Beware The Heroic Worker!

One of the most interesting parts of my job is working with a great variety of businesses and organizations. Over time I have started to notice trends and types. One type of worker that I have run into many times is the heroic worker. The heroic worker is the one who comes to the rescue when things fall apart, working 20 hour days if needed to patch together a project. They usually wear several hats, sometimes a few at once. I used to admire these heroic workers, standing in awe of their accomplishments. No more.

So what's wrong with a hard working employee that can leap tall buildings in a single bound? Isn't that a good thing? 

Having a heroic worker around can seem like a good thing but really it's more like business heroin. The company gets hooked and keep going back to the heroic worker to bail them out without addressing the underlying issues. 

Heroic workers thrive in chaos. They feel a sense of accomplishment when they single-handedly slice through the chaos of a project. 

Effective systems are at the core of every healthy business. Systems are the enemy of chaos. So heroic workers usually resist systems. Systems remove the organizational need for regular heroism. Whether the heroic worker is conscious of it or not they are often working to undermine chaos-fighting systems that threaten their sense of worth. 

Here's some tips for spotting heroic workers:

• They claim that the system doesn't work for them, or they don't have time to learn it, or they are "old dogs" unable to learn new tricks.  All complete BS.
• They hate to delegate. When they do delegate they micro-manage the project until they get it back since "no-one can do it right but me".
• They brag of their hard work, lack of sleep and general suffering.
• They keep several key areas of the business in lockdown, unwilling to share their "secrets" with others claiming that it would be too complicated to explain what they do.
• They regularly send emails late at night reminding everyone else that they are still working.
• They don't laugh very much on account of having little rest and being continually stressed out. 
• They speak negatively about everyone they work with since no-one works as hard as them.
• They sincerely believe that the company would go out of business without them.
• They rarely take real vacations.

So what to do when you spot a heroic worker?

Chances are they have no clue that they are doing damage to the organization. I recommend you start with raising their awareness- "hey, we really appreciate all the hard work you are doing but I can tell you are exhausted so let's discuss some changes that should help out." Their need for being valued isn't a bad thing, it just needs to be redirected. But if you can't get them on board and working within your system then they need to go, no matter how indispensable they might seem. In a healthy company with an effective system everyone can be replaced. I've learned that myself, the hard way. And yes, I probably was one of these "heroic workers" at times in the past and still have to fight the urge to roll around in the addictive chaos.

note: thanks for Dave Meeks (aka Stat) for inspiring this post based on his comment referencing heroic efforts during chaotic projects on my recent "Hourly vs Fixed" post. Also thanks to my amazing wife, Jenny, who brought some of her HR experience into my thinking. 

Hourly vs Fixed

To quote hourly or fixed, that is the question...

When we started SmallBox we quoted everything fixed- "we will design and build this roughly sketched idea of yours for $5000!". This led to many long, painful baths. Not the client's fault really, we agreed to do something that wasn't well defined and we had no real process for executing. Wishful thinking abounded on all sides.

This wasn't working well so a couple years in we did a 180 and started refusing to do fixed bids. Everything was hourly with an estimate of hours per task. This helped us stabilize our cash flow and better manage expectations. But we still had some projects going over budget and clients frustrated that the original projected budget was no longer valid. 

Then it occurred to me that the real problem, with fixed or hourly, was that we didn't have mastery of our process. When you don't have mastery of your process for your leading products then how can you predict with any kind of certainty what they will cost? 

Ideally you want to charge for value not time, right? If something is worth $1000 and takes an hour to do, it's still worth $1000. Our team, over the last 5+ years, has been able to plan, design and build custom websites in record time (and even in 24 hours a couple times). There is little waste now in our system. It's not perfect but it's efficient and effective.

So we have come full circle- foolish fixed bidding as a start up, rigid hourly quotes and billing during our grow-up years and now back to fixed bids as we more narrowly define our products and master the related processes. 

Do we still bill hourly at times? Sure. For some projects and engagements we still bill hourly since the work is custom or exploratory and not part of an existing process. We feel this is fair for us and the client.

What I Want From A CRM...and can't seem to find

What I want is pretty simple. I want to send an email to a CRM system. The CRM will parse the email and add a contact or task/note to an existing contact. I don't want to actually go to the CRM unless I'm looking to create reports, review stuff, etc.

It would be pretty simple. It would require a small amount of  standardized language and formatting in the email. For instance this would be in the body of an email that I send to smallbox@mydreamcrm.com-

Name: John Smith

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Company: JohnSmith Inc

Follow Up: 03/01/2011

Note: had lunch, great guy, might be interested in a new website in third quarter.

