Sustaining Excellence

Still super happy over the Golden State Warriors going the NBA Finals the past two years. Winning a title, setting the records for wins… The way they did it, was a marvel to watch.

They lead their division from the beginning and never looked back. That take a special group to be consistent day in and day out.

They won with a first year head coach. That’s saying something that things were set up so well, that a new leader was able to step in and excel.

They beat the team with the best player in the world. Role players stepped up and made a difference. They wore LeBron out in a way that he never saw coming.

Now can they be a dynasty? Can they repeat this success or was it just a one-time thing? We will find out this year with the much hoped for Warriors-Cavs Round 3.

When you look across the San Francisco Bay, you see a team that is a true dynasty. The San Francisco Giants have one 3 World Series titles in 5 years. They made the playoffs again last year and are always in the hunt.

Besides having many of the same characteristics of the Warriors, the Giants have been able to take things to the next level.

Like the Warriors, they have a lot of home grown talent. That’s a proven way to go in any medium.

The Giants also have true starts who are not as well-known as the stars on the team they have beaten. They are hard workers who give it their all time and again.

There are a lot of lesson business leaders can learn from watching the way these team succeed… perhaps a future blog post on that.

But for now, as a huge fan of both teams… as I celebrate once again… I can only hope that the Warriors can sustain excellence like the Giants have.

It’s a great time to be a sports fan in the Bay Area. Truly a home of excellence!

How do you measure excellence in your business?

Do you have a way to know what your “win-loss” record is?

Do you know where you stack up against the competition?

If you don’t, then you need analytics. The Warriors and the Giants have two of the biggest analytics teams in professional sports. They invest and it pays off.

How about you?

We can show you how to set up your analytics which will translate to a level of excellence you have never know before.

DMAIPH specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

em·pa·thy > the ability to understand and share the feelings of another

From Our Recent Customer Care Empathy Training for the DMAIPH team

em·pa·thy > the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Per Webster’s… Empathy is

…the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

Per Wikpedia…

Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another’s shoes.

So any way you slice it, empathy is about feeling the pain of another in a way that helps ease some of that pain.

Empathy training is sorely lacking across the call center industry as this kind of soft skills training is taught like a technical skill. You can’t just lecture of empathy. You have to role play and write open ended scripts and practice it until its second nature.

If DMAI is to succeed, we need to have better the average empathy training. If we want to be a great company then we need to have best in class empathy training to make sure we are there for our customers.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

A Few More Thoughts On Leadership

Most of my blog posts the past few weeks have been focused on leadership.

As my company grew from 6 to almost 100 in just 18 months we were forced to make a lot of quick decisions that have not always turned out to be the best long term solutions. So now I reflect on those lessons. How to move away from making snap judgments based and move more into data-driven decision making. That’s always been the goal.

Here are so of my favorite quotes on leadership and how I plan to wrap them into my leadership meeting next week.

Jack Welch said that, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” I firmly believe this and have tried hard to instill this sense of purpose in my leaders. However, we have a lot more work to do before we have an organization full of people looking out for the success of others before looking out for their own success first.

A big part of this is to constantly be pushing the organization to evolve and to never rest. Peter Drucker said that “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” That’s my point exactly. We look at the data, analyze our performance and determine what to improve next.

From our recent survey, we know our team members crave feeling valued and being appreciated more than they depend on being paid well. We need to focus on this and build a recognition program that show value and share appreciation. Sam Walton once said, “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” For us to reach the next level of success as a company this sense of empowerment needs to permeate through the ranks.

I hate when I have to manage people because things aren’t being done they way I expect them to get done. Part of that comes from my own failures in instilling this lesson in others. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” from General Dwight Eisenhower. We do too much bossing and not enough uplifting others to dream the same dream we do.

And finally, from John Quincy Adams, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” To me that is the most important measurement for us to look at. Everything else comes next.

Leading vs. Managing vs. Bossing

The definition of Leading is exercising leadership by providing direction or guidance.

The definition of Managing is to direct or supervise employees or other staff by exerting control.

The definition of Bossing is to give orders to, especially in an arrogant or domineering manner.

Leaders generally try and empower, educate and uplift people working under them in an organization. At times they many need to manage employees who have gone off track, but generally only use this to optimize short term results. Although sometimes managing and bossing can feel the same to the employee, good leaders never have to result to bossing.

