn't happen, I am not sure if we saw the waiter again. I had to beg to get the bill taken care of. The ice was still on the floor when we left.

Own the problem.