Referral: Fred Jones

You could add a note or attachment to an existing contact by simply sending an email without the name. You could also do things like- follow up in 2 weeks and the system would understand it.

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: submitted

Value: $20,000

Timeline: 6 months

Work: Website

Note: followed up with proposal attached 

Follow Up: 2 weeks

(and then attach the file to the email)

Once I get the signed contract back I would then send it off to the CRM as well

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: signed

Notes: kicked off project 3/15/2011

(attach signed contract)

This would then change the status of the lead to a converted sale. If there was additional work then you could do the following.

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: new

Value: $12,000

Timeline: 12 months

Work: Marketing

Note: we are now working on marketing the new website.

(attach signed contract)

I can imagine expanding this a little and there would be more fields. 

My problem with CRMs is that they aren't in my path, I have to leave my email account to go into a CRM. Then I'm bouncing between them, copying and pasting, etc. It's a mess. With this I could work within my inbox and my CRM would collect everything and send it back to me on schedule. I could then review sales leads, see which ones converted, etc.

Does this exist? If so, I can't find it. I gotta think I'm not the only one that would want something like this. 

In Defense of the Groupon Ad

Groupon's recent Super Bowl ad ruffled a lot of feathers. It's been decried as tasteless and offensive. But I found it daring and effective. Both in raising awareness, and most likely money, for the Tibetan cause as well as expanding Groupon's brand awareness. It has yet to be seen if Groupon will come out with increased positive or negative brand awareness. But they definitely got our attention.

So, I grant that Tibet is a sensitive topic. 

But is it really that offensive to raise awareness for an oppressed people, praise its culture (in this case Tibetian cuisine- albeit a dish, fish curry, they purportedly don't serve or eat) and then promote your service? 

If you follow that logic you could find fault with many cause-based marketing efforts. 

Brands have a long history of aligning with causes. Sometimes they do it in very serious ways, some times comedic, sometimes a mix like this ad. Generally speaking it doesn't denigrate a cause to have a mutually beneficial relationship with a brand. 

I don't think the Tibetan cause was hurt by this ad. I would argue it was almost certainly helped. Interestingly enough, it sounds like there are

plenty of upset Chinese

...

One final thought- Maybe the best way to save the Tibetan culture is to stop treating it like an artifact from an extinct civilization. These are living, human beings with a rich cultural heritage. Are the Tibetan people not allowed to open a restaurant and partner with Groupon to leverage their heritage to attract new customers?

What do you think? Was it a bad, tastless move by Groupon? Or sneaky, philanthropic genius?

note: I have my issues with Groupon, separate from this controversial ad, which I have outlined in this blog post.

True Believers

I was raised in a very religious family. Belief was something I took for granted. I didn't discover its radical underpinnings until I was in my senior year of high school. We were reading Kierkegaard and this passage really hit me- "belief is the edge of madness" (paraphrased).

It made sense. To believe something is to risk everything else, to make that terrible choice of forcefully limiting your choices. I realized belief was a powerful thing and not something you were born with but had to discover and develop. This thought grew and pushed me to reconsider many of my "core" beliefs. I realized I didn't believe the things I was supposed to believe. It kinda freaked me out at the time.  

I define a belief in a somewhat existential/Aristotelian way- your actions manifest your beliefs. You can say or think whatever you want but if your actions don't back that up then you don't believe those words or thoughts. 

So if we want to change our actions we have to become true believers. This requires a blend of will, mediation and practice. We can direct our words, thoughts and actions but it isn't easy. We aren't true believers if our entire beings aren't aligned around what we supposedly belief. Without alignment our beliefs start to wither and weaken. Their influence wanes and we eventually lose them altogether. 

Belief goes deep, beyond the conscious mind. It resides at the core of our beings. As our beliefs bubble up into thoughts, words and actions they often become diluted or compromised. Usually it's fear and sloth that do the most damage- what will people think, I'm scared, why should I bother, there's something else easier to do, I'm tired, etc.

The human beings that have changed the world, in big or small ways, have this in common- they are true believers. Their entire beings are focused around their core beliefs. My theory is that this is the result of years of hard work (will, meditation and practice) more than any moment of clarity. I'm sure some people have life changing moments but from what I have seen most people don't realize those moments until later. Only when they look back do they see the moment they crossed the horizon and began living an aligned life- beliefs, thoughts, words, actions. 

My goal is to live this aligned life. I've got a ways to go but it feels good to have a destination.