Managers generally try to motivate employees to meet business needs. At times the pressure for results will force managers to exert control over their employees to get results. This can generally fee like bossing. Employees that feel like they are constant being directed to do things that are unclear to them how and/or why they are doing it never feel like they are being lead.

People who are in positions of authority who are always bossing are not well liked by their employees. Employees do not feel valued or appreciated when they are constantly being bossed. Bosses use fear and intimidation to drive results, which generally fall short of business goals.

The ironic thing about these definitions is Bosses don’t generally realize they are Bosses. They think they are good managers and even good leaders. Managers generally know they are not Bosses, which is good, but they generally are not in a situation where they can be good leaders.

On the other hand, Good Leaders are always cautious of trying not to fall into the traps of managing people or being the boss. They constantly appreciate feedback to help themselves improve and see their own style of running a business as always evolving.

For a business to be successful you need leaders who can occasionally manage and once in a while be a boss, but most of their time is spent trying take the business to a higher level. That’s my dream for DMAIPH.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH is a founding member of the Analytics Council of the Philippines and specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization.

Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

Adding Value

One of the keys to my success is that I make sure to add value to what ever it is I am doing.

As an analyst, putting in a little extra time to make sure I had the right data to answer questions. In addition, I’d not just answer the question, I’d get into the head of the person who wanted my analysis and think about what new questions they might have and answer them too. I’d always be one step ahead and that added a lot of value to the business.

As a manager, I always look at each team member in terms of how much and what kind of value can they add to the business both now and long term. In each of my interactions, even the “negatives” can be used to add value long term to that persons career development as well as to the business.

As a businessman, I look at what we can do to add value to the life and well beings of our customers. What kind of training or analysis work can we provide to help them be more successful and add value in what ever it is they do.

Adding value is something that is not just a catch phrase or a motto… its something deeply ingrained in who I am as a person and what my company DMAIPH stands for.

Adding value is not just about customer service, integrity, professionalism or things like that… to me its about doing the making the world a better place one interaction at a time.

So ask yourself… what adds value to your work, to your life and what do you do that adds value to someone else’s work or life. It the answer is not immediately obvious, then you are doing something wrong.

General Analytics – Analytics is the application of using data and analysis to discover patterns in data. DMAIPH specializes in empowering and enabling leaders, managers, professionals and students with a mastery of analytics fundamentals.

Mastering The Art Of Account Management

I have been thinking a lot lately about what its take manage the relationship we have with our clients.

A long time ago, I learned that to be a good account manager you need a rare combination of professional and personal characteristics, some of which can’t be taught. To me account management is the art of representing my business to clients and vice versa.

The job requires skill, advocacy, diplomacy, leadership, expectation setting, intelligence, method, heart, patience, experience, and wisdom. It is not easy and it is something I am constantly trying to improve at.

With this concept top of mind, I thought I’d share some of my tips for being an effective account manager.

Under Promise and Over Deliver. I have always strived to under promise and over deliver. Most people get it wrong. They promise to something they cannot deliver and things go downhill quickly from there. Losing your client’s trust is a surefire way to doom your company.
Do What They Want, Not What You Want. We often get so busy we think we have to do it the way we are doing it. Even when it’s clearly not what the client wants. This is another way to doom yourself and your business. They are paying you to do what they want, so don’t expect them to keep paying you to do what you want.
Communicate Bad News Early. It is far, far better to tell you client you will be late on a deadline, or you can meet the requirement or you have to modify what you promised then it is to go silent. Not communication bad news early, or worse to communicating the bad news at all is another strike against you and your hard work, not matter what you intentions.
Be the Expert. When it comes to dealing with a client, they are expecting you to know every answer, sometimes even before they ask it. They are paying you for your expertise. So you need to be the one to find problems before they are problems, fix things before they break and always have a solution at hand. If you are not an expert on what you are being paid for, they will find someone else.
Always Have the Most Data. When your client tells you there is something wrong because they saw it in a report, then you know you have pretty poor analytics. You are doing the job, so you should be the one churning out the reports, championing the sharing of information and setting the agenda for the next meeting.

That’s just a few of the things that come to mind when it comes to being a good account manager.

And just in case I need to remind anyone, and not trying to brag… but I am pretty awesome at this.

Being good at account management is without a doubt one of the key reasons I have thrived throughout my career is keeping the clients happy.

DMAIPH has successfully set up Filipino analytics teams for over a dozen U.S. based businesses. Offering both virtual and office based teams that specialize in problem solving using data, new technology and analytics techniques is our strength. Finding and empowering analytics talent is increasingly challenging, but we have it down to a science.

