don’t let the machines take over!

Sometimes I could really pull my hair out with accountants. They can be so frustrating in their narrow view of the world, even so much so that all rational thought is non-existent as they talk about their “rules”.

I work with an accounting firm who spends so much time managing their internal accounting system of work-in-progress, write-offs, provisions, revenue booked and unbooked, cash, fixed pricing, time-cost pricing, etc, the list could go on. Their engagement with clients is so confusing for the poor client, because they use all these accounting-speak-terms to debate the fee to be paid.

Drop the lingo and speak English, please! Tell the client how much it is going to cost and bill that figure. If you screw up your estimate, its your fault. I would rather retain the relationship.

Don’t let your system dictate how you interact with clients. If a good year is when you have 60% recovery on your invoiced fees, you are not exactly building client relationships. I don’t care what the accounting system tells you!

In this world of management information tools, let us not let common sense erode. Don’t let the machines take over…use your head, speak to your client, win the business relationship.

© management mojo 2008. All rights reserved.

control versus unleash

When your employees bring you great ideas and you use them without recognising them publicly and financially, is that theft? When you require all intellectual property to be registered as owned by the company while employed, regardless of where or when the idea was conceived, is that theft?

When your employees work later because they are professional and take pride in their work and you don’t recognise them, is that theft?

In this day and age of the “knowledge worker” (a terrible term in my view), how long will an organisation survive if everything an employee does becomes an ownership issue? Organisations do not ’own’ their people, why do they then think they can retain them by trying to ‘own’ their ideas?

Likewise if you think you can get away without paying people for putting in the extra effort, you are right…at least for a while. Both parties need to be under pressure: employees to perform and employers to retain. By trying to enforce laws protecting one to the disadvantage of the other is not only ethically questionable, but is insecurity in its purest form. If, as the employer, you are paying your staff properly, rewarding and attributing to them their ideas, you will retain them.

Don’t try to control your talent, unleash it.

© management mojo 2008. All rights reserved.

business is personal

Last night I was watching ‘The Apprentice’ (oh how we stoop to low levels in private!). While I don’t really rate any of the contestants, they are far too young to actually have any decent experience or wisdom, what I find interesting is how all of them seem to think that to succeed they need to possess “hard-core” attitudes including the immature, mental attitude that “nothing will stand in my way”, “I’ll do whatever I have to”, blah, blah, blah…

I watched with amusement as they turned on each other in the boardroom and as one contestant seemed to get defensive was told by the remaining contestants: “This isn’t personal, it’s just business”. Rubbish – everything about business is personal.

You build personal relationships – you don’t do business with GE, but individuals within GE. When directors I have dealt with in the past have moved companies, my relationship often moves with them. I didn’t build a relationship with GE, but the individual. Of course you try to expand your relationship to others in the company to secure future work, but your work load is often limited by the extent of your personal relationships.

The naivety of the Apprentice contestants will become apparent in the real world. Treat me like that and then trying to come back to me for repeat business…

Business is very personal – don’t forget it.