What I did this week

To learn in detail, see the following forms (an actual tally) I filled out to report my accomplishments:

1. Time sheet
2. Travel and Expenses reimbursement worksheet
3. Tasks and meetings status report
4. Five daily status reports
5. Client time sheet
6. Weekly status report (which neither my consultant-manager, engagement leader, nor the client's project leader knew anything about, though it was the last of these folks who requested we completed it.

Do you get paid for reporting what you should get paid for? Notice that when I earn income for completing forms, I am reinforcing the organization, or two in this case. I'm throwing a sandbag on the bulwarks.

The task is not productive. We could argue about its value. I'm feeding the information beast.

Reminder: Potentially forgotten facts

Gossip is good

Let's put aside for a moment all those forms of lying that go under the heading "gossip." That's largely the stuff of TV shows. In fact, research is uncovering that while gossip is not journalism, a lot of it is based in fact. That's why it's good for us.

"Gossip not only helps clarify and enforce the rules that keep people working well together, studies suggest, but it circulates crucial infomation about the bahavior of others that cannot be published in an office manual." The New York Times (See Link for more.)

Gossip is the other half of spin. Leaders and others in power manage information to have an effect. In fact, we all do, even us individual contributors. Gossip counterbalances that information: personal, where spin is abstract; saucy, where spin is bland; revealing probable motivation, where spin is cloaked in organizational passive voice.

The challenge I've always faced as a consultant is how much is the right amount of gossip. Habit shows that I shy away from the personal; people's emotional lives are inscrutable and two programmers and two business analysts are not going to figure it out. I am willing to listen to and store up the professional: "you'd better have your ducks in a row before that meeting;" "it'll go just fine, but you won't get a word in edgewise;" "She's keen to get promoted." This gossip is based in fact, helps me influence people, and guage some of the obstacles ahead. This is gossip I share with others who are trying to have a positive effect.

Then there's the black and tarry gossip that I hate and do battle with by putting my finger in a dyke holding back a sea bile. "Oh, honey, stick around. That's the kind of good idea sure to get you stomped." "You better cc the world on that, CYA-wise." "She won't do it. You'll learn." This is kind of gossip that comes from having learned the lessons of the organization at the bottom of the sewage sluice. I don't blame people, but the shred of fact in this gossip is, "Nobody gives a damn about my ideas, and nobody is going to give a damn about yours either.

I think consultants have a responsibility to influence people to try to change. Gossip works in our favor. We have to give folks better tools than just saying something can be so, but they haven't even heard that in years. They don't trust us to tell the truth. After all, we're consultants. But we are telling the truth: You can change things. You should make good, hard, big decisions rather than easy, small ones.

Repetition is the purest form of learning, and that's another reason gossip is good.

William Shatner wants a select few companies with $15,850 to spend

First, the show. Keeping America Strong (KAS) features people you have hardly heard of hosting a news-format, talking-heads show that airs very early "for serial entrepreneurs eating their corn flakes," according to field producer Ben Hammer, who showed me a KAS reel on VHS. But the real value, Hammer said, "Is the credibility that comes from getting the show into the hands of your prospects directly."

The host did an adequate job serving up soft-ball questions to a business owner with "an exciting story to tell" about business back here on our planet. I don't know how often they segue from Shatner's intro by intoning his fictional extraplanetary travels, but I saw it twice in the reel.

Two or three oddities worth mentioning. A big TV sits on the presenters's desk. Not a sleek new TV, but a big rounded model like my grandmother's. Cut from intro on TV, to the studio. A bank of video screens stands just behind Doug Llewellyn obscured by screen of translucent glass. First it looks like breaking news. Then it looks like shelves of TVs behind a shower curtain. Camera two looks across the host's right shoulder toward stage right when he interviews a doctor, entrepreneur, or other self-promoter. After all these years looking at guests in a chair stage left (witness Carson, everyone else), it feels wrong and undercuts the "credibility" message of the program.

The prose is fulsome with assertions provided by the interviewee. The questions are lobbed with enthusiasm. The answers succinct and as colorful as the business owner. Some, not so much.

Second, Bert Tenzer. This guy, in some connection with Shatner, made a deal with studios to get their back list movies onto Betamax (yes, back then) and then showed franchisees how to set up a video store. Concede it: way ahead of his time. No doubt "2000 Years Later" was required inventory, one of only three productions Tenzer created himself. Released in '69, the New York Times called it "perhaps 2000 years too early."

The old guy appears on camera in the reel: white haired, a little Parkinsonian, unctuous about
his show and his resume. It was hard to tell, but he appeared to be wearing a Nehru jacket. Still. He is The Man who got this rolling, but it was difficult to understand how it works.

Third, the business. After 9/11, Shattner, Tenzer and their people - and I'm piecing this together from what the producers have told me - thought that the best way to strike back at terrorism was to promote the small businesses that were hit hard in the economic downturn and would be the next wave of growth and opportunity. They committed three non-profit years to cover these stories, and unexpected revenue keeps it operating today. Apparently big companies call and want to feature a product from one of their innovative divisions. KAS charges a premium and these segments fund a slug of additional shows about companies like mine.

I hate being sold, so I felt I had to give a pretty darn good reasons for not buying. I said that to use these promo pieces you had better have:

• a story that taps into the emotions in the amygdala (the most primitive part of the brain),
• know your buyer (and get this to all of them to get a return on your $15,850)
• ABG (Always Be Growing)

In my case, the story is not emotional; it's tactical. I partner with smart people and good companies. The buyer does not have common characteristics anymore. Finally, the growth that interests me is not in scale and scope, but greater expertise, which translates into more value per dollar billed.

KAS and Heartbeat of America is not shifty-Hollywood, as I thought. If you've got a promotional plan and a clear, single message for all your buyers, this probably isn't a bad way to go. But it's not for the likes of independent consultants. Not this one.

At the world headquarters

Working in my home office this week. This brings freedom (e.g., get a haircut, outline twenty minutes of a movie script) and responsibility (prove your productivity by stacking up accomplishments). After twelve years managing myself, this is a cinch.

Yesterday I offered feedback to one of the business unit managers about proposed training topics. Today, I review the curriculum to edit and develop the testing and remediation methods we're using: self-study quizes, daily in-class knowledge review and skill checks, end-of-training skill assessments, report cards and individual development plans, and a final, go-to-production skill assessment.

Perhaps the most important thing to know about working in a large company setting (in my experience, large means 500 people or more) is when to go slow. Saves time, effort, and money. Doing work that must be done again impresses no one. Even if initiative is good, foresight and judgment are better. But the work on my home office desk is not at issue. Let me get back to it.