IBM’s Six Ways To Use Analytics To Manage A Workforce

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ibm/2015/04/06/6-ways-to-use-analytics-to-better-manage-a-workforce/

Interesting article about how to use more analytics in areas that are traditionally data rich, but not a focus of most enterprise analytics solutions.

Right now in the BPO industry in the Philippines, two of the bullet points really got me thinking.

Using analytics in HR to predict if and when employees might leave is a pretty cool concept. Their is plenty of historical data to look at resignation and termination patterns and segment the data in various buckets to see if any meaningful patterns jump out.

This goes hand in hand with higher employee expectations for work life balance and having a strong sense of community within the work place.

Both are things that might require a lot of unstructured analytics as well… although it blurs employee privacy issues, Facebook and Twitter can be an excellent place to glean insights into employee mood and their intentions.

I am curious to see how deep analytics can go into looking at data and trying to predict employee loyalty and stickiness.

The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes.

DMAIPH also specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

You Don’t Build A Business… You Build People

It’s funny to me that I shared this on LinkedIn and someone had the thought to spin it into a negative thing. Someone sarcastically replied that this is false and that big bosses just use people to make money. I’m guessing he sees this as a way to get people to work harder, but it the end only the top people benefit. Or something like that.

When I saw this, I immediately thought about a training program we have just kicked off to address a significant challenge we have in both my business and in my industry. The call center industry in the Philippines is probably one of the most hyper competitive labor markets anywhere in the world today.

To be able to be successful you need to find people who are stick around. So looking at the best way to do that is to build them up. To train them, to empower them, to enchant them.

Being equal parts educator, analyst, entrepreneur… this concept is something I firmly believe in, I have the data to back it up and the success to prove it is working. So take that mister sarcasm… DMAIPH is a great example of this philosophy actually working.

What Is Strategy?

http://bakerstreetpublishing.com/decisioncoaching/2015/02/12/what-are-the-strategic-decisions-we-face/

I came across this perfectly timed blog post on LinkedIn. Tomorrow we will be having our first real leadership planning session in a while and we have a lot of topics on the agenda.

However, before we get into the nitty gritty, I will spend the first part of the meeting talking about strategy. And these concepts will form the core of that conversation.

“Every business must have three things to be successful: good leadership, good strategic decision making, and the ability to execute. “

Good Leadership: To me this means inspiring and empowering team members to take the initiative, to be bold in problem solving and being able to balance client, customer, business and team member needs.
Strategic Decision-Making: Taking a logical and data-driven approach to decision-making is the best way to map out your business plan.
The Ability to Execute: Good leaders know how to implement decisions quickly and efficiently because they work in a sound framework of empowerment and intelligence.

Looking at closely at the data is key part of this. Good leaders do much more than just manage, and it’s important to constantly remind ourselves of this.

Five Things That I Ask My Leadership Team To Do

As our team continues to grow and the type of work continues to diversify, I have been reflecting a lot on the way we approach things. The way we influence those we work with, the words we choose to motivate each other and the commitment we demonstrate to ourselves, each other and our clients all have a huge impact on our success.

Leaders do more than manage. They inspire and empower. They also hold people accountable. Having worked with and for some great leaders over my career, these are the top five things I ask my leadership team to do.

Do The Work. Nothing inspires others more than seeing a person in a position of authority work hard. Putting in the extra effort, making sacrifices and going above on beyond to bet things done. Excelling at what you do is the best way to get others to do the same.
Sharing The Vision. I use the term sound like a broken record a lot… meaning you should share and share and share stories and ideas and dreams that give people a vision of where things are going. In this fractured world, so full of distractions, it’s really not possible overshare your vision.
Carrot And Stick. I use this metaphor a lot to remind my team that we have to be equally well versed in both discipline and praise. That we need to balance being a good cop and a bad cop. Being fair and just, is in the end what all employees want from their leaders.
Don’t just give directions. Explain why things are important. Looks for root causes and not just the symptoms. Take the extra time to write a more comprehensive email, or sit down and explain something a second time, or use visuals to re-enforce why we do what we do.
No excuses. True leaders accept responsibility, hold themselves accountable for failures and offer up solutions to problems. Unsuccessful leaders offer explanations and excuses.

So as we kick into high gear with expansion plans, these are the things I will be doing, sharing, reminding, and educating my team about.

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